AFI thesis RED camera test footage

[Benjamin Epps]

Here's the results of last weekend's RED camera test for our upcoming AFI (American Film Institute) thesis project.

The test includes 6 setups with a stand-in (don't judge the acting, he's a director also) cut together with sound, music, and color timing by Hollywood DI.

Special thanks to John Cordell for bringing his RED #14. And to Neil Smith, Aaron Peak, and Kalani at Hollywood DI for online and color work.

Below the footage links are full credits of the people involved.


ROOT: http://www.rpmpost.com/afi_h264s/

(1/4 13MB) http://www.rpmpost.com/afi_h264s/stereo_life_cc_270.mov
(1/2 60MB) http://www.rpmpost.com/afi_h264s/stereo_life_cc_540.mov
(1/1 65MB) http://www.rpmpost.com/afi_h264s/stereo_life_cc_1080med.mov
(1/1 265MB) http://www.rpmpost.com/afi_h264s/stereo_life_cc_1080.mov


CREDITS

Cinematographer - Carissa Ridgeway
Camera Operator / 1st AC - Dwight Tudor
2nd AC - James Wall
Gaffers - Hanvit Kang and Amanda Treyz
Grips - Chris Freilich and Ardy Fatehi

Editor - Kayla Emter
Post Production Supervisor / Advisor - Neil Smith (Hollywood DI)
Colorist - Aaron Peak (Hollywood DI)

Production Designer - Manuel Perez Peña

Producer - Michael Peluso

Stand-Ins - Hyun-Jae Lee, Heather Epps

RED Friend - Vladimir Eugene

And me - Director, but not really, it's a camera test!

[Tonaci Tran]

nice work, thanks for uploading the footage. what lens?

[Benjamin Epps]

Red 18-50

[Emmanuel Cambier]

Just saw the first clip… simply gorgeous… thanks

[Rick Darge]

Great footy, thanks for sharing. How does the original, non-web-compressed look to you? I see several 'soft' noisy shots but can't judge the material accurately based on this because I know Quicktime has issues still.

[Bing Bailey]

the last clip has tons of noise. probably h264 compression related. its like being invaded by light refracted mosquitos

[Andrew M.]

the last clip has tons of noise. probably h264 compression related. its like being invaded by light refracted mosquitos

256MB one?

Where do you see the noise?
Looks like one of the best here...........
What machine do you have, codec?
Andrew

[Stacey Spears]

When my iPhone gets a text message, it does not ring. :)

Thank you for sharing.

[jbeale]

very, very nice looking stuff! Thanks for sharing it. Looking at stereo_life_cc_540.mov I don't see any technical flaws at all.
(My computer isn't fast enough to display the highest resolution h.264 files in real time.)

[Benjamin Epps]

The original footage is absolutely pristine. However, the dirty little secret (that I don't think even shows) is that the shot where he walks into the second room and up to the x-ray board is blown up 50% in FCP using Apple ProRes 422.

And obviously the beauty is that in post eventually during a 2K online we could crop into the 4K image and not lose any resolution.

[Rick Darge]

awesome duke - when do you go into production?

[Álex Montoya]

Very nice

[Benjamin Epps]

We shoot October 10th. Very very soon. Craziness abounds.

[Roberto B]

thx for your care.. thx for your several rez versions.. we simply owe you respect.

only 2ndly.. very nice indeed.

[jbeale]

We shoot October 10th. Very very soon. Craziness abounds.

Did you work out a way to be able to shoot on a Red?

[carissaridgeway]

I am the cinematographer for Stereolife. We are still in conversations with the school about shooting on the Red camera, but things are looking promising.

[nawaf65095]

I have questions ... why is the Red Camera picture has grains noise?
is it from the picture setting?
how it will be a cinema camera if it has same that noise in picture?
Regards

[Corrado Silveri]

Great work, great lights. Thanks!

[carissaridgeway]

We saw this clip projected on a 2K projector at RPM Post and there was almost no noise. Considering this is the way 'cinema' is generally viewed, it seems a proper reference (although I realize you have to take my word for it).
I lit the set to 320 ISO and we inserted 320 ISO into the settings in Red Alert, so we didn't push the image at all. The picture of the woman has been color timed for a "bleach" look which does create some noise but that was intentional for that individual shot.

[nawaf65095]

We saw this clip projected on a 2K projector at RPM Post and there was almost no noise.


ok i am still going to find informations about it.

[A Peak]

The noise and banding in the images is a result of the H264 compression, 10bit to 8bit conversion, and a myriad of other factors completely acceptable for its current web/lcd application. In a better environment (Barco2K or otherwise), with even the 10bit prorez proxy media the images are very nice and exceptionally clean.

Aaron Peak

[Paris Remillard]

>However, the dirty little secret (that I don't think even shows) is that the shot where he walks into the second room and up to the x-ray board is blown up 50% in FCP using Apple ProRes 422. <

Is that also the back of someone else's head in the shot where he's looking at the x-rays?

