Screening at Cine Gear Expo today

[Kevin Halverson]

Went to the screening this morning. Despite some poor logistical planning on the part of the registration people (they didn't open registration early enough to get into the screening) it was well attended and the audience was very receptive. Seeing the material on a decent sized screen from 4k projection certainly reinforces my optimism for the camera. Now, all we need is some shipping dates and everyone will be happy!

The expo in general was good this year and I found a few things that alone made the trip worthwhile.

[Eric MacIver]

Agreed... Congrats Red. Looked great on that huge screen. Sharp from edge-to-edge.

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

Am I the only one who hasn´t seen this footage?

(Joking, I guess I have to wait till IBC)

[Ralph Wong]

Even though the event was a little poorly planned by the Cinegear registration people, it actually worked out for the ones attending the RED screening. Because there was such a back up in the line, they let all the people who were there for RED just walk up to the front and into the Wadsworth theater.

As far as any new announcements, there wasn't any which was a little disappointing, but most of us were there to see the Peter Jackson short. In some ways, I thought the footage was inconsistent. Most of the shots looked fantastic. However, a few shots looked kind of flat and video like. Ted explained that the footage had gone through an initial color timing, but they were going to go back and really fine tune it in a few weeks. I am really eager to see the results. For the shots that looked good... they really looked good. I am now completely confident that this camera will deliver the image quality I want. Is the image as good as 35mm film? From what I saw today, not yet. Of course, this could be fixed by some coloring tweaks and filters. Since the RED team is also improving the camera in these next few months, the quality could catch 35mm real soon. Just have to wait and see.

[I Bloom]

Even though the event was a little poorly planned by the Cinegear registration people, it actually worked out for the ones attending the RED screening. Because there was such a back up in the line, they let all the people who were there for RED just walk up to the front and into the Wadsworth theater.

As far as any new announcements, there wasn't any which was a little disappointing, but most of us were there to see the Peter Jackson short. In some ways, I thought the footage was inconsistent. Most of the shots looked fantastic. However, a few shots looked kind of flat and video like. Ted explained that the footage had gone through an initial color timing, but they were going to go back and really fine tune it in a few weeks. I am really eager to see the results. For the shots that looked good... they really looked good. I am now completely confident that this camera will deliver the image quality I want. Is the image as good as 35mm film? From what I saw today, not yet. Of course, this could be fixed by some coloring tweaks and filters. Since the RED team is also improving the camera in these next few months, the quality could catch 35mm real soon. Just have to wait and see.

Can you be more specific about what you didn't like about the images, and which images specifically stood out to you?

In other words is the inconsistancy the camera or just the shots? The camera and the recording medium are just one variable.

For example I had a short screen at a festival recently before a feature, afterwards I was out to lunch the director, actors, and friends (not technical people) and they couldn't believe it when I told them that ours had been shot on HD while the feature was Super16. They thought the Super16 was video, perhaps because it had a lack of lighting, consistently deep depth of field, and, I felt, very conservative lense choices.

IBloom

[Warren Kommers]

The shots were inconsistent because the sun was clearly going in and out of the clouds and had the schedule not been so ambitous and certain shots were actually lit by more than a piece of foam core it would be a ton better. IT'S DEFINATELY NOT THE CAMERA. Just lack of lighting and a amazing amount of coverage for two days. People had some comments but myself and another experienced DP could tell what was going on for the apparent short comings. I consider myself very critical and I definately liked what I saw. We've shot everything from Viper uncompressed to 35mm DI's. I do wish I had seen a night exterior though. Oh well. I'm optimistic. I also think the look of 4k projection is also somehting that is a little new for people still. It's different and unfamiliar. That shit printed on Vision Premiere would blow your socks off I bet. The rest of the day at the other booths I was like.... "Sony F23?.....Sleepy train to Snooorsville".

[Brook Willard]

It was fun to see it on a screen bigger than 16'x9' :)

I loved the mob scene outside when Brian walked out with the camera... classic red excitement.

