Cook Anamorphic Lenses & Red S8K Helium Camera

[Humberto Rivera]

Something old, something new: Cooke presents vintage-look Panchro/i Classics, Anamorphic/i Primes and S7/i Full Frame lenses at Camerimage 2017- “On show will be the new S7/i Full Frame Plus lenses on a RED Digital 8k Vista Vision Camera. The Cooke S7/i Primes have a true T2.0 aperture and cover 35/Super 35mm, Full Frame and beyond. They have a common fixed front diameter of 110mm, with a focus drive gear of 140T x 0.8 mod and an iris drive gear of 134T x 0.8.”
https://www.cookeoptics.com/u/news.html?Open&v=99&c=1&y=99&d=891106E6D38F9D04852581C500507751

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Interesting, two Worlds are moving toward an eventual clash, as “Smartphones” take over the “Photography Function” in people’s everyday lives, and cameras like the “Red MONSTRO 8K Vista vision” are able to take better “Professional Stills Photographs”. There is a vacuum currently being formed by the shrinking of the “Still Camera Territory”. It’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely there. It's called the RAW “DSMC” (Digital Still and Motion Camera), it has a nice sound to it.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/41348...ctory-in-china-blames-the-rise-of-smartphones

Humberto Rivera

 

[C. Burkhart]

Interesting, two Worlds are moving toward an eventual clash, as “Smartphones” take over the “Photography Function” in people’s everyday lives, and cameras like the “Red MONSTRO 8K Vista vision” are able to take better “Professional Stills Photographs”. There is a vacuum currently being formed by the shrinking of the “Still Camera Territory”. It’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely there. It's called the RAW “DSMC” (Digital Still and Motion Camera), it has a nice sound to it.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/41348...ctory-in-china-blames-the-rise-of-smartphones

Humberto Rivera

Not really. If you have ever tried to edit 250,000 frames to find roughly 9 pictures for an advertising client, you know what I am talking about.
Just not practical.

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Interesting, two Worlds are moving toward an eventual clash, as “Smartphones” take over the “Photography Function” in people’s “everyday lives” and the other is EVOLVING with the use of Red MONSTRO.

I AGREE to a certain point, but the movement continues, and will eventually happen, at 35 Megapixels +. Meanwhile, like any evolving technology is “hard to do” but I presume you “did-fiend” 9 Frames (in those 10 seconds) that actually worked.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/41348...ctory-in-china-blames-the-rise-of-smartphones

Nikon; “In recent years [...] due to the rise of smartphones, the compact digital camera market has been shrinking rapidly, leading to a significant decrease in operating rate at NIC and creating a difficult business environment. In this context, the Company conducted rounds of thorough reviews and discussions on the global manufacturing structure optimization measures stated in the company-wide restructuring plan announced by the Company in November 2016. The Company has decided to discontinue operations of NIC.” Nikon

Humberto Rivera

 

[C. Burkhart]

Interesting, two Worlds are moving toward an eventual clash, as “Smartphones” take over the “Photography Function” in people’s “everyday lives” and the other is EVOLVING with the use of Red MONSTRO.

I AGREE to a certain point, but the movement continues, and will eventually happen, at 35 Megapixels +. Meanwhile, like any evolving technology is “hard to do” but I presume you “did-fiend” 9 Frames (in those 10 seconds) that actually worked.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/41348...ctory-in-china-blames-the-rise-of-smartphones

Nikon; “In recent years [...] due to the rise of smartphones, the compact digital camera market has been shrinking rapidly, leading to a significant decrease in operating rate at NIC and creating a difficult business environment. In this context, the Company conducted rounds of thorough reviews and discussions on the global manufacturing structure optimization measures stated in the company-wide restructuring plan announced by the Company in November 2016. The Company has decided to discontinue operations of NIC.” Nikon

Humberto Rivera

I did find 9 frames and I will never do it again.
It's a monumental effort in terms of time, energy and eyesight.
I just don't have that kind of energy to turn around multiple projects on a regular basis.
No one does.

Far easier to just shoot stills and edit in a quarter of the time after. Heck, a tenth of the time.

Further, it means that generally speaking you need to shoot at least at 1/100th of a second, probably more.
So this is where cinema and photography are at odds.
The motion blur necessary for a cinematic image is problematic for stills.

Sorry but that's the stark reality.

 

[Humberto Rivera]

It seems like an easy problem to fix (by the right person), an algorithm build into one of the future Red “Cameras Software Release” that addresses the issue of a sharp frames without the line cause by the shutter. So the algorithm would recognize two things; shutter out of the frame, and sharpens of the frame. You would input the desired IN Time Code and the OUT Time Code, the algorithm would then search for your frames. That may be a possible solution. Evolutionary is what Red is about, meanwhile the Smartphones around the World continue to erode into the “Lower Level of Still Camera”, that assaults the Hi-End camera because of the lack of revenues, the World is changing before our EYES.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

I was thinking about a question that is becoming more, and more apparent as time goes by. Two different sides to the same two questions; “How much should I spend on a Making a Film? Or; “How much would a Motion Picture Film Make”? They are two sides of the same coin. One of the many choices available to the Producer/Director. We know that the General Rule is; “A Film ROI should make Two and One Half times the Original Budget to “break-even” point, but what is the Budget? MEANING Production Budget, Distribution, P&A, Publicity and Marketing; or simply putting-it, the Production Cost before it sees any Moneys Whatsoever.

