(Page 2 of 2 pages for this article  <  1 2)

Filed under: Apple •Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •NAB2012 •Post Production •

Top Ten Trends of NAB 2012

Lots of change this year - not just new products, but new KINDS of new products from companies we didn’t expect them from. Here’s some new tech, trends, and an attention seeking Top Ten List of my take on the show so far.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •NAB2012 •

Arri Booth NAB 2012

Swung by the Arri booth and ran into Stephan Ukas-Bradley who gave me the rundown on what is new in their booth:

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •NAB2012 •

BlackMagic Design’s Cinema Camera - Supermodel Backrub with Ninja Claws?

So Blackmagic Design, maker of post production hardware and software, introduced their first camera at NAB 2012 - the Blackmagic Design Digital Cinema Camera. What to make of it?

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

Miss me? I hope so. Here’s what I stayed up all night writing.

So if you read this article about how and to what my passions have shifted, you’ll know I’m kinda into DSLRs now. Not for the video like most everyone else, but for timelapse. Huh? Yup. And not just any kind of timelapse, but HDR (High Dynamic Range) timelapse. So when Nikon and Canon announced new mid-range and top end full frame DSLRs this year, I was kinda Into It.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

So…where’ve I been?

So, where did I go? Where’ve I been? What have I been up to? (And does anyone care?) Here’s what I’ve been up to, and some links to what I’ve been doing lately.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

Red (finally) takes the wraps off new camera - Scarlet-X

Jim Jannard of Red (finally) revealed their next camera - 3K for $3K is long gone - now it is 5K stills & 4K motion for a sub-$10K “brain.” It is everything you wanted in an Epic…but less.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

Canon’s new EOS C300 digital cinema line - competition for Red or Sony?

Today in Hollywood Canon announced their first truly professional cinema class camera - a Super35mm sized 4K sensor in a small, 3.6 lb body available with either EOS or PL mounts, recording to CF cards with an ISO range of 320 to 20,000. That is the good news. Everything else is either as expected or disappointing, depending on how fanboy hyped up you were about it. Is it a competitor for Red One? Scarlet-X? Epic? Sony’s F3? Read on and see.

Filed under: Cameras •compression •Post Production •

Single Chip Camera Evaluation screening tomorrow morning at CineGear

I was the post supervisor on the SCCE (Single Chip Camera Evaluation) for the past several months - we shot on 12 cameras (Alexa, film, F35, Red, AF100, Sony F3, Phantom Flex, Weisscam HS-2, Canon 1D MkIV, 7D, 5D Mk II, and Nikon D7000), and ran them through an extensive battery of tests - sharpness, sensitivity, over and underexposure latitude, low light performance, compression artifacts, color reproduction, skin tones, and the best shutter artifacts test I’ve ever seen. Saturday June 4th at 10:15am.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

Come see my footage from F3 S-log & Leica Summilux-C lenses TONIGHT at CineGear

If you’re in LA and a shooter, you should come to CineGear. And while you’re there, come see me talk about my shoot with the F3 in S-log mode shot on Leica Summilux-C lenses - perhaps the best lenses EVER.

Filed under: *VIDEO* •Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

Mike finally gets to play with an Epic-M and HDRx

This week my friend Eric Ulbrich that I met while working on the SCCE (Single Chip Camera Evaluation) got his Epic-M. He was nice enough to invite me over to play with it on Friday, here’s some first impressions on the camera and its HDRx mode. Notes and pics follow.

Some pictures:

here’s the owner, Eric, changing the baseplate on his 5K, 96fps capable camera. That fits in his lap. (Insert Awesome Mad Scientist Laughter of the bwahahahahaaaaaaaa type.)

Here’s Eric again, with a 300mm prime on the camera. Notice how TINY that camera looks compared to the lens! The power compared to size ratio on this camera is pretty goddamned amazing.

photo nerdery - shooting down the gullet of the 300mm prime

Eric shooting in the street. Don’t get run over.

more of the same

Epic M’s ALL come with titanium lens mounts. NICE. I think Eric said that will be a $1000-$1500 option on the Epic X models, but not positive about that. Note the SSD sticking out - hmm…I wish there was room for that to go deeper to expose less of it to the knocks of production - or seal it in/under a cover to protect it from not just dings but moisture and “the elements.” If I were shooting in a dust storm, I’d like that under a cover.

me operating wrong eyed - what can I say, it felt right

the thing that looks like a dynamite plunger on top? That is just handles to make it easier to lug around. Not necessary to shoot

Dramatic Angle

here’s the tiny little 128GB SSD you saw previously in the reader, which has eSATA, FW800, and other connections. Can we get a Thunderbolt version, please?

OK, here we go into the HDRx stuff. Here’s the baseline exposure, 1/48th sec

…and here’s the extra HDRx frame - darker to get more highlight detail. We set it for 3 stops, so in theory, this should be 1/384th second long (3 stops=2*2*2=8 times less light, 8*48=384)

How do you tell if if is HDRx? Normally you see these controls in Redcine-X (latest version 454):

….and here’s the slider you get when you load an HDRx .R3D file. Subtle, ain’t it? For post, it will REQUIRE informing the facility/conversion person to pay attention, and then make a judgement call on how to blend the two together. VERY easy to miss that it is an HDRx’d file

Here’s a straight blend (setting to 0, range is -1 to +1 to use none to all of the HDRx darker frame)

I tweaked it a bit to see some more of the dynamic range:

…but my HDR nerding self wanted to play with it more, so I took the darker & lighter frames (exported as 16 bit TIFFs) into Photomatix Pro, manually told it they were 3 stops apart, and used a couple of my customized presets I use for my own stuff and got these:





…although to be fair, black and white point changes were made by the algorithms, so I should be Photoshopping that blended and tweaked TIFFs more to give them similar Pixel Luv. Also, the extensive time it would take to “properly” HDR process these absolutely DWARFS how long it would take to process these the current Redcine-X way and then color correct them traditionally. BUT….looking back over these images, look at the hood- in the first (brighter) source image, the hood is blown out to white. The darker exposure DOES get value in there. BUT….the blend between white and color gives it a greyish, washed out flat look. Compare that to the HDR processed frames I made - there’s more color info in there, it isn’t washed out by the blend. THAT is the kind of thing I’m talking about.

Filed under: Cameras •Editing •Hardware •NAB 2011 •Post Production •Production •

Mike’s NAB 2011 Day One Part One

Hey all! I’m here at NAB and am wandering the show checking out what interests me. My coverage will be based on what I saw in the order I saw it. Today I visited: Blackmagic Design, AJA, Red, Arri, Canon, Abel Cine, and Sony. So here we go:

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •NAB 2011 •Production •

Coming to NAB? Come see results of our 12 camera test Tuesday night

Hey all -

One of the (many) reasons I haven’t been writing lately has been I’ve been up to my neck in the SCCE. What’s that? The Single Chip Camera Evaluation. Zacuto started the idea and Bob Primes ASC designed and supervised all the testing. I was one of the planner/organizers, as well as post supervisor and ran around and did a bunch of stuff on set. Tuesday night, 6-8 pm Content Theater. Here’s the press release after the jump:

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •Mac Coalition •

Yo, Creative Pros—Apple Doesn’t Love You Any More. Here’s why.

After writing this piece on whether Apple lamed out on the new Mac Pros, I got to thinking more about Apple and where we, as creative professionals lie in their priority list. Read that article for a detailed analysis of how Apple wasn’t aggressive with new technology, was late to market, skipped a bunch of new technology, and MIGHT potentially have decided to stiff-arm Adobe with the lack of NVIDIA GPUs at user expense. So where do we rank with Apple these days? Lets look at their motivations and actions.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •Mac Coalition •Hardware •Post Production •

Did Apple actually lame out on the new Mac Pros?

Apple rolled out new Mac Pros Tuesday, so of course I wrote about’em. Impressed by the power at first, after the warm fuzzy glow of new Macs wore off, I started noticing some things. Or rather, noticing some things that weren’t there - PCI 3.0, USB 3.0, eSATA, faster FireWire, 10GigE networking, Blu-ray burners, NVIDIA GPUs, and a $3500 price point for the “Big Mac.” What gives? Read on for what Apple giveth and taketh.

Filed under:

New Quad Cores: iMac or Mac Pro?

New Quad core Macs: high end iMac or low end Mac Pro?

Apple today announced new Mac Pros (coming sometime in August) and new iMacs (available now). Both have available Quad Core (4 processor) models. The iMac has a built in screen which the Mac Pro lacks, but the tower has scads of easy expandability. Which to buy?

Read on for the deets and analysis.

Filed under:

Apple Releases New iMacs - good enough for video editing?

So Apple has rolled out their latest round of iMacs. I recently finally updated my trusty black MacBook to Snow Leopard, and disappointed myself when I’d forgotten that I can’t run the latest Final Cut Pro on it at ALL. So revisiting these iMacs, how are they for running the Final Cut Studio suite? And beyond can they, should you consider it as an editing platform?

Apple rolled out new iMacs today - short version - OK for video editors? Yes, but ONLY if the following criteria are met:

-only editing file based formats - not tape*
-don’t need professional calibrated video output for preview or recording to tape*
-don’t need additional high speed storage (anything faster than FW800)
-don’t need other card based capabilities

Read on after the jump for all the specs, options, my buying recommendations, and what iMacs are suitable for what editing operations.

Filed under: *VIDEO* •Editing •Hardware •Post Production •Final Cut Pro •

Apple Announces New 12 core Macs….for $5000

The good news - Apple today announced new 12 core Macs that are up to 1 1/2 times faster than the current speedy Nehalem 8 core Macs.

The bad news - “Coming August” and starting at $5000*

So after the jump for the full info and breakdown.

Filed under:

I went and saw nitrate prints and Soderbergh on the same evening…

One of the benefits of living in LA - I was going to go see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tonight with a friend, but he emailed me in the afternoon to go see something else instead -

Just saw (OK, last night, internet connection down when got home) Steven Soderbergh speak at a UCLA film restoration thing - we watched The Devil Is A Woman, a 1935 black and white Marlene Dietrich film, shown on a rare nitrate print (the dies-from-the-edges, flammable-like-in-Inglorious-Basterds film stock), then we watched a digital projection of The Girlfriend Experience, his shot on Red in 15 days with crew of 12 indie flick I saw previously at Sundance. Notes from Q&A follow:

Filed under:

Arri Alexa - look out Red!

I went to the Arri Alexa rollout - quickie summary - AMAZING looking footage, ProRes to SxS cards onboard! ProRes4444 (w/out alpha) for 4:4:4, and ProResHQ for 4:2:2. Also 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 HD-SDI, also ArriRAW raw bayer data at 3.5K resolution - LOTS of choices. More later, here below are my raw (haha) notes. Will update with pics and more tomorrow.

Filed under:

Mike’s iPad rant-good device, bogus marketing

With the iPad about to ship in bulk for Saturday delivery and retail launch, some friends on mine were discussing who is getting one and who isn’t, and somebody asked for the group’s thoughts. What started out as an email didn’t get sent, it turned into this here. Apple calls the iPad “magical” and “revolutionary” and that it has an “unbelievable price” - welllllllllll….lets talk about that.

