Resistance to HDR
“For me, there’s OK HDR and even worse HDR. Personally I don’t like it,” Dariusz Wolski, ASC (Napoleon, 2023)
The hostility toward HDR in the industry is well-documented. Steve Yedlin (Glass Onion, The Last Jedi) once wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), “Seems that filmmakers usually put all their authorship and intent into SDR and HDR is just an add-on deliverable.” Dolby belatedly acknowledged during a technical webinar in the spring of 2024 that most colorists simply dislike HDR.
“HDR doesn’t have any creative implication or aesthetic implication. It’s just a standard.” – Cullen Kelly, Colorist
Colorists might not fully understand HDR because it involves a significantly wider dynamic range of brightness levels compared to standard video, requiring a deeper understanding of color science, display technology, and metadata handling, which can be challenging to master, especially if they haven’t actively worked with HDR content regularly.
When asked at NAB 2023 whether filmmakers were aware of the creative capabilities of HDR and if they were making an effort to learn it, Jay Holben, director/producer, replied, “I see a lot of them are resistant to this, or they see it as just a deliverable; like, ‘I’m going to shoot what I shoot and they’re going to deal with HDR later. And it might not even be there.’ I advocate that that’s the absolute wrong way to approach it; that the cinematographer needs to be intimately involved in that HDR, needs to be there… I don’t see a lot of filmmakers necessarily embracing this right now, but I think that’s going to change very rapidly, within the next year or two.”
Little has changed in the intervening 1-1/2 years. Productions are still lit in an SDR environment and monitored in SDR; the producer and the DP fall in love with the low contrast image they’ve been looking at for months and the very first time they see HDR is in the grading suite, whereupon it’s preemptively decided that the HDR grade should not depart radically from the SDR version. This situation in turn leads to dissatisfaction among viewers, especially as 30% of streaming service subscribers are paying hefty fees for premium plans (which cost ~50% more than standard plans) – in most instances, the only ones that offer HDR. Inexcusably, this pricing structure ensures that most households will not be able to enjoy the benefits of HDR, even though practically every television sold today supports 4K HDR.
Steven Poster, ASC, former President, ICG IATSE Local 600, denounced the industry-wide practice of shooting SDR for HDR deliverables:
“I believe that we can no more shoot for HDR and SDR simultaneously without serious compromise than we could shoot for 16:9 and protect for 4:3. It just won’t work.”
The root causes of resentment
“HDR isn’t just a new feature—it’s really a new language.” Michael Cioni, CEO, Strada
There are many reasons why people resist change. If they’re not confident in their abilities, resisting change is a strategy used to protect themselves from failure. Cinematographers who for years have been monitoring and reviewing dailies in SDR find themselves unable to grasp the grammar of HDR and consequently are unable to bring themselves to learn new skills. In their minds, the language of cinema plateaued ages ago and can’t possibly evolve any further.
Yet another reason for resistance to change stems from mistrust of those mandating the change: they don’t get it, they don’t like it, therefore they direct their frustration and anger at those implementing the change. It’s not uncommon to hear filmmakers who despise HDR grumble that it’s no more than a gimmick being imposed on them by malevolent manufacturers whose sole interest is selling more televisions, or by ‘suits’ at video streaming services looking to maximize their profits [2]. Some even go so far as to point the finger at the public, asserting that viewers are only interested in showing off the capabilities of their new televisions. It’s hardly surprising that those with such strong conspiratorial ideation tendencies mistrust any official source or authority, scientific research, surveys of viewer habits and preferences, technical specifications for the delivery of content or guidelines published by the ITU – according to them, any or all are likely to be untrustworthy.
The visual benefit of HDR is mainly “about increased shadow detail.” –Joshua Pines, Color Scientist, Picture Shop
Filmmakers have developed countless coping mechanisms to deal with the perceived threat of HDR, including: insisting that HDR’s sole superiority over SDR is in shadow detail and that highlights are at most for special effects; maintaining that HDR is only suited to certain genres like sports and not to drama; or claiming that HDR is an ‘effect’ added in post and doesn’t concern the cinematographer at all. Regarding the contention that the look of an HDR production is created in post, a notion propagated by Kevin Shaw, President of Colorist Society International [1], Steven Poster had this to say:
“Five years ago, Local 600 made its first presentation to an organization called the HPA (The Hollywood Postproduction Alliance, now HPA/SMPTE) on the importance of using calibrated on-set monitoring and the position of the DIT. We were treated as something of curiosity, because the thought at that time was ‘shoot it in RAW and we’ll take care of the ‘look’ in post’. But now, after numerous panels and industry discussions, virtually everyone who talked about the artistic look at their last annual conference said that the “look” is determined on-set by the director of photography with the assistance of the DIT. Even when they don’t always do the right thing, at least saying the right thing is a start.”
“A language allows for simple/complex concepts or phrases and words to discuss moments. HDR introduces new ways of discussing a moment with an audience not available to SDR. Trying to create these new moments will require communication. Understanding of the intention, setup and needs to accomplish the effect will be critical.” – Shane Mario Ruggieri, Advanced Imaging Systems Creative Lead, Advanced Technology Group, Dolby Laboratories
HDR is an end-to-end process, from capture and post-production to storage, distribution and display. In order to be successful, the color, contrast and highlight and shadow detail, as well as the compositional choices that make effective use of HDR need to be evaluated on set, thereby ensuring that the look/emotional impact travels through all the way to the final deliverable.
HDR will make your eyes bleed!
