So can we get into the technical details of the PJ film?

[I Bloom]

Unfortunately I can't be at NAB and I'm hoping that some of those who went can really talk about what they saw. Answer some questions about the footage:

How much was shot in bright direct sunlight?

What kind of situations were presented, such a high contrast forest scene an interior with an ungelled window?

How much detail was in the highlights?

How much detail was present in the shadows?

Did you see any blowouts, how did they look?

How did color representation fair in highlights and shadows did it stay dead on or drift?

Did it look like a lot of fill light was being added say with HMI's or bounce or was it mostly natural?

How much secondary color correction appeared to be in the piece, how did the REDcode hold up as compared to how HDCAM or DVCproHD would fall apart?

How shallow was the depth of field? Did it look like a struggle to keep it sharp at 4K?

I'm sure that others can think of better questions than these. But I'm hoping to open up some deeper discussion of the technical details of the footage you saw. Hopefully these will mostly be covered when the short is posted but thats never going to compare to the big screen.

IB

[Alexander Black]

I saw some fixed pattern noise in some of the (apparently underexposed) shots in the plane, and the standard mini-color halo on detail around highlights. That said, the only sensor I have seen which doesn't exhibit that fringing behavior with highlights is the X3 and it isn't nearly fast enough to do cinema.

Keep in mind, though, this is nitting to an unbelievable degree. I almost slobbered on my shirt sitting there watching this footage. It was absolutely incredible, and I haven't seen anything of higher quality digitally projected. It was higher perceptual resolution than any film print I can remember seeing.

OH: and the number one most impressive thing. In a conversation with jim _HE_ pointed out flaws that I hadn't noticed. That fact alone gives me so much confidence in them. It was extremely impressive. They're going for perfection and they're being extremely open, honest and transparent in the process.

[Brandon Rice]

Very good info. And I agree, I like the fact that they're showing their flaws, so it shows they know what to make better!

[Alexander Nikishin]

I briefly spoke with the DoP Richard Bluck on shooting the short. According to him they used 3x 18k's (Arrimax's I'm assuming) shot through some form of diffusion, I belive grid cloth?

He also said that for certain shots they added a 12k to be pushed in close. Most likely for the trenches I'm assuming?

[Sanjin Jukic]

Which lenses they were using on the RED ONE Boris/Natasha alphas?

[Adrian T.]

Which lenses they were using on the RED ONE Boris/Natasha alphas?

They used Cooke lenses because they're more familiar with them.

[LighthouseMEdia]

I'll let you guys know when its up but we at FreshDV had a pretty indepth video interview with Richard and he elaborated on his thoughts of the workflow and camera. I'll let you guys know when we get it uploaded, should be by the weekend.

[Alexander Nikishin]

Which lenses they were using on the RED ONE Boris/Natasha alphas?

They used Cooke S4's and an Optimo zoom.

[Jeff Brue]

Saw the footage monday morning...the 7th screening, with my colorist. Later on in the day I saw a demo of the Quantel Pablo at 4k (currently the only system able to do 4k in realtime). Have to say the depth of the imagery I saw on the sony screen easily matched if did not expand on the detail of the film scan at 4k. Really what I'm interested in seeing is how far the image can be pushed in CC. As far as the fixed pattern noise is concerned thats something thats easier to take out than ever before, because of the lack of gate weave the optical flow type algorythms are behaving better than ever for noise removal, sharpening, and other temporal sampling based effects.

[Alexander Black]

They're recording the raw bayer signal and compressing that (if I remember correctly) so you should be able to push it just as far as scanned film, since the signals are going to look the same. I think northlights are CMOS, I can't remember for the others.

Going _to_ film is the nasty hard thing, because you have to be able to model the color capabilities of film and map the signal down to the colorspace of the preview devices you're using so wysiwyg. cineSpace seems to be the pimpest solution to that problem, and (for what it does) is very cheap.

Also, doesn't filmlight sell baselight 4k realtime systems? I'm pretty sure they do. Frankly though, I don't get the point. As long as the color is accurate you could do just fine with a 1080p monitor/projector and conform back to the original 4k data - for whayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy less of the green monies :)

_a

[M Olsen]

They used Cooke S4's and an Optimo zoom.

Plus a set of Zeiss standards got a brief outing...

[Alexander Black]

(continued rant)

I think jim also said that they shot way underexposed because of his error - so that signal was actually pushed very far from the original.

It would be REALLY EXTREMELY COOL (hint hint hint hint not subtle hint hint) to have a couple DPX grabs of the raw-as-shot and the corrected-aint-it-pretty versions.

I understand completely why they graded it, but I'd like to see raw output - people whinge about the viper green thing but it's a damn good camera. I want a nice low contrast signal with no real black or white so I can make those contrast and color choices myself, and with 11 stops of claimed latitude on the red I would, uhm, have to be totally incompetent not to capture exactly that.

Evin and I got slightly into it, and I couldn't find him again before I had to leave to have a proper conversation so I think I came off as a bit of an ass - but I do want to point out that this is not a $20k camera. You're dreaming if you think it is. Revolutionary price? Yes absolutely. But for a proper kit with a matte box, follow focus, a prime set, power, on-camera and post storage, archiving, monitoring, and camera support (a 1030D is $5k for the head only) this is more like a ~60-80k workflow. Still, that is mind blowingly cheap for something that imho is higher quality than super 35mm.

[Júlio Taubkin]

This camera substitutes cameras with different packages. You can substitute a 35mm package with thousands of lenses and huge tripods and plenty of acessories for 80K but you can also substitute that simple documentary package with a stripped down aaton for aroun 25-30K, so it really depends...

[Greg M]

(continued rant)

but I do want to point out that this is not a $20k camera. You're dreaming if you think it is. Revolutionary price? Yes absolutely. But for a proper kit with a matte box, follow focus, a prime set, power, on-camera and post storage, archiving, monitoring, and camera support (a 1030D is $5k for the head only) this is more like a ~60-80k workflow. Still, that is mind blowingly cheap for something that imho is higher quality than super 35mm.

You are correct but...all manufactures quote prices for the body only. These add ons are required whether you buy a Sony, Varicam, Viper, 435, etc.

The Panasonic Varicam is $45,000...but this is the body, no lens, no matte box, etc.

[Tonaci Tran]

Plus a set of Zeiss standards got a brief outing...

Who did you hear this from?? (looks over at precious zeiss set waiting for Red's touch)

[Alexander Black]

tabukin, digitalfx - of course, I completely agree. That said, I have heard people comparing this in price to an HPX500 which can be had with lens storage and power for $20k. Obviously the red is more expensive. If you have no matte box, only a little storage, the basic prod package and just a zoom i think you could get it down to a 40-50k workflow. still amazing.

[david farland]

Also, doesn't filmlight sell baselight 4k realtime systems? I'm pretty sure they do. Frankly though, I don't get the point. As long as the color is accurate you could do just fine with a 1080p monitor/projector and conform back to the original 4k data - for whayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy less of the green monies :)
_a

I did a little chart on the '4k Workflow' forum last week last week on post production systems. One area was grading. I missed a few i.e. nucoda, baselight etc, but all the other I mentioned:- Quantel Pablo, Assimilate Scratch, Autodesk Lustre, Da Vinci Resolve, Chrome Imaging, Iridas Speedgrade DI, Filmlight Baselight, do 4K.

I spoke to the company or local representative for details and heard a lot of the arguments but the most pervasive one was at this scale of the market, the client knows what he can get for his money and if your charging him huge rates and using a slow system or need to jump through many hoops to get there, he's going to feel short changed! Not surprisingly this came from one of the most expensive, but it shows market forces are alive and well. I came off thinking speed, ease of use (include no proxies here) were the key things. I've also seen the Pablo and to be wrangling those 16bit 4K files at almost (depends what's your doing) reatime with no proxy stage looked a blessing.

Cheers,

[Zakaree Sandberg]

(continued rant)
but I do want to point out that this is not a $20k camera. You're dreaming if you think it is. Revolutionary price? Yes absolutely. But for a proper kit with a matte box, follow focus, a prime set, power, on-camera and post storage, archiving, monitoring, and camera support (a 1030D is $5k for the head only) this is more like a ~60-80k workflow. Still, that is mind blowingly cheap for something that imho is higher quality than super 35mm.

your gunna get urself ripped off if your thinking 60-80 for a camera package...
we long time reduser folk have figured out 30-40..
I mean disregard if your planning on getting some serious super speeds.. but basic camera package, evf, lcd, 2 HD's, battery pack.. the rails grips so on...
and a few lenses (not a whole set).. mattebox (as long as you dont need a 4-6k one).. ff.. ur still under 40 maybe even 35.. its all about being smart.. plus in the next few months more and more new accessory guys will come out with even cheaper add ons (matteboxes followfocus heads.. so on) im impressed with the new redrock mattebox and ff myself.. and you can get both for 1000.. or 1500 for mattebox, ff, and remote focus..

[Alexander Black]

hey david,

yeah, I was meaning to get a demo of scratch but didn't have the time - lucas is around though, I'm sure I will. I did get a demo of speedgrade and met lin (the ceo). one word: pimp. They are proper nerds. Color is nice and all, but any informed client who you want to charge a nice hefty sum to do 4k color correction will instantly leave if you suggest grading with apple color :) That said, while I can pull off for myself with spit n' elbow grease is very different from what I would have to show a well-paying client. Half the cost is the freaking furniture to prove you know your s*it :)

SpeedGrade Onset is also getting rave reviews - and the SI2k will take .looks and display them on the camera LCD which is pretty cool.

zakaree: I'm really genuinely not trying to be an asshole but your = you're. (pet peeve, and people will judge you for it). "you longtime reduser folk" may be thinking different things, here's what I'm thinking:

RED ONE Camera Body $17,500.00
RED ONE Premium Production Package $2,750.00
RED ONE Power Pack $1,650.00
RED EVF Viewfinder $2,950.00
RED LCD Screen (5.6 inch) $1,700.00
RED DRIVE 320GB (2) $1,800.00
Glass $19,995.00
Wireless Followfocus $4,500.00 (guesstimate based on other things, could be -2k or so, who knows)
Vocas M450 Swing Out ~$3,500.00, can't remember the real $$ but this is close

TAX $4,230.19
TOTAL $60,575.19

This is hilariously low. It's 2k more than a varicam _body_only_ if memory serves.

Of course if you don't need to cover the whole range of focal lengths you could get the 18-50 and rent others as needed for a savings of $13,495, you could buy an excellent petroff FF unit for $1k (-$3500)... but also keep in mind this is without any camera support (you'll need a 5k head - the wonderful cartoni focus will not work for you), filters, cleaning kit, client/director monitoring, lighting, bags, etc. If you take a hard look at what it costs to build a real kit, you'll find that the camera, while obviously a good chunk, does not end up being the bulk of the cost. All the little things you need to make it dance add up. $30k doesn't get you what you will really need.

Also, while the redrock people are cool, I'm not impressed with their products. The M2 makes shooting an ergonomic nightmare, the matte box is not nearly there and the FF still has significant (aka unacceptable) play. It would be a shame not to use the obviously-will-be-pimp focus/iris/zoom motor that red had on display.

I have also made money on every one of my camera purchases, so I'm not worried about getting "ripped off" :)

[Greg M]

we long time reduser folk ...


what is that....a disease?

[M Olsen]

Who did you hear this from?? (looks over at precious zeiss set waiting for Red's touch)

Someone who knows.. but as to how much use they got and if any shots ended up in the cut film I do not know.

[astro]

The lenses used were a set of Cooke S4's ,24-290mm Optimo ,17-80mm Optimo and a set of Zeiss standards (T2.1)

[I Bloom]

20 some posts and nothing close to an answer to the actual question. I think I'll go over to cinematography dot com.

