HowPoker Facecinematographer Steve Yedlin, a self-taught coder, makes digital video look like celluloid.
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A lot of recent TV shows share a similar look: flat, dark, and desaturated.
(Theyve also collaborated onLooper,Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and theKnives Outmovies.)
(Over on his website, Yedlin shares animpressive demo of his techniques.)
What really matters is how you transform that data into your final image.
Unfortunately, most cinematographers dont do much transforming, so theyre at the mercy of their cameras factory prefs.
Is that right?Thats approximately right.
It always has to go through some process, no matter what.
Otherwise, it would be like if you shot a film negative and never developed it.
Theres always a transformation from the pure digital sensor or film negative data into the rendered photograph.
Im just actually using that leverage point.
In digital cameras, most of the preloaded color transformations are using something called a 3x3 matrix.
That sounds fancy: Matrix?
But actually, its the opposite.
Its the simplest, bluntest thing you could possibly do.
So the first thing I do is undo the manufacturers prebaked matrix stuff.
Part of the reason is matrix math.
Is this all done in postproduction?
People ask me, Why do you do all this stuff?
Theres all this effort.
But when Im shooting, Im actually doing less of this stuff than anybody else.
This stuff is all figured out beforehand, and once its set up, it just goes through.
How many other cinematographers do you know that write their own code?Not a lot.
This image rendering is the last little polish on it.
Lets talk about shootingPoker Face.
Its been compared to the work of Gordon Willis, who of course didThe GodfatherandAll the Presidents Men.
In the crows nest, Rian said, I want it to be dark in there.
And he was like, Yeah, whatever.
We hadnt talked about it in advance.
We dont discuss the details too much.
I just know that he likes things to look dramatic.
Its more about just rolling up our sleeves and designing the particular shots.
A big part ofPoker Faces look comes from the emulated film grain.
Were you using more than usual?
Why did you make two different renders forGlass Onion?
The grain was making the image look crummy.
You could see really big compression blocks and swimmy stuff.
They have a meat grinder that everything goes through.
There are certain directors who believe that film will always look better than digital and cant be convinced otherwise.
But you changed Rian Johnsons mind.
Rian was very much in that film camp and said absolutely no digital.
But by the end ofLast Jedi, we had transitioned from mostly film to mostly digital.
One of my big selling points to Rian was the ability to stay in focus.
In the film days, every single movie had blown focus.
It was just a question of how much and how bad.
Whats kind of amazing is thatPoker Facelooks more filmic than some TV shows that are actually shot on film.
But it turns outthey shoot on film.I dont want to speak toSuccessionbecause I dont know their process.
A lot has changed about the way film is made and developed.
There used to be a huge infrastructure for it.
You need people who know how it works, and those people are leaving the labs.
People think Im like the digital guru, but Im really the most film-crazy person there is.
Most film zealots arent doing the work Kodak made the film, and they just use it.
