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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 :)

Dragon misconceptions and clarification...

Btw: This is also why I love Red Epic, we can choose how we want our cameras to behave... with our without optical filters or HDRx (Alexa always use a built in HDRx-like feature, from what I've heard)
 
Jannard said:
Let’s see if we can clear up some Dragon misconceptions.



I am old. I am tired. I started Oakley 38 years ago. RED 7 years ago. In both cases my goal was to make a difference. To declare war on conventional thinking. Inventions wrapped in art. Dedicated to purpose beyond reason. Thermonuclear Protection.




I showed my wife a pic of Jim Jannard this week. She has no idea what he looks like. I asked her how old is this fella. She thought for a sec...mmmm...probably 38. Thats pretty awesome.
Click to expand...
 
When Jim posted about the possibility of offering a LC filter to replace the LPF filter there now, it is much different than just putting a LC on the front of your lens. I did a lot of testing with behind the lens LC when I was with Schneider Optics many years ago, using the Sony f900. The look was much more subtle behind the lens as the filter does not p/u all that ambient light a filter in a matte box does. Also the light passing thru a smaller area rear filter vs the same rays going thru a much larger front filter gives a much different look as the filter media stays the same. Schneider then offered a set of filters (Classic Soft and Black Frost) to replace the ND's in the f900.
Ken Robings
digitaloptik.net
 
Michael Jarvis said:
Jannard said:
Let’s see if we can clear up some Dragon misconceptions.



I am old. I am tired. I started Oakley 38 years ago. RED 7 years ago. In both cases my goal was to make a difference. To declare war on conventional thinking. Inventions wrapped in art. Dedicated to purpose beyond reason. Thermonuclear Protection.




I showed my wife a pic of Jim Jannard this week. She has no idea what he looks like. I asked her how old is this fella. She thought for a sec...mmmm...probably 38. Thats pretty awesome.
Click to expand...


Good thing you kept your hand over his odometer... That body and engine probably has a lot of miles on it. But, just like a car, if you take good care of it, it will last wayyyyyyy past it's estimated expiration date.

Old may someday be an extinct term when used in regard to a human.

Remember to protect your engine by using natural oil like those high in omega 3s, for example. Keep your body out of harsh sunlight for long periods, wash and wax (if you are hairy '-) and avoid the wear and tear of chronic stress.

There are no warranties for bodies yet, but that could change as we become able to re-grow body parts through Induced Pluripotency Cells taken from our own fat or skin. Just don't screw up and die before the science gets us there.
Click to expand...
 
"Then I would ask you to look at the total package above and tell me why I can't retire tomorrow having delivered what was promised… for less than $10K"


OK Jim, you can retire tomorrow, but we expect to see you back on the job the day after. ( :
 
Jon MIchael Puntervold said:
Btw: This is also why I love Red Epic, we can choose how we want our cameras to behave... with our without optical filters or HDRx (Alexa always use a built in HDRx-like feature, from what I've heard)
Click to expand...

They use several ARRI SCANNER technics with Alexa such as double flash (greater DR - artifacts are sometimes visible on alexa), LOG encoded data and etc...
 
Wow, just read this thread and a guy got banned for stating the absolute bleeding obvious? And a horde of people took what he said as a negative attack. A lot of very innocent things can be "heard" on the internet as personal attacks. Even neutral statements can be viewed as negative attacks.

What the guy was saying IMO was that RED, like pretty well everything in the whole bloody universe, is unique. We are unique, the sound of a Ferrari engine is unique, your favourite wine is unique, and if you managed to spirit yourself down into the sub atomic world of the RED algorithms and swim around Graeme's "special sauce' and his own mathematical "secret recipe" you'd find that it was pretty bloody unique too. If the guy said, "Boy, using my RED Epic excites me like hearing my own special Ferrari engine ROAR", then probably none of you would have had an issue with it and he wouldn't have got banned. So he gets banned for saying it's unique, he probably would have got banned if he said it was generic with no special qualities at all, that Graeme's magic is nothing more than hackwork to produce a bland, tasteless, dead flat clone of nothing. Sometimes you can't win either way.

