Scott Lynch

Sorry for the duplicate post... Disregard the previous post. I've added a few things to this version: -Scott If I were to use the camera there would be a three man crew that would be in charge of nothing but data management. I think with these types of cameras a new department is needed to cover the gaps. Your data has to be treated correctly, if you lose that data it's like loosing rolls of exposed film. It's protection needs to be handled by professionals who understand the process and not some PA with a laptop (like I've seen on a few shoots with the HVX series). You wouldn't let an amateur develop and process your film, the same thought process should apply here. In this structure you would have a Data Wrangler who is in charge of backing up the footage and who is the head of the department. They need to be more then just a DIT. As the camera records in RAW, you need someone who has a good understanding of editing and post prod techniques and who is a computer network administrator. This person's job would be to either take the Compact Flash cards and back them up or be in charge of running a SAN server that is connected to the camera via the "RAW Port" (aka 10gb Fibre) they would be responsible to store the footage on two separate RAID servers and back up the data to tape for long term preservation. They would also do the work of your traditional film lab and make dailies on DVD for production to view, and also convert the RAW Data into the DPX format for the post house to work on. Because this is a lot of work for one person, I would also replace the 3rd AC and put that person in this department. This Data Wrangler Assistant (and there could be more then one depending on how many camera's were on a shoot) would be in charge of taking the cards from the set and and making sure that cards were backed up and tracked throughout the gig. The third person would help the Data Wrangler with the conversion of the files and creating the dailies, syncing up the audio and video in the traditional film way (as of now the RED camera does not record sound) and could also create a rough cut of the film as it was being shot for the director. Nope I haven't seen any RED lenses yet.

This was simply a rough observation based on a chip chart, and should not be taken as a real definable measurement. I didn't have the chance to accurately measure it.

I had the chance to play with the RED when it was in Chicago this week and this is what I think so far: Pros: 1. The footage is very impressive, although I didn't actually measure the camera, it seemed to handle around 11 stops of latitude just fine. 2. The LCD monitor that they are making is very nice, very sharp, even if it is a strange resolution. Cons: 1. The body needs more work for it to be field ready. The lens mount was a bit loose with a Master Prime on it. It really needs to be beefed up a lot more to handle the weight of large glass elements. 2. The mini-bnc connectors need to be standard size. I think they made them mini's because they wanted to keep the small footprint of the body, but the chance that someone trips over a cable and breaks one of those is an almost certainty and I wouldn't want to lose my HD-SDI monitor capability on a shoot. 3. Small rubber covers need to be placed over all the connectors. As of now they are all open to dust and corrosion, and the CF Slot should have a cover to protect it from the elements when a card is removed. Other Opinions: 1. Focus Puller comfortable in 35mm is an absolute must. 2. Having a Data Wrangler who understands the Red RAW format and understands how the post house will need the footage in order to work with it, and can back up the footage on a RAID 5 server and a tape backup. 3. A great post house. If you want to use this camera to the best of it's abilities, you need technicians who truly understand the data you've captured, and that have the hardware capable of backing up, storing, and processing your footage. In short; This is not a 4k HVX200, this is a 35mm Digital Motion Picture camera. You need to really understand the entire process from encoding to finish or hire people who do. If you tend to shoot ENG or with minimal crew, this is probably not your camera. And because it is so new and very few people really understand this camera, it's seems to be like shooting 35mm film except with out the comfort level of being to have people who know what they are doing. I'll be excited to use this camera in a few years, but as for now it has a lot of work still to be done on it.

What I've used in the past for a gray scale and chip chart is this product by Tiffen. http://www.samys.com/product_detail.php?it...5340cc77092ebe3 I just mounted them on a flat piece of aluminum. I wouldn't recommend it for high-end work, but if you're on a small budget, it's useful :) -Scott

Don't mask it it post :) The XL1 does have a 16:9 function in the menu, I use and XL1 all the time in this mode (it's not an XL1s but that has a 16:9 mode as well). Just flip the red circular panel near in the center of the camera, just under the "light" button, push the menu button and and its the second option down just turn 16:9 to "on". I used to just mask my 4:3 stuff a few years ago when I first started, but if you want 16:9 in the end use the 16:9 mode and later "shrink" it for proper letterboxing. When shooting Mini-DV you need every single pixel you can and not be wasteful in the slightest. All your projects will look cleaner and sharper.