The “Motion Picture Budget” how much do I spend, or do I want to spend, or is there a limited imposed by the Produce (people putting up the $$$$$$). I know the lower the cost of Production the sooner I would make the $$$$$$ back, but then in order to attract an audience there is the cost of production $$$$$$. What a dilemma, I spend more $$$$$$ and the film looks better, or does it? It’s a question that we all have wrestled with over and over again. What is the right amount of $$$$$$? There is no answer to the question. What about the stars of the film, the more recognizable their faces, or the better actor, the more $$$$$$ you need to spend. An actor is an important part of making a “Motion Picture”, without a doubt. So the question will always persist.

In other words what you spend before the “Paying Public” enjoys you’re film in a Theaters, and before the Exhibitor returns the Money to the Producer, depending on how the Flow of Cash Flows, that it’s to say, before it gets to YOUR hands during that initial exhibition period. That’s the everlasting question. How many Theaters are in the “Film Exhibition Process” (four to six weeks), “more or less”. The more Theaters the better for maximizing of Monies over a wider range of marketing expenditure? You should also try and balance the “Budget Spend on the Film” Vs. the “Amount a Money” coming in from a “Paying Audience”, be-it however it comes in, in whatever currency.

Generally there are two different Markets, Domestic (U.S. & Canada), and Worldwide, meaning the rest of the World. There are the Top 20 Markets were the BULK of the World Revenues come from, the rest are probably being pirated or sold by a sub-distributors, or just simply will not count.

Now mind you whoever is paying for the “Creation of the Film Production” (usually not the studio) wants their cash back as soon as possible, there are many incarnations of the “Entity that Pays” the Produce for a Film, but whoever they are, they want their money as soon as possible? In the “old-days” it used to be “last-in – first out”, but that was in the days of “Actual Prints” send to Theaters far and near around the World. But things have changed. Now you send a print on a computer disk, with multiple languages for further copies to be made by the Local Distributor in different Countries. You can guess how easily it would be to pay a low lever employee for just a few hours of time with the hard disk drive.

But the 900 pound gorilla in the room, are companies like Netflix, Apple, Hulu, Disney or whoever, there are many, and many more are about to enter the game, and others, they can distribute around the World simultaneously from a central location in the United States, or wherever they happen to be, it’s the “Internet Downloads” that is lowly beginning to inch itself in. I see a trend materializing, where Films have a “Skinner Box Office Receipts”. Not sure why, but is there, the “Film Business” is going through a radical change before our very eyes, TODAY!

So where does that leave the “Red MONSTRO 8K Vista Vision Camera” (and the soon to see the light of Day “Helium Sensor Full Frame”), if ever a release to fit into this discussion? MY OPINION: I think it makes sense to own three or four “Red Digital Cinema Cameras” (of whatever persuasion). Why? A hypothetical Camera Package would include FOUR Red Cameras, and ONE complete set of Cooke S7/i Lenses, and something to get you a “First CUT”. You would be ready to make any kind of deal within your affordability, with anyone in the WORLD who came along, be-it to produce a Drama, Action Adventure, or Comedy.

That would keep the Budget within a reasonable level on the Red camera side. If you can do your own Film (or investing on some one’s Film). It probably would not be a major “Motion Picture” but one that you can do this with, there are thousands of “Motion Pictures” Produced every year on a Worldwide Basis, and again who knows, that’s up the Gods. If you’re in it for the “Long Hauled” the returns can be substantial. Just in India alone there are over 400 Motion Picture alone, think “Globally” thousands per year. There are also about 10,000 “Motion Pictures Scrip’s” written each year, that would never see the light of day. Lots of dream put down for the “long sleep”.

The “Long Hauled” scenario has the possibility to have a long range ROI or you might just sell-it, it’s up to you. It might be better than any short term investment. You would have the “Latest Technology” for the eventual introduction of the “8K Universe” when it arrives, in Theaters and specially on the Small Screens, be-it Television, Computer, Phones, Tablets, or anything else that we haven’t tough off yet. For AROUND a $1 Million Dollars if you can afford it (give or take), you can position yourself very well for the “Distant Future” (8K Distribution) with four cameras, one set of Cooke S7/i Lenses and whatever other small things you need for support.

But whatever you do, have a smart “Attorney & Accountant” at you side, at all times, for all the Contracts that you would need on every move of all “On-Going-Contracts” that would emerged. If you think about it, it’s really not that farfetched to raise $1 Million Dollars (from partners or investors) for a project that would generate enough revenues for a heathy ROI. One of your biggest assets is the equipment itself, it can be good collateral. “DISCLAIMER” This is only a suggestion for anyone to attempt, I would not want for anyone to interpret it as “Financial Advice” or any other way, consult YOUR OWN Financial Consultant.

Here is a quote from The Guardian U.K.; “In a year of aggravating assaults such as the fantasy mish-mash tosh of King Arthur, the heavy-metal headache of a fifth Transformers film and Kingsman’s caffeinated, cartwheeling sequel, the languid pace of Blade Runner 2049 stands out like 2001’s monolith: a mesmerizing reminder of cinema’s capacity to instill awe. At one point it is revealed how the latest replicants are “born”, splurging from suspended sacs filled with amniotic fluid. Denis Villeneuve and his cinematographer Roger Deakins seem to have agreed on a similarly immersive approach, practically drowning viewers in visual immensity.” End the quote from The Guardian.

