Flyboys are go!

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Digital IS the exception to the rule when it comes to studio feature films. Everyone knows that. When a company like Plus-8 provides HD cameras to a major studio film, you can either see it as the glass is half full or half empty -- either that's a significant thing, or it is insignificant compared to the total volume of movies shot in film.

 

I wish you would just come out and say what this big conspiracy theory is regarding Panavision and the Genesis!

 

WB & Panavision is not putting out much press regarding the use of the Genesis; maybe they never will. So what? Maybe WB does see the PR value to the general public of putting out press releases regarding the format a movie is shooting in. Maybe their marketing division is backlogged and working on something else. Maybe they are just slow. But probably it's because they don't care about the camera being used, just like they wouldn't care about what lens is on the camera.

 

Try explaining to a marketing person what is unique about the Genesis over some other 4:4:4 HD camera and watch their eyes roll back into their skulls out of boredom and confusion. Same with the general public.

 

By the time film finally goes the way of the dinosaurs -- a while from now -- hardly anyone but cinematographers will notice. The transition will be so gradual and digital will get closer and closer to matching a film look, so that the moment when the change happened will be hard to spot. But historians may think the changeover happened way back when WB didn't care whether "Superman" was being shot with a Genesis or not.

[ROBG]

Panavision are still clammed up tighter than a clam's proverbial concerning details of any current projects using the Genesis, but I stumbled on this war movies forum which contains some interesting information on Flyboys:

 

the-Pacific-war.com

 

Hi Jim,

 

Good to hear your interest in Flyboys. I've been working on the show since Principal began in April. If there's anything you need to know re Genesis, please feel free to ask away! What's your involvement in the industry? Are you a DP?

[Mark Allen]

Did anyone discussing the Genesis on the forums here ever link this? I never saw it:

 

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_thre...466&forumid=126

 

comes courtesy of www.hdforindies.com

[Mark Allen]

If there's anything you need to know re Genesis, please feel free to ask away!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm not Jim, but I am curious as we are considering using the Genesis on an up coming project. The link I posted above indicated that there was some issue with ease of moving the camera around - was that just them?

 

How would you compare the ease of use (moving it from here to there, packing it up, etc) - all of the things you wouldn't notice just by checking out the footage at Panavision?

 

Has there been any surprising disappointment or surprising joy with it?

 

Do you find that you have to spend a good deal of time knocking down highlights or does the expanded range take care of that such that you can shoot at the same speed as 35mm?

 

Thanks.

Edited June 22, 2005 by Mark Douglas

[Max Jacoby]

As for a press release, here is one:

 

http://www.panavision.fr/index.php?option=...&id=34&Itemid=2

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

[Hi Jim,

 

Good to hear your interest in Flyboys. I've been working on the show since Principal began in April. If there's anything you need to know re Genesis, please feel free to ask away! What's your involvement in the industry? Are you a DP?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, my principal interest is a as technical sub-consultant to financial consultants.

 

I have over 30 years experience as a broadcast Television engineer, and I hope you won't be offended by this, but we've heard this "Film is dead" crap repeated so many times over the years that we just can't take it seriously.

 

The same extravagant claims are made every time by (usually) Sony, virtually a word-for-word copy of their last set of extravagant claims! There's always somebody who wants to tell the world how fantastic video acquisition is, and how it's "indistinguishable from film", and how excited they were about using it and so on. And the results have slowly improved from bloody diabolical (the original 1988 Hi-Vision system) to the dismal but workable (Cine Altas used for Star Wars II), to the somewhat better but still pretty ordinary (F950s used for Star Wars III).

 

Other formats have been announced with much ballyhoo (Kinetta, Dalsa, etc) but so far they've seen little or no on-set action. The Viper gets more, but it's still mostly used for straight HDTV work.

 

What we're really trying to do is give our clients some sort of extrapolation of approximately when we expect HDTV cameras to really be a practical alternative to 35mm film origination!

 

It certainly hasn't happened yet, but we await the release of Superman Returns and Flyboys with great interest. Until we actually see how it looks projected in a standard cinema, our opinion will remain "Not Yet".

 

Yes, we've seen some of the first-hand reports from cinematographers shooting Digitally for the first time, and nearly always it's basically film cameramen learning what video cameramen have known for decades.

 

At the end of the day, all I'm really interested in is what the images look like on the big screen. As far as actually shooting techniques go, they're not really telling me anything.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

Did anyone discussing the Genesis on the forums here ever link this?  I never saw it:

 

http://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_thre...466&forumid=126

 

comes courtesy of www.hdforindies.com

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

For some reason, that link doesn't seem to work any more. Try this one.

[Mark Allen]

So - How much power would the genesis take to run? If you're out the in the desert shooting - are you going to need a generator just because of the camera or can you get away with batteries for a whole day of shooting?

 

Anyone happen to know this?

[David Mullen ASC]

So - How much power would the genesis take to run?  If you're out the in the desert shooting - are you going to need a generator just because of the camera or can you get away with batteries for a whole day of shooting?

 

Anyone happen to know this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It uses block batteries just like a Panaflex. Don't know if they are the same voltage or not. 24V? You don't need a generator, just enough charged batteries.

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

So - How much power would the genesis take to run?  If you're out the in the desert shooting - are you going to need a generator just because of the camera or can you get away with batteries for a whole day of shooting?

 

Anyone happen to know this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

According to Tod McMullen in the Creative Cow forum above, it has a "Huge" battery, and there's no on-board battery available "yet". That suggests to me that the power consumption must be pretty savage, but as usual Panavision don't supply any details. I can't understand why it should have such excessive power consumption though, since electronically it shouldn't be all that different from the F950 and similar cameras.

 

I've also heard that the prototype at least needed both 12 Volt and 24 Volt batteries, which seems bizarre if it's true, since high-eficiency 24V to 12V converters are available off-the-shelf at quite low cost.

 

You also have the perennial problem that because there's no optical viewfinder you can't set up a shot without turning the whole camera on, which is why Arri provided their D-20 with a conventional reflex viewfinder.

 

Mind you, Sony's first effort at an "Electronic Cinematography" package in the late 1980s (it wasn't even "Digital" then), drew over three kilowatts for the camera, recorder and monitor! You couldn't even plug it into an ordinary power point, let alone run it from batteries! But we got the same gosh-wow "sell your Kodak shares now! B.S. from the same ignorant journalists....

[Kevin Zanit]

It may need more power because the SR-1 recorder consumes a lot of wattage. A battery is now powering the camera and recorder at the same time, whereas with an F-950 it is only powering the camera (no onboard deck).

 

I don't know what the details of the power situation are, so I am just making assumptions.

 

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[David Mullen ASC]

A Panaflex or Arriflex doesn't take an onboard power supply either -- you use a block battery or battery belts.

 

Even with an F900, you can be working at the practical limits of what an onboard battery can supply in a reasonable time once you plug in all the acccesories.

[Elhanan Matos]

I think the F950 takes up 40 watts, the SR-1 60 watts, and the SRPC is 35 watts... so yeah thats a lot of power, the Genesis should be around the same.