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Films shot on the RED?


Daniel Moore

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With the right source material digital projection can look impressive, but just about the cinema digital projectors I've seen are the LCD type and there's no such thing as black with those. With film, when the scene goes from daylight to darkness, the whole cinema goes dark. With LCD projectors the dark scenes tend to look like the house lights have been left on!

DLP and SXRD cinema blacks need to get better indeed. What is the same as saying the On-Off contrast of these digital cinema projectors needs to go from ~2500:1 (current state) to a multiple of it. But film print's blacks are not exactly stellar either. They are usually in the same ball park, stuck somewhere between 2000:1 and < 10000:1.

The best blacks are available from CRT projectors (for (very) small screens) and LCD variants (SXRD,DILA) for larger screens. Available now for home consumption: Native and real 30000:1 and more (JVC).

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DLP and SXRD cinema blacks need to get better indeed. What is the same as saying the On-Off contrast of these digital cinema projectors needs to go from ~2500:1 (current state) to a multiple of it. But film print's blacks are not exactly stellar either. They are usually in the same ball park, stuck somewhere between 2000:1 and < 10000:1.

The best blacks are available from CRT projectors (for (very) small screens) and LCD variants (SXRD,DILA) for larger screens. Available now for home consumption: Native and real 30000:1 and more (JVC).

Some Sony projectors have a gadget like a camera iris that modulates the projector lamp so that dark scenes are darker, but that'd cheating!

 

Some of the latest LCD TVs have white LED backlighting which can be dynamically varied, and that produces a very impressive picture.

Edited by Keith Walters
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DLP and SXRD cinema blacks need to get better indeed. What is the same as saying the On-Off contrast of these digital cinema projectors needs to go from ~2500:1 (current state) to a multiple of it. But film print's blacks are not exactly stellar either. They are usually in the same ball park, stuck somewhere between 2000:1 and < 10000:1.

The best blacks are available from CRT projectors (for (very) small screens) and LCD variants (SXRD,DILA) for larger screens. Available now for home consumption: Native and real 30000:1 and more (JVC).

(Sorry for duplicating, this edit got locked out)

 

I'd love to know where they get these figures of 2500:1 and so on. Considering they are usually driven by 8 bit MPEG video, how can you possibly get 2500:1 out of that? Even 10-bit video will only give you 1024 grey levels.

 

I think that's the entire brightness you can vary the screen over, not the image itself.

 

Some Sony projectors have a gadget like a camera iris that modulates the projector lamp so that dark scenes are darker, but that's cheating!

 

Some of the latest LCD TVs have white LED backlighting which can be dynamically varied, and that does produce a very impressive picture.

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Some Sony projectors have a gadget like a camera iris that modulates the projector lamp so that dark scenes are darker, but that'd cheating!

Yes, the Sonys reach 30000:1 with cheating, Epson claims 60000:1 with cheating. These machines have native <= 10000:1. The JVCs native 10000:1 to > 40000:1 depending on model, color temperature and zoom lens 'position'.

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(Sorry for duplicating, this edit got locked out)

I'd love to know where they get these figures of 2500:1 and so on. Considering they are usually driven by 8 bit MPEG video, how can you possibly get 2500:1 out of that? Even 10-bit video will only give you 1024 grey levels.

I think that's the entire brightness you can vary the screen over, not the image itself.

On-Off only compares top white to black, measured separately. No direct connection to actual intra image contrast in a given image. For intra image contrast there is another measure, the ANSI contrast test pattern (chess board). But it's only an exampe for one specific image and gives a rough idea how well or badly a display or projector can avoid the spilling of brighter image parts into darker image parts. On-Off and ANSI together are a good indicator of what kind of contrast performance you can expect from a display and what kind of images it will excell with concerning contrast. Since film is overall a rather dark medium low blacks are a must for good image depth with all kinds of material.

The bit depth of the source is not directly related to this. It will only limit the resolution between top white and black. There must be enough bits so between black plus one and top white there is not too much banding going on. That black plus one to white range can have a contrast of 300:1 or 500:1 or 1000:1, or 2500:1, or 5000:1. The one step to black can raise this to 30000:1 or more. With perfect black it's infinity.