The fact that a great majority automatically found it negative is time to cue The Twilight Zone music. I tend to agree with him, RED footage to me has its own flavour, and thank God for that, just like a film stock, just like lenses, just like everything worth anything, like yourself, like your kids, like your own creative ideas. I don't see that as a bad thing, and I don't see that as a negative thing. If someone says to me that they are offended because no-one in the world really understands that THEY can make RED footage look like Alexa, then their own fandom has gone insane. So you want to own something unique and wonderful, or you want to own something with no discernible characteristics whatsoever, that is so anonymous it shapeshifts into something it secretly wants to be like? All this bullshit about I can make my iPhone look like a 65mm film print with JUST THE RIGHT APP makes me projectile my Corn Flakes right across the room every time. This is more of that. It really is. So if you can just get your kid to dress and think and look and behave exactly like the kid down the road, then they can really be that kid, that's really what you aspire to for them? That's an eye-opener.

All these "formulaic" movies, if we just apply the same old template we can have a thousand of the same old films. Heck I even read an interview with a producer the other day where he actually (bona-fide, I'm serious) stated that he was "deeply troubled" DEEPLY TROUBLED that there weren't more remakes. He obviously can't sleep at night because he can't come up with an original idea of his own and is blocked from remaking the entire history of cinema filmography. There's nothing wrong with originality you know.

If I created a wine that I was extremely proud of, the last thing I would want to hear is someone say, well if I just add these five different ingredients I can make it taste like this other wine. Your wine is so good because we can make it taste like other wines. That's not a plus in my book. It all sounds over and over like this huge very insecure inferiority complex about the original product. Graeme and the whole team work tirelessly to improve the product, but I certainly hope it's not to make the end result generic or a completely blank canvass, or to look like film or to look like Arri. Personally I don't think that's possible (both in mathematical patented sub-atomic semantics) nor desirable. It may be an illusion, but it's not real at the core. Does Ferrari create a car that with just the right add-on kit you can make look and sound exactly like a Lada? I might be just behind the times, maybe the car of the 23rd Century is a blank white cube that you can make into whatever you imagine, which I bet will be some other car. I don't think I'm overly a fanboy of the cube people but maybe that's just me. Maybe there's uniqueness in creating blankness, I guess that's a philosophical discussion. To me anything worth having has its own unique edge. The white cube "opportunity" "advancement" "breakthrough" feels like to me just another way to deliver chinese sweat-shop, rip-off, pirated clones with no soul. It's definitely a philosophical issue and you could easily argue both ways... but I'm still not sure you can create "true" blankness.

RED should embrace its uniqueness, it seems to do so with everything else about its attitude. What the negative reaction seems to indicate is there is is obviously a lot of real attacks on RED out there in the industry that I don't see or hear, and these have built up over time, created a lot of pressure, and the responses are just a defensive reaction to that. That's understandable, particularly with the creators at RED, because they would hear a tsunami of everything, and maintaining a zen-like focus and belief I'm sure would be very difficult.

But for me, and I seem to be in the vast minority here, if I hear someone say, "that looks like RED", I don't immediately take it as an insult. I take it as a compliment.
 
@Mark Warren

Yes, thank you

+1 as many times as is needed for others to get it.
 
Mark, I totally agree. I love Red look, I can spot it almost every time. And yet sometimes when people want to match the footage for some reason - they can, and I've seen that dozens of times. Red has that unique look to it and I love it. But camera is a tool and Red camera can be used to make any style. I, for one, love crazy DR and high saturation so I am very excited about Dragon. But when some guys try and match Red footage with, say, film - it's great.
Because Red cameras give us something that not really common - flexability. It is not something that everybody wants nor should they. But for those who does - it is indeed a gift like no other.
 
Yep I also have to say it.
I can spot Red Footage a mile away. I'm an early adopter (Red 505).
But I know where I have to look at in a picture to find the Red signature.
Can Red Footage be changed to a point that almost nobody is able to tell. Of course but there are certain
characteristics to the footage, that won't go away entirely. The sensor gives it it's own look.

Go check out the Lone Survivor trailer with Mark Wahlberg. I'm sure every Red Epic owner can tell you in a second on what camera this movie has been shot. Well I did. Go check IMDB then you start to smile. http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/lonesurvivor/

Don't get me wrong an that one. I love my Epic, I love Red ever since. I'm a Red Soldier like Mark, trying to convince all the naysayers to shoot and work with it.
But I can spot the footage almost any time anywhere. (It's my little private game)

Semper Fi
Tim
 
I've kept up with the thread and I saw it starting out as an "I came here to bury Caesar, not to praise him." kind of thing but seemed to be shifting to instead trying to change opinion of the Dragon without ever even shooting Dragon, as far as anyone can tell.

