Lance Flores

We are going to include 4K scanning to our Post Labs in San Antonio at our new studio. Very interested in installing multiple Masters and Recording systems at our new facility. Anyone have extensive experience that can comment on performance and reliability?

Hardly enough information to make a recommendation. Like .. I need to drive to L.A.; from where? Okay how about one of the BMW sports model cars. Didn't work? You didn't mention you were taking a family of 6 and the two family pets. First of all what is your responsibility to the Director or he to you? Sounds like he has limited experience. There are a lot of experts available and I would recommend looking at the experience of the people you taking advice. If your Director doesn't understand digital and your team doesn't have experience in digital cinema, then the absolute answer is to shoot film even if you expect to average that many takes. If you can find a team then you should consider digital cinema. Depends what your goal and intermediate objectives are specified. I initially was going to shoot our BMM project 2 perf. After evaluating our long term goals and available (and emerging) technologies, decided on a 4K 4:4:4 acquisition and designed a highly optimized workflow to accommodate the process from acquisition to film print-ready and watermarked 4K Digital Cinema delivery. If you have access to such a work flow that this is well worth considering. If you can?t get a work flow that substantially more efficient than film then you should use film, though 2 perf may not be your optimum format, and just a fantasy shoot. Don?t know what your goal specification. I depend on my well experienced cinematography team and my own extensive technology experience to make the call for our visual rendering of the production guided by the specifications set for optimum production value and budget. It is the story and the effective interpretation, performance and rendering of the story that is important. Visual capture and manipulation is an important part, but still, only a part. Present a comprehensive list of your objectives and find the expertise, some you may find here, then go with your decision and don?t look back.

DCS President and Co-founder James Mathers will be a featured speaker at the next L.A. RED User Group Meeting to be held at Kappa Studios in Burbank on September 6th. More details to come. goto http://www.digitalcinemasociety.org

I have four dachshunds and I must acknowledge that they have been very successful in preventing a platypus infestation hear in Texas. They're pretty good at keeping the cats at bay, but they only seem to keep the squirrels well exercised. BTW, do platypus fair better on the bar-b-que than armadillos?

Saul - try http://www.digitalcinemasociety.org/ Digital Cinema Society. James Mathers is a co-founder and is well respected. Done both film and digital cinematography and is shooting his second feature film with the RED. Also the DP on the film we're in prep with now. Take a look at previous posts. I talk to Jim occasionally from the shoot, but I haven't checked for his public responses on the DCS site recently. Try the site, there might be some straight answers.

DJ - I'm well aware of such, do a search of my posts and background. Thanks

I agree with you John. My point exactly. I need to see a high quality projection of a finish to make a determination about using the camera. Seems you're an elitist if you're not a true believer. Haven't checked this forum for a while. By the way, I'll be in Paris to close with our European co-producer/distributor and will be in London to meet with our composer Dan Bewick, a U.K. producer we'll be working with on some projects, and so other friends and cast. Join us for a drink?

About what I expected. Take everything out of context so you can whine a little more. If your read the post you would have known that Jim had already shot a feature film and is on his second with the RED. Purchase or rent a camera and satisfy you self to your own expectations. I can't afford not to have a well experienced professional give me an evaluation. I'm responsible for other peoples investments.

Thought I'd check in and see if anything has changed. Evidently not, but here's some leads to reliable information on RED productions. Our DP for The Black Messiah Murders which we begin pre-production this week, has already shot a feature film with the RED and is presently on his second RED feature film Montana Amazon http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1208711/ . I am not sold on the RED for our production but Jim thinks with the additional updates it will do a fine job. I am hedging my bet, tentatively scheduling cameras intended for a different picture (for a shoot in London/Ethiopia) or going to a 2 perf 35 for this film, just in case I'm not convinced about the RED. I don't see how anyone expects to take anything seriously unless they have access to the screening room for the rushes of production shoots. This is why we are asking Grace & Wild to build a screening room so we can view 2K & 4K our rushes from post system. What people hope to get from extremely compressed, dithered, and very optimized data I can't imagine. There is so much noise from processing error and anomalies it is impossible to make anything but a speculative judgment. You can get a general feel from 720 or HD. Even when I gone from 2K proxy viewing to a 2k view of a 4K 12/14 bit color depth raw processed image I am overwhelmed by the difference. The only thing I believe is valuable on this forum are actual reports of production experiences with the camera. Geezz guys, give it a rest. You need to get information from experienced credible DP's who are pushing the camera limits on the set and can provide objective critique of the product.