For example the following numbers say it all; Blade Runner 2049, Domestic, $88,650,463– 35.6%, Foreign $160,275,037 – 64.4%Worldwide $248,925,500. The Film cost $150,000,000.00, 2.5X Times that amount would be $300,000,000.00 and were leaving the P&A, Publicity, and Marketing Cost out of this. We’re still waiting on other Countries to Chime-in, but it does not look good not for a $150 million Production Budget, that does not include Marketing Cost. It would have to make $350 Million Worldwide just to break even, and then enjoy its post Theatrical Live over several years.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/fi...-2049-slow-burn-blockbusters-denis-villeneuve
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bladerunnersequel.htm
But what-if the Budget had been lower like the case of; The Visit, Domestic Total Gross: $65,206,105 - 66.2%, Foreign $33,243,957 - 33.8%, Worldwide $98,450,062, Production Budget $5,000,000. So which one was the best investment?
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=blumhouse2015.htm

I would say the NEW budget TARGET will be between $25 Mil (or slightly lower) and $45 Mil (or slightly higher) if the Distributor want everything to be OK for everyone involved. So where does the monies come from, there will be a boom of new actors , or the currently stablish “A” list will required a new adjustment to their fees, this might take a few years of adjustment to reality for Actors, Producers, and Directors, it will be hard, very hard, either that, or they will find someone else. We’ll have to wait, because the temptation to do a handsomely budgeted new action “Tentpole Film” is just too GREAT of a RISK. But there will always be ONE or TWO.

Here is another quote from The Guardian of London; “Analysts estimate that the lifetime value of a film can be as much as double what it makes at the box office. For example, The King’s Speech made just over $400m globally in cinemas but has probably amassed about $1bn once its-post multiplex takings are included. About 25% of the $1bn is from the ever-shrinking DVD market, maybe 15% to 20% from pay TV broadcasters for premiere rights and 10% (and growing) from services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple, according to Ampere Analysis. Colony has invested in Weinstein properties before. In 2010 it bought their original studio, Miramax, long after the brothers had sold it to Disney in 1993. Colony made a quick profit on the $660m deal, selling the business and its 700-film back catalogue – for hits such as Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction – to Qatari broadcaster BeIn Media last year for a rumored $1bn.” End quote. What your Film Makes at the Box Office affects what comes after, that very important to understand.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...als-circle-weinstein-film-studios-cinema-gems

Humberto Rivera
TIP; look up in GOOGLE (Amortized $1M loan or "credit facility"); See what you get? Consult your Legal Consultant, always.

 

[Humberto Rivera]

This is a hypothetical reason for the creation of a 3D Construct, which utilizes a Globe as the Construct, but it can be anything that works for you, for how a Motion Picture might advance forward from its inception of a SCRIPT to its final stages. Let’s us create an “Abstract Circular Thee Dimensional Monolith” for the Creation of a Motion Picture, which may or may not be produced. The “3D Universal Monolith” can be a construct that may allow you to able to walk around it, or flip it like a Giant Globe, to get a multidimensional links of every detail you put into-it, expand it or contracted, add to it as you wish. So remember this is HYPOTHETICAL.

With this in mind we have a Script at the CORE of this construct, it will “expand and shrink”, till is just right. Enter the Producer/Director or Filmmaker, and we have a slight change to the Script Construct that we just finished. The Globe is beginning to take shape. We’re still working with a “Written Script” subject to as many mind that are interpreting the “Written Word” by three to five people who talk about it from different perspectives; such as art, performance, costumes, money, distribution, publicity and many others. At this time is just talk and talk with the “Written Word” as our only point of reference. Enter the Entity that is going to pay to make a “Motion Picture” (Producer) and everything changes, from the Director of Photography, what kind of Cameras would be used, what actors they might be able to afford or talked into being in the Film, the construct continues to take shape.

After all anything and everything affects cost. So the metaphor for a BUDGET is always an integral part of this “Abstract Construct”. So now enters the Costumes Designer, the Production Designer, the Budget Director who begins to construct a budget, each a sublevel, on the last version of the Script, the Storyboard Artist to interpreted the Film with the aid of the Director, and Cinematographer, the Globe is coming from in the minds of many opinions to take a more formal shape, it’s beginning to look like a potential Motion Picture, but were not there yet, it evolving. It look like a Football (soccer ball for the U.S.) getting inflated, as it does it takes different sizes, eventually it might resemble a Full Grown Globe, but we’re not there yet.

Now comes the casting; at this time many things will affect this project. Such as how you cast, are you looking for a new face with talent, are looking to cast recognizable people for the many parts in you script. Are you going to do a cold reading of the script, and for how long is your script conference going to last. Are you going to rehearse the script, and for how long. They are all line items in your ever expanding budget, that might have foreseen, or not. Meanwhile the Set Construction continues, the Budget Continues to adjust itself, and so-on. On the technical side are you testing the cameras, viewing the results with different departments. Planning your dynamic actual expenditures against your stipulated budged, making adjustments as you go.

Imagine a Beach Ball, or one of those thing you use to exercise with. Or better still the character of Tony Stark in Iron Man played by Robert Downy Jr. He has a voice activate “Super Computer” that can generate in the “Abstract of a Construct” of his surrounding or his mind of his own thoughts into a “Three Dimensional Object” that he can extract parts of it to the side, so he can extract pull out of the “Global Construct” to itemized and look at various sub portions, and then put them back in the larger universe, which can be expanded to any size, from the miniscule to a giant representation of his VISION.

I left a lot things out like; the obligatory Song & Dance Number of many Indians Films, or the Obligatory Spectacular Opening Scene of a James Bond Film, think of Daniel Craig in the Streets of Mexico City staging “The Day of the Dead” for the Film opening, S.P.E.C.T.E. “The James Bond” film that was shot with Panavision Cameras on 35mm Film. So no matter what kind of choices you make, they are in this Global Construct. Be as details as you want to visualize your film, you’ll be guided by your imagination. It might not even be a “Global Universe” you might want to use, it might be something else, like a rectangular box, whatever. But YOUR VISION must be communicate to others, somehow.

