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Ludacris - Music Video - RED #81x - Las Vegas


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20080806-05.jpg

 

Production: Ludacris "KO"

Director: Parris

DP: Matt Workman

Photo: Diana Levine

 

Set Photos:

http://www.dianalevine.com/events/20080731...lery/index.html

 

Just wrapped a two day music video in Las Vegas for Ludacris. We shot with RED #81x from www.red4kla.com with Matt Garrett as our AC/DIT. Great package, fully recommend it.

 

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We had a 1 ton truck and a Fisher11 from JR Lighting, who are really great to work with and have some of the nicest kept trucks I've seen. We shot Standard Speed Zeiss Primes, which are great but I'm definitely getting a 18-80 Optimo for anything else Hip Hop related.

 

This was my first RED shoot and everything suited me and the shoot just fine. I like the 8 gig cards because it makes the production's pace a little less crazy than with video where we are constantly rolling. And then situations where we were more run and gun we just used the 320 gig hard drive.

 

I believe we only shot about 300 gigs of footage, which was way less than I had planned for. People were saying 1 terabyte etc. Maybe for a rock video.

 

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Notes:

 

- My biggest gripe is not having a traditional extension viewfinder and leveler. The LCD and ViewFinder are great but big moves and pans/tilts get unwieldy quickely. I jokingly suggested a helmet with the viewfinder attached to it wirelessly. If you are listening Jim. :tongue:

 

- The color temperature being natively 5000k was interesting. We shot around 4300k under tungsten, Matt said build 15 introduced a noticable amount of grain if we went to 3200k. We are probably doing a 2k proxy transcode to PRORES 1080, because of time. So our ColorTemp is pretty much baked in.

 

- Having a viewfinder, LCD, and monitor out all going at once is great. Much easier than with a F900 or Varicam. Didn't realize there is a safey zone in the VF showing more than the taking frame, that is really great.

 

- All of the operator functions like focus assist 2x, exposure thermal/predator mode, sharpness, etc. are really great though I did constantly bump into them by accident. Mostly my fault I suppose.

 

Overall great experience and I'm planning on using the RED on all of my projects I can't get 35mm on.

 

Cheers,

 

Matt

 

PS: I'll hopefully be able to share a 720p version of the video when its out. At the least at Vimeo one.

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Congrats, Matt! The stills look great.

So our ColorTemp is pretty much baked in.

I don't see why, Color temp is just metadata in the raw format. You can change the color temp setting in Red Alert or Redcine before transcoding to ProRes.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest Ronney Ross

How was the light ratio on the CU's of Luda. It seems that the fill was about 1 stop over just not sure. I ask b/c I think my problem when I try to light I don't seem to get enough fill in my shot's. The technique you on Luda seems to be the same route Monte Zucker(rip) used when lighting dark skinned ppl.

 

-Ronney Ross

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Satsuki: We didn't go the REDCINE route using the RED code, we used a transcode to PRORES 1080 so the color temp I believe was the one we used in camera. Though I wasn't the colorist or editor... The video should be out soon also.

 

Ronney: Depending on what photo you are talking about that may be true. On the first close ups (the photo) that was actually a medium dolly shot going from Ludas hand up to his face, but the still camera was capturing a more staight on angle, so you see more of the dark side.

 

On the next photo close ups, that was actually a wide shot for the camera dollying to a medium. So I usually keep the lighting harder and a little brighter.

 

I'm not familiar with Monte Zuker but I try to keep the close side of the face at key or slightly above and then the far side of the face a stop above that. Ludacris is actually pretty fair skinned so I don't really do anything different for him. Also I pretty much put my light meter away after the third shot...things got crazy and we had to move. I think I actually overexposed the farside of his face on a lot of the performance stuff... :unsure:

 

I was actually just in Atlanta shooting another video for Ludacris. The production designer was Tim Barrett and our gaffer was Marc Henderson from GetaGripAtlanta. Have you worked with them before?

 

Matt

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Guest Ronney Ross

I wish. I am very familiar with there company though. Between productions in Atlanta and Savannah they seem to be top dog.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Jay.

 

Mike S: The VF was fine, I especially like it for handheld because operating off a LCD is difficult, especially outside. When I shot with it there was not eyepiece leveler, but now Element Technica makes one, though I'm not sure its out. Once that is out this system is much better. Optically I think its fine, I didn't judge the lighting based on it, just framing.

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  • 1 month later...
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Thanks Jay.

 

Mike S: The VF was fine, I especially like it for handheld because operating off a LCD is difficult, especially outside. When I shot with it there was not eyepiece leveler, but now Element Technica makes one, though I'm not sure its out. Once that is out this system is much better. Optically I think its fine, I didn't judge the lighting based on it, just framing.

 

I'll add one bit about the RED EVF if I may that annoys me a bit. It still displays 720P like all of the monitors. Here we have a camera that can shoot somewhat better than 3K (or 4K if you believe the manufacturer) but no way to monitor what is actually being captured. Not people at the monitor, not the operator, nobody. As a focus-puller, it annoys me that nobody can see if I'm sharp or not until it's too late. Also the buttons on the side of the viewfinder are always getting bumped; there needs to be a way to lock them.

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build 17 now has 1:1 viewing for focus checks.

 

The focus check thing is nice but doesn't really help because no operator is ever going to operate a shot with that turned on so they can judge focus throughout the shot. They are going to view the image normal size. As for checking sharps, I can do checks with a tape. What I think is needed is a viewfinder that displays 4K so the operator, during a shot, can actually see what is being recorded. This whole thing could be avoided with an optical viewfinder.

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you can get a optical viewfinder with the ims mount.

 

also, what ac gets to look in a viewfinder during takes?

 

I wasn't talking about me looking through the viewfinder during takes. I was talking about it allowing the operator to be able to watch focus during takes like one does with a film camera.

Edited by Chris Keth
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