Red Revolution - Red One Camera - Whats the buzz about?

About RED Digital Cinema

The idea behind the RED camera system is simple. Design and build a high performance digital cine camera with the quality of 35mm film and convenience of pure digital. RED delivers unmatched image quality with no recording system limitations.

Making the Red One work for you:

A Veteran Cinematographer Talks about his Experiences

The number of digital cinema cameras in the marketplace has grown exponentially in the last year and half. It’s been adopted by such high profile directors as Peter Jackson, Steven Soderbergh, and Alex Proyas, and has been used by such prominent ASC cinematographers as Vilmos Zsigmond, Roberto Schaefer, Don Burgess, and M. David Mullen. The Red has also brought high-end digital cinema acquisition into a realm of affordability for many more Filmmakers. Truth be told, there are probably more cameras around now than there will ever be professional assignments to utilize them. Literally thousands of new camera owners have been able to scrape together the cost of a Red One camera. However, a $17,500 box with a sensor does not make a complete camera system, and it takes a lot more to build a camera package that can integrate into a professional film making environment with the capability of being rented to amortize the owner’s investment.

The Red One is a marvel of industrial design, and they got a lot of things right, but [Red founder] Jim Jannard himself would be the first to admit that there is always room for improvement. It is truly a work in progress, and besides the constant evolution of product from Red, a cottage industry has developed to provide accessories specifically to bolster the camera’s utility, if not fix certain inadequacies. As an early adopter of the Red One, and owner of camera #30, I was happy to provide feedback to Red, and others with the goal of making a better camera. I’ve done a lot of research in putting my package together, and continue to study the myriad of new options for outfitting the Red. Following are some of the items that have caught my eye lately, many of which have become part of my kit.

Element Technica is a company that has evolved to provide solutions that help the Red One better fit into the framework of professional motion picture production. With backgrounds ranging from industrial design to years of on-the-set practical experience as a first A.C., the owners, Stephen Pizzo and Hector Ortega are well positioned to bridge the gap. In fact, their first product was a “bridge” plate that adapted the Red One to the Arri standard in order to work with the vast arsenal of gear that was already out there to service film cameras. Constant improvements have led to their latest product, the Hybrid Bridge Plate which is not only convertible between 15mm, 19mm, and Panavision rod standards, but with horizontal and vertical centering adjustment, can easily adapt between studio and lightweight hand-held configurations, as well as the upcoming Epic and Scarlet designs. This means that owners who buy accessories for the Red One can be assured that they will still find use with Red and other future cameras. The same is true of their new Mantis hand held rig, which slides into the standard dove tail and provides highly adjustable shoulder support in height and horizontal pitch, adjusting not just to different cameras, but also the various physiques of camera operators.

An early success for ET, which can be found on hundreds of Reds, is their breakout box, which converts the unpopular and fragile Mini-BNC connectors to the sturdier full size versions. Another popular ET product is their highly adjustable bracket to hold the Red electronic viewfinder solidly in place, including a new extension, which allows the EVF to be positioned far enough back to allow use with a geared head. One of their latest products is a vibration isolation mount to help cure the problem of lost data when the Red on-board hard drives take a jolt in situations such as shooting on car mounts or other high vibration environments.

AirSeaLand, (formerly known as Toys4Red), is another Red outfitter that has taken the concept of a breakout box to new heights. Their new “RIP”, (Remote Interface Panel) provides quick and easy access to all critical Red One connections. The RIP interface attaches to the side of the camera and can be used in Stand Alone Mode offering sturdy multiple BNC and XLR connections for audio, HDSI, timecode, and genlock; but what really sets it apart is the optional “RIB” Remote Interface (Break-Out) Box. Using a single industry standard DVI-I Dual Link cable, you can have full access to all of the camera's immediate I/O's at distances of up to 50 feet away. I’ve been testing this gear and find it invaluable; besides getting rid of the “spaghetti factory” coming out of the side of my camera, with one small DVI cable, the 50-foot extension puts the connection hub at a comfortable distance. This keeps the immediate perimeter around my camera a clean and peaceful environment, even during reconnections. It is ideal for JibArm setups, which I tend to use quite often, and includes start/stop, tally, and five-pin audio for multichannel and return.