[Benjamin Epps]

Yes it is. That's the grip because our stand in had to leave.

[Tim Lüdin]

Thanks a lot for the very great footage. It shows once and for all that light is everything. I guess with great lighting red will be awsome.

What was your overall feeling about the picturequality? How hard could you colorgrade it?

Cheers
Tim

[carissaridgeway]

Aaron Peak at RPM Post pushed the footage in several different directions in both Color and Scratch and it held up remarkably well.
Lighting for the Red poses its own set of problems. I lit the CU of the woman with an image 80 covered in milk glass set about 3 feet in front of the subject and put a 1/2 Black frost in front of the lens, and when it is projected you can still see the pores on her chin. Aaron color corrected enough contrast into that shot so that those textures are more or less lost, but that required a very specific look. The Red seems to require a unique lighting aesthetic, one that is extremely soft, at least for beauty shots.

[Zach Hilton]

Just saw this footage buried in the forums. Very intriguing. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your comments about your lighting setups. Keep it coming! Thanks again.

[C-Mac]

The footage looks good, the only thing bothering me is... when we see the guy in the green shirt from behind infront of the X-Ray, it looks like a diffrent guy :)

[Yash Keough]

God that's sexy! :-) Wow really impressive it looks just like out of a regular film! :O

[Sanjin Jukic]

Great!!!

Amazing!!!

Such Refreshing Red Footage Finally Here On The Forum!!!

Actually The Best And The Most Professional Red Test Footage Till Now!!!

The Credits Tell A Story About That Quality!!!

AFI (American Film Institute), That's It!!!

[Simon Smith]

Great!!!

Amazing!!!

Such Refreshing Red Footage Finally Here On The Forum!!!

Actually The Best And The Most Professional Red Test Footage Till Now!!!

The Credits Tell A Story About That Quality!!!

AFI (American Film Institute), That's It!!!Shut up man! You can have money to buy the right books but with your posting activity, have you had time to read them? Credits and credits... Bah! First rule for any college student: don't put adjectives to your own comments. You're so quick to humiliate others with savage beatdowns. Above all, unfair statements. [EDIT:] What do you know about the others' job? One thing I can assure you: you hadn't got the Deleuze thinking.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Shut up man! You can have money to buy the right books but with your posting activity, have you had time to read them? First rule for any college student: don't put adjectives to your comments. You're so quick to humiliate others with savage beatdowns. Above all, unfair statements. What do you know about the others' job?

Terribly sorry, I did not humiliate anybody here!!!

One more leftover survivor!

No any more comment!!!

[Simon Smith]

Post Deleted By The Poster (not Mods) from my own will. To the public what is public, to private what should remain in private. PMs sent. Learn something Sanjin. Hope this helps.

[Justin Anderson]

What the hell?

[Simon Smith]

Don't ask! Search button.

[Peter McCully]

Back to the footage. It's very nice. I like the grade on the quick cut of the girls face. One thing, the shots of the guy walking look quite steppy in the motion. Is this an h.264 thing perhaps. But generally, the test footage people have posted so far is all building to a pretty exciting picture of the future.

[Rick Darge]

did you experience any difficulties while shooting, anything that surprised you that you didn't know about before? positive and/or negative

R

[C.H.Haskell]

Thanks for posting, good luck with your film.

Best.

[Steve Sherrick]

Benjamin, I am really happy for you guys that you might be able to move forward with the Red camera. Although the 900 would have given you some nice images as well, this certainly will put you on the cutting edge and if the story is fantastic as well, then it looks like you'll have a really nice piece.

Best of luck with your project, you guys are doing great work!

Steve

[Jim Arthurs]

Thanks for posting the footage, is there any way to get a 16bit .tiff or the like without color correction of one of the more grainy shots to help calm the jitters we have when seeing all the noise in the blacks/low levels?

I've never seen the QT H264 encoding actually add grain/noise, just 8bit banding artifacts...

Other than that, the footage looks great.

[Tom Lowe]

Looking good! It all looks so crisp and vibrant.

The focus pull on the iphone kind of threw me off, but maybe it's because I am used to looking at so much 1/3" and 2/3" chip stuff.

[Paris Remillard]

>The focus pull on the iphone<

It also shows quite a bit of breathing.

[MosesMa]

Very nicely shot. Great coloring.

By the way, where did you get the music for this scene?

MM

[carissaridgeway]

Thanks for all the comments.
We go out Wednesday, and we're looking forward to it.
In response to things we learned shooting the test: the biggest was the necessity for extremely soft lighting. I'm sure we'll be learning a lot more next week when we shoot the real thing.
I'll have to ask the editor where she got the music.
Thanks!
Carissa (cinematographer)

[Häakon]

I've never seen the QT H264 encoding actually add grain/noise, just 8bit banding artifacts...
I think many users here mistakenly interchange "artifacts" and "noise," unfortunately, but I share your outlook.

[Conrad Kucharski]

Damn, I love this camera