Keith Mottram

even if arri were to convert their current range to 2 perf, there is no camera in their range to compete with penelope, the 235 would be closest in weight but it is non sync. the great advantage for users as far as i can see will be in hand held/ docu style shooting and for that the penelope still seems incredibly exiting.

i suppose if you think scooby doo is the height of storytelling...

thanks everyone for filling in my knowledge gaps...

To clarify, if you were to use a red camera with a b4 mount (which is listed as an option) and a digizoom which is I believe T1.9 at fully open would you achieve the same T stop or would that T stop change due to the fact that it is mounted on a single rather than 2/3 chip? For example if an HD lens opens to T1.9 on a 2/3 chip this aprox T4 on 35mm, if the same lens is on a single chip is T1.9 still T1.9 or would the T stop be different? I am primarily thinking of depth of field rather than the amount of light needed to achieve the T stop. Further more would there be any optical advantages/ disadvantages in using digiprimes/zooms as oposed to 35mm lenses on a camera such as a red?

when using a hd lens such as a digizoom on a digital camera like a red, will the t stop change?

As far as i'm concerned the only way to reverse the situation is via protectionism, this is why france unlike the uk has a stable(ish) film industry. the reason why the us has such a strong position is because no government bar france and ________ (someone fill in the blanks?) forces the market to accept other product. if you then have a heavily funded system forcing their product upon the largely thick masses and a distribution system which is weighted in the united state's favour then how are you ever going to have a proper home grown industry? my hope is that through digital distribution there will be more outlets for uk and europeon content, but with the publicity budgets of american films dwarfing uk shooting budgets i'm not sure how much, if any, effect this will have theatrically. if we had a quota of uk films for british tv and satallite then we could start to see a real change. this will never happen of course as television is dominated by global media companies who are more interested peddling second rate american tat than creating original content, plus we have a labour government that is so scared of being tainted with a socialist brush that it would rather cradle satan's balls till he's ready for a money shot than consider any form of protectionism. it is all rather depressing...

okay then so theoretically would you shoot 65mm (or a grainless digital format) over anamorphic- ie is the grain and neg the pull for you rather than the artifacts.

or the artifacts. i have thought along the lines of a anamorphic to sr as a cheap di to keep the visual artifacts that anamorphic offers whilst having di control- the artifacts have become the defining reason to use anamorphic. David, if you had the possibility of a 4k+ scan would you always go with spherical or would you choose anamorphic for aesthetic reasons? keith

David, when you say low-budget DI could you elaborate was the film transferred to SR or uncompressed data? was the anamorphic transfered to letterboxed 16:9 or full height 16:9? and what DI system did you use? thanks keith

i'm not going to chime in with a 'every piece of bbc stuff looks poop'- some bbc product is actually pretty darn good (though i am stretched for drama- spooks? nope bleak house? maybe if static) . additionally we should really be blaming producers/ directors for hiring these idiots. finally extras is not as funny as it thinks it is and looks completely amateur in any scene, although i found it immensly uncreative with the film within a film scenes (and badly written to boot, they dont play like film screenwriting). i guess for me its all about detail and balance and this show cant seem to find where it sits stylistically. season two is better because the show within the show is an overlit sitcom- the bbc dps can manage that no problem!! It is a shame because office got the production tone bang on- the style was consistant and worked perfectly. i cannot help think that gervais and merchants lack of directing experience (in technical terms) is far more apparant in extras because unlike the office it isn't a multicam show. watching extras, which i do enjoy, i cannot help but feel for the editors shouting at there fcp suite (assuming they edit at the beeb) in frustration through the lack of decent coverage.

take it you've never heard of a little thing called theatre then daniel? imdb is a reference tool like any other, but is not a biography or even a cv, if I only got work based on my imdb page i'd be fu**ed! keith

Jay do you live in a world of fluffy bunny rabbits? I too have been critical of Red's approach to many aspects of their marketing and probed some of their claims. I am now becoming more interested in the product as it becomes closer to reality and it does seem that it has the potential to be a really useful tool. but as for 'moderators' inforcing 'civility' on this forum well fu** that. i live in london and speak my mind- you know who i am, my name is here and whether you like my language or not its a hell of a lot more honest than butt kissing under an idiotic pseudonym. this is a world wide forum, so lets not have debate squashed by individual or regional concepts of civility. keith

i have not seen one person add a cost of a viewfinder onto their red 'pacages'. someone else can probably answer this better than me, but if i remember rightly an accuscene would cost more than the camera body- then again i suppose you could always pull focus on your nikon lenses via a flip out lcd...

read some of the thread... and well... i am simply amazed. people are acting like all their dreams are comeing true, when jannard's post speaks of manufacturing problems, late deliveries and incomplete functionality. now i am happy to aplaud the progress that red have made, but i'm not sure if any of these reduser nuts have the faculties to look through a lens let alone create a watchable film...

Your workflow doesn't work i'm afraid- how were you planning on creating a high def qt from interlaced sd footage? why would you have a web clip at a higher definintion than your edit master anyway? how about supervised tk to hd (pref D5), hd to sd downconvert (on deck playout) for edit, then hd reconform for hd festival master? keith

nice, but trivialises this increasingly trivial award ceremony further... greengrass was robbed.

re:flex the best i've used. keith

and i could argue that an apple is an orange, but this site is dedicated to cinematography not philosophy...

there are a number of female actresses that have digital retouching put into their contracts and it wouldn't surprise me if there are some men aswell...

i agree this is a great plug in which i've used on a couple of music vids and corporates, this is your controller but you can use it to influence anything- e.g. as notes get higher flare get brighter/ image softer/ colours warmer. your imagination is basically the limit- that and a good effects artist.

Paul Greengrass, for me though i have yet to see Eastwood's. i wasn't keen on babel at all, the queen was good without being special and departed was no where near Scorcese's best. to give Scorcese the oscar would be a shame as it would represent achievment over a career, rather than the film itself- which was really quite dull (and even occasionally stupid). Greengrass created an original and bold piece of cinema, to give it to someone else wouldn't suprise me, but would be akin to giving the best director oscar to costner in 1990.

bash. bang. bash. bang.... now where did i leave those bandages. oh sod it i'll just rap my head with toilet paper, i'm sure it's almost as good and it's definately cheaper... my head...it's... still... bleading... feeling drousy...

do broadcasters in the US still accept 4:3?

I apologise if i seem a tad facetious, but if you want to bang on about economies of scale you are missing a serious issue- a market. assuming every potential red devotee wanted a set of cookes you are still not talking about enough of a market, to manufacture them cheaply enough, for the red market to actually afford. and obviously this rule is the same for zeiss and other manufacuters. currently there is a huge b4 mount market, yet only a small market for digi primes. why is this? because there are only a small amount of productions which can accomidate the skills needed for utilising this level of lens technology. if you could buy a set of super cheap cine lenses they will still be useless to you without the correct team of people in the camera department. this is what the majority of 'revolutionaries' seem to neglect there are only a finite amount of decent focus pullers (unless you can think of a way of mass producing them). this is why the whole 2k/ 4k/ whatever k debate is as pointless as this lens debate, there are only finite amount of productions that professional equipment is of any use for. this is not elitism, this is fact. i could be patronising now and say something about a market that would pay $50 for a sticker (promoted tastefully on the rear of a hummer)... but i wont.

the down converting is specifically so that you don't work in hd during the offline. so a down res dv version is initially want you'd want out of it. you would then online again through firewire. this is not a new development panasonic have had decks that are capable of this for some time.