When selecting lenses, I tested everything from Red’s zooms to Zeiss Master Primes, as well as the latest from Cooke and Angenieux. I settled on a combination of new and used lenses, but they were not cheap, especially since so many new PL mount cameras are making such lenses scarce. Just one of my new acquisitions, the Angenieux Optimo 17-80mm, sells at more than three times the cost of the camera body. It is a beautiful piece of glass, quite fast for a zoom at T2.2, and has a good focal range for the kind of narrative work I do, wide enough for the master, and just long enough to also get close-ups without a lens change. Although quite expensive, I believe higher quality glass is justified. I want to obtain the best image quality I can from the Red, and it all starts with the taking lens. An image is only as good as its weakest link, so it doesn't seem to make sense to me to scrimp on the first link in this chain.

However, realizing that few Red owners can afford such glass, Angenieux has also come up with a high quality zoom at a much lower price designed specifically for the Red. It’s called the Rouge, and offers the same quality as their 17-80mm, but at only about half the cost. You do give up some range; it only stretches to 30mm on the wide side, and it is slower at T2.8, but it is also much lighter, giving it the ability to work in handheld mode. Cooke Optics has also come out with a combination set of S4/i zoom and prime lenses aimed specifically at the Red market. It includes a 15-40mm zoom, as well as 50mm, 75mm, and 100mm primes, a good basic foundation for any package. Besides two of Red’s own zooms, these are the only lenses that feature Cooke’s i-Technology, for communicating crucial lens and camera data frame-by-frame to be recorded as metadata, which can greatly aid in post VFX.

Necessitated by budget, many owners have ordered their Reds with still camera lens mounts to take advantage of lenses they may already own. Still camera lenses do cover the full sensor, and although the optics can be excellent for the application they were designed for, problems arise in trying to use them for motion picture photography. When a still photographer zooms and focuses, then frames his shot, he is not bothered by image shift or breathing, but these can be pretty funky effects in a movie, not to mention that focus marks are not easily repeatable and the short throw, designed to help a photographer easily grab focus, is a detriment when you are trying to line up precise distances with engraved markings on the lens.

Although I have decided to stick with lenses designed for cinematography rather than stills, there are new adapters such as the Birger Mount, which enable many important functions of electronic still camera lenses, such as iris and focus to be accessed by the Red. The Birger EF232 adapter allows the use of Canon EF-mount lenses with electronic control of focus and iris functions controlled over the RS-232 or USB serial port. Prior to the development of such adapters, these electronic lenses could only operate while mounted on a compatible still camera.

For lens support and accessories such as matte box and follow focus, I’ve mostly stuck with tried and true Arri products originally designed for film cameras. Some of the Arri components in my package are at least 30 years old and still going strong; so you know they are built to be rugged and dependable. However, they can be expensive, and I’ve found I can also supplement with a few items from companies like Zacuto and RedRock Micro who have been offering quality gear for small format cameras, and are now adapting their products for digital cinema production, but at a lower cost than the more established brands. To meet the increased demand, Arri has also come out with a line of lower cost matte boxes and follow focus units. They don’t have all the durability and utility of their more expensive units, but they are a very good value and meet the basic needs of most Red owners.

A number of neutral density and color correction filters have proven to be indispensable when shooting with the Red. Picking a slower speed film stock more appropriate to the light level used to be the answer when shooting in brightly lit situations like a sunny daylight exterior. With the fixed sensitivity of the Red’s digital sensor, (ASA 320), it is necessary to add many stops of neutral density compensation to remain in the sweet spot of the lens, maintaining maximum clarity, and avoiding excess depth of field. However, these ND filters do nothing to filter the undesirable effect of excess Infrared contamination, which can be seen in an overall lowering of image contrast, even making certain shades or textures of black, appear as brown. Filter manufacturers such as Schneider Optics have come to the rescue with the creation of their Tru-Cut IR filters developed specifically to deal with this situation. Alone, or in filters combining IR and various degrees of ND, these filters control the Infrared portion of the light spectrum, which is not visible to the human eye, but can result in odd color shifts and prevent a camera's imagers from capturing true black tones.