Some actual measurable intra image contrast examples are listed here: http://www.cine4home.de/Specials/ANSIvsONOFF/ANSIvsONOFF.htm

(sorry, German only)

The top measured intra image contrast was 1900:1. Attention. It's a common mistake to conclude from this that On-Off of > 2500:1 or some other number is pointless since we are limited to 2000:1 anyway. This is not the case. To get a sufficient intra image contrast with dark images On-Off must be high, and for superior depth with dark images it must be very high indeed.

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What really gets me is the blatant marketing that goes on over at reduser. For example one customer expressed interest in a camera that could shoot at a thousand frames per second for ultimate slow motion photography and the whole attitude of the Red team was that if their camera does not offer that feature then the feature must be a gimmick. I wonder how much technology is held back simply because of marketing and how many good ideas are shot down simply because someone has not figured out how to make a profit out of it.

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(...) For example one customer expressed interest in a camera that could shoot at a thousand frames per second for ultimate slow motion photography and the whole attitude of the Red team was that if their camera does not offer that feature then the feature must be a gimmick. (...)

 

 

Well... that's not really true...

 

What RED said was that most shoots are in the "up to 150 fps" region, and that to go to 1000 fps, they'd have to multiply the price of the cameras to an extent where they wouldn't really meet their core customer and sorta would have a cost aproximating Phantom. That'd be rather stupid, as Phantom already fills that spot (together with Weisscam and others)

 

Then Jim said he didn't really like 1000 fps, and suggested that people should rent/buy a Phantom, not a RED to achieve those speeds.

 

Mitch Gross and Jarred Land eventually sorta agreed that Phantom would be the thing to go for.

 

Not that it really matters much...

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Then Jim said he didn't really like 1000 fps, and suggested that people should rent/buy a Phantom, not a RED to achieve those speeds.

 

Mitch Gross and Jarred Land eventually sorta agreed that Phantom would be the thing to go for.

Well to be fair, what JJ actually said was that he was rapidly getting bored with all the 1000 fps "flavour of the month" type commercials, and that it hardly seems worth increasing the price or compromising other features of his camera just to incorporate a gimmicky "fad" feature whose 15 seconds of fame is about up. Which I tend to agree with.

 

"Mitch Gross and Jarred Land eventually sorta agreed that Phantom would be the thing to go for."

 

No, the RED people were quite specific that if you really want 1000 fps, renting the Phantom is the way to go.

Edited by Keith Walters
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Guest Glen Alexander

Phantom and other VR have high speed CMOS sensors been around for ages. Is this a revelation to the fanboys? well, they are pretty lame.

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... as Phantom already fills that spot (together with Weisscam and others)...

I saw the Weisscam -- and Weiss himself -- at HD Expo. I asked if he, too, made a billion bucks selling sunglasses. The answer is no, P+S makes the cameras for him. They'll be a major player in the high speed niche (not just a parenthetical). Clairmont will have them for rent early next year.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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The problem with the Phantom is that it is not offered for the $3000 price point of the Red Scarlet nor does it have an onboard compression engine. Casio offers a consumer high speed camera that maxes out at 1000 frames per second in low definition and 300 frames per second in standard definition so Red could certainly raise the bar if it wanted to.

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I remember hearing that David Fincher's movie Zodiac was shot on the RED, but I'm not sure if that's true. Does anyone know the truth behind that?

 

Also, if anyone can list any major films that were shot on the RED(if any), I would be really interested to see what films would be listed. Thanks.

i just shot a movie in australia called broken hill, its a US production directed by Dagen Merill (beneath) and produced by Chris Wyatt (napoleon dynamite). The film stars tomothy hutton (academy award winner for ordinary people) and alexa vega (spy kids trilogy). Its going to be theatrical in the US in fall 2009

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Hi,

 

Red digitally projected at 4K at IBC was Very impressive, I found the Arri 2k S16 demo very good as well. I think it's more to do with the projection than the origination. I have yet to see RED projected from film.

 

Stephen

 

 

Well, I guess that I unknowingly had the opportunity to see it in action with the new film with Nicholas Cage in it (notice I don't give him credit for the film, ahem).

 

The fact that it was a trailer aside, I couldn't tell it was RED, not film, or digital. Relatively unremarkable, but I wasn't paying attention.

 

It certainly didn't jump off the screen for how sharp it was.

 

Not sure why you'd shoot a film set partially in the '50s on RED, except for budgetary reasons, and perhaps because it appeared to be rather FX heavy.

