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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 :)

I was wrrr...wrrrrong.

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Mark,

Here's an idea that's been on my mind ever since the RED and SI-2K began promising film alternatives a couple of years ago. For many of us, the make or break test of whether we can convince those financing our projects is to to see the RED originated footage projected on a big screen. I have been in pre-production of a film now for a while and my first thought was to shoot it on F-900 or F-950, which still added quite a bit to the budget on a 3-4 month shoot, and had projected quality that was very inconsistent. Now I have convinced my financers that we'll go with this incredible new tool called RED, which will save us close to 1 million in budget (no small potatoes on a 3.5 million feature), but yet again, I'm being asked to show a demo reel on one of the multiplexes' screens owned by the production company. Especially in a film with a very strong focus on visuals, lots of exteriors and underwater work, I understand their concern. So, could OffHollywood or RED or anybody have a 1-2 minute demo reel that you could sell, rent, loan that potential users could use to convince producers?
Just a short 35 mm reel showing a few interiors, exteriors, a chart test, exposure test, a beauty shot or two and/or anything else deemed appropriate, but mostly that can show RED's quality when projected on a large screen, not a 20 ft DI suite screen but a typical 40-50 ft cinema screen. I, for one, would happily pay whatever rental or purchase fees would be required, and I'm sure so would many others.

What do you think?


Rudi Herbert

short answer - YES.

stay tuned.
 
Hi,

Unless I've missed something, it has never been stated that RED will be capable of 4K @ 60p onboard. That's not to discredit you, but I've seen a couple people mention it now and If it was truly possible, no one would care about shooting 2K scaled at all. If you're talking about 4K uncrompressed RAW at 60p, that's doable at some point in the future - but then you're talking a lot more than a software upgrade. You'd need the optical port, a huge teathered RAID, and a super beefed-up post system; not to mention that the whole solution would cost lots more than their current 'fantastic price point.'

To get offspeed shooting with RED some tradeoff has to be made; either shooting windowed, scaled, or uncompressed. There doesn't seem to be a "fix all" answer yet.

Hi Haakon,
Your right, 4K @ 60p onboard has never been mentioned, 4K @ 60P
recording outboard has.
The firmware/software upgrade would get Red running @ 2K scaled
onboard with 35mm FOV/DOF with possibly better image quality tha 2K windowed. This should be good enough for now.
Also I don't see recording uncompressed as an impossible task. As the chips
in these cameras get faster recording to a portable DDR will be the norm.
Mild compression can be done in the DDR to keep the Raid size down.
I even think Red have a plan for this.
We need a second camera body to shoot highspeed on film so the additional
costs for shooting highspeed are already a part of the normal FF budget.
Mezmo
 
Hi Rudi,
Mark at Offhollywood is your man, he has a Red 1 camera, Scratch, the
only Red codec 4k capable post solution and wide screen projection.
If I were in your shoes I'd be testing Red'a interecutability. 4K and 2K
(windowed) (highspeed) in the same scene. Then take that thru a full
film post path. Film Burn, Intermediate,2nd negative for printing and
a trial print from that. I assume your production/distribution company
are still running film. Don't let me stop you from dropping a name here
I have a few projects I'd like to pitch in that 3.5M budget slot. We could
be friends.
Also love to hear about the test results. Mezmo
 
Mezmo,

I can't drop a name unfortunately :-( Anyway, I still can't believe I went from selling these people documentaries for 35-50 K to a film for 3.5 M, and they can't believe that script can be filmed for less than 25-30 M, so let's not talk about it much lest the fragile spell under which I have them shatters into pieces :-) Anyway, we're talking about an European country and a company with no interest other than producing pieces of national interest and significance so I'm not sure your projects would be of interest. As for Mark and Offhollywood, I'm patiently waiting to see what offers/services they have available for RED users in a month or two. I'm sure I won't have to reinvent the wheel, or make a square one, when they seem to be moving along the very path I need a RED endowed production company to move so I can call on their services.

Rudi Herbert
 
Mezmo,

I can't drop a name unfortunately :-( Anyway, I still can't believe I went from selling these people documentaries for 35-50 K to a film for 3.5 M, and they can't believe that script can be filmed for less than 25-30 M, so let's not talk about it much lest the fragile spell under which I have them shatters into pieces :-) Anyway, we're talking about an European country and a company with no interest other than producing pieces of national interest and significance so I'm not sure your projects would be of interest. As for Mark and Offhollywood, I'm patiently waiting to see what offers/services they have available for RED users in a month or two. I'm sure I won't have to reinvent the wheel, or make a square one, when they seem to be moving along the very path I need a RED endowed production company to move so I can call on their services.