Filed under:

The Return of Blogwad

I used to have a semi-regular feature on hdforindies.com where I’d just scoop up all the interesting things that weren’t quite worth their own articles, and publish those as what I called a blogwad. Today I’m bringin’ it back, with a nice little collection showing my current interests these days - an article on why after-the-fact stereoscopic conversion is weak/lame/bad, a review of the LensBaby selective focus system (which is designed for still lenses, but no reason why I couldn’t use it on my Red with my Nikon mount adaptor), and an article on data recovery and good backup techniques (relevant since I accidentally trashed my 800GB iPhoto library recently, and have been poking along at getting it all back together). NEW - Also stuff on Canon 5D Mk II 24p firmware problems and AJA updates.

Continues after the jump.

Filed under:

Aperture 3.01 update released, update on my iPhoto ‘09 migration

Two things:

1.) Apple today released Aperture 3.0.1, addressing many of the issues I raised with version 3.0

2.) I’ve been busy on my iPhoto ‘09 to Aperture 3.0 upgrade saga, but did something incredibly dumb, losing me hundreds of hours of effort.

Details on both after the jump.

Filed under:

Another good article on color correction from Stu

Stu posts up another great article on color correction, and it boils down to making certain things look the way they are EXPECTED to look, rather than what they DO look like.

ProLost - Memory Colors: “The truth is, skin tones are just one of a small handful of what I call “memory colors.” Memory colors are colors that are, in the minds of your audience, inseparable from certain common objects or events. For example, the sky is so associated with blue that you might feel that you see those two words together as often as you see them individually. The same goes for green and grass.

The most basic idea of color correcting is that you are making colors correct, which is to say that you are making objects on the screen appear to be the colors that we know them to be.

The funny thing about this seemingly simple task is that it can be quite difficult. And it’s difficult for exactly the reason that it’s important.”

Filed under:

On iPhoto to Aperture 3 migration difficulties and new hard drives

Just a few quick notes as a follow up to the article I wrote last week entitled Aperture 3 announced - time to upgrade from iPhoto ‘09?:
1.) migration not so easy
2.) damn, modern hard drives are fast

Explained after the break.

Filed under:

Great new blog to read - PostWorld

Postworld - post production in the file based age

Another great blog to read. Mike Most and I have politely quibbled on CML for years,  I come at things from a more DIY/small shop/indie perspective, Mr. Most from a more established (read: professionally paid) perspective. I have tremendous respect for the man.

He has a new blog that I really like, his experience and expertise are worth paying attention to.

He doesn’t post as often as I’d like, but when he does, it is worth reading. Some good posts of late:

Another Red Day - Postworld
iPad – Give it Time - Postworld
2010: Fearless Forecast - Postworld
Scarlet Rays - Postworld

Filed under:

Giz Explains: Why ISO Is the New Megapixel

Giz Explains: Why ISO Is the New Megapixel - Digital Cameras - Gizmodo

BOOM.

And THAT is why I’d rather have a 12MP Nikon D3S than a 24MP most anything else - because the D3S has a sufficient but not overly large # of pixels spread across a BIG HONKIN sensor.

This is why I was vexed to see Red spec out Scarlet at 5K for S35 sized sensor - I’d MUCH rather have 3K Bayer (to generate a sharp 1080p) with more dynamic range, better low light performance, and less rolling shutter (aka image skew when panning) than a 5K similar sensor.

EDIT - see Graeme’s response in the comments - it is more subtle than just these issues. Rolling shutter is read/reset, not total pixel count. More pixels may make it more difficult to reduce the read/reset time (I am GUESSING), but higher resolution doesn’t HAVE to mean lower read/reset. My bad. Higher resolution also offers the benefit of reduced aliasing, and cleaner signal/noise once scale back down to target size.

I’d been meaning to write an article about this, but like most things, if you wait a bit, somebody will write a better one than you were going to.

I am, apparently, quite the lazy writer.

My backup on this? Arri went with 3K for their next gen digital camera - dynamic range and better high ISO performance beats “high resolution” any day. EDIT - again, see the comments.

-mike

The human eye sees contrast and color before it sees detail. That’s why I’d rather have better dynamic range and high ISO performance (with low noise, please) rather than a massive megapixel count on my cameras, be they still or motion. EDIT - results vary - see comments again.

Filed under: Software •

Aperture 3 announced - time to upgrade from iPhoto ‘09?

This one’s a two-parter - first, Apple unveiled and made available Aperture 3 today, with a TON of new features. Secondly, for those of you who might be in a similar position to me with a bursting iPhoto library of 75,000 images, is it time to Move It On Up To The East Side with Aperture 3? I go over some of the questions and concerns I have about moving 10 years worth of personal pictures and videos from its safe but slow home in iPhoto over to the more professional Aperture 3.

Filed under:

WOW! Here’s why to go cheap/fast/light!

I saw this and had a big surge of “And THAT, M-Fers, is why I got into HD for Indies in the first place!!!! An F900 can SUCK IT!”

What we have here are two skimboarders (OK OK I cheated in the headline sub - skimboarders is long/complex/weaker than surfer) with a cheapie GoPro camera….on a broomstick. What happens when you hold up a lightweight, waterproof, wide angle lensed camera on a pole looking back at you while you do sports? Fun stuff! Video after the jump.

Filed under:

iPad Follow-up Thoughts - thoughts on v2 hardware and v1.5 software

OK, it has been a couple of days to thunk on it.

First off - wrong on GPS - it DOES appear to have assisted GPS, not guessed-at GPS - I thought they were referring to using WiFi and 3G to guess at location rather than augment it - this is actually better than plain GPS (such as indoors).

I think I’ll probably pass on iPad 1.0, but I’m betting within 18 months we’ll get a 2.0 with camera/s, lower price, maybe 4G/LTE. As noted, I was wrong about “true” GPS capabilities.

I think this product is rolling out the way the original iPhone did - remember when there was no 3G, no apps, no video, no copy/paste, no MMS? They’ll catch up with this one too. This establishes Apple in the market, and gives them a place to build on, relatively early in a viable, consumer pitched tablet market (note: prior tablet efforts didn’t meet these criteria). I like all the talk about this being an appliance, nota a professional tool. An appliance is something most everyone can use day to day (think a $500 handicam). A professional’s tool is more powerful and customizable and allows you to augment and get in under the hood (think a Red One camera). Moreso - does your Mom use appliances every day, or professional tools? Why do you think they call them iMacs and Mac Pros? Hello? For all the high end user complaining (and count me in on that), this isn’t aimed at us - look at all the complaints about the original iPhone from a technical perspective. How many tens of millions of those have they shipped? Yeah. That. And I don’t think Apple really new it was coming - they pitched it originally as a great Phone, a better iPod, an Internet communicator, and a portable web browser, or something like that. Apps? Never mentioned. Yet that is the biggest point of differentiation I’d say as compared to any other smartphone. Not that other phones don’t offer apps, but certainly not the breadth and depth (as in, choice and quality) of what is available on the iPhone.

Filed under:

Apple’s iPad - All the Details, What It Means For Us

OK, this one’s a two parter. Part One is just the practical details of what it is, what it costs, what it does. Part Two is what it means for users like us - now and in the future. Overall, I think the Apple iPad is interesting, I think it is useful, it demos damn cool and as of today I don’t expect to buy one, and why you may not want to either. Read on for the details.
Updated a couple of times - come back and read the bottom

Filed under:

Apple iSlate=Segway 2010?

OK - so it is Tuesday night, the night before the tablet launches. I’ve been reading all the scuttlebut, and I think it boils down to this - unless Apple pulls a TOTAL miracle out of Steve’s scuttlebutt, I don’t think the tablet is going to be as big a deal as hyped. Remember Dean Kamen’s project Ginger? Whuzzat? Oh yeah, that’s what the Segway turned out to be. I think Apple’s Tablet is likely to be the Buzz to Bomb again, Segway 2010. Read on for why I think so.

Filed under:

Band Pro 3D - roundup panel discussion on stereoscopic

At the Band Pro 3D event today, some industry vets discussed tips, tricks, good, bad, and ugly of stereoscopic imaging and post production, with a huge number of useful tips and suggestions on how to successfully navigate the 3D minefield. My raw notes begin after the jump.

Filed under:

Band Pro 3D - Technicolor 3D is 35mm film based stereoscopic projection solution

At the Band Pro 3D event held at Technicolor today, Technicolor showed off their film based 3D solution - they wanted to speed up the 3D rollout with something dependable, affordable, and available- so they went back to the future with a film based 3D projection system. See below all my notes from the panel on it today - continues after the jump.

Filed under:

Band Pro 3D - Element Technica shows off their 3D camera rig

Element Technica, best known for their Red accessories, has been working on a 3D camera rig for some months, and was showing it off at the Band Pro 3D event today. The rig is called Quasar, and they discussed their future rigs called Pulsar and Neutron coming in the future (as well as hints of underwater 3D rigs). Lengthy Q&A included, all my raw notes after the jump.

Filed under:

Band Pro 3D - Iridas’ metadata driven stereoscopic toolset

Steve Crouch from Iridas gave an impressive demo of their current and future Speedgrade DI versions. Highlights:
-support for all the major RAW formats, including SI-2K, Red, Phantom, D21, etc.
-realtime playback of all of these
-realtime stereoscopic playback of all of these
-embedded .look LUT files from Cineform done on set carry all the way through to conform and final grading
-nondestructive metadata driven image color and geometry manipulations

...and more. Read on.

Filed under:

Band Pro 3D - Cineform - it is time to look at them again

Cineform:
-12 bit linear/10 bit log uncompressed/wavelet compression tech
-workflow solutions - Adobe & FCP pretty well worked out
-new stereoscopic recording formats - left/right eye in one file - big deal
-new FCP workflow allows for realtime, while playing color and making stereoscopic adjustments on the fly AS IT PLAYS
-other tools and niftiness
-playout to Kona card for 3D stereoscopic display

My takeaway - I’d long admired their compression tech, but since it lived outside of the RT accelerated engine, whaddaya gonna do? It is still outside the engine, but they are making it do realtime color correction, realtime stereoscopic geometry corrections (X/Y offsets, keystoning, etc.)
Should run even better on Gulftown based Macs sometime (next year?), with 6 cores per processor - with they have dual or quad processors then (12 or 24 procs)?

DAMNED impressive! Read on after the jump.

Filed under:

Band Pro 3D - Silicon Imaging’s Impressive use of SI-2K for Stereoscopic (3D) cinematography

Silicon Imaging opened Band Pro’s 3D day with an impressive demonstration of their progress.

While Red has garnered most of the attention in the last couple of years, Silicon Imaging has been busy making impressive improvements - some of the goodies seen today:
-a comprehensive 3D capture solution, including recording 2 streams (left/right eyes) to one file on one capture system
-a tiny little box (1/3 of shoebox sized) that can capture 12 bit RAW files
-a comprehensive software UI for doing metadata based geometry corrections to fix things like offset, keystoning, etc. in the 3D rig
-further tools to embed nondestructive LUTs (in .look format) for color correction - this metadata stays all through post and works as editable settings in Iridas Speedgrade
-and more, read on after the jump.

