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Epic and doc shooting

D Fuller

D Fuller

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Brook Willard said:
The laptop is dead for data... :) Been dead for a while in my eyes.

Great for other stuff on set.
Click to expand...

So... The Spidey Epic thread is fascinating, but the discussion of data rates, and what they mean to data wrangling is a little sobering.

What do you who really do have some experience with the data requirements of Epic recommend for doc-style shooting on Epic in a situation where a MacPro workstation and all that accompanies it is just not practical? Lower resolution? Just buy a carload of SSDs? What do you think?

And what about situations where battery power is required? Epic is a great portable camera solution for many styles of shooting. How will it be possible to work without the anchor of a full-on workstation-scale DIT cart and the generator it would take to run it? Is a Macbook Pro with an eSata card really not a viable data transfer solution?
 
David,

I think it's becoming very clear that SSD is the only solution. Depending on the style of doc shoot, i'd do this:

- The epic rig that TED is walking around with.
- A short zoom and a long zoom.
- Batteries - a lot of them - (solar power to charge?)
- High capacity SSD - a lot of them 5-10 proably in remote locations
- Depending on the length of the shoot this will get you the package you need to get all of the benefit of filming EPIC r3d in remote locations.

Data wise.

It's going to be MORE data which means more time, computing power, etc. and we know that there won't be any DIT's around on doc shoots.

If you have a hotel room and a high end laptop with a RED SSD and base station you could probably comfortably back up to drives each shoot day.

David
 
Remember, also, that there is something to be said for the variable compression scheme of REDCODE. Just because someone is shooting 5:1 on a major studio production doesn't mean an indie doc couldn't shoot closer to 10:1 and still wrap with ridiculously good looking footage.

Testing, of course, will sort out the true veracity of these possibilities.
 
Michael Olsen said:
Remember, also, that there is something to be said for the variable compression scheme of REDCODE. Just because someone is shooting 5:1 on a major studio production doesn't mean an indie doc couldn't shoot closer to 10:1 and still wrap with ridiculously good looking footage.

Testing, of course, will sort out the true veracity of these possibilities.
Click to expand...

Yes,

But 10:1 on EPIC is way more data than 10:1 on the R1, because of teh extra 1000 or so pxiels, frame size, etc.

So even at 10:1 it's more to contend with and a higher data rate than 4K.

But I agree, the shits gonna look HOT!

David
 
I'm wondering if a EPIC cam is really a wise choise for a doc... It's a cinema cam, then you have to plan each scene (focus, light) and have a focus puller with you.

I guess that a Scarlet 8X with servo-focus, iris & zoom would be more practical, on a run & gun rig.
 
Benoît-Joan Clariana-Roig said:
I'm wondering if a EPIC cam is really a wise choise for a doc... It's a cinema cam, then you have to plan each scene (focus, light) and have a focus puller with you.
Click to expand...

I've done it often on R1. It will be easier with EPIC because of size, form factor, lighter batteries and the ability to use stills glass and also the touch focus controls on the touch screen.

Literally, you can hold the rig in one hand and point to what you want in focus on the touchscreen.

I think it will be MUCH easier than with the REDONE which was still doable.

David
 
Jason, I wouldn't ever shoot at 2K unless you needed the extra fps for slow motion.
 
FYI, we are using the RedOne for documentary projects since early 2008. Before Red I used my trusty old Arri SR S16mm camera and the Canon PL zoom 8-64 for such tasks. Personally I find the shallow DOF of S35mm for documentaries mostly not practical and distracting, often adding a look and feel that is manneristic or just plain out of focus. But the RedOne is not tied to S35mm/4K which is great.

Since almost 3 years now I'm using my Canon 8-64 with the RedOne shooting in 3K 2.1 mode. We crop the 3K 2:1 image in RedCineX to 2.500 x 1406 which is necessary to get rid of the strong portholing of the S16 lens. With 2.500 x 1406 pixels RAW I get full resolving 1080p RGB when one counts in a debayer factor of 0.8. IMHO, 2K is not an option.

