Epic=Master Shots Only

[Shawn Booth]

Heard This On Set:

"I can't wait for the Epic. With it, no more shooting anything other than the master! I can zoom in and pull out the close ups and other coverage just from it!"

This producer works at a major studio and truly believes the future is just shooting the master in 5K and then "moving on"...

I understand how awesome it is that in post we can repo our shots for a variety of reasons but I can't believe this mentality exists...

[Liam Hall]

How would he do a reverse? Does he think there's a button for that?

:)

[Lee Saxon]

Yeah I can see why you're so shocked, the major studios were all about the artistry of cinema before. Just ask Jerry Bruckheimer.

This is a new low.

[Noah Kadner]

That's done routinely in 35mm already- what's the big change?

Noah

[Shawn Booth]

That's done routinely in 35mm already- what's the big change?

Noah

Really? I have never heard of, or seen before - not that that means it's not done... What productions ONLY shoot the master and pull coverage out of it?

As far as the reverse, I actually mumbled that to the DP and the producer overheard. His response was, "screw the reverse. I don't have time anymore for coverage. The crews are too expensive as is..."
:banghead:

[Robert Craig]

The producer should be beaten and get into some other buisness, cinema is art and if he's not willing to "paint" throw him out.

[Shawn Nelson]

Many thoughts. First, yes, said producer is an idiot. Though caveat that with for certain specific shots it could work (just to vary the coverage). Double caveat is that i dont think EpicX 5k is sufficient resolution to do those types of re-frames, maybe 645.

[Jens Jakob Thorsen]

I always do that. Just shoot the whole feature in a wideshot and fix the rest in post.
It only takes 3hrs to shoot and it works really well.
I think you guys should really take this as a serious discussion!
(Maybe the end product is a little boring to the audience)

[jimhare]

And not just resolution, but focus becomes that much more critical as you crop in. What looks sharp full screen falls apart quickly when you close the gap.


Many thoughts. First, yes, said producer is an idiot. Though caveat that with for certain specific shots it could work (just to vary the coverage). Double caveat is that i dont think EpicX 5k is sufficient resolution to do those types of re-frames, maybe 645.

[Shawn Booth]

I always do that. Just shoot the whole feature in a wideshot and fix the rest in post.
It only takes 3hrs to shoot and it works really well.
I think you guys should really take this as a serious discussion!
(Maybe the end product is a little boring to the audience)

Tell me you're kidding...

[Brad Webb]

As far as the reverse, I actually mumbled that to the DP and the producer overheard. His response was, "screw the reverse. I don't have time anymore for coverage. The crews are too expensive as is..."
:banghead:

Oh yeah, because all us crew guys and gals are making $20 million a picture. :nopity:

[Jerrod Cordell]

I remember Dino talking about how some of the shots in the Fray music video for "You Found Me" were wide shots cropped down. The shots were still wide but since they were on rooftops I guess it was hard to zoom in that much so they just cropped it in post.

Now of course I could never imagine doing a whole shoot with master shots, but I can see a use for it.

[Chris Parker]

this is NOT a common practice on big shows. not when they shoot film. not when they shoot red. and it won't be when they shoot epic. it is used sometimes, but no more than that.

[Alex G. Cohn]

And not just resolution, but focus becomes that much more critical as you crop in. What looks sharp full screen falls apart quickly when you close the gap.
Also there's the skew at the sides of the wide angle shots you need to worry about.

I really don't think this is feasible unless you're fine with your subjects being distorted in their close-ups.

[Joel Kaye]

As far as the reverse, I actually mumbled that to the DP and the producer overheard. His response was, "screw the reverse. I don't have time anymore for coverage.

I'd have to see it to believe it. Doesn't sound like moviemaking to me. I've had that argument before and my position is "what ONE angle covers this scene?". I like the non speaking person covered. I like facial expressions. I like reactions.

OTOH, My brother met John Huston a couple years before he passed on and John said something to the effect of "There aren't any directors in Hollywood anymore. These guys shoot everything and choose later. They are choosers not Directors."

I think I like what Clint Eastwood does. Generally grabs his coverage first and then decides one main angle for each actor will be their performance angle and shoots that. 1 or 2 takes. He's Directing, not choosing. But he works with great actors.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Tell me you're kidding...

Ohh NO!!! he's serious!!!

