Robert Tagliaferri

Yes I'm debating whether or not to play by the 'rules' or just check them and hope they squeeze by.

Hello, There seems to be alot of confusion about what rules are for transporting Lithium-ion batteries via airplane (even at Transport Canada!). I'm heading off for a documentary next week and after some research and another phone call to Transport Canada, I think I've got it straight. Here are the rules that apply to Lithium-ion (rechargeable lithium) if anyone is interested. NB: Lithium-metal batteries are not rechargeable and have different rules (Max 2g). Canada and the USA: All Lithium-ion batteries: MUST BE CARRIED ON, it is illegal to check these batteries. For smaller batteries with 0-8g ELC (Equivalent Lithium Content) (Approx. 0-100Wh) : You can carry on as many as you like as long as the terminals are taped and they are individually contained to prevent short-circuit. For larger batteries with 8-25g ELC (Approx. 100-300Wh) : You are allowed 1 battery INSTALLED on the camera/device, plus an additional 2 'spare' batteries, individually contained. It is illegal to transport batteries that contain more than 25g of lithium-ion (over 300Wh). To determine the approximate ELC in grams: Divide the Watt-hour rating by 12.33. EG: A Red brick is 140Wh, so the approx. ELC is 11.4g. Having said all that- I have checked larger Li-Ion batteries in the past and haven't been nabbed, so I'm not sure how strictly these rules are applied. It was also suggested to me that carrying-on these batteries could arouse suspicion, especially if the security officer was unfamiliar with the rules and how they apply, so take it with a grain of salt! Links: Canada: http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/commerce...sslugg/menu.htm USA: http://safetravel.dot.gov/larger_batt.html PS: Has anyone here ever had an issue transporting batteries?

- Don't know where you're shooting, but the new split-bridge plate tends to jam up and won't split apart in cold weather. I had to take the camera off the head from the quick-release, set it in my lap, and wiggle the split bridge apart in cold temperatures (~+5-0C). Kind of a PITA... don't know if this is a common problem, or unique to my bridge plate. The mags also get sticky and it's hard to slide them in and out when it's cold. - Keep an eye on the rails on the inside of the body that guide the mag to the gate. They tend to collect small metal filings. Other then that it's a GREAT camera, ridiculously easy to use and load.

Awesome. Can I add one? I heard this tip the other day: If you're working with an op that you haven't worked with before, set the focus a little soft during the rehearsel of an easy shot, and ask the op if it looked sharp to him; if he says "yes", you know you won't be relying on him and you have to be extra cautious.

It's really not that difficult to work with. You can find the manual here: http://www.red.com/support Take some time to go through it at the checkout, the interface is reasonably intuitive and you should be able to figure it out pretty quickly. There are some things they don't tell you... it takes a while to boot up, and it can be buggy. With the new firmware, I've noticed that the thing freezes up while it's 'posting' (adding the metadata etc) the clip after you hit cut. Not sure if there's a workaround for this, but afaik that take is toast and you've got to power down and go again- a real PITA. It's pretty sensitive to heat, so if you're outdoors, make sure to control the temp as best you can, ie, shade, reflective blankets- I've even heard of ppl using icepacks in extreme conditions. Just get ahold of it and mess around- that's the best way to learn. It's no more complicated than any other camera.

"You can't please all the people all the time"... I think the Red is trying to appeal to too broad a market, no camera is going to satisfy the needs of every production, and if it does, it's going to have to make compromises somewhere. I think the modularity of the Red is good in concept, however, rather than having one good, standard handheld config, steadicam config and studio config, you end up fussing around with third party or their own accessories to try to get a working rig in any configuration. I'd rather have a tried and true configuration, then having to deal with something that's trying to do everything and doesn't do one thing well... I think Red needs to define their market, and make a product that suits it. Right now they're making a cheap camera with a decent sensor that can be anything from prosumer to 'pseudo professional', depending on the accessories and lenses you put on it. Prosumers and 'professionals' have different needs though, and the same camera system probably isn't going to satisfy both markets, not without making some serious compromises; how do you keep the price down for prosumers, while maintaining the high level of quality that professionals demand? Good luck. If all that matters is the quality of the image, then the bottom line is that the Red camera is a good value. For $250-$500/day, where else are you going to get a final image like that- not that it's great, but it's better than anything else in it's price range. The image quality you get for the price is very good, but at the cost of several compromises, ie the rolling shutter, buggy software, etc. The other thing to consider is that the idea of the 'digital cinema' camera is really still in it's infancy. Not that this is about drawing comparisons with other formats, but modern 35mm camera systems are the result of over 100 years of R&D. The first 35mm camera probably had alot of issues too; I think the idea of the Red is a step in the right direction, and we're going to see these digital systems get better and better.

