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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Some new footage to play with

my take
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I'm floored... and the wine glass is dirty....
Haha, I know... those wine "glasses" were $2 plastic cups I bought from a grocery store about 5 minutes before we started shooting. They looked cool in the plastic wrap on the shelf, but I didn't have the opportunity to shine a 1K through them before testing. My bad.

What's the widest lens you are shooting with?
Did you ever shoot with a 12mm, and if so, what mattebox did you use?

I'm still thinking about my lens set and the right MB.
The MB-20 would be the best way to go?!
On RED, the widest I've gone is 18mm with the RED zoom. It's pretty wide, and doesn't have a lot of distortion. It definitely shouts "wide angle," but it has good uses. I'm pretty sure the dolly shot in the bedroom scene was at 18mm or awfully close.

The footage is gorgeous, the bokeh is amazing. It's a bit rosy though, so I couldn't resist giving it a CC shot.

Sorry for adding some grain. The image was too clean for me!
Coloring is a really interesting thing and highly personal, I've found. For instance, your grade of the boy on the bed looks pleasant, but I intentionally shot it cool because I think it has a much more isolated, nighttime feel. That being said, the problem with digital stuff is that it looks 500 different ways on 500 different monitors. Throw in gamma/codec errors and it's enough to drive a DP crazy. Sometimes I really feel like it's a crapshoot at best. But I do appreciate the comments and suggestions.

It's funny, I also shoot a lot of stills and many times I will add grain/grungy textures in post to add to the attitude of a photograph. It can really be used effectively to enhance an image. But in most cases, for me anyway, I find that the dancing movement of noise in a motion picture really distracts me and removes me from a story. It does have its uses, and it's just purely my own opinion, but much more often than not I like my films to be clean and pristine. I really do think that much of it is psychological; as a new generation grows up watching beautiful, noise-free pictures, my gut feeling is that they will look back at the grain of film and find it to be quite dirty and aged looking. It will be interesting to see how that manifests itself.

I used to watch Dawson's Creek back in the day and this totally brought me back there. Powerful stuff to me.
Hehe, thanks... maybe I should have used that "I don't wanna wait" song instead? :)

I believe this is your first shared footage from RED? This is what I've wanted to see from day one.
Thanks, Jim. Yeah, this is essentially the first thing I've posted. I've been doing a lot of corporate/industrial stuff lately (not my cup of tea, but pays the bills) and the client usually keeps all the footage before I can copy any of it for myself. It's boring stuff anyway. I really want to get to shooting another feature, but am just trying to find a script that really moves me. There will be more, I promise. :-)

The only question I have has nothing to do with the camera, just the H.264 codec or maybe just my screen- on the fades to black, I get progressively worse posterization; anyone else see this
I know exactly what you're talking about (I always notice it on the fade up of the very first image) and the banding is due completely to the codec and compression. I will post some higher res/better compressed clips later tonight that will hopefully rectify the problem.

Hi Häakon,
Is it ok to mirror this footage? I have a small collection of Red footage; yours is so good I'd like to either mirror it or link to your page, if that's ok with you.
I am more than happy to share... feel free to post away!
 
Haakon, watching these clips, I was instantly sucked in. I felt like I was watching a feature, I didn't want it to end!

Gorgeous footage. Great lighting for such a small setup, and I love that bokeh (like everyone else) from the first shot.

Congrats!
 
Woah...well done Haakon! Have not seen any RED footage in quite some time and this always makes the waiting a bit less painful. Really liked the way the 1st clip looked, very rich...vibrant and excellent camera movement, you are obviously are a pro. I love that this "just a test, couple of lights and some friends" still manages to look like a multimillion dollar shoot. This kind of minimal scenario is what I will be relying on for some of my productions that need to be relatively low profile.

Thanks for sharing!

Best
 
Just a note when watching the H264 clips... make SURE you have the "Use High Quality Video" and "Enable Final Cut Studio Color Compatibility" options checked before you view the footage... the gamma and sharpness is totally wrong without this and that's probably why someone saw some unwanted noise and/or artifacts in the shot.

I'm uploading a 2K version of the bedroom scene now, but it is going to take a little while to get online.
 
Just FWIW, I can see no noise (either "mosquito noise" or grainy type) anywhere in the entire clip. I've watched it six or seven times now, both QT Player and VLC and I have the black level high enough to expose anything in the blacks. The only artifact I see is posterization / contouring on the fade in/out, which of course is the H.264 codec.

I'm using Win2k/SP2 with an old-school CRT monitor. My visual acuity is reasonably good, and I've seen my share of DV and HDV and MPEG artifacts in the last 9 years of editing. I'm guessing there is some hardware or software difference that causes some noise for some people that I'm not seeing here.
 
allright, if that first scene doesn't have a De Beers diamonds are forever look
I dont know what does.

well done sir!!
 
If anyone is interested in banding problems on various displays, I made a quick test video in H.264 MP4 format. It is at the bottom of this page:
http://www.bealecorner.org/red/test-patterns/

On my desktop (CRT), VLC shows very minimal banding. QT Player shows more banding than VLC does and Nero Showtime is the worst, with the most banding.

On my 17" laptop (LCD) the banding is pretty horrible in all players.
 
Haakon, watching these clips, I was instantly sucked in. I felt like I was watching a feature, I didn't want it to end!

Gorgeous footage. Great lighting for such a small setup, and I love that bokeh (like everyone else) from the first shot.

Congrats!

yes, I showed it my girl and she felt the same, she was left wanting to see more (it helped that she loves that song).

This one is by far the best clip so far IMHO.

Thanks for posting!
 
Any chance of uploding some sample R3D files? Im sure Im not alone in wanting to play with anything raw from this shoot to grade properly. Go on, break the mold and give the people what they really want!
 
Thoughts on 2K vs. HD cameras

Thoughts on 2K vs. HD cameras

Hi Haakon,

Thanks for sharing your great footage and giving us all the details on lighting, etc. Very helpful.

I think I remember you once commenting about 2K not being up to 4K in terms of quality - which of course we would expect if we're trying to cut between them. But I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about 2K vs. the HDX footage or even vs. footage from a Sony F900.

Do you think shooting 2K will hold up for HD deliverables to Discovery, PBS, etc.?

I know 4K will be the right choice for most things, but for faster moving work without an AC I'd rather have sharp 2K than soft 4K if 2K will hold up.

Thanks again for sharing your footage and impressions of the camera.

Walter
 
wow, how'd you get that little guy to cry like that? not bad for "the kid down the street." props to your actors for a fantastic impromptu job...

thanks for sharing this. your feedback and your footage certainly seal the deal for me.

walter asks some important questions, though, that are relevant to my own work environment, and i'd love to hear your answers, if you have time....
 
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