In S.P.E.C.T.E. the James Bond film shot at different locations throughout the World. United Kingdom, Mexico City, Italy, Morocco, Austria, Sweden, Second Unit throughout the World. At each location they had to use people from those countries as part of their crew, in accordance with local regulations. So this Globe becomes full of little Globes within a larger Globe. This Globe is metaphor, which functions a temporary LOCATION, holding ALL of parts, a metaphor for creating a budget connected with everything in the Motion Picture Development Process, as well as the Motion Picture that evolves, you can use whatever you like that can handle a dynamic complex format as you move along in 3D. Whatever works for you?

ONE NOTE: I hear tell! That Red is working on a 3D Phone, with what options, I don’t know, but they are working on it! Microsoft has been working on a 3D display that can be access from any point of the Hologram or 3D Display, and who knows what apple are doing? So the Hardware is definitely coming to a Phone, Tablet, or Computer near you in the not too distant future. So why not begin to imagine a Software for those devices whatever their displays turn out to be. Nonetheless, computational imaging is still in its infancy, so it has a long way to go, but at a breakneck pace, in no time 8K Televisions will be a common place event, you’ll find them at Circuit City, if they survive the Amazon Attack.

So the BIG DAY arrives, the cameras are ready to roll, you have delegated many decisions to other people that report to YOU, they also have ideas, do you incorporate them or not into the Motion Film. Decisions, decisions and more decisions. You move through the Creative Process till one day you get to finish principal photography. Now comes the Post-Production process. VFX, Music, First Edit, Second Edit and it goes-on till you feel confident with the entire process. 8K will be here soon, and where are all the 8K production? Well there is the “RED Weapon 8K MONSTRO Vista Vision” Camera, Film shot a long time ago in Super Panavision like “Lawrence of Aribia”. But all those shot with the Sony and Arri’s of the World, well another GOOF. It seems that the inertia of moving to another level is just too great for the whole industry to overcome.

There are a lot of things missing from this example, because after all, is just an EXAMPLE of what goes on into the Construction of a Motion Picture Film. There are lots of people contributing to it Creation, just look at the end credits of any Motion Picture, big or small, there is definitely a lot of people’s contribution in the totality of it all, you have to be feed them, transported from on location to another, lots of unions to satisfies their Union Contract, lots of details, and details. That why it takes a Temporary Village to come together for a specific amount of time.

I’m a sucker for Full Frame Resolution. Every time that HBO or Movie Max has the “Hateful Eight” on TV, I find myself watching it without being conscious of the fact that I must have watch it umpteen time before. Also there is something that goes together with the Resolution, which is the Aspect Ratio, I imagine a Full frame 65 mm Negative going through the Camera’s Aperture, and then to the Digital Transfer Chain onto the Hard Disk Drive. In this case Resolution and Aspect ratio do go together, but on a Forged Carbon Fiber “RED Weapon 8K MONSTRO Vista Vision” Camera the same thing does happen with a Wide Screen Aspect Ratio. Let it go to whatever HI-NUMBER it achieves with the Helium Sensor “if and when” they released it. Right now is 7K, but IF you HAD a Cooke 1.3 Anamorphic Extension added to the Cooke S7/i Lenses, and whatever the number of “Ks” were on the camera, well that’s a game changer that would difficult to compete with, because of the REDCODE R3D Files. It’s already a game changer with the MONSTRO 8K Sensor, I’m just saying, it would be a definitely be a real game changer.

THIS IS MY OPINION; why would I choose a Forged Carbon Fiber “RED Weapon 8K MONSTRO Vista Vision” Camera (or the full frame Helium Camera when released) the reason is R-E-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N, one more time the R-E-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N, as well as Dynamic range, Low Light Usage, the prospect of new Helium Full Frame Camera are SOME of the reasons why. The Cooke S7/i Lenses with their Cooke Look and T2 Speed, because they cover the entire 46.31 Image Circle of the frame with no excuses. Red’s METADATA RAW R3D Files (protected by a U.S. Patent) for each and every frame. A combination of Metadata that can be use with the Cooke S7/i lenses for VFX creations and anything else you might think off. One of the reason you can pull out all the frames that are sharp and blow-it up to 35.4 megapixel stills from the 8K Vista Vision Camera footage is because of the 8192 x 4320 = 35,389,440 megapixel for each frame. Look at recent Motion Pictures like; “The Legend of Tarzan”; “Transformers 5”; “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Two”, “Logan Lucky”, and many more. It’s really a no-brainier, to use the “Red 8 VV Brain”, pun intended.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Following “R-E-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N” I just saw Dunkirk on Blu-ray, and I must say that the resolution compared to a Forged Carbon Fiber “RED Weapon 8K MONSTRO Vista Vision” Camera leaves the 15 Perforation 65 mm Color Negative way behind. In this case Digital Cinema is the way to go. Why? Well I personally think there is something to those Cooke S7/i Lenses at more than $22,000.00 each lens (more or less). The IMAX Camera (mostly used in the film) is just simply too big to move around with inferior Lenses. THAT’S JUST MY OPINION. How many IMAX Theaters are there in the World Anyhow? In Costa Rica, there is only ONE, the rest of the World less than 250 Theaters, with the majority in China where you get One Half, of One Half Percent of the Box Office Take (25% in a good day), to the DISTRIBUTOR, never mind the Producer (he gets much LESS).

