Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

How to deal with a Red-hating DOP?

Antony M

Antony M

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 24, 2009
Messages
782
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Sussex, England & Sachsen, Germany
Hmm. On a recent shoot, I was working as operator with my Epic.

Unfortunately the DOP brought in didn't like Red, kept bitching about it and how much better the ****** (name removed) would be.

During shooting, they insisted on using settings which totally clipped the whites in our outdoor, daylight scene.
I warned them that would happen, but they just said they knew what they were doing.
Presumably so they could blame it on the Epic afterwards.


I'm curious how others on here would have handled the situation?

Would you have had a quiet word with the director/producer? Or just done as you were told?
 
Was the DoP a real DoP or a cammo aspiring to be one? I may be misreading your description of events. It strikes me as being a rather unprofessional attitude, to risk bringing down an entire production just to make a point. The DoP's brief as I understand it is outcomes-driven and that solutions are devised to best achieve the director's vision. Do you have any behind the scenes evidence like stills images of the histogram to prove the camera settings were wrong? Protect that if you have it. You might consider making a sworn statement to affirm that you caused the stills images to be made of the camera settings on the certain date and time that the event occurred. That statement would also affirm that you made or have conserved the images "because" you had expressed your concerns at the time. This might be a bit paranoid. It might also be worth putting aside for a rainy day in case the production entity decides to become litiginous and the director and DoP decide to gang up on you to pass the blame. As always, please heed the better advice of others who comment here.
 
Last edited:
Maybe they planned to pull a luma key for a sky replacement. :-) What... I hear you laughing...Too optimistic? ;-)
 
Robert, you bring up some very relevant questions/points.

Sadly I can't go into too much detail because this is a real names forum!!!

Playing devil's advocate to myself, I suppose it is possible that they were not being malicious, but just didn't understand the way Red cameras work.
As they (claimed) they came from a film background, maybe they really believed that setting ISO to 100 in bright daylight was the right thing to do.
They certainly didn't believe me when I told them it was only metadata and didn't actually make the sensor less sensitive.
 
I've been in your situation before. You handled it correctly. If a DP comes in with preconceived notions about things it may be hard to change them during the shoot. The best thing you can do is act professional, make sugggestions if the DP is open to listening to them and then do what is asked of you even if you know the results are not optimal. The DPs name is the one on the line. Blaming the camera or the DIT is about as unprofessional as it gets. I have worked with DPs who don't like Red but they do their best to get the most out of the camera and make nice images. That's professional.
 
Antony M said:
Robert, you bring up some very relevant questions/points.

Sadly I can't go into too much detail because this is a real names forum!!!

Playing devil's advocate to myself, I suppose it is possible that they were not being malicious, but just didn't understand the way Red cameras work.
As they (claimed) they came from a film background, maybe they really believed that setting ISO to 100 in bright daylight was the right thing to do.
They certainly didn't believe me when I told them it was only metadata and didn't actually make the sensor less sensitive.
Click to expand...

All you can do is try to explain how it works. To me it's quite obvious, you do not want dry photosites and you do not want photosites that spills over. The goal posts shows when that is about to happen on any of the two ends. So if you got goalpost then part of your image has issues. Sometimes they are wanted, but it's not like film. film has a natural dynamic rounding towards overexposure, RED and CMOS sensor not so much, they has very linear fillup curve so when starting to spill things are getting plain uggly. It's that simple.


So what you could have done without changing a thing but still give him a rescue rope would have been to jump into the menus and hit the HDRx to 2 stops... then you could possibly cover his sorry ass.
 
Conversely I was working on a shoot recently which was a freebie where absolutely everyone thought they had a right to pitch in about framings and compositions and whatnot. This was annoying enough and added about an hour to every single shot, but repeatedly having to justify lighting and shooting the way I did every 5 mins was a nightmare, just as wondering why my shot was suddenly a stop or 2 darker and finding my AC was adjusting the ISO as he went along.
 
Ben Scott said:
Conversely I was working on a shoot recently which was a freebie where absolutely everyone thought they had a right to pitch in about framings and compositions and whatnot. This was annoying enough and added about an hour to every single shot, but repeatedly having to justify lighting and shooting the way I did every 5 mins was a nightmare, just as wondering why my shot was suddenly a stop or 2 darker and finding my AC was adjusting the ISO as he went along.
Click to expand...

That's very true. So I think that on-set is not the place to try and 'reducate'. Patience is short and tempers flare. Antony, if you think you're going to be working with this DP again often, then its worth inviting him/her over for a beer and showing him just how flexible and powerful the Epic can be (if you take the time to learn how to use it).
 
Antony M said:
I'm curious how others on here would have handled the situation?
Click to expand...
Take the money and run. As an Actor who also DP's with an Epic-X, you can imagine the response I get when I offer helpful suggestions. Most people in the (Indie) Industry don't know what they're doing, that does not mean that the Indie part of the Industry doesn't have it's fair share of Geniuses. The Epics out on rental get used in curious ways. I have seen a lot of DP's using Epics (RED's) for the first time on day one of production.

Actually maybe a better way, as Andreas above suggested, would be to have them over for an education/demonstration session, assuming you want to develop a professional working relationship with these people. Which ultimately could be a good thing and lead to more money for you.
 
It's not f-ing rocket science, I wish people would take 5 minutes and learn how the damn camera deals with exposure. DoP's JOB is to know these things. It's kinda important. I feel for you man, that is an awkward situation for sure. And sounds like he wouldn't listen anyway, even over beers...
 
I am honestly not a fan of Red either. Id rather work with another camera I have in mind, or own it.
But I see more people using red than any other camera, so its like I'm being forced into buying it. People want red, so Ill give them Red.

I don't like using the red, but I don't moan and cry because some things are bad or because I just done like it.
I'm dealing with it. I'm buying one even though I don't like them.

The dop you had sounded like an unprofessional suckup.
In this situation, Id speak up saying that it wont work, it will clip or whatever. But, make sure that whoever is in charge or has the highest position hears it.
So, they know you said it and warned them. That way it wont be your fault in a way as you did speak up.
 
Antony M said:
During shooting, they insisted on using settings which totally clipped the whites in our outdoor, daylight scene.
I warned them that would happen, but they just said they knew what they were doing.
Presumably so they could blame it on the Epic afterwards.
Click to expand...

Woah... I haven't seen the worst of it yet, then. Not to that extent.
 
The majority of the complains about any Red camera is that its too 'fiddly' and too sharp (meaning, too digital looking and not very organic). In my opinion, these are actually valid observations.
 
Carey Lee Coffey said:
I see no evidence of any of these movies looking too sharp or digital looking:

http://www.red.com/shot-on-red

But, to each his own.
Click to expand...

Me neither. if you can't make good images with a DSRL, well, in some circumstances you just can't make good images, because they have so many limitations and caveats. Same with a small chip camera - an EX1 can look like awesome video, but it near-impossibel for it to look anything like doc/ENG video, however nice and well-done. But an Epic removes all reasonable limitations. If you really can't make nice images with it of any style you simply suck, or at least need to learn more.
 
Red footage has a distinct look which it never escapes - it is visible in all the examples on that page. It is not to say this look is a bad thing or a good thing necessarily but it is very much to some people's taste and not to others.
 
James T Mather said:
Red footage has a distinct look which it never escapes - it is visible in all the examples on that page. It is not to say this look is a bad thing or a good thing necessarily but it is very much to some people's taste and not to others.
Click to expand...

Not really. I just don;t see it. I do in Sodenburg's dreary depressing work, but certainly not always.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top