[Alexander Black]

what is that....a disease?

ROTFLMAOW7UPSFMN

(Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off With 7UP Shooting From My Nose)

[Alexander Black]

20 some posts and nothing close to an answer to the actual question. I think I'll go over to cinematography dot com.


How much was shot in bright direct sunlight?

A significant amount, but it looked like there was a lot of light added. I think there is another post from someone who interviewed or talked with the DP. I would be very interested to see the DP's lighting plan. They were almost certainly using silks - I don't remember seeing any nasty noon-shadows :)


What kind of situations were presented, such a high contrast forest scene an interior with an ungelled window?

Day exteriors: ground level with the sun and additional lighting, and in the sky with restored WW1 planes. No saturated black that I remember, which is too bad. There was excellent continuity between shots - too good for a demo, actually.


How much detail was in the highlights?

Full detail in the sky, including clouds. I believe the only clipping I saw was the sun itself, but I'd need to sit down and watch it a few times. Claimed 11 stop range and I believe it from that footage.


How much detail was present in the shadows?

Good shadow detail. It's a bit hard to form a detailed opinion from memory, and (if I remember correctly) jim said that a good deal was quite underexposed and pushed during grading.


Did you see any blowouts, how did they look?

Frankly, no different than other CMOS cameras I've seen - a bit of color fringing at the border of clipping where you start to get detail. It was hard to tell because it wasn't "camera test footage" - it was a staged short. I really wanted to see more of a range of shots, but I understand why they did what they did.


How did color representation fair in highlights and shadows did it stay dead on or drift?

Looked perfect to me, but it was graded so I don't know what - if any - problems they dealt with. It wasn't pushed to a desaturated "war look" but it was definitely graded.


Did it look like a lot of fill light was being added say with HMI's or bounce or was it mostly natural?

I'd have to see it again.


How much secondary color correction appeared to be in the piece, how did the REDcode hold up as compared to how HDCAM or DVCproHD would fall apart?

I could see individual fibers on the jacket of a soldier. No visible compression artifacts. Stunning. Jaw dropping. I don't know how it would stand up to multiple passes but I imagine quite well.


How shallow was the depth of field? Did it look like a struggle to keep it sharp at 4K?

Depth of field - exactly what you would expect from 35. Same sh*t. Focus errors = No. I saw many shots that hit critical focus perfectly and never saw any focus errors.

[Greg M]

20 some posts and nothing close to an answer to the actual question. I think I'll go over to cinematography dot com.

When I spoke to Richard he never mentioned the Zeiss lenses, but we occasionally use standard speeds on rig shots (bikes, cars, etc) because they are cheap, small and because they close focus...maybe the used them on some of the aerial shots??

EDIT:
oops, thought this was your question.

[Cail Young]

Color is nice and all, but any informed client who you want to charge a nice hefty sum to do 4k color correction will instantly leave if you suggest grading with apple color :)

Really? Color used to be Final Touch 2K, which carried a 5 figure pricetag if I recall correctly. It's not a slapdash product by any means. I suspect you've been listening to a lot of salespeak...

[Alexander Black]

I'm mr. anti-salespeak. There's still a difference between speedgrade DI and final touch. I'm going to have a look at scratch fairly soon, but color - while cool - is not in the same league as speedgrade. I'm not saying it isn't amazing to have a 30k application go down to effectively $300, but I am saying it ain't there yet.

[Mike Prevette]

Regardless of whether it's "there yet" or not. My clients would skoff at any app that "came with" final cut. These people are used to walking into high end suites, and colorists using fancy black magic boxes to make their footage look amazing. Most of the colorists have one word, foreign sounding names like "Pierre" or "Ricco". The clients eat that shit up! It's really not a matter of imaging quality or capabilities at all. Color will take a long time to catch on in the highend world even if it is flawless. I'll use it, It'll make my stuff look amazing, but I won't brag about it to my clients like I would with other systems.

