OFFHOLLYWOOD rolls on world's first 4.5K 3D feature!

[Mark L. Pederson]

I'm down here in New Orleans for the first couple days of principal photography on the 3D feature film THE MORTICIAN - shooting in 4.5K Recode 42 which we provided cameras, Element Technica 3D rigs and support.

Here's a few more details and a bunch of snapshots from shoot day 1 -

http://offhollywood.squarespace.com/blog/

[Kwan Khan]

Congratulation Mark and crew.

[Chris Parker]

congrats mark! very cool.

[Eric J. Johnston]

Nice Mark! I'm happy we were able to get the 3 axis ARRI wireless 3D system up and running on this feature. Say hello to Method from Redman and myself!

[Jeetu Chawla]

Inspiring... Motivating... So much more to learn from...
Congratulations! :cheers2:

[Sanjin Jukic]

Congrats Mark.

It looks so big...

[Steve Gal]

I hope everything goes smoothly. Good Luck Mark.

[Petri Teittinen]

It looks so big...
That's what she said! BA-DUM-PSSH!

I'll get me coat.

[KETCH ROSSi]

Congrats Mark, sounds like a great project.

[Eren Ozkural]

Congrats Mark, keep us posted :)

[Tim Whitcomb]

Congrats Mark, man those are some sci-fi cam set ups!

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Wow Congrats!

Good luck with the shoot!!

We have also been shooting a 3D feature called Julia X here in Sherevport, LA for the last 6 weeks. We also using build 21 and the transvideo monitor. We decided to shoot 4k 16:9 as 4.5k was not the aspect ratio the director wanted. From the pics looks like we using the same lenses too!

I'm the DIT/camera assistant. The DP/Stereographer is Jason Goodman of 21st century 3D. We are using 21st Century 3D beam splitters. We wrap on Nov 25th. If you need any additional help, my schedule will be open : ) But it sound like you have a great team out there. Nawlins in so much fun! A bunch of our crew went down there for Halloween....

Call me if you need anything 310.592.8450. Like I said I'll be in Shereveport til the 25th...

We shooting in some amazing locations, I wish I could post some pictures!

[Hrvoje Simic]

Great news Mark, congrats.

[Vlado Struhar]

Wow Congrats!

Good luck with the shoot!!

We have also been shooting a 3D feature called Julia X here in Sherevport, LA for the last 6 weeks. We also using build 21 and the transvideo monitor. We decided to shoot 4k 16:9 as 4.5k was not the aspect ratio the director wanted. From the pics looks like we using the same lenses too!

I'm the DIT/camera assistant. The DP/Stereographer is Jason Goodman of 21st century 3D. We are using 21st Century 3D beam splitters. We wrap on Nov 25th. If you need any additional help, my schedule will be open : ) But it sound like you have a great team out there. Nawlins in so much fun! A bunch of our crew went down there for Halloween....

Call me if you need anything 310.592.8450. Like I said I'll be in Shereveport til the 25th...

We shooting in some amazing locations, I wish I could post some pictures!

Pedro,

what system are you using for 3D Video Assist?

[C.H.Haskell]

THanks for the updates Mark! Congrats and keep it coming.
cheers.

[Luis Ortiz]

Congratulations, Mark. I wish you the best and I look forward to seeing more photos.

I attached a photo from your blog that shows someone working on the footage from a laptop. What software is he using?

Thanks!

[Vlado Struhar]

Congratulations, Mark. I wish you the best and I look forward to seeing more photos.

I attached a photo from your blog that shows someone working on the footage from a laptop. What software is he using?

Thanks!

Luis, it's not a laptop. It is QTAKE HD Software running on MacPro & AJA Kona3.
It provides Live 3D processing of dual SDI stream, 3D Playback and 3D Editing on set.

www.qtakehd.com

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Pedro,

what system are you using for 3D Video Assist?

Well I've used qtake on a 3D music video, works great. Congrats on a great product BTW. It was suggested to production, as was the Rave 3D Live system. But neither solution was used.

So besides the transvideo monitor we do not have a 3D video assist. In the end it's no big deal really. The only person that needs to see a 2 camera overlay (transvideo) is the stereographer anyway.

Frankly, (no offense) I've found that 3D viewing on set for anybody other that the stereographer can sometimes be a detrimental. It tends to slow things down because "people" tend to huddle around. It distracts people from thier jobs and most importantly sooner or later makes everyone think they are a 3D expert and sooner or later making the stereographers job much harder! hehe....

