Obin Olson
Well-known member
thought some of you guys would enjoy this issue of POST Magazine just out did a little article on us...
NEW CS4 WORKFLOW
The Olson brothers, Obin and Amariah, make some intense statements about their Red camera and what is does for them.
"The Red blows the doors down with latitude and range and dynamic high def imaging," says Obin Olson. "It's not an evolution — it's a revolution. It represents freedom in so many ways, it's nothing short of a playground every time we go out and use it."
"The amazing thing about the Red is that no matter how 'small' you go, you always see that high bit-depth and that pixel accuracy," says Amariah, even when Red footage is displayed on humble screens — or phones. Both brothers favor Red's single-sensor technology, which does away with the RGB off-setting that even top-of-the-line three-chip cameras produce. "It's a very simple principle," Obin says, "of a single lens and a single plate to capture the image." The Olsons operate DV3 Productions (www.dv3productions.com) out of Wilmington, NC. They co-direct their shoots, with Obin specializing in camera/DP work and editing while Amariah focuses on VFX creation and VFX supervision.
They make it their business to understand film's proper use and makeup, from on-set lighting down to pixels and grain structure, but the Olsons are from a new generation — one that is unapologetic about not using film, and have no plans to ever use it. "The Red camera opened up a creative world that made it a lot easier for us to present the production values we always wanted," says Obin Olson. The partners have previously used Panasonic and Sony HD cameras.
When shooting and posting commercials, Amariah says, Red's 4K image area allows lots of room to push-in if the client so desires or if a rampant mic looms in the shot. "Because you're shooting 4K it's no problem. Even if you're mastering at 1080, you can push-in to double size and crop in your shot if you need to reframe it. It's pixel-accurate — there's no degradation. We've found that it gives you a whole lot of freedom to reframe and re-color and stabilize and crop."
Obin adds, "Everybody's shouting '4K is too much!' and we're quietly laughing, saying, 'Give me 8K! 12K! 40K!' That just means, once the workflows are worked out in post production, there's no more overhead, it's simply more room to do stuff."
When the Olsons first started working with their Red camera, they transcoded their raw files to "an editable format." Then they got word of an alpha plug-in for CS4 before it was publicly available. "You could actually open [Red files] in CS4 and start to look at them and cut them," Obin says. "We learned a lot about how to deal with raw footage." Since then the brothers have gotten closely involved with Adobe to help make what is now "a pretty darn bullet-proof workflow with CS4."
You import your Red raw files into CS4 without any conversion to another format, Amariah Olson says. Not unlike the functions Photoshop provides to still frames from a DSLR camera, for Red files the new version of Premiere in CS4 has "a raw importer that lets you adjust your exposure, color balance, color temperature, your curve etc. with no processor overhead. All of that's happening in post now."
On set, Amariah often has a good idea of the final color time they will use. "So we'll put a curve in the camera that matches that. Then, when you're lighting your scene, basically you're seeing what your final image is going to be." So, if you intend to create a crushed, contrast-y look, you can immediately see if your lighting needs to be changed to make it look right. "Once you make that curve on set, you then import it right into Premiere and it brings that curve right into the editor and your footage still has that look." It's all non-destructive. The raw converter panel can remove the curve "and you can modify it or tweak it or change whatever you want."
For a recent spot promoting the launch of the Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Beach, SC, the Olsons shot in 4K on Red and then posted as HD files. "The entire commercial was cut on a laptop," Obin says, including color. The brothers favor HP's new laptops with a DreamColor LCD-backlit, 30-bit display that promises over a billion colors. It has four processors and 8GB of RAM. They can now do their preliminary work on the laptop and bring it via USB hard drive to a formal suite for a client sit-down session.
The promo focuses on the super-intense roller coaster (originally dubbed "The Led Zeppelin" when Hard Rock first opened the park) and comedy bits with actors. And their Red — mounted very carefully after an early near-mishap — shot the scary ride with both a forward POV and a backward POV to capture the riders' reactions.
Red can speed-ramp up to 120fps for slo-mo shots. This may not be tabletop speed, but Amariah can easily ramp up and down between 24 and 120 in After Effects.
Amariah points out that Red raw files are 12-bit and extremely low compression. "It keeps the detail [even] where it looks like there is no detail." So, on one pick-up shot where the sky appeared a seamless gray, Amariah brought it into the CS4 color app. They ended up with a beautiful shot of finely detailed, wispy clouds.
http://www.postmagazine.com/ME2/dir...91&tier=4&id=D1E68F46FA5D475CAA199ADFAF6FA638
NEW CS4 WORKFLOW
The Olson brothers, Obin and Amariah, make some intense statements about their Red camera and what is does for them.