Good S16 zooms have the advantage that they have a higher magnification rate than 35mm zooms at the same or smaller size/weight. The Canon 8-64 is pretty wide in the beginning and ends at 64mm. This a very useful range of FOV. A comparable lens for 4k, or 5K for that matter, is much, much bigger, making convenient hand held operation impossible.

An other advantage of the 3K mode is the lesser data rate. With 3K you can record approx. 50% more footage to a CF/SSD card.

The pictures I achieve this way are still superior over that what a Sony F900R can achieve which is a fine documentary camera. Even the high sensitivity of the Sony's sensor is with the advent of MX sensor no advantage anymore, not to mention the much better DR. Only the ergonomics of the Sony are much better. But this will change with Epic, hopefully.

I will use Epic for S16mm projects the same way I'm using the RedOne in the moment with the huge advantage that Epic will be much lighter and easier to operate and with the MX sensor and the HDR option outperform any 2/3 pro camera.

While I understand that Red is moving away from CF and SSD is taking over, I wish there was a substitute of the Nexto which is a very valuable back-up device in the field.



Hans
 
Feature film bomb-proofing happens at a much higher standard than most doc bomb-proofing, pure and simple.

On feature sets, I'll make three copies of everything, checksums blah blah blah.

On docs, only two copies, and I'll just check visually - some days, depending on the day, only one copy. Some days - I won't make any copies in the field - just drag the footage back to the studio, if the shooting is local, and set it up on a RAID 5 overnight and move it to LTO-4 at a later date.

What I used to be able to do with one laptop in the field will probably require more than one.

I think that the EPIC will be an absolutely outstanding camera for shooting documentaries. It's size and weight and the easy availability of a Canon mount mean that this camera is gonna kill it for this kind of work. Figuring out the storage is just another hiccup.

It means more investment in media and storage -- but in exchange you get to document non-repeatable moments in footage formats which will future-proof those images, probably past most of our lifetimes.

The reality is that RED ONE already required a large investment in storage and archival media - I had to buy more powerful towers, more RAID, LTO --

I just dropped $1,325 on 50 LTO-4 tapes last week...

And people complain about SCARLET pricing - they have no clue about the scale of the real investment. They complain about how a thousand bucks will put the camera out of reach. When they'll spend five hundred in the first week, just buying storage space...if they actually take it out of the box and shoot it...

Can you run your camera with a laptop (or two) and a pair of portable 500 gb drives, with an overnight dump to a wad of cheap hard drives? - of course you can, that is the beauty of RED and REDCODE. I'm sure that will still be an option with EPIC. I filled 5 TB of portable drives on a 18-day documentary RED ONE shoot in a fast environment. But I still had to drag the drives home and put the data somewhere, hello. Which meant clearing space on my 8 TB RAID and doing big data transfers to LTO-4. All of which takes time. A lot of time. But even fatter pipes would mean spending more money.

You can choose to spend time or you can choose to spend money. But the expenditure on the workflow will cost you, in one or both of these.

Having hard data from Michael Cioni regarding transfer and storage is very useful in terms of preparing for an EPIC future. But I can't imagine anyone is surprised by this, unless they aren't using their RED ONE cameras.
 
Good points covered by David, Hans, and Meryem in this thread...

I've been shooting documentaries with Red One since August 31, 2007 when I received my first Red camera (Red 0008). I bought three other Red One cameras after that and all of them have been used extensively by me and my crews in a mobile hybrid non-hardlined EFP style of field production. Mobility is critical in doc work. The genres we work in are adventure travel, alternative sports, nature, music, lifestyles, cultures, wildlife, and tourism.

To achieve that high mobility, we don't use matte boxes (we use screw-on filters), don't use follow focus units (hand rack focus by operator), use 35mm still lenses almost exclusively, don't use an AC or dedicated focus puller (operator focuses by eye), and expose quickly using zebra and histogram. Nothing is put on my Red camera doc rigs which doesn't absolutely have to be there - again lightness enhances mobility.

