John Brawley

Well maybe if filmmakers were financing for their own productions they COULD do what ever they wanted... and there are plenty that do..... jb

LED's can certainly do that. But will they be bright enough for what you want to do ? What are you trying to do ???

Hi guys. I posted some screen shots. Now I"ve thrown a review together and some short clips from a recent SI shoot I did. Go here Enjoy. jb

Hi Kirsty. You should be able to get it to play if you get the B camera back. I've seen this happen several times with mini DV. It's almost always fixed by using the same recorder to playback. THEN, tell them to send it off to get fixed ! jb

I think there are two issues being discussed here. In Cinematogroahy lingo, If you are NOT shooting anamorphic (in-lens optical squeezing), then you are said to be shooting spherical, no matter if it's 2 Perf, 3 perf or 4 perf. As a separate note, some lens designs (be they anamorphic or not) have aspherical elements WITHIN the lens itself which correct for OTHER optical issues or make it possible to have smaller and lighter lenses. If you look at an aspherical element from the side, it's not a concave or convex shape, but changes across it's surface. it may still produce what tom calls a spherical image when you look from the rear. This hasn't got anything to do with the fact that it's anamorphic or not, which is a choice not a correction. The anamorphic element in an anamorphic lens is separate to any aspherical elements it may have. jb

Hi again Will. The assertion was made in the context of a discussion on acquistion platforms on a cinematogrpahy based forum so it goes without saying that "george lucas introduced digital filmaking" is about his use of digital acquisition on star wars as opposed to other digital methodologies and workflows, which along with THX and others, Lucas certainly pioneered. jb

Hi Will.... Edit Droid ( non linear editing system using laser discs) and a couple of wireframe animations aren't really introducing digital filmmaking though are they ? They are post production and VFX. We're on a cinematogrpahy discussion forum talking about the difference between electronic and film acquisition. jb

Clearly you're a Lucas acolyte. I think you're wrong. Lucas certainly did not introduce digital film making and this reveals your very narrow and US-centric view on filmmaking. Von Trier's "The Idiots" and Vinterbergs "The Celebration" both trump your ridiculous assertion and Im sure there are others. (celebration was also shot by Slumdog DP Anthony Dod Mantle) I know an Australian film called "Dust Of the wings" (97) was controversially ruled ineligible for an AFI award because it was shot digitally (they later changed the rules). The first HD feature production shot in Australia was an Australian / Japanese (NHK)TV movie, "The last Bullet". Date of production ? 1995. Digital filmmaking has been an option for a long time, and was available before George jumped on the digital bandwagon to market his films. At least Von Trier et al are taking genuine advantage of the digital filmmaking revolution you claim to champion, that is, lower cost acquisition. How much did star wars cost again ? How is it that film is holding this back ? Digital has been on the table as a cheaper lower cost option for at least a decade. Why do YOU think productions still choose to shoot film ? jb

Indeed. Thanks for the very informative response Dan. jb

Karl, Red have as much acknowledged I think that they use a wavelet based compression to store the raw sensor data. Although you may have an issue with compression, it doesn't change the fact that it's raw sensor data being stored. Compression and sensor data are separate issues. Well what do you think happens inside a HD camera with electronic white balance ? The same correction is applied. The sensor will have a native colour temperature and if you shoot outside of it, then you're doing the same thing. With Red the camera's image data is stored with a flag that suggests what the whitepoint should be but you can change it in post and it would be no different to having changed it at the point of photography (optical filtration issues aside). Karl you yourself said you haven't used the camera, but you're dishing out advice which shows you yourself don't actually understand the camera's workflow. May I suggest you're less qualified that the original poster to actually comment and then throw a tantrum when other opinions contradict your own ? Karl it's just an online forum of opinion. We're all smart enough to know that nobody has all the answers. We may not always agree but we can at least try to be civil to each other. I've certainly had moments that I wasn't proud of but the agro just isn't worth it. jb

Ask stan wallace at http://www.filtergallery.com/Company_Profile.html I recall they carried a lot of Japanese diffusion filters that i'd never heard of as well as harder to come by filters for us antipodeans...like Harrison etc... jb

