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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 :)

Prometheus...

Amazing journey Red!

I just totally geeked out and bought the "Alien Vault" book about the making of the original.
When I looked at the trailer for Ridley's latest, it's apparent that he built a lot of sets unlike
some other producers who try to do everything in CG - doesn't feel right.
Congratulations again Red!
 
Eric, lovely stories. Just imagining Ridley and Lucas out at dinner in some fab restaurant arguing about trees! I remember Ridley taking us round the set and saying the effort that went into certain aspects of it that would never be shot let alone seen by a viewer. He said it was imperative that everyone who worked on it believed they were there as a part of the set rather than a 'bit part player'. A excellent viewpoint though I'm not sure with budgets as they stand today would be supported by the financiers?

Excellent words Eric, thank you. (Please post more!) Maybe there should be a thread about the 'great and the good' we have all worked with?
 
Jannard said:
2012 will be a year for RED to remember forever...

Jim
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Yeah, unless you are Mayan. After December 2012, those guys will no longer know what day or month it is.
 
Eric Lange said:
Obvious question for JIM…

So when do you and Ridley get to watch Prometheus on a RED 4k laser projector in RED Laser 3d?

Cheers,

Eric
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Got to agree with Eric here. Golden opportunity. RED 4k projection in London for both your, mine and a whole heap of others, arguably the best living cinematic director in the world.
A 4k London screening for the great and the good ie REDUSER members?!!!!!!!!!!! Surely it's possible?
 
Iain Philpott said:
Got to agree with Eric here. Golden opportunity. RED 4k projection in London for both your, mine and a whole heap of others, arguably the best living cinematic director in the world.
A 4k London screening for the great and the good ie REDUSER members?!!!!!!!!!!! Surely it's possible?
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I'll travel down from Glasgow for this...

:))
 
Believability and fastidious detail of Scott

Believability and fastidious detail of Scott

Iain Philpott said:
Eric, lovely stories. Just imagining Ridley and Lucas out at dinner in some fab restaurant arguing about trees! I remember Ridley taking us round the set and saying the effort that went into certain aspects of it that would never be shot let alone seen by a viewer. He said it was imperative that everyone who worked on it believed they were there as a part of the set rather than a 'bit part player'. A excellent viewpoint though I'm not sure with budgets as they stand today would be supported by the financiers?

Excellent words Eric, thank you. (Please post more!) Maybe there should be a thread about the 'great and the good' we have all worked with?
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Don't encourage me 700 oddposts is enough perhaps...

You touch on some very intereting points about film making and film history I think...

The believability “index” is pretty key. My father worked 2001 as a one of the principal production designers… but he got the job as he used be head of future concepts at NASA on the conceptual side. Stanley (Kubrick) said well I can hire Illustrators like you for a dime a dozen but you… (referring to my father) know the real future and science fact of space travel. So that’s how he got the job… But the thing was with Stanley he went to the absolute Nth degree to make everything absolutely believable. So like what you were saying Iain a VERY large fraction of what was built was never really seen on film. [There they hired real high end engineering firms to build a lot of it]. It was a little bit like the Spanish Inquisition as everything had to be built so perfectly because there was ALWAYS the threat that Stanley might want to shoot from a particular angle that no one in their right mind would ever predict. So it’s not like, the director would say “let’s shoot from here…” … “but unfortunately you jerks decided not to build the set behind these panels and recesses etc.”, and you could not wait, as it were for someone to fabricate missing parts of an environment. Sometimes the production designer has to be kept handy as in some rare circumstances things do have to be redesigned on the spot. So I think some of that “fastidiousness” of complete environments comes a bit from Stanley Kubrick… or at least a precedent for a reasonable insistence thereof… that dosen’t come across as completely insaine. [So I think subsequent directors such as Ridley Scott and George Lucas were able to take a leaf out of Kubrick’s book in terms of extensive environments and complete believability. But as usually is the case that in film history everybody thinks they were the first to do something. Ridley definitely has his own style which is fantastic and I think he really has been one the best at creating complete and total believable worlds.]

I personally believe directors should be allowed to explore the environment that is built for more interesting camera angles and effects, but I have to say on productions more recently probably because of the amount of CG and pre-viz that is used that some movies virtually match the storyboard shot for shot frame for frame. Which is kind of odd that the script and the storyboard artist (don’t get me wrong a lot of them don’t get enough praise or recognition) to a large degree are “calling the shots” visually.

Some of the work we are doing also to re-purpose Scarlet-X is to turn it into effect into a 3d scanner with some of the techniques that we have been developing and I genuinely hope it can also be used as production recording tool that records in three dimensions and nicely lit all of the fantastic work that goes into a physically built production of the complexity and ilk of Prometheus. It’s very sad to see all of that work, once they strike set to be completely torn up and destroyed and thrown on the back lot to make way for the next production. A lot of directors have this conceit that the perfect version and vision of what happened on the production should only appear on film… I strongly disagree with this as there is so much beautiful craftsmanship and design that disappears off the face of the earth or is never seen again…

So I would very much like to see better recording and “preservation” if you will of the art and craft of film making in general I think… as it is remarkably creative but yet short lived and destructive process. I can’t think of anything else like it for pure decadence for destroying such large volumes of incredible physical work from amazing craftsmen and artists. Would be nice to have a more comprehensive 3d archive and record I think.


