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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 :)

final version of the COLD STORAGE trailer is now online

A

Axel Mertes

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Wow. Very impressive. Made me want to shoot something in Germany.

So details. What was the budget for all this sumptuousness? Was it shot entirely RED? What was your role in the project? Forgive me if I seem forward, my eagerness comes from curiosity more so than rudeness.

Again, very cool.
 
Maybe I should have looked around the rest of your website before asking a litany of questions. :)

Are you still seeking investment? Or is the film done?
 
Axel, great job man. I'd love to hire some of you guys for a feature we're funding now, but I fear you may be out of our budgetary range. Love the location choice and the atmosphere developed between the art direction, cinematography and color timing.

Funny, I worked with the German techno duo Codec & Flexor for my very first music video. Guess Germany has a special place in the heart for me.

Again, excellent job.

Eryc
 
Film Ylem said:
Axel, great job man. I'd love to hire some of you guys for a feature we're funding now, but I fear you may be out of our budgetary range. Love the location choice and the atmosphere developed between the art direction, cinematography and color timing.

Funny, I worked with the German techno duo Codec & Flexor for my very first music video. Guess Germany has a special place in the heart for me.

Again, excellent job.

Eryc
Click to expand...

Hi Eryc,

the film is still in budgeting phase, not yet shot. So we are open to anyone who finds it intersting. Contact me via email and I can put you in contact with the producer.

About your production funding: Lets talk :)

Axel
 
Film Ylem said:
Wow. Very impressive. Made me want to shoot something in Germany.

So details. What was the budget for all this sumptuousness? Was it shot entirely RED? What was your role in the project? Forgive me if I seem forward, my eagerness comes from curiosity more so than rudeness.

Again, very cool.
Click to expand...

The budget for the trailer? I am not willing to say that, as almost everybody worked on it for free...

It was shot entirely in RED, 4K. We discussed to shoot 2K because focussing would have been easier with 16mm lenses, but who cares about 16mm if you got a RED just unboxed, ehh?

My role was organizing the camera, technique, sorting out workflows, supervising the technical part of it. And sitting in the neck of software developers to make it right - next time :) Yep, and film out, which we do inhouse. Hey, it was a complete inhouse production (except the set, which was in the bunker, a real bunker...).

All the artistic stuff belongs to the team, which I am really proud of.

I preserve the right to upload here and ask for comments on it.

We shot quite some stuff with RED since this particular shooting, not for the same project, but many other stuff. Some commercials, music videos etc. Some of it went to cinema in 35mm prints. Some of the best results we ever had.

Have a look to our demo reel to get an idea of what we do!

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.
Axel
 
Looks really nice, Axel!

You mention on the DF Users' List that it was graded in Speedgrade. Was that via DPX?

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA

Axel Mertes said:
For those who missed it, the HD and 2K versions are now online as well:

COLD STORAGE Trailer

1024x462y 24fps, ~103 MByte
http://www.redrelay.net/owners/0110/films/Cold_Storage_Trailer_1024x426y24fps_H.264_75p.mov

1920x800y 24fps, ~326 MByte
http://www.redrelay.net/owners/0110/films/Cold_Storage_Trailer_1920x800y24fps_H.264_75p.mov

2048x853y 24fps, ~438 MByte
http://www.redrelay.net/owners/0110/films/Cold_Storage_Trailer_2048x853y24fps_H.264_75p.mov

Best wishes,
Axel
Click to expand...
 
luki said:
Looks really nice, Axel!

You mention on the DF Users' List that it was graded in Speedgrade. Was that via DPX?

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA
Click to expand...

Thats one of the nice features in speedgrade - it could be uncompressed DPX, camera raw , cineform or, on OSX, also a red quicktime proxy.

As Alex is one of the speedgrade-users who was pushing camera raw support (which iridas then implemented for several raw cameras, a good time before red came to the market), i wouldnt be surprised if he used an internal redcode raw speedgrade XR version - Alex, if you are not under NDA, that would be nice to know.
 
Wow, looks great!

The 2K version was well worth the download.
 
Wow, as much RED footage as I've seen so far, it still blows me away every time I see those rich BLACKS with little or no noise at all!!! I can't wait to start shooting mine...
 
luki said:
Looks really nice, Axel!

You mention on the DF Users' List that it was graded in Speedgrade. Was that via DPX?

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA
Click to expand...

Lucas,

thank you!

To answer your question:

The grading was fully done via DPX files (no RAW decoding at all, honestly, not even Cineform).

As we shot in 16:9 mode unfortunately (at that time the 16:9 issue wasn't published yet and we only tested in RED CINE), we had been forced to not edit in FCP, but transcode into single frame sequences, which we edited in VelocityHD.

After the cut was final, selected takes got transcoded in RED CINE to DPX files. We used that exp = -0.4, ASA = 320 setting to maintain as much of the original sensor data as possible. We decided that to be a good idea to maintain best possible dynamic range. As we shot low light (almost only "available" light in a bunker - imagine this) this was absolutely required for the post production.

Those DPX files had been graded then in SpeedGradeDI, traditional way. As quite some shots got a little extension in Fusion, we went for the traditional DPX workflow anyway. Its a streamlined workflow. RAW makes currently no sense here.

The current PC system we are using for SpeedGradeDI is a little to slow for the grading of RAW material anyway, its a dual core Opteron HP xw9300 base system with a Quadro FX 5600 card. The problem is the CPU performance on decoding the wavelet.

With a Data Director (~3 GByte/s transfer speed) behind it we recently tested this system to grade dual stream 2K uncompressed DPX @ 57 Hz (so 114 fps 2K uncompressed DPX), but just because we had only dual 4 GBit ports connected to the Data Director. The storage could have fed 3 systems at once at the same speed, from the very same volume. So better option would have been quad channel 4 GBit card. Amazing stuff...

So we recently also tested dual dualcore and dual quadcore systems which run fluently with RAW decoding in SpeedGradeDI, full 24fps and beyond, so we aim at upgrading the system to eg. HP xw8400 or even better HP xw8600 base platform. I like the HP systems I have to say. Very convenient stuff, quality & service wise, not to talk about the pricing :)

How fast can you grade RAW with Scratch Cine currently?
I heard its also realtime now?
Which hardware does one need to run realtime?

Sorry, I've not been at NAB and hadn't the chance to follow every single thread here.

Best wishes and thanks for your comments,

Axel
 
sumermedia said:
Wow, as much RED footage as I've seen so far, it still blows me away every time I see those rich BLACKS with little or no noise at all!!! I can't wait to start shooting mine...
Click to expand...

And you write that without having seen how much more is left in the fully uncompressed stream :)

Shooting RED is really fun.

Thanks,
Axel
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Wow, looks great!

The 2K version was well worth the download.
Click to expand...

Hi Jeff,

so it was worth uploading. The HD version is a good compromise, for those who have no 2K display.

Thanks you like it!

Axel
 
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