Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • 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 :)

"Knowing"...

Well I finally got to see the movie in the town where it was shot. My feeling on the "Red look"? Frankly, if I didn't know, I would never have known. It just looked like any other feature shot on 35 - and I think that's just great.

I felt that certain parts had a bit of an over-graded DI look, and I call it that 'cause I've seen it on films shot on everything from Panavision to HD. And I'd say if we're still getting that coming across nearly 10 years after Oh Brother Where Art Thou overcooked it (IMHO), it goes to show how long we as an industry take to settle into new technology and feel comfortable with it. I'm sure movies shot on Red will be the same and in 10 years we'll still be seeing folk get it "wrong" whilst others nail it. And guess what? I bet we'll all argue over which is which. :yikes: Loved the early ('50's) exteriors with that almost Polaroid look though.

As to the comments made by some that the Red adds nothing but a lower cost and easier SFX without looking any different... Well, DUH! I guess I'd take that as a deal from a kit that costs a fraction of the competition. For us indies, the alternatives of just a couple of years ago just don't stack up. Jim and co. have done, and continue to do, an awesome job!
 
tower of babble

tower of babble

Good, fast cheap: pick two... it often comes down to this.

Soderberg, whom I have met and discussed digital cinematography with, chose GOOD and FAST over KNOWING's FAST and CHEAP is my point. Because when I posed this statement,

"KNOWING had different goals, different rules and I'd be curious to hear what others felt they were and how they were served by shooting Red. Because to my eye the results were "mixed" in comparison. Was the goal, cheaper "set costs," ie film and lab costs and easier/better marriage with CGI work? If so was that result achieved?"

I was inferring the rest of the question, which is AT WHAT COST (to the quality of the look)? And WITH WHAT SAVINGS, (as a function of the overall budget of time/money?)

Because that "overcooked DI" looks that was mentioned may have been a result of limitations introduced with Red's "thin negative," ie, compressed RAW codec. Certainly people have spotted flaws. The loss of dynamic range in the current builds of the camera are a clear issue where 35mm film has an edge, at this point in our timeline. I have high hopes for future sensors and codecs and the systems being developed to make them a reality. But to say "film is dead," is of course wishful thinking and boosterism at this stage. Time will tell however if that bad cough it's developing will get worse, and if the Red will fully cover the gap before the handoff to all-digital happens to mainstream cinema.

So again, my point is that KNOWING and CHE, the two studio feature films we have to go by thus far have been fascinating case studies, and for the film makers, the decision to go Red was a tight horse race between art/commerce/technology.

I think Steven, the boy from Red Stick took a risk and it paid off, aesthetically at least. He couldn't have made the film he made, with any budget (and he had 65 million, reportedly) shooting any other way. (His film just sold to IFC Direct TV for a very very low six figures, and was a flop in the USA. It's doing fairly well overseas.) Again, he made a 'scope, handheld epic with Part One that looked like 1960s kodachrome, and he shot it himself ad DP/operator/director. If the goal is, make the film you have in your head and get it out there for the world to decide, that's a clear victory. If it was make a lot of money and win Academy Awards, he "failed." But Red had little to do with that.

I think Alex, the guy from down under, sacrificed picture quality for some tradeoffs that may or may not have been worth it. I didn't see a clear look or aspect ratio in KNOWING that couldn't have been approximated with a film shoot and a digital color correction/treatment. In fact, what I saw was the usually too crunchy blacks and odd highlights, with decent skin tones and an interesting nostalgia look to the 50s scenes. Maybe he could have cut a few VFX shots and made up the budget difference saved from wet lab, film scan and raw stock costs, and made a picture that looked better overall on screen, when shown on film. We saw pretty much the whole world "blow up realllll good," and surely he could have made up some savings with creative solutions. One less national monument crumbling? Would that have been a better way to go? It's debatable, but this individual audience member would have noticed, if the creepy night scenes in the kids bedroom hadn't been quite as flat. The movie looked nice, kudos to Red, but had a slight but definite patina of HD cinematography as seen on the big screen, separate from whatever light and color look was being chosen.