We tested four of the coloring and conforming post products and chose the Piranha Cinema 5. It did much more for far less the cost and had the fastest render of all the machines. We're purchasing two that will have multi fiber channels connections to the Linux SAN with all fiber channel drives. This was the fastest, and most reliable system we found that had everything we wanted and interfaced well to our Final Cut Pro, sound systems, in a 4K pipeline. If anyone interested in seeing the set up we'll be four-walling the system over at Grace & Wild, Inc. studios, Farmington Hills, Michigan in a few weeks.

Frankly, my dear . . .

I thinks Bruce is correct in that Max's responses are more emotional than informed. I had a chance to test the F23 and their color gamut claim. It does have a greater color depth than film, and is and excellent alternative to shooting 16mm for television, except for the price. Lot of bells and whistles, but like the lens matching and a few other things. Expensive. Essentially the CCD vertical smearing problem has been resolved. We shot a fair complected blond model and the skin tones were perfect, and there was plenty of detail (data) to manipulate it in post. Also tested the Phantom 2k with the new mask (but not the new correction filter) were shot at 500fps 360 degree shutter of two dancers. The male unclad torso w/black slacks medium completion and the female light-medium completion, light chestnut hair wearing a white high sheen satin finish rayon dance dress. At post on both Smoke and Piranha Cinema the skin tones were magnificent and image excellent detail. The camera had plenty of latitude and 42 bit color depth 14 bit sensor (12bits processed) rendered a depth great enough to control shadow and mid-range for such a high frame rate at post. So far we've evaluated about 4TB of image data from the Dalsa Origin, Phantom HD & 65 w & w/o rev B sensor, F950 and F23. Jim Mathers is continuing the evaluation on Red and has great familiarity with Origin I believe, and recently I had an opportunity to see and manipulate some raw image data from the Genesis. I haven't seen a problem with any as far as color range deficiency that affected flesh tones. Some seem to be better than others and the white blow out just needs to be considered in the lighting design. It just seems for digital cinema you have to shoot for post and maintain all the lighting discipline you maintain for film so you can acquire as much detail and color data in the raw format. Almost all the material I've seen linked from here is extremely compressed and there is no credible way of evaluating except for essential cinematography techniques, lighting, focus, framing, etc., you gotta look at a 2k or 4k projected on a large screen. I'd surely use the F23 over 16mm if the price was comparable, rental may be reasonable, I haven't seen the rates. The camera cost is high. About $220K-$240K depending what you need, but it's still an HD not 2K camera, an extremely high-end digital hdtv camera with lots of bells and whistles for HD as the end product.

The latter was my take as well. The point is well taken about film as the cinematographer is taking, in essence, into account the post process during the acquisition, that's why the skin tone is, typically, more finished when it is presented. More processing is done at negative and print. Digital is usually just given basic correction. With the (almost) 4K RGB Dalsa Origin data I've been working with, skin tone, inter alia, I found it is rather easily corrected in 4K finishing in Smoke or Piranha, which is what we use. Some of what the cinematographer does in film acquisition is otherwise differed to post when acquiring digitally. For =>2K digital is somewhat forgiving in the error margins of exposure (except for near over exposure) . . . but, not for poor cinematographic techniques, nothing can fix that. A couple of weeks ago I was at a test shoot, for the F23 and Phantom HD with the new B rev sensor, processing inline real-time with the IRIDAS and monitoring with a Cinetal 4:4:4 HD waveform monitor and vectorscope. The colour, especially the skintones were just gorgeous. I think, had the Red been processed similarly the results would much better. The film acquisition could have been much better as well, but we all know that.

It's hard to interpret other people's data. I just puled up the images. Don't know what to think exactly. I waiting on Jim's Red data, I was going to send him a drive to put it on and start working on it with on Smoke or Parahna. I've got to make a decision soon.

Thanks Will - I'll call them today before it gets too late.