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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 :)

CASE STUDY: EPIC PROVES BULLET PROOF IN ONE EXTREME TEST FOR NAT GEO TV

dino g

dino g

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Location
Venice, CA; Rye, NH; Boca Raton, FL; NYC
Website
red31.com
SHOOT DATES: 10/25,26,27,28/2011
CLIENT: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TELEVISION
PRODUCT: TOP SECRET
TALENT: EVEN MORE TOP SECRET
LOCATION: EVEN MORE THAN MORE TOP SECRET

I will change all three of those headings once the content airs...

however, I was given authorization to talk about the job in a very generic way as it relates to something that we all care about.

THE RELIABILITY OF EPIC & DATA MANAGEMENT

first things first.

we shot 16.763 Terabytes in 3 days!
which at 4khd 7:1 is 96.68 hours of footage.

because we make 4 copies of the footage, that means we moved 67TB in 3 days...

SETUP:

5 EPIC cameras running in 5 positions around a 360 degree set, think old school unplugged show from MTV.

cameras were in other cameras shots, crew, dolly track, dolly grips, operators....all in the shot...

the main point here is that the cameras started rolling at 10am and rolled continuously until 7pm except for a 1 hour lunch.

like a chain smoker, when one ssd card "rolled out" another one was quickly inserted and once it came up as formated media, the roll button was pushed and the camera started recording...again. this repeated over and over on all 5 cameras for 8 hours.

it was an amazing onslaught of footage. we had 256 cards and 128 cards and i tried to stagger them so as to manage the length of time any one card could be recycled. we had 4 cards per camera and i was using 2 mac pros with 4 red rockets in 2 JMR silverstores. i transcoded to DNxHD 145 29.97 and tried to keep up.

bottom line is the cameras never went down not one and not for even 1 second.

there were two of the cameras that had their fans set to auto at 35% while rolling and it was not enough, but i was able to catch that before they reached 75 degrees celsius and change them to manual at 50% during run, which is a sweet spot for continuous shooting btw.

this was a very very challenging job, but now that it is over, i dont think this type of throughput will ever happen again, although i am on hold for a 3d live concert shoot in a couple of weeks, so i may have to come back and say that these numbers have been surpassed.

i am very interested to know if anyone has shot that much epic footage in that short period of time.

ok more later....

dino
 
Sounds like i need to buy shares in a hard drive manufacturer or the people that make the LTO tapes you are using!!

Good work
 
Interesting stuff.

Could you tell us if there where Epic-M or X used? It seems that the new versions X and M's are quieter than the first M's.
Can you confirm?

Thanks.

Pat
 
I've got a tale of Epic toughness, but can't talk about it yet. Not the crazy amount of footage that Dino shot, no he is king. But I can say that The Epic IS bulletproof!
 
I just worked as DP on a special for Nat Geo and was wishing I had an Epic! They had already made a camera choice that fit into their post workflow, but next time my Epic will be in and I hope it will be a no-brainer for them. Hopefully your shoot got them primed for me! :) Strangely, we shot the exact same dates, though I'm sure it's a different project.
 
I shot wake boarding in the Hot Florida summer, to be honest, I don't know how the fans were set up, probably factory default. I'm usually pretty detailed but have been ignoring the fans, that said, I was doing long takes in slo mo, going through 128 SSDs in 20 min. It was hot and humid but the Epic never flinched.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Interesting stuff.

Could you tell us if there where Epic-M or X used? It seems that the new versions X and M's are quieter than the first M's.
Can you confirm?

Thanks.

Pat
Click to expand...

I have one of each and they do sound different, I think the X is quieter. The difference I'm sure is due to thenchange in the heat sink.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Interesting stuff.

Could you tell us if there where Epic-M or X used? It seems that the new versions X and M's are quieter than the first M's.
Can you confirm?

Thanks.

Pat
Click to expand...


2 x M #00087 & #00204 ( same cameras used for STEP UP 4 3D, there were actually paired in a TS5 3Ality Technica Rig and shot 220 mags in 9 weeks without a clitch too with 2 days rest before diving into this gig)

3 x X #00031 and two others that came from mario contini.

honestly did not have a chance to pay attention to which one had a quieter fan or not...too busy running around this circle picking up mags and loading them, transcoding, grading, and watching the images as they were coming out of the pipe.
 
Speaking of temperature...What is the "sweet" spot for the sensor in ideal shooting? You say 75 Celsius is the max but where should we try to peg the temp in an effort to minimize the fan speed? I have not found much in terms of info on this. I would like to dial down the fans but not to the point of harm to the sensor.

Thanks in advance

taylor
 
Taylor Morrison said:
Speaking of temperature...What is the "sweet" spot for the sensor in ideal shooting? You say 75 Celsius is the max but where should we try to peg the temp in an effort to minimize the fan speed? I have not found much in terms of info on this. I would like to dial down the fans but not to the point of harm to the sensor.
M
Thanks in advance

taylor
Click to expand...

Good question. Moderate temps and the proper fan speed and a normal amount of rolling should keep the camera in the mid 50's. That seems like where the camera likes to be, but someone from red chime in on a scientific answer.
 
Given the title, I was hoping to read a tale about how EPIC saved your life by stopping a bullet... Hehe.

Good stuff though. Awesome to see EPIC shooting for Nat Geo.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Given the title, I was hoping to read a tale about how EPIC saved your life by stopping a bullet... Hehe.

Good stuff though. Awesome to see EPIC shooting for Nat Geo.
Click to expand...

in the metaphorical sense, it did just that.
 
Have you encountered any synch issues when trying to align footage from different cameras (especially where a card may have ended)? Thanks
 
Michael Panfeld said:
Have you encountered any synch issues when trying to align footage from different cameras (especially where a card may have ended)? Thanks
Click to expand...

not sure i understand your question.
 
Hey Dino, ever done this with RED MX's?? I have a similar situation where I want to use a mix of Epics and MXs. The MXs would be all SSD's of course. I can probably keep the fans on during the shooting just not 100%.
 
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