[Chris Kenny]

Regardless of whether it's "there yet" or not. My clients would skoff at any app that "came with" final cut. These people are used to walking into high end suites, and colorists using fancy black magic boxes to make their footage look amazing. Most of the colorists have one word, foreign sounding names like "Pierre" or "Ricco". The clients eat that shit up!

Well, the solution here is obvious. Get a control board with nice knobs to twiddle (Color supports them), paint your G5 black, and start speaking with some sort of hard-to-place accent. :biggrin:

[I Bloom]

Thanks for some insight. I'm interested to see the short myself, but it definitely sounds like RED made more of a promo piece than a camera test. I can't blame them but lets hope they at least break it down for us and show us what they were able to achieve and how.

[dalen johnson]

Regardless of whether it's "there yet" or not. My clients would skoff at any app that "came with" final cut. These people are used to walking into high end suites, and colorists using fancy black magic boxes to make their footage look amazing. Most of the colorists have one word, foreign sounding names like "Pierre" or "Ricco". The clients eat that shit up! It's really not a matter of imaging quality or capabilities at all. Color will take a long time to catch on in the highend world even if it is flawless. I'll use it, It'll make my stuff look amazing, but I won't brag about it to my clients like I would with other systems.

yes, egos...I know all about it. - have some myself. ;)
Seriously though, I saw it at WebMd, etc. - go for the big name designer and say to people how much you had to spend...seriously. (It cost me $$$ I heard one exec say.)

So you are right...

But those days are over...at least are numbered, in saying I spent $$$ on a Discreet color correcting system, etc. They will begin to look the fool when they could put the money to more practical use.

When I first started out in design I thought if I sold myself cheap I would get more business...well you attract cheap customers...You overprice yourself and you get somewhere. I went from literally $10 per hour to $75 per hour in literally a couple months once I figured this out. (This was 10 years ago...)

But yes, ego...ego...ego. Who gives a flying nelly what someone uses, but again, they do...helps them feel better about themself.

Peace

Dalen

[Álex Montoya]

Well, let me get this straight.

I could get a starting working setup for 4K with just

red one 17500
basic production pack 1250
power pack 1450
viewfinder 2950
2 red drives 1800
nikkor mount 500
nikkor zoom, nikkor 50 and nikkor 85 around 3000$

Am I right?

That's a total of 28450 $... around 22.000€

If that's it I should just add taxes and VAT for Spain? How much would be that?

[M Olsen]

Thanks for some insight. I'm interested to see the short myself, but it definitely sounds like RED made more of a promo piece than a camera test. I can't blame them but lets hope they at least break it down for us and show us what they were able to achieve and how.

Yes, maybe we will see some more analysis after the dust settles from NAB. In all fairness Jim did post elsewhere that Peter Jackson approached RED about "evaluating" the cameras and thats basically what happened, they were field tested by a very professional crew in a fast "run and gun" environment. Perfect for exposing flaws and faults I would have thought.

[Jess Charlton]

According to Jim...


We asked Peter, a reservation holder, if he knew of anyone in LA that could help us shoot NAB footage. He gratiously invited us to NZ to shoot NAB/test footage with him there. We jumped at the chance. By the time we got there, he had a story in mind. Two days later... he and his team were cutting a movie.

Jim

You didn't get those facts quite right, Turnover. But I agree that the way the cameras were tested would reveal their weaknesses.


Peter Jackson "tortured" Boris and Natasha in New Zealand a couple of weeks ago shooting a World War I movie "in the trenches". They were hung from a helicopter, dangled from a crane, put on a Steadicam rig and subjected to sun, wind, dust, dirt clods from real explosions, and all sorts of other kinds of mis-treatment. I was very proud that they "took a licking and kept on ticking".

Jim

Sounds like incredibly rigorous field testing to me!!!

[M Olsen]

According to Jim...



You didn't get those facts quite right, Turnover. But I agree that the way the cameras were tested would reveal their weaknesses.



