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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 :)

Favourite Reduser Quotes™™™™™™™™™™™™

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Gunleik Groven said:
I am a huge fan of "using what I have instead of what I have not"

Which means.
Natural lights are welcome
So are 12k hmi's

It is kinda "all good", i try just to use whatever is there for me and try to not be limited by conditions, rather try to adapt to conditions.

THAT does not mean I am opposed to huge rigs. Rather the oposite.

But if I don't have the infrastructure, I try to not sit down and do nothing. [...]

Just how I enjoy to work myself...

If I have Masters and HMI's I'll use them.

If I have a crappy 40's zoom I'll use that.

The images will not look the same, for sure. But then again, I have no set definition of "perfection" besides being happy with what I do...
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Gunleik Groven said:
Frank Zappa (whom I am a fan of, alongside Becket, Havel, Chaplin, Kubrick and others) ... Anyhow...

In 1981, he released a (totally unusable, when we look at the tech available back then) album called "Shut up and play yer guitar". Really a bunch of albums.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut_Up_'n_Play_Yer_Guitar

I heard somewhere that it was a slight response to some comments about his capacity as a musician....

I kinda like that attitude...


"Shut up and shoot that cam"

Maybe that could be the name of this thread...
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Handling of external harddisks; best practice:

Robert Hart said:
The spindle bearing on several consumer level drives I have had a look at is a plain bearing sliding round a very shiny immaculately finished shaft. Whatever they use to lube the surfaces must be some miracle mix. They appear to be dry.

Caution 1.
There is less gravitational load on the bearing/shaft if the drive is sitting flat. If it is upright like a book on edge in a bookshelf then the bearing/shaft is working harder with loadbearing along its entire length versus the smaller thrust faces at the ends = more friction. With the SI2K recording to a laptop with HDD, we found that the laptop had to be sitting flat otherwise the performance of the drive fell away and the buffer memory rammed out.

Caution 2.
Before moving any drive, let the spindle run down a few minutes until it has surely stopped. If you pick it up and twist it on axis, the spindle bearing may become overloaded by gyroscopic forces and pick up ( seize ).

Caution 3.
When connecting a drive to a USB port which is supplying power, make sure the drive itself is not flopping about due to movement of the cord as you attempt to shove the plug in the port. Make sure the drive is secure against movement during its duty cycle. Tape it down to the desk surface if need be. If you pick up a still-spinning drive and you feel a little thud when you move it, the bearing has locked up on the shaft. Even if it comes free when it cools down, it may become worn enough that the drive becomes unreliable.


I have had two identical WD passport drives bought the same day become as cheese and chalk. One was formatted on a Mac to copy vision files for playback and archiving on a Windows machine. Until it was Mac formatted it would not work on the Mac. Since then, even if reformatted in Windows NTFS, it is as slow as a wet week compared to its brother. There may be some proprietary firmware which gets mounted during a Mac format. I am only guessing here, so heed the wisdom of others who comment, versus my ramblings.


This is only my observation of the behaviour of some drives and should not be regarded as technically or scientifically valid.
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Jarred Land said:
Definitely the hardest part is not telling you guys all this stuff as it happens...

in some ways i wish it was still the good old days when we could share everything we were doing and the competition would just laugh at us.

Now the competition is paying attention.. and as humbly as I can say this.. it seems we are dictating some of their roadmaps.
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Jannard said:
It all starts with the sensor…

How is it that RED could enter the cinema camera market 7 years ago and now about 50% of the released features are "Shot on RED"?

How is it that Canon owned the professional stills market 3 years ago and now Nikon is handing them their @ss?

How did Arri convert all the old-school film guys to the Alexa?

Sensors, baby. Sensors.

[...]

Of course there are other factors that matter in this highly competitive and fast changing market. Who will upgrade the sensor in your existing camera instead of making you buy a new camera?
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Jannard said:
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was shot on film by Peter Jackson. He shot 7 million feet of film for all three features.

Peter has now shot The Hobbit on RED EPICs in 3D. It is the film equivalent to 27 million feet of film. And he is not done shooting.

Some RED SSDs were used over 1000 times. We know because the production complained that our counters only went to 999. We fixed that.
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Jannard said:
The RED Dragon sensor needs to be directly compared to 65mm film.

The Dragon has more resolution than 65mm film when scanned at 4K.

