jan von krogh

sadly, this certainly became the wrong board for informative posts regarding red. most of the well informed people which once frequented this subforum don´t post on cinematography.com anymore, at least when it comes to red. Mainly due to the rather harsh tone, and then simply some folks always went off-topic ("film good, digital evil" topic for 95%), became insulting or worse here in the RED subforum. Didn´t see the red crowd posting that much in the 35mm forums, anyway. if you want information regarding red, this is the place to be. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=58

I don´t get what you mean by anomalies. A-Budget digital cinematic production is a normal thing. In HD. And below. As were chatting here, position 1 of the german cinema charts is once more digital. Nothing unusual. Good. As a matter of fact, HD can gross more than 35. The other way around as well. So, what is the sense in the original post then? While i believe that at once, my 1080p HD productions earned me -quite- a bit more than my 35mm since 2002. Aha. Do you agree, btw? interesting. did you realize that it was a continuous VFX shot? a highly qualified comment. The DOP Dion Beebe and the director Michael Mann certainly are not so well educated - they certainly didn´t know what visual style they wanted. look, i usually have a slight little bit more respect regarding the work of other filmmakers. maybe thats why the highly arrogant tone is irritating me. Oh - i think in 2006 it still is quite important to remember certain folks here that digital cinematographers are highly successfull and acclaimed in international A-budget production. I am looking forward to the comments on the DOPs work on ZODIAC & APOCALYPTO.

Ok, now i understand: SUPERMAN looks "poop", especially compared to your work and isn´t professional either. Then lets look around a little more - some more digital/1080p releases on your screen right now would be: David finchers (you know, that FIGHT CLUB director guy) "ZODIAC"? "Plastic" and "unprofessional"? Gibson "APOCALYPTO"? "non-sense" and "fx shots"? CLICK? FLYBOYS? I am sure, none of these completly unprofessional 1080p HD productions are in the league of your work, or, lets say, the average indy 16mm production... there MUST be something Hollywood is missing you do know, that is for sure. All these clueless amateurs spending millions of dollars for HD/1080p production for cinematic release.... Additionally, we certainly have arrived at a point, where we need and have to re-educate the audience - they are going into these "poop"-movies and making giving them commercial success. Maybe a law could help? It really can´t be that the audience ENJOYS digitally shot "plastic poop". Who are they to think that the movies are made for them? http://ferox.haxial.net/clientreview/carmi...estimonials.mov there it is, we have to stop the installation of those >2300 digital screens at carmike cinemas right now. Furthermore, if we are at it, we could extend that law into the realms of still SLR cameras - it can´t be that nikon and canon are stopping to manufacture optochemical cameras, only because the buyers don´t buy them anymore. sorry for the sarcasm :)

DV agreed. HD, sorry, but as a matter of fact your speculation is simply completly wrong. SIN CITY, MIAMI VICE, SUPERMAN, SKY CAPTAIN ... now if your recent 35mm productions had a better pull.

i cant wait. my owned cinealtas are planned & booked - and i wouldnßt like to reduce the shooting schedule. btw: in 2001 many people told me, that i would be nuts - and i still sold >90% of my 35mm gear, luckily not my lenses. back then (2001) i started investing in cinealta. sveral $100.000s back then btw.

dear mr. mullen, i dind´t want to insult you at all. i have high regards for your work and would be very happy, if i would have more dops or cameraman of your class here in berlin. i won´t go into detail - simply put: i think (after 4 translations chemical/analogue-> digital) that i might have an opinion about the mechanics of translation. however its the artist, not the instrument - and a stradivari doesnt make the no-body become a musician. but i won´t let comments, especially uncalled insulting ones, let through within the given amount of time, until jj really screws up my rental biz. call me a blocking forcefield in that case, if you want so. full of expertise, knowledge and production reality experiences. i have done my homework with lenses, cameras, d/a, grading, workflow, pipelines, vts and inernational (or the lack of) standards and so on and so furth not only recently. and mr. mullenn, the sceptical attitude which you (for good reason) have been a bandleader for is no excuse for absurd conspiracy-theories. and i do undestand that you have been banned on dvx - as well. i really look forward to see you work and remain, sincerly yorus .. yorick von krogh

100% accepted.