Hello all, I came across this link on Digg.com. There's a lot of buzz about this stills camera being used for video, I think this is the first real footage I've seen from it. Pretty challenging lighting situation, and I think it looks 'pretty good' for the most part... but HOLY ROLLING SHUTTER at the end with the strobes! That really kills it for me. What do you guys think? http://www.vimeo.com/3388630 The song is 'Burn' by NIN, really good operator too.

Here's some good tips on how to slate ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVHg3PxSblI

Hey Ashley! Fancy running into you here! The Red uses a 'windowed' sensor in 2k mode... meaning that it essentially just uses a part of the sensor, which basically equates to 16mm (not sure the EXACT sensor size on this). The field of view is halved and the DoF at lenses with the equivalent FoV is larger. It's the same as the difference between 35mm and 16mm. Just remember that if you're blowing up to theatre-size, your CoCs in 2k are smaller than in 4k mode. Hope you're doing well! Cheers!

Not sure how it is in your area, but here in Toronto both Kodak and Fuji have 'student liasons' that you can talk to and they will generally provide test rolls for this purpose, as long as they're convinced you're not shooting your whole project on test rolls! The policy at Technicolor here (last time I asked as a student) is they will charge you for processing/transfer of tests, but then take that amount off the final total when you process/transfer the rest of the film. Also, if I wanted grain I'd opt for 5218 over 19, or even look into some of the Fuji stocks... I've never really shot them but I here they are grainier. In the current issue of AC magazine, Harris Savides talks about how he was frustrated he couldn't get any grain out of the current 35mm stocks for "Milk". The new stocks from kodak are very clean.

I've never heard the 'Scorpio' mentioned before. I've used the Bartech and the Preston quite a bit. I would agree that the Bartech is very unreliable and cumbersome to work with. The Preston, however, is fantastic. It's always worked flawlessly for me and it self-calibrates for each lens. There's a slight price difference though: the Bartechs go for around $5000 and the Prestons are $20,000+. For the price, the Bartechs are decent enough, but they are a pretty big compromise. Question: Do alot of you guys own your own wireless follow focus devices? In my experience, every steadicam guy (even the guys just starting out) always have their own WFF. I suppose renting them to productions is a good way to earn a little extra cash too though.

Were you by chance using the Red branded lenses? The focus scale on that lens is VERY compressed... a minute adjustment on the knob translates to a dramatic shift in the lens' focus. It's built like a photo lens IMO

I think the broken glass idea might work perfectly, I'm going to test that. I wonder if Whites has any broken mirror boards they'd donate :P On a side note- I just found out that Gordon Pinsent is going to be starring in the film :o

Hello, I am shooting a Ryerson University thesis film in January. They've got a little more money than the average student film, and the director has very specific tastes about how it should look. I am having trouble figuring out how to achieve a certain effect that the director is looking for, and I'm not sure where to start. He basically wants to re-create the pattern of light you get when light shines through a chandelier or crystal; varying spots and lines of hard intense light. I could just shine light through a chandelier but I'm afraid I won't have enough control. The scene is a ballerina dance in a large room with 3 windows. I'm thinking 4ks outside the windows, 2x 1.2ks though a 12by grid cloth and a flathead80 as fill. Anyway, he wants the sunlight to have that crystal pattern on the floor. Any ideas on what I could hang in front of the light? I don't know much about theatre lighting but I bet there is something that is used for this effect. One idea was to use a tray of water with broken mirrors in it, shining a light into the tray, and using mirror boards to direct the light through the window. However, this is sort of unwieldy and I'm not sure it would work. Any ideas??