The IMAX Camera (mostly used) is just simply too big to move around, did not have an impact on Dunkirk on Blu-ray. It did not say “come and see” with my R-E-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N that jump out with its sharp IMAGE 15 perforation 65MM Film and say "come and see me", that’s just me. So let’s be clear the film would NOT have be seen in IMAX by most people, only those that go to an IMAX theater (maybe). Don’t get me wrong, what was done at Dunkirk the PLACE by the British during WW II is just simply HEROIC but in the FILM does not meet the same standard, as in “The Longest Day” or “Saving Private Ryan” or “The Battle of Britain”. Another case for the “R-E-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N” of a “RED Weapon 8K MONSTRO Vista Vision” Camera. Just saying. By the way the last reference have been for all the films shot on 65 mm Color Negative since their inception, quit short for 15 Frame 65 mm Negative that we all talked so much about.

Humberto Rivera
I hope I don't get in trouble for this post. It was just my OPINION!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...icite-wormwood-apartment-observer-dvd-reviews
http://www.nightmarishconjurings.co...ner-bros-home-entertainment-announces-dunkirk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_70_mm_films#American_65.2F70_mm_films
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Longest_Day_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Private_Ryan

 

[Humberto Rivera]

I’ve been saying for the last two years (or more) that the Netflix’s model has slowly been taking over the traditional Movie Studios Distribution Paradigm. Here is some evidence of that, however they still have a long ways to go, the battle is not over yet, but with Disney’s Purchase of The Fox catalog, and its physical properties there is a future to be fought for. Stay Tune!

Have no worries the Forged Carbon Fiber “RED Weapon 8K MONSTRO Vista Vision” Camera is suited to both mediums, and it appears that Netflix is prepare to exploit both. And what follow, as incredible as it seems, is the Red 8K Vista Vision is also suited for both models, 4K & 8K. That includes Theater, DVD, Pay Channels, and whatever is in in their BAG (as the Helium Full Frame when it comes). It’s coming, just like 8K Television took it’s time, Netflix, all competing for your eye balls in 4K, but fear not 8K is not far behind. I’s just matter of more B-A-N-D-W-I-D-T-H that seems to be the momentarily stumbling block for Distribution everywhere in the World (Planet Earth), but it will eventually come. It’s always the “Last Mile” that seems to be the most troublesome!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/fi...ming-films-cinema-hollywood-bright-will-smith

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Interesting this film was shot on an iPhone. It’s coming, the traditional Movie Studios Distribution Paradigm is changing for YOU. What about the production budgets? When? I don’t know! But is coming. Steven Soderbergh, is part of the solution. Stay tune.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/88177...vie-entirely-on-the-iphone-and-he-s-impressed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=u7KZrt_cHH0

Interesting Idea? What do you think? This NOT the first film shot on an iPhone or Android, and then there is the Red HYDROGEN One in the works.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

When have you ever seen any Red Camera on the Front Page of “Film & Digital Times”? I don’t remember any, I could be wrong? This last edition (Number 86) has the First 64 Page dedicated to Arri. It seems that Red is an “After Thought”, so part of the “Professional Industry Press” it's just a; “by the way” here are some additional products for you to look at. Just saying! I don't know but it could be; "Fake News", nah, or maybe they are paying for it, if so they should tell everyone!

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Where are heading? I suppose that’s a relative term in relation to TIME! As the need for faster, and faster computers become more demanding, the world is moving right along on ALL fronts. Here is an example.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/13385...0tb-solid-state-drive-the-world-s-largest-ssd
https://news.samsung.com/global/sam...0-72tb-for-next-generation-enterprise-systems

“Samsung unveils massive 30TB solid state drive, the world's largest SSD” The best is yet to come!

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

https://www.popsci.com/olympic-camera-lenses-broadcast
“Broadcast camera lenses at the Olympics can cost as much as a Lamborghini”

You can do better with the Cooke S7i Lenses that cover the 46.31 mm Image Circle of the “Red MONSTRO 8K Vista Vision Camera”. Why? For one thing the whole package suddenly shrinks in size, to a very manageable weight. The results will be far better than the Canon Lenses and Camera. The Canon Camera is 4K, the Red Camera is 8K. I sometimes wonder why they keep on trying. But the world has to go on, so it does, and Red continues ahead of the pack. So be it!

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/feb/26/rotten-tomatoes-hollywood-love-hate-relationship

“Rotten Tomatoes” how do they affect the Box Office Receipts? How do you get around them about to introduce a particular Motion Picture at the Box Office. Here is an interesting story form The Guardian of London.

Quote from The Guardian of London; “Twenty years after its launch, the movie-review aggregator’s verdict is now seen as vital to a film’s success or failure. Is the site too influential for its own good? Twenty years ago, the internet was a very different place. Google was a fresh rival to Alta Vista and Lycos. Apple computers looked like boiled sweets, and we dialed up to “surf the net”, having installed the software via CD-ROM. The movie world of 1998 was also somewhat different: the box office was ruled by meteorite movies and Adam Sandler; Harvey Weinstein was an Oscar winner; and The Avengers was a lame, retro spy comedy with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman. It was into this climate that Senh Duong launched Rotten Tomatoes – known in the business as RT – a site that has transformed both worlds, although nobody seems quite sure if it has done so for better or worse. Duong’s idea was simple – to compile movie reviews – and it still drives Rotten Tomatoes. He was inspired by his love of Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies and would scour the internet looking for reviews of them. So why not put them in one place? Duong already had a full-time job, he says. “Rotten Tomatoes was a side project I worked on in the evenings.” He single-handedly designed and coded the site in just two weeks. “It was very laborious. Every page was manually assembled using HTML. Every review was manually searched for, read and quoted.” End Quote from "The Guardian of London"

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

How hi can the storage capacity of an SSD go?
https://www.dpreview.com/news/3913337221/nimbus-data-exadrive-pushes-ssd-capacity-record-to-100tb
“Nimbus Data ExaDrive pushes SSD capacity record to 100TB”

Now I’m not saying that Red will soon have a 100TB capacity SSD. However 10TB SSD is not farfetched, in the not too distance future. Computer are advancing an exponential pace. As we move further into the Future things have picked up a kinetic force that is inescapable of slowing down. Just imagine where will be in the Year 2022, it’s not that far ahead.

