EPIC - ARRI, SIDE BY SIDE FACTS.

[Deanan]

For presentation though I question whether or not 2K is sufficient in the home. Even with wall sized displays - most of our walls just aren't that big

2k is not sufficient once we get to wall sized displays.
2k has always been the bare MINIMUM for theatrical experience.

By the same token, why bother shooting 35mm or 65mm if 16mm is passable?

 

[Mark Toia]

Mark, as a DP who likes to compose his images, the ability to blow them up radically and reframe them is WAY down on my list of priorities, if anything, it's the one thing I wish there was rarely any ability to fix or change, i'd almost rather live with a mistake in the shot. Last thing I really want is an editor to take all my medium shots and turn them into close-ups, there are already too many close-ups in the final cut most of the time. I wish there was a frame "lock" feature that only the cinematographer could unlock...

Not to mention, it's not a 4K image anymore if you crop and blow it up by 500%...

A clever reply David... touché

I like bantering with you, Your a smart man.

My retort:
I'm one of those rare breed that actually Shoots all of his own work. I'm a Photographer that got dragged into directing. The framing I shoot on the day is usually the frame that goes into the movie... BUT!!!!
Since I added another string to my bow (many moons ago) , "Editing all of my own work", and realised quite quickly that the DP does not make all the rules and can quite quickly screw things up for you in an edit and all of a sudden your starting to compromise the flow due to either having to many wides, or mediums or what ever you decided on the day. A locked off shot may stifle the movies flow between shots, when a held held may be better etc.. all this made me rethink framing within visual story telling.
So now I have choice to either stay wide or crop in well after the fact. Meaning if I did not get the coverage I wanted on set, because of bad weather, bad continuity, bad acting, one of the 5 cameras fails, Actor walks out early.. etc etc etc. Producer ran out of money.. blah blah blah. I now know I have choices and am not locked into anything shot on the day.

So yes to your answer a 500% blow up is now not 5k. But lucky for us, RED's noiseless clarity comes into play and saves the day. Thank you Mr RED.
You can blow up a RED image and it still holds on well and still projects well with little loss. Hence how good the original file is. (this comes down to a good lens as well)

Your a very accomplished DP and I have alot of time for your experienced logical feedback and arguments. But you don't live in post or editing land as I do, you have probably looked into this world from over shoulders.
The benefits of working with a 5k image instead of a 2k PRORES is worlds apart.

Once again David, I don't really care if my stuff is projected on 2k or 4k screens, I'm all about the finished look of it all and the freedom I have to play with it right to the very end in post. Weather my pictures are seen on a large screen or your iphone means shit all to me.

Your DP views of having your frame locked so people cannot touch it is selfish, (very DP minded) Directors vision, Producers money. It's not your movie, it's there's..

I'm probably more a team player and am open to change.

 

[Jannard]

If someone had said... "you can shoot the equivalent image quality of 65mm film in a camera the size of a Hasselblad for 1/10th the cost of a Sony F35..." you would have thought that the person was nuts. And BTW it has no grain. And it shoots 120fps. And is made in the USA.

But let's compare it with a 1080P camera. Really?

I have to say that this is a dark moment for me.

Jim

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Sometimes it seems like I am alone with this concept (accept Jarred and Deanan)... ugh.

Jim

You're not alone. Personally, I don't want to ever be restricted by resolution, limited color space, etc..

Walls of images is how I see the future too -- even the near future. Technologies like printable OLED films are on the near horizon. Along with economical 4K projection. Meaning I could turn any wall space inside a home, office, retail store, etc.. into a high-resoltuion display. 1920x1080 HD was first demonstrated 30+ years ago. It has been a consumer display and broadcast standard for over a decade. It's painful to sit here today and see that most "HD" cameras can still not acquire enough measurable resolution to deliver a pristine HD image. And we see cinema production slip from 35mm film acquisition to many forms of digital acquisition that can't measure 1080p. Quite disturbing. The whole "good enough" mindset is barely passable for garbage clips on YouTube, and yet it prevails in professional production environments. People complain about dealing with 2K and 4K post as if it's some mystical voodoo... And yet they don't pause for a moment to realize that 4K post is a breeze today compared to what 720p post was only 6 years ago.

People who look at your other announced cameras in the form of the EPIC-645 and EPIC-617 and wonder what they could be used for are not seeing the big picture. <pun sort of intended>

4K is great, it's a 35mm replacement. 5K is even better. These are all stepping stones toward whatever abilities the future may hold. Brink on 6K, 9K, 28K, etc.. I'm ready when you are! In the mean time, I will enjoy 5K on EPIC-M. And I must say that 5KFF @ 96fps is like crack.

 

[Martin Weiss]

I could understand the arguments for a different camera system if it was more affordable or superior. But why argue for the costlier option that has lower resolution, lower frame rate, lower ...

