It's amazing what some professionals say about RED...

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Has it though? Film is far from dead, and for me personally it looks a thousand times better than Red ever will.

I just finished watching "The Mechanic", which was shot on film. It looks absolutely amazing. Even though the cinematography gives it a very stylized look, it looks really, really good. I also recently watched PoTC 4, which disappointed me with their choice of not shooting film. Well lit, shot well, but didn't have that feel to it that the other films had..

Okay then. Still I'd like to hear arguments other than the "feel", which was, apparently, very filmic on our 2D digital copy of Pirates 4. I don't believe they added that much grain in post to resemble celluloid effect, but overall look of the movie was placed very closely to the original trilogy. I'm nowhere near film specialist, but few things, that really distracted me was the sails, something with motion blur was different (and wrong) in comparison to previous flicks.

So yes, the [2D] multi-million dollar production with experienced film professionals has no need to switch to Epic (yet). Smaller productions and indies, on the other hand, now have the opportunity to be as close to the greatest (and expensive) film stock as possible, with 5K Epic and HDRx, which gives them 18 stops and at times so important highlight protection. Clever post guys now may carefully add some old school film effect, to eliminate "unnatural" clarity of the image. As these projects picked up by distributor and they start to prepare theater copies, they will not compromise on the quality. Whatever you want - 2K, 4K DCP or 2K, 4K film prints, it's there.

 

[Mark Toia]

Mark, that was quite an offensive post in more ways than one. Besides, neither of the two people I wrote about were French.

Sorry Jay & Petri,
Terrible joke
I apologize.

Bad Experience in France, never got over it. No excuses. I Apologize again.. Sorry French folk.

 

[Brice Ansel]

Thanks mate, we are not all stubborn.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

OK let's say there are those who hate the fact that RED has levelled the playing field and they are going 3D in an attempt to change the game.

But if they hate Red, then why on earth would they create a market condition that would lead to buying more Red cameras?

Epic is THE hottest thing on the planet for 3D right now. Just ask Peter Jackson.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Really? I prefer Red honestly. I love the look. For me, Red looks 1000x better than film. I also think that DSLR's stomp 16mm in the face (as well as older film stocks from the 90's and early 2000's) look wise. Film is cool for nostalgic reasons I guess, but I don't think it has anything on modern digital formats.

Film is film man. It has a cool look. A different feel. I really hope it hangs around for a good long while.

DSLR's absolutely can NOT "stomp 16mm in the face" Look I'm a DSLR advocate. That is just sheer lunacy though. The only places DSLR can beat 16mm is DoF and cost. 16mm can compete effectively with Red, and 35mm film in the feature film market. The image has no compromises - its film.

I love Red, and Epic has the opportunity to be the "last camera any of us need to buy. But let's maintain some professional objectivity please.

 

[Chi Ying Chan]

Just watched Pirates 4 digital version last week,don't think anyone can tell its digital captured.
First class 3D DI.

Regards
Chan Chi Ying
DP HK

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Objectively, once digital sensors have a large dynamic range and gamut they should be able to perfectly emulate any and all of our favorite film stocks. Someone just needs to start writing 3D LUTs to convert between said hypothetical sensor and a perfectly characterized film stock.

Sounds like Sony might do it with their next camera. Hopefully that'll start an arms race to replicate film--effectively killing it as a capture medium. But there is no reason the "5217 Look" can't live on.

 

[Mark Collins]

Just watched Pirates 4 digital version last week,don't think anyone can tell its digital captured.
First class 3D DI.

Regards
Chan Chi Ying
DP HK

It was quite easy to tell it was shot digital. No matter how many post effects you add to it, it still looks like digital. It's damn near impossible to replicate film grain in post and make it actually look like it was shot on film.

PoTC 4 also convinced me that 3D sucks. Not a wide enough IO to really make the 3D pop out for most of the film. I've seen plenty of 3D movies by this point and Avatar and surprisingly Drive Angry 3D were the only two that really had 3D that impressed me.

 

[Adrian Correia]

I thought POTC4 was well shot and lit, but I thought it looked nothing like the other films. This may in fact be a byproduct of seeing it in 3D IMAX, but I watched Dead Man's Chest and At World's End afterwards and I think they looked much, much richer with better contrast and color. I will see POTC4 in 2D this week and that may make a difference. I think DSLRs look nothing like 16mm and are far inferior to me, but that's more about aesthetics and personal preference.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

DSLR video and 16mm color negative are not in the same league, not when you are talking about highly compressed 8-bit 4:2:0 video with limited DR compared to something that can be scanned at 10-bit Log RGB with no compression and having something like 15-stops of DR and no aliasing artifacts. Resolution-wise, maybe they are close, but there's more to an image than resolution!