LOL

[J. Bernard Vallon]

people (who didnt know what they were talking about) said they'd be able to do this with the R1 as well. Nothing new. It comes down to optics, and when explained frankly, anyone can understand the reasoning. just look at your producer and say:

"its not that easy. if you crop a tight out of a master you'll loose the optical characteristics of 35mm, which we are paying a lot of money for. your film will look like it was shot on 16mm on all the close ups, and you'll have wasted a lot of money on the camera package"

then they'll go back to trying to save money by other means, not wanting to be guilty of the greatest sin: wasting money.

[Wesley Scoggins]

I imagine he was probably talking about the 9K or 28K Epic, I mean remember that Epic isn't just one camera.

With the 9K I could see you easily magnifying the image up to 4 times, and keeping a pretty high quality for "close-ups". With the 28K, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to get SUPER close-ups and render it out to 4K without major quality loss.

I doubt he think that that'll just be what they'll do for EVERY shot, but I can see for speed sake simply filming a scene from the master angle, and then readjusting in post.

[Andy Jarosz]

Kill the motor a second--

A producer at a major studio can't wait for EPIC? Congrats, RED...

[Shawn Booth]

No, he's talking about his friend's EPIC-X...

I keep thinking about the shot just "pushing in" instead of changing camera position... Fear it's gonna feel flat and stale...

Sucks the life outta ya after a minute. You work hard only to have your work completely butchered and you being blamed for the result...

...whatever your thoughts on the producer, he's producing and working AND paying the bills...

...times really are tough...

[Felix K.]

Like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2AGvj2cdlY

Totally fascinating here, but not for a whole movie...

We actually forgot one reverse shot in my first short (or recorded over it; nobody knows anymore). Almost killed me in the editing room! how about shooting everything infront of greenscreen take stock fotos of the actors from behind and then composite everything later. You could actually probably shoot several movies in one day that way...

:sarcasm:

[Michael Totten]

Heard This On Set:

"I can't wait for the Epic. With it, no more shooting anything other than the master! I can zoom in and pull out the close ups and other coverage just from it!"

This producer works at a major studio and truly believes the future is just shooting the master in 5K and then "moving on"...

I understand how awesome it is that in post we can repo our shots for a variety of reasons but I can't believe this mentality exists...

I'd pay money to witness a producer make this suggestion to someone like Roger Deakins or Emanuel Lubezki.

"Don't worry Mr. Deakins we'll just punch in for the C/U in post ...".

[Gavin Greenwalt]

One of the shots in the House premiere needed 5k to push in/resample. They tried to make the picture rotate (I think) in post instead of actually rotating the camera. The shot was WAY softer than any other shot and I'm pretty sure House is still shot on film. But must not have scanned any higher than 1080p.

[Steve Sherrick]

Coppola and Murch used the technique recently in Youth Without Youth. And that was shot with F900s I believe. Neither one thought it would work given the 1080 resolution but in the end it saved some shots for them. Coppola said he could see himself using the technique again in the future.

But I don't think too many people would seriously go into a major production thinking they'd shoot everything in master and then just zoom in for tighter shots. Red has a lot of resolution, but it's not a miracle worker. That strategy in general just seems flawed. You'll end up spending money in post trying to fix shots that are soft, distorted, etc. Just get it right to begin with, and use the technology effectively. The savvy producers know when to cut corners and when not too.

[jimhare]

Agreed. Just go 1:1 and think whether you would be happy if your entire movie looked like that. I don't think I would!

But I have certainly saved a missing shot by punching in. I have also created dolly shots, but only at 720. But don't think I'd dare shooting that way intentionally.

[Brad Webb]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

[Noah Kadner]

I'm not saying there are 35mm productions who shoot only a master and repo every close up off that. But do mediums get repurposed into close ups once in a while by the editor and turned into visual effects shots because the director didn't think to grab a closeup or didn't have time to- you betcha. That said, of course the concept of shooting everything in a wide and making that work cinematographically is just asinine. :) It has to be used very sparingly because the effect is jarring. Without a change in camera angle, a punch in can have the effect of looking like a jump cut.

But then again think of motion capture. That's the same idea in a way- just a completely different methodology. The camera angles in Avatar for example are worked out shot by shot long after 'production' was completed.

Noah

[Brad Webb]

I can see this being a huge way to cut out the B cam on TV shows. They are basically doing the same thing, running two cameras one with the wide, the other a medium. But thinking you can shoot only a master is dumb.