In older times you had to use 16mm if you couldn't afford 35mm. If you couldn't afford 16mm, it was DigiBeta or 8mm. And now you can afford 65mm, you still go for 16mm?

 

[paulherrin]

now jim. you have a good vision. you're gonna have to realize it'll take the rest of the world some time to catch up.

 

[JanneJansson]

Myself and my gear is a package deal and Alexa is out of my budget anyway, so Epic-x is more then gear-porn, it's hope for the future.

 

[Jannard]

Let me think... more resolution, dynamic range, filmic, smaller, cheaper, lighter and free upgrades. Free software and trade-ins.

I just don't understand what people are thinking... really. I don't think we deserve to be spoken in the same sentence... let alone the same headline.

Side by side?

Jim

 

[robert browning]

Jim, this comes back to having the foresight, the vision to see what the future holds. Clearly you have an abundance of it. Your successes in life are tangible proof of that. I don't understand how anyone would not want to film in the highest resolution available to them.

If someone had said... "you can shoot the equivalent image quality of 65mm film in a camera the size of a Hasselblad for 1/10th the cost of a Sony F35..." you would have thought that the person was nuts. And BTW it has no grain. And it shoots 120fps. And is made in the USA.

But let's compare it with a 1080P camera. Really?

I have to say that this is a dark moment for me.

Jim

 

[shashbugu]

If someone had said... "you can shoot the equivalent image quality of 65mm film in a camera the size of a Hasselblad for 1/10th the cost of a Sony F35..." you would have thought that the person was nuts. And BTW it has no grain. And it shoots 120fps. And is made in the USA.

But let's compare it with a 1080P camera. Really?

I have to say that this is a dark moment for me.

Jim

Must I remind you all Brook Willard warned us all to play nice, that means, Mark, David and Jim. This has actually been a more intelligent discussion than the usual Epic vs Alexa threads.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Why a dark moment? Because some of us can think up some counter-arguments or only agree with you 90% of the time, not 100% of the time? By which I mean, I'm not fully convinced that all TV shows have to be shot in 4K. I'm sorry, that's just my opinion... and it may change in the coming years. But having just shot three seasons of "United States of Tara" for Showtime on the Genesis camera, I really don't think many people will be screaming to see it in 4K ten years from now - not enough people were screaming to see it now, which is why it has been cancelled. It's a domestic drama-comedy of people talking in kitchens and bedrooms, and half the time, I had diffusion on the lens to flatter the actors. It just wasn't a show that demanded 65mm image quality. So from my experience going out on job interviews for various TV shows, some of them just half-hour comedies where people sit on a couch and talk, the last thing I want to do is get into an argument with a studio executive about the need to protect for a 4K TV future when they are asking me why I need to shoot in Log or RAW when it's cheaper to just shoot in 4:2:2 Rec.709.

I know, that's not sexy or exciting or visionary, that's sort of mundane. But that's the reality out there in TV land. Maybe it is depressing, I don't know.

I'm 100% behind you on the need to get digital cinema into 4K, but I'm not convinced that half the stuff on TV really needs to be sharper than 1080P. That's just my opinion. A lot of TV shows are about making women look great, particularly middle-aged women, and sometimes that means not going for maximum resolution, there are other priorities that come first that affect which camera you use, how you do the post, etc. To some extent, TV has always been a volume business, hours and hours of product being produced monthly. And so I see 4K as being more of a long-shot for TV than I do for features, where at least it feels like a argument can be made and potentially won (though I have yet to shoot a project that was finished in 4K.)

And maybe this is just my own personal prejudice, but I don't want TV and theatrical features to be the same picture quality, same resolution -- it just accelerates the movement away from theaters into the home. I want movies in theaters to be measurably better-looking on the big screen, I want it to be a two-tiered structure, 4K for cinema, 2K for the home so to speak. I don't want to give people that option of letting movie theaters die off and retreating into their personal 4K theaters at home. But that's just me, I'm old-fashioned, I like sitting in a dark theater, having the curtains open, seeing a 25' tall screen.

 

[Mark Toia]

Let me think... more resolution, dynamic range, filmic, smaller, cheaper, lighter and free upgrades. Free software and trade-ins.

I just don't understand what people are thinking... really. I don't think we deserve to be spoken in the same sentence... let alone the same headline.

Side by side?

Jim

I tend to agree

 

[Mark Toia]

OK! STOP STOP!!!.

Lets all stop for 30 mins.. take a breath. phew...

This has to be the fastest moving thread ever.. . I'm like puffed out, I have to look back now and see what I've missed. See who I've upset.

It's been a fun one for sure, but lets just slow up a bit. MAN!

