Full-frontal insidious attack on Red, by indie director Rian Johnson (2008)

[Mark Crabtree]

Red is still in developement. Build 15 did in fact have significant noise due to compression. Build 16 has changed that. Also shooting with the camera without lots of testing is asking for trouble. Under exposure and unrealistic expectations of the camera's dynamic range can result in very unpleasing pictures. Red is a tool that must be understood to be used effectively. For every noisey blown out piece of Red footage shot incorrectly there are many more fantastic Red scenes that were shot right. If a DP fails to get a result from Red they like, I think they should pick up the phone and talk with some of the many Red experienced DP's on this forum who could give them some help.

[Brent J. Craig]

Some questions from his rant that need to be addressed:

-does the Red One only have 4096 photosites horizontally, split between R G and B?

-has anyone ever seen 'clumping grain' in Red footage. I have seen cool-looking little worms, but clumps?

-Is Red One's compression really 36 to 1?!?

-This one is funny: Does the Red make huge data files only because of "their proprietary software inflating the relatively small file which is actually recorded by the camera..."

This guy sounds like someone who was burned by a poorly-handled Red shoot, or someone with a huge investment in S*** gear.

[Dan Carew]

Hi Ian,

I don't think I implied Red is above criticism or evaluation (if that's what you meant). My ire is directed at the false claim--that Red footage projected on a big screen looks bad because of compression.

Hi Andreas,

Is it worth refuting Rian (a well-established indie director; http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0426059/)? I think so. Here's an example of why: today I had lunch with an established Hong Kong director (who's done 6 distributed features). She's thinking of using the Red on her next feature. She's expressly interested in what Red footage looks like in a film-out. If she googles and finds Rian's post, this adds a lot of FUD in her mind, especially coming from a fellow director--and she could just conclude it's not worth hassling with Red. So I think a refutation is in order.

cheers,
Dan

P.S. In my original post, I have links to both the blog post about Rian's article, plus Rian's article itself--as I think one should read the original and judge for themselves.

[Brook Willard]

If he doesn't want to use it, that's cool... no one camera is for everybody. If he calls its images splotchy [etc.]... no problem. If that's what he sees, that's what he sees. There are lots of other formats for him to shoot and that's nothing to be upset about.

In the mean time, the other few thousand RED productions can keep using the camera successfully.

Don't take personal offense to somebody's opinions, eh? It's a camera... not a religion. Don't lose sleep. We all know he's wrong.

[Jarred Land]

This was a nice comical read with my morning coffee...

[Alexis Hanawalt]

First, here's the link to the article, which I don't think has been posted: http://www.rcjohnso.com/REDBULL.html

Second, my take on this: I've heard Johnson talk, interviewed on NPR's The Treatment, and he sounds like a really common sense kind of guy. That said, he's one of the luckiest newbie filmmakers in the last decade with a first feature out of the gate that is actually amazingly well shot on 35mm, and somehow pulled off for under $500K. (Brick.) Several shots in that movie were jaw dropping to anyone who knows what a $500K budget means.

When I saw Red project the 4K "milk girls" footage at the Nuart theater in West LA about 2 years ago both compressed and uncompressed, that was what sold me. No one could tell the difference. I've since seen both NAB screeners and in both I'd say 90% looked as good as any film I've seen projected, and the rest showed the limitations of the medium. That's a better ratio than any Varicam or F900 reel uprezzed and then projected at 4K would ever be.

On the issue of compression, people should brag about the 36x compression! Every few years there's a new breakthrough in compression algorithms and Redcode has been a major breakthrough, particularly with its inclusion of RAW data. H264 is about 8 times more compressed than DV, but having come along 15 years later produces an image WAY better than DV.

I don't think Rian Johnson needs to be attacked on this forum or anywhere, but I do hope to see how he responds to information he might not have had at the time he and his DPs did their testing.

[Florian Stadler]

shows you how important shooting and posting "correctly" is. Brick was a great indie movie and whoever did rian's test fucked up big time. Seems to me no film out was done either in the test. Misunderstanding of bayer sensor mathematics is widespread among anybody with common sense mathematic skills.

[Paris Remillard]

The compression is closer to 10:1, not 36:1 just to clear that one up. A 4K 16:9 TIFF is around 27MB (at least the frame that I just grabbed and output was). That would make the uncompressed RAW file around 9MB. If you are recording in RC28 at around 28MB/sec, that would give you slightly more than 1MB per frame at 24fps. So the compression is from 9MB to 1MB. Even at the 36MB/frame that he mentions, that would still be only 12:1 compression. He clearly doesn't understand RAW Bayer Filtered sensor technology. Is my math wrong here Jarred or Stuart?

[Rick Darge]

Hey Red, can I get a refund? I saw BRICK, and i trust this guy........

[Lewis-M Soucy]

Let the guy alone, he's having a go at whatever frustrates him... His taking the piss at Michael Bay's website is a good example of his mentality... It takes a lot of energy to just post such a negative page (Bay's), and to quote his own self, probably just to "avoid writing"... If all that time and sweat had been put in creative stuff (or covers, even)... Like my grandfather used to say back in Quebec, opinions are like ass holes, everyone has one...