Filed under:

Band Pro’s 3D Symposium - all the latest greatest for acquisition and post for stereoscopic imaging

Executive summary - tools are transitioning from the custom/proprietary to the commercially rentable/purchaseable - but expertise and precision is still required to do it right! I spent the day learning about the latest in 3D hardware and software for acquisition and post - read on for all the geeky details.

Filed under:

Sony Introduces SR 2.0 Initiative in LA

I went to the Sony event in Hollywood tonight where they introduced their “SR 2.0” initiatives, including the following:
-more datarate options for the codec
-upgradeable cameras (35mm and PL mounts)
-solid state recording
-a hardware/software media transcoder
-hints about a 4K camera
-3D and DPX on SR tape
-it’s allllllll about file based workflows

Details after the jump

Filed under:

Specdown: Red One vs Epic-X announced features

In case you missed it, Red announced some pretty detailed specs about the new Red Epic-X camera on Friday, October 30th. Details about it are here. This is a quicky, off the cuff list comparing the specifications of the existing Red One to the proposed, but still unshipped, Epic-X 35 camera (same thing as the Epic S35, just slightly goosed).  Covers things like form factor, frame rates, resolution, codecs, accessories, etc. If I get something wrong or omit, please say so in the comments and I’ll amend ASAP. If wrong is by accident not avarice….(continues after the jump)

Filed under:

Red Update - revised specs for Epic-X camera

Red made a slew of new announcements on Friday (Oct 30), and I’m going to be picking through it all. The most significant and detailed new announcement had to do with the specifications for the Epic/Epic-X camera, the closest successor that Red has to the Red One.

They made announcements about details nearly a year ago on December 3, 2008, and I covered it extensively here)

Article continues after the jump - pictured above is one of the millions of possible configurations of the Epic & Epic-X camera…

Filed under:

FantasticFest Panels: on set VFX supervision for 3D

More raw notes from the 3D/Stereoscopic panel at FantasticFest - this one makes a nice bookend with Emmy award winning Sean Fairburn’s comments about working on set - Sean talked about shooting concerns, Jabbar talks about VFX supervising on set - both in general, and things to worry about when shooting 3D (as in stereoscopic). Below are my raw notes, and here’s a link to pictures of Jabbar’s slides on Flickr. Jabbar talks about what information to record on set for visual effects, tools to collect that info on set, and how to communicate effectively both on set and in post. Some really good info in here after the jump!

Filed under:

FantasticFest Panels: Sean Fairburn on shooting 3D

Continuing my notes from the Future of 3D Panels at FantasticFest, Sean Fairburn (familiar if you read the Cinematographer’s Mailing List) gave an excellent talk on the basics of, and advice on, shooting stereoscopic aka 3D moviemaking. My full, raw, unedited, as-I-typed’em notes are below.

EDIT - here’s pics of his slides on a Flickr set

Filed under:

FantasticFest Panel: The Future of 3D

From 9am to 3pm no movies today, just intense geekery - all panels about 3D and stereoscopic imaging for moviemaking - speakers from Intel, RealD (one of the sponsors), NVidia, Troublemaker Studios (Robert Rodriguez’s studio here in Austin), and others spoke today. I’m breaking it up by panel, posting my raw notes from each. Here’s the kickoff panel, on The Future of 3D:

Filed under:

FantasticFest Day 1 - First Squad, Gentlemen Broncos, Rec 2, The Highball

FantasticFest Day 1: First Squad, Gentlemen Broncos, Rec 2, The Highball

The first day of FantasticFest 2009 went exceedingly well - saw 3 movies and went to the opening of a, well, fantastic new venue in Austin, TX. Saw three movies: First Squad, Gentlemen Broncos (latest from director of Napoleon Dynamite), and Rec 2, as well as went to the opening of The Highball, a new bowl/bar/karaoke venue.

If I overheard correctly, they’ve basically rescused and resurrected the entire interior of the Rock ‘n Roll Bowl from New Orleans after it shut down - lifting it and dropping it right next to the Alamo Drafthouse and rechristening it The Highball in all its retro 60s glory.

Read on for the deets! (That image above is in the gorgeous Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue in Austin, TX)

Filed under:

I’m here covering FantasticFest 2009!

I’m here attending FantasticFest 2009 as I have the last few years. It is an incredibly fun film festival dedicated to sci-fi, anime, horror, fantasy, and anything else fun/cool they can think of. This is my FAVORITE film festival in terms of having a good time seeing great wachjob movies. Panels on 3D filmmaking, as well as screenings of upcoming movies such as Zombieland, Gentlemen Broncos, Daybreakers, George Romero’s Survival of the Dead, and tons of others will add the the awesome mayhem.

Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League puts this on with Harry Knowles (lookin’ at him now) of Aint It Cool News organize the event and bring a ton o’ fun to it - for instance, awards are beer steins, the bigger the better, served FULL - and you’re expected to finish it onstage while the audience roars “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” Events like the 100 Best Kills, Fantastic Feud (nerd boy movie knowledge), Fantastic Debates (resolved with gloves in the ring), and others give you idea of the tenor of the event.

I’ll be here all week, folks - if you have some spare time and can get to Austin, now is the time.

Filed under:

More tidbits on D300S sustained shooting @ 8fps

So I got my D300S, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. One of the major features that grabbed my attention was the ability to shoot up to 8 frames a second with it. Asterisk - with extra gear. It also has two memory slots - one for SD/HC, one for CF. Other asterisk - it only “sustains” that frame rate until an internal buffer is full. Then the buffer has to clear by downloading to the memory cards, and only THEN is it ready to shoot a full burst again. You can shoot a partial sustained burst before the buffer clears, but as many shots as until the buffer is full again. I figured I’d doodle around and see what differences might exist with all this. Read on after the jump.

Filed under:

Nikon D300S vs Canon 7D Specdown

So I got a Nikon D90 almost exactly a year ago - it was my first DSLR, and I was in love - I’ve totally had a blast with it. But there were a few things it didn’t have that I really wanted - I was getting into HDR (high dynamic range) photography, and I was limited to 3 exposures, a maximum of 2 stops apart. And I wanted to shoot timelapse without having to be tethered to a laptop (which had to be powered too), which the D90 couldn’t do without the umbilical.

I really coveted my friend’s D300 with its higher frame rate and intervalometer as well. If only there were a camera that combined the best of both worlds….then Nikon announced the D300S - adding 720p24 HD video, Live View, intervalometer, up to 9 shots in a bracket….I was sold.

I got it while I was out of town, and then read about the new Canon 7D….

Filed under:

Snow Leopard - Go or No Go?

So I was thinking about dipping a toe into Snow Leopard. As I only have two Intel based machines (an 8 core Mac Pro and a black MacBook), I figured I’d try it out on the MacBook first.

First thing I did was pick up a copy on sale at MacMall for $25 - cheapest OS upgrade ever!

Then I went to Burning Man and didn’t care about computers for a week, a process I highly recommend. After I was back for 5 days, then I started to care about computer stuff again, I sat down and started looking at my Dock to see what was the software I use regularly that I’ll care about compatibility with.

Read on for how I evaluated whether to upgrade, and for which system.

Filed under:

A few Gotchas with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

OK, a quickie:

Snow Leopard is speedy according to the reviews I’m reading, but of particular note for us -

(Suspense! More after the jump)

Filed under:

Native Red Render speeds in new Color 1.5

Red .R3D render speeds in Color - sloooowww

Good news/bad news -

Good news - the new Apple Color version 1.5 (part of the new Final Cut Studo) reads R3D files natively - you can even start a new project and pull in a clip! You have controls for directly accessing the 12 bit RAW Redcode controls in the Primary Color room - this is great! It also does a full resolution, high quality debayer, which is the highest quality way to do this - better than the half res solution that Final Cut Pro utilizes. For the money, this is definitely the easiest, highest quality, most control solution for grading your Red footage. All good news.

Bad news - for now, it is SLOOOOOOOOW - on an maximally pimped system*, it was rendering about 1.43 fps - so about 17 times slower than realtime. And this was only with a simple lift/gamma/gain adjustment, no color adjustments, no secondaries, no filters, no rescale, etc., all of which can make the process take even longer. Ouch! Here’s to hoping that Apple will support the Red Rocket card to accelerate debayering and scaling of Red .R3D files directly within Color in a future version.

Read on for details.

Filed under:

Video Tour of Rocketcine-X build 566

Red recently released the Red Rocket board, a PCIe card to accelerate the tediously slow conversion of R3D files to something more immediately useful, like QuickTime files, DPX and TIFF sequences.

As usual, Red has shipped hardware as soon as the hardware was ready, and the software is playing catchup, so at this time, there is only an alpha stage piece of software called Rocketcine-X that can actually utilize the Red Rocket to accelerate R3D conversions. Red says that it will require only relatively minor changes to applications that already support Red’s R3D API in their code, so hopefully vendors will quickly be able to implement support of the Red Rocket card. We’re looking at you, Apple, Avid, Adobe. Ahem!

So what is Rocketcine-X? It is a blend of Redcine (if you’ve used that) and RedRushes (if you’ve used that) that allows you to load a series of R3D shots, grade them individually, tweak the color parameters on a shot by shot basis, and output to QuickTime files or DPX or TIFF sequences, and export batches while you keep working. That is the good news. The bad news is that this is in development, alpha level software with a lot of bugs and features omitted, such as:
-you can’t save a Rocketcine-X project
-you can’t scale with letterboxing - crucial for 2:1 footage to fit properly into a 16:9 movie or image sequence.
-you can’t add windowburned timecode readouts at all.

Oh, and as usual for Red, there is zero documentation at this early stage in the game. (EDIT: To be fair, their approach is of the “If someone can find this useful, lets get it to them ASAP and we’ll follow up with docs/updates ASAP.”)

Fortunately, it is somewhat straightforward, but here’s a video tour of the features and some of the limitations I made. It is long, about 22 minutes, but is only 32MB, and if you watch it, you’ll know the ins and outs of the program pretty well. Video and bug list after the jump.

Filed under:

New ProRes info - Data Rate Chart

Apple posted a handy white paper on the new ProRes codecs, and there’s some good stuff in there.

I went digging through the ProRes white paper that Apple posted with the release of Final Cut Pro 7, and found some useful info (which I’m betting they won’t mind m highlighting here). Read on.

Filed under:

Apple’s much improved laptop repair service

Several years ago, my Mom’s original iBook (the blue toilet lid looking ones) got goofed up - I broke one tiny piece of a keyboard key spring while upgrading a hard drive or something. LIterally, it was a tiny wishbone piece about 6mm long - I just needed a new one of those and I could fix the rest. Could I get that from Apple? Nope - it was $400 to get the entire keyboard replaced - the only option offered - that was my last Apple laptop repair experience.

Fast forward, I was in a car wreck at the very end of last year (talk about going out with a bang) that rolled the car - everything inside went on Tumble Dry for a few seconds.

