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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 :)

Documentary

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millrick

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how many documentary filmmakers are reading this forum?

do any of you think Scarlet will be a great tool for our craft?





-------
"Art is a hammer, not a mirror"
John Grierson, founder
National Film Board of Canada
 
I'm not a documentary filmmaker per se (though I have worked on a few). But I think it's pretty safe to say that Scarlet will kick ass for the vast majority of documentary projects.

Only downsides I can see right now (possibly, as all things are likely to change) is (maybe) the T 2.8 lens for shooting at night or in dark interiors, and the possible limitation of being able to shoot to only 2 CF cards, in the event that shots of longer duration are needed.

Also, if they add preroll capabilities to the camera, that'll just make it that much better for the doc crowd.
 
JasonMurphy said:
and the possible limitation of being able to shoot to only 2 CF cards, in the event that shots of longer duration are needed.
Click to expand...

I've been told in some other thread that the 2 CF slots are designed for hot-swapping, like you can with P2 cards on Panasonic cams (record on A, swap B), so with enough CF cards, you'd have infinite recording time... Unfortunately, I haven't yet heard anyone from RED confirm that rumour.
 
Probably depends on how much footage you're capturing and how much render time you have.

Right now I'm shooting a doc and we've got around 80 hours of footage with a small crew. Shooting to inexpensive HDV tapes has been a lifesaver. There's no way we could have gotten what we have with any of the solid state cameras. I don't even like to think about the workflow headache that would have added.

And that's not even considering RAW format rendering time.

Just depends what your shoot will actually be like vs. the image quality you need and the budget you've got. I wouldn't want to shoot a doc on RED right now unless the environment was very controlled.
 
Well, here´s one :)

Feels a bit premature to talk about the merits of the Scarlet in documentaries, since many of the specs are likely to change.

That said, and with Red´s track record of delivering amazing quality at a ridiculous price; yes, having a camera that looks almost like a super8 cam, but does 3k will definetely have a positive impact on documentary making.
 
If there is an output for external harddrive, you could have one of those and record more, but we don't know that yet.

Still, think of the quality you get together with the size. Think of the overcranking. I've seen a few documentaries with slow motion and those are almost always staged with a 35 or 16mm, but this could enable to record a documentation when it happens in 120fps.

I think Scarlet is actually perfect if you want a visually appealing documentary.
 
...or the supersmall Western Digital 250gb disks
I think they also carry some sort of antichock technology so those would be perfect to mount on the camera.
 
eventually

eventually

joelnet said:
we've got around 80 hours of footage
Click to expand...

that's the big question documentarians are asking themselves. will shooting hundreds of hours of video on solid state be as cheap as videotape? i think it eventually will.
 
infinite

infinite

klinke said:
so with enough CF cards, you'd have infinite recording time...
Click to expand...

yes, but can we afford an infinite number of CF cards?:wink:
(i'm holding out for the 1 terabyte RED FLASH™ compact card)
 
millrick said:
that's the big question documentarians are asking themselves. will shooting hundreds of hours of video on solid state be as cheap as videotape? i think it eventually will.
Click to expand...

When low cost disposable-ish flash cards arrive it'll work. The process of dumping and backing up is the real problem. If you could buy 100 cards, shoot and archive on those cards then you're golden.

If you've got a huge budget you're fine. I bought a couple of the Soderbergh CF Cards from his RED shoots. Mine were numbered around 110. That's a lot of money in cards.

I should mention I'm going to use RED to shoot some re-enactments and more creative stuff for the doc I'm working on. It's just the interview style stuff I'm sticking with HDV on. It's perfect for that.
 
For long-form stuff, unless Scarlet is going to come with some lower data-rate format options, I imagine tape would still be preferable.

That said, if Scarlet doesn't have any low data-rate options you can always buy something like the Convergent-Designs' Flash XDR. For $5,000 that'll give you all sorts of flavours of MPEG-2 recording to cheaper (i.e. slower) CF cards.
 
