Production & Post-production Feedback
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doublevr Alright, thanks for the reply.
It's good to know that there is an internal discussion about this and that you're willing to optimize and improve. Looking forward to see thsese improvements implemented once the team is ready.
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Hi hi,
I wanted to give some insight regarding the one person's comment about Grey Clouds Crystal Shop being over exposed.
Here are some BTS photos with a look at the histogram during cowgirl:
We do color checks & tests before getting into the "action" of each position. Goal is to keep as much of the color spectrum in the horizontal middle of the waveform, which we did (bottom left corner of iPad).
Here's a look as false colors from the Lindsay Lee scene, which we again check before and during a shoot. Yellow is the max limit I want to hit as it's enough data to pull down in post but on the verge of clipping (red) for which there is no data/details.
Shooting very pale girls has challenges because you want to have good exposure on the person while not dropping down your key & fill too much as you then drop down the ambient lighting which starts to get digital noise; not sure about the noise reduction pipeline at SLR editing, but in my experience noise reduction is some of the most intense rendering, taking at times over 24hrs to render. This is why we do our best to address issues in "pre" and make decisions that provide options for post-production to work with in color grading as they have far more tools than we do in-camera.
Once we shoot the SLRO content, we hand it over to SLR and their team edits it. Again, there are a plethora of color grading tools that post-production has at their disposal, allowing one to pull down highlights , balance mids, and bring up details in the low without being destructive. Also you can headset preview in Adobe Premiere Pro, something we can't do with the K2 Pro while filming, allowing post to color grade & see the results in real time (that's how I used to edit stuff on the VR Fan Service Channel)
Having the experience of building rigs in the early days as well as editing both stereo & linear with the rudimentary tools of the past to the latest techniques available today, helps us understand the challenges of post-production and provide SLR with the best "ingredients" to cook with; at that point it's out of our hands ฅ•ﻌ•ฅ
TLDR: What we shoot in-camera is not the same as what's "shipped", just like any other type of filmmaking.
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I’m not an expert, but waveform looks good to me. I don’t see any clipping.
How many IRE is the yellow in the false color set at?
I can’t remember that particular scene off the top of my head. But It looks like you guys are doing everything on set to give the editors the most headroom to adjust the picture in post.
Not sure what the poster is complaining about. Maybe I’ll take a look at the scene to see if I can see what he’s seeing.
vrfanservice Also you can headset preview in Adobe Premiere Pro,
I didn’t know this. I wonder if the editors are taking advantage of this? Not even sure they’re using Premiere. Might be using Da Vinci Resolve or something.
Always wondered if the editors actually looked at the scene in-helmet before finalizing the scene.
bacula8630 Always wondered if the editors actually looked at the scene in-helmet before finalizing the scene.
judging by some of the technical issues slro scenes have had before im not sure that they even look at the result of their editing
alexnash
Thank you for your response. I spoke about most of the things that bother me in recent releases. I know that I was writing directly with you but it wasn't focused on you. As rerun119 said in his response copied here by justsomedude101 not many directors are as involved in the forum and because of that (unjustifiably) i kinda vented to you as you somehow represent the production community in my mind.
I am glad that there are now producers mentioned in the tags of the video. I would be glad to sort the scenes I talked about by production team to make it easier on you but not all of them were mentioned in the credits of the trailer. Now it is a lot easier. And to be completely honest I wasn't entirely sure that you don't have anything to say about the work of other production teams. I imagined you at this point as a kinda production supervisor of the whole SLR. But i was mistaken.
Thank you again @alexnash for taking your time to make this in depth response to my post. It really cleared some things for me.
And sorry for making a messy thousand words essay.
alexnash As I know you can take screenshots from SLR website or what do you mean?
It was my mistake. I didn't know that chrome app is blocking making screenshots in Incognito mode. Some sites block the possibility of making screenshots and I automatically thought that this is the case here. I was wrong. After disabling this block by chrome I can now make screenshots on SLR website.
