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1st Epic Aerial 3D Shoot - SpaceCam

CJ Roy

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UPDATE: Added 1080 Video

Hey everyone,

I'm very pleased to announce that the first aerial 3D shoot with Epics took place yesterday in Los Angeles, on the SpaceCam. SpaceCam has a long history of industry firsts, with their custom IMAX cameras, the first Red One flight in February of '08 in Las Vegas, to the first Red One 3D flights and rigs to be used on Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Final Destination 5 & Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (Journey to the Center of the Earth sequel).

The Crew: In attendance was SpaceCam inventor and Academy Award winner Ron Goodman and his team from SpaceCam, Andrew Sych, Phil Rothwell & Café Cibilis. From RED we had the pleasure of Mr. Ted Schilowitz, Travis Sims & Justin Jones. Local 600 DIT's myself & Tony Kwan and 1st AC extraordinaire Richard Avalon. Piloting our helicopter was President of the MPPA (Motion Picture Pilots Association) Rick Shuster flying with an A-star provided by Southcoast Helicopters. Inside the R22 was pilot Dave Childs & photographer Merlinda Salas.

This flight was done for the purpose of testing the unit and for showing several upcoming films what 3D aerials can do, instead of a single camera converted in post. Unfortunately there wasn't enough prep time to use the new dome that SpaceCam is working on, in order to make the 3D rigs more compact. Instead we used the same dome used for the IMAX & 3D on previous films. The size of the Epics is ideal for this type of work and increases the lens options. SpaceCam had only about 10hrs of prep time to pull this off. It was pretty impressive of them.

We shot at 48fps baserate at 6:1 compression ration, which gave us about 13.5 minutes per 128mag.

Ted flew with us, so hopefully he can chime in here on his experience and post some of his videos, but the flight went perfectly without a hitch. Below are some of shots directly from the Epics used, from the Robinson & from the rigging.

I haven't had time to convert any video, as all my Red gear is in Korea and I leave tomorrow to join it to film the Korean Top Gun movie.

Thanks!


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You can see Ted in the back, pilot's side.
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We can achieve 70-75kts in forward flight with this rig. 120kts with the new one.
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Ted can attest to it, as this shot doesn't do it justice... but we were extremely close to the other helicopter.
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Very, very close.
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The LCD's are added to let any last minute changes as it was our only control panel. Once the RedMotes are working, we shouldn't have to have the LCD's onboard anymore. Having all the data onscreen, inside the helicopter is extremely helpful.
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SpaceCam inventor and Academy Award winner Ron Goodman.
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From left to right, Rick Shuster (stepping out of the helicopter, Justin Jones, Ted Schilowitz, Ron Goodman & CJ Roy
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Ted brought his own Epic to shoot BTS in the helicopter. There's some pretty cool shots... and a very funny one. He can explain.
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This kind of flying made both of us a bit green.
 
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Hahah thats awesome. I saw you guys flying while I was stuck in traffic on Lincoln leaving Playa Vista. There is some serious camera on that chopper if I can see the rig all the way from here and they most be super close to each other. Even snapped a shot with my iphone.
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Congrats guys, wish I could see the footage full resolution.
 
Thanks for the pics! And I gotta say, Epic as a behind the scenes camera for another few Epics is pretty awesome ;)

Interesting how you had a side by side S3D setup there! I am assuming this was done for practical reasons of shooting S3D in a chopper?

Cheers,

Ivan
 
Hahah thats awesome. I saw you guys flying while I was stuck in traffic on Lincoln leaving Playa Vista. There is some serious camera on that chopper if I can see the rig all the way from here and they most be super close to each other. Even snapped a shot with my iphone.
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2.JPG


Congrats guys, wish I could see the footage full resolution.

Bryant- That's incredible!!! Can we use your photos?!? Your photos do it more justice than ours... we were right on top of each other. Ted and I both thought we were going to clip the blades. It was a little bit freaky.

That's so awesome!
 
That's incredible... You really get a sense of what the stabilization systems are doing considering the amount of buffeting that was being hit to the chopper ahead... Much less queasy on the viewer vs. you poor riders.
 
This was one of the most interesting, intense, exhilarating (and truthfully, downright terrifying) days in recent memory :-) I've done my fair share of copter flying and shooting over the years, but never anything like this with Air to Air chopper shooting. I felt like I was a character in a Bruckheimer movie with what these 2 copters were doing in the air and how frickin close we were to each other!

I'm actually kind of bummed that you guys posted a small vimeo clip of the camera look on the some of the selects, without us doing a proper grade on it... and then us premiering it on a big movie screen before it hit the web - - it is super cool to see here, for sure, and shows the ease of use on taking RED footage and getting dailes up really quick, so that's the good news...

- but the small web video does not do justice to what Ron and his Spacecam team and Ace chopper pilot Rick shot... We were watching some of the clips in our 4k theater yesterday, just one eye in 2D (remember it's real, native 3D, shot at 48fps in 5k :-) and it is absolutely Jaw dropping! These guys are the ultimate in trained professionals... rockstars that deserve the big screen to show their work properly.

so just think of what you saw here on that web clip as the super quick 2D dailies to view, and imagine how good it will look in 3D when it's all done!

We have our REDucation class all next week, so I probably won't have time to get the 3D prepped and graded and ready to show by next week, but at some point in the next couple weeks we will get it graded and showing in 3D - that's when the real fun begins :-)

+ Ted
 
Super
 
Found this thread from Ted's post in another thread. Looks incredible and way too close to each other!
 
Very cool stuff! I am making notes for an upcoming project ;)

So what did you run out of first, media or fuel? (128gb cards?)

Thanks for sharing!
Prost,
Rich
 
Hahah thats awesome. I saw you guys flying while I was stuck in traffic on Lincoln leaving Playa Vista. There is some serious camera on that chopper if I can see the rig all the way from here and they most be super close to each other. Even snapped a shot with my iphone.
1.jpg


2.JPG


Congrats guys, wish I could see the footage full resolution.

Wow this is a really cool set-up. Bryant, it's awesome too that you snagged these pics too!
 
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