Dear Mr. Koolhaas, with all due respect - i am posting here with my name. if people like xxx are getting offensive on this once so acclaimed BBoard (which i was lurking for years), i won´t restrain from commenting them, especially if they are going aggressive mode. i have respect for mr. mullens works - and attitude. i whish i could say so for matthew. and last but not least - which credentials did i claim here so far? not, that i would have any, but i suppose you could easily find out that i at least do understand some aspects of the business. by the way, you are from germany? we are shooting with ulrich mühe, katrin sass and natalie brennecke in jan. interesting book, btw. p.s. mr. koolhaas, do you already have an order for the red nr.1 cam?

so, please gi back to your super-8mm forum. you won´t see me posting there anytime soon, that super-8 is...... thank you very much - but it is certainly not "us" rambling.

If you are done with it, dear mr. phillips, i would be quite happy. that certainly would reduce the negative-biased, hostile-toned posts in here. you haven´t been a constructive contributor here. and: i won´t reply to your personal -projected?- attacks.

first) i didnt insult anyone here. second) i am very picky with my friend and my employees. yeah. great. what is your next upcoming movie, sir? you seem to be qualified to comment on anything it needs. let me -in my basic english- put it that way. you don´t create. correct? or did i miss something? if not, it would be a blessing if you restrain all the hardworking folks here and would frrequently visit another, maybe the 35mm forum. p.s. i think a new haircut would make you more relaxed.

and you, sire, are nobody, who doesn´t seem to make money out of anything. your hostile tone is unliked throughout some continents,- germany, berlin here. over here, jj is a winner and you are a looser, sire. this said, my humble opinion and 4 laughing employees: would recommend. stfu

daer mr. mullen. i highly respect your work - and i don´t think less of yours because you are shooting a tv-series right now-. but in 5-15 years from here, film we be laugable, can we agree on that? or is it 20 years? in your young age... i would still be open to translation...

sorry, guy, why do you feel you have to contribute here. did you ever shoot a single movie? hey, your former life seems to be have been spoiled. but could you leave out your personal disappointments for a second here? thank you very much. 4 (champarne drinking) employees of laguun berlin. p.s. next post of yours then will be something about why you alwaly have been misthreated?

has this maybe to do with bed-sitting prople (like you?) guy, what was your recent billiom? i don´t want to take sides in this.... but there is one extremly performing billionaire and a whining couchpotato in this thread.

I basicly don´t want to repeat myself, but you did notice, that the "kids" robert rodriguez, quentin tarantino, michael mann, david fincher, robert altman, jean-jaques annaud, james cameron, george lucas etc... shoot on video? Not that they would have your knowledge, let alone your understanding of what makes moving images an artform... Also, let me add from my daily work: we intercut 35mm & hdcam since years, sometimes bringing photochemical to digital, sometimes the other way around in D.I. and nobody notices. I don´t have the impression that you ever have attended a D.I. session when 35mm and cinealta are combined. Take a look at what was going on in the SLR market in the recent 5 years. You will find the same (obsolete) discussions there. No need to renew them here.

Additional years of training and experience required - that is complety wrong. shooting in HD or higher requires all the skills film teached us, light, focus, dynamics, panspeed etc. here and there the light is measured a new way (vector/wave etc). so you have better your knowledge, be it HD, 4K or 35mm. the manual work (reelchange, gatecheck etc) is reduced, but the creative challenges or at least the given amount of creative possibilties inside the cameras are quite a bit higher. last time i checked, things like variable black/white/mid gamma+contrast+gain, secondary colorcorrection/multimatrix etc. weren´t available inside of a 35mil cam. a digital cinemacamera has lots of parameters more to master. i know several cameraman who know their arris by heart, but few who can tell me _all_ of the menus inside a 900/750... even very experienced 35mm shooters often call for basic questions. speaking of perceived cost. i won´t explain to much, but: - try to take 35 hours of empty footage material with one assistant to the deserts in arabia. 35 hours of footage (&development if you want so) btw cost ~1000-1500$, if youre in cinealtaland. - try to shoot aerial or underwater and reload every 10 minutes. - try to do a quick 25 min locationpreshoot for D.I. and VFX in one afternoon - try to get the VFX guys to the set to check a key - plenty of other situations

i hope you get the bast***s. hope nothing important has been stolen / most data backep up. on the bright side, if i might add from the producers POV: another chapter of suspense & action in the script. _really_ wonder who that was...

