Higher Dynamic Range RESEARCH Laboratory September 15th -  22nd 2014

During Encounters Short Film Festival CMIR staged a Laboratory in Higher Dynamic Range research in association with Bristol Vision Institute and the Faculty of Engineering of University of Bristol which represented one of the first Advanced Learning Environments in this subject area. Artists, engineers, academics, cinematographers and both PhD and MA students came together to research the production of a pathway for producing moving images with a higher dynamic range than standard TV
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Half the team, Geoff Boyle on left, Terry Flaxton on Right, Dr Sarah Sparke in the middle.
This built upon work created over the last several years in association with University of Bristol and BBC R & D.

We gathered together 2 RED One's, an Epic and 2 ARRI Amiras and a mirror rig to compile images with varying exposures to then merge them.
After assembling and going through the principles on day one, we began the exploration of the process on day two and shooting on day three with two artists, Rik Lander and Gina Czarneki. Cinematographer Geoff Boyle shot a series of tests to take individual and conjoined cameras through a 25 stop range to test the boundaries of exposure - these tests will be published here and on the CML website in the weeks to come.
Day's 4 and 5 further shooting and post production to prepare the footage for display to the public was accomplished and on day's 5 and 6 groups of the public were invited to come and see the results.
For more information on the process of capture see: The Production of Higher Dynamic Range Video Price et al

For a discussion on the context for that production see: The Future of the Moving Image Flaxton

How Hollywood views HDR
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Showing the Public the Results
NEWS: CMIR of UWE and the Bristol Vision Institute at the University of Bristol held the world's first HDR laboratory in the capture and Display of Higher Dynamic Range Images in September 2014. We'd like to thank, Dolby Industries Esprit Film and Television and Films at 59 for their help in staging this lab.
If you look at the diagram below left it shows that the human eye/brain pathway uses 5 out of a 14 order of magnitude scale, sliding this instantaneous facility up and down the scale to deal with starlight at one end and desert sun at the other. (that 14 order scale is rendered as luminance in the diagram directly above.

All contemporary displays only currently show between 2 – 3 orders of this scale, but we now have a new prototype which displays across 5 orders and the BBC in turn have created a 200 frame per second projection system. By combining variants of frame rate, resolution and dynamic range, we should be able to effectively produce ‘the perfect picture’ by then calibrating these functions to produce a combination that best resonates with our eye/brain pathway - and therefore conscious awareness. The proposition is that if we can manipulate all the factors of the construction of the digital image then conscious immersion may follow.

HDR Lab artist Gina Czarnecki is keen to extend the development of her work and understandings of the neurocinematic implications:


PictureLuminance rendered as F Stops