Arri Alexa and Mysterium-X...

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Just about every animator I know longs to work on a 2D animated film.

There's an inverse nostalgia effect from wanting to "go old school". I don't think film or digital is a generational thing. Film is just as popular amongst the younger generation which never had an opportunity in film school to shoot 35mm where it used to be a given. There simply aren't as many opportunities to use film as there used to be so there'll be a nostalgic drive by many younger film makers to experience what they missed out on.

Look at 35mm adapters and products like magic bullet. You don't see old-timers using film flash effects and extreme grain it's my generation who thinks it looks cool. What is viewed by previous generation as "mistakes" has been embraced as style. This is true of every new generation of film makers. The style of cinematography is almost an accumulation of canonized mistakes.

Take the lens flare. A shot with a lens flare has gone from a fireable offense, to an interesting effect to "Star Trek".

In that light if Arri delivers a product which produces a comparable sensor, workflow and ergonomics it'll come down to REDCine vs Arri-RAW. It'll be interesting to see what the two companies offer in terms of look and processing. If Arri delivers built in 3DLUTs which easily output the same colorimetry of standard film stocks that would win over a lot of people. "Shoot film, skip the negative."

Is there a soul to film? Yes. Can it be digitally reproduced. Yes.

I don't personally see a reason why someone should have to choose between film and digital looks. With a good enough input you can reproduce any capture medium. Sensors become reality capture devices. If you want the Vision III look then take that boring scientific digital facsimile of reality and run your RAW footage through the Vision III response curves and colorimetry.

If you want to kill film the best way is to create a product which can seamlessly drop into its place without anyone noticing. RED has historically taken the "We don't want to replace film, we just want to offer an alternative with a unique look." It would seem Arri with a film background and mind-share would be interested in offering a digital device which can inter-cut seamlessly with any film stock with minimal fuss.

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

This is an incredible Deja Vue. I´ve seen this whole discussion 15 years ago when the music scene switched to digital.

Yet, even today there´s a spot for vinyl and tape. And its not populated only by the old and dogmatic.

Just go ahead and ask Graeme about tube amplifiers.....

Jochen )

 

[Jannard]

Just about every animator I know longs to work on a 2D animated film.

There's an inverse nostalgia effect from wanting to "go old school". I don't think film or digital is a generational thing. Film is just as popular amongst the younger generation which never had an opportunity in film school to shoot 35mm where it used to be a given. There simply aren't as many opportunities to use film as there used to be so there'll be a nostalgic drive by many younger film makers to experience what they missed out on.

Look at 35mm adapters and products like magic bullet. You don't see old-timers using film flash effects and extreme grain it's my generation who thinks it looks cool. What is viewed by previous generation as "mistakes" has been embraced as style. This is true of every new generation of film makers. The style of cinematography is almost an accumulation of canonized mistakes.

Take the lens flare. A shot with a lens flare has gone from a fireable offense, to an interesting effect to "Star Trek".

In that light if Arri delivers a product which produces a comparable sensor, workflow and ergonomics it'll come down to REDCine vs Arri-RAW. It'll be interesting to see what the two companies offer in terms of look and processing. If Arri delivers built in 3DLUTs which easily output the same colorimetry of standard film stocks that would win over a lot of people. "Shoot film, skip the negative."

Is there a soul to film? Yes. Can it be digitally reproduced. Yes.

I don't personally see a reason why someone should have to choose between film and digital looks. With a good enough input you can reproduce any capture medium. Sensors become reality capture devices. If you want the Vision III look then take that boring scientific digital facsimile of reality and run your RAW footage through the Vision III response curves and colorimetry.

If you want to kill film the best way is to create a product which can seamlessly drop into its place without anyone noticing. RED has historically taken the "We don't want to replace film, we just want to offer an alternative with a unique look." It would seem Arri with a film background and mind-share would be interested in offering a digital device which can inter-cut seamlessly with any film stock with minimal fuss.

RED has been seemlessly intercut with film on many occasions. "The Lovely Bones" is just one example... although Park Road Post said they had to "dumb RED down to match".

Jim

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

RED has been seemlessly intercut with film on many occasions. "The Lovely Bones" is just one example... although Park Road Post said they had to "dumb RED down to match".

Jim

That required creative intervention though. All manner of different formats have been matched by skilled technicians. I'm talking about a one click solution. Since RED and Arri know exactly the response and colorimetry of their sensors they should be able to exactly re-target the output to any 'dumbed down' standard.