Ever since then, I’ve had a persnickety problem with the WiFi on my first gen Macbook (2GHz black model) - once it warmed up, the usable WiFi range would drop down to just a few feet - I had to sit in arm’s reach of the Time Capsule to get a signal. No couch surfing, no bed email - bummer.

Read on to see how things have improved.

Filed under:

Caveats of upgrading to Final Cut Server 1.5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If you are in a mixed Intel/PPC environment, think very carefully before committing to Final Cut Server 1.5, there are many caveats. I don’t recommend a mixed FCP 6/7 environment with Final Cut Server 1.5, nor do I recommend installing Final Cut Server 1.5 in a primarily FCP 6 environment if you want distributed processing for Final Cut Server 1.5.
EDIT: DO NOT install the Qmaster Node for Final Cut Server 1.5 on a Final Cut Pro 6.x box! I’m still trying to get Compressor to work a day later after uninstalling and then reinstalling. UGH!

Read on after the break for the details, such as the dangers of using the new Qmaster node with older Final Cut Pro 6 installed.

Filed under:

DGA Digital Day 2009 Conference Notes

This will be looooooong - these are my raw notes, as taken, of sitting in on the panels at the DGA Digital Day today. I saw almost everything, but skipped out on some VFX stuff to go see the footage demos, which I found a bit disappointing due to incompleteness - no D21 or Sony camera footage. But it was VERY helpful to see camera demos back to back to back to get a sense of what they could do. Coverage begins after the jump. And since it is my raw, unedited notes as taken, no complaints - you get what I typed without looking, so if I typo’d, yeah. I typo’d.  The best stuff is the one on film distribution - indies, take heart - there IS hope, you just gotta play a different game.

Filed under:

Notes from DGA Digital Day 2009 vendor area & camera footage demos

OK, here’s a two parter - went to the DGA Digital Day (that’s the Directors Guild of America to you) and it was basically in two parts - sit down presentations, and a vendor area to wander. Here’s my notes from the vendor area, after the jump. EDIT - and I put my notes from the camera vendor demo footage in here too - seemed a better place for it.

Filed under:

Read my reviews of the new Final Cut Pro components

New Final Cut Studio is here - I’ve had a chance to review the components of the suite already, but unfortunately (for here) for another publication - MacWorld.

I’ll have lots more to say about them starting tomorrow on here, with the usual Mikey level of detailed analysis, with no word count constraint.

Final Cut Pro 7 Review | Video | Macworld

Compressor 3.5 Review | Video | Macworld

Soundtrack Pro 3 Review | Music and Audio | Macworld

Color 1.5 Review | Graphics and 3-D | Macworld

Motion 4 Review | Graphics and 3-D | Macworld

-mike

Filed under:

Mikey Hands On: Migrating from iPhone 0G to iPhone 3GS

So I skipped the 3G since it wasn’t different enough, but the 3GS and the end of my contract (I was one of those Day Zero, $600 mow-ronns), but REAL GPS (with direction), 4 times the capacity, voice commands, better camera with video was enough to convince me.

Happy discoveries: new and improved headphone cord with volume, new smaller power brick (same as 3G as far as I can tell, but smaller than the original’s). Nike+iPod works without the dongle! Just need the shoe sensor for it to work. SWEET. My old iPod Nano just lost its reason for existence (and perhaps its will to live). Compass is cool, overall YES is faster but a few surprises as compared to the OG (OriGinal iPhone)

So here follows the typical nerdery: unboxing pics, details of migration from one phone to another, boot and app launch times compared between 1st gen and 3GS iPhones, etc. And of course, some video from it to follow…

LONG activation times today! Took over an hour - probably worst case scenario since Day Zero for this product.

Read on for full geeky details…

Filed under:

Funny Video & Discussion - vendor/client relationships

NOTE - There IS a high def version of this available! Click on the HD button in the box above after you hit play, then pop it full screen.

The last line is a killer, especially as someone who comes up with pixel recipes for a living.

Ohhhh, the sweet, sweet irony of this one! What if the stunts vendors tried to pull with us were attempted in real life situations, like restaurants, the video store, or the salon?

“So you want me to work for free?”

“No, I don’t want you to work for free, it’s just a test! That way I can see if my husband likes it, and then you can roll the costs over till the next time I need color if he likes it.”

or

“I’ll come back next Tuesday, we’re gonna make it up on the next one.”

Most importantly, WHY do they think their situation is exceptional, and they should be able to get away with this? Or perhaps more importantly, why do we let them get away with it?

“Is there a problem sir?”

Ohhhhhh, yes. There is indeed.

Filed under:

Attention Red owners/users - at LAST eSATA transfers off of Red Drives!

R2E cable adds eSATA transfer abilities to RED camera

FINALLY! I asked about this before the first Red One even shipped, so nice to see it (eventually) saw the light of day - a LEMO to eSATA cable. The fastest possible data transfer bus for Red data transfer. Get a card in your laptop that supports port multiplying, then you can run data on one eSATA bus and two drives on another for your data backups with 2 copies via eSATA ASAP which on set is PDI.

At $230 it is a bit steep (how about a discount on the backup cable guys?) but at least SOMEBODY is doing it!

-mike

Filed under:

Mike’s Buyer’s Guide - Inside the new iMacs for editors

Apple introduced new iMacs the other week with bumped up specs. There are now four models to choose from on the online store, and all can be customized - but not all the same - you can upgrade some 24” models differently than some of the others, and the 20” is its own creature. So, if you’re interested in a low/mid end system for video editing (such as offline editing or LIGHT weight HD), which one should you choose?

Read on after the jump for Mike’s read on the new models.

Filed under: Hardware •

So - what’s up with Apple and Mini DisplayPort?

I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention when Apple introduced the new Macbook Pros with a Mini DisplayPort connector. Now that they are also in use ALL the new Macs introduced the other week (Mac Pro towers, iMacs, and Mac Minis), I figured it was time to do a little digging and find out what it is all about. Read on after the jump.

Filed under:

Mike at Sundance - just saw Soderbergh’s new The Girlfriend Experience

(I’m at Sundance, I’ll update with pics as soon as I get a cable to upload - I’m at a friend’s condo right now, cables back at mine - drat)

Just got back from the Sneak #2, the worst kept secret of Sundance - Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Girlfriend Experience. Highights from Steven himself before and from the Q&A afterward the jump.

Filed under:

ProVideoCoalition Liveblogging the MacWorld 2009 Keynote

This is the placeholder for liveblogging the keynote. It is 8:53am, I’m seated (decently) and ready to go…i

I’ll keep updating this best I can, and I’ll start update again once…anything happens.

8:54 - just sittin’ here…

8:56 - Irony is realizing best seat ever at a keynote, but no Steve…

9:00 am - asked to silence phones, and upbeat music begins…as does a likely long stream of elipses…

Continues after the jump…

Filed under:

Mikey on the scene - blogging the MacWorld SF 2009 Keynote Live

Head’s up - I’m in San Francisco with my media pass to MacWorld San Francisco 2009 (MWSF), I’ll be at the keynote clickety clacking away. I’ll post as much as I can as live as I can from the keynote.
Rumor mills calling for new Mac Minis (likely), new 17” aluminum, fixed (ugh) battery laptop (sure why not), and new Mac Pro towers with Blu-ray. My friend and vendor I buy my Macs from has his own thoughts on the matter: Torrey’s Mac Pro predictions.

UPDATE 11:30am CST Tuesday after the keynote: oops, no new towers. Or new Minis. No wonder Steve stayed home. Here’s the link to my live coverage.

-mike

Filed under:

Color 1.0.4 Released - Red fixes

Short and easy:

“The following improvements have been made to Color 1.0.4.

XDCAM Clip Relinking Is Fixed

XDCAM EX, HD, and 422 clips now relink properly.

ISO Changes in the RED Tab Appear Correctly

Instances where the Color UI did not accurately reflect changes made to the ISO parameter in the RED tab of the Primary In room have been fixed.

Improvements to the Blur Node in the Color FX Room

Adjusting the spread parameter of the Blur node no longer causes the clip to scale up.

For more information, go to http://www.apple.com/support/releasenotes/en/Color_1.0_rn.”

Changing ISO on RAW footage is an important and powerful tool - now it (purportedly) works right. Just saw it, haven’t tested it yet myself…

Also, don’t forget, I do NOT recommend 10.5.6 at this time, esp. if you’re a Color user - see previous post…

-mike

Filed under:

Beware 10.5.6 upgrade, 2007 Mac Pro owners

Got an email from a RAID vendor, 10.5.6 apparently is having some issues:

We have also seen on 2007 Mac Pros where the PCI-express configuration (Expansion Slot Utility) setting does not ‘stick’, it reverts to x8, x1, x1, x16 speeds always.  So any PCI-express cards installed are affected also.

...so watch out. Dunno if it affects non-RAID setups, but is such a pain to roll back, if you have PCIe cards (RAID cards, HD-SDI I/O cards, etc.) probably best to wait. I’ve updated my MacBook and had no difficulties to date (last 24 hours).

Thanks to Dulce Systems for the heads up.

Filed under:

Rant on The Death of Indie Film as a Business Model

Went to dinner with an indie filmmaker last night. Here’s a rant based on that.

Synopsis: I think indie movie making as a business model is deader than fried chicken.

Hoping to make your little movie and make a living off of it, until you can get the next one going? Very unlikely, unfortunately.

As somebody mentioned in an email to me about this, moviemaking digital tools came along to help reduce (some) costs of moviemaking, but other digital tools came along that stripped away the marketability of those films even faster (bootleg downloads, too much content, competition for time from internet/cable/DVDs/games/etc.) and the math isn’t working out favorably right now.

Supporting evidence below:

Filed under:

Red updates Scarlet/Epic specs - “Mo Bettah”

Updated with exclusive charts and analysis Wednesday 1pm PST)
Red always talks about all specs, timetables, prices, etc. are subject to drastic change. So, they’ve already changed (read: “increased”) the specs for the planned Scarlet and Epic cameras, and given a big wet kiss to existing Red One owners. Read on for the details after the jump.

Filed under: *VIDEO* •Cameras •Post Production •

TRULY native Red support in Final Cut Studio…finally!

Apple and Red have teamed up to support native (OK, rewrapped QTs, akin to how P2 is handled) .R3D support in Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 and Color 1.0.3. Red has a plugin to work with those new versions, including access to the 12 bit RGB data within Color…even letting you manipulate exposure, white balance, etc. on the native R3Ds in a 32 bit floating point space. Keep reading for either:

a.) to understand WTH all that means, or

b.) all the gory details if you do

....after the jump.

Filed under:

Red’s new approach - modular digital stills and motion cameras - 8 new models

Today Red announced 8 (yes, EIGHT) new cameras. Sensors range from 2/3” to 186x56mm (yep, that’s 7 1/3 by 2 1/5 INCHES), with resolutions from 3K to 28K, with prices from $2500 to $55,000 for the “brains” of the units (more on that below). Incredibly modular to a Legos or Erector Set degree. There’s a HUGE amount of information up on Red’s website here, but after the jump I’ve organized/summarized, have some analysis, and answers to questions not found on their site. Continues after the jump….