“Most of the clients that I have that come in, they don’t like HDR straight away, and the reason that they don’t is because we haven’t looked at it for the last 50 years – or whoever’s been alive that long – and we haven’t looked at it, and we’re not used to it, so something, it’s getting used to it, because it will bleed your eyes, it’ll kill your retinas, if you’re not used to it and you don’t expect that.” – Laura Jans Fazio, Senior Colorist/Studio Post-Division, NBC Universal
When it comes to their unbounded animosity toward HDR, many of the ill-conceived assumptions held by filmmakers are arrived at through motivational reasoning bias, where emotional biases color how new information is processed. They are predisposed to accept evidence that coincides with their current beliefs and reject new information that contradicts them. Industry consultants, marketing representatives, producers, certified trainers, professional calibrators and brand ambassadors are all just as susceptible to motivational reasoning bias.
“If you buy a flatscreen [TV] and you plug it in, it’s scary, because the whites are about 10,000 nits and it doesn’t look anything like what you wanted.” – Dariusz Wolski on LG and Samsung HDR TVs
HDR: Disruption or natural progression?
“I think cinematographers have always advocated for a better experience for the audience, whether it’s fast film stocks with tighter grain, better projection technology, or higher quality digital-capture and display technologies. HDR is just another step in that direction. Standard-dynamic-range video distribution can only show a narrow exposure band of the modern digital sensor’s dynamic range. The opportunity to use more of the sensor’s range when we want to is a very exciting development.” – Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (Mindhunter, 2017-2019)
Those with healthy attitudes, (i.e., those who don’t consider HDR to be a threat to their reputation or livelihood), who are sought after for their ability to shape compelling images in the new format, consider HDR to be nothing more than a natural evolution of what the brilliant scientists at Fuji Photo and Kodak had been striving toward for years; they’re borrowing from the best features of the film tradition and discarding the ones they weren’t able to push further. (see Cullen Kelly, Clearing Up PFE Confusion)
Studios do not dictate peak brightness
It’s high time we put to rest the oft-repeated fallacy that studios mandate that grades be mastered to the peak brightness of the reference display. In 2019 (5-1/2 years ago), the major Hollywood studios issued a joint statement asserting that the brightness or darkness of each shot of a film is up to the filmmaker:
“It is also worth highlighting that a critical feature of the HDR system developed by DCI is one of creative expression. An HDR DCP need not exercise the entire range of brightness offered by the HDR specification. Despite the peak luminance that an HDR system is capable of, the brightness or darkness of each shot of a movie is always up to the filmmaker. It is not up to the HDR projector or display, which simply provides the full range of capabilities. DCI seeks to ensure that the headroom required to reproduce a filmmaker’s creative vision exists, whether that be the darkness of a cave, a candle, a car’s headlights, a meteor, or sunlight spilling through a window.” – DCI
DCI is a consortium of major motion picture studios formed in 2002 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros.
Netflix made a similar statement:
“Netflix executives make no demands regarding dynamic range, brightness values, contrast reproduction, etc. Instead, they leave the implementation of HDR up to the filmmakers.” ASC, 2019
A number of colorists have confirmed that studios rarely raise objections pertaining to peak brightness.
“You can make images on an HDR screen identical to the range you had in SDR, if you want. No one should, or will, as far as I’ve heard, force you to make the image higher in contrast than you are comfortable with. If your vision is to limit and roll off all highlights (to where they would be in the old SDR TV or even film print) you can. It’s your creative choice. A streamer may query it, but it’s unlikely they will force you to grade to a maximum brightness (or nit value as it’s known). – Thomas Urbye, colorist (Sex Education, 2019-2023)
“I know of a major (huge) A-list director who just told the post crew a few weeks ago, “I want the HDR master to basically be identical to the SDR, don’t change the essential grade, but you can let the highlights hit 200-250.” It’s a good question as to who will notice.” – Rajneesh Kassin
“I know of a major — think $100 million+ — 2022 feature where the director came in and said, “ya know what… I prefer the SDR picture. Don’t make it much brighter than that. You can let the specular highlights stray up to 300, 400 nits, but other than that, keep everything about where it is.” Huge movie, already shipped, nobody cared or noticed. And this is a huge A-list director nobody was going to argue with.” – Marc Wielage
Having said that, studies have without exception demonstrated time and again that viewers prefer brighter highlights. Dolby’s study of viewer preferences found that 2,500 nits were required to satisfy 90% of all participants.
On studios imposing HDR on filmmakers
Sound and color were also dictated by studios and demanded by audiences. During the emergence of the sound era, actors and actresses who couldn’t transition from the silent era were supplanted by those who could memorize and recite dialogue in a voice pleasing to audiences. The conversion to wider aspect ratios in the ‘50s onward required filmmakers learn how to compose and edit for the format. It’s high time DPs and colorists got with the program and for studios to reject HDR grades that offer little or no benefit over SDR.
Hostility toward HDR often goes hand-in-hand with contempt for UHD, yet another enormous leap in picture quality that astonishingly few in the industry comprehend and that we’ve written about here.
- “A few years back, a couple of years back, the consensus really was that HDR doesn’t affect anybody: you don’t have to shoot differently, you don’t have to edit differently; it’s really just an extra step in the grading. And I think over the last couple of years, we’ve really learned a lot and we’re still learning, so we’re not there yet, but we’re still learning; but in theory, it doesn’t really change anything but the grading pass.” Kevin Shaw, CSI
- Both can be true: HDR offers superior picture quality and also presents manufacturers and streaming video providers an opportunity to boost their bottom line.
The Daejeon Chronicles 