Hello, I'm ACing a PSA next weekend shooting on the Red. This is my 3rd project with the camera so I know it pretty well, though I haven't done much high speed shooting with it and the DP and I have some questions. In terms of quality, is it better to go with REDCODE36 @3k 2:1 in order to get 50fps, or bump the quality down to REDCODE28 and shoot a higher resolution? Basically, what's the better tradeoff, resolution or quality? The PSA will end up on TV eventually, and we are using RED 4k lenses (grumble grumble). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Someone needs to transplant the guts of this thing into a film camera form factor, add a PL mount, keep the price tag- and I'm so sold. Not sure how practical this thing is going to be for full-scale productions though. I could see it becoming extremely popular in the low budget music video world. Seems like an HVX Killer! H.264 is not suited to theatre-size projection and FX work though is it? Anyone know if the footage could actually hold up on the BIG screen?

That looks perfect

I just finished ACing a short film shot in and around toronto. 2 of the 7 days were almost exclusively steadicam. It was outdoors, but the DP wanted shallow DoF so it was all at 2-2.8 split, and alot of it on a 50mm lens. The DP was a focus puller himself so he knew it was tricky, and wasn't upset when I had to ask for another take a couple times. Almost everything came back sharp though :). In terms of tricks or techniques, I relied alot on estimation, once you have a mental idea of what certain distances are, it's not too difficult to make educated guesses. I also relied on the monitor alot. The talent were wearing jackets with buttons, so for walk-and-talks I took a measurement based on how many buttons were visible. Since the headroom was more or less consistent, I knew for instance if I saw 3 buttons he was 7' away, if I saw 4 he was 7'6", etc. I would constantly be glancing at the monitor to get an idea of the distance and then stepping aside and judging the distance again, and making a guess based on that. I also often had the operator pause at the end of the take so I could pull the tape and make sure I was in the right area at least for the end of the take. I also spoke with the production and encouraged them to print more takes then they normally would. I knew it would be very difficult to hold some of the longer shots the whole way through, so I wanted to make sure they'd at least have bits and pieces. If you know you didn't get something SPEAK UP and get another take. Most DPs know how difficult this sort of stuff is, and they'd rather take 5mins to re-do a soft shot then to not have it in the can. Most operators are going to be sympathetic too, every time the op saw me pull out my 'prayer wheel' he'd let the DP know we needed another :P

BTW- in terms of on-set workflow, this is what I usually do. I always label the mags at the beginning of the job and keep CR#s increasing, just like in film. HOT/SPENT MAG> 1. Mark with red tape 2. Unmount and disconnect from camera 3. Attach camera report 4. Deliver to Media Management/DIT (Skip this step if you don't have one) 5. Make a record of the time the transaction occurred (usually MAG#, CR, and Time) *The mag is now in the media manager/DITs hands, and they would continue from here. 6. Copy the hot mag to HDD1 7. Verify all footage against camera report 8. Copy from HDD1 to HDD2 (backup drive) 9. Format Magazine 10. Remove red tape 11. Return to camera dept. 12. Camera Assistant makes a note of the time the mag was returned 13. Stow or mount to camera I've followed this procedure and never had a problem. If something happens to the mag the notes will show whether or not it was in the DIT's charge at the time, or if it was the AC's responsibility (CYA!)

Yup, went to see Part I last week. Saw it at the AMC24 in downtown Toronto. Looked incredible on the digital projectors there.

"Apollo 13" Don't know if you guys have the budget to do those parabolic arcs to simulate weightlessness though :P Actually I was reading the AC Magazine article about the movie, and alot of the footage in the spacecraft was shot with the actor and camera on seperate jibs that were floated up and down to simulate weightlessness for MCUs. They also often just had the actor 'sway' which worked well for closeups.