you are right - another point worth mentioning is, that the camera body itself is just a part of the cost of your shooting gear. also, cinealta/hdcams are more expensive than many of the 35mm cams out there, and that doesn´t make them better cameras. add light, lenses, support, sound... it can be 1.000?, 10.000?, 100.000?... 1.000.000?, and none of this will guarantee you better or even perfect images at all. Shots which have set up for month with muti-million sets haven´t been shot correctly. I will never forget the story from shooting "SHOGUN" in the (?) 04/2005 american cinematographer. long story short - a miscommunication doomed a shot prepared for months. (nightshot, on water, whole ships built as set, thousands of actors in costumes, pyrotechniques...)

you don´t need to prove anything, mr. boddington, i am not in denial. i never denied that one can make marvellous movies with 35mm, and i have nothing against 35, the opposite is true. It was the technology i grew up with and i earned me a nice living and created fine images for me. What you miss to realize as of yet, is that the times have changed and technolgy proceeded. Nothing is standing still. As a matter of fact, digitally made movies are higly successful, outstanding creatives all over their world use it day by day, it is functional, and brilliant movies are shot as well digital as on film. When you think that your films look more bigger than life than superman or are rougher than miami vice, then congratulations, but i don´t know which story we would like to tell would _require_ film. the look is meanwhile a process which is not only taking place at the set. It is no longer a photographic, but a painterly medium. D.I. is a creative liberation and the possibilities of manipulation of moving images allows for many new styles, no matter if shot photochemical or digital.

lets add robert rodriguez/quentin tarantino (sin city), robert altman (the company), david fincher (zodiac), james cameron (aliens of the deep), michael mann (miami vice), jean-jaques annaud (two brothers), george lucas (what did he shoot again? star trek?), mel gibson (apocalypto)... just to name a few to the list. they all done their recent releases fully or mainly digital. and there are so many other whose names i don´t remember right now, sky captain, flyboys etc. it is no longer a question of budget. and the audience doen´t care, as we clearly see with dozens of digitally shot blockbusters in the cinemas. finally we shouldn´t forget michael moore and lars von trier, these two certainly used cinealta in the intention to bring hollywood babylon to its knees :) i don´t understand the negative bias many on this board have. it remebers me quite a bit of the discussion i saw in the late 90s early 00s when digital stomped still photography.

Hello Mr. Lasky, that was me. I have great respect for dalsas archievement and only put you in a row with panavision and arri, as you deliver fantastic quality. they certainly have a different businessmodel - and marktshare in cameras for cinema. When Jim Jannard is the man then certainly not. No, i don´t see them conspiring. They are simply trying to get the most revenue out of their products and have few, if any competition in certain niches. In fact i own & run a rental house. And in 2006 i am not able to buy a 35mm sensor digital moviecam from 3 company who manufacture them, because they don´t sell them. yes, i have done that, we have several $100.000 in cameras, but there are no d20, origins, genesis - and i certainly won´t bet my bucks on 35mm camera rental gear in 2006 - optics, peripherals et all - yes, cameras no. as a generalisation i would i disagree. i don´t know the hollywood-business en detail, but i surely know quite a bit about production reality. the easy formula is: make more money. produce the film with better quality cheaper. if one has ~300 days worth of shooting on a camera and year, owning is certainly better than renting. and we surely have >300 days worth of shooting on our cameras a year. this is valid for almost any gear. if renting is cheaper, as there is not enough business, go for it. if renting is more expensive than buying and cost of ownership, buy. this has no too much to do with politics, especially not with "fight the power", this is basic economics. agreed, even if this will put a little tornado into my rental business. technology changes production reality all the time. when the first DAW ala nuendo, soundscape, protools, audiologic etc came to the market, i was pretty sure that they would kill the million-dollar ssl audiomixers. same for software basing samplers against the million-dollar synclavier. today, almost noone would pay a $4000 dollars a day for synclavier. that was rental business versus ownership. i cannot predict how strong the impact of the red camera on the movieproduction will be. but we shouldn´t confuse or mix movieproduction and camera-rental business here, and for camera-rental business, the impact should be somewhat... remarkable. agreed. but how do you come to the understanding that i want to storm my own castle btw? ;)

