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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 :)

Can you, also, tell when a movie is shot on RED?

Josh Negrin

Josh Negrin

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It's bizarre man.

Sometimes I'll watch a movie or a trailer and know right away that it was shot on RED because of the way it looks. Does anyone else notice this?

"Knowing" is a perfect example of this happening and also "Social Network", but today I watched the trailer for "Rabbit Hole" and knew right away as well (confirmed it via imdb.com technical specs)

This doesn't always happen, though, and I'll be pleasantly surprised later to read that a movie, I enjoyed, was shot on RED.

So, I'm curious as to what someone would attribute this to. Is the color corrector not pushing it enough?

I've color corrected a few things, shot on RED, including my own film.
 
I couldn't disagree more. If shot on RED-MX with Zeiss Master Primes by top-notch team then the RAW R3Ds graded/treated by the best to look like something else, you would simply never know.

RED-MX footage can be made to look like anything else which is never true the other way around.

-michael zaletel
 
I agree, no matter what you do with R3D's, I can tell you what is and isn't shot on red, within a degree.

I watched a few commercials, then my friend humorously put on "Fred: The Movie" and I could easily tell all were shot on red
 
When I saw Social Network for the first time it was quite amazing to see how clean the image is. Its so clean to a point that it will probably be rejected by some. But within that cleanness is a colour depth that is so rich, and a range that is profound. I have obviously seen quite a bit of stuff shot on RED and it does have a distinct look, but how the camera is employed is obviously VERY important.

Its funny that some people I know reject RED because it is not film because from what they have seen, to them looks too clean and digital. Apparently it is too real. What I see is a magical blend of what film has been doing for over a century, only amplified. It takes all the elements of film and adds its own signature blend. The result is a film like essence with the clarity of the world I see, with enough bonding magic for it excite my mind cinematically.

Also, this may be just me, but does anyone else think that the idea of shooting raw, play towards a mentality to push the look a bit further. Or is this just more of a common trend now.
 
Zakaree Sandberg said:
yes.. red has a look. its pretty easy to spot most of the time
Click to expand...

All capture devices and mediums have a signature look. There is no such thing as a device with a blank canvas, other than perhaps the human eye, and there's really no way to measure that. This is not a good or bad thing, it's just a fact. However, it is these very differences that allow artists to choose the proper tool for a particular production. This is no different than what different film stocks have presented for years, and it does not detract from the artistry that the individual artist - in this case, the cinematographer - brings to the job. Many different types of material can be shot using the same camera, and of course, they will look somewhat different if they are shot by different, talented cameramen. But there is undeniably a signature similarity in terms of general color reproduction and image texture when the same camera is used, it is simply the nature of any image capture device.
 
It was simpler on the M than on the MX, as it was breaking more easily in the top and more often treated badly in post and it was easier to do so in an unsexy way.

But I think I am better at spotting "bad RED post" than RED images.... And that goes for MX projects as well...
 
It's usually the way skin looks that gives it away for me - at least that's the feeling I get; something about flesh tones, especially if shot on RED and then given the 'teal and orange' treatment, which, somehow has a noticably different feel to similarly graded film. That new Naomi Watts picture is one I'd pick as having that RED 'look'. I'd say it's easier to spot whether or not something was shot on RED if what was shot was shot under a certain style of lighting - soft light seems to accenuate it. But I find it much harder to spot that RED signature on footage shot on natural or hard light but there are always exceptions and really, as someone else pointed out, RED footagecan be made to look like just about anything else.
 
Typically you see it under tungsten lightning when someone have tungsten ballanced the cam in post and the red-channel blows because of too high iso-settings or RED gain in the ballancing...
 
RED M had a distinct look, which could be a BAD thing sometimes, as Gunleik already said.

Now... As already mentioned by Michael, RED M-X with great optics is just so noiseless and with a versatile DR that you can grade however you want it.

'Social Network' for example has a great flat look in the beginning parts of the movie with a slightly more contrasty in the parts when they're richer. It's all subtle and very beautiful and you can't spot a single flaw usually associated with digital imaging.
 
Fun thing is that I really like the M... It's so smooth and the whole cam with M is so ballanced, but it needs more light and gentleness to perform than the MX.

My guess is that the MX will have the same gentleness + all the goodies back on the Epic, with the added bit-depth and in-camera oversampling possibilities.
 
Pietro Impagliazzo said:
'Social Network' for example has a great flat look in the beginning parts of the movie with a slightly more contrasty in the parts when they're richer. It's all subtle and very beautiful and you can't spot a single flaw usually associated with digital imaging.
Click to expand...

You were obviously looking the other way during that day exterior pool scene..... :rolleyes:
 
I think Gunleik said it best:

"But I think I am better at spotting "bad RED post" than RED images.... And that goes for MX projects as well..."
 
When I saw "Winter's Bone" projected at Sundance I was recognizing blooms in the highlights that were becoming quite familiar to me by then. I pointed them out to my girlfriend and she told me to "shut up and watch the movie." Point taken.
 
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