Some additional

Red Event: Ted Schilowitz, Red’s “Leader of the Revolution” gave a talk on the Fox lot today, here’s my notes-

showing new stuff, screening new footage,

screening the reel from the 4K reel (we’re watching HDCAM SR 1080p)

LOTS OF NEW STUFF - Che, very little left over from original reel

“for a young company that doesn’t really know what we’re doing, we seem to know what we’re doing”

“I’ll probably get some stuff wrong…the organizational part will come later”

“All specs subject to change, count on it”

“we’re a development company, we like to sell stuff, but at our core we like to build stuff…anything we do at any point in time is subject to change”

Luke from Apple and Michael from Plaster City

originally said they’d never hit the price point and specs - keep your eyes open

shipping for 1 year, all over the world, to 67 countries,

less of a traditional company, more of a ride (more of a roller coaster)

-2 years development to frutition to shipping it in mass

-not afraid of that dynamic, to ride the razor’s edit

-the first year, Ted had renders of what the Red will be

-the first Red “One” was a wooden box with a bunch of boards, had a slice of a sensor

-Guerilla, The Argentine, Game, The Informatnt, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, Knowing all shot on Red

Soderbergh shot in the jungle with the pre-release cameras

-Game by the Crank guys is in post, a couple of thousand effects shots

-The Informant shot with Matt Damon on Red, The Girlfriend Experience shooting on Red

-BARD stars Michael Douglas is in final DI and testing

-have a filmout we might get to see

-BARD shot on 6 Reds

-Knowing shot in Australia with 7 Reds, Alex Proyas directed, Nicolas Cage - all of these could have shot 35, shot Red instead, even at that budget level

-(Donnie Darko 2)

-small screen - tons of commercials shot on Red

SO, IN DEVELOPMENT:

SPECS AND DATES ARE SUBJECT TO DRASTIC CHANGES. COUNT ON IT AND YOU WON’T BE DISSAPOINTED

(so dates will slip)

Scarlet, Epic, the DSMC system

DSMC = Digital Stills and Motion Cameras

Scarlet and Epic were announced

Scarlet little sister, Epic big brother

Epic was to be a 5K sensor around $40K, could step up from Red One

went back to drawing board, felt that wasn’t a big enough step forward

a system all based around DSMC system

the brains are about the same size

epic isn’t that much bigger

is just the brains

stills camera that shoots motion, a motion camera that shoots stills

Red One wasn’t a video camera, was a still camera that shoots motion - pushign that to the nth degree - learned about what works - is a RAW progressive frame making machine

-over 2 trillion possible configurations

-3K, 5K, 6K options

-have a range of cameras, all living inside the Scarlet (or Epic) bodies

-the first two use 2/3” sensors

-the two differences: one is a fixed 8x zoom, the other has interchangable mounts (C, Red minimount, and something else) - 1-120 fps

-the lenseless is $2500, the fixed lens don’t have a price point yet

-fixed lens biased towards the wider

5K camera is 14MP, is S35 sized 1-30fps the FF35 is 1-30fps, 6K will have a 24MP sensor

many of the configs imply configuring as a digital still camera that can shoot video as well

-the fixed lens (image 121) - the back piece comes off and remote it from 100 feet away

-the lens itself can do zoom, focus, and iris electromechanically

-the tactile feel of manual focus is possible too

-122 - in cinema mode with this thing

-123 - the handle itself can mount stuff, put addl 12V batteries

-an IO module slides int ethe middle,  (DO THESE SLIDE/LOCK TOGETHER, BOLT TOGETHER, OR WHAT?)

-new electronic super high res viewfinder in 124 - what res? - can use the existing LCDs and stuff on this as well - so 720p

-the left side module is swappable for CF, SSD module, keep being updated and modified

-is a self contained shooting unit, no tethering required

-a lot of the Red accessories connectable

-126 - the lineup, the fixed lens model is a little deeper

-targetting for “a little less than a year”

-the reel was at Redcode 28 or 36, these devices have more advanced Redcode - go Redcode 42-this is on the Scarlet

S35 and the FF35 are 7K and 12K

Red is between 10 and 11 stops Monstro 13 stops

Redmount is their electronic mount

-the only sacrifice for Scarlet is frame rate (limited to 30fps for S35 & FF35)

-5, 6, & 9K

Epic is 5K, 6K, and 9K

S35 is 5K 1-100fps

FF35 Monstro 6K 1-100 fps

9K 1-50fps 645 Monstro

this is really for the high end pro market

note the bricks (brains) get bigger

-132 - has the same controller that works on both sides - can have TWO of them - one for asst, one for operator (Scarlet could live this way too)

-133 - center of gravity is in an interesting place - can grow in and out as neccessary

-134 - two batteries and module

-135 - a Scarlet here, but Epic could be there too

up to Redcode 225 (asked the frame rate thing, the counting way is different from the Red One)

-Epic is now 28K for 5K 1-100fps, can trade in for $10K to get Epic, for FF35, is 6000x4000, $35K

9K is 1-50fps, is medium format (137) - 65MP images at 50fps, can be cinema or stills, shoot billboards - doing sports or fashion to pull a high quality moment in time -

-Chris shoots both - (guy next to me)

-the wheels are off - can go up to ultra ultra hi res

-617 - if 645 was vistavision, 617 is about 2.5x times Imax, 261MP, Redcode 500

-16 bit, 13 stops, digital imax on steroids - AND CAN SHOOT IT HANDHELD

-shoots 25fps at that res

-accessories move forward

-LENSES

-electronic lenses, their own mount for it

-stabilization - can’t answer yet

152 - Red mini mounts - tiny lenses

-my bloody valentine shot 3D with Reds with a mirror rig

-talk to Stuart about the interocular on the 3D rig

-Nike Fincher spot, shot on 6-7 Reds, Rock Paper Scissors,

(shot in part on my Red!)

-10 OR 12 episodic shows around the world shot on Red, expect to see more of it for TV, to find more efficient ways of delivering post on ProResHQ

-Leverage and 26 Miles shot on Red for TV

-Michael Cioni from Plaster City

two different ways to edit (native with reference movies) or with transcoded ProRes files

-Avid pathway as well

-via Scratch for realtime layoff to tape

-via files

-more native support for MXF in the future

-Plaster City is data centric

-make sure everyone has a little taste on all this can be done as quickly as a taep or film based workflow

-For Final Cut Pro, can transcode yourself - both Leverage and 26 Miles transcoded to ProResHQ

-adapting HD for working with Red - DNxHD stuff

-Red & Avid, can telecine if you want via Scratch - datacine in realtime with color correction to tape for traditional workflows

-DNxHD can capture as high res DNxHD 115, output for color correction, nuking assembly and reconform

-can work with one light or best light dailies, is good enough for air

-still have the ability to go to RedRAW to reconform

-FCP/Avid/Premiere - can offline, can possibly do realtime

-transcoding does NOT have to be 30x realtime, can be as fast as realtime

-two workflows with Final Cut - working with native _M files - good for checking things on set or single stream editing, good for limited storage capacity

-working nativel without rendering, these are 1Ks files, aren’t sufficient for broadcast

-transcoding to ProRes lets you work full size (or DNxHD in Avid) - in Labor Pains, was transcoded to DNxHD with a one light color correction to tape, captured in - is GOOD ENOUGH FOR SCREENING AND AIRING

-Pussycat Dolls video shot on Red, the source photography was a challenge

-10-25TB of data comes in a week

-there are a lot of facilities getting good at Red, to transcode into something you’re already working with

-can expand the worlfow you already have into every lab - people think you can’t bridge it into other workflows,

LUKE FROM APPLE -

preview of work on stuff currently under development

-159 - using a new plugin for Color, editing the proxies, grade with RAW controls (using native 4K files)

-can output 2K ProRes or DPX (or uncompressed or whatever)

-(NOTE FOR ME - CAN RECONFORM FROM PRORES TO NATIVE TO COLOR CORRECT NATIVE?)

-editing realtime 2K sequence (this is new)

-plugin in color

Log and Transfer into FCP

163

164 - disk to disk copy, moving native files, no transcoding

2K downrezzed on the fly from the source 4K

-all the Red camera metadata, mapping into the QT header file,

-if working with FCServer, can use that metadata to sort/sift

-can search based on timestamp for afternoon shots

-all the metadata is searchable (this maybe in the new version due soon!)

-all metadata

-is NOT a reference file, is a freestanding QT file, no longer needs to reference the RAW source footage anymore (hooray!)

-in FCServer, simulating a multi-user workflow, can check it out to the desktop, can open it up, have a sequence built from that wrapped R3D material brought in through log and transfer

-working with it as you work with the material, without transcoding

-he’s scrubbing - don’t see any raltime playback!

-this can all happen in parallel - as soon as Log & Transfer has done it, is visible in Final Cut Server or anything - instantly available

-very easy to do

-what is the plugin called - the Red Plugin for Log & Transfer from Red - when available? “Very soon”

-RAW to linear etc. - ask Luke about it offline

-his demo is Final Cut 6.0.5, BTW (I think, went by quickly)

-(transitions show better in this version in Color)

-in the Primary room, there is a Red tab in the Primary room, lets me alter the Red parameters on the RAW in a non-distructive way - manimpulating the 12 bit source -

-can render out to whatever you want as usual from there

-a short by Russel Carpenter (Titanic etc.), is almost done, is about 14 minutes

-going back to see some nature footage

-Mike (??) from Adobe - Adobe CS4 - an update to CS4 (free) will let you look at 4K Red in After Efects and Premiere without any transcoding - 8 bit out of Premiere, 32 bit float etc. out of After Effects, all see the 4K natively, can play 1K natively realtime, is a global setting to downconvert to 1K ro 2K - some Vista workstations are getting 2K playback

-works on PC and Mac

-expect a lot of good stuff

Q&A:

========

QUESTIONS:

no reflex viewing option for the high end - that is their way

INTEROCULAR ON THE 3D RIG? (didn’t get an answer)

stabilization? can’t answer yet

-Redcode - how are you measuring, or planning to measure? (the stated numbers are for max framerate/max resolution - so Redcode225 is for 100fps work at 5K, for instance)

-ramping in Scarlet? (probably not, but not at all confirmed or official)

-resolution & number of outputs on Epic? (at least 2 1080p)

-uncompressed for stills? (nope)

-further refinements on the PL mount? (forgot to ask)

NO REFLEX VIEWING - resolution and match it to concept of cinematography and photography, different from an SLR, expect folks to use high res viewing devices

-most of the optical finder (new finders will be higher res down the road) conversation went away

-frame rates and resolutions

-the DSLRs like D90 and 5D mark 2 are different

Rodney Charters asks - adding bit depth is a big part of it, the brains are more advanced than the Red One, we’ll see the results of that - most important to us is dynamic range (what they hear from DPs)

-credit for Red One - details online - if going to Epic, get a full credit of $17,500 - IF YOU WANT to keep the Red, you get 12% discount off any Scarlet you want to buy