Another series of filters getting to be popular with the Red are those that correct tungsten balanced lighting to be in closer harmony with the Red’s natively daylight balanced sensor. As Art Adams has discovered in his research for ProVideoCoalition.com, the Red is challenged when shooting under tungsten light. A 3200K light has a lot of red in it and very little blue, and silicon sensors are least sensitive to blue. Silicon sensors function very well under daylight conditions because daylight is mostly blue, which more than compensates for silicon’s blue insensitivity. But under tungsten light, where there’s very little blue, the blue sensor flails because it has nothing to do. And, like film emulsion, when a sensor has nothing to do it does its own thing: we call that generating noise. Art has found that adding a color correcting filter such as the series 80B, C, or D, (depending on how much light loss you can afford with these deeply saturated blue filters), can greatly help in critical situations such as green screen compositing. These filters have been around for years, but aside from special effects such as day-for-night never saw much use in film production, where again, you would have just selected an appropriately balanced stock.

Sticks and heads are, of course, a matter of personal taste, but even though the Red camera itself is only about 10 pounds sans battery and lens, by the time I set up a studio configuration with my zoom and accessories, I could be looking at 70 to 80 pounds; so for my package, I chose the very substantial O’Connor 2575 with heavy duty Ronford sticks. Probably the most popular head with Red owners, however, is the O’Connor 1030HDS, with a rating of 40 pounds; and for those who need to support a bit more weight, the O’Connor 2060, which comfortably supports up to 60 pounds, is also very popular.

With the Red’s modular design, and so many choices of accessories and support, Red owners can build extremely varied packages to meet their particular needs. My interest and background are in narrative film making, working on sets with trained professionals who have come to expect a high standard of performance and reliability from their support gear. There is a lot of exciting innovation in the marketplace, and new products are constantly being introduced. Please remember that my opinions and analysis are based on my particular experience and perspective...your mileage may vary.

A few forthcoming movies shot on Red One:

1. Van Diemen’s Land - http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/vandiemensland/

2. The Informant - http://theinformantmovie.warnerbros.com/

3. The Lovely Bones (Selected VFX shots) - http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/thelovelybones/

4. The Final - http://agoraentertainment.com/

Hello.... From your looooong lost friend...!!!

Hi all,

Its been a long time since I have posted in this blog.... too many things happened over a period of time - in my life as well as in the field of media... its sad that I was not able to keep pace with either of them... Now that I have managed to settle down and thought that I could continue with one of my passions which I was sharing with you, wonderful people. From now on you can expect at least a couple of posts each week on film making and other emerging media. Please do come and knock the doors of my blog in the future whenever you feel like doing so... yes, it is an open door and do paint it with your thoughts and wild imagination. If it is informative, that goes down the history as another success story.... Happy blogging to all of you!!!

DVD Pick of the Week - Premonition

            Premonition is a 2007 drama film directed by Mennan Yapo and starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon. The film was shot at locations throughout Louisiana.



IMDB User Rating: 5.6/10 (8,953 votes)

Multiple-camera setup

The multiple-camera setup (aka, multiple-camera mode of production) is a method of shooting films and television programs. Several cameras—either film or video—are employed on the set and simultaneously record (or broadcast) a scene. It is often contrasted with the single-camera setup, which uses just one camera on the set.
Generally, the two outer cameras shoot close shots or crosses of the two most active characters on the set at any given time, while the central camera or cameras shoot a wider master shot to capture the overall action and establish the geography of the room. In this way, multiple shots are obtained in a single take without having to start and stop the action. This is more efficient for programs that are to be shown a short time after being shot as it reduces the time spent of editing the footage. It is also a virtual necessity for regular, high-output shows like daily soap operas. Apart from saving editing time, scenes may be shot far more quickly as there is no need for re-lighting and the set-up of alternate camera angles for the scene to be shot again from the different angle. It also reduces the complexity of tracking continuity issues that crop up when the scene is reshot from the different angles. It is also vital for live television.

