Jonas Spitzenhuber

Thank both of you a lot! That was very helpful. For anyone who is interested in this: Cole, i see what you mean. Sure, we could finish in 4K but in almost any cinema it would be shown as 2K since they usually don´t have 4K projectors, right? So the image would be downscaled again. I don´t know the technique behind this process, so i can´t assume which of the following scenarios will give the best image quality ... The Alexa 2K 4:3 ProRes output is 2048x1536 1 4096x1716 1:2.66 (Letterbox) Horizontal stretch: 200% I Vertical stretch: 0% Overall stretch by the projection-system: -50% 2 4096x1716 1:2.39 Horizontal stretch: 224% I Vertical stretch: 112% Overall stretch by the projection-system: -50% 3 2048x858 1:2.66 (Letterbox) Horizontal stretch: 0% I Vertical stretch: -50% Overall stretch by the projection-system: 0% 4 2048x858 1:2.39 Horizontal stretch: 112% I Vertical stretch: -44% Overall stretch by the projection-system: 0% I would guess, that on a 2K projector option 3 would ave the most sharpness, right? I could run a test, but that´s quiet a lot work. Thank you! Jonas

Hi everybody! I have to confess that i did a really stupid mistake shooting a graduation short with Alexa Studio and 2x anamorphics. It was my first time shooting anamorphic. I had a ground glass showing different formats and wasn't sure which line shows my actual framing. So i was checking the monitor to see the camera output to make sure. What i dind't know is that the camera apparently produces not a 2.39 Cinemascope image but a 1.33 x 2 = 2.66 image that has to be cropped in post to fulfill the dcp standard. So i was framing at 1:2.66 an now have the option to crop the image or save it's width and project it with black bars on top and bottom. The film has a lot of motion so with some post-pans i should get along but still it's painfull. What do you think about the consequences of having a 2.39 DCP with a 2.66 letterbox? I don't mind projecting black that much, but i really fear that the projectionist will start moving the curtains during the film thinking he's done a fault... I guess the film has chances to be shown at 20-40 (smaller) festivals. What would you do? Thanks a lot, jonas

Just to break the silence .. another guess is that it's all operated from a jib.. Think that makes much more sense .. It really looks good and adds some life to the pictures

Hello there, i´ve just been to "Take This Waltz" and am still wondering how they made this minor, very subtle camera shaking, which is present all trough the film. It doesnt look handheld at all, its not a 2D shaking added in postproduction, which is what i thought first, it rather looks like stable steadicam shots with a fixed framing - but i can´t imagine that they operate a whole movie with so many dialogues that way. Any way it helps a lot to make a digitally shot and screened film to look more organic. To get the same effect: Did you try to add a a slight image shaking to digitally shot material in post, like the natural image unsteadiness film has? Thanks, Jonas

There are a lot of options, i think. I know smaller Hmis (like 200 or 400W) running on a batterly belt or similar, also larger LED panels work good and you can always run a lamp on a car- or better truckbattery using a voltage transformator. An Arri 200W Pocket Par has a lot of output for example. Anything much bigger eats the battery too fast and to my experience could just get too bright for an overcast day. if you have just access to tungsten light just ask someone to hold it in his hand, as long as the light comes indirect, to avoid breaking the bulb.

Fortunately it all turned out to be good! It was easier than expected to get the cards back from the rental. They werent even formated since we've used them. The clips on the CF cards do all work well, i think the error occured because of mishalndling during the copy process. Still i am not sure what could be done wrong in copying files from one disk to another.. Anyways, thanks for the interest! Enjoy, Jonas

Hi everybody! I just found myself in an urgent problem with the material we've recently shot with a red one. I am not sure if it comes from mishandling or a technical error, anyways its quite depressing. If anyone could help i am really happy.. Here is the case: We shot a student short film recently, the last two days using a Red OneMx and 16GB Red CF Cards. The material of Day01 is all ok. The material of Day02 is a completely mess. It seems that the first 8 Cards out of ten have only clips on them not just with corrupt frames, but with just a lot of frames missing. I've tried REdCineX in different versions on 5 different computers, but the always program crashes within a minute after counting hundrets of damaged frames. Same to Premiere CS5. The material played back well from the camera on set(!). The cards were unmounted properly (says the AC). The files were copied by a rather unexperienced person just by drag and drop in finder, but the bin structure is ok and the amount of data doesnt look like files are missing (Data volume close to 16GB on a cards that ran out..). Unfortunately we havent had a real DIT for the last two days.. The cards went back to the rental house were they've been formatted inside the camera and went back to stock. Since then they werent rented out so i hope to be able to restore the data using redundead software and see if the frames were already missing on the cf cards. the pity is, that the rental owns more than 100 cards that are unnumbered so i will have to go all trough them being able to use ten imac computers at the same time .. The point is that it's the first and the last scene of the film that we've lost and it is hardly repeatable since the whole set was built and doesn't exist anymore. That's the situation so far. Before i get stuck in endless stupid computer work, some questions .. you'll recognize that i am not much of a postpro pro - whats happening here? - Can you imagine clips to get that kind of a damage during a wrong copy process? - Can you imagine clips to get that kind of a damage being not unmounted properly? - Do you have any other program in mind that i could try out? - Do you have any other ideas? Thanks for any advices! Best, Jonas

hello rather use real, hard sunlight, as backlight. your lamps are not strong enough, at least on an overcast day, twillight might work better. a low standing sun works best. half shade, shadows of a tree for example can be interesting. blue filters or low white balance, also light diffusion filters work good. avoid anything in the frame that woul be lit in a real night, for example traffic. enjoy!