-demand will be high for the new stuff, Red One owners get priority status

-a number of ways owners will get benefits

-higher frame rates - as you window down, get higher frame rates

-won’t get higher frame rates on Scarlet, on Epic for sure, as go down in res, go higher in frame rate - the 6K and 9K at 100 or 50 fps, can shoot full res at full rate

-5K and 6K will be the sweet spot for large screen work

-for current Red One owners, will probably have a wait list program, but haven’t detailed all that yet - keep watching reduser and red.com

-these new bitrates for codec - tweaked from current - working on new ways to get hgher res and appropriate bandwidth to catch that resolution

-there is NOT a one to one correlation to what they are doing today - is a complicated matrix

-R3Ds file structure - Redcode is the heart of their effort, Redcode as a wavelet based form will be the basis for the future, but how to net that down for post and delivery will be shown later. Don’t think the current R3D is the end game - if they can get more res at the head end, will pay off later. No reason to gate the top end to worry about where the home (user resolution) is

-sensitivity - likely more sensitive than Red One, but aren’t talking about it yet. Bet that everything across the baord

-ALMOST complete compatibility across Epic - there’s a step-up ring to get to the thicker form factor - other than that, pieces to work across both lines

-electronically - the accessories are cross compatible

-moving from body to body and swapping sensors - the answer is probably, but don’t know yet, that hasn’t been discussd yet

-storage capacity stays the same, so recording duration goes down (good question Jim Mathers)

-ride the tech wave as it evolves - so expect bigger/faster over time

-recording options are still yet to be determined

-uncompressed stillls? Don’t see that as their future - when see the Redcode results, will quiet them the way the uncompressed outputs and - in the end, the orders were in the single digits for the uncompressed version - if it makes sense, there’s enough demand and biz model, but they are happy with the wavelet as the future - was great in gen 1, will get better in gen 2

-existing Red drives WILL work on future stuff - for 3K Scarlet yes, but under certain configs won’t be fast enough

-PL CAN be put on the FF35 stuff, WILL be able to do anamorphics

-most popular Epic? FF or S35? FF is $35K, isn’t much difference in price, that small price bump is worth it for the coverage and frame size and stuff

-FF35 WILL work with traditional anamorphics - aspect ratio for FF35

-1080p multiple outputs on Epic? - YES!

FF35 is full frame 4x3 sensor

2nd pass notes -

the difference is the frame rates between scarlet and epic

3K can do midlevel stills with it

5K & 6K use much larger sensors, can do 1-30fps for motion picture stuff, are ultra high res cameras

close to 14MP for 5K, 24MP for 6K

QUESTION - HOW DO THE BRICKS INTERCONNECT/LOCK TOGETHER?

more dynamic range than Red One, using DNRX technology

-existing reel & stuff is at Redcode 28 & 36, the new stuff goes up to Redcode 42

-with 13 stops - getting into the ballpark with Red One, Monstro is getting close to film’s dynamic range

-can have TWO remotes - one for assistant and one for operator

-handheld with bigger LCD

-will have newer CF modules, will have SSD modules, etc.

YES can put PL mount on the 6K FF35

there’s a swiss company that makes a 617 format camera that shoots 1fps for something 2.5x bigger than IMAX

doing up to 25fps on this unit

is 261MP camera

digital still camera that shoots movies

3K @ 2/3” they have mini-Red mount lenses, from 6.5 to 75mm

they specifically designed it longer rather than wider - viable for 3D

Filed under:

New workflow options for Red announced from Apple, Adobe, & Avid

I spent much of today on the Fox lot, watching Ted Schilowitz talk about what’s up with Red. I’ll have another article up shortly about their new hardware, but in terms of workflow, some interesting things were discussed today for upcoming changes coming this year from Apple, Adobe, and Avid for native (or more native) Red workflows. Details after the jump.

Filed under:

Red Drops the (Specs) Bomb

It is 5am.

And I still haven’t gone to sleep. Then Pliny from Offhollywood drops me an link to Reduser’s page on all the specs for Epic, Scarlet, and the whole DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) thread that Jim has been posting to tonight. Read on….

Filed under:

“The Conversation” Conference starts today in SF

Starting this morning, The Conversation begins in Berkeley, California. The Schedule is here. Speakers will include John Gaeta (VFX super on The Matrix trilogy & Speed Racer), John Knoll (of ILM, also created Photoshop), Phil Tippett, and a slew of new media folks. I’m crushed that I’m missing the first day - I’ll be talking about what’s new in post & production tomorrow at 1:30, and my Red One camera wasn’t ready to drive up to San Francisco until this morning. In any case, if you can, dart on over to Berkeley and check it out - if you’re curious about where content is going and how it’ll be created, this should be fascinating. On site registration is about $150 for the two day event.

-mike

Filed under:

QuVis Wraptor to export your own DCI DCP (that’s theatrical digital file package)

QuVis has announced a new product - QuVis Wraptor - a $699 Compressor plug-in for Final Cut Studio that allows independent content producers to create their own DCI DCP. That is a Digital Cinema Initiative’s Digital Cinema Package, which is the digital file format and wrapper used for digital projection, a standard that only came about in the last few years. Why is this such a big deal? Because I’ve heard encoding of even just TRAILERS was about $6K a pop, and features were about $20K. Now you can “roll your own” for about $700. So that’s BIG.

Read on for more about it…

Filed under:

Bloggage - I’ve got my own Nikon D90 on the way

Just a simple blog post - I’ve ordered one of the new Nikon D90 cameras for myself - I wanted a DSLR so I could learn more about RAW shooting, I also wanted a Nikon, so I could doodle with the Red One’s Nikon lens mount. BH Photovideo has the D90 with a VR 18-105 lens for $1295, I’d asked for B&H gift certificates for my birthday back in June, so I was able to use those to offset the cost. I got the camera with lens (the body alone is about $1000, but not available until October according to B&H’s site), a coupla 4GB cards, a remote trigger, an extra battery, the big battery pack that lets it do something extra I recall, and a monopod. It should, in theory, all get here Friday, so I’ll let you know how it all turns out. I’m really a post guy at heart, been learning more about what happens in front of the sensor the last few years. My iPhoto has about 20K+ images in it, so I figure it is time to step up to a DSLR and start learning more. Plus, the camera has a nifty 720p video mode which will be fun for doodling/documenting. DPreview mentioned a Nikon GP-1 GPS tagging gadget, BH didn’t list it, but that sounds like the kind of thing I’d definitely want to play with, and could lead to some fun web stuff to doodle with. All in time.

-mike

Filed under:

Nikon D90 vs Red’s Scarlet - Specdown!

Nikon is about to ship the D90, a 12MP DSLR that shoots HD movies. Wait a minute, doesn’t that sound a lot like Red’s Scarlet?

If you aren’t familiar with the D90, check out my post on the neat little camera.

And more importantly, what will this trend mean for the industry at large?

Read on to see how the about-to-be-released Nikon D90 stacks up against the current specs for next year’s Red Scarlet.

Filed under:

Nikon D90 - nice DSLR that also shoots HD video

Nikon is about to ship their new DX format DSLR, the D90.

So why should you care?

Because it also shoots 720p movies.

Yep, that’s right - 1280x720, progressive frame, nice depth of field (roughly equivalent to Super35mm/Red One), 24 frame per second movies.

With sound.

How much? $1000 for the body, $1300 with an 18-105mm lens.

Read on for the deets.

Filed under:

iSee4K - MUST HAVE iPhone/iPod Touch app for Red One users

My buddy Paul Alvarado sent me a link to this one - it is a GREAT little app for iPhone/iPod Touch that is a MUST have for anybody working with a Red One camera that can have an iPhone/iPod Touch on set. It is called iSee4K, and it helps you figure out a bunch of the things you need to know both for the cinematography as well as data wrangling aspects of the Red One camera. If you ever saw my post on Red One Geekery: Real World Info on Redcode, you saw the handy charts that showed data rates, maximum frame rates, frame sizes, codecs, etc. It took several charts to contain all that info, there’s lots of variables, and it is too much to keep in your head. So Edward Watkins has turned all that and more into a handy little iPhone App. Read on for the most excellent deets.

Filed under:

HEY! Apple releases ProRes for Windows

Poking around looking for some information for a client on workflow, stumbled across this little bon mot - Apple has released a FREE ProRes codec for Mac & Windows - it is mentioned on this page towards the bottom, and there are links for the decoders included:

ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Windows
ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Mac

Analysis follows after the jump.

Filed under:

Red One Geekery: Real World Info on Redcode

Shortly after I got my Red One camera, I went out to go play with it. I wanted to do some baseline testing - from my many talks with Graeme Nattress, Red’s codec guru, I knew that Redcode was a variable bitrate codec. That means that the datarate can vary depending on the content of the scene. OK…so how MUCH can it vary? Quite a bit, I found out. Read on for this and other geekery…

Filed under:

Making Movies Now - bigger, sometimes better, definitely riskier

I opened the LA Times today and the front of the Calendar section was dominated by a picture of Brad Pitt sprawled on a couch with the headline Sparking Curiosity with the subhead “The trailer for ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is everything it should be” and talks about the buzz around the movie. The company where I’ve been working the last 3 months provided the cameras, recording system and workflow, same as was done for Zodiac (I mentioned this in Couple bits of awesomeness the other day).

A fun read about how great the trailer looks to be.

Reading the continuation on page E4, that dovetailed into a minor article entitiled “Indie biz needs more discipline” - which discusses the 99.9% chance of failure of a movie budgeted under $10M.

Hmm…what does this imply? Read on.

Filed under:

Couple bits of awesomeness

Quick note on some things:

a.) Busy, not dead. Waaaaaaaay busy.

b.) The trailer is (finally) out for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which was shot digitally on the Viper, recorded to S.two recorders. I’ve been working with the vendor that provided the gear, it is nice to see what masters of the game (director David Fincher, DoP Claudio Miranda) can do with digital tools when they commit and know EXACTLY what they are doing.

c.) Red Build 16 is imminent, and it is a Big Deal for those tracking Red. Months later than wanted/expected, but major new stuff in there. IF it does what Jannard and crew claim, I’d say the Red will have finally, fully arrived, fulfilling virtually all of the promised capabilities. (How soon till we can save curves on Red Alert and load into camera?)

Filed under:

The very, very serious problem with democratization of technology in moviemaking

Times are tough for indies right now - I just finished reading an LA Times article - Cloudy skies for Cannes indie market talking about how tough the market is for indie (as in, non-studio produced) content these days. And I think technology is largely to blame.

Backing up, here’s the evidence, as stated in the LA Times article:

-the number of buyers for indie are are thinning:
Not that long ago, the sellers of movies made outside the studio system knew that not only were there nearly a dozen forceful buyers competing for movies, but also that those distributors often were willing to roll the dice on less conventional fare. That’s all changed in a hurry.

Filed under:

WOW. Reason to want to make movies

Check out this trailer for The Fall. If the imagery doesn’t grab you at first (I saw posters on the street walking to work, and I literally stopped to gawk at the one sheet), how about “David Fincher and Spike Jonze Present.” Directed by Tarsem, known for his music video work.

