Ravi Kiran

Has anyone here seen Kelly Reichert's film Meek's Cutoff? It was beautifully shot by Chris Blauvelt. Reichert and Blauvelt chose the Academy aspect ratio to keep us from seeing the land before the characters because they had no idea what was up ahead either. The squareish frame keeps us focused on the people and not as much on the terrain. I thought the night scenes were particularly noteworthy. I liked that they were barely lit. It was a look that I rarely see in films. On the other end of the spectrum, the day scenes conveyed the oppressive, overbearing desert sun. The women always wore bonnets and the men were wearing hats. How do you generally light faces in such situations? Do you use reflectors to fill in the faces? Does anyone know how the 35mm prints were printed? Were they true Academy prints or was the Academy image reduced to within a 1.85:1 area or possibly a 'scope print?

Will there be any IMAX screenings?

I agree. We use a set of PL-mount-converted Super Baltars (when we can't rent a better set like Ultra Primes or Super Speeds), and they get rather soft wide open. Highlights especially tend to bloom.

Didn't they shoot one season in HD and then switch back to film?

Just wrapped a gig as a 2nd AC on a shoot with this camera. We mostly used the three Sony lenses (35, 50, 85) that the owner/operator bought with it and occasionally used a 25mm Bausch and Lomb Super Baltar 25mm. I will be color grading this footage once it is edited. Looking at some of the footage so far I think its quite good. I'm a big fan of the Sony EX-3 and am quite familiar with the footage. The F3 is cleaner in the shadows than the EX-3, most likely due to the bigger sensor. Highlights can clip harshly, just like on the EX-3, but if you can control the light and make sure not to overexpose, its not a huge deal. We shot everything at -3db gain and used a Marshall HDMI LCD monitor on-board. I think this is a great middle-ground between DSLRs and the RED. DSLRs have a host of problems, and the RED can be a hassle to use, especially for handheld stuff. And its definitely better than using a Letus or Brevis! Looking forward to grading this footage in Color.

This sounds like a fascinating film. I look forward to reading your experiences on shooting a lower budget period piece and your thoughts on shooting a period piece digitally. The look you're going for sounds very interesting. Was McCabe and Mrs. Miller a reference for you in creating the look?

The digital shoots I've been on have been pretty good about not over-shooting stuff. If they feel like they've got something, they'll get maybe one extra take and then move on. Digital shoots of a certain scope still have assistant directors and a schedule to stick to. However, I edited an ultra low-budget digital feature on which they were shooting the bulk of it with two cameras rolling for whole running times of scenes, and while the shoot days were short, it took me FOREVER to edit it. Not only did I have a mountain of footage to go through, I also had to edit around seeing the other camera operator or boom operator, out-of-focus shots, weird framing and camera moves, two people covering the same thing on EVERY take in some circumstances, etc.

At this point aren't we getting into technical semantics that don't matter that much? 4K or 3.2K, the fact is, the Red provides plenty of image information for most of us who use it, who are producing 2K or 1080p end products. I don't agree that the Red has democratized filmmaking or whatever, but it even if it doesn't quite live up to its own marketing, it certainly has given those of us in the lower and middle tiers of filmmaking and videography a better camera than we've seen before at this level.

Never tried it, but why not at least use a 5D?

Why don't they broadcast 24p shows natively at that framerate?

So I take it you're not recording to ARRIRAW?

A dead casket salesman would be quite amazing. "I use this model myself" :D

I can't imagine that on a true IMAX-sized screen the extra resolution wouldn't make a difference, but I doubt we'd be able to tell the difference between 4K and 8K on a regular screen. But that's just my untested opinion...

I agree, but even light, unchallenging movies don't have to be mediocre. Even if the audience is meant to turn their brains off while watching a film, filmmakers shouldn't turn their brains off while making it. This is all cyclical. Some crap film will top the box office, and everyone will whine about how the audience's tastes are going down the toilet. Then a good film will make a ton of money and we'll get a deluge of articles about how the audience's tastes are becoming more high-brow.

I thought that was spelled with a "U" in England...

I used to think that DIs were only used on films that required some special look that optical grading couldn't deliver, but nowadays I see that even relatively normal-looking films are going through DIs. You know DIs are the norm when cinematography-related publications make a point to mention that Inception didn't go through a DI.

I agree, Red and EX3 can be graded to intercut very well. I will say that the Sony F3L, along with Panasonic's AG-AF100, seem to be good options for people who want something better than a camera with a 35mm lens adapter (which I personally dislike) for shallow DOF but not as expensive or complicated as the Red.

The next trend will be shooting weddings in 3D...

I don't know if I'd say this competes with any of the Red cameras. At best, its a step up from using a 35mm lens adapter on an EX-3, but ultimately its still recording MPEG-2 35Mb/s 4:2:0 (when you record on-board to SxS cards). It all depends on your wants and needs. If all you want is shallow depth-of-field out of an easy-to-use ENG camera and don't need the flexibility of RAW or the overall expense of the Red, then this is probably the camera for you. But get the Red if you want something higher quality. Red footage properly shot and downsampled to 1080p looks very nice.

A shutter slower than 180 degrees is a very noticeable giveaway of digital.

The RED itself hasn't killed film, but it sure is a sign of better and better digital cameras to come. Right now the digital's advantages over film are in workflow rather than quality, but the quality will get better. Resolution, skin tones, dynamic range, etc. will improve with time. The new cameras probably won't exactly match film, but like David Mullen said (in some thread here or on Reduser) we always make tradeoffs in the transition to a new medium. However, if 4K DIs are to become more common, I see that as an extra shot in the arm for 35mm, since the Epics might be scarce at first, and the RED's effective resolution is 3.2K (though I'm not sure if that's changed with the MX sensor). The truth is, 35mm still provides more information to work with than any digital camera out right now, so I'm not proclaiming it dead just yet. But we may be at the beginning of the end. Let's see what the state of film origination is in the next 5-10 years.

Well, what about the ability to look at the footage on-set to monitor the effect? Seems like that's very important for 3D.

I don't like the little viewfinder in the back. This would be better if it had the side VF like on the EX-3.

How many of them are currently showing 4K movies though? Aren't most DIs still being done at 2K?

I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D and while the 3D was the best I've seen yet, I felt that the IMAX-sized image did a lot of the work in providing an immersive experience.