Hi Stephen, we are turning this board into a chatroom. Sony 750/900/950 have 3 sensors, Panavision Genesis has one sensor. How much these sensors capture is in _camera_, however they all record HD, 1080p: 1920*1080 = 2073600 pixels red does 4K, at 1.66 thats 4K@1.66 : 4096*2464 = 10092544 pixels. that would be 20.55% of the resolution. red also does 2540p, but i have no idea about the actual resolution.

i have to agree with eric here. if you can record uncompressed (which is recommendable for 35mm filmrecording and theatrical release), the 1920x1080 compared to 1280x1080 are simply put 2MP vs 1MP... simply half the resolution. colorsampling is at 10bit when uncompressed or HDCAM SR and at 8bit when HDCAM or DVCPRO HD. so the better colorresolution is a myth - i can clearly say that as i also own and run a colorcorrection here and can clearly say, that hdcam and dvcpro hd 100 are both not tooo good when it comes to colorgrading. It has a reason that so many a-budget produce on 1080p (superman, flyboys, sin city, once upon a time in mexico, star wars, collateral, miami vice, apocalypto and so on...) and so few on 720p (i honestly dont know a single a-budget produced on 720p). On the other hand, i agree that the 27 varicam is more ergonomic than the old 900. But the 750 and its brother the 900r are not less ergnomic. The main advantage of varicam, 60p can only be used for slowmotions when releasing for cinema/projection, and there you can also shot 60i 1920x540 with 1080 cams. OTOH - there are cool 16mm movies and boring 35mm films, so the image quality isn´t all, as we all know. but you _will_ have only half the resoultion when using varicam.

Hello again, yes and no. uncompressed it will pretty high, but not if you compare it to 35mm film or a digital speedcam (weinberg etc). additionally, if one can use their codec (and i do have the impression that it is highly useable), the required storage would be totally affordable, even for low-budgets. in film, no, in cmos (or generally speaking, in digital aquisition) heat is generated by readoutspeed, and heat generates noise, and therefore i will be evaluating criticalyl when we use our first reds here if the noise level will raise after highspeed-shooting over a extended timeperiod. But this is only speculation basing on my basic understanding about the inner working of ccd/cmos sensors. if red decides to integrate a peltier cooling element or whatever cooling system, heat might be no problem, or maybe they don´t have any problems with this at all. yes, my company attended with 2 people @ panavision. basicly - 21 full features shot on panavision genesis videocam. - panavision is surprised that genesis is used so much, they expected genesis mainly on use on A-budget and VFX but everyone is using it. A-budgets often rent out 8 cams at the same time. - they showed excellent stuff from apocalypto, superman, flyboys, click and many many other a- and b-budgets. - shooting at >40° celsius in the south-american rainforest, camera ramped up to ~2000 ASA on apocalypto generated some noise, but it was fully acceptable (also for the audience) - panavision filmcameras weren´t mentioned with a single word, same for cooperation with sony. Funny things happened in the Q&A. The Panavision Genesis, dispite its 35 mm sensor, only records 1080p. Guy in the audience asks (very distrusting) - "so, did we see all that stuff blown up to 35mm film as projection". panavision exec smiles and says: "interesting that you ask (because the sceptical guy couldn´t see the difference obviously)... no, we saw it on a sony 4k projector".... 5 min later a dutch IBC organisationgirl came, handed him a written note on the stage and he begun smiling... short pause. he laughed and then said... "i have just been informed that we actually saw all on a christie 2K digital cinema projector"... I suppose the 4k was already connected for reds presentation. anyhow, one has to understand that the panavision genesis and the sony 950 (and their upcoming NR23) only have ~20% of the resolution of red 1. so a 4k filmout or digital projection of sony or panavision or arri d20 would be a blow-up anyhow. And if one visits a regular cinema with classical photochemical projection, one can be happy if one can get 800-900 lines of resolution... We also have been to the conference, at DCI, dolby and many other interesting sessions. Was a great IBC this year. AH, and jim jannard smokes cigars in reality as well, he had one when i first met him. red both was directly besides kodaks btw. However, no one was popping bubblegum at red.