mattuhry

You just use gel filters. Does not effect FFD. Those are nice lenses if they are in good shape, enjoy ! Matt Uhry www.mattuhry.com

I'm posting here with some reservations, but what the hell. - Red's marketing is very consumer spirited for a professional product and at times I find it very off putting. Likewise reduser.net contains a great deal of hype and BS, but valuable information can be found there too. In no case should anyone be banned for posting negative statements. I've had my red for about a month now, I really enjoy shooting with it. In most cases I would consider the camera and post system superior to Super 16mm, F900, Viper, f950 - both in terms of look and usability for the kinds of jobs that I do. Preferable to 35mm? that depends on the job... If it's a very well budgeted commercial where I can have the best of camera and post I think 35mm is probably better... Part of my reservations is the education that I still need to do for some of my clients, perhaps as they get more used to it and the post path gets smoother we'll see less and less 35mm for commercials and music videos. It seems clients who are looking to save money are more willing to learn how to handle a .r3d file, than the well budgeted ones that are trying to decide which sushi place to order from! The camera is working a lot and it looks like my partners and I will pay back our investment fairly rapidly, all in all I'm very glad to have purchased the camera - I also must say I'm surprised by the backlash people seem to have against it. Matt Uhry www.mattuhry.com

I tried to talk tech with him but he was not into it at all... With me he acted like he knows nothing about any kid of equipment at all, which is obviously not the entire truth. I think he feels that too much obsessing about equipment gets in the way of creativity. Matt Uhry www.mattuhry.com

That looks like one of those triangular thai pillows. I've seen him do it with a rolled up furni - pad, he called it "Chan Cam" had the grips tape it to his body. He's very quick and agile with the camera in that configuration. Chris is an incredible guy... We worked together in NY 2005 on a music video for "The Strokes" The director ( Mike Palmieri ) and I met him at the hotel bar and talked him into coming to "PLAY" with us for our day 1 of 2. He had been working on "Lady in the Water" and needed to blow off some steam, so he went for it. Matt Uhry www.mattuhry.com

"The sky never looks terribly blue, like it was shot early in the morning or something." We need to learn how to talk about electronic cameras characteristics and not the tastes of the filmmaker and or colorist. With film stock you could say - this stock has these image ( color and contrast ) characteristics when processed and printed in a given fashion. and that would yield more or less repeatable results In a color suite merely turning some knobs can change an image a great deal in terms of luminace, black level, hue, saturation and more. In comparing electronic cameras we'll need to concentrate on what you go into that suite with and not the images you come out with. This is by no means a complete list, but I think it's a start - feel free to modify or add to it. There are many new electronic cameras to play with, lets stay focused on the aspects that relate to the camera and not to the color suite. resolution - sensor and recording latitude colorspace color bit depth - A/D 's and recording noise artifacts - compression, temporal and spatial optics

Hi Fellow DP's Ceasefire! Enough with the mud slinging at Red. At NAB they showed several working cameras, some nice accessories well thought out (and cinematographer friendly) software and a demo film that looked very good. Not a hoax, not mass hypnosis. In the next weeks there will be less exuberant and more scientific tests and we can start to see the finer points of how the camera shoots. It's just a tool, and I think it will prove to be a usefull one. If you don't like using it or the way the images look don't use it. Hating it while knowing nothing about it makes you irrelevant. Matt Uhry www.mattuhry.com

Olex, what is your opinon of the Russian lenses that were made for 35mm format? I have some MKBK high speed primes some in OCT-19 and some in PL. I have not done definitive tests but they seem to be pretty good. - are these releated to the 35mm elites ? - what else is out there, are the Optica, Optar, Elite, MKBK essentially the same thing with differnt names / housings. Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

Wait a minute, you made the film stock? coated clear leader with emulsion ? That is truly mas macho. Tell me more.... Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

Meet as many people as you can, but go with someone you trust. Lots of DP's are able to work in a multitude of styles. Someone might be known for a certain style and be looking to break out of that mold. You might be surprised - The names that you are throwing around get from $12k to $35k a week ( and their crews and appetite for equipment can be large too ). if you have that kind of cash to spend on your DP+Cam Dept and your script is GREAT I would think that you would have many interesting choices. Pick someone who you think will stick with you when the sh!t hits the fan in some unexpected way and you get in trouble with an star/actor or the studio both of whom love to squish 1st time directors for the sheer fun of it. Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

I've had the pleasure of working with Chris for a day on a music video for the Strokes and having had several discussions / chinese food feasts and yes drinking sessions with him in NY and LA. Chris is an inspiring guy to hang out with, he lives as an artist 100% of the time, sometimes he is totally uninhibited (that's challenging to be around) and full of more energy than anyone I've ever met Chris is pushing limits, with is art and with his life. He is not interested in repeating himself or picking any low hanging fruit or getting easy praise for any past accomplishments. I think that sometimes his muse leads him to what seems like a blind alley to us ( and perhaps to him too? ) He's not making safe choices - but when he gets it right it's something new, completly from the heart and beyond all that you expected or imagined. He's in Portland at the moment working with Gus Van Sant again ( sorry CD if I blew your cover ) who knows where that will lead... Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