 

Or maybe the subject matter, numbers taking the place of "The Bible Code" are subliminally trying to say that digital is the saviour of mankind :rolleyes:

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No. Anyway, there are many examples out there on the net with the same stills from the DVD and the HD, the DVD upscaled to 1080p for comparison. There is no comparison if the HD is high quality. If they would look basically the same HD would look basically the same as SD. And we all know that is not the case. Either that or Blu Rays suddenly lose their HD detail when they are mastered from the studio tapes. That ain't usually the case either. But there are old transfers around with barely 720p detail and some films are just not that sharp to begin with. So the difference is not always big. Even some upscaled SD has been put on HD disks. That's looks marginally better than DVD, of course. Appreciating HD detail depends a lot on viewing conditions, though.

Some examples here: http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/

There's a (human) limit, yes. But, any doubts on the facts?

 

Thanks for posting.

 

A picture worths thousands of words.

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I'm amazed at the aggression towards Red in this forum. Sure there are fanboys making unreasonable claims - but that's an everyday occurrence in every forum on the net. Is it the possibility of change that angers some? If you don't like the hype, don't read it. Most, if not all, reasonable people can see hype for what it is. However, it is undeniable that the camera has made a massive impact in the marketplace. It has become a useful tool for many film makers including Steven Soderberg and Peter Jackson. Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are allowing their image to be captured by this $17,500 camera without complaint. It has far out-sold high-end offerings from Arri/Aaton/Sony/Panasonic combined. At times, this forum reeks of film snobbery - with the most offensive comments being made by unknown, self-proclaimed "professional" shooters. This thread was supposed to be about films using the Red cam but it quickly descended into an attack/defend technology thread. If the net was available at the time of the "flat" vs. "round" world discussion, the threads would probably parallel this one in their descent into the ridiculous.

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Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are allowing their image to be captured by this $17,500 camera without complaint.

 

Kind of an irrelevant point. Hollywood's biggest stars are allowing their image to be captured by all kinds of different formats from Imax right down to miniDV.

 

Despite it's impact on the market, it's only now that we're starting to see feature films shot on RED get actual release dates. I think we'll see more films shot on this $17,500 (plus all the other expensive bits and bobs that make it a functional) camera in the coming year or two - even though it's place in the market will be a similar sized slice that Sony, Arri and Panavision perhaps have now.

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However, it is undeniable that the camera has made a massive impact in the marketplace.

Really? How would you quantify that? I'd love to see the numbers that back up that statement. Please post them.

It has become a useful tool for many film makers including Steven Soderberg and Peter Jackson.

Yes, a camera is a useful tool regardless of who it's made by. The two names you dropped above have also found film cameras to be useful once or twice in the past.

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are allowing their image to be captured by this $17,500 camera without complaint.

Some may not have complaints, but some do. I've spoken to some actors who don't like HD/digital at all because they think it's less forgiving on their looks than film.

It has far out-sold high-end offerings from Arri/Aaton/Sony/Panasonic combined.

Wow! Really!? How many millions of Red's have been sold?

It's comments like this that illicit backlash.

At times, this forum reeks of film snobbery - with the most offensive comments being made by unknown, self-proclaimed "professional" shooters.

I would say the most offensive comments come from people who have never shot a foot of film or ever seen a Red, proclaiming Red to be the best thing since water.

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I'm amazed at the aggression towards Red in this forum. Sure there are fanboys making unreasonable claims - but that's an everyday occurrence in every forum on the net.

 

Hi Nicholas,

 

Of course you're right about forums, I mean, there are always going to be a lot of differing opinions. But why single out this site for your rant? I'm wondering if you have posted the same sort of commentary over at REDuser--I mean, there are guys over there who are one step from posting their eHarmony profiles for Jim Jannard. That sort of thing make it tough to get to the good posts (and there are a few, for sure).

 

 

-Fran

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I'm amazed at the aggression towards Red in this forum. Sure there are fanboys making unreasonable claims - but that's an everyday occurrence in every forum on the net. Is it the possibility of change that angers some? If you don't like the hype, don't read it. Most, if not all, reasonable people can see hype for what it is. However, it is undeniable that the camera has made a massive impact in the marketplace. It has become a useful tool for many film makers including Steven Soderberg and Peter Jackson. Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are allowing their image to be captured by this $17,500 camera without complaint. It has far out-sold high-end offerings from Arri/Aaton/Sony/Panasonic combined. At times, this forum reeks of film snobbery - with the most offensive comments being made by unknown, self-proclaimed "professional" shooters. This thread was supposed to be about films using the Red cam but it quickly descended into an attack/defend technology thread. If the net was available at the time of the "flat" vs. "round" world discussion, the threads would probably parallel this one in their descent into the ridiculous.