David. Jim, (me) ... (and who ever else wants to tag along) wouldn't this be so much better in a little Irish pub, raining outside, low tungsten lighting, the sound of rain dripping from the roof onto the cobbles, a little fire in the corner, and old man smoking a pipe telling us to keep it down... ooooohhhh.... An old woman serving us drinks laughing at us like we are a bunch of kids having our first beer. .., Hang on.. I think I feel a script coming on.

 

[shashbugu]

Why a dark moment? Because some of us can think up some counter-arguments or only agree with you 90% of the time, not 100% of the time? By which I mean, I'm not fully convinced that all TV shows have to be shot in 4K. I'm sorry, that's just my opinion... and it may change in the coming years. But having just shot three seasons of "United States of Tara" for Showtime on the Genesis camera, I really don't think many people will be screaming to see it in 4K ten years from now - not enough people were screaming to see it now, which is why it has been cancelled. It's a domestic drama-comedy of people talking in kitchens and bedrooms, and half the time, I had diffusion on the lens to flatter the actors. It just wasn't a show that demanded 65mm image quality. So from my experience going out on job interviews for various TV shows, some of them just half-hour comedies where people sit on a couch and talk, the last thing I want to do is get into an argument with a studio executive about the need to protect for a 4K TV future when they are asking me why I need to shoot in Log or RAW when it's cheaper to just shoot in 4:2:2 Rec.709.

I know, that's not sexy or exciting or visionary, that's sort of mundane. But that's the reality out there in TV land. Maybe it is depressing, I don't know.

I'm 100% behind you on the need to get digital cinema into 4K, but I'm not convinced that half the stuff on TV really needs to be sharper than 1080P. That's just my opinion. A lot of TV shows are about making women look great, particularly middle-aged women, and sometimes that means not going for maximum resolution, there are other priorities that come first that affect which camera you use, how you do the post, etc. To some extent, TV has always been a volume business, hours and hours of product being produced monthly. And so I see 4K as being more of a long-shot for TV than I do for features, where at least it feels like a argument can be made and potentially won (though I have yet to shoot a project that was finished in 4K.)

And maybe this is just my own personal prejudice, but I don't want TV and theatrical features to be the same picture quality, same resolution -- it just accelerates the movement away from theaters into the home. I want movies in theaters to be measurably better-looking on the big screen, I want it to be a two-tiered structure, 4K for cinema, 2K for the home so to speak. I don't want to give people that option of letting movie theaters die off and retreating into their personal 4K theaters at home. But that's just me, I'm old-fashioned, I like sitting in a dark theater, having the curtains open, seeing a 25' tall screen.

I agree with you on the Production cost side of things. But television manufacturers do not care what quality is played in the theaters whether 2k or 4k. They will build 4k displays creating the consumer demand for 4K media. Its inevitible

 

[Jannard]

David... you can agree with me 0% of the time... no problem. But why think the future is determined by the present? That seems very short-sighted to me. If the tools are available, why would you choose less? It is cheaper to shoot more right now. It is depressing to me that others just don't see it.

Sorry. I love your work. But 1080P and 2K for whatever reason just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. None. Zip. Nada. For Features or TV.

Jim

Why a dark moment? Because some of us can think up some counter-arguments or only agree with you 90% of the time, not 100% of the time? By which I mean, I'm not fully convinced that all TV shows have to be shot in 4K.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Jim if you think RED's greatest achievement is 4k I feel like you're selling yourself horribly short. RED has been a significant 'force for good' in motion picture acquisition... and it also happens to shoot 4k+. Even if every project ever shot on RED ends up ultimately being delivered in 1080p--the progress that the company is making in advancing the field is significant.

It's like Neil Armstrong raving about NASA's Tang program. And I love me some Tang but I would prefer a moon buggy.

If Sony suddenly came out with... I don't know... an 8K camera it wouldn't automatically eclipse RED or Epic. There is more to a Red than Ks in its Spec Sheet.

 

[Jarred Land]

By which I mean, I'm not fully convinced that all TV shows have to be shot in 4K. I'm sorry, that's just my opinion... and it may change in the coming years. But having just shot three seasons of "United States of Tara" for Showtime on the Genesis camera, I really don't think many people will be screaming to see it in 4K ten years from now - not enough people were screaming to see it now, which is why it has been cancelled. It's a domestic drama-comedy of people talking in kitchens and bedrooms,.

You need to talk to the studio that owns the rights to "Welcome Back, Kotter" .... a show that was cancelled early and that was shot on low resolution video tape and lost any chance of syndication past 480p.

Seriously... I know you know them... talk to them... They have a great opinion on the dead-end of 1080p...

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

This is why i love REDUSER EPIC THREAD

 

[Mark Toia]

It's to much for me! ... I'm jumping off before it crashes!

 

[Rick Darge]

You started this Mark! Too late!