Hello friends, thanks for all the nice replies! Indeed 16mm was the very first idea. and you are all right, thats exactly the look, we are after.. The idea got lost on the way somehow.. The Producer said it´ll be too expensive (children, improvisation, director comes from documentary and is unexperienced with actors) and getting the alexa for free from the university was tempting. Sure, standart 16mm equipment is easy to get, but we`d have to pay the lab and hd scanning.. I didnt calculate myself.. i`ll check again. I am going to test the alexa in two days anyways. A friend recommended me to really try to torture the signal if i want a dirty look. He said use a filter like tobacco.. underexpose up to 3 stops and see what you can get back.. Cause colorists as he said are to afraid of being responsible for decreasing the technical picture quality ... Does this sound clever to you? Any suggestions on other tests, filters ...? Thanks so much, Jonas

Hi everyody, i am planning a student short film at the moment. Its a coming of age film showing the everyday life of a working class family. The whole short takes place in the early 90ties, playing just in their small flat during one day, from early morning to night. We will shoot the film in 4:3 on Arri Alexa. I want to achieve a rather rough and dirty look. The film should have a unfiltered, realistic note. So now i am thinking how to realize it. A couple of questions. -I get an 16:9 Alexa Standart for free and wanted to crop the image left and right. Do you think it`s worth trying to get a 4:3 Alexa using almost double the sensor size, keeping in mind that i am not after a smooth look anyways...? -What will be the difference in terms of texture, detail, sharpness ..? - Most of the scope films shot on alexa are croped too, and sure, they look very sharp.. -A quite general question. The set is built and we are able to control colors. Lighting will be less accurate, we´ll work with children and i can´t say where they are going to run. Do you think for this project and the look i am after it´s worth capturing in raw? We´ll have a professional color grading and so on, but the recorder (gemini 444) and data storage will be hard to finance for us. -I am looking for a set of Cooke S2 lenses, which are booked out everywhere i asked so far.. i am hoping for a more organic, less technical look (aren`t you too?) .. an experienced dop recommended me not to use them though, since working with children on a 4hours per day limit i wont have the time to clear out all the mistakes that they produce. He said lenses with older coatings need time for you to decide whitch flare and so on to take and witch to eleminate .. Any opinions? I havent had these lenses in my hand so far ... -How important are lenses for you, when you are after the look, i briefly described? If i dont get the S2 lenses i could get Zeiss superspeed or Zeiss Standart 2.1 for free, or i could rent a zoom, to save time. The film is handheld so i´d choose a leightweight optimo for example. What would you recommend? -my approach so far is, to juse hard light and soft lenses. i have a couple of Hmi pars up to 6K and two MoleBeam 4Ks. I plan to rather let them bounce from something inside the frame, a wall, a table ... and have high light contrasts. Ok, so far. I am happy about any suggestion and review. Thanks a lot, Jonas!

Hallo! At the moment i am planning a music video where we will shoot a lot of day for night exteriors. I´ll be using the epic camera for the first time but since its super low budget i wont really have the ability to test the camera in advance. So i´d like to ask you friends.. My question is: Will the hdrx mode allow me to even take the sky into the frame and then pull it down that far that it gets darker than skin tone? Even if faces are crossing the sky? I thought about using all 5 hdr stops. I think it's important to keep the tones clearly seperated - The sky needs to be some stops brighter than the faces to be able to grab the sky in grading. Has anybody tried it before? How do the transitions between hdrx-treated an normal exposed areas look like (Hair in front of the sky)? Will it look like a bad compositing? Thanks a lot, Jonas

dear friends, I just uploaded a short piece to You can clearly see the effect on color, the unavoidable sratches and the rushing shadows i described. I tested Kodak 200T, 250D and 500T and some old 125T i think. I remeber 250 to be rather yellow than orange. 500t is defenitly the one that still shows most colors, other materials tend to look like orange tinted black and white film. anyways, you need a lot of light to overexpose 6 stops. my advice is to shoot a plain white plate with this technique and than add the grain, scratches, shadows all that via compositing to your regular shot 35mm material that you should treat in color correction .. so yes, i think its easier to produce the effect in post, than to light 6 stops. enjoy, jonas

Eh, just for me to understand - Isn´t a Dino with it´s red 32A plug (thats how we´ve got them in germany) connected to three different phases anyways? If i am right, what do you mean by putting each third on a different phase? Thanks, Jonas

hello everybody! I just shot a short using this technique and did a couple of tests before. It works, but the look it produces is quite exotic, so be sure you want it. I did some test and chose vision3 500T, cause it still shows some colors between the deep warm tones. I overexposed 6Stops. Using Arri235 and 435 the images were sharp without changing the flange focal distance. I don't know why. I used lenses down to 25mm. The remjet back is not even at all, that gives you dark spots rushing over the image. Kind of an antique look. Enjoy, jonas