@justsomedude101 thank you for making this thread and copying all of the posts regarding this topic.
vrfanservice
I really imagined that you guys as directors/production teams have more control and say over every part of the production and the final look of your product.
Now from what I understand you don't really have a lot of influence on your work after the production process. It is a bit surprising for me because as you mentioned the look of the scene can change a lot in post-production.
It is really nice to see responses like this. It is quite eye opening.
bacula8630 Here's the specs from Z-Cam: 
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Thanks.
Yeah, exposure looks good. Typical rule of thumb for Caucasian skin tones is usually 60-70IRE. So you’re pretty right on. Maybe a hair over. But nothing that couldn’t be brought down in post.
Are you shooting log? I assume Z Cam has Z-log or something.
Also, this is a question more for the editors. I’m assuming there’s a standard Z Cam LUT that you guys apply in post? So there’s consistency in the color grade between multiple editors. And can that LUT be applied to the monitors during filming?
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bacula8630
Z-Log isn’t that great, so SLR protocol was to shoot rec709. The K2 Pro is essentially two z-cam E2 cinema cameras in a unibody with an external sync cable connecting the two internal units, similar to the old-school action camera rigs, and gives us 10-bit color. SLR edits in Mistika Boutique(traditionally a color grading software) & Premiere Pro, both of which allow for headset preview.
We do our best for the fans!! 
(ˆ‿ˆԅ)
Thanks for the info!
vrfanservice Z-Log isn’t that great, so SLR protocol was to shoot rec709.
Interesting. Do you think you guys are giving up any dynamic range?
vrfanservice We do our best for the fans!!
I don’t doubt that. Even though I have technical questions about your equipment and workflow. I don’t question the end results. You guys do quality work. And you’ve made some great scenes! Looking forward to what you guys come out with next!
spacepirate Just curios why you think like that? This Alex Nash scene is a first release we have to deactivate and remove from the website in the at least last two - three months. We checking every scene twice in the headset. It's a big team of great people who working hard on every releases but we all people and we all have chance to mistake. Problem with this scene is a issue with final output resolution- editor confused and set up it wrong in the new machine 5900x2800 instead of 5800x2900.
I agree that there are no boundaries for perfection, but mostly all scenes are good. We really try keep best quality to have all customers happy.
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highkiller will be great if you can share time code where we have overexposure in "Grey Clouds Chrystal shop" I quickly check cowgirl section and all looks proper for me.
Also regarding @vrfanservice response. It's not 100% true that Production teams don't have a lot of influence on their work in the Post-Production process. Mostly they just don't care about it a lot. We as a Post-Production team always try to deliver all things producer ask and they have an access to all master files. They always can watch materials before release and if it some reasonable feedback- we will fix it asap. Unfortunately we can't wait more than couple dayse because rendering takes time and we have to follow our schedule to make you guys happy. So yeah the only limitation they have is time.
I’m a little new around here. So I’m just trying to learn who’s who.
So you guys are a post production company? I think I’ve seen “Evan Redstar” in the opening title sequence along with Alex Nash’s name. I thought it was all one company.
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bacula8630 I was in Production side as well. I performed as a director of photography together with Alex Nash for SLR Originals 2020-2021 as well as I filmed biggest part of "Gold" VRbangers library, most of all 6k releases 2018-2019.
I was Head of Post-Production at VRBangers 2018-2019 and from late 2020 I perform on this position here on SLR.
Ah…got it. Thanks for the info. Pleasure to meet you.
Evan_Redstar I filmed biggest part of "Gold" VRbangers library, most of all 6k releases 2018-2019
Dude, this time period really was the “Golden Age” at VRB. Some of my favorite scenes were from this time. Things aren’t the same over at VRB these days unfortunately.
I know Post Production doesn’t get a lot of the kudos. But I appreciate all the work you and your team you do. Keep up the great work!
bacula8630 Thank you so much!
Evan_Redstar its a general observation over a couple of years. in that time ive seen countless originals scenes that had some obvious issue that could have been caught before release. i cant recall a single time thats happened for other big sites 