Sounds like incredibly rigorous field testing to me!!!

Reading between the lines I think my comment was close enough to the mark.. ... but I stand corrected, needless to say dialogue occurred.. plenty of others could have done the stuff in LA but arguably not with the flair or dare I say it political profile that PJ enjoys at the moment.
And he would prefer to do any project at home, that is public record.

But thanks for digging up Jim's comment, I could not find it.

Cheers

[Júlio Taubkin]

Hey Turing, without glass I managed to get a 30K priceline for camera plus 10-15K post. We'll have to wait and see if a Nikon strategy would be viable for production, and I'm only deciding after some hands on time.

But I totally understand that there are different levels of costumers and different demands. Using FCP to professionally grade footage and charge hourly for it might look a little bad, this soon. Maybe it can change in a forseeable future.

And I don't see why you would need a 5K tripod head. 2K still buys you a nice enough head and legs for 25lb, wich should be enough for a simpler package...

Cheers!

[Jess Charlton]

But thanks for digging up Jim's comment, I could not find it.

Cheers

No worries. To find posts by someone you just need to click on their name and select "find more posts by ...." Its quite useful at the moment, as many important posts get lost in all the busy activity.

[mike70]

I can't comment technically on the footage, as I'm not a DP, but as to the look of the PJ footage:
1. the sharpness/resolution was first class-I could discern no difference between what I saw and 35mm projected.
2. Overall, there was a harshness to the image, partly because the entire piece was filmed in bright sunlight. It was hard (and maybe deliberately so) to evaluate individual shots, as the piece was all action and heavily edited (explosions,etc), but I'd echo what a previous poster said about the lack of deep blacks--the image seemed a little one-dimensional, lacking richness.
3. I didn't notice any clipping, but in a few of the medium shots, when the camera would pan quickly, there seemed to be some video artifacting--there was jitter on the aerial shots, too, but I think this was due more to the mount than the medium.

This footage was designed more for pr than tech evaluation, and it will take a lot of side by side tests to probe the camera's (present) limitations. In general, I'd say that in terms of clarity, it's everything as promised; in terms of color pallette, dp's are going to want to do a lot of expermentation.

[David Mullen ASC]

Black level is more of a function in this case of the Sony 4K projector -- and it's probably the most common complaint about LCOS/D-ILA type digital projectors (contrast and blacks), in particular the Sony 4K one -- most of the D.I. suites in Hollywood, for example, use 2K DLP projectors, which seem to have better blacks. And a good 35mm print on something like Vision Premier or Fuji XD print stock will have even deeper blacks than most digital projectors can deliver.

You have to understand that a typical cinema projector has to obtain 16 footlamberts of light on a screen that is quite far away, and thus you have the design problem of using a lamphouse that can deliver enough lumens but not wash-out the on-screen image. This is the main reason why photographic print stock has such a higher gamma than negative stock. You need a very high D-max (black density) on the print for the blacks to look black after pounding a lot of light through it and then being shown on a white reflective surface.

On a digital master, "black" is more a function of setting truly black areas in the frame at "0" brightness -- but that doesn't mean it will look black when projected on a big screen unless you design a projection system that can do it.

[Steve Gibby]

On a digital master, "black" is more a function of setting truly black areas in the frame at "0" brightness -- but that doesn't mean it will look black when projected on a big screen unless you design a projection system that can do it.

True...and that is undoubtedly something that RED will keep in mind as they develop their newly-announced 4k digital projector.

