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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 :)

Arri Alexa and Mysterium-X...

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Hans von Sonntag said:
And that is, IMHO, stereoscopic HD BEFORE 4K monoscopic/stereoscopic. For that 2/3 is a great sensor size. Can we have 4k 2/3 for that? :)

Hans
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I still can't understand why some people are still somehow "HOOKED" in 3D acquisition.

Simply is not working for some genres like a drama except that you as storyteller providing a sort of fantasy or surreal content with it but that is also a rare thing.

It was very clear that Avatar's weakest 3D parts of the whole movie were just scenes with simple daily dialogs from so called an ordinary real life situation.

Conceptually 3D (that's actually a fake of 3D) is already obsolete by any serious future content creator and maker.

3D is just a hype of this moody times when we still have decisions of the main acquisition and delivery standards in the hands of several monopoly old fashioned groups.

They want to sell you 2K 3D digitally but still not able to deliver 4K 2D digitally.

They claim that 2K 3D is something technologically advanced but 4K 2D is not what they want.

Pretty spoiled sort of society...

Also 3D acquisition and post is too expensive, it is technically very complicated to shoot just because right now we are living in age of shrinking and cutting down of every cost at any part of our lives.

Cutting production costs to the minimum would be soon the main credo of the next decade.

Everything that is too expensive gonna die pretty fast.

So be very careful if you are buying today too expensive camera hardware or DI software system because it will become very fast obsolete.

You can buy expensive set of lenses, primes or zooms but that's like you buying jewelry that have real value for a longer time.

The economy is going to be very hard in the coming years.

The times of the market 'bluffers' were hopefully and definitely gone.
 
Other than for special effects gimmickry, 3d may lose out to 4k presentation for large screen digital cinema. I have not had the privilege of seeing Red 4k footage in all its glory, but I have seen 4k and higher multi-projector demonstrations at Infocomm and the extra resolution gives an almost 3d like depth and quality to the image when done well.
 
Sanjin Jukic said:
I still can't understand why some people are still somehow "HOOKED" in 3D acquisition.
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That's easy Sanjin... $$$$$ - like it or not, its hot right now.

EDIT: Stay on Topic!

The Alexa is a nice camera for what it is and if we were a rental house, I would buy 4 of them. But we will leave
that to Koerner Camera in our market.

For us, the flexibility of the future EPIC better serves our goals. and Scarlett for 3D
 
M Most said:
Close to 90% of big budget movies are (still) shot on film, so it can reasonably be argued that the answer to the "shot in 4K" question is "almost all of them". Most of them are posted via a DI path that involves a 4K or 6K scan that is then scaled to 2K for finishing. So the answer to that question is a bit murky.
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In other words, the process is a lot like shooting 5K on an Epic and spitting 2K DPX out of a Rocket.

If there were real cost or workflow advantages to Arri's approach (3K sensor with in-camera 2K downscale), I could see the point. But Alexa costs more than an Epic, and a lot more than an S35 Scarlet. And between Red's compressed raw workflow and the RED Rocket, storing that 5K footage and getting it into whatever format your post pipeline requires is not especially expensive or time consuming. Additionally, if Red follows up its H.264 proxy module with a ProRes 4444 proxy module, then any workflow advantage at all for the Alexa goes right out the window.
 
Sanjin Jukic said:
...
It was very clear that Avatar's weakest 3D parts of the whole movie were just scenes with simple daily dialogs from so called an ordinary real life situation.
...
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/BoHJ
I couldn't agree more. The beginning 3D scenes were not impressive at all. I took off the glasses a number of times and actually preferred watching in "interlaced 2D," LOL!

But once they arrived at the planet, then 3-D was incredible.

/EoHJ
 
M Most said:
Close to 90% if we're talking about studio and major independent features (by definition, they're largely shot on film and put through a 2K DI process). ...
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And how many of these films will go back to the negatives to rescan at 4K? "Lawrence of Arabia?" Essentially none of them. So the argument against 2K acquisition equally applies to 2K DI.