Wow.

How gorgeous is this? In the middle of a 60+ hour work week, I watched the trailer 3 times, with co-workers, dimming the lights, waiting for the 1080p to download, and standing enthralled.

I took the time during lunch to scroll through, find 20 amazing stills in it, copy/paster to Photoshop and save’em out as JPEGs so I can have them rotate out as desktops every few minutes.

It is THAT good.

Plus, it looks like a good story, unlike some technically proficient, but plastic spastic blockbusters opening today. Which imagery do you think will stay with you, haunt your idle reveries, more?

-mike

Filed under:

Panavision & Canon videos on “Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications”

John Galt (Panavision) and Larry Thorpe (Canon), two well respected industry veterans, gave along talk at the Hollywood Post Alliance about how to really understand what is going on in digital cameras. It went over so well they revised & expanded it and did another one at Panavision,  entitled Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications. This is looooooong, but HIGHLY recommended if you want to really understand what is going on. As a Red owner, I couldn’t help but notice that the press release mentioned something about “pixels aren’t resolution,” which is true, but clearly a response to the Red One’s 4K resolution. I haven’t had a chance to watch them all yet, so I can’t fairly state whether there is an agenda at work (it would be somewhat fair to presume that Panavision and Canon cameras won’t be looked on TOO unkindly), but these two guys are well known and respected, and have been doing this stuff for a long time. Chime in with comments about your take on it all - I’m prepping for a big client demo, no time to watch today…

-mike

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Top 5 Things at NAB ‘08

1.) Red Scarlet/Red Epic - one for home, one for SERIOUS D-cinema work. Scarlet is easily summed up - “3K for $3K” - with 3K sensor that can shoot up to 120 fps for under three grand, when it ships in 2009 it will be a tough price point to beat. Red Epic, meanwhile, with better quality Redcode RAW, and 5K resolution at up to 100fps for only $40K, should be an indie filmmaker’s new Must Have.

2.) Codex Portable - record dual link HD-SDI or even RAW formats the latest cameras using 4:1 wavelet technology, on a breadbox sized package you can sling over your shoulder. Add the virtual file system on top of that, as well as the ability to transcode material in-the-box, you’ve got a helluva solution for a damned attractive price.

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Red One News - Builds, Lenses, Accessories

...so besides Scarlet, Epic, and Red Ray, there was (Oh Yeah!) news for Red One too. They have some new lenses, accessories, and firmware builds coming for the Red One. I got hands on with the big honkin’ 18-85mm zoom, and it is GOOD. I looked at the new 7” Pro LCD and I like it. Read on for the details that aren’t on the website.

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Red Ray - 2+ Hour 4K playback for under $1000…from a burnable DVD

On the show floor, I’ll try to clean this up later, but here’s the scoopage:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Playback device, 4K in, 4K, 2K, 1080p, 720p, or SD out from Red Disc, Red Express, or native R3D files from CF

RED / RED RAY

Favorite quote from Ted Schilowitz, Leader of the Revolution for Red:

“We consider 1080p Blu-ray to be a stopgap solution. The future is way beyond 1080p.”

Read on below for all the nifty details:

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Red Scarlet - 3K for $3K…at up to 120fps

Again, I’m on the show floor and working fast, so here’s the scoop on Red’s new professional camera that is high end consumer priced:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 3K for $3K, 2/3” Mysterium X Sensor, 1-120 fps (180 fps burst mode), up to 100 MB/sec Redcode RAW & RGB recording to dual compact flash, 4.8” LCD, 8x T2.8 Red Zoom lens (fixed lens), full auto or manual shooting modes, HDMI, HD-SDI (4:2:2 likely), FW800, Still mode, WiFi control, compatible with many Red One accessories (as shown on show floor).

RED / SCARLET

Here’s some of my own pictures of the prototype.

Read on the all the gory details:

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Red’s new Epic camera - 5K RAW, 100fps, $40K

OK, I’m on the show floor and furiously typing this up, so this is quick, rough, but info-laden -

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: $40K, 5K, 1-100 fps, Super35mm coverage, up to 100MB/sec Redcode (yes, MB not Mb), FW800 & USB 2.0, Redcode RAW & RGB to RedFlash, dual link HD-SDI, 2 XLR, upgradeable sensor, body, boards & mount, 6 pound machined aluminum body, hybrid stainless steel mount, compatible with MOST but not all Red accessories. Ships “early 2009”

RED / EPIC

Read on below for all the gory details.

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Blogwad - press releases of interest for NAB 2008

So I’m digging through all 100+ NAB related emails, to figure out what is worth checking out this week. In no particular order, here is cut & paste PR copy of what caught my eye to check out. I’m not advocating anything in particular, other than just “this caught my eye.”

First item, goes without saying, is abusing my Exhibitor badge to be parked front and center Monday morning at Red’s booth, I have a 10am interview with Ted, which will have given me enough time to see what’s up in the booth to start drilling him on questions. OK, let the PR-speak commence - this is copy/paste, not my interpretation:

Filed under:

Long, AWESOME interview with James Cameron about shooting 3D

EXCELLENT interview with James Cameron, all about shooting 3D, in Variety. Detailed, GOOD, and dovetails/contrasts nicely with my notes from the 3D panel at NAB I attended yesterday.

James Cameron supercharges 3-D - Entertainment News, Technology News, Media - Variety

John August has a lengthy commentary as well where he calls James Cameron the Steve Jobs of 3D (and explains why he calls him that).

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Mike’s Notes from Saturday’s Digital Cinema Summit

I got back in late into the 3D panel after taking care of some work on the show floor. Here’s my raw, unfiltered, typos-and-all notes from the panel on 3D, that I jumped in on late, so missed a lot of names. Some really good info, especially about the importance of modulating and babysitting the convergence point cut to cut, and how that affects editorial, and what steps to take to make sure the 3D cut works.

Howard Lutz -

3D - silver screens - manufacturing quality has affected display quality

supply of 3D camera rigs at the moment is an issue

-if there’s 2 major films being done in the Hollywood area, is OK, the minute a 3rd is in production, not enough cameras

-it has ramped up so fast, “Is it real or a fad?” It is real, there’s a commitment from CG and live action, it would be good to see a better supply of stereoscopic camera rigs, as well as production and post tools

-Dave from ??? on challenges of getting 3D from big to small screen

-whether dimensionalists, shooters, or renderers, we end up with a left and right view, superimposed, that cause your eyes to converge in front/at/behind the screen

-images that create binocular disparity, when done right is gorgeous, when done wrong is painful

-fundamental disparity - focusing on screen 40 feet away, converging elsewhere. Sends confusing depth cues to brain. Convergence wins…except on television

-and then, a formula on a slide, about left and right eye, separated by about 2 1/2 inches. Left eye crosses to right and vice versa to converge on the apparent distance to the image, which is different from the distance to the SCREEN

-Adult’s interocular distance - 2.5 inches, child is 2.0 inches

-if you have a face behind screen, and bring it closer, your eyes expect more difference and “roundness” of the thing’s info - is an issue on small screens

-Jim Maynard at Dreamworks is working on fixing this issue in software automatically in his renders

-it is the little d number - the apparent distance to object, as it compares to the big D, the distance to the actual screen

-5 feet from screen, closest object can be 89%, furthest at 114

-depth budget - how much can you go in front or behind of the screen - shown as a percentage of size of screen

-you can make your eyes diverge if you try to run it too much, big to small screen

-there’s a bell curve of acceptance to “Fundamental Disparity” - the eyes’ converging muscles and the eyes’ focusing muscles sendign conflicting depth into the brain. a few percent of folks have sensitive eyes - at the other end, agile eyes can handle anything

-if you look from dashboard in car to out the front, OK. But if you go from dash to rear view to out the front…takes time. Same thing happens with convergence in 3D - takes time if way different

-Registration - moving left and right eye views horizontally to move the whole scene closer or further

-Depth grading - adjusting explicity depth fo objects by shaping and moving individual objects or groups of objects towards or away from the viewer

-perfect 3D - can’t type that fast

-this is dave from InThree

-if you’ve got shots that are “at” the screen, can adjust to move it behind the screen - but your stuff that was almost at infinity in background is now beyond infinity, but causes eyes to diverge. So make darker or defocus to get it done

-25% depth budget on a TV. If you re-register, if you up that range, you can re-pdeth grade

-they tested stuff for 40 foot screen, 15 foot screen, 5 foot scren, showed it to folks. perferences when viewing ona 5 foot screen content that has been depth graded for:

-5 foot screen - 14% had experienced eyes, 17% had inexperienced eyes
15 foot - 66 and 42
40 foot screen 20 and 41

Samsung HDTVs are pre-built to do 3D.

-gorgeous 3D on television should be graded for 15 foot screen seems to be the take-away.

Linnie Elbert - subtitles in 3D. “What’s the deal? Once you get into it, makes you throw up in no time.”

Polar Express had subtitles, had’em projected on a separate projector on the screen.

most 3D content has been children’s movies, are usually dubbed

-Beowolf was to be subtitled, was only dubbed in 4 languages

-started some tests, picked two methods to put the movie out - in 4 territories (Neitherlands, Japan, Luxembourg) - subtitles in 3D pulled out in front, action behind usually. Can’t do it in projector, have to create them. Have to create a brand new master with subtitles, often 15 to 20 languages, hence 15-20 masters. Ugh, untenable

Also tried to put’em above the image - Beowolf was 2.35, so put in the 1.85 box and shoved it down. They tried it both ways. There’s more action at bottom than top. A floor, or water, etc. More often, the top is at a vanishing point and is far away, less parallax between what you’re reading and what you’re trying to look at.

if trying to read it, there’s other content your eyes are trying to understand, is a conflict.

-PUTTING THEM WITH A LOT OF HEAVY BLACK OUTLINE/SHADOW SEEMS TO LOOK BEST

-John ??? worked on the post/editorial stuff on 3D.

-identify challenges for 3D post

-with an 11 week post for a 3D movie, that was a PROBLEM. “My advice to you is that if someone comes to youwith an 11 week schedule, run the other way.”

-the support of production editorial

-in a 2D movie, you can evaluate the set cut to director’s cut

-but for 3D, is imperative to keep close, conform in 3D for the editor as he was cutting a song a day, had to show daily to have an accurate presentation of whether his cuts are working or not. On a 7 camera shoot, he’s going through and editing one eye.

-when conforming, just matching the creative cut to show in 3D was NOT ENOUGH.

-cameras were on cranes, moving, etc.

-the convergence points were all over the place

-without convergence matching, was painful to watch

-can’t tell if the cut was OK, unless can see 3D, because the cut migth be OK, but the convergence might be off (a new variable to work with in editorial)

-digitize left/right eye, conform, do a basic convergence balance pass

-some beam splittter issues came up time to time, to make l/r comfy to watch

-convergence issues for first pass, a balancing pass, the most important new thing

(Hanna Montana) - Michael woudl cut, quick conform & convergence pass, then show it, make changes, etc.

-by time got to a “latched” cut (Is there a locked cut anymore?), a new set of challenges.

