Red Scarlet X #316 "Skully"

[Jeff Zueger]

Nice kit Phil. What is that beast on the right? Guessing it's the 600 prime, what make?

 

[Phil Holland]

That would be the very rare Century Precision Optics 600 f/4.5 lens. It's an interesting lens, but mostly special use for me. I needed 600mm for a job a while ago and it worked out. Found it for a great deal. Might upgrade to the Canon 600mm f/4L IS at some point for easier focusing and better optics. This lens was made in the early 80's.

More stills.

Illusion

 

[Jeff Zueger]

Wow...stunning images

 

[Eric Santiago]

Phil can I have a 300 DPI version of this so I can fit it on a 12 by 9 foot wall

 

[Phil Holland]

Hello all,

Today marks the one year anniversary for me and Skully's hot and heavy love affair. Seems like just yesterday I was racing down to Red HQ in Irvine to pick her up. Jarred's PM still is my most favorite cryptic PM ever. I think it read "it's ready'. I had such a goofy haircut back then. It's been a really wonderful year. I've been shooting with Red cameras for several years, but this anniversary marks the significant day that I became a Red owner one year ago. It nearly marks the two year anniversary of when I made the switch to full time Director/DP (which in itself was a very difficult decision). Also notable, this year for motion work I've shot exclusively on Red (both Epic and Scarlet). Still had to do a few other camera tests in between, but for my production work it's been all Red.

I grabbed a shot of her this morning configured for handheld while testing out the new 4.0 Beta Firmware. That's a Voigtlander 40mm f/2 Ultron SL II in EF mount. Seems fitting that I celebrate this anniversary just how my "relationship" began that first day with Skully, by doing camera tests. For the type of work I do the flip/flop screen and 1:1 pixel zoom on any location is a huge improvement to operating the camera.

Lots of adventures and fun throughout this journey. I've been fortunate enough to meet and even work with several folks through Reduser. Hellos and thank yous to Dave Webber, Paul Ellington, Tonaci Tran, Justin O'Neill, Evin Grant, and Big Lu. Didn't get to hang out with Tom Lowe because of his wild travelling vagabond ways, but I'm so damn proud of him for wrapping up Timescapes.

It's been great getting to know a few of the folks at Red over the last year as well. All the way from the November announcement at Red Studios Hollywood, through NAB, the Red Film Festival, and just yesterday dropping frames off on a hard drive back at RSH. Really big huge thank yous to Nick Hayes, Ted, Brian, Brent, Sean, Graeme, Jim, and Jarred. Still shocked at the power that's in this little brain of a camera.

Thanks for following Skully's adventures. It makes me real happy to see that people are getting so much out of the usage notes, Data Sheets, and the Red Quick Reference Guide. I'll be working on a fairly in depth write up for my next little bit of Red related info. That will be coming next year. And of course I'll be updating everything once we see that Dragon in the sky.

I've got a few small projects already lined up for early next year. One of which I'll be documenting the process of pre through post production on. We'll be getting started on that in January and hopefully have it finished by late March if all goes well. My target is to shoot one or two features next year as well. Been in pre-production on 3 of them that I'm up for DP consideration on. Odds are one of those will bite.

Other than that, I just finished off a bit of personal project that tied into the story line of one of my shorts, The World After. After finishing that short for the Red User Party at NAB I wanted to develop some of the concepts and creatures and tie them into the whole 12.21.2012 thing. I created 50 pieces at 5K resolution and each one of these is essentially a single frame VFX shot. Some fairly gnarly render times that scaled up to a few weeks per frame due to the complex geometry. If you'd like to take a look at those just click the image below:




Have a great holiday season. I'll see you guys in 2013. Thanks again!

 

[Paul Ellington]

Hello all,

Today marks the one year anniversary for me and Skully's hot and heavy love affair. Seems like just yesterday I was racing down to Red HQ in Irvine to pick her up. Jarred's PM still is my most favorite cryptic PM ever. I think it read "it's ready'. I had such a goofy haircut back then. It's been a really wonderful year. I've been shooting with Red cameras for several years, but this anniversary marks the significant day that I became a Red owner one year ago. It nearly marks the two year anniversary of when I made the switch to full time Director/DP (which in itself was a very difficult decision). Also notable, this year for motion work I've shot exclusively on Red (both Epic and Scarlet). Still had to do a few other camera tests in between, but for my production work it's been all Red.

I grabbed a shot of her this morning configured for handheld while testing out the new 4.0 Beta Firmware. That's a Voigtlander 40mm f/2 Ultron SL II in EF mount. Seems fitting that I celebrate this anniversary just how my "relationship" began that first day with Skully, by doing camera tests. For the type of work I do the flip/flop screen and 1:1 pixel zoom on any location is a huge improvement to operating the camera.

Lots of adventures and fun throughout this journey. I've been fortunate enough to meet and even work with several folks through Reduser. Hellos and thank yous to Dave Webber, Paul Ellington, Tonaci Tran, Justin O'Neill, Evin Grant, and Big Lu. Didn't get to hang out with Tom Lowe because of his wild travelling vagabond ways, but I'm so damn proud of him for wrapping up Timescapes.

It's been great getting to know a few of the folks at Red over the last year as well. All the way from the November announcement at Red Studios Hollywood, through NAB, the Red Film Festival, and just yesterday dropping frames off on a hard drive back at RSH. Really big huge thank yous to Nick Hayes, Ted, Brian, Brent, Sean, Graeme, Jim, and Jarred. Still shocked at the power that's in this little brain of a camera.

Thanks for following Skully's adventures. It makes me real happy to see that people are getting so much out of the usage notes, Data Sheets, and the Red Quick Reference Guide. I'll be working on a fairly in depth write up for my next little bit of Red related info. That will be coming next year. And of course I'll be updating everything once we see that Dragon in the sky.

I've got a few small projects already lined up for early next year. One of which I'll be documenting the process of pre through post production on. We'll be getting started on that in January and hopefully have it finished by late March if all goes well. My target is to shoot one or two features next year as well. Been in pre-production on 3 of them that I'm up for DP consideration on. Odds are one of those will bite.

Other than that, I just finished off a bit of personal project that tied into the story line of one of my shorts, The World After. After finishing that short for the Red User Party at NAB I wanted to develop some of the concepts and creatures and tie them into the whole 12.21.2012 thing. I created 50 pieces at 5K resolution and each one of these is essentially a single frame VFX shot. Some fairly gnarly render times that scaled up to a few weeks per frame due to the complex geometry. If you'd like to take a look at those just click the image below:




Have a great holiday season. I'll see you guys in 2013. Thanks again!

Great hanging with you in Vegas. You were my good-luck that weekend.

Best, Happy Holidays Buddy.

 

[Mark Pavy]

Phil, what do you do your 3d modelling and compositing in?

 

[stu aull]

Thanks Phil -
look forward to everything you bring to RedCraft. Your imagery (link) is stunning/disturbing (in a very cool way). Obv a man of many talents.

Stu Aull
Alaska

 

[Phil Holland]

Phil, what do you do your 3d modelling and compositing in?

Tricky question that doesn't have one answer.

3D-wise over the years I've use 3D Studio Max, Maya, Modo, zBrush, Mudbox, a few proprietary programs, and more common technical things like Meshlab. If you're looking to start the adventure of learning a 3D package I would recommend jumping into Maya or zBrush if your focus is more character/organic driven work. I would say Maya is dominating the industry right now both in post VFX and games. The new zBrush is really impressive.

Compositing I would say I mostly use Adobe After Effects for my freelance work. At studios I've used Nuke, Combustion (not any more), and again a couple proprietary suites. I've had a bit of time on Inferno and Flame suites, but I wouldn't call myself the most experienced Flame guy out there. Probably been 10 months since I've even touched it. I spent about a year working on Inferno doing pickup work while I was Digital Colorist because I honestly thought I'd eventually do more comp work. If you are starting out I'd check out After Effects and Nuke. Pretty common industry-wide.

I pretty much breathe the Adobe workflow though. I've been using their software for about half my life. I was even using Cool Edit before it became Audition.

A great deal of these packages are pretty complicated and sometimes not the most intuitive, although they have been getting much better in the last 5 years. I'd recommend taking a class or purchasing an instructional video of some sort if it's all new to you and you're determined to learn a particular tool.

I've been fairly lucky to be around this stuff for a long time at studios and on a good deal of projects. I'm a bit "institutionalized". I use whatever I can use to get the job done wherever I'm at. You have to work within pipelines when it comes to the big houses. When it's something that can't be done in a package or hasn't been done before you've got to make the tools, programs, scripts, or plugins. Larger studios have programmers and pipeline teams to assist with that.

 

[Carlos Reyes]

You're the man Phil, your posts have been a great help for many! Looking forward to what you have in store for next year

 

[Mark Pavy]

Thanks Phil, you're very clever to be able to master/use all of those. I'm too set in my ways specialising in AE and PP to learn a 3D modeller, however my son is nine years old and he's showing an interest in video/animation/computers etc and I'm tending to think that I'd prefer he learns Maya or something similiar in the future.

 

[Abiodun Shote]

Congrats Phil, BTW, any word on the jib yet?

 

[Jeff J Daniels]

Happy Anniversary you two!

It's been fun following your shoots, gear, workflow tips, etc.
Truly a great example of what makes Reduser such an incredible community.

 

[Filip Orlandic]

It seems it serves you well Happy Anniversary Phil!

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

Phil can I have a 300 DPI version of this so I can fit it on a 12 by 9 foot wall

And if you get the chance Phil... can you say what handheld rig is in this picture? Looks very nice

 

[Sascha Rossier]

Quick Question bout Lightmeters: Do you use any? And if yes: What Shooting Situations absolutely require Lightmeters?

 

[Phil Holland]

Thanks Phil -
look forward to everything you bring to RedCraft. Your imagery (link) is stunning/disturbing (in a very cool way). Obv a man of many talents.

Cheers Stu. I'm fairly fascinated by what lurks in the more macabre concepts. When presented tastefully by others I find it can fascinate more than scare away. It's that weird balance between awe and horror. I love that. Gives people the tingles in a good way.

Thanks Phil, you're very clever to be able to master/use all of those. I'm too set in my ways specialising in AE and PP to learn a 3D modeller, however my son is nine years old and he's showing an interest in video/animation/computers etc and I'm tending to think that I'd prefer he learns Maya or something similiar in the future.

It's good to get them in when they're young, but heck, even Dick Van Dyke (who just received a SAG Lifetime Achievement Award) is an avid 3D artist who started working in his later years. Very impressive actually.

Congrats Phil, BTW, any word on the jib yet?

Ah the jib. Maybe soon. I'm at an odd point where I really should buy instead of rent them. I'll be getting the Libec JIB50 or the Kessler Pocket Jib Pro, if I get the Libec I should also grab the REMO30 for sure. Just don't know exactly when. I'm working on a plan to put together some capital for some cinema glass, wireless follow focus, another body, a Sound Devices 664, and a few other things. Likely a lighting package of 3 to 6 lights in there as well. I'm looking closer at Hive, Nila, and Profoto now that I've used a few of them. We'll see how much I can get done in the next few months on that front. I'm putting a focus on having fairly compact gear for myself and renting the bigger stuff when needed.

A few investors approached me in the last few months and I might go that route for gear. I've never done that before. Might take out a loan. Might knock over a bank. Looking at all the options at the moment.

And if you get the chance Phil... can you say what handheld rig is in this picture? Looks very nice

Gary, that particular handheld rig is just a mishmash of spare parts that I bolted together into a "tripod" shoulder rig. I've been shooting more with a dovetail since that picture was posted and now mount my shoulder pad to that most of time. It's a bit more compact. I sometimes still use that rig though.

Quick Question bout Lightmeters: Do you use any? And if yes: What Shooting Situations absolutely require Lightmeters?

Yes and no Sascha. There are a million reasons to use light meters, especially on a pre-light where a camera may or may not be present. An example in the real world? Let's say you've blocked out a scene for a car commercial that utilizes an actor walking around the car. At this point you'll have a good idea of the lenses and framing you're after, but now you want to control what the viewer is seeing in and out of focus. Perhaps the actor standing in front of the vehicle with the vehicle in focus as well. Using a DOF calculator you can figure out how much light and what aperture you'll need to have an acceptably sharp frame. So you may find yourself wanting T8 for certain things and T2.8 for others. It's easier to have more light and ND appropriately to utilize wider apertures. The advantage of "knowing" your light needs ahead of time really comes into play if you're renting gear.

In VFX I use them for pretty much the same reason to capture high quality elements. Can you get by without them? Yes and no. I'm pretty comfortable with the lights I have and some I don't have. Once you use a baby 1k a hundred times you have a good idea of the output, quality, and ability of the light. Once you get used to working with ratios you can visualize exactly what your contrast levels will end up looking like as well. That and the particular apertures I'm commonly shooting at I can feel if I'll be hitting T4 and developing the contrast I want by making observations. You'll see me walking around looking at my hand either open or in a fist on set to check what's going on. If it's something we have a stand in for, even better. I'll sometimes use matte grey reference balls or have myself or some random prop in there to setup lights. I am always using a color chart as well. Sometimes I meter using a DSLR. Sometimes I'll meter using a Scarlet or Epic. Sometimes a light meter. Just depends.

Here's some random grabs of some light reference:

I think the sphere, hand, and head concept comes from painting. I'm pretty interested in seeing exactly how form is being carved out by the lighting and playing with ratios to adjust the contrast of the subject or scene.

Basically what I'm saying is that there are many ways to do it. Light meters help you light in a very technically precise way and have the added benefit of letting you know what you're going to get without a camera present. Important if you're trying to keep the look consistent for sure (like producing a consistent high key look). Some would say they are required all the time. The other stuff I do is just other stuff I do which works well for me. Honestly though on productions with a sizable crew I'm not interested in wasting anybody's time, so whatever I think gets the job done fastest and can produced desired results.


So what's been going recently?


Busy last few weeks. Just finished up some timelapse work and this week I'll be examining the images from the High Speed Lens Shoot Out. Really interesting results overall. Some shockers and some expected results. It did provide some much needed time on some glass that I didn't know much about, and for that I'm extremely grateful. We'll all be publishing our thoughts on Friday, so keep a look out.


On the topic of using myself for reference, part of the presentation I did at Gnomon on Sunday, an Introduction to Post Color Workflow, used some test footage I shot of myself and a color chart experimenting with some new lights.

It was more of a quick overview using several different packages to show the power and flexibility of a raw workflow in regards to color correction and grading. Discussed LUTs and did some on the fly looks. Some grabs of my ugly noggin from that:

Before the year was out I had Skully out in the snow for a small shoot. Not terribly freezing and the Scarlet did just fine for two days worth of shooting. I had to be careful of the snow and hail though. Occasionally I'd get some really high winds that blew tons of snow onto the glass and filters. No biggie.

Here's some grabs from that:

Other than that I have to crack out a re-write and work on some development stuff this week.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

do you have gini rig baseplate?? and on the previous entire lens photo that you posted what type of focus ring you had on 70-200mm?
also any chance to share those LUT's ?

 

[Phil Holland]

do you have gini rig baseplate?? and on the previous entire lens photo that you posted what type of focus ring you had on 70-200mm?
also any chance to share those LUT's ?

Not exactly Gini. I picked up some components from Gini because I needed to outfit another camera on a fairly low profit shoot. Was hoping I'd get away with the Gini stuff, but it's got some major design flaws. What you're seeing is the 19mm dovetail plate. I'm using a 15mm LWS baseplate I had custom built. The Gini rig plate's LWS 15mm bracket does not allow you to open the Side Handle battery drawer when it's attached. Additionally, as you can see in the picture below, the bolts for the dovetail clamp and 19mm rods are in a rather horrible place. It's really a head scratcher. I wouldn't recommend it. You'll end up needing something else fairly quickly.

I'll have to snap a shot when I have it all decked out with Red support gear. It's pretty much the best solution overall.

The focus ring in the 70-200mm is the Shoot35 Flexi-Gear. The zoom ring is Red Rock Micro's gear.

I'll have to think about sharing LUTs. People hire me for a reason I have a whole bunch from over the years for different applications and looks.

 

[Dan Frenkel]

Phil,

This is Danny, from LA. Are you still looking at Jibs? I have the ultimate JIB...Its more like a CRANE but will make you a deal that will be hard to say no. Its worth minimum $18K But im willing to take much less. Let me know if your interested and i will send pics 562 686-9402