Most importantly on a movie like ours that has lots of set shifts in difficult locations setting up a large DLP TV, mac pro computer/Rack unit etc etc.....can be problematic to impossible. We shooting in remote fields, swamps, on boats, ankle deep mud, abandoned buildings etc.... Looking back at some of our locations just moving the camera was a challenge at times. It would of been extremely difficult to transport and setup in some of our shooting conditions. I mean we have been shooting under constant rain and if it was not raining we were making rain! We have been battling water all the time. GFI was working overtime and power was up and down at times.

We do have a data management center back at our apartment were we verify and back up the days data to Raid servers/drives. There we view 2D dailies and can view 3D dailies using FCP and dashwood plugin connected to a 60" DLP. In this calm controlled environment only select people can review 3D dailies. The system has worked out great for the production and for the camera crew.

Naturally, having a bigger budget all this could be different. Money makes everything easier! More crew to move equipment around, dedicated video assist team etc....So I think in the end that is probably what will determine alot of what I'm talking about. For the budget and crew size on our movie, I think our solution is working out great.

I've been on some set's this last 2 years I've been working with 3D productions, where time spent watching and discussing 3D playback on set could of been better spent actually shooting and making the day. Just my opinion. Hire a talented experienced stereographer and trust his stereo decisions. A experienced stereographer can setup shots just based on visible parallax on a overlay, 3D glasses not even need be on set really.

naturally before I come off a bit negative, there are a LOT of reasons to have it as well! Producers can see on set exactly what there spending all that extra money on......cast can really see and "get" how 3D is adding to thier performance or if they need to tone something down etc... set dressers can put on glasses and get inspiration or adjust things in the scene that may be distracting in a 3D sense..........like I said, there are also lots of reasons to have it as well!

To me, it's kinda of the same debate as having on set coloring.....

In the end, each situation is different. But as I pointed out there is alot to consider. Sometimes just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Adjust your tools to your budget and or situation!

Time to got to sleep! 8:30pm call today......all this night shooting is killing me. 1 more week to go....

[Vlado Struhar]

Well I've used qtake on a 3D music video, works great. Congrats on a great product BTW. It was suggested to production, as was the Rave 3D Live system. But neither solution was used.

So besides the transvideo monitor we do not have a 3D video assist. In the end it's no big deal really. The only person that needs to see a 2 camera overlay (transvideo) is the stereographer anyway.

Frankly, (no offense) I've found that 3D viewing on set for anybody other that the stereographer can sometimes be a detrimental. It tends to slow things down because "people" tend to huddle around. It distracts people from thier jobs and most importantly sooner or later makes everyone think they are a 3D expert and sooner or later making the stereographers job much harder! hehe....

Most importantly on a movie like ours that has lots of set shifts in difficult locations setting up a large DLP TV, mac pro computer/Rack unit etc etc.....can be problematic to impossible. We shooting in remote fields, swamps, on boats, ankle deep mud, abandoned buildings etc.... Looking back at some of our locations just moving the camera was a challenge at times. It would of been extremely difficult to transport and setup in some of our shooting conditions. I mean we have been shooting under constant rain and if it was not raining we were making rain! We have been battling water all the time. GFI was working overtime and power was up and down at times.

We do have a data management center back at our apartment were we verify and back up the days data to Raid servers/drives. There we view 2D dailies and can view 3D dailies using FCP and dashwood plugin connected to a 60" DLP. In this calm controlled environment only select people can review 3D dailies. The system has worked out great for the production and for the camera crew.

Naturally, having a bigger budget all this could be different. Money makes everything easier! More crew to move equipment around, dedicated video assist team etc....So I think in the end that is probably what will determine alot of what I'm talking about. For the budget and crew size on our movie, I think our solution is working out great.

I've been on some set's this last 2 years I've been working with 3D productions, where time spent watching and discussing 3D playback on set could of been better spent actually shooting and making the day. Just my opinion. Hire a talented experienced stereographer and trust his stereo decisions. A experienced stereographer can setup shots just based on visible parallax on a overlay, 3D glasses not even need be on set really.

naturally before I come off a bit negative, there are a LOT of reasons to have it as well! Producers can see on set exactly what there spending all that extra money on......cast can really see and "get" how 3D is adding to thier performance or if they need to tone something down etc... set dressers can put on glasses and get inspiration or adjust things in the scene that may be distracting in a 3D sense..........like I said, there are also lots of reasons to have it as well!

To me, it's kinda of the same debate as having on set coloring.....