"The Red blows the doors down with latitude and range and dynamic high def imaging," says Obin Olson. "It's not an evolution — it's a revolution. It represents freedom in so many ways, it's nothing short of a playground every time we go out and use it."
"The amazing thing about the Red is that no matter how 'small' you go, you always see that high bit-depth and that pixel accuracy," says Amariah, even when Red footage is displayed on humble screens — or phones. Both brothers favor Red's single-sensor technology, which does away with the RGB off-setting that even top-of-the-line three-chip cameras produce. "It's a very simple principle," Obin says, "of a single lens and a single plate to capture the image." The Olsons operate DV3 Productions (www.dv3productions.com) out of Wilmington, NC. They co-direct their shoots, with Obin specializing in camera/DP work and editing while Amariah focuses on VFX creation and VFX supervision.
They make it their business to understand film's proper use and makeup, from on-set lighting down to pixels and grain structure, but the Olsons are from a new generation — one that is unapologetic about not using film, and have no plans to ever use it. "The Red camera opened up a creative world that made it a lot easier for us to present the production values we always wanted," says Obin Olson. The partners have previously used Panasonic and Sony HD cameras.
When shooting and posting commercials, Amariah says, Red's 4K image area allows lots of room to push-in if the client so desires or if a rampant mic looms in the shot. "Because you're shooting 4K it's no problem. Even if you're mastering at 1080, you can push-in to double size and crop in your shot if you need to reframe it. It's pixel-accurate — there's no degradation. We've found that it gives you a whole lot of freedom to reframe and re-color and stabilize and crop."
Obin adds, "Everybody's shouting '4K is too much!' and we're quietly laughing, saying, 'Give me 8K! 12K! 40K!' That just means, once the workflows are worked out in post production, there's no more overhead, it's simply more room to do stuff."
When the Olsons first started working with their Red camera, they transcoded their raw files to "an editable format." Then they got word of an alpha plug-in for CS4 before it was publicly available. "You could actually open [Red files] in CS4 and start to look at them and cut them," Obin says. "We learned a lot about how to deal with raw footage." Since then the brothers have gotten closely involved with Adobe to help make what is now "a pretty darn bullet-proof workflow with CS4."
You import your Red raw files into CS4 without any conversion to another format, Amariah Olson says. Not unlike the functions Photoshop provides to still frames from a DSLR camera, for Red files the new version of Premiere in CS4 has "a raw importer that lets you adjust your exposure, color balance, color temperature, your curve etc. with no processor overhead. All of that's happening in post now."
On set, Amariah often has a good idea of the final color time they will use. "So we'll put a curve in the camera that matches that. Then, when you're lighting your scene, basically you're seeing what your final image is going to be." So, if you intend to create a crushed, contrast-y look, you can immediately see if your lighting needs to be changed to make it look right. "Once you make that curve on set, you then import it right into Premiere and it brings that curve right into the editor and your footage still has that look." It's all non-destructive. The raw converter panel can remove the curve "and you can modify it or tweak it or change whatever you want."
For a recent spot promoting the launch of the Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Beach, SC, the Olsons shot in 4K on Red and then posted as HD files. "The entire commercial was cut on a laptop," Obin says, including color. The brothers favor HP's new laptops with a DreamColor LCD-backlit, 30-bit display that promises over a billion colors. It has four processors and 8GB of RAM. They can now do their preliminary work on the laptop and bring it via USB hard drive to a formal suite for a client sit-down session.
The promo focuses on the super-intense roller coaster (originally dubbed "The Led Zeppelin" when Hard Rock first opened the park) and comedy bits with actors. And their Red — mounted very carefully after an early near-mishap — shot the scary ride with both a forward POV and a backward POV to capture the riders' reactions.
Red can speed-ramp up to 120fps for slo-mo shots. This may not be tabletop speed, but Amariah can easily ramp up and down between 24 and 120 in After Effects.
Amariah points out that Red raw files are 12-bit and extremely low compression. "It keeps the detail [even] where it looks like there is no detail." So, on one pick-up shot where the sky appeared a seamless gray, Amariah brought it into the CS4 color app. They ended up with a beautiful shot of finely detailed, wispy clouds.
http://www.postmagazine.com/ME2/dir...91&tier=4&id=D1E68F46FA5D475CAA199ADFAF6FA638