Two things. I agree that HD is harder to shoot with one caveat...if you want it to look good. It's also easier to be lazier because there's the instant image when you turn it on. and The freedom of the DI suite comment is a bit misleading. I make *informed* decisions all the time to let things go on set because i know I can *save* it in the grade. That means we shoot faster on set and waste less time fixing lighting things. That saves the production time and money. It's cheaper sometimes to fix things in the grade than deal with things on set while everyone's watching. And you point out correctly that HD doesn't have the same saftey net. It's looks only as good as it is on the day on the monitor. So you now DO have to spend the time on set to fix things because there's no fixing them later. And that's why critical monitoring is important. Sure you don't NEED it and you can get some kind of PICTURE but really, if you want it to look good then you do need to go to the trouble of setting it all up. The one thing that annoys me, is that the director often has a better picture than the operator. Not that i begrudge them this, but it make it hard when the operator has to work with an image that is only a poor rendering of what's being shot. Even harder if the DP is also operating. jb

It's common. I've never heard of crew (myself included) getting a cent from this kind of deal. This is usually because unless the film is so spectacularly successful it make millions (and you probably won't be one of these), the crew on this kind of deal is so far down the line in terms of recoupment that they never see any of it. Ever been to a wedding where they have the giant stack of Champaign glasses built into a pyramid ? As the Champaign is poured it overflows and fills the glass below. Imagine doing this with only one single bottle of Champaign The cinema owners, the distributors the sales agents are at the top. And they want to recoup all their *investments* in the film, their p&a, long lunches and trips to Cannes, usually with a markup. They will get this before the producer even gets anything. Remember even the MG is repaid. Then your investor that want's to put in 30% of your budget will want the right to be first in line BEFORE you as the producer to at least recoup their 30%. After that they will want to split, 50% to them of profits, 50% to you the producer. You take your cut and then distribute to the crew. Of course after the other distributors, sales agents are still taking a percentage as well. If someone says to me deferred payment then I know I won't get anything. I've sometimes suggested that I could charge my commercial rate, and then have that *fee* treated as a dollar investment (much like your 30% investor) but for some reason noone wants to do that. That's because the TRUE budget then becomes much larger (and closer to what it is) So then your 1 million dollar Indie is now a 10 million dollar film. Your 30% investor is only going to get a much smaller percentage for the same cash outlay, and in reality, on a 10 million dollar film is less likely to get any Champaign, especially if it's at the same time as the crew are getting it. It's common for sales agents and distributors to make money from your film but for the film to not recoup it's budget. in Australia, a film needs to generally return 4 times it's budget to *break even*. A 1 million dollar film needs 4 million at the BO before you're at square 1. Im sure there is a similar formula for your part of the world. Don't let it stop your crew and actors. If they want to be part of it for free then great. Go and make your film with their donations and good will. jb

It's a little bit different with RED Karl, because the camera always shoots at it's native colour temp and you *decide* later where you want your white point to be. There is no auto white balance. It's only relevant for onset monitoring. So as long as you expose correctly using the historgrams, traffic lights, false colour etc, it should be fine to correct or even change it later. This is the plus side of the RAW workflow. Of course because the sensor is close to daylight as it's native temp (5000K) then every time you shoot under tungsten lighting and want a tungsten white point you will probably end up with a slightly nosier blue channel. You could use a filter to correct it optically, but there's a tradeoff in exposure of course. Most people don't find that there's much difference here either and I'd say the majority of people shooting RED don't bother with optical filtration correction. How many people do you know use optical colour correction for HD cameras ? Some use previously obscure filters to just give it s nudge in the right direction. I've shot with 80D and 80C filters before. Schneider are about to release or have released a set of filters for exactly this purpose. Sort of the opposite of an LLD. Even though it's technically correct to use even an 80D over no correction, most people will prefer to take the hit of no filter, usually because they don't want to loose sensitivity and trade it off for the very slight increase in noise that most people don't even notice. In theory you also reclaim a little DR if you use filtration as well, but again, an 80A (2 stops) will make your lighting budget and setup time jump. It would be worse, in my opinion, to have an underexposed image just to get the correct whitepoint. You'll end up adding a lot more noise than just shooting with no correction and then setting the whitepoint electronically. So Kyle, you should be fine as long as you were exposing correctly. jb