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

https://www.cookeoptics.com/u/news.html?Open&k=nab2018-new-s7i-panchroi-classic
“Leicester, UK – 20 March 2018 – Cooke Optics has announced the next focal lengths that will be available for its newest lens ranges. The S7/i purpose-built full frame lens range will include a 16mm, 21mm, 27mm and 65mm, while the Panchro/i Classic will benefit from a 21mm, 27mm, 65mm Macro and 135mm. The Panchro/i Classic 135mm is the first to be completed and will be available for demonstration on Booth C8635 at NAB 2018. The remaining focal lengths, which are consistent with Cooke’s other lens ranges, will all be available by the end of the year.”

The NEW S7/i Lenses are; 16mm, 21mm, 27mm, and the 65mm. So a complete NEW SET would now have 12 lenses; the 12 mm, 18 mm, 21 mm, 25 mm, 27 mm, 32 mm, 40 mm, 50 mm, 65 mm, 75 mm, 100 mm, and the 135 mm, all at T2, with a 46.31 Image Circle.

https://www.cookeoptics.com/u/news.html?Open&k=red-monstro-8k-vv-cooke-s7i-lenses
Also; Red Monstro 8K VV Meets Cooke S7/i lenses
“Meet the new Red Monstro 8K VV on Wednesday 31st January, at Brownian Motion, K-Block, Pinewoods Studios. Get a chance to discuss the Monstro Vista Vision camera with key designers and engineers from Red. Carey Duffy will attend with Cooke S7/i lenses for review on the Monstro and to discuss all Cooke product lines for this camera. For further information please contact 017 536 57104”

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Good Article on Graeme Nattress at Film and Digital Times starting at page 45.

www.fdtimes.com/pdfs/free_previews/87FDTimes-April2018-150.pdf

Humberto Rivera

 

[Humberto Rivera]

Here is the complete interview with Graeme Nattress on Film & Digital Times, good read.

http://www.fdtimes.com/pdfs/free_previews/87FDTimes-April2018-150.pdf

Excerpt from Film & Digital Times at NAB 2018 Issue 87
Page 45 to 47 just below the New Full Frame S7/i Cooke Lenses Chart.

Graeme Nattress, RED Problem Solver

“Graeme Nattress’s title is “Problem Solver.” For me, he is the “Pixel Chef,” as we’ll find out in this story. Like other RED job descriptions— Fire Chief, SWAT, and Big Spender—it’s a lot deeper than that.

JON FAUER: Who is Graeme Nattress?

GRAEME NATTRESS: I grew up in the northeast of England. If you’re heading north, just before you hit the Roman wall, in a small town called Durham. I’m told that when I was a baby, I crawled behind the family TV to see how it worked and pushed it over. This was in the days of big black and white tubes and fortunately no one was. I’ve always been interested in television and visual technology. I was an early adopter of home computing at the start of the ‘80s. Computer graphics and I go back a fair way.

Did you study electronics in school?

I studied a bit of electronics in High School. When I went off to university, I did pure mathematics. There were one or two classes in early computer graphics and animation. While I was at university, I made little movies and “TV” episodes, just for our own entertainment and learning. We had no money. Our idea of low budget was, “Did we have enough money to buy tape for the video camera and put petrol in the car to get to the location and still have enough left for a pint in the pub on the way home?”

Let’s fast forward to 2018. Why shoot 8K?

That relates directly to why shoot with any degree of resolution at all! It goes back to how optical systems and sensors work and how we can’t escape the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. Aliasing looks ugly. It destroys compression efficiency. Growing up, I remember seeing the news presenters on TV with their ties or suits dancing around on screen and it was horrible. I didn’t know what caused it, but now I know—it’s a classic example of spatial aliasing. The reason we need high resolution in a camera system is to avoid aliasing and have lots of image data to work with. It doesn’t matter how you’re going to display it or what resolution the display is.

I remember when RED started and I was skeptical at first about using a Bayer Pattern sensor. But I learned that as you increase the resolution, the Bayer Pattern becomes incredibly efficient and really looks good. It’s remarkably effective, it works incredibly well, and is even better when you’re dealing with an over-sampled image.

On the original RED One we shot 4K for 4K because that was the best we could achieve in the beginning. At the same time, you could down sample at 4K to 2K and it looked incredible. Then we asked, “What is better?” And we had 5K for 4K, then 6K for 4K and now we’re at the point where we can shoot 8K pixel for pixel and it looks great. It’s actually better than 4K for 4K. Also, 8K makes for an incredible 4K image when you’ve down-sampled it, and even more so when you go down to 2K.

My little story here is that I took an EPIC W with an 8K HELIUM sensor to my daughter’s dojo where she was practicing jujitsu. I just wanted to shoot some test footage as I always end up doing. It’s nice to go out every now again and shoot something real instead of test charts. You know that I’m not a professional camera person. I brought the wrong lens with me and its aperture was too slow and the light in the dojo was horrible. My choice was to run home and get some different gear and miss the class or just shoot anyway and see what came out. So I shot anyway, saw what came out and yes, it looked a little bit less than perfect at 8K. But as soon as I down-sampled it to 4K or 2K it came alive. The image worked incredibly well. And although there was a little bit of noise, the down-sampling process translated the noise into more of a textural grain and the image looked quite nice. That’s an example of how over-sampling does have real image benefits.