[Alexander Nikishin]

I caught a guy trying to sneak out screening footage, I believe I deserve a reward! :umm:

[Matt Uhry]

I was at the screening at the Wadsworth and yes there are some shots in "Crossing the Line" that don't look as great as other shots that look frankly amazing, but the speed that these guys must have been working at would yield those kind of results in any format and some of it could be fixed by a second color correction pass. Nothing to fret about, while perhaps not quite having the dynamic range of film it's very good and sounds like it's going to improve a bit before the cameras ship.

The guys who walked out with were VFX DP's and VFX Supes on little movies like Spiderman 3, Apocalypto, Batman Begins, etc. and they were impressed as hell with the footage and lamented that they did not have earlier reservations.

There was not much new information in Ted's powerpoint for the folks who have been keeping up on this list. Redcode's data rate is now shown as 24mbps at 4k and the 18-50 was shown with contacts for the cooke /i system. Did anyone else pick up any new info?

The rest of Cinegear was good, I mostly caught up with old friends and looked at brackets for the panasonic BTH L1700W which Marty Oppenheimer seemed to have the nicest. PS technic had a cool low tabletop dolly that I think I'll rent on an upcoming shoot.

Matt Uhry
mattuhry.com
http://fuzby.com/fuzbyblog/cinegear.jpg

[Warren Kommers]

I was at the screening at the Wadsworth and yes there are some shots in "Crossing the Line" that don't look as great as other shots that look frankly amazing, but the speed that these guys must have been working at would yield those kind of results in any format and some of it could be fixed by a second color correction pass.

Just remeber. Not even Yoda at a 8k Da Vinci, color correcting his ass off can still fix lighting inconsistecies. Not yet at least.

[EugeneWei]

I dragged a few of my film school classmates with me to the Cinegear Red preso today. After nearly expiring in the sun in the registration line because they refused to open the gates until some unknown people moved their cars, we were allowed to skip the registration line to make the Red seminar.

I didn't see any info or pictures in the slide show that I hadn't already seen here on the boards or at the Red website except perhaps a new photo of the 18-50mm T3 zoom. Seeing the preso and all the information presented at once, though, drilled home for me just how important it is to the whole Red team to make the entire 4K filmmaking process affordable for the indie filmmaker (camera body, lenses, post-production). If that truly is their mission, then I suspect they will keep infiltrating various production gear markets with lower-priced, high quality products of their own label. I think that overarching mission is more exciting to me than even the camera itself.

One slide Ted should add, I think, is an X-Y scatter plot that has price as the X-axis and some rough way of summarizing quality on the Y-axis. Then he could plot the Red against other popular cameras, both film and digital. I realize there's no one easy way to summarize quality, but I do think you'd see that even a crude representation would show the Red as a huge outlier on the resulting value curve. Even if you don't think the Red is superior to film or some other digital cameras, you have to admit that if it proves reliable and capable then companies like Sony and Panasonic and JVC will be forced to rethink their product matrices.

The preso ended with Crossing the Line played from a 4K projector. The short is set to temp music from James Newton Howard's score from King Kong. The lack of grain in the footage is so striking--some of the shots looked like some sort of new digital watercolor. There were only a few shots, like one looking into the bright sky as two planes zipped by, where I thought the higher latitude of film would have seen more into the shadows and given the shot some more pop, but that's just my very novice opinion. Ted hinted that the dynamic range of the Red would increase and perhaps eclipse film someday (no promises that way, but I got the feeling they really really want to get there). Overall I was blown away at how smooth it all looked. It has some of film's dreamlike texture even if the latitude is a few stops short. I was also pleased to hear the famous Wilhelm scream incorporated into the sound mix. =) Ted said he was going to NZ in 3 weeks or so to check out a new color grading of the short.

People mobbed Ted and the camera outside the theater, snapping photos like it was Lindsay Lohan on the red carpet. My classmates and I left discussing how we much more we could take on in student loans to split a Red to shoot all our films next year. If you add up how much we all spent shooting our shorts on 16mm this year (even with donations and student discounts up and down the production and post-production workflow), it's not such a crazy idea. I love film (Kodak let me shoot some 50D on an Arri 235 in the afternoon today which was a lot of fun) but if our school replaced its HVX200's with a Red in a year or two we'd all be fighting in the hallways to get our hands on it for our thesis films.

Eugene

[Jeff Coatney]

Sorry folks, but I gotta vent. You may find this a little whiney, but I believe I make a valid point here.