I don't think you can take one statement like "I can spot RED footage" and declare that was why the person was banned. You have to take the total conversation and the tone it was written into account. I'm actually surprised there haven't been more people banned because it would appear by their manner they are here to undercut rather than to discuss.

Think of it like this... you just finished shooting a movie. Some of your friends and acquaintances have asked to see the rushes. You finally agree knowing you still have editing and finishing to do. Then they start poking holes in your story, the look of the footage, the acting... everything. Suddenly, everyone is a critic. Those who aren't chronic critics understand where you are in the process and try to point that out to the chronic critics, but the chronic critics are a force and they simply raise their volume.

I think RED understands that most people here on REDuser are fair minded and will save any concerns they have until after the release, so they went ahead and gave us a preview by way of the Mark Toia Test. I believe too that the only way to justify doing so is to silence the chronic critics for a time so the rest of us do not have our attention diverted from the progress Dragon has achieved so far.

That's just my take on why some people have been banned.
 
+1 Nicely said -

Elsie N said:
I've kept up with the thread and I saw it starting out as an "I came here to bury Caesar, not to praise him." kind of thing but seemed to be shifting to instead trying to change opinion of the Dragon without ever even shooting Dragon, as far as anyone can tell.

I don't think you can take one statement like "I can spot RED footage" and declare that was why the person was banned. You have to take the total conversation and the tone it was written into account. I'm actually surprised there haven't been more people banned because it would appear by their manner they are here to undercut rather than to discuss.

Think of it like this... you just finished shooting a movie. Some of your friends and acquaintances have asked to see the rushes. You finally agree knowing you still have editing and finishing to do. Then they start poking holes in your story, the look of the footage, the acting... everything. Suddenly, everyone is a critic. Those who aren't chronic critics understand where you are in the process and try to point that out to the chronic critics, but the chronic critics are a force and they simply raise their volume.

I think RED understands that most people here on REDuser are fair minded and will save any concerns they have until after the release, so they went ahead and gave us a preview by way of the Mark Toia Test. I believe too that the only way to justify doing so is to silence the chronic critics for a time so the rest of us do not have our attention diverted from the progress Dragon has achieved so far.

That's just my take on why some people have been banned.
Click to expand...
 
Mark Warren said:
Wow, just read this thread and a guy got banned for stating the absolute bleeding obvious? And a horde of people took what he said as a negative attack. A lot of very innocent things can be "heard" on the internet as personal attacks. Even neutral statements can be viewed as negative attacks.

What the guy was saying IMO was that RED, like pretty well everything in the whole bloody universe, is unique. We are unique, the sound of a Ferrari engine is unique, your favourite wine is unique, and if you managed to spirit yourself down into the sub atomic world of the RED algorithms and swim around Graeme's "special sauce' and his own mathematical "secret recipe" you'd find that it was pretty bloody unique too. If the guy said, "Boy, using my RED Epic excites me like hearing my own special Ferrari engine ROAR", then probably none of you would have had an issue with it and he wouldn't have got banned. So he gets banned for saying it's unique, he probably would have got banned if he said it was generic with no special qualities at all, that Graeme's magic is nothing more than hackwork to produce a bland, tasteless, dead flat clone of nothing. Sometimes you can't win either way.

The fact that a great majority automatically found it negative is time to cue The Twilight Zone music. I tend to agree with him, RED footage to me has its own flavour, and thank God for that, just like a film stock, just like lenses, just like everything worth anything, like yourself, like your kids, like your own creative ideas. I don't see that as a bad thing, and I don't see that as a negative thing. If someone says to me that they are offended because no-one in the world really understands that THEY can make RED footage look like Alexa, then their own fandom has gone insane. So you want to own something unique and wonderful, or you want to own something with no discernible characteristics whatsoever, that is so anonymous it shapeshifts into something it secretly wants to be like? All this bullshit about I can make my iPhone look like a 65mm film print with JUST THE RIGHT APP makes me projectile my Corn Flakes right across the room every time. This is more of that. It really is. So if you can just get your kid to dress and think and look and behave exactly like the kid down the road, then they can really be that kid, that's really what you aspire to for them? That's an eye-opener.