Rudi Herbert

Good for you Rudi! :gun:
Naming no names of course but I'm wondering how you've figured that filming with RED will save you as much as $1 million over filming with the F950? I'm trying to convince a producer friend to go with RED and while I'm sure it'll save the production much more than just the camera rental, it not tried and tested yet..
Any thoughts you have would be much appreciated. Thanks :nerd:
 
Good for you Rudi! :gun:
Naming no names of course but I'm wondering how you've figured that filming with RED will save you as much as $1 million over filming with the F950? I'm trying to convince a producer friend to go with RED and while I'm sure it'll save the production much more than just the camera rental, it not tried and tested yet..
Any thoughts you have would be much appreciated. Thanks :nerd:

I have the same question -- How does one figure a million dollars in savings?
 
I have the same question -- How does one figure a million dollars in savings?

Yeah I did a alternative "filming with RED" budget on the $10 million movie, and while you save money over film, most of the budget goes on the Actors and so the Producers are saying "Well OK it saves us a bit but it's not dramatic in the grand scheme of things and RED is unknown which makes it a risk". This is a straight drama, no special effects or stunts, so I do wonder whether RED might make the filming run much quicker, which could save a lot of money, but the problem is quantifying how much time and so how much money..?
 
I find that almost ALL movie schedules are shorter than they should be - I've done so many movies where the AD calculated that it would take "X" number of shooting days, so the producers automatically cut three or four days from the estimate to save money, only to eventually have the movie run three or four days over the schedule, matching exactly how long the AD told them it would take to shoot the movie!

"The Astronaut Farmer" (which I shot) was originally budgeted, I think, at 12 million dollars and a 40-day schedule, but the studio cut it to 10 million dollars and a 33 day schedule, plus cut some efx shots out. Ultimately we shot an extra 7 days -- 4 at the end of the shoot itself and 3 more in post doing pick-ups -- and added back the needed efx shots... and the final movie came in at 12 million dollars... exactly what the original budget & schedule said it would need.

So don't bother telling producers to cut three or so days off of the schedule because you think you'll gain some time from shooting on the RED. The schedule is already tighter than it should be probably, so use any extra time savings on the set to get some breathing space and catch up. Maybe you'll actually go home after twelve hours everyday...

Also, in a dramatic movie (not an action or special efx movie) most of the time on set is spent blocking & rehearsing, then lighting, and then shooting takes -- the camera crew is generally already set-up during the time spent lighting, etc. So other than not spending time reloading every now & then, and not cutting the camera as often (similar to the time savings of shooting HD tape instead of film), there is not a lot of time being saved on the set. I'll be generous and say you can save an hour by the end of the day, which translates into two or three extra set-ups per day on a single-camera show. Of course, it's a different rhythm on an action movie where you are using multiple cameras and running to get as many set-ups per day as possible.
 
Savings with RED

Savings with RED

Hello,

I can't explain exactly how we calculated all the savings without going over the budget, but truthfully, the more realistic number was a savings of about 880 K over FILM, not other HD cameras. Roughly put, our original schedule called for about 4.5 months of shooting with about 1 million per month. Our savings were based on:
- Adding about 6-12 set ups per day on digital, reducing shooting time by 2.5-3 weeks.
- Reducing reload time and number of takes for underwater scenes (about 20% of the whole shoot). We were counting on the RED RAID, not the CF module for this, but either way, we would go from about 25 days fully dedicated to U/W work to about 12-14. The difference in housing sizes for a RED as opposed to an ARRI 435 also eliminates 2 assistants for the main operator and a small boat for the crew.
- Most of the savings for our particular project come from the fact that the production company wants dailies on a (no pun intended) daily basis, and the majority of them would require minor color grading to ascertain whether certain specific looks I'm proposing would be feasible with the "in-camera" effects I've developed instead of the major Hollywood type CC they think it would require. Since we would eliminate the expenses of developing, scanning, grading and projecting film on a constant basis by grading on computers and viewing on an HD projector, we would save a huge amount. Again, that's just our case but it comes to about 480 K.
- Then a lot of other minor things make a big difference when put together. If we rent RED lenses we save about $ 25 K for those 3.5 month. If we rent a Steadicam small enough for the RED as opposed to a huge Arri, we save around 15 K, we're saving 105 K in insurance since we can make back ups on set (and this is a very old style European insurer, I would hope it to be better with a digital savy American company). Also, by not having to rent a cinema salon with a widescreen for the daily film screening, we save about 35 K for the whole shoot, and on and on it goes.
The main difference is in the increased number of set ups per day, given the small RED form factor, the instant monitoring of acquired assets, agressive use of zoom lenses to minimize change time and the small, but nevertheless present, decrease in expense and set up time from not having to use heavy and costly hardware (dollies, cranes, jibs, etc) intended for film cameras. Everything we're renting is HD or even ENG gear, and yes, we'll be making compromises but acceptable ones. Lastly, if we truly manage to reduce a month from our schedule, then that's one month less of hotels, catering, salaries, rentals, insurance, sets repair and maintenance, etc, etc, etc.
Honestly, if we were not forced to develop, grade and project film on a daily basis, as oposed to watching rough cuts once or twice a week as most budget minded productions do, our savings might not amount to that much. And then don't forget that since I DO want to shoot this film whatever it takes, I have been fairly optimistic (though not untruthful) in assessing the scope of the savings when presenting them to the producers (what filmaker has not sinned so?). Likely, a 5-7% increase will result once we're out in the real world all the expected real life obstacles appear. But in a perfect world, this is what we're buddgeting for, and we're sticking with it :-)

