Peter Moretti

Just wanted to congratulate Silicon Imaging on the "Slumdog Millionare" Oscar win for Best Cinematography. I've read about half the film was shot on an SI-2K. Very impressive. WTG!!

I think I'm going to test some filters on my HDV camera and see how they compare to what I can do in post. I'm considering picking up the following Tiffens: Black Diffusion 1/2 Black Pro-Mist 1/2 Glimmer Glass 1 I don't have a Red, but want to learn how how filters versus post effects are used to change the image. Does that seem like a good sampling of filters and reasonable strengths for 1/3 chip HDV? Thanks much guys!

David, et al, A lot of Red users claim that the extensive use of metadata and the RAW codec's high quality make filters inappropriate for use with the Red One. I think this sounds a little odd, being that film still captures considerably more info than does a Red, yet no one says "Don't use filters when shooting film." In your experience, do you think that the subtle effects of a filter should be left for post production or "baked in" to image coming to the sensor? Thanks much guys.

Will, sorry to sound like such a moron with all this, but one last clarification if possible :). The rule of thumb of lighting the green screen about one stop under is, is that one stop under relative to the shooting stop or relative to the reading off the subject? I realize that this is "rule" is often times not followed, but I'd like to know how to interpret it properly. THANKS MUCH.

Will, if understand correctly, the green screen was four to five stops brighter than the subject. Wouldn't that cause a fair amount of bleed through? I'll be using a variety of HD formats from the dreaded HDV (Canon XH-A1) to HDCAM (F900). Avid MC with a full set of Boris plugins will be used to create the mattes.

I've heard a rule of thumb that the green screen should be uniformly lit about one stop darker than the subject. Is that apocryphal or accurate? I ask because many of the green screen setups I've seen have screens that appear brighter than the subject :huh: . And the thirty to fifty footcandle recommendation mentioned above is an absolute measurement. Perhaps ~ forty fc works well when lghting "normal" activities, but let's say a couple is eating a romantic dinner (no salad, LOL). So they're lit below even thirty fc, in which case should the green screen be lit even darker than they are? Thanks very much!

Hey $50 for ten years, money well spent, IMHO. ;)

Well I just watched "Che 1" tonight, and I have to say it looks so much better than "Che 2" that I'm really left wondering why the staggering difference. I know "1" was shot anamorphically, but I don't see how that would contribute to a less washed out and blown-out look. "Che 1" looked really good.

I just saw #1 last night. It looked very good... and completely different from "Che 2," which looked washed out and blown-out by comparison.

Well I belonged in that half, LOL!

I just finished watching this film and loved the cinematography. What a knack for capturing "wholesome America." I loved how the light sources beautiful but also logical, e.g. the first kitchen scene with sunlight streaming through the windows and splashing onto the mother and her two adorable children. The few night scenes had more of a regular feel, IMHO. But night shots must be extremely hard due to the inherant compromise between the need for light (for the audience to see what's going on) and the circumstances of the scene which call for darkness. The skys were BREATHTAKING. Can I ask if some of them were composite shots &or heavily corrected. Did the sky really look close to that while filming? Thank you so much David for sharing your work with the world... and your insights with US :D .

John, Can you elaborate on this a little more? Thanks very much.

Doesn't Dalsa sell their chips?

Chris, I know that people use BMI cards to capture HDMI out of their HV-20/30/40's with good success. I've heard that the component out of the A1 is a little bit soft. But for keying, having the extra color data will probably be helpful. I'd try shooting a test scene in HDV and seeing if you like the results before going the capture route. Of course, if you have the money and time, then go for it. But you're looking at the cost of an Intensity Pro card and a portable capture computer and the hassle getting everything up and running. And I'm pretty sure you'd have to synch the sound in post.

P.S. I sure wish I had a little more time to edit posts.