Similar to regraining CG footage from film samples.

RED is like CG. It's a blank canvas from which to work. I think we can all agree that even individual product lines inside of Fuji and Kodak have unique looks.

If the director really likes the look of 5218. Just drop in the 5218 colorspace and presto the shot looks exactly as if it were shot on 5218. Even give tunable grain from real 5218 scanned footage.

It was possible to get great color out of RED before FLUT. FLUT just made it easier. It's possible to match RED to different film looks but film based presets would make it incredibly simple and take out all the guess work.

The best analogy besides digital grain management would be the Tiffen™ plugins.
http://www.tiffen.com/dfx_software_press_release.html Although I don't know that they ever really lived up to the promise of really perfectly matching their optical counterparts. Without access to the raw data it wouldn't really be possible to perfectly match the optical effect. But the spirit was correct. Instead of building in your composite a black mist, just run it through a Tiffen Black Mist node that takes in HDR data and as accurately as possible simulates the real product.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

these are all fantastic responses @deanan,graeme,jarred, Jim et al. David

Ill bring it up to him next time we chat. He was indeed making an emotional response (and resistant to all things digital., not just RED, it was not mutually exclusive, he actually drew those decisions based on viewing Sony and Panasonic video.. it was RED that got him into inquiring into RAW image capture... I'm using the film negative analogy now to seduce him to trust the power of resolution... and that he can use PL GLASS , which really got him excited.

bottom line is that while thousands of us are in the know, tens of thousands are not...we all have to teach RED etiquette... and that starts by being respectful to the art of filmmaking be it digital, celluloid or otherwise... its all about good story telling and that is where RED excels... they are all artists too.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

That required creative intervention though. All manner of different formats have been matched by skilled technicians. I'm talking about a one click solution. Since RED and Arri know exactly the response and colorimetry of their sensors they should be able to exactly re-target the output to any 'dumbed down' standard.

Similar to regraining CG footage from film samples.

RED is like CG. It's a blank canvas from which to work. I think we can all agree that even individual product lines inside of Fuji and Kodak have unique looks.

If the director really likes the look of 5218. Just drop in the 5218 colorspace and presto the shot looks exactly as if it were shot on 5218. Even give tunable grain from real 5218 scanned footage.

It was possible to get great color out of RED before FLUT. FLUT just made it easier. It's possible to match RED to different film looks but film based presets would make it incredibly simple and take out all the guess work.

The best analogy besides digital grain management would be the Tiffen™ plugins.
http://www.tiffen.com/dfx_software_press_release.html Although I don't know that they ever really lived up to the promise of really perfectly matching their optical counterparts. Without access to the raw data it wouldn't really be possible to perfectly match the optical effect. But the spirit was correct. Instead of building in your composite a black mist, just run it through a Tiffen Black Mist node that takes in HDR data and as accurately as possible simulates the real product.

Gavin,

GenArts Sapphire FilmEffects

plug-in for FCP, Shake, Autodesk, Avid, After Effects or Nuke/OFX would fit the best.

It would be nice that one day soon we get FilmEffects plug-in for REDCine-X.

In that case you would be able to see your footage simulated in whatever major film stock look that exists right away on-set with

REDCine-X, FLUT, Wave, AJA Hi5 3G HDSDI to HTMI and wide-gamut LCD monitor like HP Dreamcolor.

LINK>>

LINK>>



RED Team should be aware of this option because many information lead us to conclude that ARRI with Alexa plus ARRI Relativity™software

preparing a similar solution that works with on-set preview of "desired" film stock simulation that probably is going to be shawn at NAB soon next month.

 

[Petr Dvorak]

He he all generations always hardly worked on to get best possible clean, sharp and perfect picture with vibrant colours without any grain, flickers, vignetting and all other unwanted artifacts. And now when we finally got to the point when we almost have total control over technologically perfect picture, we are instead hardly working on how to destroy it and add all that unperfections back. We create extremely intricated plugins and filters and spend lot of energy and CPU-time on our expensive hi-end computers to re-create all that mess again. ... like walking in circles :biggrin:

 

[Steve Das]

...They said in the latter part of the 1800s that painting was dead because of photography, looks like that was a bit premature...

