Production Values

RED will not debut Scarlet, its entry-level camera, until early next year, which means that those who are already hype-weary with all things RED are already moving on to a different part of the site. Nontheless, there are solid reasons that Scarlet will change the entire landscape of low-budget digital video, assuming RED can get enough of them into the hands of the public (more about that at the end). Scarlet’s impact will be somewhere between that of the Canon 10D when it debuted and that of the iPhone. Here’s why.

1) 3K native sensor. It’s easy to lose sight of how major a step forward 3,000 pixels of horizontal resolution is for a digital video camera when that camera is debuted alongside an existing 4K camera and a 5K camera due at the same time. So let’s try this with the hype language used by the digital still camera manufacturers: 8.5 megapixels. Per frame. And this is not cheating by calling a 1280 native sensor HD (yes I’m talking to you, HVX-200). 3k means you could cut this image down 35% to HD. You could sneak it onto an IMAX screen without anyone seeing pixilation. It will be years before Sony or Panasonic have anything like this at the price. Speaking of which…

2) Under $3K price. The per-pixel price of this camera is approximately 1/10 that of the original RED when you consider that a full kit to operate a RED camera is roughly $40K. Just as RED (the company) is offering a free trade-in to upgrade to the 5K Epic, they could offer a free downgrade to everyone who bought into RED on the cool factor but actually wanted something that would shoot without a full lens kit and scads of dedicated storage. I bet someone would take them up on it.

3)Framerates up to 100 fps (180 fps burst). Day of show, Mike Curtis reported here that Scarlet would do a burst up to 120 frames per second, but later that same day Ted Schilowitz of RED was on record saying that a 180fps burst would likely be possible with the CF cards that will be available in 2009. Again, you can compare it to the marginally faster Epic and be underwhelmed, or you can compare it to the original RED (60 fps burst, 1/3 the throughput) or anything else out there (prosumers burst at way, way smaller resolution) and be properly blown away.

4) Redcode RAW. I mentioned above that RED could call this an 8.5 megapixel camera. The fact that this camera records RAW data means - think about this - you are recording 24 (or 60, or 120) RAW digital stills per second. The soccer mom can choose a digital SLR starting at a few hundred dollars and a digital video camera in the low 4 figures that heavily compresses HD to tape or a P2 card, or for the same money, use one camera that does both, better. That’s only one example of someone who won’t bat an eyelash about a fixed lens.

5) RGB output. Scarlet is depicted with an HDMI port and Schilowitz indicated that it will generate RGB images - whether to the card or only as output, we shall see.

6) No kit required. Not shown on the prototype is audio (either a mic or input, both of which will be on the camera according to Schilowitz). It has an LCD.

7) Fixed lens custom-designed for the Mysterium sensor. We’ve come to expect a built-in lens to be a plastic Zeiss or some other inferior, non-depth-of-field capable point-and shoot type of thing, but RED Digital Cinema has its roots in optics and this is the one place they are least likely to cut corners, even at the price. And considering how many great images have been created with plastic lenses simply because the camera was more available and the operator knew how to get the most out of it - for those who aren’t DP’s invested in lens kits, enough said. Except…

8) Customization. There’s more to the story than 6 and 7. Scarlet will work when mom pulls it out of the box, but as this video also shows, it can be kitted out rather extensively and includes intriguing hacker options such as “wifi control.” All RED accessories (other than custom lenses) work with Scarlet.

9) Multi-function operation. That ball-shaped thing on the back of the camera is an as-yet-to-be-designed multifunction device for zoom, focus and who knows what else (the prototype shows an intriguing “undo” label).

10) Fearless market position. RED, it should be noted, was not located with any of the other camera companies at NAB; it was in the lower south hall with the software post-production companies, an appropriate place for “the post-production camera.” How on earth will Panasonic, Sony and the others respond to a $3k 3k camera? Get your snow shovel ready for next winter.

10+1) Apple partnership. The question came up, how will a tiny company like RED reach their goal of getting it “in as many hands as possible”? The answer, and you heard it here first (with absolutly no hint of confirmation from anyone at RED - speculation only for the bonus point): the Apple Store. Two companies dedicated to changing the game of entire industries; it’s a match made in California.