-the real work begins, a combination of doing the color correction, doing the real 3D convergence pass (not the quickie), and doing then in tandem - how they interacted with the 3D, gotta be playing with both to get it to work right

-as editorial is continuing to make changes, those choices affect what the convergence/colorist stuff is working on

-bought a new Quantel Pablo, new storage, all new gear, using development code, not even beta, all this brand new pipeline to do it, a new challenge

-in the future, stronger support for being able to do 3D evaluations, but is a while off before it happens

-the concept of working with conforming as you go, is something they’ll have to be doing. Is not a good idea to try to make 3D evaluations in teh cutting room, the director/editor want to see the 3D really quickly, to see how the 3D is affected by cuts, and how it is working

-is diffferent for every shoot
—4 1/2 minute music video - can tailor the convergence, have it pop, work it/push it more. For a feature, with 90 minutes, can’t work their eyes as hard. Can hit’em over the head for 4 minutes, but can’t do it for 90 minutes. Tailor your convergence for what is appropriate for the material and the duration

-graphics and titles - was it easy or hard? There is a learnign curve for the vfx/graphics houses, did some back and forth, supported as they could with title placememt etc., but on Missy Elliot 4.5 minute video, they had some floating graphics to get the hang of where to put the graphic in z space?

Do we have people up to speed on 3D graphics? No, is a learning process

-they built a 3D slate, as they started doing titles, “do it like the slate” that was doine in 3D - ironic that was how the standard become,

Q: -If workign off a 20 foot screen, safe for most of the widest releases, or do need to compensate for each of the deliverables. A: if designed for 20 foot screen, will work on 5, but parallax doubles on 40 foot screen, triples on 60 foot, so that’s bad. But you can’t tell till you can see it. So they may need a 40 foot screen to test the footage. GOTTA EVALUATE with a 40 foot or bigger screen.

Atttempted to do rendered in grpahics for some things - Benelux and Japan were the two territories - this is NOT a way to burn-in stuff, isn’t feasible to do it with the turnaround available.

On Hanna Montana Q: do you work on the ocular separation on camera, or it is fixed, how much is done set up in front, or how much later?

A: interocular set on set as shot, the controller they have is convergence control. As part of storytelling, you’re using/tailoring 3D. One thign to NOT have happen is to have convergence at 40 then 15 then 60 feet - is way hard on airs.

Ramp up to 3D moments, is a convergence balance, not interocular. Vince Pace did static vs. dynamic convergence when shot. Somebody controlling convergence on SOME camera rigs, but not all cameras on all shows

Q: -how do you monitor convergence on set?

A: had basic dual projection feed, could do it on set, most guys in consoles, the guys that drive it, could do an A+B or a differential between left and right, will show the convergence error - that is how the operators did it

Q: LaserLight engines - brightnesss - based on experience so far, how bright WOULD you want it?

A: no answer yet

Want to see 14 foot lamberts if they could. Hanna had 4.5 foot lamberts. Creatives wanted to push it further, went to limits of projectors. Mo is bettah.

Q: Waht about dual vs. single projectors?

A: dual projectors would take another hour - great for making more light, but HORRIBLE to keep them aligned. Keeping the geometry, focus (across time), and something else aligned, it’d be great, but those are all hard. Dual screen is A solution, but is it a long term solution? Dunno. Everyone is doing 2 color passes - one for 2D version, one for 3D version, and the 3D is dimmer, human eye can’t adapt, gotta do it both ways. Is something is at 5, 10, or 14 foot lamberts, is REALLY expensive to grade one for each type fo projector

Q: Convergence changes with age- it changes over time from young to older - have found difference audience reaction based on age?

A: Hard to say, as some older folks sya they’ve experienced about some issues young folks don’t say. Probably an anecdotal thing. People NEW to 3D have a hard time locking in. Folks who’ve seen it repeatedly can lock pretty quickly even on some pretty bad systems.  Speaker interested on what he calls “Settling time” based on that dashboard experiement - if making movie for older audience, will motion through Z space have to be more carefully, gradually, softly dealt with?

Q: stereoscopic 3D - does it change the pace of storytelling?

A: Overdoing 3D - can’t do stacatto cutting? NOt really true. How to control convergence and set it appropriately for the action. For fight sequences, can cut fast, but CANNOT have convergence flying all over, because of the time to settle your eyes issue. Howard expected couldn’t have any slam pans - but you can, it works, can break the “RULES” so long as pay attention to the convergence on the Z Axis

When re-dimensionalized establshing shots, wanna look at different parts in scene - “savoring” the scene. 3D is unique and gorgeous for that. Peter O’Toole crossing the desert in 3D would be gorgeous. in the Matrix-  slow bullets coming at you is gorgeous - can emphasize those storytelling elements in 3D

Howard - we have found that the 3D cut is different for the 2D cut. With 3D, wanna linger on stuff, as the brain has a lot coming in - if in 2D, can be relatively boring in comparsion - don’t want to savor/linger. Can’t just pull out one eye of a 3D movei to make a 2D movie -might not be optimal? Still so much more to be done to figure it all out.

Sessions start at 8:30am, reception across the hall…

-mike out to DRINK!

Filed under: NAB 08 •

Mike on the scene at NAB

Hey all - just a quick note to let you know I’ll be at the NAB show - today is Saturday, and I’m just sitting down at the Digital Cinema Summit to take notes on…whatever they are going to talk about next.

I’ll be bouncing between this and the Digital Tech Guru panels today/tomorrow, with maybe some DP panels as well - gotsta get me 5 minutes to see the schedules, work has been INSANELY busy this week (another post entirely).

Monday morning first thing I have an interview with Ted Schilowitz in the Red booth, and with anticipation of Scarlett (“professional, handheld camera”), 4K displays, 4K projectors, 4K distribution system, and a new Red reel I’ve been seeing pieces of for a few months, should be a helluva show.

I’ll be abusing my access priviledges to get in bright and early…for your benefit.

I’m also, through work, going to be spending some time with the Codex and S.two booths, they should both have some very interesting announcements, and other stuff as well of course.

It’ll be an interesting show with both Apple and Avid off the floor. I noticed Apple shipped Final Cut Server quietly last week, and Avid had some good announcements too.

: )

-mike

UPDATE - aaaaaaand then work intervened. I took some demo footage over to the Band Pro booth, and Randy Wedick and Michael Bravin gave me a quickie look-see at the new Sony F35 camera. It is the Genesis sensor (striped CCD) 35mm sized, with a PL mount, on what is otherwise an F23 body. Better brains behind it, so some image enhancements in the circuitry. More later.

I also got a quickie looksee at the Angineux Rouge lens, I will HAFTA check me out that! Aimed at the Red camera crowd.

-mike, yet again

Filed under: Cameras •

Red “Mythbusting” Video

RED / RED Mythbusters

Ted Schilowitz sat down with Michael from Plaster City and did some mythbusting, to show that:

1.) You can play back on a Mac straight from the footage from camera
2.) You can drop that footage straight into Final Cut Pro
3.) You can play it back in Final Cut Pro without transcoding, and
4.) You can edit that footage, straight from camera

They shot it with two cameras, and walk you through the whole thing in real time. A good demo to see how it really does.

Caveats - you need a FAST machine - 8 core Mac Pro strongly recommended. You don’t get much in the way of realtime performance - you can play and you can cut.

BUT…it works! It is quick and easy if you need to cut stuff in a hurry AND have a fast box.

Link at top of article takes you to page on Red’s site that has small and large versions.

-mike

Filed under:

Crimson - third party Red application to help with workflow

Just so’s I’m first to call it - what we’ve been waiting for - Crimson - a helper app to help get conformed clips from Final Cut to Redcine and back, with just the parts we want and need in order. I’m doodlin’ with it, will have a report.

Huh? Whazzat? Whachoo talkin’ bout, Willis? Here’s how he describes it:

Crimson Workflow™ is a tool for transforming sequences created in popular Non-Linear Editing Software, such as Final Cut Pro, Avid and Premiere. It allows proxies, and offline material to be replaced by higher quality material, by efficiently managing the use of two software products distributed by the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, namely Redline and Redcine.

Crimson Workflow™ leverages many tools for troubleshooting less than perfect metadata and file structures giving the user tools to properly reconnect to original material. It also facilitates the use of Redcine after, rather than before editing a project.
Crimson Workflow™ is targeted at smaller productions and individuals. But you might find it useful, no matter how large your production.

What the software will EVENTUALLY do for you (under development, not feature complete yet, this from Ian Bloom’s site):

If you buy this software today, you can expect the following features to be enabled in the near future:

Loading and Saving Workflow Templates
Undo and Redo enabled
Support for AVID XML sequences
Support for Premiere XML sequences
Support for CMX 3600 EDLs
Blind Color Correction Tools Completed
Blind Framing Tools Completed
Support for GlueTools™
Support for the application formerly known as RedTools
Proper handling of speed changes and reverse in XML sequences.
Trimmed R3D Intermediates (as soon as a tool is available)
Timecode and R3D Metadata awareness.
Python Scripting Enabled

Verr Verr Promising.

I first saw it at the Los Angeles Red User Group, as demo’d by Mark and Aldey from OffHollywood, my friends from the East Coast that you may recall I went with when they got the very first Reds ever shipped. They worked with Ian quite a bit to get this software developed, giving feedback and spending a lot of time to get this done.

-mike

-mike

Filed under:

Quick update - Red One now shoots 2K at 120 fps - sample included

Just a quick note - Red released firmware build 15 last Thursday, which included a BUNCH of new features like multiple simultaneous video outputs (finally!), Look import and export (camera settings can be moved camera to camera and backed up on computer), and OH YEAH BABY - an increase of the maximum frame rate at 2K resolution from 75 to a whopping 120 frames per second!

The above is just a quickie timeline export from proxies on the timeline - I shot it “plain,” not tweaking the on camera settings, nor adjusting them in Red Alert - consider this a flat transfer - so no kvetching about the contrast and saturation, mmmkay?

: )

OK - SO HOW ABOUT 480 FRAMES PER SECOND?

Well, Red can’t do that - we’ve already achieved maximum framerate possible at this resolution. So how do we push further?

I then doodled with retiming it, to slow it down even further - here’s a shot (ignore the clipped highlights, result of some LUT doodling I was doing):

Note that this shot is used in the above cut as well - gives you an idea how far things can be pushed for saturation and look. The LUT I was messing with clipped highlights, I didn’t bother to go back in and try to retrieve them.

...and here’s the same shot, using After Effects’ pixel motion vector juju, to make it 4 times longer, effectively 480fps.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!

: D

I also attended the first Los Angeles Red User Group meeting, I’ll write up all the cool 3rd party hardware and software I saw in another post.

UPDATE - here’s a different bigger better longer one, 1000 pixels wide

Filed under:

Personal update - I’m moving to Los Angeles

Hey all - this isn’t industry news, just personal. I’m moving to Los Angeles to be more of a part of what I’ve been writing about for the past four years - digital moviemaking. I talk about it here, if you’re interested.

(Page 2 of 2 pages for this article  <  1 2)