In the end, each situation is different. But as I pointed out there is alot to consider. Sometimes just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Adjust your tools to your budget and or situation!

Time to got to sleep! 8:30pm call today......all this night shooting is killing me. 1 more week to go....

It is true that low budget movies can't afford extra time to play around with
image processing tools on set.

However, usually it is a good policy to check things while shooting and avoid headaches in post.

Good luck with the last week, btw!

[Joey R.]

Mark its great to hear that things are going so well with our rig!! Congrats!

[Mark L. Pederson]

Frankly, (no offense) I've found that 3D viewing on set for anybody other that the stereographer can sometimes be a detrimental. It tends to slow things down because "people" tend to huddle around. It distracts people from thier jobs and most importantly sooner or later makes everyone think they are a 3D expert and sooner or later making the stereographers job much harder! hehe....

Is your stereographer pulling IO & convergence?

[Mark L. Pederson]

Mark its great to hear that things are going so well with our rig!! Congrats!

Well ... all the work and support from you guys at ET made it all happen. Yesterday they shot 1/2 of the day on steadicam with the NEUTRON prototype.

[Tony Lorentzen]

Well ... all the work and support from you guys at ET made it all happen. Yesterday they shot 1/2 of the day on steadicam with the NEUTRON prototype.

Was the operator okay? :bigear:

[Stefan Christou]

Congrats on what look like a fun feature.

Excuse my ignorance but what are these things with the coils on them? http://offhollywood.squarespace.com/storage/post-images/mortician/mortician_day1/_MG_0792.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1258384416 603

[Mark L. Pederson]

Was the operator okay? :bigear:

The "big rig" you see in the pics with the REDs is the QUASAR rig from ET.

The ET NEUTRON is a small rig that we fly with SI2K mini-cameras - for steadicam and hand-held.

ET is building a rig called PULSAR - which will be slightly larger than the NEUTRON - but much smaller than the QUASAR - for use with the EPICs.

The NEUTRON in the photo is a prototype and when on steadicam there is wireless motor control for IO.

[Tony Lorentzen]

Nice! Thanks for the thorough explanation Mark!

[Doug Horton]

excited to see how things begin to flesh out, please update with stills when possible!

[Disco Legend Zeke]

just a thought...

If you need a quick way to view 2-camera 3-D, just use 2 monitors and learn to CROSS-VIEW.

alternate, use two viewfinders, one for each eye.

the cross viewing method was (is?) used at teaching hospitals where stereo camera rigs are attached to stereo microscopes.

when i first saw the blue/red glasses i sort of panicked, thinking you were shooting for blue red anaglyph projection *shudder* but soon i realized its just for on-set viewing.

[Joey R.]

Here is a link I've been sending to folks until we go ahead and create our own page:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/erker/freeview.html

[Pedro Guimaraes]

just a thought...

If you need a quick way to view 2-camera 3-D, just use 2 monitors and learn to CROSS-VIEW.


Well while that's true, unfortunately on a beamsplitter we cannot do that because the reflective camera's image is flipped and the last time I checked we still cannot flip the image on the RED LCD.

When we shoot parallel I freeview since the images are not flipped. It is a useful skill to develop.

[Eli Jarra]

some cross-view samples to practice with...
I almost always shoot cross-viewed...just takes a while to knock my eyeballs back into alignment.
A good wack'f the head will do it


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2583/3791662945_dd55391f8f_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3529/3792475230_6bf1998319_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2622/3791660065_0d7287a948_o.jpg

[Mark L. Pederson]

The Mortician wraps principal photography this Sunday.

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Congrats guys!

[Tom Lowe]

How do you post something like this?

[Mark L. Pederson]

How do you post something like this?

Do you mean how does 3D post production work?

[Tom Lowe]

Yes.

[M Most]

Yes.

