Ruairi Robinson

Heh cheers. Here's what I think (I'm a reservation folder, btw) If this is for real, on projects of the scale I've been doing up to now, i.e. small, self funded, or low budet, this thing will be a Godsend. Not for the shoot itself, it really makes little difference to the actual shoot. You still need to light properly, and you still need to employ a focus puller. All that stuff. BUT, it's all the stuff around the shoot that has potential to become more efficient. No more stock and development costs, no more telecine costs, maybe even no more film out costs. No more chemical baths, and grading, and *hoping* it turns out right the next day. If you have no money, but want to shoot film, that's a LOT of favours you have to choreograph, and a lot of elements you have to hope line up at the right time around filming, and if you can't PAY for it, you can't guarantee it. On my last short there was one shot I wished I'd had time to get on the shoot, but time limits and all that. Anyway, I had the choice between shooting that shot on greenscreen, on film, with an actor - it would have taken about 2 weeks to arrange, and cost a couple of grand. For one bloody shot. I'd have to pay for stock, camera, lenses, and a whole chain of favours getting these cheap (and running out of favour "credits") and then somehow slot in a telecine session too - just to SEE the damn footage. For one bloody shot. In the end what I decided to do was: tentatively organize the shoot, but spend the two weeks working on it to see if I can do the shot completely in CG. So the CG shot is what's in the film. And I could afford to pay my rent, AND eat :) If at that point I'd had a red camera, I could have got the actor that same day, arranged a mobile greenscreen, shot the thing in my back garden, and walked upstairs and plugged the drive into my computer and started editing. If people can't see the advantage to this they are fu**ing NUTS. But a lot of the time DP's don't really have to deal with the stuff before and after the shoot, so this really is no advantage to them - they just go from job to job and deal with the shoot at hand. They don't even always stay around for telecine to make sure the thing is graded right - so why should they care if that process is cheaper? it's no better for what they have to do! I should note how FEW people are good colourists, and I mean skipping telecine, not skipping grading/DI. That's an important skill that contributes greatly to the image - but overnight baths... well. It's important they don't fu** UP. I can live without ever having to deal with some of these processes again. So yeah, I'm close to sold on red. At the moment, if I was shooting a commercial, I would never use HD for anything involving food, or lighting that has to be... graceful. Maybe red will change this. Look forward to seeing what the exposure lattitude turns out to be like... I wish you could use anamorphic lenses properly though. It's my major gripe. If I was to shoot a big movie now (indulge me) the cost considerations would be pretty much moot. It would all come down to image quality - even before ease of use. Nobody uses anamorphic lenses because they are the more flexible lenses out there, or because they are fantastic in low light - they use them for the look. So right now, if the choice came down to red vs film, and all other considerations aside, the only difference was shooting scope, I'd be very tempted to shoot scope. I like the look. Cheers, R.

Huh? this got a little over serious all of a sudden. Group hug! R.

I'll take it then, that your claim over the "R." is one of your wild, crazy and idiotic ravings too then, and just ignore it, because I checked with the U.S. Trademark office, and it turns out "R." is trademarked by a German company called "HORST LUDWIG RENZ COMPANY" and has zero bearing on commercials, music videos, or feature films. It relates merely to "Precious metals and their alloys and goods in precious metals or coated therewith, not included in other classes; jewelry, precious stones; horological and chronometric instruments" So nice try. But if you are quick, you can snap up "R," - that's not yet taken. Probably because it's not as good. So you can keep your "R," R.

And a 4k output to film will look much better too. I remember seeing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and it was the clearest I've ever noticed the difference between the straight film, and stuff that had CGI effects... you could tell when a visual effect was coming up, because the shots were suddenly a slightly different colour, and slightly softer. That was 2k, I presume. I Directed a short recently(ish), that was shot 35mm anamorphic, and finished at 1080p from HDCAM source. It looked really goddamn soft to me. Hdcam really was a shitty format - I'll never use it again (It's only 1440x1080 resolution/8 bit colour). The film was shown at a festival screening right before a short shot on utterly pristene 35mm, and it was night and day how crisp and clear the 35mm print was - easily 3.5k, if not 4k worth of info, to judge by naked eye... The more generations it goes through, obviously the softer it gets, but you are fu**ed if work with a shitty image to start with, or have one part of your pipeline that let's the quality down. fu**in' HDcam. GRrrrrr. R.

You are using a comma, I'm signing off with a period. Big difference. You are excused. R.

Google is great for asking stupid questions Mark. The great thing about it, is that nobody will have a permanent record of all the moronic things you might want to say. It offers no judgement, and it responds almost instantly. Seriously, you should try it some time. You might even find that all your questions have been answered many, many, many times over. Also, It will make this forum less painful for the rest of us to trawl through all the white noise. No need to thank me, R.

Because it was his first time directing a feature.

I'd suggest you try a test shot first - on the XL1. It's been a while since I used one of these, and I recall the image as being particularly soft. You are going to run into trouble tracking shots in 3D if theres too much motion blur, since the image is soft anyway - I'd suggest increasing the shutter speed to get a sharper image. It might not be the aesthetic you want (the whole overused saving private ryan knockoff thing) but it'll certainly make it easer to track... On the 2nd test render shown here, there are alpha problems on the render (there's a slim edge around it) - looks like you are not premultiplying the alpha properly. Was this test done in photoshop? Also there's no contact shadow on the ground, and the creature itself doesn't appear to be lit in a way that matches the ambient light in the BG image. Have you tried using some kind of GI, or GI cheat? Also you have to be really carefull of the black levels of your renders matching the darkest blacks in the surrounding image - a neat trick when comping is to add an adjustment layer in afterFX (if that's what you are using to do the film comps) and do a really extreme curves correction to contrast it up like crazy. It will exaggerate the DIFFERENCE in black levels between your render and the BG image, and make it easier to see where you are going wrong... re-tracking markers - x's or +'s are better then circular markers (like ping pong balls), because they have more hard "points" that a (automated) tracker can pick up on Also, any time you can do 2D tracks instead of 3D, you are gonna make life a hell of a lot easier on yourself... best wishes, Ruairí Robinson www.ruairirobinson.com

Bicentennial Man made me want to gouge my eyes out and stuff them in my ears. Judge Dredd was a personal insult aimed at me, personally. Also, for some reason nobody seems to talk about Howard the Duck any more... I wonder why...?