RED Show In Chicago

[Jay A. Kelley]

Tom Fletcher and James Mathers had a show for RED last night.. It was my first time seeing the camera "In person" and some of "Crossing The Line" on the big screen.

There were also a panel of editors, and post people. The show was wonderful but frustrating. It needed to be a 1/2 day gig. The camera is so DIFFERENT.. Most people were just kind of sitting there nodding.

I estimate the audience to be around 200+.

I'll write more on this later (On a shoot right now) or someone else that was there can pick up this ball and run with it.

Bottom line: EXTREMELY POSITIVE REVIEWS by all involved.. ESPECIALLY the colorist and FX guys.

Jay

[Chris Gearhart]

It was positive overall, but there was some guardedness as well, I thought. It was helpful to hear the colorist (although he spent way too much time on coloring itself--a bit meandering and not enough that would be helpful to people who want to hear and ask questions about Red, but I digress). He still seemed to be making heads or tails of his experience of the day. He sometimes seemed very effusive, and the next moment somewhat dismissive. I heard him praise the simplicity of the workflow, then do the equivalent of rolling his eyes at it.

As far as it not being long enough, I think part of the problem is that the time would have been better spent with people more familiar with the camera and workflow. Granted and to give them a break, the camera has only been out for a couple of weeks and this is not LA--there IS no camera round here parts. Anyway, for people on this forum there was not alot that we haven't heard.

On the positive side, that was the first time I had seen any of Crossing on a big screen, and I was blown away. Finally getting see number 30 was amazing! Watching Alert in action was fun. There was alot more grain than I was expecting that I hadn't seen in grabs and footage posted so far. I expect some of that was because there was alot of pushing of the ASA and curves, and sometimes because there seemed to be alot of uprezzing (720 from the display, for instance, watching .5k QTs, etc.)--I wish they would have mentioned more often what res. they were playing. I was also in the front row, so each pixel was as big as my nose.

At one point there was a rolling shutter split that jumped out at a camera flash they recorded.

Good time overall, and this showing has now made it impossible to wait until December 30. Arghhhhh.

Thanks to all who put it on, and all the panel, and to Jim Mathers for going the extra mile to bring us a camera!

[Graeme Nattress]

The on-screen preview image in RED Alert! is a rapid preview of the 2k data. It's not the full 4k downsized as that would be a lot slower. That means that the 2k or 4k export is a lot more noise free than the image you see on screen while working the controls. It's a balance between speed and accuracy.

Graeme

[Chris Gearhart]

I figured there must have been something going on, there. As they'd push the sliders grain hit alot sooner than I expected from the stills. Thanks, Graeme.

[gary adcock]

I wanted to take a second and thank the nearly 300 people that came to the DCS/ Fletcher Event. ( there were 200+ chairs in the room).

Jim and Tom, as always put on a good show.

Jay, you and I talked a little, yet this was meant to be a teaser event, with the hands on event being limited due to space , and being held the next day at fletchers offices.

FYI on the CTL Trailer footage,
The Footage Shown was the 1080p24 ProRes Compressed version of the trailer as shown at IBC at the RED, Apple and AJA booths. It was stepped back to HDCAM Tape for playout of a JH3 decks over single link HDSDI and rear projected from one of the new "18" series Barco projectors.

[Jim Hoffman]

It was great to be there - thanks to all those who made it possible. I am more excited than ever.

[Neil Duffy]

Are you having any events in Chicago this weekend? Or was it only a one day event. I am getting two cameras in Nov. I live in LA, but my company is based in Chicago. I am in Chicago this weekend, and would love to bring some people to take a look at it.

[LighthouseMEdia]

It was a one day event. I thoroughly enjoyed the event as well, sat with Chris and Pablo and had a great time. I agreed with Chris even the 2K export footage displayed directly out I saw a little more grain than I was expecting at around 1000ASA very similar to the footage in the hallway on Evin's music video.

[johnmont]

It was a one day event. I thoroughly enjoyed the event as well, sat with Chris and Pablo and had a great time. I agreed with Chris even the 2K export footage displayed directly out I saw a little more grain than I was expecting at around 1000ASA very similar to the footage in the hallway on Evin's music video.

I think in hindsight, it would have been cool to include some 2K film scans graded in a similar way....as a means of comparison.

I headed over to Optimus in the middle of the afternoon to help Craig get the highest source image quality possible to grade -- they initially were using straight 10-bit and not 10-bit log. I worked with them to get the log files output from RedAlert so that he had much more latitude to color the scenes. Once we got that going, he was pretty impressed by the footage. I thought the images that Jim shot (as well as our fxguide stuff) looked pretty damned good from a noise/grain standpoint. Some of that might have been a function of the projector and HDCAM...I'm not sure, but I didnt notice that much in the grading suite.

And it was great finally meeting some fxphd members as well as Gary. :)

[LighthouseMEdia]

John thanks so much for helping with this your insight added alot to the evening. I guess just some of the exisiting light sstuff like the night city scapes etc.. that had the big blue (very video looking) grain, was waht I was referring to.

[Kurt Kuss]

It was great to finally see a Red in action, as well as the work flow in action. I’m sold on the CF work flow. The panel was a nice mix of experienced professionals. This was a good introduction to Red, but I look forward to a longer and more in-depth event in the future. It was good to meet fxphd’s John Montgomery. The upcoming Red class should be a blast.

[pablokorona]

i also wanted to chime in my thanks. it was a refreshing evening of listening to a panel discuss the RED. Craig, Gary, James, John, Tom, thank you.

I personally was happy to hear a thumbs up from a working colorist. i have never worked with a colorist and don't know much about the field - so it was great to see the massaged footage and see Craig's initial impression.

I concur on the night shots, more so with the fireworks footage. I figured James had exposed for the fireworks and the docks were left muddy. Not to mention when the shot started, the only illumination was from lights on boats and small lights on the dock. Further in the scene the fireworks lit up more of the docks and i'd saw the grain diminish significantly.
I was happy to see the limits of the camera tested.

again, it was a pleasure.