[Zakaree Sandberg]

[QUOTE=turing;30323

zakaree: I'm really genuinely not trying to be an asshole but your = you're. (pet peeve, and people will judge you for it). "you longtime reduser folk" may be thinking different things, here's what I'm thinking:

I have also made money on every one of my camera purchases, so I'm not worried about getting "ripped off" :)[/QUOTE]

i was just messin around..:) From my indi broke standpoint i was just saying that u COULD do it for a lot less.. Didnt mean everyone will do it for less.. im just saying it can be done for less:)
and your right even 60 grand is a steal so no worries..

as for long time red user folk being a disease.. yes.. yes it is..
its an addiction a sickness of mine but i love it!

ps. im not an english student:bleh:

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Regardless of whether it's "there yet" or not. My clients would skoff at any app that "came with" final cut. These people are used to walking into high end suites, and colorists using fancy black magic boxes to make their footage look amazing. Most of the colorists have one word, foreign sounding names like "Pierre" or "Ricco". The clients eat that shit up! It's really not a matter of imaging quality or capabilities at all. Color will take a long time to catch on in the highend world even if it is flawless. I'll use it, It'll make my stuff look amazing, but I won't brag about it to my clients like I would with other systems.

Simple solution.... Buy some really expensive looking rack to put all your gear in. Maybe like an SGI Altix enclosure.. The Legacy Onyx RE2 40U racks still look like something out of Star Wars if you can find one. Have a custom-engraved metal name plate made with some rediculous name like "Benicio" or "Lucidity" and put that on the front of it. When clients ask just say "this is our Lucidity system we use for 'Color' work... It's new, we just got it. The whole industry is going to be using this soon." Trust me, they eat that shit up too. I've done it for a render farm. Back in '97 when the term "SGI rendered" was a huge industry buzz phrase.... I bought a used SGI rack enclosure with 42U space and a bunch of generic bearing-slide rack trays. I made a template and drilled/tapped holes in all the trays so I could screw in stand-offs and mount Pentium II motherboards to all of them along with PSUs and hard drives. Worked great, I had 20 PII systems in a blue and black SGI enclosure. Never mind I was using a dual 250MHz Pentium Pro w/512MB RAM as my workstation running 3DS Max 2 and Lightwave 5.5. Heh. Of course, I would show my clients my SGI Indigo2 Impact R10K and SGI Indy R4400 and they would drool all over themselves. But I used those mostly for software development, I would load up LW5 just because I could show them a 3D app on the things. All too funny.

[Michael Schrengohst]

Did you get a chance to see the PJ footage over at the Apple booth? Blacks looked great over on the plasma. The demo editor also had some VariCam footage. We were going back and forth between RED footage and VariCam. No comparison.

[Zach Hilton]

I also had the chance to talk to Richard for a few. When he shot, he felt that the camera's latitude at that moment was about 9 stops, but now is up to about 11 1/2. There were a couple of shots that had a nice range of lights to dark, and they held up nicely. One in particular interested me. It's a shot of the pilot in the cockpit before he takes off. He is in the shadows but well seen, and the sky and clouds are clearly visible behind him. I asked what effects, sky replacement or whatnot they did with the shot and he said nothing. That it was straight from the camera. Very impressive. The second time I watched the film I watched it with some friends who are very attached to film (not saying it's bad...but just to offer a different perspective). They felt that the footage was so clean, so crisp that it was almost jarring because we aren't used to that kind of footage. We're more used to the noise of film and such. I argued that that will slowly change when this kind of technology is more widely used. Another interesting thing was they shot night for day on a couple of the shots. Obviously they had the light power to almost compensate but that was one of the shots they did sky replacement on. Also, there was a shot that looked out of place compared to the rest of the piece. It was when the foot soldier is grabbing for the picture and the tank comes into screen. Which could be attributed to quick lighting setup, not enough time in the grading suite, among many other things. But overall...very impressive. I mentioned elsewhere also that on the effect of the camera shaking, the zoomed into the frame about 15% atleast, and it held up very well. On another shot, they zoomed into the frame in post about 40% (the shot where the pilot is looking at the birthday card) and it still looked really good. I couldn't tell until Richard told me. I think that's all I can remember for now. It will be interesting to see it tested in low-light situations and more rigorous testing. But for the most part, this film was shot during the day.

[Alexander Black]

Strongbad, much goodness of informations I with thank you appreciate this postings on internets.