But if Hollywood is okay w/ a 2K DI, it's going to be a bit of sell to say acquisition should be done digitally in 4K. B/c while film may be 5K, 7K, it's the resolution of the DI that is most analogous.

I'm not trying to knock 4K in anyway. Sony is selling 4K projectors and 4K is the future. I'm just pointing out that Hollywood, like most businesses, has a here and now mentality. And if a 2K DI scan is by and large working, then it seems a lot of people will believe that is good enough for their current project they need to get out the door and will choose to let the future worry about itself.
 
Chris Kenny said:
If there were real cost or workflow advantages to Arri's approach (3K sensor with in-camera 2K downscale), I could see the point.
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There are advantages if you're shooting a television series and use the ProRes4444 as your original master. Which, quite frankly, is what is currently being done in a number of cases now, along with DNxHD. Some shows - including the only broadcast network series to date with all of its episodes shot primarily on Red (Southland) - have actually used DNxHD115 for this purpose.

But Alexa costs more than an Epic, and a lot more than an S35 Scarlet.
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That is a valid argument if we're talking about productions that buy their camera equipment. That is almost never the case in network television or studio production. In those cases, the cost differential is relatively inconsequential, regardless of how many people here want to think that it isn't. It's far more about what the system brings to the table in terms of usefulness, reliability, appropriate images, and production friendliness than it is about cost.

Additionally, if Red follows up its H.264 proxy module with a ProRes 4444 proxy module, then any workflow advantage at all for the Alexa goes right out the window.
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Creating a simultaneous recording module for NLE friendly formats is something I (and undoubtedly others) suggested to both Jim and Deanan a number of months ago and got a positive response about. It's nice to see that they took that to heart.
 
M Most said:
That is a valid argument if we're talking about productions that buy their camera equipment. That is almost never the case in network television or studio production. In those cases, the cost differential is relatively inconsequential, regardless of how many people here want to think that it isn't. It's far more about what the system brings to the table in terms of usefulness, reliability, appropriate images, and production friendliness than it is about cost.
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Short-term, that all holds up. Long term.... Well, sale prices does impact rental price. Epic/Scarlet cameras won't just sell for less than Alexa cameras, they'll rent for less as well. A $500/day or even $1000/day difference won't be a huge deal to major networks or studios, but it will be to the much larger number of smaller productions. If there's a better, cheaper way of doing the things networks/studios are doing, and it comes to dominate indie production, then it's just a matter of time before it starts to creep into network/studio production as well. Arri can do just fine for quite a few more years selling higher priced gear to a handful of customers with deep pockets, but we know where this leads in the end.

The post referenced in my sig goes into this in some detail, actually, but the summary is: look what happened to Silicon Graphics as commodity machines became more and more capable of matching what their proprietary graphics workstations could do.
 
Chris Kenny said:
Short-term, that all holds up. Long term.... Well, sale prices does impact rental price. Epic/Scarlet cameras won't just sell for less than Alexa cameras, they'll rent for less as well. A $500/day or even $1000/day difference won't be a huge deal to major networks or studios, but it will be to the much larger number of smaller productions. If there's a better, cheaper way of doing the things networks/studios are doing, and it comes to dominate indie production, then it's just a matter of time before it starts to creep into network/studio production as well. Arri can do just fine for quite a few more years selling higher priced gear to a handful of customers with deep pockets, but we know where this leads in the end.

The post referenced in my sig goes into this in some detail, actually, but the summary is: look what happened to Silicon Graphics as commodity machines became more and more capable of matching what their proprietary graphics workstations could do.
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I don't think the cost difference between Red vs Arri is the same as say SG vs FCP on a G5, Especially when you compare an Epic to the new Alexa. I don't think we'll see a low-priced S35 Scarlet for a very long time. (I hope I'm wrong) The 2/3 Scarlet is a different comparison. If Epic & Alexa are say 50K & 70k, or even 45k & 70k, respectively, I think in the rental market, that starts to get close to a wash. And I'm sure there's a lot of long-ago depreciated Arri accessories to match with the new body.