I think there is another side to the advantage for the more traditional approach. Filmmakers want to make beautiful films a heck of a lot more than they want to be casualties on the front line of a technological revolution--even if the revolution is ultimately successful. We have seen stunningly beatutiful results with traditional equipment, but equivalent results with the Red, et al, are apocraphyl. There are some great looking movies shot with the Genesis, F900, etc, but they've yet to look like "Atonement." I just finished watching "Che 2" at the Laemmle Sunset 5. I thought it looked pretty marginal. I have no idea how much that was: intentional, due to colorist limitations, or due to format limitations. But the dynamic range was challenged, the color "washed out" and the highlights sometimes significantly blown-out. One scene had men sitting around a pile of yellow corn husks, but the pile was so blown-out, so they were actually sitting around a large yellowish-white texture-less shape. The shots which looked the best, IMHO, were were slow pans. I think the gradual movement creates an effect similar to film grain, but it's the result of subject's uneven surface providing texture moving. But when the movement stops, the subect "locks in" and becomes excessively sharp. This is very noticeable in "Che 2" during the wide depth of field shots where men are running through trees and then stop to take rests or hide. There are a lot of these in the film. With a show like "Che," I wonder if when it's all said and done, the production wishes it had opted for more traditional equipment? In very professional hands, such eqipment is going to yield amazing and reasonalbly predictable results. BTW, I do think "Che 2" looked quite a bit better in the last town the rebels visited. I don't know if it was intentionally colored differently or not. JMHO.

Thank you for your reply, and it totally makes sense. It seems like with any camera there are two ?'s in terms of color gamut. 1) Does the sensor pickup the color in question at all? 2) If so, does the sensor accurately register the color? I imagine the answer to 1 is mostly yes, but not always. I imagine the answer to 2 depends mostly on the color. In the case of blue/violet, probably not, in which case a lot of manipulation takes place to recast what the sensor reads to what the color actually is. It would be pretty neat to see a camera's recording of an entire visible spectrum chipchart/gradient. For an HDV camera, would the tape be black (except maybe for superwhites and superblacks) for colors outside of Rec 709's gamut? Would the Red pickup everything?

CML? Please pardon my ignorance, LOL.

I don't see why Red's RAW wouldn't have a specific color gamut. All mediums have a breadth of sensitivity to color. Film of course has a color gamut, which is why a film LUT is used to mimick or stay within that gamut. I would imagine that there are colors the Red does not see (probably in the blue spectrum) or chooses not to see (probably in the infrared spectrum).

I'm not sure how spending $35,000 on digital cinema camera becomes an income source for raising two children. Are you thinking of renting the camera out? Making a money on your own films? Working as a DP w/ equipment for hire? Do you edit, color grade, mix audio? I just not sure how buying a Red helps to pay for raising two children. I can think of scenarios where it could, but how are you planing on doing it?

Red's colorspace and gamut does not change from 2K to 4K. Although I'm still trying to findout exactly what that color gamut is. Red footatge is made for grading, as all the in camera image changes are stored as metadata, not baked in. So the 4K stuff has better color by the virtue of the fact that better color grading suites and colorist probably worked on it. The 2K stuff, while high rez us in the HD world, in all likelihood, is not going to get same amount of firepower grading it.

HD cameras record to the Rec 709 colorspace (which uses the sRGB color gamut). But what colorspace(s) and gamut(s) can the Red One use? Thanks much ;).

John, so what you're saying is that the 3:2 pulldown works well for going from 24P to 60i but not to 30P.

Believe me, I've thought of it. But they are so big and heavy that I'm not sure. BTW, I've made some good progress on the whole gamma issue. Here's the deal: If your calibration software actually uses the correct formulas for Rec 709 and sRGB (which I believe is identical to Rec 601), then use a gama value of 2.4 for sRGB/601 and 2.2 for Rec 709. But if it uses a generic gamma function (very likely), then use 2.2 for sRGB/601 and 1.9 for Rec 709. I figured this out by recreating the gamma functions in Excel, using information on the following sites: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb970392(VS.85).aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB http://aardappel.13thmonkey.org/~boris/gammacorrection/ Hope that adds some clarity to the issue.

So how does a 1920 by 1200 display HD which is of course 1920 by 1080? Does it does it letter box the 120 lines? I guess it would depend on the source. If it's HDMI, I imagine it letter boxes. If it's from the DVI port, it probably depends on the software that's sending the signal. But I don't know.