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"Queen of the Desert" by Werner Herzog

Filip Orlandic

Filip Orlandic

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Queen of the Desert is being shot on DRAGON in Marocco and Jordan.

Director: Werner Herzog
DP: Peter Zeitlinger

Bb76c9zIIAAnJOp.jpg-large.jpg


I'm not involved in this project. Just found the photo on the web.
 
Surprised - as I remember Herzog did not enjoy his previous digital experience (he said it was like working on a computer rather then a film cam).

But, I love Herzog's work - one of my favorite Directors... and he's the only Director that operates the clapperboard. In the extras for Bad Lieutenant (remake) he gives his reasons for this, and it makes sense :)

Also shooting in a desert without a MB or ND... guess there's a motion mount on there?
 
Love some of his films (and the films about making them). Great to see him with a Dragon
 
Is that a zacuto EVF?
 
thank you, do you have any experience with the Alphatron?
 
Some technical details from the set:
On the first week we used the motion mount but changed it back to normal mount to be able to use the HDRx option as it was unlocked on the Dragon.
On this picture there is an Alphtaron EVF but we changed it for RED's because cinematographer needs stronger diopter that is possible on the alphatron (I personally prefer the alphatron for bigger picture and better color and shadow detail, then again on the RED there is more visible detail)
I think about 60% of the film is shot on Movi gimbal using Optar Illumina lenses and cinetape measure - even with carbon camera we are over the normal weight but having the rig a little bottom heavy has given good results. Today we had a shot with Arri UP 8mm. The gimbal has been great suprise even in less then ideal conditions of 25m/s wind.

It is still mind-blowing that 6K footage is needs to be scaled down to 60% on UHD monitor...
Redorocket-X is something that I have personally missed a long time (as I use a lot of HDRx footage it has been trying to build near set computer for size considerations).
Funny side-note: The Dragon seems to behave better than Mysterium as we still get occasional dropouts in X-stream, not once has this happened on Draogon.

I would really love it would be made possible to see the X-stream in the camera playback option (something like a selection either a-frame or x-frame)

Thank You RED team for great support and helping us to make it happen
Kaspar
 
thank you kaspar.
 
Holy cow, is that really Herzog next to RED Dragon camera? What exactly was in my coffee cup, this is heavy, Doc! In all seriousness, glad to see Dragon being used on more feature-length projects and Herzog warming up to digital and specifically Red (I assume after serious testing). Curious if they're shooting this picture clean or with any filtration. This one is obviously a period piece, people usually combat that precise and crisp digital look with old lenses, on-camera or post filtration or the Curfew method. Anyway, this is the movie to look forward to.
 
Great thread. Thanks for sharing Kaspar! Curious about filtration also - do you know if any is being used? Always curious how people are filtering Dragon...
 
For filters we dont use anything special, ND's and Glimmerglass on some occasions.
Most of the look is attchived in grading by specifically dealing with highlights and x-frame.

Kaspar
 
Kaspar Kallas said:
For filters we dont use anything special, ND's and Glimmerglass on some occasions.
Most of the look is attchived in grading by specifically dealing with highlights and x-frame.

Kaspar
Click to expand...
Kasper, do you mind sharing some of the approach with x-frame? Any tips or techniques that might go a bit beyond the basic theory of HDRx with Red.
 
The all famous X
1. I never use blending modes. Simple explanations, once the double edges are baked into the frame there really is no way to get rid of them.
2. I do my color-work in Davinci and V10 added 2 very important tools for this: key-blur (that goes up to more than 1000) and motionblur
Key-blur
first I color-grade the main frame (and sometimes I use the X frame (I know it is compressed more than A frame but I never had problem with this so-far) as main - ex. a gimbal shot in desert that will follow a character into a dark tent) and make it look as good as possible and then "borrow" the missing details from other frame by using only luma key. Almost final step is to blur and erode the matte so the seams will not show.
Best option is actually if there is specific shape that can be changed out there is no need for keying and there is no problem with double edges.
Now even after the prefect key sometimes You will see double edge (contrast area where a black shirt is moving fast in front of the sky) there I will use shape and and grade the X frame (shorter exposure) to match the darks as well as possible to A and de-garin this and add with a shape mask and strong erode only to the desired area of the image.
Motion-blur
It is always advisable to get the motionblur back to the X, it will all-ways help. In case of small movements in pixels sometimes a sharp key and motion blur is all what is needed and it will still result a more seamless result than just magic motion blend.

As for the filters we tend to shoot without any image degrading filters (even the glimmer-glass stays in the box) with such wide dynamic range it is much better to achive the FX in grading session as the defect is more controllable and easier to isolate to certain areas of the image. Therefore You can loos the detail in skin while keeping the eyes in perfect sharp focus.

Kaspar
 
Great news!!! Seems to me that the latest Ridley Scott's movie "Exodus" that was shot on Dragon at Canary Islands (Fuerteventura) and Morocco had spread a good vabration in the industry and of course that Herzog and his long years cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger (born in Czechoslovakia) could not avoid an opportunity to use Dragon...!!!

The Queen of Desert >>>>>>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837636/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Plot outline

A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Cast:

James Franco ... Henry Cadogan

Robert Pattinson ... Col. T.E. Lawrence

Nicole Kidman ... Gertrude Bell

Damian Lewis ... Charles Doughty-Wylie
 
Andy White said:
Surprised - as I remember Herzog did not enjoy his previous digital experience (he said it was like working on a computer rather then a film cam).
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly he said he liked the look but for documentary work (which he was doing at the time) the startup times were too extreme. And it was the REDOne early days when the REDOne was a questionably reliable camera.
 
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