While shooting, the director and assistant director create a line cut by instructing the technical director to switch the feed to various cameras. In the case of sitcoms with studio audiences, this line cut is typically displayed to them on studio monitors. The line cut may later be refined in editing, as the picture from all cameras is recorded, both separately and as a combined reference display called the quad split. The camera currently being recorded to the line cut is indicated by a tally light on the camera as a reference both for the actors and the camera operators. A recent addition to this technique, borrowed from sports broadcasting, is called the "iso" recording (for "isolated" camera), where each camera's signal is recorded independently, in addition to feeding the switcher for the line cut.

History and use

Although it is often claimed that the multiple-camera setup was pioneered for television by Desi Arnaz and cinematographer Karl Freund on I Love Lucy, other television shows had already used it, including another comedy on CBS, The Amos 'n Andy Show, which was filmed at the Hal Roach Studios and was on the air four months earlier. The technique was developed for television in 1950 by Hollywood short-subject veteran Jerry Fairbanks, assisted by producer-director Frank Telford.[1] Desilu's innovation was to use a multiple-camera setup before a live studio audience.

The multiple-camera mode of production gives the director less control over each shot, but is faster and less expensive than a single-camera setup. In television, multiple-camera is commonly used for sports programs, soap operas, talk shows, game shows, and some sitcoms. However, many sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1970s were actually shot using the single camera mode of production, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Get Smart, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes and The Brady Bunch. These did not have a live studio audience and were shot using the single-camera technique, as are more recent programs such as The Larry Sanders Show (1992–1998), Malcolm in the Middle (2000–2006), Scrubs (2001–2008), and My Name Is Earl (2005–).

Television prime-time dramas are usually shot using a single-camera setup. Most films also use the single-camera setup. In recent decades larger Hollywood films have begun to use more than one camera on-set, usually with two cameras simultaneously filming the same setup, however this is not a true multicamera setup in the television sense. Sometimes feature films will run multiple cameras, perhaps four or five, for large, expensive and difficult-to repeat special effects shots such as large explosions. Again, this is not a true multicamera setup in the television sense as the resultant footage will not always be arranged sequentially in editing, and multiple shots of the same explosion may be repeated in the final film — either for artistic effect or because the different shots are taken from different angles they can appear to be different explosions to the audience.

The choice of single-camera or multiple-camera setups is made separately from the choice of film or video. That is, either setup can be shot on either film or video.

Arriflex D-20

The Arriflex D-20 is a film-style digital motion picture camera made by Arri first introduced in November 2005. The camera's main attributes are its modularity and the size and type of its sensor.

The D-20 uses a single CMOS sensor the size of a Super 35mm film gate aperture. Effectively the D-20, when used with current 35mm PL mount motion picture lenses, yields the same field of view and depth of field as that of traditional 35mm film motion picture cameras.

The D-20 captures images in two main modes.
In Data mode (4:3 aspect ratio) the sensor has 3018x2200 active pixels generating RAW Bayer-data at 12-bits. The RAW data needs to be processed outboard to generate a full color image. A delivery aspect ratio for theatrical release, commonly 1.85:1, is achieved by cropping from the original image, similar to the cropping necessary when shooting 35mm film. In Data mode the sensor size also allows for the use of anamorphic lenses, producing the 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio.
In HD Video mode (16:9 aspect ratio) the sensor uses 2880x1620 active pixels. This output is 1920x1080 pixels in either YUV 4:2:2 10 bit (via single link HD-SDI) or RGB 4:4:4 10 bit (via dual link HD-SDI).

The D-20 has a mechanical shutter, variable from 11.2° to 180° and an electronic shutter variable from 66° to 360° at 24fps. The camera is capable of running at speeds from 1 to 60fps, though this is currently limited. Numerous components of the camera were borrowed from Arri film camera models (most notably the 435ES), assuring full compatibility with most of the film camera accessories.

