Inside No 9 filming techniques

I noticed the rewinding effect didn't look particularly realistic - I wonder if that could have been something to do with flashing image rules.

You see a lot of blurred gunfire in action movies because of this, and subdued emergency blue lights in news footage. I assume they've got a filter specific to the last one.

It was directed by Graeme Harper, who was a floor assistant, production assistant, and director on Doctor Who around the time the episode was set (and has been since then, as well).

The 'puddling' effects you get with bright blue lights is something that's a artefact of modern (last 10 years or so) camera sensors, I've never been given, or seen a proper detailed explanation of its causes, something to with optical filtering of the image before it his the sensor I'm told ?

Examples here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntLlU6U2-zM

You might perhaps remember that I posted quite a while ago that I pointed this problem out to Sony when the company I worked for took delivery of their first batch of Sony's hdc1000/1500 cameras, this would be about 7 years or so ago. The problem was/is particularly noticeable when the camera was pointed at a light source that had a very restricted set of wavelengths within it - it could be easily seen when the cameras were pointed at the fluorescent lights above the lighting grid for example. Sony's resident camera expert came along to see it and naturally said they would look into it. No solution or explanation was ever forthcoming, but it was not too much of a problem in a studio environment. The effect was exactly as seen in the link you pointed to.

Ha !
When I worked for Sony, I'd constantly get comments from broadcasters and facilities houses about it !
I never received a proper explanation for it from Japan, but it's not just Sony cameras that are affected, (I think ?) (And I wasn't the expert you met, I'd already badgered him !)

We have to be a teensy, weensy bit careful about the term 'flare' when used in respect to a camera. In a camera channel, flare is the term used when the black level of the picture is affected by extraneous light 'reflecting and bouncing' outside the main optical path through the lens package and then falling on the image sensor. This is a very dynamic phenomena. All camera channels, including modern cameras have flare correcting circuits within them and on a studio camera it is one of the first adjustments made when setting up a camera channel. I used to refer to the comet tailing etc as flaring etc like everyone else, but it wasn't really accurate. Perhaps it would have been better historically to have referred to lens flare and flare, but too late now and not at all pertinent either! Just for info as I say.

I wonder if other manufacturers bought Sony light splitters or indeed complete splitter/sensor blocks which might explain why it was across other manufacturers models? Sounds a bit unlikely I know, but I know early Philips ldk Ccd camera channels for example used Sony splitter blocks (with Philips own sensors). Just a random thought really.

Yes, very valid fair point. I remember the test set up, a deep box lined with black felt, and you'd slide in a black card with a white bar printed on to it, with a rectangular hole to its right. Thus creating a condition of peak white, adjacent to a blacker than black element. There were a number of cards that slotted into that box, all standard BBC/ITCA/IBA testing spec

A ' Gregory hole', no doubt named after a Mr Gregory!

BBC Test Card 64. you can still buy them!

Chart 61 was our workshop wall pin up !

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/testcards/images/other/bbc_testcard_no61.jpg

also still available for €600. At Wood Norton, they referred to her as "Cardboard Kate".

I'm thinking more of how flashing blue lights seem far more subdued than they should be, such as you might get in scenes from Traffic Cops - almost the opposite of the puddling.

At a guess they isolate blues and temporally blur them, and/or do a "selective colour" thing a la Photoshop (any pixel whose RGB conversion has blue greater than max(red,green) gets dialled down towards max(red,green), or a temporal average).

Back to Inside No. 9, I didn't check but I assume it was in mono?