I too would also like to see a proper nerdy camera test, but after the conversations I had in the booth I'm not all riled up about it. I'm quite certain they will satisfy what few remaining concerns people have.

I agree about the feel - it's quite different, but keep in mind that if you shoot something for theatrical release with the BFG (uhm, my new nickname for it) it will end up on film at less than half the resolution with some nice real film grain. To whoever posted noise != film grain, absolutely. I've seen a lot of pathetic attempts to "add noise in post" and never anything that was undetectable.

[Stephen Gentle]

Simple solution.... Buy some really expensive looking rack to put all your gear in. Maybe like an SGI Altix enclosure.. The Legacy Onyx RE2 40U racks still look like something out of Star Wars if you can find one. Have a custom-engraved metal name plate made with some rediculous name like "Benicio" or "Lucidity" and put that on the front of it. When clients ask just say "this is our Lucidity system we use for 'Color' work... It's new, we just got it. The whole industry is going to be using this soon." Trust me, they eat that shit up too. I've done it for a render farm. Back in '97 when the term "SGI rendered" was a huge industry buzz phrase.... I bought a used SGI rack enclosure with 42U space and a bunch of generic bearing-slide rack trays. I made a template and drilled/tapped holes in all the trays so I could screw in stand-offs and mount Pentium II motherboards to all of them along with PSUs and hard drives. Worked great, I had 20 PII systems in a blue and black SGI enclosure. Never mind I was using a dual 250MHz Pentium Pro w/512MB RAM as my workstation running 3DS Max 2 and Lightwave 5.5. Heh. Of course, I would show my clients my SGI Indigo2 Impact R10K and SGI Indy R4400 and they would drool all over themselves. But I used those mostly for software development, I would load up LW5 just because I could show them a 3D app on the things. All too funny.

That's a pretty cool idea... Not so much to fool clients, but it would be awesome, especially if you could fit a Mac Pro, a big RAID, and maybe a few render nodes for compositing and compressing footage.

[mike70]

Thanks, David , for that explanation of the projector system. Coupled with what Strongbad said about the plasma display (really sorry I missed that!), I'll stop worrying about blacks.

[David Mullen ASC]

Just think about it -- in video or digital systems, there is an actual numerical value for "black" that you can set any crappy image to achieve for a black area in the frame. Getting pure black to be black isn't really the problem. The problem is keeping it black at the presentation end.

Also, in the real world case of shooting dramatic scenes, often there isn't a true "black" in the frame due to ambient light, dust, flare, etc. or simply the lack of a black object... and if you attempt to set the darkest part of the frame to pure digital black, the result is artificially crushed shadow detail.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

That's a pretty cool idea... Not so much to fool clients, but it would be awesome, especially if you could fit a Mac Pro, a big RAID, and maybe a few render nodes for compositing and compressing footage.

The enclosures I mentioned are just standard racks like you would buy anywhere, so you can fit all that stuff you mentioned inside, and more. The current SGI Altix racks are kinda cool as are the older Onyx and Challenge racks since they had doors on them to hide all your innards. An Altix rack would be super-expensive right now, but older Challenge and Onyx SGI racks can be found at auctions pretty cheap. A lot of people have modded old SGI systems like the deskside Onyx, Challenge, Crimson, etc.. to house multiple PC innards too. It's geeky fun... I had an SGI Crimson as a lamp table, but when I got married, the wife made me dispose of it. Those are collectors items though, so I got more for it than I originally paid(since it still worked if you were inclined to actually plug it in).

As for "fooling the client" I've found it's best to just tell the client what they're going to get as a final product and not do too much in the way of presenting hardware and tools. When a client starts asking about the tools I use (which isn't very often), I usually just tell them straight out what I propose to use for their project, but leave it pretty open-ended. When I originally built that PC render farm into an SGI rack enclosure, it was because I could and it was fun in an excessively geeky way. When clients / visitors asked about it. I'd tell them it was indeed an SGI rack and there were 20 processors inside, each at over 200MHz and with 512MB RAM. Beyond that everyone drew their own conclusions.