Depends on where you go and who's doing it. But basically, it's all about dealing with two streams instead of one. Editorial is handled different ways by different productions and facilities, but essentially what comes out of it is two EDL's, one for the left eye and one for the right eye. Both eyes are conformed and in most cases (not all) are loaded into a DI system that can pull both streams simultaneously and output them to some type of combiner that reformats them for whatever the display system requires. Color correction is handled in different ways by different systems and different colorists, but basically one eye is graded and that grade is copied to the other eye. The second eye might require additional work to match it as close as possible to the first eye if the cameras did not produce identical exposures (almost always the case, especially with mirror rigs as there is a bit of light loss, as well as the fact that lenses are not always a perfect match). Some systems allow a "ganged" grade once the base grade and matching is done, others require you to tweak one eye and copy the tweak to the other. Convergence is also adjusted as part of the DI process, basically by doing opposite X axis pans on each eye to put the desired convergence point "on the screen plane," followed by scaling to cover the image to the edges. In most cases, the colorist must work with the 3D glasses on so that the light loss through the 3D viewing system is accounted for, which is why if you take off the glasses at a typical 3D screening, the picture is much too bright and saturated. To produce various other deliverables (i.e., 2D versions, other 3D systems), different approaches are taken, including LUTs for basic color transformations, and additional grading passes for the various delivery systems. The deliverable for stereoscopic theaters is a digital cinema package that is essentially a 48fps stream with the left and right eye alternated, yielding two 24 fps image streams when decoded by the 3D system that feeds the projector.

If you want more details, feel free to ask.

[Ace]

Depends on where you go and who's doing it. But basically, it's all about dealing with two streams instead of one. Editorial is handled different ways by different productions and facilities, but essentially what comes out of it is two EDL's, one for the left eye and one for the right eye. Both eyes are conformed and in most cases (not all) are loaded into a DI system that can pull both streams simultaneously and output them to some type of combiner that reformats them for whatever the display system requires. Color correction is handled in different ways by different systems and different colorists, but basically one eye is graded and that grade is copied to the other eye. The second eye might require additional work to match it as close as possible to the first eye if the cameras did not produce identical exposures (almost always the case, especially with mirror rigs as there is a bit of light loss, as well as the fact that lenses are not always a perfect match). Some systems allow a "ganged" grade once the base grade and matching is done, others require you to tweak one eye and copy the tweak to the other. Convergence is also adjusted as part of the DI process, basically by doing opposite X axis pans on each eye to put the desired convergence point "on the screen plane," followed by scaling to cover the image to the edges. In most cases, the colorist must work with the 3D glasses on so that the light loss through the 3D viewing system is accounted for, which is why if you take off the glasses at a typical 3D screening, the picture is much too bright and saturated. To produce various other deliverables (i.e., 2D versions, other 3D systems), different approaches are taken, including LUTs for basic color transformations, and additional grading passes for the various delivery systems. The deliverable for stereoscopic theaters is a digital cinema package that is essentially a 48fps stream with the left and right eye alternated, yielding two 24 fps image streams when decoded by the 3D system that feeds the projector.

If you want more details, feel free to ask.

Well there you have it Tom! :thumbup1:

[Tom Lowe]

Doesn't sound like I'll be doing that on my home PC anytime soon. :)

[Rudi Herbert]

Doesn't sound like I'll be doing that on my home PC anytime soon. :)

There are ways and ways. I always believed 3D would be a far too complex affair for us ordinary people to achieve on our gear and means, but I can tell you that I was wrong. You can indeed edit and output 3D at home, I've been doing it for the past 3 weeks and the results have surpassed every hope I had. However, given the fact that there are levels of accomplishment and that I don't disagree with the above posters that to create 3D for cinematic exhibition is a bit more complex than what I've been doing, I can send you a PM instead describing what I've done in case you want to follow suit. That way I don't have to publicly contradict the opinions expressed above, which are accurate anyway, for the specific background being talked about.

So, if you're on the PC and have Adobe Premiere Pro and want to give 3D a shot, let me know and I'll give you a detailed description of what to do.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Wow, $cary.

How many different theatrical 3D systems are out there?


followed by scaling to cover the image to the edges

And what does this mean exactly Michael?

[Mark L. Pederson]

Wow, $cary.

How many different theatrical 3D systems are out there?

The primary ones are:

RealD - active circular polarizer
Dolby - dual RGB spectrum

XpanD - electronic glasses with infared transmitter
Dual Projection - two projectors with polarizers
Master Image - polarized system





And what does this mean exactly Michael?

After you do any horizontal adjustments for convergence, vertical corrections and/or rotation & keystoning corrections you will need to scale the images slightly so that they still fill the frame.

[KETCH ROSSi]

I bet Mark that with 3D you fill like you are back to school learning all the new Stuff, at list it is been so for me, really a crazy amount of information that must sink in before and after shooting, but I must say, I'm loving it!!

And judging by the amount of knowledge you are springing out you are to.

BTW, as we shoot some stuff for SOny next month right after CES, we know that Sony is coming out with some serious 3D stuff.

Good luck and thanks for sharing buddy.