Besides, it won't last long once a few prominent actors and actresses go apeshit after seeing how terrible they look in the zoomed in from the wide shot. cheating the lighting and diffusion in the close up can literally save face.

[Andrew Gentle]

TV journalists are always zooming their footage in and it gets on my nerves watching it in SD!

[Stronz Vanderploeg]

I'd say perspective also plays a huge role. It's that subtle difference you get between zooming in vs. actually moving the camera in closer. That angle shift does make a difference and just cropping the footage wouldn't cut it.

Have I done it? Sure, but only sparingly and usually only if I have to.



*Hooray for first post. New around here but have just been reading for awhile.

[Jeff Coatney]

Heard This On Set:

"I can't wait for the Epic. With it, no more shooting anything other than the master! I can zoom in and pull out the close ups and other coverage just from it!"

Someone should put this guy to the test. We'll see if he could explain why the "coverage" is out of focus half the time.

[David Wyatt]

In general I don't like the sound of all your "close-ups" having the same deeper depth of field characteristics as your wide shots (I like the shallower depth of close-ups...makes you really concentrate on the performance). This "one-shot-to-rule-them-all" approach could however work as a particular effect/approach for the right script though....I'm not sure what effect this would create...continuity would be very fluid between shots :001_unsure: (don't tell that producer though or he'll do away with the script supervisor next :laugh:)

[Vince K]

I'm not saying there are 35mm productions who shoot only a master and repo every close up off that. But do mediums get repurposed into close ups once in a while by the editor and turned into visual effects shots because the director didn't think to grab a closeup or didn't have time to- you betcha.

I do it from time to time for clients who 'missed a shot'....and it works generally, but I don't like doing it. If it's not done right, the shots can come off looking cheap and cropped.

[Alex G. Cohn]

I'd say perspective also plays a huge role. It's that subtle difference you get between zooming in vs. actually moving the camera in closer. That angle shift does make a difference and just cropping the footage wouldn't cut it.

Have I done it? Sure, but only sparingly and usually only if I have to.



*Hooray for first post. New around here but have just been reading for awhile.
In my opinion, that is the main problem with this approach. I have done several pan-n-scans where I've had to crop in on different parts of the image, and some wide angle shots have tremendous amounts of skew at the sides.

Sometimes I've actually had to rotate the cropped shots to compensate for the vertical lines leaning too far to the sides, but there's still distortion in the rotated shots. It's just not quite as noticeable as the entire image skewing to the left or right.

And if we're talking about using a master shot to capture everything in the scene, it is going to have to be pretty wide angle.

[DS Williams]

In general I don't like the sound of all your "close-ups" having the same deeper depth of field characteristics as your wide shots (I like the shallower depth of close-ups...makes you really concentrate on the performance). This "one-shot-to-rule-them-all" approach could however work as a particular effect/approach for the right script though....I'm not sure what effect this would create...continuity would be very fluid between shots :001_unsure: (don't tell that producer though or he'll do away with the script supervisor next :laugh:)


Isn't it true that, after zooming in and cropping the wide master (with deep DOF), the resulting close ups would actually contain shallow DOF because of image magnification?

Have you seen those tests where the 28mm wide was cropped to produce the same framing/perspective as the 85mm and the DOF looked equally as shallow, with a bit less background magnification

[jimhare]

No it won't. The FOV will be different but the depth will be identical. You tend to see quite a bit of depth in wider shots, where closer shots are shallow, either because of proximity to the subject or a longer lens being used. If I crop in, anything in the background will not be any more or less in focus.

I get what you're saying, that the magnification plays a part, but the actual depth of what is in focus, stays the same.



Isn't it true that, after zooming in and cropping the wide master (with deep DOF), the resulting close ups would actually contain shallow DOF because of image magnification?

Have you seen those tests where the 28mm wide was cropped to produce the same framing/perspective as the 85mm and the DOF looked equally as shallow, with a bit less background magnification

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

How about hyperfocal distance of the lens?
If you're on a 25mm and focused to infinity that won't make for much pretty close-ups.

Anyway, as absurd as the original statement this thread quoted really is, it's nice to know that sometimes medium becomes close-ups and what not.

Since I never worked with a camera that gave me enough resolution for that, I never considered. And I don't wanna consider now... Technology spoil people in bad ways sometimes :P.

Also agree about the perspective factor, moving the camera will always make it look better.