Oh, also be prepared for EVERY PERSON ON SET to say "Oh wow... that's the RED? What do you think of it?" Seriously every person on set will try to have a conversation with you while you're trying to build it. It seems to be a conversation piece.

Couple things: 1- There are two features that help with focusing. One is the Focus Assist Meter. This is kind of cool in concept. It allows you to select a section of the image and will display a waveform for that section under the image. Theoretically, you'll see a spike in the Waveform when the subject's eyes are in focus, especially if there is a nice catchlight. In my opinion this is only useful for double-checking focus, not pulling focus during a shot. This is because you lose the waveform when you zoom in on the monitor, and you can see a sharp catchlight in the zoomed-in monitor without the help of the waveform anyway. The other feature is the false-color focus assist, I find this very useful (if you can actually find it in the menu- I have no idea where it is). If you push the right user button on the EVF, it is by default set to display the false-color focus assist though. This basically turns the image B+W and makes sharp edges glow red. If there's a catchlight in the talent's eyes you just need to keep their eyes red and you're golden. 2- Get the Arri baseplate/dovetail. The Red mounting system consists of a flimsy 'baseplate' type thing that is secured into a cheesplate-like thing by means of this tiny little bolt. It's an abomination and it doesn't work. If you're stuck with it, you can put 2 strips of gaffer's tape on either side of the lower plater then attach the baseplate to the lower plate before you secure the camera to the baseplate. The weight of the camera will make the tape bunch up otherwise. The best advice I can say in terms of focus is make sure you're NOT USING THE RED LENSES!! They are optically quite good (Cooke glass, some say), but are horrible mechanically. The focus scale is VERY compressed and the lens behaves very erratically. A tiny little movement even near the top of the scale will correspond to a dramatic shift in the lens. The witness marks are useless to boot. They are like photo lenses. I can't harp on these lenses enough- they are awful to pull on. The Red's alot of fun to use though. Get lots of batteries and make sure the AD knows it takes awhile to boot up so you can get '2 minute warnings'.

You can pop the P2 cards directly into the PCMIA slot on a laptop (you need to have the correct drivers installed for the mac though) and copy the data over. There are also various adapters for the newer mac laptops that have a different slot (can't remember the type) To compile the footage you need to use the latest version of final cut (or close to it). There's an option in the 'File' menu to 'Log and Transfer' or 'import p2' on older FCP versions. It will ask you to select the folder with the P2 footage and bring up an interface for capturing the footage. It will compile the QT files to the project's capture scratch. Panasonic also has a program called 'p2contents management software', but it's poorly translated from Japanese (even worse than Panasonic's manuals) and it's very clunky. It will allow you to view/verify P2 footage without compiling, so it's handy if you don't have FCP installed. The normal/safest workflow would be: After the full p2 card comes off the camera copy p2 'contents' folder to HDD1, organized by dump# or reel# --> open contents folder in FCP and verify footage --> re-copy contents folder from HDD1 to HDD2 (backup) --> format p2 card --> return to camera dept. You don't necessarily have to compile the footage on set, this can be done later by the editors, as it takes a little while. Once the footage has been compiled to the scratch disk the contents folder becomes sort of redundant, though if you wanted to work with the footage you'd have to compile it again. It is prudent to have at least 2 copies of the footage at all times though. The media manager could spend their downtime double-checking the footage for focus, or maybe even reviewing it with the editor/director to make sure you've got everything.

I just saw "The Big Lebowski" the other day at a local theatre. Near the very end when they scatter the ashes by the water, there's a guy (maybe a crew member) walking around on a hill in the background just behind where the scene is taking place. It was very noticeable, I'm thinking they somehow got rid of it for the DVD release, as I was watching a restored 35mm print. Also I noticed the car mount reflected in the Dude's glasses while he's driving the car. There's 'mistakes' like this in almost every movie though, just look at the 'goofs' section of IMDB. People that obsess over things like this drive me nuts though- just enjoy the movie instead of watching the continuity of the actors' drinks between shots. It's a MOVIE!