Hi Jim. I don't think it's the case at all. There are probably more posts that could be described as "pro" RED than not here. I don't see that discussion of your product and processes can be anything other than healthy for all involved. It's fantastic that you make yourself accessible. You've mostly delivered what many said wouldn't be possible. Many films and other projects are now shooting with your cameras (myself included) and you have a lot to be proud of. Like CML, we may be a tougher crowd to please but isn't it more satisfying that you have been able to let your camera do the talking with many of us sceptics (myself included) now using it ? Most of the angst with RED related posts here come from spurious posts from users who are passing on second hand or unsubstantiated information as fact. Most of the working cinematographers I know have added RED to the toolkit and moved on. I would hope you don't think that there is a bias against Red here and I don't think there is real evidence to support that position. I think most working DP's like to test claims but those that do so and find in your favour will only become the supporters you now have. jb

And a DC PW power supply too..... jb

Hi mike...thanks for the comments... Well it might be different for you i don't know. I think it maybe depends on the kind of work you're looking for. It's a bit harder for me because I am based in Sydney although I can and do work in the US. I might be getting knocked out of any short lists a bit earlier. jb

LED's are inherently very monochromatic so i don't think we'll see LED's matching the evenness of tungsten or the sun. Several years ago i started building lights out of combinations of LED's and some are starting to do this now. But even mixing RGB and more you still tend to get spikes (or dips really) They are getting pretty close to fluros and people seem happy using them for a lot of film and TV work. jb

Hey there. I think the 10 is meant to do 500 pounds so I'd say something aint right. i *think* the cues are for setting the feather at the top and bottom. Not really to do with payload. Im not a dolly grip !!! Just rumours and overheard... jb

Yes but can't you say exactly the same thing with digital images ? There's a good practise way and a bad practise way to do it. There's an assumption because it's digital then it's foolproof but we all know it's not and if anything is just as fragile as film. It really is only as good as the systems and processes you use, no matter which format. jb

Has it happened to you ? In nearly 20 years I've never lost film due to the lab screwing up. I have lost film due to the loader screwing up, something that can as easily happen with data wrangling. Most of the lost film shots were still salvageable. In my much shorter digital shooting career, I've lost a lot more shots shooting digitally (tape and hard drive) than on film. Just my own personal experience. jb

And that was in 2002 for HD-SDI out only (no data) ! Still. you don't need to buy any more gear right ?? I doubt Arri will ever do it. Why would they cannibalise their D21 brand ? Phil !? Why don't you knock something together ??? jb

It does exist. It was built in 2002. http://www.urbanfox.tv/articles/cameras/c19joedunton.htm It was a prototype only but never took off. JDC got bought by panavision UK i think.... Aaton are working on a 6K digimag for their new 35mm penelope camera. jb

I tried media match for a few months. Not one of the 6 or 7 projects that were listed that I initiated discussion with even bothered to respond. There were long form drama projects (not tv) I never got a single hit from my listing, not even time wasters :-( It may be they were swamped, or it may be the kind of thing where i just wasn't right. (a simple thanks but no thanks for the effort of wring an email would be nice) So i cancelled it last month. jb

I too worked at a rental company and had a job where the loader managed to load several rolls on an Arri III backwards. (you do get an exposure if you want to try this but you need to overexpose by 5 stops or so.) And for me. ahem. I was shooting second camera and loading whilst shooting the Australian Rules football grand final for the AFL. (bit like NFL films shooting the superbowl). I did this for 5 years in a row. we'd generally shoot 30+ rolls on a High speed SR and an XTR for the colour (my camera) So when the final siren goes the DOP runs onto the field with a fresh mag and gets the winning team, crying tears of joy hugging each other holding the cup aloft etc. I go and get some wallpaper of the fans. Later that night as I was unloading all the mags I realise that I hadn't closed the take up door properly on the SR. I fessed up immediately and he took it surprisingly well. Only the last 40" or so were fogged thankfully. jb