[Thomas Koch]

I did this on a 1080p commercial the other day. Shoot all wide (green screen) reposition the 1080 frame in post. Non actors and limited time.

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Oh, and since I have my new RED 300mm ..... I can shoot the whole thing from my hotel room window.....

Jochen

[Ken Waller]

Re: "..... I can shoot the whole thing from my hotel room window....." LOL
Wasn't ROPE shot in 8 Master shots? Re: Avatar. James Cameron did reframing on 100% of T-2 using Super-35 but it was not shot in one wide shot. Also I thought on Avatar he had a handheld camera to work out the Mocap with a real time previz view of what the shot would look like on set and was not making it up later after shooting was done.

[Shawn Booth]

MOCAP and shooting in the volume is COMPLETELY different than shooting a wide master and then cropping in for coverage.

I understand repo of frame.

I do not understand this guy's sensibilities...

[Charles Angus]

No it won't. The FOV will be different but the depth will be identical. You tend to see quite a bit of depth in wider shots, where closer shots are shallow, either because of proximity to the subject or a longer lens being used. If I crop in, anything in the background will not be any more or less in focus.

I get what you're saying, that the magnification plays a part, but the actual depth of what is in focus, stays the same.

You're confusing depth of field and background blur, as people often do.

For the same framing of the subject, depth of field will be roughly equal on a wide and a long (with some caveats, but that's the general rule). The blurriness of the background is not necessarily related to the depth of field. Depth of field describes the sharp areas.

Check this out:
http://toothwalker.org/optics/dof.html

[Charles Angus]

Heard This On Set:

"I can't wait for the Epic. With it, no more shooting anything other than the master! I can zoom in and pull out the close ups and other coverage just from it!"

This producer works at a major studio and truly believes the future is just shooting the master in 5K and then "moving on"...

I understand how awesome it is that in post we can repo our shots for a variety of reasons but I can't believe this mentality exists...

I'm glad I don't know that guy.

Come to think of it, he should be glad I don't know him either.

[Martin Ubilluz]

this is the worst thing i have ever herd of shooting a master and then move on ..... thats not cinematography thats lazyness any one who uses this method will never be respected you could use a master if you want all your shots to be flat true cinematographers want to get different things out of every shot not just an identical shot just closer this is the craziest thread every in the history of red this is not what 5k is for!

[Emiliano Ranzani]

Heard This On Set:

"I can't wait for the Epic. With it, no more shooting anything other than the master! I can zoom in and pull out the close ups and other coverage just from it!"

This producer works at a major studio and truly believes the future is just shooting the master in 5K and then "moving on"...

I understand how awesome it is that in post we can repo our shots for a variety of reasons but I can't believe this mentality exists...

Funnily enough, that's the same idea that came out when I spoke of the bigger Epic brains to a fellow cameraman, who was shocked to hear about resolution going from 9 to 28k.
We also theorized that, with so many cheap producers around, having that much resolution could be dangerous: now I see we were far from being wrong...

[Ace]

I think the producer is being creative.. Sure its not ideal, but theres a creative spirit in that intention. Robert Rodriguez would often do this kinda stuff to mimic multiple shots etc..

[Dominic Cochran]

I have also created dolly shots, but only at 720.

I think you mean you created zooms.

But yeah, agreed this technique should only be used in emergency situations. It's also handy to zoom in just a bit to do some image stabilization sometimes.

[Emiliano Ranzani]

I've seen this kind of stuff for ages now in DV: post-produced zooms or even small sideway dollies. Most of the time, they sucked as the format wasn't allowing it.

Probably, with higher resolutions, it will catch on with music videos...

[Johan Malmsten]

The producer is probably a fan of swedish director Roy Anderson I presume... He only shoots in wide angles and almost never edits his scenes. Imagine a scene like this done with the repositioning-technique added to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedB_Ye2O5A

[DCC Erickson]

The producer is probably a fan of swedish director Roy Anderson I presume... He only shoots in wide angles and almost never edits his scenes. Imagine a scene like this done with the repositioning-technique added to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedB_Ye2O5A

Wow, after googling I think I must see this. I like those painterly master shots (Also Tartovsky's snail-speed tracking shots). When a film needs that look, it's an amazing effect - like witnessing scenes from a real perspective. Horses for courses, I guess. Two pops and a master works great for Rom Coms.

[Billy Summers]

I know a Director-DP team that subscribe to this philosophy exclusively. It's odd, but they find alot of success with it-

-B