I could not believe how un-prepared and unorganized the logistics and facilities were at this show. The parking, although ample, was chaotic at best and getting back to my car on the shuttle bus took longer than walking. The credentials queue was catastrophically understaffed and poorly managed, resulting in extremely long line(s).

I thought I'd miss Ted's presentation altogether when, in a mad, desperate improvisation, the event staff let people into the Wadsworth to see the RED show prior to getting a badge. After the show was over we were shoo'd out to get in line AGAIN to get our badge. The total line wait for me was 45min+. Others waited a lot longer.

I bring this up because for me it underscores the underlying attitude in the Cinegear Organizers against efficiency, innovation and a sense of user-experience. This opinion does not extend to the many examples of fantastic gear and technology that was on display, it is more of an observation of what I see as a complacent, fiscally-deranged industry trade-show satisfied with doing the minimum, the absolute minimum, to provide for the comfort and goals of the people attending the show.

This trade show gets a poor grade in FACILITATING COMMERCE between exhibitor and attendee. Sure, most folks are there to gawk at the cool tech and gear, but some people are there to BUY or at least get info on what they will buy. Cinegear provided that all-important ammenities-free environment that (at least in my own case) left this attendee just wanting to get the hell out of there. I can only imagine what kind of mood I'd have been in if I dropped ten large while I was there.

On the one hand you have beautiful spokesmodels demonstrating incredible technology (the Exhibitors) contrasted with atrocious foot-traffic patterns, limited food and beverage options, practically non-existant clean, usable, restroom facilities, seemingly unorganized parking shuttles and daringly rude event staff (the Organizers).

I had such a negative experience just getting my badge, finding a restroom, getting food (Waiting in TWO lines!) and having to stand up to eat it (a knife, a fork and a plate pretty much demand a flat surface to sit on-- my lap wasn't an option, I didn't want grass stains) I finally ended up leaving before seeing all the exhibitors I planned to. ARRRGGGHHHH!

Any other trade show I've ever been to, even the modestly sized ones, have had some degree of respect for the attendees. You must provide for basic human comfort and dignity.

If I were an exhibitor, paying the kind of money they have to pay to A.) ship their gear to the show and B.) Rent the booth space, not to mention hotels and food for their peeps, I'd be pissed. I don't know how many people had the level of experience I had, but I talked with several people while waiting in the unnecessary lines and we were singing the same song.

How the hell are you gonna sell a piece of equipment that costs tens of thousands of dollars in some cases when your prospective buyers are cranky, irritable and have been downright abused by the way the facility is managed?

"This is my eighty thousand dollar robotic crane, sir. Feel free to relieve yourself in our half-gallon-capacity-biohazard-toaster-oven-porta-potty while I write up your order. I'll even throw in a tetanus shot if you buy two."

User Experience is Money! Provide a positive experience and you will see positive results! Get it together next year folks and stop wasting people's time and money.

How the hell does all this relate to RED? I have grown to appreciate the great deal of focus and energy RED Team has given User Experience as it's applied to the design of the camera, customer relations, their inclusionary, democratic philosophy (see Ted, I did listen), the pricing and service, it all adds up to a very positive, respectful relationship. I'm ready to buy into the whole thing. I'm in a pro-active, deal-closing frame of mind with regard to RED ONE.

This mind-set must be carefully cultivated in order to open the buyer's wallet on a big-ticket expense. I just feel like the Organizers of Cinegear Expo dropped the ball today. Maybe they could take a page from the RED customer-relations handbook and realize there is no detail that can't be improved upon.

[Casey Green]

It was great seeing a lot of you guys out there at CineGear. Although waiting in line in the hot sun was a terrible way to start the day, I must say that I really enjoyed the venue and atmosphere of the outdoor style show.

It was also nice to run into crew members from various shows I have worked on in the past. You don't necessarily get that as much at NAB since some people are working and can't make the show or it's just too big of an event.

Also, it was refreshing to not have every booth blasting their demo-reel music. Instead, the event managers had good music playing on the sound system throughout the show, (such as Eric Clapton), which made for a nice vibe.

Again, nice to see you all. I've got some pictures from the show, if anyone is interested...