When are we going to see 8K TVs at home and 8K projection in theaters?

I don’t know about cinemas. 8K technology is already on sale in some Asian markets. I think the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 will provide the content for many people to actually watch in 8K and obviously content is going to come first. There’s no point having the display unless the content is there. It will be here sooner than we think. It’s inevitable. We said similar things when HD first appeared in the Standard Definition days. And it happened. It was inevitable.

And yet some people are still skeptical about 4K. How do you then discuss 8K?

Fortunately, there was a real shift in the industry at the turn of the century. Funny—growing up, we used to think of “the turn of the century” in history class as 1901. Now it means 2001. Computers became powerful and useful enough to integrate with video technology. At that point we weren’t on the same video technology time and price structure. We were on a computer based scale. Look at what happened to prices, power, technology, flexibility, and ease of use. We have seen more growth in image quality, finesse, flexibility and speed of workflows in the past 17 years than have been seen in the entire history of television or motion pictures.

The computer side of things is getting quicker, cheaper, and faster every day—faster than we can make cameras with more data rate or resolution. We’re on the right side of the curve to benefit from that. I would reckon when 8K is in full adoption, it will be proportionately cheaper than 4K was at full adoption and a lot cheaper than HD was when it came out.

I would say it’s a perspective thing. It seems a lot and doubling resolution is a quadrupling of the data. But all the rest of the technology is getting so much better, so much faster. Furthermore, you can achieve so many benefits from an 8K camera.

Even if you think you are never, ever, going to distribute in 8K, and distribute in 2K, you get all of those benefits. You’re basically taking that massive amount of information, and like a good chef, you’re boiling it down into a super tasty sauce. It works incredibly well and you get so many visual benefits—cleaner image, real sharpness rather than edge-enhancement, better defined edges without stair-steps or aliasing.

To your chef’s analogy of secret sauces or pouring data, how do you, as a designer, deal with these increased data rates and REDCODE?

The enabling technology that makes it all possible is REDCODE. Let me dive into that. Many people are scared of compression. In many ways they have good right to be. Remember when the first MPEG videos came out on video CD? All you saw were macro blocks everywhere. It was over compressed and looked dodgy. Then we got DVDs and compressed video looked better. Now, Blu-ray is compressed but, again, the compression has improved. The data rate was relaxed a bit and they moved it up to high-def.

So, compression can be scary but that doesn’t mean all compression is bad. Good compression is an enabling tool. It makes the whole system work. It’s important to do sensible compression, the right amount and of the right kind which is going to survive through post-production.

REDCODE does all of those things. If you over compress the image, (because there’s a range of compression allowed), the worst that can happen is you tend to get a little bit of softness that doesn’t look bad. It certainly doesn’t break up into a whole raft of macro blocks and look ugly. What does it enable? It lets you, as a single user, to have 8K recording on a camera that is lightweight and compact. You can go out and shoot in 8K and have a pretty long record time onto a MINI MAG. Those benefits also apply if you’re on a big movie production as well. You have a compact camera that can get it into small places. The data rates are manageable. They’re not straining the limits of what we can do on computer-based systems.

At the same time you’re getting all of the benefits of 8K resolution because the compression is sensibly tuned to be visually lossless. You don’t notice what the compression is doing to the image, only the benefits on data rate. Mathematically, you could compare the uncompressed data with the image reconstructed after REDCODE and you might notice that a pixel’s numerical brightness value had a slight difference. But it’s not something you would ever notice visually and that makes it so useful for what we’re doing. We should focus on the end visual result and how we achieve it—not on the minutiae of the precise nature of the mathematics. “ (Continued)

 

[Humberto Rivera]

(Continued) “Where does this compression take place?

REDCODE compression happens after the A-to-D (Analog-to Digital) conversion. There are custom chips inside the camera to do it. The sensor captures the light in an analog fashion. Next, the A-to-D converters turn it into a digital signal. There’s some pre-processing to make sure that that the signal is normalized and lined up correctly. Then it undergoes the compression of the RAW Bayer Pattern as is. You’re not demosaicing it first. That gives good gains on compression efficiency. It also means we have to design the compression so that it doesn’t mess up the spatial relationships of those pixels in the Bayer Pattern.

When you’re trying to demosaic or debayer the image, any sensible algorithm looks at the spatial relationships of a local group of pixels to accurately infer the interpolation and get a really nice, high resolution, detailed image. So it’s very important that the compression be designed respectfully with the entire chain of image processing in mind.

The other way to look at compression is to turn it around and think of expansion. Let’s say you have an 8K frame from a RED MONSTRO or HELIUM sensor and you’re using REDCODE 10:1 compression. The data rate is quite manageable. When you decompress that image, you’ve got 8K resolution, 16-bit depth. Now, compare that compressed data rate to an uncompressed file of the same file size—it will be lower resolution and bit depth. I think it’s quite dramatic in the benefits it brings.

You were the inventor of REDCODE. Can we have a brief history from “the turn of the century?”

It started with a phone call between Frederic Lumiere and Jim Jannard. I was writing software for Frederick and his company Lumiere HD at the time. At some point Frederic recommended me. It was through experimenting with Bayer Patterns and how they work that resulted in REDCODE.

Describe the difference between REDCODE RAW and ProRes.

They’re conceptually very different. REDCODE RAW compresses the RAW data from the sensor. There’s no image processing done to that data. It’s in its raw state. It’s still in its Bayer Pattern. It hasn’t been demosaiced, hasn’t been color processed, hasn’t been put into a color space, hasn’t had a tonal curve applied, nothing of that has gone on.

Whereas ProRes recorded in camera is the other side of things. You’re taking a fully developed image that looks really good and you’re treating it as an image as opposed to raw data. You’re compressing it with a well-designed video codec.