For high-end work we usually shoot 4k, but for documentaries we shoot 3k. The DOF we can achieve in 3k is right for docs, the data rate is lower for longform work, and 3k down-rezzes and down-samples to beautiful 1080p for our usual delivery mediums. We check footage each night using a Mac Pro laptop, and back up dually to a drive and LTO.

I'm buying multiple Epic and fixed lens Scarlet for the mobile work we do. With Epic we'll use the side handle with batteries in it (carrying several batteries), a Bomb EVF (for interviews, shoulder held, etc.), the small LCD (for high and low angle shooting), several SSD, Nikon and Canon zooms with screw-on filters (switching to Red Electronic zooms when they're available), a lightweight CF tripod if needed, a Cine Saddle, a short shotgun, a small dual wireless mic system, a Lite Panels Mini (on-camera mount for quick interviews), and a shoulder mount system (from ET or RED).

For super mobile work, my crews are usually just two people - the operator and a production assistant. For more stationary work the crews sometimes grow to three when I add on a dedicated sound person.

IMO the fixed lens Scarlet will be a great mobile production camera. The camera setup will be naturally kept light, using the side handle and batteries, SSD, internal ND filters (augmented by screw-ons as needed), screw-on or bayonet 2x extender and .65x zoom through wide converter, and the other accessories I mentioned for Epic as needed. With Scarlet we'll have the option to either shoot 3k Raw or 1080p RGB as needed.

Ever since August 2007 I've been seeing posts here on Red User from strictly cine-style shooters stating that Red One couldn't or shouldn't be used in mobile EFP-style production. Me and others have proved those comments wrong from the beginning. IMO Epic and fixed lens Scarlet, being much smaller, and featuring a long list of EFP-friendly features, should be outstanding mobile EFP and documentary cameras. They should be much more EFP and doc friendly cameras than Red One has been - and Red One has been great for those applications when used by people experienced in that style of production.

Again, David, Hans, and Meryem have made some good points in this thread. Hopefully my input above will shed some further light on mobile EFP and doc shooting with Red One - and Epic and Scarlet to come.
 
@Meryem

With what Michael posted in the Spider-Man thread really sobered up a lot of people who were picturing something else for their DIT needs.

Personally, my estimated budget for storage and data management needs to be doubled at least. For docs, I can see the workflow suggested here working out. For features, the big guns need to be brought in. Two MacPros, I'm thinking. Each with 2x RAID 5's, RedRocket, 1.8"SSD station, SAS card, decked out with an LTO-4 deck. Needless to say, eSATA connecting it all.

And that's not even mentioning what HDRx™ will do to storage and data management....

I think my bank account just had a seizure as I wrote the above.
 
Benoît-Joan Clariana-Roig said:
I'm wondering if a EPIC cam is really a wise choise for a doc... It's a cinema cam, then you have to plan each scene (focus, light) and have a focus puller with you.

I guess that a Scarlet 8X with servo-focus, iris & zoom would be more practical, on a run & gun rig.
Click to expand...

There was a time when documentaries were shot on 35mm film and in that regard focus is no different.... and the epic is far and away more light sensitive (and smaller) than any 35mm film camera I can think of... two big advantages.

In terms of storage: I would personally rather struggle with offloading and hard drive space than film stock. Also, computers will get faster and smaller and HD's storage capacity will get bigger and faster. The cost of all this gear will get cheaper.
 
David Lagos said:
With what Michael posted in the Spider-Man thread really sobered up a lot of people who were picturing something else for their DIT needs.
Click to expand...

While I am sure that is true, there have been many, many posts from RED ONE owners in response to SCARLET users who have complained about pricing, which pretty said the same thing I just did..."if you think the camera is expensive, get ready for the other costs of ownership" -- and they don't listen, they think owning the camera will be meaningful to their ability to produce great images. So, if Michael's post is a big wake-up call pointing towards the realities of data management, that's a good thing.