I've had a great camera package for the Strokes "Juicebox" from CSC, all new all perfect no problems whatsoever. Not sure about the price... doesn't hurt to ask. Matt Uhry DP LA www.fuzby.com

Hey Jim and the rest of the Red Team, These images look amazing to me. I'm a working DP shooting Commercials and Music Videos ( and the odd feature too ) in mostly working in 35mm and a occaisonally little HD and Viper. The latitude that is evident in these Jpegs is amazing as is the lack of noise. those are the holy grails of imaging as far as I am concerned ( to capture clean, wide latitude images which I can color electronically ). I can add contrast or grain should I desire. The fleshtones are a little off, but it's early and you are still nailing the lut's. It's silly to pick these apart at this point Anyway, good Job and I am thrilled with the progress I have lots of thoughts on how the ergonomics, EVF and other bits of the camera should work and would be interested and happy to take part in those discussions, and perhaps have some suggestions in creating the next round of test footage. Matt Uhry DP, LA www.fuzby.com #513

Whoa... Seems like everybody is getting so wound up about this cage and rail... It's hardly make or break, just screw an Arri baseplate on and use the same Arri AKS you are using now. In fact, it would be cool if Red made a nice follow focus and matte box that were better/cheaper than Arri and Chroiziel. The Red Camera has the misfortune of sitting at the confluence of eager amatuers "the DVX crowd" and working cinematographers who shoot film or HD as their primary job. You can tell which camp a person is in if they think the 17.5k price is far too expensive or way too cheap. Much hype and smoke has been blown by the DVX crowd about the Red, yet it is hard to believe that they will ever spend 17.5k plus whatever for the 35mm format PL mount lens... (A beater set of zeiss super speeds is about 10k and a set of cooke s4's would run around 80k.) For this level of investment to make any sense you would need to have the kinds of jobs and clients that can support that level of investment ? meaning not corporate, wedding or sub-100k credit card indies. Working cinematographers, when faced with the possibility of purchasing a camera like this are most likely asking themselves: -Will I make money with it ? Will my clients pay enough to offfset the depriciation, insurance and maintenance? -Will the camera be a joy to use, like an Arricam LT? Or limiting and annoying, like an Arri 3? -Are there functiona that will help me do my best work? Are the images better than ANY other camera system I can talk my clients into paying for? -Will my clients understand what to do when, as we wrap out, I hand them a firewire drive? I hope to be prepping and shooting the next job as opposed to be consumed by providing tech support for editiorial. There's probably a somewhat different list if you run a rental house... I hope Jim J. and the guys at RED are considering some of these points. Let's keep focused of helping them make a functional camera that we want to own and use as opposed to bashing the rail and cage prototypes. Matt Uhry DP, LA IA 600 www.fuzby.com

A few things that come to mind... -Learn Perspective drawing, you dont have to be a great storyboard artist, but this will always help you in communicating your ideas. -Watch all kinds of films. When you see something you like or hate or whatever try to figure out why. Sensitze your self to images form opinons and de-construct how the makers got where they did. Can you look at an image and be able to describe the direction and quality of all the lights? -Learn how to communicate. You'll need to explain your ideas and needs to lots of stressed out different minded people and still have them like you enough to want to work with you again. Good Luck, Cinematorgaphy is about alot more than exposure lenses and filmstock! Matt www.fuzby.com

Hey Eric, I just finished "Graduation" the same way, we shot 3-perf and transferred to HDSR. The transfer facility used a masking setup on the Spirit 2k that led to the reds being really super saturated, it was in most cases fixable, but you might want to find out what Spirit masking they are using. It has to do with how the Spirit deals with the orange mask on your neg. They thought they were doing a "Flat Pass" in terms of how the DaVinci was set up. Time delays in shipping and lousy monitors in the production office, last minute change of lab and schedule difficulties in actually talking with the colorist made it hard to cure in the first weeks. Test reels looked very good, the Spirit footage was a bit less sharp than the Northlight 2k scans but also much less filmgrain (althought a touch of electronic noise) made me feel that it was not so much a better or worse comparison, just different looks between the Spirit -> HDSR route and Northlight/Imagica scan -> Data centric DI. Sharp, Nice ( although a bit flat ) dailies also keep production feeling chipper about your work and more willing to come up with the cash when you ask for the Musco. Matt Uhry DP / LA IA 600 www.fuzby.com

Good luck David! Beware of flare's on the C series 40mm it gets this nasty ugly bar at the bottom of the frame when struck with hard light from above. Hard to spot when using a wireless tap on those endless steadicam shots. Matt www.fuzby.com