But Photography definitely did change painting. Science freed artists from
having to portray reality...since photography did this trick now..artists
had to come up with something different.
And the result was ...Impressionism..Expressionisim..
Futurism..Fauvism..Symbolism..Cubism..Futurism..Constructivism..
Dadaism..Symbolism..Surrealism..Abstract Expressionism..Minimalism..etc.

Digital images and editing having freed us from having to tape/splice
and given us few more crayon colors...but really films have not
changed much since the 1930's and directors like Frank Capra.
In fact you could make a case that we have actually regressed.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

He he all generations always hardly worked on to get best possible clean, sharp and perfect picture with vibrant colours without any grain, flickers, Vignetting and all other unwanted artifacts. And now when we finally got to the point when we almpost have total control over technologically perfect picture, we are instead hardly working on how to destroy it and add all that unperfections back. We create extremely intricated plugins and filters and spend lot of energy and CPU-time on our expensive hi-end computers to re-create all that mess again. ... like walking in circles :biggrin:

"Film look" is a standard that will last very long shot originally on celluloid either digital.

Supposed to be that ARRI will be preparing an option for Alexa that can do "spitting" any of film stock/look you want or desire on its presentation at NAB 2010.

To conclude is to say that major new cine digital cameras at NAB will show more or less the same sensitivity that is about 800 ASA

but some of them would like to show that they have a certain advantage in postproduction workflow

or something that can exactly do a kind of digitally "spitting" film looks almost out of the box or latest out of its postproduction (RAW developer) software.

Or all of them would like to be so serious about a quality of their own product but nobody is more serious about all that sort of "advertising" stories than an ordinary REDUser.

 

[David Dennis]

...remember there's a generation right behind you (aka me) who are growing up with DI and have zero nostalgia for film. Even if in 20 years the aged director wants to do film, he may do so in the fierce opposition of the young talent beneath him, or those controlling the budget may bar it as the digital workflow gets a free ride on Moore's Law toward the future of economic efficiency.

Nowadays, it costs $50m+ to make a major feature film.

Quite honestly, the cost of film stock and cameras is totally insignificant in that context.

If I was financing a film and had a director with a first-class project, I would let him use whatever medium he wanted.

I see RED opening up new possibilities, not destroying film, as though film was the Terminator and we were the forces of good meant to shoot it down. There's nothing morally bad about film, it's just so expensive most of us can't afford to play.

The great thing is that RED technology gives you and me the opportunity to join them and compete, which we would not have had if we had to spend all our meagre budgets on film and developing.

D

 

[Peter Strietmann]

But Photography definitely did change painting. Science freed artists from
having to portray reality...since photography did this trick now..artists
had to come up with something different.
And the result was ...Impressionism..Expressionisim..
Futurism..Fauvism..Symbolism..Cubism..Futurism..Constructivism..
Dadaism..Symbolism..Surrealism..Abstract Expressionism..Minimalism..etc.

Digital images and editing having freed us from having to tape/splice
and given us few more crayon colors...but really films have not
changed much since the 1930's and directors like Frank Capra.
In fact you could make a case that we have actually regressed.

Excellent point! As photography changed the directions of painting it also freed it from it's percieved formulaic functionality. Perhaps the only things that died were peoples perceptions that painting could only serve specific purposes.

 

[Daniel Valle]

In fact you could make a case that we have actually regressed.

Just watch any film from the 1960's, specially from countries like Japan, France, Czech Republic, Poland, Brazil, etc, and you'll see that film has indeed regressed.

The 1920's and 1960's to me are the golden ages of movies, when movies were farthest away from the "filmed novel" approach which is still the norm.

Not that I'm against that, but you don't get films like 2001, Persona or The Passion of Joan of Arc these days.

 

[mtseng]

Color Space

Color Space

And do you know were i can get this 5218 color space?
is this a 3d lut?

That required creative intervention though. All manner of different formats have been matched by skilled technicians. I'm talking about a one click solution. Since RED and Arri know exactly the response and colorimetry of their sensors they should be able to exactly re-target the output to any 'dumbed down' standard.

Similar to regraining CG footage from film samples.

RED is like CG. It's a blank canvas from which to work. I think we can all agree that even individual product lines inside of Fuji and Kodak have unique looks.

If the director really likes the look of 5218. Just drop in the 5218 colorspace and presto the shot looks exactly as if it were shot on 5218. Even give tunable grain from real 5218 scanned footage.

It was possible to get great color out of RED before FLUT™™™. FLUT™™™ just made it easier. It's possible to match RED to different film looks but film based presets would make it incredibly simple and take out all the guess work.

