Tom Lowe

Size and form factor looked very nice to my eyes. With only a CF card, small LCD and battery in the hand grip thingy, Epic X looked about twice the size of a Canon 1D4. Not too shabby. And I saw Jim turn it on while people clocked the startup time... something like 14 seconds from push of power button until images were recording. Again, huge improvement. My interest will be in keeping the setups extremely light and compact much of the time.

If you are a filmmaker and not on Twitter, you are missing the boat. http://twitter.com/timescapes David, when are you finally going to give in and get on Twitter??? Resistance is futile. Some good people to follow are: @alexbuono @vincentlaforet @PhilipBloom @rodneykiwi and @DSLRinformer

Well Red MX is a camera I can shoot on now. A better comparison is Red Epic X vs Alexa. For one thing, there are very few people who could afford to own the higher-end Alexa that shoots only 60fps for a 2K finish. The Red Epic X, on the other hand, can shoot 5K 16:9 for a clean 4K finish at 96fps.... a very significant boost in both resolution and framerate, for less than half the price of the Arri. In terms of rentals for TV shows, features, etc, what I would like to see are some side-by-side tests showing the dynamic range on a bright day in a jungle or desert.

B)

:lol:

Not my experience at all. I regularly shoot dark skies at ISO 3200 with absolutely jaw-dropping results once downsampled to 1080p/2K. Film cannot touch digital these days for astro timelapse, unless you want to shoot 5-perf 65mm or 15-perf frozen in liquid nitrogen. As far as circling skies go, just aim for Polaris. There are many, many handy iPhone apps that can tell you where celestial objects are. pUnivirse (aka Pocket Universe) is a really cool one, especially if you have an iPhone 3Gs with compass and accelerometers.

"Clash" was my second-favorite film of all time as a child - right behind "Star Wars." The summer that "Clash of the Titans" came out, my neighborhood buddies and I saw it more times than I care to admit! I have always loved the film. But I see this "remake" as a cruel, crass mockery and insult to the original. Now the producers have decided to add insult to injury by slapping on "Fake 3D" -- which only further exposes the whole project as a cynical ploy to extract money from wallets. Any time that a remake or franchise is on the line, only one thing matters --- who is the DIRECTOR????? If you want to reboot a franchise or remake a film, there is only one way to do it: hire the most insanely talented director available, and make sure he has a passion for the subject matter. (Think "Dark Knight".) If you told me that Darren Aronofsky was directing this "Clash" remake, I would be very excited. But sadly, the best director they could pull for this remake has "Transporter 2" on his IMDB. Fail.

I will check it out John, thanks! Here are a couple of higher-quality shots filming from that crazy light the other day:

Red & Canon playing nice together this afternoon in some amazing light.

Well our Red MX camera finally arrived yesterday. I took it out for a little spin at dusk in my truck, filming out the window with a Cinesaddle (I was not driving). It's very mind-blowing to be able to "film" in real time basically in the dark. I was at T2.1 on Zeiss standards at ISO 2500. I can't even imagine how nice this type of shooting would be with a Master Prime wide open. In another update, my assistant and I sought out and found a "secret" location in northern Arizona that pretty much blew our minds to pieces. This landscape is a game changer, from my point of view. Absolutely otherworldly. I think Fricke is gonna be jealous when he sees this place! :lol:

I have a couple of new updates on the film here: http://timescapes.org/blog/ We are fast approaching one month of production. Like hundreds of other people, I have been without Red #352 for over a month now, due to supplier issues and delays in the Red MX upgrade program. This frustrates me, because it will certainly cause a negative impact on the overall quality of my film. Because of this, I might try to extend the shoot dates into next year. Anyway, gear delays aside, we are having a fantastic time out here shooting with the Canon gear! The first two weeks were in the Indio/Palm Desert area, and for the last two weeks we have been here in lovely Ajo, Arizona. We got permits for the US Air Force's Goldwater bombing range, and have been spending most of our time out there. It's a real hidden gem -- beautiful, iconic desert landscapes. My custom single-axis timelapse dolly at one of my favorite spots out near Jumbo Rock at Joshua Tree. "Astro Drivelapse" shot on the Canon 5D2 with the new 24mm f/1.4 II. Epic lighting provided courtesy of the US Air Force. Those are battlefield illumination flares dropped by jets that are back- and front-lighting the Saguaro tree. My assistant Dustin and me enjoying a night of "working" under the stars. We were roasting hot dogs and listening to the Red Centre podcast while the 5D2 did all the hard work a couple hundred meters away. ;)