Hi John, Not sure what abuses your Konvas has suffered! Just finished a music video shoot for "the Bravery" 2 Konvas's and a Pan-Arri 435. The film from all the cameras looked great. No way to distinguish between them in TK. (granted the subjects and style of filming was grungy) You can check it out here: www.fuzby.com/other.html I may be over stating my point here, but If people want to go out and shoot film they should grab whatever is available to them and go for it - and not hold out for the latest and greatest from Arri and Panavision. Far too much time gets spent discussing these tools in the hypothetical sense and not nearly enough time looking through the lens. I'm just trying to dispell the idea that you need these expensive tools to even begin. Porsche's are great and yes Yugo's sucked but it's really about the journey... Matt www.fuzby.com

This is just a silly post. The camera does not make the image, the film and the lens do. The camera just holds the film. Nicer camera = Nicer for you, better: finder/tap/quieter/more speed+shutter options, but not better images. Assuming this was academy 1.85 I'd take the 535 while on the dolly and the Konvas handheld. Make it an Arricam LT or 235 and I'd promise to keep the Konvas in it's case! Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

Camera Noise is only a problem when it is apparent over the background noise of where you are filming. the DB scale is an exponential one here is a good place to read a basic description of it: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question124.htm As far as it concerns cameras I think most people would draw the line of what is suitable for shooting sync sound at around 32db. This db level would be too lound for a quiet conversation in a small tiled room, but would be tolerable for most normal urban and suburban interiors and exteriors. What is considered silent has lots to do with the sound dept too. Some are not happy until you barney the camera with furniture pads so much you cannot find the run switch! Hear any movies lately? It's not called the Motion Sound industry. Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

Happened to me when shooting 4x5 view camera stills and my assistant mis loaded a few film holders with flipped over ecktachrome. Thankfullly I was able to reshoot the next day. Client would not have been amused. As far as motion picture film based cool looking "mistakes" shooting through the base is low on my personal list of things to try. Maybe try going into a darkroom equipped with re-winds and scraping the rem jet half off with a blade of some sort and then shoot /process / transfer. that might look cool. Warn the lab about all the dust and scratches. Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

Hi Sean, I could probably help you better if you give me more information. Is this for personal use or do you rent this camera to productions? What kind of clients do you typically have? Do they care if you shoot with an old tired beat-up out of date camera? ( I use old ugly beat up camera's sometimes, and shoot beautifull film with them, but not when there are clients paying the big bucks around ) Do you ever need to rent accesories, or will you be totally self-sufficient? Many older cameras don't have industry standard PL mounts. In my opinion the BL 3 is where the arri BL line hit it's stride, I think you will have to pay at least $25,000 to get any kind of complete useable package. The Arri 3 is the only obvious choice if you want a small MOS high speed camera for under $15,000 Here's some ideas if you are doing sync sound: Arri BL - 1 $9,000-15,000 - close to a do-all, sort of silent, high speed camera. Pro's : Well made, Familiar to many AC's, Fairly light weight. Origonally designed to run at 100 fps. but that may not be healthy for such an old camera. Con's : Last made in the late 70's, Noisy, Expensive to fix. Arri B-mount can be changed to hardfront PL but it will get noiser without that nasty lens blimp. Expensive to repair. Kinor 35H $5000-9000 - Moviecam copy from Russia Pro's: Good camera, they copied a good design. Light and fairly quiet. Russian lenses are good and plentifull. Cheap to repair, but may involve sending to Russia. PL mount possble. Designed with Super 35 in mind con's: A little exotic, not many AC's will be familiar with it. Reliability varies with condition. Mitchell BNCR $9900 Heavy, well made Tank. Pro's Solid Complete Packages being sold rather cheaply Con's Solid Heavy takes at least 2 people to lift one of these suckers Good Luck, Matt Uhry www.fuzby.com

The arri 435 is a great camera, not hard to use. BUT do yourself a favor and learn how to use it in person before you show up on the set. The Mags are similar to Arri 3's and the movement and electronics share some things with a 535. Good luck Matt www.fuzby.com

Both are great machines, I've used both for HD transfers. Cineglyph ( like the Millenium and C-Reality ) is tube based. It's a little bit more of a warm and fuzzy look as compared to the Spirit. A bit more of a "Feature" look as opposed to a "commercial / music video look" Kind of like a Cooke s4 vs Zeiss Ultraprimes difference. Machines vary a bit, and how the room is engenieered can make a big difference too. In super-16 the Spirit is much better,sharper, less noisy. but for 35mm it's up to your personal taste. I would be much more worried about the skills of the colorist: creative, consistent and fast. Matt

Both Eyes is a great way to shoot if you can manage it. Not so hard to do if you practice at it. You can anticipate things outside the frame. Eyepatches will earn you ridicule and endless "Living in Oblivion" jokes. Winking. Matt www.fuzby.com

Lomo Round Front anamorphics would be a good choice. They are very good quality and inexpensive. They can be converted to PL mount easily. You should be able to find a set on EBAY. Matt