The Dragon has more dynamic range than film... by a lot. 65mm film has about 14.5 stops. The Dragon has an easy 16 stops... without sweating.
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Roberto Lequeux said:
Thank you Jim, for allowing me to find out how a teenage girl must feel while screaming front row at a Justin Bieber concert. :)

...16 stops.
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On Tarantino:
Ralph N. Madison said:
First he says "I think the whole digital projection thing killed it for me." I want to use film.... Then says "If I do something epic again I will do a HBO miniseries."

My grandfather would say "he is taking out both sides of his mouth".
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Brandon J.F. said:
Here he says he will quit because he doesn't want to make a film worse than Death Proof: http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/tarantino-death-proof-sucked/

Here he says he will quit after 10 movies because he doesn't want to be an old filmmaker and to protect his legacy: http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/quentin-tarantino-to-quit-after-10th-movie/291111
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Phil Holland said:
Contrast, generally speaking, is one of the main concepts when it comes to lighting. When dealing with narrative we are often left with the concept of skintones landing approximately around midtone values. There are reasons to adhere to that rule and reasons to break that rule. Every camera provides the simple question how to create the best image possible for your desired look. Exposure is a tricky mistress and there is a technically correct answer, but there's also the creative answer. That creative answer often comes from a willingness to experiment and experience. High Key is often explored in comedies or family genres, Low Key is often explored in dramas or horror. The fun thing about Epic, Scarlet, and the Red One is that they are digital motion picture cameras and function like that. Meaning a great deal of latitude and a flexible raw file. If you want to see what you can do with Red cameras check out the last 10 or 15 features shot on Red. Lot's of variety from very experienced cinematographers with a crtical eye for quality control.

In my opinion when it comes to cinematography and photography lots of exploring and experimenting should be done. If possible on a daily basis. Especially when it comes to lighting. Starting out it should almost feel like a part time or full time job to do camera and lighting tests. Digital workflows allow you to learn and progress faster than ever. Being critical and seeking out that critique from professionals you respect can help move you along. That's exactly what I did a long time ago and it helped me out a great deal. There is such a thing as a desire to just point a light at it and roll, but without the critical mind and that desire to learn the quality within those images will never increase.

The amazing thing here on Reduser is that you have access to many working professionals who have been more than willing to share information regarding process and how to get the most out of your camera. David Mullen's thread is a tremendous resource for instance.

These days it's easier than ever to shoot a movie. Which means image quality is going to vary wildly. Like any craft, practice and effort will pay off.

Cameras don't kill images, people do.
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David Battistella said:
Hi,

I don't know how many times I see a post on REDUSER blaming the camera for lack of performance, poor low light ability, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

It really gets tiring.

There are a few rules of thumb for the current EPIC X sensor that I follow. They are basic rules of photography/cinematography

1. In low light, use faster glass
2. Use the light to your advantage
3. Do not deprive the sensor of light (especially in low light situations where I am always at 320 ISO or checking the RAW histogram)

There are two things basic folks should understand about RED.

-The camera is not going to do it all for you (it's actually designed that way in that they do not sharpen images for example).
-Learn how to capture an image, understand what a histogram is, (the histogram is your friend!)
-Use the many tools that RED provides to help you get great images.

Most importantly,

Learn how to process your footage!

[…]

[G]et as much light on the sensor as possible. For you "doc shooters out there" who want to capture images in available light the first consideration should be to get the fastest glass you can afford. There is a massive difference between a F2.8, F2.0, F1.8 and F1.4 lens (talking stills glass) as the amount of light they allow onto the sensor is mathematically exponential.

Before really posting and complaining about RED footage ask these three questions.

1. Did I use a fast lens?
2. Have I experimented/do I know how to properly expose my footage AFTER CAPTURE?
3. Is it really the camera or is it me?

Notice how the aperture does not change in these three images because all of the sweetening was done AFTER the image was captured.

Same shot, same frame, same lens, different takes, tone, taste.

This is why RAW rocks.
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Phil McCarty said:
After LOOM ended, the lights went up, and I heard a voice to my right. "What do you guys think? See what we've been doing in our little world?" I didn't know him by face, but recognized him from earlier events. [Turns out: Ted]

What I also recognized in his face was an expression that I've come to think of as "REDFace."

[No, I don't expect that to catch on. It's a terribly uninspired nickname.]

I think I first noticed REDface on Jim at the Scarlet event or maybe it was the DSMC event? Jarred has a pretty terminal case of REDface as well. In case you weren't there, you've probably seen REDface in other contexts. It's the same face your loved ones have when they watch you open -that- gift they picked out for you. The gift that they KNOW they fucking nailed. The one they've been sitting on for MONTHS and eagerly awaiting the day they can see your face when YOU see it.
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