REDCODE is designed for maximum compression quality. As a consequence, it takes a little bit longer to decode than a codec like ProRes which has twin goals. Its twin goals were compression quality, which is very good, and it was also designed for decompression speed on your personal computer. That relates back to their primary use and where they come from. One is a postproduction tool. The other one, that we introduced, compressed RAW camera data at a time in the industry where compression was absolutely despised and the only word you ever heard people wanting was uncompressed, uncompressed, uncompressed. We had to convince people that compression was actually good and helpful because it enabled a bigger, higher resolution picture for the same data rate. So we had to focus on absolute compression quality rather than doing the twin tasks.

Take us through the color science behind the latest MONSTRO 8K sensor.

The sensor and the sensor engineering is done by a team at RED. It’s very much an art as well as a science. It’s not just doing a perfect design on paper. It’s how it actually is going to be physically and practically made and how is it going to look?

Where I come in is dealing with the actual data coming off that sensor that makes an image. I will look at the demosaic algorithm, color imagery and calibration. I’ll do analysis of the sensor to determine sensitivity and to match it with all our other cameras. That impacts how the dynamic range is handled. I’ll look at the texture and the noise and see what we want to call the dynamic range of the sensor. Once that’s done, I’ll look at color imagery calibrations to know precisely how the camera sees real world color of known values and how we translate that back mathematically to the actual colors in CIE XYZ.

Once we have the sensor calibrated in terms of brightness and color imagery, it slots into the image processing pipeline ,and I know you were going to put a ban on the word “pipeline,” but it’s hard to avoid I’m afraid. All of the RED cameras share common methods of calibration. When the pipeline is designed to do the image processing that makes pretty images come out the other end. Once you’ve got the calibrated images, the art is in providing an image that a customer wants.

How do you achieve this?

It has to be mathematically correct. And it also has to look good. One does not guarantee the other. You can make images that look really good but the mathematics is very dodgy. And you can do some absolutely good mathematics and get some dodgy looking images. When both of them meet together, that’s where I like it.

Do you gather a group of DP friends and discuss which images you like?

It can involve that. Certainly there are lots of different transformations and algorithms that affect different aspects of the image that you are trying to bring out. When we are looking at an individual algorithm and I want some feedback on it, I am absolutely the worst person to do that. Just imagine I’ve spent the past umpteenth weeks, months, years, coding up some new thing to try and improve an aspect of the image. I am very inclined to like all that work because I’ve spent so much time doing it. There’s a real bias. So, I do tests with DPs, colorists and reliable people who will provide good feedback. More often than not they will say they don’t like what I’ve done. At that point I just have to start another cycle and take another tack at the problem.

One of the things that I think makes it so tricky is in any sort of algorithm development you can usually make things do what you want them to do. It’s the cases where something is going to break where things especially matter. For instance, you’ll get an algorithm that looks great on the skin tones, everything’s looking fine but there’s a clipped highlight on the edge of a light or an LED and it goes bonkers. You can’t have that. It’s got to fail gracefully under all circumstances.

Since you’re the gentleman who designs these things, do you have some recommendations for a feature or commercial using a RED MONSTRO 8K VV camera?

There are a lot of different ways to do things and every time I go into a post house they’re handling the footage slightly differently and have different nuances in the way that they like to work. I’m here to help them make things work for them. I’m not going to dictate to them how things should work.

The camera’s the canvas, not the paint. They are the artists. That doesn’t mean we can avoid making decisions that may impact the creative side. We like to step away and enable the actual creatives on the project to best define their aspirations. But not every user of a RED camera wants to do that. So there needs to be a set of tools and defaults to enable them to have a starting point look which is going to cover the needs of their project.

How do you discuss 8K resolution with a DP who talks about softer images, is worried about an actor of a certain age complaining about wrinkles in dailies? How do you reassure a producer who might think 8K is going to be too expensive?

Often doing things cheaply costs more—at least in the long run. There are two issues here. One is about resolution for the DP. Back in the days of standard definition there wasn’t enough resolution at all and you could rarely see any problems with skin or detail. The real problem came with the introduction of HD. It was meant to be sharp and detailed, but cameras coming from a TV background had the sharpness turned up. And we know about that: it doesn’t just make edges appear sharper, it can do horrible things to textures and skin tones look like plastic. With good, high resolution digital cinema cameras, we have so much resolution that we don’t need to turn up the detail. The resolution that you capture is natural, unenhanced and it looks real and unforced. You get a very natural representation of the scene you have carefully lit and captured.

To me, high resolution is very enabling for a cinematographer in terms of aesthetics. They should not be worried about high resolution as long as it’s not forced. As long as you’re not trying to get more out of a sensor than it can give you. On the producer’s side, capturing all that resolution and detail is enabling. Just look at what some of the really creative people out there are doing. David Fincher uses it for stabilization and visual effects to make some stunning images without compromise. If you try to do it the other way, if you tried to stabilize his cameras perfectly on set, imagine the time and technology that would take. I’m sure that would cost far more than capturing a bit more resolution on the camera.

Even if you capture in 8K just to down-sample, it’s going to be easier to work with. The edges will be better defined. Visual effects will be better. Resolution adds those benefits.

You must be exhausted after my hour of grilling.

No, I get so excited and animated discussing these things. It’s funny because so much of what I actually do is to look at the intricate details of code and mathematics and equations. But that’s not really what I am doing. That’s just the way I express myself. What I am really doing is what we’ve been talking about. It’s another level. We’re thinking about images, not pixels. We’re thinking about people’s reactions and emotions and feelings, not code values.”