"Going camping" - stills and a new movie clip!

[Häakon]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently in the middle of shooting a promo for a large car company who is releasing a new automobile in 2008 and I thought I would share some stills from the project with you. Due to NDA, I can only show selective footage from the shoot so right now the material that I do have to share is limited. We are shooting a LOT of content for this, however, and I will have some more goodies later in the month. The image quality is heads and shoulders above anything else I've ever worked with, and I'll be ballsy enough to include film in that lump. AFAIC, when you add on the workflow and cost benefits that RED provides, there is just no comparison.

Before anyone asks, yes, the tent is supposed to look square.

Chris, I will try to get some DPX files for you to share on RR as I know that is your format of choice for the stills.

**NEW!** Here is a movie clip I threw together from some of the footage:

http://www.showchoir.com/reduser/camping.mov

This clip was cut by myself and is not representative of the final output. All content comes straight from the cards with no CC applied.

[Häakon]

It looks like REDUser automatically compresses the images to a medium quality when you attach them, which is pretty awful for showing stills. Here are some direct links to some cleaner versions:

http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A3...1220_00496.jpg
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A2...1219_00454.jpg
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A2...1219_00189.jpg
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A0...1201_00700.jpg

[Rick Darge]

Nice stills man. I really enjoy the 2nd one, girl in foreground. Very nice lighting in that shot. Colors really pop too. Do you know when this spot is going to be airing?

[Emanuel A.]

It looks like REDUser automatically compresses the images to a medium quality when you attach them, which is pretty awful for showing stills. Here are some direct links to some cleaner versions:

http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A3...1220_00496.jpg
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A2...1219_00454.jpg
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A2...1219_00189.jpg
http://www.haakondazs.com/reduser/A0...1201_00700.jpg

You're a refined DoP, Häak... Your care with your stuff says a lot about the quality of your work. My fav RED one, actually. Congrats again! Your posts are so much appreciated, so the more you'll post, the more we'll be happy.

[Sanjin Jukic]

Hello everyone,

The image quality is heads and shoulders above anything else I've ever worked with, and I'll be ballsy enough to include film in that lump. AFAIC, when you add on the workflow and cost benefits that RED provides, there is just no comparison.

Thanks Häakon,

amazing images and also well said about RED.

[David Birdy]

Good Stuff Haakon Thanks ! The dynamic range looks great !

What type of light levels are you using?
Type of lens?

Thanks

[Phil Maker]

One word: WOW!

[Tim Lüdin]

Yeah, thanks a lot for sharing Häakon.
Great stuff as always.

What do you think about the workflow at the moment, what should RED improve in your opinion?

Thanks
Tim

[Häakon]

Thanks for the nice comments guys!

Do you know when this spot is going to be airing?

It's a promotional video for the launch of a new line of automobiles in 2009. To my knowledge, the first time it's showing is at the New York Auto Show on March 21, 2008. From there, it will probably get put on the web, though I can provide a higher res version of the completed spot at that time. I'll definitely keep you posted; my hands are just tied at the moment. :-)

Good Stuff Haakon Thanks ! The dynamic range looks great !

What type of light levels are you using?
Type of lens?

I actually used the RED 18-50mm zoom for all of those stills except for the shot of the gentleman in the car which was shot with a Zeiss 85mm t/1.3 lens. I have been blown away with the performance of the RED lens; I am greatly looking forward to the release of the 50-150mm offering.

As for light levels, I shot everything in the f/3 - f/4 range with the camera rated at ASA320; I like minimizing that DOF as much as I can. The shot of the guy driving was probably around an f/2.

Yeah, thanks a lot for sharing Häakon.
Great stuff as always.

What do you think about the workflow at the moment, what should RED improve in your opinion?

As far as on-set workflow is concerned, I couldn't be happier. It's very similar to a P2 workflow except that it's faster - both in transferring files and accessing the footage. Unlike P2, the files don't have to be transcoded before you can view them. That means that you can actually view the clips with Quicktime right off the CF card if you have a critical focus point you need to check, etc. Also, now that playback is enabled, it's easy to review takes in-camera too. I would prefer an option of choosing a clip via a thumbnail like other systems, but I have a feeling the UI is still going through lots of changes. Having shot plenty of film, the workflow is one of the things I rave about the RED over traditional systems... it's exponentially more efficient, practical, and reliable.

I'm not a post guy so I can't speak to the workflow on that end, however I am able to easily drop the reference movies into FCP for cutting or get 4K stills from REDCINE for display. My biggest problem is still that I can't get the look of the REDCINE footage to match in any other program, but I may just be misunderstanding the way the color profiles are set up. The RED team has been busy getting more cameras delivered and I've been busy shooting, so I haven't had a chance to really get into it with them in-depth. But I believe there will be better workflow scenarios established once the system is in the hands of more people.

The one thing they really need to address at this moment is simultaneous hot video outputs. It's a real pain to have to constantly be switching back and forth so that both the operator and the director can view the frame.

Other than that, the only things I would love to see in future upgrades/versions of RED are higher framerates at the native resolution of the camera and even better highlight rolloff handling. But given how strong it is compared to everything else that's out there, it's a slam dunk as far as I'm concerned.

[Álex Montoya]

My take on one of the pics: