- Moderator
- #1
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
- Messages
- 13,392
- Reaction score
- 796
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Website
- www.phfx.com
There's a lot of fun talk going on post NAB and a whole lot of crazy talk.
In the midst of this I thought I'd open up a bit and explain a few things about why I've been Red advocate, Red owner, and Red shooter. I'll keep it brief, but of course there's some fun images, and perhaps a look into my own madness.
When I was growing up out here in Southern California production was all around me. I literally was able to ride my bike onto filming locations, hang out, and watch productions shoot. Star Trek was a good one, but many tapped the "valley" for shooting for it's crazy landscapes. Sometimes they fed me and a few times the crew even put me to work!
None of my family is in entertainment and growing up I was told that I could not make a living from doing "that sort of thing". Yet, all around me where people doing that. So happily I went along pursuing a career in science. Focused mostly towards engineering and biological engineering.
However, something happened. I got some early work and odd jobs on a couple productions. In my hazy vision I recall picking up rubber frogs off the ground and a few other weird things. In 1999 I was 19 and "got into the industry". However, I got in through post production. However, the important thing was I got in on on major motion picture post production which was not only extremely demanding in terms of quality control, but also often bleeding edge technology.
I won't bore you with my entire career, but before I was shooting I was a Scan/Record Coordinator and Digital Colorist. A great deal of my job was quality control and being a Digital Colorist in the early 2000s was frankly exciting. Actually, all of this has always been exciting.
That there is a burnt out scanner bulb from the industry's first 4K scanner. I was fortunate to work under the man who created this scanner and also won a Technical Academy Award for doing so. He was more or less a second father figure in my life and I learned a great deal under his leadership. There were many tests. There is/was a reason that 4K was the target for S35 film to be scanned.
The old scanner wasn't much of a looker, but let me tell you in the 90's this thing was state of the art. I got to know this machine. Love this machine. It nearly ate my finger a couple times and even gave a good shock once. It took around 27 seconds to scan a 4K image on the CCD.
This is a shot taken around 2001 in my old office. This was my previous boss's "cork board of information". In the upper right corner you can see some of the various information on formats that we scanned and worked on.
Eventually more advanced and faster film scanners came to the market. This Northlight scanner could scan at 6K around 6 seconds a frame and also used fancy Xenon bulbs that made it look a bit like Iron Man. The industry found noticeable improvements by scanning at 6K and scaling down to 4K and 2K. This rather lovely designed scanner was expensive, like really expensive. And this is also when disk space wasn't exactly cheap. However, it took the industry by storm and a great deal of companies bought these up and still use them today.
We backed up this material back then to tape and had a fancy robot that handled the precious material. Occasionally I'd jog from my office into the server room to watch it dance. We scanned at 4K and comped down to 2K and backed up 4K and 2K uncompressed 16bit scans. Lots, and lots, and lots of space was needed.
Once VFX and color work was done we had to get the images back onto film. Initially we had two Lux Laser Recorders and a couple Solitaires, however the Lux's were replaced with the ArriLaser 4K Recorder. About the size of a small washer and dryer next to each other it took about 6 seconds a frame to shoot out an image. The Lux's were about 26-ish seconds per frame and if I could manage the render queue a I could get that down a bit, which was important when delivering the final reel of film to make theatrical duplication. I'd stay late, sometimes very late, and sometimes cover graveyard when things were important or hot.
Film wasn't exactly perfect. Lot's and lots of variables. LAD prints could be way off and NG, scratches, issues with fluctuations in laser intensity, etc. This was the densitometer I used to read gray patches
to make sure we were nice and neutral and calibrated to spec. Quality control for clients at this level is high and making sure we have control over the images that we projected was extremely important.
That's a shot of the old Wyse terminal we used to interface with the densitometer and scanner. I'm far too young to know what this is, but it was at some point part of my life.
This is a high magnification loop we used to inspect the film for imperfections and examine grain.
This was the alignment block that we used to measure the offset of the film in the X and Y via technical microscope. If it was off there was potential for inconsistencies in positioning when spliced back together with the actual original negative that went to print.
This was my old Linux workstation in my office, the same year we upgraded from Unix. Eventually I had a PC, a Mac, and a PC laptop to go along with this thing to assist with software creation, R&D, and data ingestion. I coded a great deal of programs. Automated laser recording tools, automated scanning tools, automated "digital scanning" tools, color correction tools, color correction databases, HDRI software, etc... This was all stuff that had to be created because there often weren't solutions. Things have changed much since then.
In my office I also had a calibrated lightbox for reviewing color strips, wedges, tests, and shots.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time becoming a film whisperer.
I would sometimes utilize correction gels to compensate for variations in the LAD prints when reviewing color grades and corrections. Specifically handy when you needed to discover where things needed to go to get a desired look. Eventually I did not need these filters at all and just "knew".
Working in 4K/2K uncompressed 16bit was a chore. Luckily we had a fairly massive render queue to deal with the frames. Often, when I was trying to get a lot of work done I'd utilize our render queue tools to speed things up. Initially the job of color correction and grading was about 1 to 3 movies a year. DI wasn't even a term yet, HD just landed. Eventually the industry changed and demanded more from studios. There was one summer where I was doing color work on 11 feature films. Luckily my color tools handled versions and jobs effectively or I would have lost my mind. Around this time I was shooting a lot more.
I was fortunate to experiment and shoot with short ends a lot and had access to these tools. Completely spoiled by that. I remember cursing my DV camera at some point for being so wrong. Eventually I started getting opportunities to shoot footage and material on projects because my abilities were up to snuff. Eventually shooting VFX photography, elements, shots, and other crazy things.
That's a shot from the old screening room. Dailies and client review all happened here. Eventually some tremendous Halo multiplayer too. I spent many an hour going over film to review to producers, directors, and supervisors notes. Often we screened important stuff before the important folks saw it. Quality control and high standards. That's what it's about.
Interestingly I'd sometimes black out the screening room and actually shoot VFX elements in there. It became a secret laboratory a few times.
In the midst of this I thought I'd open up a bit and explain a few things about why I've been Red advocate, Red owner, and Red shooter. I'll keep it brief, but of course there's some fun images, and perhaps a look into my own madness.
When I was growing up out here in Southern California production was all around me. I literally was able to ride my bike onto filming locations, hang out, and watch productions shoot. Star Trek was a good one, but many tapped the "valley" for shooting for it's crazy landscapes. Sometimes they fed me and a few times the crew even put me to work!
None of my family is in entertainment and growing up I was told that I could not make a living from doing "that sort of thing". Yet, all around me where people doing that. So happily I went along pursuing a career in science. Focused mostly towards engineering and biological engineering.
However, something happened. I got some early work and odd jobs on a couple productions. In my hazy vision I recall picking up rubber frogs off the ground and a few other weird things. In 1999 I was 19 and "got into the industry". However, I got in through post production. However, the important thing was I got in on on major motion picture post production which was not only extremely demanding in terms of quality control, but also often bleeding edge technology.
I won't bore you with my entire career, but before I was shooting I was a Scan/Record Coordinator and Digital Colorist. A great deal of my job was quality control and being a Digital Colorist in the early 2000s was frankly exciting. Actually, all of this has always been exciting.
That there is a burnt out scanner bulb from the industry's first 4K scanner. I was fortunate to work under the man who created this scanner and also won a Technical Academy Award for doing so. He was more or less a second father figure in my life and I learned a great deal under his leadership. There were many tests. There is/was a reason that 4K was the target for S35 film to be scanned.
The old scanner wasn't much of a looker, but let me tell you in the 90's this thing was state of the art. I got to know this machine. Love this machine. It nearly ate my finger a couple times and even gave a good shock once. It took around 27 seconds to scan a 4K image on the CCD.
This is a shot taken around 2001 in my old office. This was my previous boss's "cork board of information". In the upper right corner you can see some of the various information on formats that we scanned and worked on.
Eventually more advanced and faster film scanners came to the market. This Northlight scanner could scan at 6K around 6 seconds a frame and also used fancy Xenon bulbs that made it look a bit like Iron Man. The industry found noticeable improvements by scanning at 6K and scaling down to 4K and 2K. This rather lovely designed scanner was expensive, like really expensive. And this is also when disk space wasn't exactly cheap. However, it took the industry by storm and a great deal of companies bought these up and still use them today.
We backed up this material back then to tape and had a fancy robot that handled the precious material. Occasionally I'd jog from my office into the server room to watch it dance. We scanned at 4K and comped down to 2K and backed up 4K and 2K uncompressed 16bit scans. Lots, and lots, and lots of space was needed.
Once VFX and color work was done we had to get the images back onto film. Initially we had two Lux Laser Recorders and a couple Solitaires, however the Lux's were replaced with the ArriLaser 4K Recorder. About the size of a small washer and dryer next to each other it took about 6 seconds a frame to shoot out an image. The Lux's were about 26-ish seconds per frame and if I could manage the render queue a I could get that down a bit, which was important when delivering the final reel of film to make theatrical duplication. I'd stay late, sometimes very late, and sometimes cover graveyard when things were important or hot.
Film wasn't exactly perfect. Lot's and lots of variables. LAD prints could be way off and NG, scratches, issues with fluctuations in laser intensity, etc. This was the densitometer I used to read gray patches
to make sure we were nice and neutral and calibrated to spec. Quality control for clients at this level is high and making sure we have control over the images that we projected was extremely important.
That's a shot of the old Wyse terminal we used to interface with the densitometer and scanner. I'm far too young to know what this is, but it was at some point part of my life.
This is a high magnification loop we used to inspect the film for imperfections and examine grain.
This was the alignment block that we used to measure the offset of the film in the X and Y via technical microscope. If it was off there was potential for inconsistencies in positioning when spliced back together with the actual original negative that went to print.
This was my old Linux workstation in my office, the same year we upgraded from Unix. Eventually I had a PC, a Mac, and a PC laptop to go along with this thing to assist with software creation, R&D, and data ingestion. I coded a great deal of programs. Automated laser recording tools, automated scanning tools, automated "digital scanning" tools, color correction tools, color correction databases, HDRI software, etc... This was all stuff that had to be created because there often weren't solutions. Things have changed much since then.
In my office I also had a calibrated lightbox for reviewing color strips, wedges, tests, and shots.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time becoming a film whisperer.
I would sometimes utilize correction gels to compensate for variations in the LAD prints when reviewing color grades and corrections. Specifically handy when you needed to discover where things needed to go to get a desired look. Eventually I did not need these filters at all and just "knew".
Working in 4K/2K uncompressed 16bit was a chore. Luckily we had a fairly massive render queue to deal with the frames. Often, when I was trying to get a lot of work done I'd utilize our render queue tools to speed things up. Initially the job of color correction and grading was about 1 to 3 movies a year. DI wasn't even a term yet, HD just landed. Eventually the industry changed and demanded more from studios. There was one summer where I was doing color work on 11 feature films. Luckily my color tools handled versions and jobs effectively or I would have lost my mind. Around this time I was shooting a lot more.
I was fortunate to experiment and shoot with short ends a lot and had access to these tools. Completely spoiled by that. I remember cursing my DV camera at some point for being so wrong. Eventually I started getting opportunities to shoot footage and material on projects because my abilities were up to snuff. Eventually shooting VFX photography, elements, shots, and other crazy things.
That's a shot from the old screening room. Dailies and client review all happened here. Eventually some tremendous Halo multiplayer too. I spent many an hour going over film to review to producers, directors, and supervisors notes. Often we screened important stuff before the important folks saw it. Quality control and high standards. That's what it's about.
Interestingly I'd sometimes black out the screening room and actually shoot VFX elements in there. It became a secret laboratory a few times.
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