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

there's more to an image than resolution!

A M E N to that!

 

[M Most]

Objectively, once digital sensors have a large dynamic range and gamut they should be able to perfectly emulate any and all of our favorite film stocks. Someone just needs to start writing 3D LUTs to convert between said hypothetical sensor and a perfectly characterized film stock.

Somebody already has. That's what ACES is basically based on. But emulating a film stock only encompasses one aspect of what film is and how its images are created. There are a number of other factors that "characterize" film captured images.

Having said that, I honestly don't see the point of making digital images look like film right down to the grains. It's a different medium, with different characteristics, a better future, and, at least in theory, more flexibility. Why people seem to feel that it has to look just like something that it isn't is something I've never understood.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

I honestly don't see the point of making digital images look like film right down to the grains. It's a different medium, with different characteristics, a better future, and, at least in theory, more flexibility. Why people seem to feel that it has to look just like something that it isn't is something I've never understood.

+1 (to the nth degree)

(btw, I feel the same towards that certain company I love quite a bit but that is trying to make film look more like digital, i.e., for instance, aiming at getting the smallest possible amount of grain in its whole line of film stock)

 

[Jannard]

Actually I agree with you. Digital is it's own thing. But many wanted to know that if digital could actually replace film, it could look like it also. Not that it has to... just that it can. The surprise with EPIC is that it can look like Vista Vision.

Jim

Somebody already has. That's what ACES is basically based on. But emulating a film stock only encompasses one aspect of what film is and how its images are created. There are a number of other factors that "characterize" film captured images.

Having said that, I honestly don't see the point of making digital images look like film right down to the grains. It's a different medium, with different characteristics, a better future, and, at least in theory, more flexibility. Why people seem to feel that it has to look just like something that it isn't is something I've never understood.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

Whats crazier is with all the advancements of Digital trying to surpass film.. now the hottest apps on the iPhone DEGRADE the image to look like old film with grain and scratches and sprocket jumping and flicker.

Go figure

 

[Deanan]

Somebody already has. That's what ACES is basically based on. But emulating a film stock only encompasses one aspect of what film is and how its images are created. There are a number of other factors that "characterize" film captured images.

Having said that, I honestly don't see the point of making digital images look like film right down to the grains. It's a different medium, with different characteristics, a better future, and, at least in theory, more flexibility. Why people seem to feel that it has to look just like something that it isn't is something I've never understood.

Agreed.
And the look of film stocks has changed many times so which one(s) do you emulate. 5217 isn't necessarily an ideal stock if there even is one. Homogenizing the look of cameras has it's pluses and minuses. Pluses like simplifying matching in post and parts of the workflow, etc but imagine if we homogenized kodachrome, velvia, etc so they all looked the same? Not so interesting IMHO and also you stress the image in ways to get to a common point where you wouldn't if you used a more direct path to the end result. 3Dlut's limited interpolation and sampling points are the weak links that are most destructive to an image...

 

[Jannard]

Some projects, like The Lovely Bones and The Green Hornet, were shot on both film and RED. They needed to be graded together. Film cannot be graded to look like RED but RED can be graded to match film... as it was in both these movies.

Jim

 

[Jay Gannon]

Sorry Jay & Petri,
Terrible joke
I apologize.

Bad Experience in France, never got over it. No excuses. I Apologize again.. Sorry French folk.

We'll bring you over sometime and change your mind in that case.

 

[Adrian Correia]

Some projects, like The Lovely Bones and The Green Hornet, were shot on both film and RED. They needed to be graded together. Film cannot be graded to look like RED but RED can be graded to match film... as it was in both these movies.

Jim

I hope it can Jim....about to start shooting "Remains" on 5230 pushed two stops with Red as our B-Cam.....wish me luck!

 

[M Most]

Some projects, like The Lovely Bones and The Green Hornet, were shot on both film and RED. They needed to be graded together. Film cannot be graded to look like RED but RED can be graded to match film... as it was in both these movies.

I think you're underestimating the ability of colorists to match elements regardless of where they come from. The fact is that there have been many digitally shot projects that have incorporated film shots when desirable, as it sometimes is for things like high speed work. If properly exposed and properly scanned, there isn't really much of an issue making it look like the surrounding digital footage, especially if grain reduction/removal techniques are used. I wouldn't want to have to match coverage within the same scene, but for standalone shots, special coverage, and complete scenes it can and has been done, by myself and by many other colorists. Now, if we're talking about badly exposed film, or film shot under changing weather conditions, or film with golf ball sized grain, I agree with you. But professionally shot film - and we're approaching the point where that's pretty much all of the film being shot - doesn't usually have those characteristics.