Day One of NAB was 3D day in the Content Theater, and at the end of that day, I participated in a podcast discussion with Ron Brinkmann and Mike Seymour all about stereo imaging, which seems to have been a major official trend at NAB this year. At the end of the on-air discussion we did an informal poll and found that half the folks in the room felt that 3D display would be a bona fide new artistic medium within the next few years, and the other half - with whom I’m aligned - felt that stereoscopy remains the fringe curiosity it has always been, at least in regards to narrative filmmaking. U23D as an experience is hard to top - I even overheard other moviegoers express how preferable seeing that movie in IMAX was to actually attending a U2 show - but the legitimacy of 3D display for a mainstream Hollywood film is only being debated, it seems to me, because James Cameron has put the issue on the table.

My thought is that even if Avatar does revolutionize the use of 3D in tentpole Hollywood blockbusters, few (if any) other filmmakers will be able (or willing) to match, let alone top it. Also, as long as headgear is required to view images in 3D - and the polarized specs I received for U23D take the cake - we humans are really no further along technologically than when we started down this road (although the imaging technology itself for the price point is improving by leaps and bounds thanks to IMAX and high-frame-rate digital displays).

Until it’s a hologram, no goofy glasses required, any move toward 3D is going to look like what it’s always been - something cinemas grab onto when sales are under downward pressure. 3D can be fun - 10 year olds love the 3D films I worked on for Robert Rodriguez - and James Cameron will no doubt provide an amazing experience, with or without the extra dimension - but 3D on the projected screen is is a boon to immediacy and sensation, not emotion and story. U23D in IMAX is a fantastic spectacle - better in many ways than actually attending a U2 show - but if we see more of these in cinemas, it can only mean that substantial stories have headed for the more intimate home theater.

According to a highly reliable source, Apple emphatically denied in an NAB press meeting earlier this week any truth to the rumor that the Pro Apps are for sale.

Now, even if Apple sold Final Cut Studio and its brethren, I hardly imagine the buyer (and who might that be? Avid?) would do much to mess with its success, at least in the short term - but here is a company with a firm policy of not responding to rumors that is apparently issuing an emphatic denial and, well, one can’t help but think of analogous situations that have occurred in the recent past.

One thing that is certain, from speaking with a former Apple employee, is that the development team, once housed inside 1 Infinite Loop and very much on the radar, is now located far from the action. If you don’t think that matters, keep in mind that this is a company whose important decisions are all made by one guy. In that building. It may simply be that Pro Apps were important to Apple back when they needed to show that the Mac was not an inferior platform for high-performance, high-profile entertainment work, but that job has now been done, the app is mature and in no danger of leaving the platform, and the company has found other areas to, ahem, shake up. Like the multi-billion dollar mobile telecommunications industry, or the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.

Anyhow that’s all just speculation. Beyond the denial, all I know for sure is that a) Final Cut Server looks great and b) attending NAB after losing my iPhone in the powder at Sugar Bowl was like living in L.A. without a car.

With big exhibitions like The NAB Show falling out of favor, and some disappearing altogether in the 21st century, NAB struck back this year by offering more educational fare than in years past, featuring keynotes and panels of experts from the industry, as well as day-long classes. On Wednesday was “A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget,” a keynote and panel on getting cinematic production values out of equipment you may already have sitting around your studio.

The session was kicked off with the Legend of Zelda fan trailer “linked” here (nerdy pun for gamers paying attention) which appeared on April Fool’s Day, followed by a keynote by Stu Maschwitz of The Orphanage (and author of a fantastic blog) and then a panel featuring Dave Basulto of Clarity Pictures, Alex Lindsay from Pixel Corps, D.P. Taylor Wigton (447 Productions) and moderated by Brian Valente from Redrock Micro.

Stu’s keynote was a nice riff on his book The DV Rebel’s Guide in which he focused on the concept, “Less is More,” that you achieve perfection when you remove everything unnecessary from a scene - but no more than is necessary. He cited examples, showing a scene from The Matrix using the old knife throw trick where the knife is thrown out of frame and then we cut to the result, to support his argument that the cheap and scrappy method of constructing shots often yields the best result (even in a big-budget film).

Planning is the key to getting a shoot done on time and on budget, and to hear Stu and the panel talk about it, it became clear that it’s procrastination and laziness (both of which are nonetheless essential parts of the creative process at times) which lead the ordinary shoot to use resources it doesn’t need and yield more footage than can easily be digested.