Is the Empire Leicester Square still going? [I’ll be coming to the UK more often in the future]; that would be great venue to sneak in a RED 4k projector rigged for s-3d and Prometheus or a Hobbit or two…

Cheers,

Eric
 
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Eric Lange said:
Is the Empire Leicester Square still going? [I’ll be coming to the UK more often in the future]; that would be great venue to sneak in a RED 4k projector rigged for s-3d and Prometheus or a Hobbit or two…

Cheers,

Eric
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It is - walked past it today. Leicester Square is having a revamp at the moment, to make it more premiere friendly.

Andi
 
Jannard said:
OK... here we go. Ridley Scott. Prometheus. EPIC 3D. Trailer due out this week. Incredible.

We began this journey to build cameras to change the world. I can't think of a better payoff for our efforts than to have Ridley shoot and release this movie.

Ridley is one of my all time favorites. Blade Runner is my favorite movie. Alien is all world. To have Prometheus "Shot on RED" is such an honor.

Watch.

Jim
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I love how every 12 hours you are posting about how some master shot the camera you designed... yeah, I think the wife can let a couple cigars slide this week :)
congrats Jim and Happy Holidays
 
Andrew Martin said:
It is - walked past it today. Leicester Square is having a revamp at the moment, to make it more premiere friendly.

Andi
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I remember in the late 70’s and early eighties the movie premieres that were given in the UK were on Leicester square… I think the Empire rather than the Odeon. But usually very early in the morning and basically Leicester square itself was almost like a ghost town, no one there apart from a pew puddles and pigeons. So it’s funny to learn that now they are making a big RED carpet feature out of everything. I think that’s great for the UK film industry. I hear reports that more US companies are making movies in the UK again for the same reasons a lot of the Hollywood block buster’s were made in the UK in the first place… great tax breaks, great facilities and fantastic film technicians and craftsmen. Movies like first three Star Wars at EMI and the Raiders Movies, the first two Superman movies and many many others were principally made in the UK. I hear that Captain America was done at Pinewood and they saved (so I am told) $20M. (not bad)…

Cheers,

Eric
 
On a technical note, having everything physically built with extreme detail and texture will provide a much richer and more realistic environment for s-3d (when correctly or very carefully executed).

So I see this sort of convergence and reverse trend where for example RED 4k++ (measured) acquisition coupled with (hopefully) 4k s-3d RED laser projection means that films/movies that will be made will require extremely detailed and expansive physical environments to be built with beautiful 3d textures either 1:1 or at scale. At the moment a lot of CG techniques don’t fully take into account stereo texture and lighting interplay and therefore stick out (as flat and fake) right now. (We have techniques to help with that), but overall 4k and S-3d is going to demand a much higher quality of physical craftsmanship than what we in some cases are used to getting away with before.... even if it is dimly lit...

I remember at least 15 years ago there were workshops held for the introduction of HDTV to show production designers, Art directors, set decorators/dressers, costumers etc. prop masters what it is that you can no longer get away with any more…

I’m really hoping that Promethius shows the merit of detail, craftsmanship and real environments built “old style” for new really engaging experiences that really put you there.

Cheers,

Eric
 
Alien is one of my favorite movies of all time and Prometheus is a movie that I really really look forward to. It's also what ideas and what it seem to be about that intrigues me, I have my own screenplays about the same subject of humanities origin and the great philosophical questions around it and this kind of story just makes me all warm inside :)

On the subject of shooting 3D, set vs CGI and so on, I think it's all about experience. It's so new, everyone is learning, everyone is fine-tuning their own knowledge and craft around 3D so let it boil a couple of years. I think that 5 years from now most movies will be shot in 3D and the quality will be better, mark my words.
 
Peter Franzen said:
The trailer isn't up on Apple's site yet, but you can see it here: http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=32750

"Not an Alien prequel" my ass. ;)
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Nice one…

Looks like the outfits took a leaf out of 7of9 from Voyager (cringe)… but nice to look at perhaps… [makes those pesky Chromakey(s) a bit easier perhaps.]

I note from the Empire Promo that its Sir Ridley now.

Good stuff.

Cool Britannia and all that and “Brand UK”.

Cheers,

Eric

I believe if your are knighted and become a Knight of the Realm you get to redesign or augment your coat of arms with extra flourishes. So instead of a unicorn, or lion Sir Ridley would have…? (Crazy space monsters…?) (Fanciful monsters fit well with medieval iconography and heraldry). If you don’t have a coat of arms to begin with you can really go to town to invent one. I wonder what Sir Ridley did?
 
Looks amazing - thanks for the link!

Graeme
 
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