Rudi Herbert
 
Hi Mark
Bi Coastal is OK, recently worked in NCarolina. (which is sorta Eastern) just lamenting that I am a Continent away from your showing of the RED Film out, and no indication of any paid work to get me back there at the right time! Actually when you look on a map of the US you are on the right edge. Thus the right coast? By the way which state is furthest East?
 
Mezmo,

I can't drop a name unfortunately :-( Anyway, I still can't believe I went from selling these people documentaries for 35-50 K to a film for 3.5 M, and they can't believe that script can be filmed for less than 25-30 M, so let's not talk about it much lest the fragile spell under which I have them shatters into pieces :-) Anyway, we're talking about an European country and a company with no interest other than producing pieces of national interest and significance so I'm not sure your projects would be of interest. As for Mark and Offhollywood, I'm patiently waiting to see what offers/services they have available for RED users in a month or two. I'm sure I won't have to reinvent the wheel, or make a square one, when they seem to be moving along the very path I need a RED endowed production company to move so I can call on their services.

Rudi Herbert

Hi Rudi,
Pity, maybe after you get this film finished we could talk, private message.
hint,hint.
I'm workling in Asia.Australia/NZ. A co production may not be out of
the question. We have 30-40% tax rebate in some countries down here.
I'll stop now.
Luki from Assimilate (the people who make Scratch) may be able to hook
you up with a Red & Scratch owner closer to home. Where ever that may be? He posts here @ Reduser, usually in the Workflow Forum.
He has sold or is selling Scratch into a few Euro countries.
Good luck with your project, don't forget to test Red intercutability 4K and
2K (windowed & cropped), very important.
Cheers Mezmo.
 
Yeah I did a alternative "filming with RED" budget on the $10 million movie, and while you save money over film, most of the budget goes on the Actors and so the Producers are saying "Well OK it saves us a bit but it's not dramatic in the grand scheme of things and RED is unknown which makes it a risk". This is a straight drama, no special effects or stunts, so I do wonder whether RED might make the filming run much quicker, which could save a lot of money, but the problem is quantifying how much time and so how much money..?
"Well OK it saves us a bit but it's not dramatic in the grand scheme of things and RED is unknown which makes it a risk".

The following is taken from a website contactmusic.com..

"TOM CRUISE's latest movie VALKYRIE has suffered a setback - after finally having a ban on filming inside an important German historical location overturned, the footage shot there has turned out to be unusable.

Crucial scenes filmed at the Bendlerblock in Berlin, where a number of German officers were executed after an abortive attempt to assassinate Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1944, will now have to be reshot by director Bryan Singer.

A spokeswoman for the production company tells German newspaper Bild, "A majority of the film material is unusable. We have to film it again." Colin Ullman, a representative for the firm that delivered the footage shot to a post-production studio in Munich, adds, "The production company told us that there were problems with the negative development in Arri Munich, one of the top post-production companies in Germany. The images were wiped away."

Fortunately for Singer and Cruise, the German government has agreed to allow them further access to the Bendlerblock. They had previously been banned from filming at there because officials did not want the "dignity of the place" to be violated. In the movie, Cruise portrays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who was put to death after plotting to blow-up Hitler. "


So I guess there is a risk even shooting on film.
 
Hi Ramesjai,
Sounds like a lab problem there and it is possible to loose a
whole days shoot becuase many camera rolls are on the one
processor run.
Nothing is risk free and labs can do things that will really spoil
your day. Shooting film is not risk free, nobody here is suggesting it
is. that's why we have neg risk insurance. it's a common thing and
the producer of that film would have claimed it.
Having an electronic acquisition device that produces inconsistant image
quality is not insurable. Might want to think about that for a minute.
Have a nice day. Mezmo
 
My favorite is how your friendly neighborhood TSA xrayed film from LOST and a local Bank of Hawaii shoot through their airport machines. Talk about harassment. LOST lost a whole weeks worth of production, cast and crew salaries in one pass. Ouch...
 
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