Film Shot with D-20:



Advantages

Like the Dalsa Origin, the D-20 features a detachable optical viewfinder. Digital and electronic viewing systems have different advantages.

optical viewfinder advantages
abiity to use camera to set framing without having connection to a power supply
extremely high viewfinder resolution

electronic viewfinder advantages
monitoring the final image after capture. optical viewfinder monitor before capture and therefore don't show what the camera records, but what the lens shows.
electronic viewfinders can display more information (as foucs charts, wavemeter, zebra etc) which help the dp.

both systems, electronic and optical can have
fractionally greater field of view than the sensor, allowing for more accurate and predictive framing
ability to optically zoom in within the viewing system to check critical focus.

the two points above are only available on very good electronical viewfinder/camera systems. Additionally, a wide variety of electronic viewing options can be added to the camera, giving it many advantages of purely electronic viewing systems.

Like Arri film cameras, the D-20 is modularly constructed. Both the mechanical and electronic components are upgradable. This also applies to the sensor, which can be changed as advances are made.

Limitations

At present the Data output and variable speed capabilities of the camera are disabled, awaiting upgrades from Arri.

Super 35 mm

Super 35 (originally known as Superscope 235) is a motion picture film format that uses exactly the same film stock as standard 35 mm film, but puts a larger image frame on that stock by using the negative space normally reserved for the optical analog sound track.

Super 35 was revived from a similar Superscope variant known as Superscope 235 which was originally developed by the Tushinsky Brothers for RKO back in 1954. When cameraman Joe Dunton was preparing to shoot Dance Craze in 1982, he chose to revive the Superscope format by using a full silent-standard gate and slightly optically recentering the lens port. These two characteristics are among the central ones of the format. It was adopted by Hollywood starting with Greystoke in 1984, under the format name Super Techniscope. Later, as other camera rental houses and labs started to embrace the format, Super 35 became popular in the mid 1990s, and is now considered a ubiquitous production process, with usage on well over a thousand feature films. It is also usually the standard production format for television shows, music videos, and commercials, since none of these require a release print, thus have no reason to reserve space for an optical soundtrack. James Cameron was an early, consistent, and vocal supporter of the format, first using it for The Abyss. It also received much early publicity for making the cockpit shots in Top Gun possible, since it was otherwise impossible to fit 35 mm cameras with large anamorphic lenses into the small free space in the cockpit.

Super 35 is a production format. Theatres do not receive or project Super 35 prints. Rather, movies are shot in a Super 35 format but are then - either through optical blowdown/matting or digital intermediate - converted into one of the standard formats to make release prints. Because of this, often productions will also use Super 35's width in conjunction with a 3-perf negative pulldown in order to save costs on "wasted" frame area shot and allow for camera magazines to shoot for 33% longer in time with the same length of film.

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Low-key lighting

Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for film or television. In traditional lighting design for black and white photography, also called three-point lighting, there are a key light, a fill light, and a back light.

Low key light shows the contours of an object by throwing areas into light or shadow while the fill light provides partial illumination in the shadow areas to prevent a distracting contrast between bright and dark. For dramatic effects, one may wish the contrast to be high — to emphasize the brightness of the sun in a desert scene, to make a face look rugged, seamed, and old, or to isolate details in a mass of surrounding shadow. A variety of methods can be used to create these effects.

Demonstration




The key to fill ratio, as measured using an instrument to measure light intensity, e.g., a light meter, is the ratio of the intensity of the key light to the fill light. Low key lighting actually has a much higher ratio, e.g. 8:1, than does high key lighting, which can approach 1:1.

It is perfectly possible to use fill light in these large areas of shadow, reducing the contrast. Generally the term 'low key' refers to cases in which no such care is taken.

Low key is also used in cinematography to refer to any scene with a high contrast ratio, especially if there is more dark area than light. Compare with high-key lighting.

Mood lighting is a term used to describe the use of light to illuminate an object or background in a deliberate manner to evoke a certain mood or emotion. This highly skilled lighting technique is very subtle but nevertheless can achieve highly effective outcomes. An example of this is an evil character deliberately illuminated from beneath the chin giving them a certain eerie and demonic appearance.

Ambient lighting refers to the overall illumination of an environment without the addition of lighting for photography. This includes practical lamps, overhead fluorescent, sunlight or any previously existing light.