The best analogy besides digital grain management would be the Tiffen™ plugins.
http://www.tiffen.com/dfx_software_press_release.html Although I don't know that they ever really lived up to the promise of really perfectly matching their optical counterparts. Without access to the raw data it wouldn't really be possible to perfectly match the optical effect. But the spirit was correct. Instead of building in your composite a black mist, just run it through a Tiffen Black Mist node that takes in HDR data and as accurately as possible simulates the real product.

 

[Andrew Rieger]

Just watch any film from the 1960's, specially from countries like Japan, France, Czech Republic, Poland, Brazil, etc, and you'll see that film has indeed regressed.

The 1920's and 1960's to me are the golden ages of movies, when movies were farthest away from the "filmed novel" approach which is still the norm.

Not that I'm against that, but you don't get films like 2001, Persona or The Passion of Joan of Arc these days.

Many films used 70mm film. Some films have been rescanned and re-colored which is why they look so good on bluray today.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

That required creative intervention though. All manner of different formats have been matched by skilled technicians. I'm talking about a one click solution. Since RED and Arri know exactly the response and colorimetry of their sensors they should be able to exactly re-target the output to any 'dumbed down' standard.

Creative intervention is a good thing.

One click solution can and will bring repercussions. If it's free and given, there will be more repercussions.

If the director really likes the look of 5218. Just drop in the 5218 colorspace and presto the shot looks exactly as if it were shot on 5218.

IMHO - If the director really likes the look of 5218 the best way would be to shoot 5218. If he doesn't want to go through all the hassle with film he should at least use a good colorist to shape the digital data. If the producer doesn't want to pay for a good colorist he should at least pay for the "one button solution".

 

[Michael Hastings]

Random sampling is a curse and a benefit for film - not a free lunch.

Graeme

Couldn't you micro-move the sensor between frames the way Sony moves the sensor for image stabilization on their dSLRs? Wonder what the benefits/drawbacks would be. Presumably you could get a slightly higher perceived resolution as well. (similar to pixel offset on a 3 chip?). Temporal rather than spatial but probably still would have a real effect - I seem to remember one of David's posts long ago suggesting that the random grain of film creates additional perceived resolution.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I'm sure VFX guys would just "love" that

Graeme

 

[Robert Spruill]

Scarlet release soon then?!?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

IMHO - If the director really likes the look of 5218 the best way would be to shoot 5218. If he doesn't want to go through all the hassle with film he should at least use a good colorist to shape the digital data. If the producer doesn't want to pay for a good colorist he should at least pay for the "one button solution".

That's quitter talk!

First of all once the image has been debayered it becomes much more difficult to do this. That's why it would ideally be part of the SDK/REDCine.

It's silly to say that the colorist should have to do it. Should REDCine only export 5600K white balanced images? "Let the colorist deal with it if it's tungsten." You'll never get the same quality of white balancing after it's been baked in.

It's also silly to say "if you want the look and feel of film shoot film!" That completely ignores all the workflow advantages of shooting digital. You get full HD video tap. You can send out full 4k frames the same day as shooting. You can put together rough cuts on set. You can do rough comps on set.

How often do we (and with good reason) hear "oh I just love the skin tones on such and such film so much more." Sure a great colorist *could* get great skin tones out of just about any footage but why would you advocate making it harder?

Good camera operators used to have to hand crank at a steady rate to get a consistent framerate. Maybe we should re-implement that too.

Do you hand tune the fuel injection mixture on your engine while driving?

I'm not advocating this be the "Grade" I'm saying there is a unique look to film that could be reproduced through a different colorspace just as we have "REDSpace" we would have "VisionSpace".

If you have a sensor that can capture a superset of another imaging system then you can create a convincing facsimile. Imagine something like the BSC tests only RED or Arri return nearly identical results to the 35mm film. Not just technically identical or superior, but aesthetically identical. It ends the entire film vs digital debate. It then comes down exclusively to workflow.

 

[Daniel Valle]

IMHO - If the director really likes the look of 5218 the best way would be to shoot 5218. If he doesn't want to go through all the hassle with film he should at least use a good colorist to shape the digital data. If the producer doesn't want to pay for a good colorist he should at least pay for the "one button solution".

Something tells me that as Epic/Scarlet and Alexa become the industry standard, colorists will start becoming more recognizable figures like cinematographers are.