Box office wise, KNOWING succeeded or failed on the basis of acting, story and the strength of the VFX work. I don't know the ticket sales figures... not my problem... and again, not really the issue with "Red or not." But perhaps there was a decisive moment with the studio where the decision to shoot digital and save some costs helped green light the film.

As for what these film makers shoot their next movies on, I would hope they would make informed choices specific to the story they are trying to tell. I know Steven is a believer - he's embraced "video" from the start along with some sex and some lies... ha ha. He's smart, and a good director but ask him if he wants to make his next film with build one of Red One... of course not. He wants to make it with build one or more of Epic!

I like Red, I like what is happening. I hope to say so to Jim in person at the Rio, and finish this chat with anyone who cares to yak with me in person, too. Heck, I'll buy the first round. I just think as early adaptors, Soderberg won his horse race against film by a nose and Alex P lost his by one length. One man's opinion.
 
C L Walker said:
Soderberg, whom I have met and discussed digital cinematography with, chose GOOD and FAST over KNOWING's FAST and CHEAP is my point.
Click to expand...

CL... You talk a good game and drop the right names, but your conclusions infer something not close to true. Clever.

Fortunately, SS and Proyas have both given us "what they did and why" publicly. Neither needs a translator.

Jim
 
You've already really got something going here. I think if you guys can get Robert Rodriguez shooting with RED cameras, you'll have something more.
 
CL, there are two reasons I look to the grade and not the camera. One is that, as I said, I've seen the "look" from 35 as well. It doesn't look like video to me, it looks like television. All those ad guys who grade TVCs to the bejeebers, so the grass is orange and the sky is green, just 'cause they can. It infects us. Just because you can do so much more than they did in the 60's and 70's doesn't mean you should. Just my opinion.

Secondly, our camera. The pictures we've seen so far do not look like video. They look like 35 off the chain with gorgeous milky skin tones, gentle roll-offs, good shadows and so, when I see Red pictures that look a little video like, I don't blame the camera, I blame the grade.

We've all got into that situation where we fall for the tools and push the image so far we start to lose it - just a little more here, a bit more there... And it's hard to go back. When you reset to defaults it looks so - boring. So it happens. Not saying it did or didn't with Knowing. Lot of guys there with way more knowledge and experience than me. But it was shot on cameras just like ours, just blown up more than I've yet had the opportunity.

The most disturbing thing for me in Knowing was the slightly soft look of the 35 print I watched but I'm a technical sorta guy and as I've read others who've seen it projected digitally and said it was almost too sharp I must surmise the fault must therefore lie in the film out or lab process somewhere. Maybe the projector was soft. Until I've seen my own shots projected off 35 I won't know but, for me, so far so good for this technology.

Let me add, at the end of all this, that we are discussing personal choices here. The look that you or I may have a problem with, the director or DoP may have very valid, dramatic reasons for designing.
 
Shane Betts said:
The most disturbing thing for me in Knowing was the slightly soft look of the 35 print I watched but I'm a technical sorta guy and as I've read others who've seen it projected digitally and said it was almost too sharp I must surmise the fault must therefore lie in the film out or lab process somewhere. Maybe the projector was soft. Until I've seen my own shots projected off 35 I won't know but, for me, so far so good for this technology.
Click to expand...

I've seen several filmouts from Red that looked extremely sharp. Check out the Argentine, if you are concerned about sharpness. There are some issues with Red One images... sharpness is not one of them.

IBloom
 
Thanks Ian, I'm not concerned about the sharpness at all. Saw a little noise in the zone 2-3 area but nothing too alarming and only because I was looking for it. Overall it looked good.
 
C L Walker said:
Reading between the lines a bit I'd say Eric Durst has mixed feelings about the Red, too. He certainly damns it with faint praise when he points to "hey, it's already digital" as a big advantage.
Click to expand...