60 minute Tape is preferable for doc workflow. So is having outstanding low-light capability.

I think being visually appealing has more to do with composition, etc, rather than HD versus SD. After you watch something for a couple minutes your eyes adjust.
 
I think being visually appealing has more to do with composition
Click to expand...

...and all other aspects of cinematography.
 
Jim Klatt said:
60 minute Tape is preferable for doc workflow. So is having outstanding low-light capability.

I think being visually appealing has more to do with composition, etc, rather than HD versus SD. After you watch something for a couple minutes your eyes adjust.
Click to expand...

I don't believe you are right on either count. Already today, one can shoot a couple of hours of HD on the Sony EX1 without tape. And there are very elegant field offload solutions available as well.

As for SD vs HD, that debate is over. If you want ANY kind of shelf live for your production, it MUST be HD. It may air today in an SD downconversion but in the future no broadcaster will want SD. They have plenty of their own SD archives and it'd better be of some historical value to justify SD quality. Anything new has to be produced in HD.
 
If you are shooting hundreds of 500 hours of footage, it certainly makes sense.
Especially for archiving all of that footage.

So if a documentary is shot in SD, it will not allowed on tv, the internet, or theaters? I missed that memo.
 
Jim Klatt said:
If you are shooting hundreds of 500 hours of footage, it certainly makes sense.
Especially for archiving all of that footage.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that is a very specific case, most docs tend to be in dozens of hours not hundreds.

Jim Klatt said:
So if a documentary is shot in SD, it will not allowed on tv, the internet, or theaters? I missed that memo.
Click to expand...

It's not a case of "not allowed", rather it's the ability to sell the film that will suffer a great deal. Anyone will broadcast phone video of terrorist attacks but any other "normal" theme will be harder to sell if shot in SD. Why in the world would anyone limit their options by shooting and posting in SD if HD cameras are available and in a similar price range?
 
yes

yes

Jim Klatt said:
So if a documentary is shot in SD, it will not allowed on tv, the internet, or theaters? I missed that memo.
Click to expand...

Respectfully, but yes it does seem that you missed that memo.

On February 17, 2009 analog standard definition television broadcasting will be terminated in the USA. August 31, 2011 is the date for Canada. It's 2011 for Japan as well, and 2012 for the U.K. Broadcasters worldwide are commissioning high definition documentaries right now, and as a result, standard definition documentaries will become harder and harder to sell. The internet will remain a low definition medium for the foreseeable future, but theatrical documentaries are increasingly being shot in HD.

With the introduction of affordable HD cameras like Scarlet, a documentary producer will have little excuse for not shooting at least 1080i.
 
bakalaj said:
Yeah, that is a very specific case, most docs tend to be in dozens of hours not hundreds.
Click to expand...

My brother has edited close to 30 docs - most destined for cable as one hour shows. 40 hours of footage was not unusual. So yes, dozens of hours.

The EX1 is certainly a very nice camera. A friend of mine just bought 2 16 gig cards. $800 each I think. Ouch. We bought 100 tapes (100 hours) for $2 each and still haven't seen a tape dropout that I'm aware of.

It's very nice to hand the tape to the producer and load the next one. I'm worrying about lighting, sound, composition, focus. And we actually HAVE a budget. Mostly travel. We've been in 10 States. I guess I could have trained our local PA's to do data workflow. Er... that doesn't seem smart the millisecond I type it.

Networks these days are sending out 1 person crews. A buddy just did a shoot for a Paramount Daytime Talk Show. 1 person crew. They emailed him the shot list and the questions to ask. When he was done he Fedexed the tapes.


It's just the reality of the marketplace for a lot of stuff. We can sit here and wax eloquent about focus pullers and DIT's all day long but it's pretty much only the feature market that supports those things.

Having said all that, I think Scarlet and a RED Drive at lower data rates will be just fine for a lot of docs.
 
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