But you gotta put your data somewhere. Shoot one indie feature film, non stereo, and you will need 10 TB of space, just to back it up - that's like 20-30 days of shooting. Where will you put stuff once you've owned the camera for a year, hm? Masses of cheap hard drives are fine for temporary purposes but invite data failure over time.

And that goes double for documentaries. Long interviews make big files! I once shot a 3 hour greenscreen interview at 4K and it used over 300gb of my 350gb drive. One file - crazy, huh?
 
Meryem Ersoz said:
While I am sure that is true, there have been many, many posts from RED ONE owners in response to SCARLET users who have complained about pricing, which pretty said the same thing I just did..."if you think the camera is expensive, get ready for the other costs of ownership" -- and they don't listen, they think owning the camera will be meaningful to their ability to produce great images. So, if Michael's post is a big wake-up call pointing towards the realities of data management, that's a good thing.

But you gotta put your data somewhere. Shoot one indie feature film, non stereo, and you will need 10 TB of space, just to back it up - that's like 20-30 days of shooting. Where will you put stuff once you've owned the camera for a year, hm? Masses of cheap hard drives are fine for temporary purposes but invite data failure over time.

And that goes double for documentaries. Long interviews make big files! I once shot a 3 hour greenscreen interview at 4K and it used over 300gb of my 350gb drive. One file - crazy, huh?
Click to expand...

Crazy indeed.

One can only hope that storage solutions will adapt to the growing market of digital motion pictures being made, but who knows? I'm pretty sure RED would benefit from doing some research into this and probably coming up with a solution, similar to how the built their own kind of SSD. You know, proprietery stuff made specifically for their own cameras with specifics tailored for long term and short term storage.

Of course, that would depend on how reliable their new generation of SSD pans out in the long run, if they ever (not likely) choose to go that route.

I see a "RED should make long term storage media available" thread popping up any day now.
 
A lot of the major post facilities in Toronto and Vancouver are offering R1/Epic workflows to include long term data storage as part of their expertise...they've seen how Red has changed the industry and realized they had to adapt or lose business, and these are places with serious hardware.

For us, it's different because we have 3 Avids and can actually finish and deliver at 1080 on SR (man I hope this changes soon -Hello Red Ray?) so we're ok from a data POV knowing what the end result is for a given project...LTO is the backup and we don't expect we're ever going to need to go back once we've onlined and delivered -with the exception of stock footage.

We're prepping our doc for CBC right now, and are extremely lucky to have DOP/operator, focus puller, DMT, and sound people plus myself as director for our 20+ days of shooting. So we're in good shape, though given the fact we have a dedicated focus puller we may opt for primes.

The size of my MX (fingers crossed on Epic-M) with the 18-85 can appear to be unruly but I make it work...and when it's that big, it forces one as a filmmaker to really think about your sequences and what you're shooting, precisely because you don't want to have to do so many setups.

So when you think about physical camera moves/setups along with the new data requirements it's going to force you think more intelligently -just as those who shot docs on 35...every frame had to be justified. And I think that could actually be a good thing...the HDV cams of the world meant go ahead and roll on everything -which I've never been fond of because at the end of the day you have to go through all of that footage which only takes up more time.

Be clear as a filmmaker and have discipline; we now have the greatest tool available to us, so let's use it wisely.
 
I know this thread is primarily about data -- but since rigs/mobility are being discussed I will say that (having just held the Epic) using it handheld with some minor support like OGrips, or RRMicro or Zacuto stabilizers will be fine as long as you get some breaks in shooting.

And with the autofocus/touch focus feature on the Epic, the Canon L-lenses provide astounding value.

Granted, it's not like the "DSLR dream" for people who hope to have everything under $10,000 .... but I bet you can get an Epic-S (price pending), some Canon Primes (or zooms), EVF, LCD, SSD's, and other pieces you'll need to manage data all for under $30k --- and the beauty is you'll have just about everything you need (technologically) to make as beautiful a doc as anything that's ever graced the big screen.

Not bad IMHO.
 
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