 

What "aggression"? Sarcasm maybe, but the only agression I've seen on here came from the Fanboy camp.

 

At the risk of sounding repetitive:

However, it is undeniable that the camera has made a massive impact in the marketplace.

Which marketplace?

 

If you're talking about straight sales of equipment, yes they've sold a reasonable number of cameras, (although exactly how many they seem remarkably reluctant to divulge).

 

If you're talking about bread-and-butter lower range video production, well yes, there does seem to be a fair bit of that going on using the RED, but as for a "massive impact", it sounds more to me like the RED is simply being used in place of other low-cost video cameras. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

If you're talking about prime-time TV and general cinematic release material, there is very little of that available for public consumption at the moment. I certainly have yet to see any. Somebody loftily mentioned the BBC series "Wallander" but after some searching I discovered that was only shown in the UK about 2 weeks ago!

 

But even if overnight everybody suddenly stopped using film, the Genesis, the Viper, as well as all the various generations of TV-cameras-that-pretend-to-be-nothing-else, from Sony and others, what exactly would this "massive impact" be that you speak of?

 

Seems to me everything would putter along much the same as before. The vast majority of the people working on the average prime-time project would probably not be aware of any difference.

 

This is the one point that seems forever lost on the average Fanboy: In any commercial project with a realistic budget, the actual acquisition cost is only a quite small part of that budget, no matter what format is used. If you're a producer given the job of making a $100 million Hollywood feature, what sort of capture medium you use is one tiny detail out of thousands of tiny details, the vast majority of which have nothing whatever to do with how the images are captured, but all of which can impact visibly on the finished product.

 

It's a lot easier to just hire the same DP you've used with good results before and tell him/her to just use their judgement, but that we don't want any experimental technologies, unless you demonstrate a clear advantage from using them. If it's your own pet project, well yes, you then have more freedom to experiment, but your average producer's primary job is to produce, not provide free training.

 

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars are allowing their image to be captured by this $17,500 camera without complaint.

Who for example? In any case, the average Hollywood star wouldn't know a Genesis from an Arri ST. The average caterer would probably know more about cinematography than them.

 

Also, $17,500 is just for the camera body. It costs considerably more than that just to get the camera up and running, and well over twice that if you aren't already starting with your own lenses, tripod etc etc. Then there's the cost of a high-end editing computer and software, which can bring the total cost up past the $100,000 mark. Still a bargain in the right hands, but I have yet to see any such "massive impact".

 

It has become a useful tool for many film makers including Steven Soderberg and Peter Jackson.

Ah yes, the old "such as/for example/including" tactic.

Those phrases imply that this is just a small sample; that there are many, many more similar [whatevers] out there.

 

But of course, there aren't. The list more or less starts and stops with the two names mentioned.

Maybe the list will grow once a few more RED projects are available for public display and a few big-time producers get to have a real-world gander at them. Call me when Steve Spielberg is doing a RED project.

 

But that's still no sure thing. There have been any number of "massive impact"-generating technologies that turned out to be damp squibs.

 

If the net was available at the time of the "flat" vs. "round" world discussion, ....

This one of the most splendidly durable Urban Myths. There was never any such debate. The notion that everybody used to believe the world was flat originated in a largely fictionalized account of the voyages of Christopher Columbus, published by Washington Irving in 1827.

The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the Earth to within 5% in about 250BC!

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I hear you Fran. RedUser is the bastion of fanboys, but there are very few other places to get other shooters' advice on shooting 4K (and the unique features of the RED). That's why I came here - for what I had hoped would be some progressive discussion about the camera - the kind of discussions that happen elsewhere on cinematography.com - always informative. Unfortunately, discussion of RED in forum is just as frustrating as it is at RedUser - only in the opposite direction. Both forums make it difficult to share information without the fear of attack. Even the validity of your metaphors are not safe. My comments about impact were based on my on-going interactions with some of the largest rental houses in the U.S. and Canada - historically a very reliable source of information.

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