Right now I would wait for the Red Epic X camera. But longer term, the camera I would like to buy for myself is the Red Epic Full-Frame 35mm with "Monstro" sensor, as David mentioned. That camera will benefit from all the breakthroughs of the Epic X, plus refine things even more. And that big sensor will make for incredible detail and image quality. The Arri cameras look nice, but by the time you get to their higher-end models with RAW and overcranking, you are talking about a ton of money. More than most people can afford.

Well fortunately America was founded as a nation based on maximum individual liberty, and strict rules were written into our Constitution to prohibit the type of socialism or communism you are advocating. There are hundreds of other countries in the world where socialism and communism and "maximum wages" could be allowed. America is pretty much the only place on earth where such things are not allowed under an iron-clad constitution. If you want to introduce communism, price controls, wage controls, etc, here, you have to amend the Constitution. It is possible to do, but it is unlikely to pass. But anyway, we are drifting WAAAY off subject now, so I am going to duck out of this conversation. :lol:

Complaining that stars make too much is ridiculous. Are you complaining that NBA stars make too much while the guys selling hot dogs only make 15 bucks an hour? I rarely hear that. Those stars bring in huge audiences, which is why they make the bucks. Do you think the guy driving the grip truck can bring in an extra 10 million dollars in opening-weekend box office like Brad Pitt can? Do you think the guy selling hot dogs at the Lakers game is why people pay $100 for a ticket to attend?

I have a very negative view of unions. Maybe they were useful 50 or 100 years ago, but right now, in the US, they are bankrupting entire industries. Public employee unions are raping and robbing state governments blind. We had GM line workers making $75 an hour to turn a wrench. That is simply ridiculous. It is unsustainable. In LA, you have union teamsters making $800 a day to drive a passenger van for movie productions... up to $1,500 a day with overtime! We're talking about a freekin guy driving a van. I can find someone who would be happy to take that job for 15 bucks an hour. Who in their right mind would pay anyone $1,500 a day to drive a van??

David, I think we all know who the Oscar for Best Cinematography will go to next year: You can take that to the bank. ;)

Avatar was nominated for both ASC and Oscar, I believe, so that tells you high-level cinematographers respect it in that category.

Welcome a new day and age, my friends. David actually made a point of speculating publicly about this back during the nomination phase of voting. It's certainly an interesting development. I would be very interested to hear from the working cinematographer Academy members who actually voted for the film to be nominated as to why they thought it deserved the award or at least the nomination. Maybe it was the integration of the live-action 3D with the animated 3D, etc? The overall successful "look" and "feel" of the film?

I did not care for the cinematography in this film at all. Very, very clichéd, almost to the point of being a parody of "shaky-cam" action cinematography, complete with ENG-style zooms. I thought the film was quite bad in every way.

Well the bet currently stands as: "For the three-month period spanning Nov 1, 2010 through Feb 1st, 2011, 51% or more of American (narrative feature) films with budgets over $30,000,000 USD will have been shot on digital rather than film. Film will account for less than 49% of American features with budgets over $30 million USD." I changed 10 million to 30 million USD per the thread. You're not getting nervous are you, Stephen? :D

Many here scoffed at the notion that giants like Kodak and Panavision could easily be brought down by new digital cinema cameras when digital proponents predicted it a couple of years ago... but no one is scoffing any more! :lol:

Here is the image from MX test: There was some speculation that it was light reflecting off the sensor. I am not saying this is the case. I don't know.

Something like this David? http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=54...mp;postcount=15 Is this a serious issue to be concerned about?

Gibson and Toll on "Braveheart"

Name calling? Pathetic.