One idea I had not clearly considered before was that the difference between high and low production values is something most of us need to learn to spot and solve. Many of us feel that we can readily spot a shot that looks cheap, but it’s worth asking whether we know why - the lighting? shot composition? directed action? - and whether we know of examples where it was done better, or can conjure such examples ourselves. For one great example of the difference, compare some of the preceding Legend of Zelda fan trailers available on YouTube with the one linked at the top of this article.

There were also great examples of why highly portable gear, owned by the filmmaker and ready for shooting at all times, allows you to more with less: photographs of an aircraft carrier taken with a pocket camera were camera mapped directly into a no-budget commercial, and the case was given for shooting a police or fire emergency when it occurs because you get for free background scenery - flashing lights, perhaps a wrecked car - which would be very expensive to create yourself.

Following a question from the audience about greenscreens, Stu advised avoiding using them whenever possible, saying “greenscreens make people retareded” when compared with a live location that might require a little bit of rotoscoping. Alex Lindsay advised using the minimal necessary amount of greenscreens on location and pointed to Eric Chauvin’s reel for Black Pool Studios as an example of adding to some percentage of the frame, extending sets and locations to create a whole different reality rather than doing so from scratch. Other recommended references included the making-of portion of The X-Files: Fight the Future as well as the book Fog City Mavericks, about the aspiration of Lucas and Coppola to produce Hollywood pictures outside of Hollywood.

This panel would have been better attended if there were others to complement it and justify the price of a Super Sessions pass. It would have been more effective with more solo speaking and less panel discussion - keynotes force participants to prepare to say something in a way that panels do not, and panels comprised of people all on the same side of an issue are typically less interesting than those that can actually find a few points of contention. NAB would do well to dig a little deeper and find more people capable of delivering the kind of presentation offered by Stu Maschwitz at this one.

As I type this, Hulu is temporarily closed as it is prepared for public roll-out on Wednesday.

What, you might ask if you’re too busy creating images to watch them on a beta website, is Hulu? As best I can tell, it is an attempt by network television - specifically NBC, although other networks are apparently invited to join (and ABC and CBS have not as of yet) - to take control of how its content - its shows - can be viewed online. Not offline - this is not IPTV, where you can order up a show to watch on your 50 inch plasma - instead, it’s a direct response to YouTube as the online home of every type of video. Instead of continuing only to demand the removal of network shows from other services, Hulu attempts to be the place to go to get them, and it makes its money back via advertising. In some ways it’s a brand-new model, and inevitably in other ways it looks an awful lot like the old model.

From what I can gather, some of the best and most innovative features on Hulu include:

- It’s free. Just like broadcast television
- An innovative advertising strategy includes allowing users, during certain shows, to choose which advertisement they want to see. For some this will be like the eternal damnation choice between being burned alive or drowned in a river of excrement, but it does move traditional television advertising a small step closer (at least) to custom marketing that viewers prefer.
- Hundreds of series, dozens of movies and web-only shows, and not just dated b-list material - even live professional sports (some of them as pay-per-view). Sounds good, right? Just by firing up a browser, you can watch The Big Lebowski, NBA basketball, Saturday Night Live or (a current favorite of mine) the Onion News Network, all in better-than-YouTube quality.

Have people been watching it? Yes - not only are there already millions of viewers, but according to Hulu CTO Eric Feng “more than 80 percent of the entire Hulu catalog is watched each week.”

So what are the limitations, at least judging the beta?

- As mentioned, no downloads to your iPhone or XBox - this is online viewing only.
- Although a lot of cable networks are on board, two of the old “big three” or “big four” networks are missing.
- Certainly it would be unrealistic to expect the entire catalog of whole networks now to be available online, but even among the shows included, there are typically only selected episodes available at any given time, at least during the beta. The concept of “programming” has not gone away, and the reasons for providing only half a season of a given show, while not clear, seem to be about preserving sales for DVD and paid download.

That last point may be the make-or-break. If Hulu were to provide every episode of the most popular series, there would still be a market for downloading to watch on a portable device, or owning to play in a home theater. By not providing those episodes, they may have once again made it more appealing for viewers to go to the sources that violate copyright violoation.

But for now, expect Hulu to be a hot topic at NAB and throughout the year.

Now if only you could create something like this entirely with Adobe software.

Or does the joker indeed get the last laugh?