"recipe" / technique for upscaling 1080p RAW to 4K amamorphic?

[mannfilm]

Please excuse me if this info is somewhere, can only seem to find pieces here and there. Planning on a feature film, shooting ML RAW 1080p, would like to upscale 1080P master to 4K anamorphic when we make that big sale (yeah, sure we will...) Anyways, any post workflow suggestions. Thanks in advance.

[Luiz Roberto dos Santos]

Why upscale? On any process of interpolation you will destroy/lost much information...
Anyway, the "best" results is with "Video Enhancer". He use superesolution to do the interpolation...

[SteveScout]

Why would you want to upscale to 4K? Why distribute a (Indie) feature in 4K? Where, on what? Why would an upscaled Bluray (if it yet existed in 4K) or DCP in  theatre look better than the 2K if the source footage is only HD? And you can´t "scale" to anamorphic, you can only crop to get the same aspect ratio. You are mixing a lot of terms and most of it does not make any sense. My advice: Shoot in 16:9 Full-HD, the native raw format, then upscale to 2K to export a DCP for theatres and vertically crop it on 1:2,35 with letterboxing, that´s it.

[Midphase]

Another advice would be...shoot in 4:3 ratio with an anamorphic set of lenses, then in post you can easily horizontally stretch out the footage without too much image degradation penalty to achieve roughly a 2500X1200 image or a 2K 2.35:1 master with even less penalty.

I've done it and the results look great.

[reddeercity]

Please excuse me if this info is somewhere, can only seem to find pieces here and there. Planning on a feature film, shooting ML RAW 1080p, would like to upscale 1080P master to 4K anamorphic when we make that big sale (yeah, sure we will...) Anyways, any post workflow suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Hello, I did a short tutorial on that subject but not for 4k anamorphic (here is the link)
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=9211.msg87361#msg87361
it a lot of work, but I think if you make your master 4K files and use the original as proxy's
I found when I converted my 2k files to 4k in Photoshop, the 4k image took on a
organic look, very pleasing to the eye, that's my thought's on it. 
And yes I would do it again .

[mannfilm]

Why? Film History. Lying works. Throughout film distribution history, many films got deals by falsely claiming (lying) to have better acquisition. Two examples from the '90's, 28 Days Later and Open Water,  shot in mini-DV, producers got theatrical distribution by lying that they shot in film. Hundreds of 16mm films have been sold by claiming to be 35mm.   If you tell a major distributor you shot 1080p DSLR, they'll refuse to even look at your film because its "cheap DSLR crap." They also want to future proof their products with 4K, UltraHD. But here's the thing, they lack the eyes to tell if its 1080p, 2k or 4k.  Even if they later discover the truth, they have committed too much money to pull out. And hilariously, almost all the time, you do not get theatrical distribution, but 1080p bluray and web, which is where you started.
..............
So, in the real world, you have a choice. You can be honest and have distributors spit on your film WITHOUT WATCHING IT because its "1080p DSLR crap." Or, get them to look at it because its 4K UltraHD.

[lionelp]

I believe that Danny Boyle(28 Days Later -Director) and Chris Kentis (Open Water- Director) did not lie about the acquisition format.
It is just someone's opinion and/or assumption on a forum, Urban/ filmmaker (DVX Forum) legend. I believe that both filmmakers were pretty upfront about the formats used. The format information was even used in the marketing of both films, at least marketing geared towards the industry.
They both had investors and it would be folly to risk investor's money by entering into a fraudulent distribution contract. Which is what lying to a distributor would be.

It is just not good business.

If you are talking to someone at a major distributor it is probably because they like what they see.

PS- slightly off topic: I saw both of those films mentioned, projected in theaters during their original theatrical runs circa; 2002-2003, It would be very difficult to believe that the original acquisition format was film.

[Midphase]

If you tell a major distributor you shot 1080p DSLR, they'll refuse to even look at your film because its "cheap DSLR crap." They also want to future proof their products with 4K, UltraHD. But here's the thing, they lack the eyes to tell if its 1080p, 2k or 4k.

Whatever you want to believe that makes you feel smarter than the rest is fine, but it doesn't make it so.

If you make a compelling film which is well written, acted and produced that will go further to getting you a deal than what resolution it was shot at.

[lionelp]

Whatever you want to believe that makes you feel smarter than the rest is fine, but it doesn't make it so.

If you make a compelling film which is well written, acted and produced that will go further to getting you a deal than what resolution it was shot at.

Absolutely agree!

[Africashot]

If you told me you shot your feature on a 5D I'd have nothing but respect for you, If you told me it was 4k to subsequently find out it was shot on the 5di'd probably loose all this respect instantly... it just seems pointless, pretentious and foolish. You can't add whats not there and 1080 has been good enough for the big screen for a long time now! If you think 4k is important get a 4k camera...

[kgv5]

Surely 2k to 4k upscaling cannot match with the image from the real 4k cameras and i am sure noone thinks otherwise. I wonder though how it would match with the image from low-end 4k capture devices like gopro hero 3 (yeah, i know it is only 15 fps), galaxy note 3 (it has 3840x2160 30 fps) or upcoming 4k sony handycam. I think that with their poor codecs, simple optics and low bitrate the image could be similar in terms of details. I would like to see such comparison, could be interesting.

[dubzeebass]

I'd debate that depending on the distance from the screen and the size of said screen, upscaling to 4k with great algorithms would be visually pleasing to anyone but nerdy pixel peepers.

[mannfilm]

I apologize if I appeared to be claiming to be "smarter." I'm not, just 25 years of a successful film career, the last decade as a successful producer. I was trying to share some real world advice. I've personally sold films by shooting super-16 but claiming 35mm.

The gate-keepers (mostly very young interns) at the distributors review the movie on an iMac. If your film is pre-catgorized as "low budget" and inferior," they give it to the kid everyone hates and does not listen to. The idea is to get in the door.

28 Days later - they lied. They revealed their trick after the USA opening weekend. I was shooting film spots when the news hit (American Cinematographer, Variety, and the other trades.) I and most of my friends immediately went out and bought Canon XL1's and started inter-cutting it with film. Which actually worked with SD.

[reddeercity]

I apologize if I appeared to be claiming to be "smarter." I'm not, just 25 years of a successful film career, the last decade as a successful producer. I was trying to share some real world advice. I've personally sold films by shooting super-16 but claiming 35mm.

The gate-keepers (mostly very young interns) at the distributors review the movie on an iMac. If your film is pre-catgorized as "low budget" and inferior," they give it to the kid everyone hates and does not listen to. The idea is to get in the door.

28 Days later - they lied. They revealed their trick after the USA opening weekend. I was shooting film spots when the news hit (American Cinematographer, Variety, and the other trades.) I and most of my friends immediately went out and bought Canon XL1's and started inter-cutting it with film. Which actually worked with SD.

+1

[Africashot]

The industry has changed. Today's fast-track keywords are crowd funding, social media and transparency. High quality digital acquisition is accessible to the masses, simply lying about your acquisition method to sound cool won't get you anywhere, the look, feel and story are all there is to it.