Are you going to be in Park City this week? We should meet up, I'll be there promoting a documentary that I edited from Sunday (21st) until Wednesday (24th). It will be my first time going to a large festival, I'm definately looking forward to it :). send me an email: scott (at) cardboardboxfilms.com Without spaces of course :) And if your going to be there and are interested, my documentary "An American Opera" is screening at the Park City Film Music Festival on Monday, January 22nd at 4pm. 333 Main St. Level 2 Film Music Lounge Park City, Utah The location (Park City Main Street Mall) is right across the street from the Egyptian Theatre. The trailer for the film can be found at www.anamericanopera.com Thanks and hope to meet you! -Scott Lynch

Looks nice, can't wait to see it! -Scott

Scott, Joey and Rajavel: Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on my film :). I thought I would explain some more of the context that the film was made in. The Imagine Cup is a Microsoft sponsored student technology competition that has contests that mainly deal with developing new technology. They hold the competition in a different country every year and this year was held in Agra, India. My team placed in the top six finalists in the short film invitational, so the three of us were flown to India for the finals. We arrived in New Delhi at night and then were driven by bus on a 6 hour drive to Agra. The next day each of the six teams was given an XL1 and a computer and asked to create a documentary on "The Imagine Cup experience" that had to be finished in 36 hours. So we decided to explore the culture shock that most of the competitors were feeling upon arriving. For most everyone, we had never been exposed to seeing first hand how people live in a "third-world" country, and most of us felt very disturbed and confused. I had seen other documentary's of India and of other poor places around the world, but until you see it and smell it and begin to live in it, you can't really know what it's like. So, one of the points we wanted to make was that, here we are in India, living in this palace of a hotel, literally walled off and "protected", and given the romanticized/ tourist version of India. And, for us, this "Imagine Cup experience" just felt fake in some ways, here we are trying to "better the world through technology" but most of us can't even comprehend how a majority of the people actually live. And if we stay in our protected world, in our walled-off hotel, in our cars, and never go out into the country and meet the people the streets and where they live, then how can we possibly try to help them? The music was recorded there in India. I don't know the names of the artists but it's two drummers who are fairly well known in India. Microsoft had hired them to play at the opening ceremony so I had recorded it for use in the film. -Scott

I like the effect of the vasoline around the outside edge, I think I may try something similar except with a hoya spot filter I have laying around. Thanks for posting, and enjoy India, it's a facinating place :). -Scott

I just wanted to get some feedback on a short documentary that I made this summer. The whole film was created in 36hrs from concept to finished product for a student film competition called the Imagine Cup. Any comments would be greatly appreciated :). It's the first film listed on the page "The Road To Agra" http://www.cardboardboxfilms.com/shorts.html Thanks! -Scott

I saw that you got the video featured on youtube, good job! :) -Scott

There were two shots wide shots that still had the green placeholder in the picture frame, I didn't know if this was still a rough version, but I would fix those before sending it out. Just out of curiosity how do you plan to use the trailer to promote the music video? I don't think I've ever seen that done before, is it something the label plans to use, or is it for personal promotion? -Scott

I thought the composition and color was really nice, althought I agree with you about the grain, I think that if it wasn't vibrating it might be less distracting, think about investing in a higher quality ground glass? -Scott

I'm only getting the first part of the video, it stops shortly after the kid is running. But from what I've seen it looks interesting. In some of the outdoor shots, I would desaturate the cyan channel a bit it seemed a little overpowering in comparison to the rest of the shots. The only other thing I noticed was there should have been little black or white dots in the corners of the green sceen in the picture frame. It would save a lot of headaches in trying to get your corner pin tracking to work when you composite whatever picture in there if you have reference points of high contrast to work with. Let me know if you can get the rest of the video up, I loved the lighting and your opening ecu's, and I'm curious about how the video ends :) -Scott

If you are editing a lot of footage, having quick reliable storage space is also going to be one of your main concerns. I would recommend getting a RAID server that has hot swapable drives. I'm editing a feature doc right now and we have 75 hours of SD footage, about 2 hours of HDV, and about 30 min of uncompressed HD animation footage in the project. We have a stand alone 2 Terebite RAID server that is connected to the editing station by Ultra320 SCSI. I agree with the others about what kind of box to buy, but keep in mind that you also need someplace to put all of that footage and have the ability to access all of it very quickly.