All these "formulaic" movies, if we just apply the same old template we can have a thousand of the same old films. Heck I even read an interview with a producer the other day where he actually (bona-fide, I'm serious) stated that he was "deeply troubled" DEEPLY TROUBLED that there weren't more remakes. He obviously can't sleep at night because he can't come up with an original idea of his own and is blocked from remaking the entire history of cinema filmography. There's nothing wrong with originality you know.

If I created a wine that I was extremely proud of, the last thing I would want to hear is someone say, well if I just add these five different ingredients I can make it taste like this other wine. Your wine is so good because we can make it taste like other wines. That's not a plus in my book. It all sounds over and over like this huge very insecure inferiority complex about the original product. Graeme and the whole team work tirelessly to improve the product, but I certainly hope it's not to make the end result generic or a completely blank canvass, or to look like film or to look like Arri. Personally I don't think that's possible (both in mathematical patented sub-atomic semantics) nor desirable. It may be an illusion, but it's not real at the core. Does Ferrari create a car that with just the right add-on kit you can make look and sound exactly like a Lada? I might be just behind the times, maybe the car of the 23rd Century is a blank white cube that you can make into whatever you imagine, which I bet will be some other car. I don't think I'm overly a fanboy of the cube people but maybe that's just me. Maybe there's uniqueness in creating blankness, I guess that's a philosophical discussion. To me anything worth having has its own unique edge. The white cube "opportunity" "advancement" "breakthrough" feels like to me just another way to deliver chinese sweat-shop, rip-off, pirated clones with no soul. It's definitely a philosophical issue and you could easily argue both ways... but I'm still not sure you can create "true" blankness.

RED should embrace its uniqueness, it seems to do so with everything else about its attitude. What the negative reaction seems to indicate is there is is obviously a lot of real attacks on RED out there in the industry that I don't see or hear, and these have built up over time, created a lot of pressure, and the responses are just a defensive reaction to that. That's understandable, particularly with the creators at RED, because they would hear a tsunami of everything, and maintaining a zen-like focus and belief I'm sure would be very difficult.

But for me, and I seem to be in the vast minority here, if I hear someone say, "that looks like RED", I don't immediately take it as an insult. I take it as a compliment.
Click to expand...
I don't think you understand the discussion.
 
Well, I happen to be in the same camp. But that is part of why I chose to invest in RED.

I've owned my share of film cameras - selecting the film stock based on the conditions I would be shooting in and the desired look.
I've owned numerous Panasonic and SONY video cameras over the years once they were technically capable of results I could feel comfortable delivering.
While improvements in the technology continued, I simply could not justify owning a Genesis, SI2K or ARRI D-21.

Then along came RED. A mantra of "Obsolescence obsolete" that might, just might, break the cycle of continually replacing cameras. Add to that a promise of high resolution at a cost that many naysayers called a scam.

There was a "look" to the images. It was first apparent in the shot of the Milk Girls.
When watching Crossing the Line only days after they wrapped, it was not just demonstrating extremely high quality, grain-free images without projection artifacts, there was a look to what we saw.
And it was impressive.

Yes, there is a visual quality attributable to RED images that some with trained eyes can identify. It comes not only from the sensor, Graeme proves that there is art behind the color science - continually improving the toolset we have to work with.
The results are apparent throughout the industry.

My joy is being able to put that capability to work.
 
That's pretty much spot-on, Elsie. I'm sorry to see Rick go... He's been here since the beginning and has always had good things to say on this forum. I don't think there were any ill intentions behind his conversation, but nonetheless, I can see why it ended this way. It was not the time or the place for that sort of discussion, and the tone was a bit off. He may not have conveyed his true message the way he wanted. It wasn't just one statement or one of his posts, it was the sum of the conversation. When Jim tells you that you're pissing him off, remember this is his house and he will show you the door. There are times it's better to back off than to try to explain yourself. Do you walk into a neighbor's house and tell him you can spot his daughter a mile away because of the clothes she wears? Regardless of how that could be meant, even if you're trying to help, it doesn't sound good and it's bound to piss someone off...
 
One thing we can say looking at that is that the whole "skintones thing" has been utter bullshit from day one. :)

david
 
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