I do think a S35 Scarlet at $5k would be a game changer, but I get a sense that it is back-burnered. I'm no particular fan of Arri. I don't have much use for the old giants that failed to evolve new affordable technology. There's even a little part of me that would try to not patronize companies that remained intransigent just to protect existing product lines, but I'm also a realist. I think the Epic is great, but its starts to get expensive for the indie filmmakers.

I completely understand Red's move "upscale" but I wish they had instead decided to eat Canon & Nikons DSLR lunch. You can only do that with at least an S35. 2/3 puts you in HD / XLR / HVX territory and I hope that soon dies a horrible death. :)

Chris
 
Comment of Roger Deakins about RED (he is my fav dp)
However - I have not seen anything that has been captured on a Red that is an 'improvement' over film. Neither is the Red camera as flexible or as intuitive to use as a film camera. So no! I have no intention of using it. I will be shooting on a digital camera in the next year or so, I am pretty sure of that, but it will probably be an Arri.
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i guess all the DP's in hollywood interested only with brand name..
 
I think DP's pick film stocks or cameras for many different reasons. Cost, sensitivity, grain/noise characteristics, workflow, design, features, ergonomics, reliability and of course brand to name a few.

Deakins is an Arri guy, and his philosophy is typically "keep it simple." When he uses Kinos he doesn't like using them in their housing, as an example. Arri's design of turn the camera on, set exposure with your lightmeter and hit the button on Alexa fits into that.

The R1 doesn't fit that profile. How many different meters does the camera have to tell you how to properly expose the image? The R1 was not designed to work with a lightmeter really, ie the iso settings do not match your light meter on the monitor.

That all adds alot of complications for someone like Deakins who simply wants to hit the button on his lightmeter then hit the button on the camera.
 
Actually, Dwight, the settings do match with a light meter. However, no light meter is as accurate as the camera itself, and in a digital camera, the camera itself is the "ultimate" light meter, so why would you not put useful tools in camera to help you?

Of course, if you want to, you can ignore the in-camera tools, but I'd prefer it if you don't.

You can run a RED as simply as you want. You can use the direct button for ISO, direct button for shutter speed and the only other one you're going to want is "format card". I also use the white balance and 1:1 pixel zoom. Again, direct buttons. We do have many, many features in camera, but if you don't want to use them, you don't have to. You can keep it utterly simple.

Graeme
 
I was pointing out potential reasons why Deakins might say he's going with Arri. I wasn't attacking you or the R1. I use most of the tools/features you guys offer and love them.

With all due respect Graeme, the camera's ISO does not match up with a lightmeter when viewing the onset monitor over the video out of the camera, it's about 2/3stop too dark. To get accurate monitoring we have to set the camera ISO to 320 while metering at 200-250. I'm talking about the M sensor, I have not done that test on the MX.
 
On B30 with REDGamma we're finding it pretty much bang on. However, I'd remember there are a bunch of variables including what RGB value you expect mid grey to map to, and the calibration and accuracy of your meter. If you want to calibrate your camera to your meter you could adjust the FLUT control in fractional stops to accomplish that.

Graeme
 
It's a completely subjective choice. Some will like one or the other for reasons that can be technically substantiated, and others will have more esoteric reasons. When you consider the many hoops that cinematographers have gotten used to jumping through in order to acheive a certain look, the fact that you might need to offset your lightmeter seems like a small thing that really shouldn't matter one bit. After all, there are nuances to interpreting meter readngs for film stocks too. Consider also all of the workarounds folks have come up with to create a secret sauce with which to get useable images out of a 5D...
 
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My meter is calibrated and accurate. I also expect my 18% grey card to read 50% on a waveform. I know you know that that is the proper way to determine the sensitivity of any camera in real life terms.

Keep in mind if you're going to throw alot of engineer talk at me aboot why this method isn't the best way of doing things that might be one of the reasons why DP's, like Deakins, would rather use another camera which they feel is simpler.

The FLUT adjustment tip is a good one, that adjusts the camera in 1/10stop increments right?
 
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