I mean this sincerely: you are aware that most film prints you see are, de facto, digital, right? Film may have been the shooting and projection medium, but in between, that film was scanned and brought into a computer. Even if there aren't any visual effects, and there's more of those than you think, there's color correction, shot cropping, etc. Then those color-corrected files are blasted onto raw celluloid, and that's your final print.

Removing the step of scanning actually removes the potential for some serious problems, not to mention cutting down substantially on time and cost. Then there's the savings on set; no more changing bag, no more refrigeration truck, no more of the sound guy going ballistic because the motor sounds like it belongs on a woodchipper.


That's not to say that the footage didn't look good, in fact seeing KNOWING gave me a lot of confidence in the Red as a viable choice for producers and directors to consider but... aesthetically I fail to see what the Red got them that 35mm would not have, so that leaves budget as the reason, or else we are back to "ease in matching the VFX looks." And I'm just not sure I buy that.
Click to expand...

You're making a mistake here, and assuming it's an aesthetic choice, at least in terms of visuals. It's an undeniable aesthetic choice in terms of run-time and camera mobility: it's a lot easier to run long takes and move the camera around with a RED ONE than it is with 35mm. Arguably also once you get into certain areas, like low-light filming, you've got aesthetic choice because the RED is probably going to have slightly different color fidelity and look than a cam like the Thompson.

The entire idea of the RED ONE was to have a digital cinema camera indistinguishable from 35mm if the director so chose, making it a viable option for large Hollywood productions. If the colorist does his job right, 99% of the audience won't notice anyway.
 
I just saw it, and I thought it looked great. I noticed a little bit of flickering on the iMac screens in the scene where John was first matching the numbers to events. Was that 1/48th of a second shutter speed there in that shot?
 
There must be a lot of different copies out there! I just saw it and here it was outstanding quality. Not the smallest breath of noise in the shadows, incredible richness of colors (only the autumn leaves were sometimes artifical. I think as a result of the colorist, not Red1).
But I didn´t like the movie at all...I´m really waiting to see 100% Red results from Steven Soderbergh and Lars von Trier.
Marc
 
RED leaves

RED leaves

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the AC article on "Knowing" mentions that many of the tree leaves were green when shooting and were changed in post. So, there you go... Fix it in post... NOT!:yikes:
 
the story is striking similar to close encounters of the third kind.
 
I just saw it, and was quite disappointed at the picture quality... but only because of the projection or maybe the print... The image (it was especially obvious in the credits) was a little blurry at the bottom of the frame, with a gradient to being quite badly out of focus at the top... A bit unfortunate, but apart from that it looked good.
 
Stephen Gentle said:
I just saw it, and was quite disappointed at the picture quality... but only because of the projection or maybe the print... The image (it was especially obvious in the credits) was a little blurry at the bottom of the frame, with a gradient to being quite badly out of focus at the top... A bit unfortunate, but apart from that it looked good.
Click to expand...

When all theaters go digital, that will eliminate that weak link in the chain.
 
Stephen Gentle said:
I just saw it, and was quite disappointed at the picture quality... but only because of the projection or maybe the print... The image (it was especially obvious in the credits) was a little blurry at the bottom of the frame, with a gradient to being quite badly out of focus at the top... A bit unfortunate, but apart from that it looked good.
Click to expand...

I am going to try to avoid film projection theaters when ever possible. I saw it digital and was blown away, having never seen Red on the big screen. I usually only see it in HD on the little screen in my studio.
 
Stephen Gentle said:
Was a little blurry at the bottom of the frame, with a gradient to being quite badly out of focus at the top... A bit unfortunate, but apart from that it looked good.
Click to expand...

That's how my projection of Australia was. Really annoying. When I complained they said it was a known issue and waiting for a projector repairman to come in the next day. I was sort of steamed that they were showing movies on a broken projector which had obviously gotten its lens mount out of alignment but they gave me a free comp ticket so I guess their gamble payed off if I was the only one who complained.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top