PROJECT CASE STUDY: How I Exposed Portrait Style

In this video I take you behind the scenes of a project I shot specifically to stress test the Portrait Photo Style:

Download Video (1080p) | Download Video (540p)

Note: Ultimately I brought down the blacks selectively for each shot and rendered with Keyframes to 90 (settings below).

Here is the final video, first on Vimeo:

Download original master (UHD)

My settings in Premiere Pro:

And here’s the Youtube version:

Links

Fotasy 25mm f/1.4 lens

YouTube Compression Guidelines

How to use your hand as a light meter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuJtzA4OUR0

Test renders for your reference:

1. Straight render, no changes
2. Added noise (5%, 10%, 15%, 6+5%, 5+10%)
3. Same as above, but Prores (26 GB!!)
4. Added noise plus brought down the blacks to 0-5 IRE for greater contrast
5. CBR at 60 Mbps
6. VBR 2-Pass (all the ones above from 1 to 4 are VBR 1 Pass)
7. This uses YouTube compression settings – 45 to 50 Mbps, Keyframe 90 (as recommended by Premiere Pro) Free Sampling
8. Same as above but Frame Blending Interpolation
9. Same as above but Optical Flow Interpolation
10. Same as 7 but Keyframe is set to 1
11. Brought down blacks but no noise
12. Same as 7 but VBR 2-Pass and Keyframe is 1
13. Same as above but added 10% noise
14. Same as 12 but VBR 1-Pass