Red Camera Motion Picture Examples And 4k Workflow

[jbeale]

To get around the strobe issue, the duration of your strobe needs to be closer to a 24th of a second and synced to your shutter so you don't flash the strobe in the middle of a frame exposure.

Are there any strobes that have a light output duration of 1/24 sec? I don't know of any electronic single-pulse system like that. Of course there are high-speed multiflash modes that go for much longer, but that's going to produce thin horizontal bars in the image, if I understand how the shutter works. To get real continuous light for 1/24 sec I'm thinking you might have to go old-school, like pyro - flash powder.

If I had to build an electronic system to deliver 1/24 second flash I'd probably use high-output LEDs. For short pulses they can do more than the steady-state output. In fact, if the rolling shutter is a fixed design feature of Red, then I bet there's soon going to be a market for such "slow flash" units.

On the other hand, maybe I'm worrying too much. I guess the flash in music videos is there just to "look cool" and if the intended audience thinks that fractional-frame flashes are just as cool (or better) than the old look, why bother fixing it.

Come to think of it, I guess you could create flash-frames just as easily in post.

 

[roy.jacobs]

I agree that it might not be a problem for a music video like this, but a rolling shutter in general can be fairly inconvenient.

But, yeah, if you can get away with it-- go for it!

 

[Marc Bachli]

This explains the clipping of the gun fire in the "Crossing the Line"...when I watched it frame by frame I noticed it but when watching real time with sound fx etc you really dont notice as much.

In this music video clip I noticed it right away even though I really enjoyed this clip Marc, some of my favorite stuff I have seen so far. Look forward to seeing more!

Best

Thanks so much. The video is being cut in avid right now. 2 hours of red code took my 8core 3ghz just over 30 hours to downconvert to SD so I could get it out to dbeta. No crashes at all thank god. I hope redcode works with FCP soon. I will get the edit back on monday, do a pass with color and post here. I was toying with shooting RED on a beer spot here in Toronto but the execs are skeptical and I dont want to give RED a bad rep right out of the gate. More testing is needed.

 

[Ivan G]

This explains the clipping of the gun fire in the "Crossing the Line"...when I watched it frame by frame I noticed it but when watching real time with sound fx etc you really dont notice as much.

In this music video clip I noticed it right away even though I really enjoyed this clip Marc, some of my favorite stuff I have seen so far. Look forward to seeing more!

Best

So those gun flashes were not composited, right? How were muzzles created?

 

[R. Gonzales]

Thanks so much. The video is being cut in avid right now. 2 hours of red code took my 8core 3ghz just over 30 hours to downconvert to SD so I could get it out to dbeta. No crashes at all thank god. I hope redcode works with FCP soon. I will get the edit back on monday, do a pass with color and post here. I was toying with shooting RED on a beer spot here in Toronto but the execs are skeptical and I dont want to give RED a bad rep right out of the gate. More testing is needed.

30 hours? Marc that's nuts. Correct me if I am wrong but that's like 15 to 1. So much for run and gun and leaving footage with a producer at the end of the day. Maybe you should finish on Film.

method

 

[Marc Bachli]

Ya I wish Redcode worked with my FCP setup. Then I could have downcoverted in real time with the KONA 3. Next time.

 

[R. Gonzales]

Hey Marc, educate me a little,

I didn't know that the Kona did 4K or am I missing the point? Would you mind explaining your intended workflow? Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

Method

 

[Rob Lohman]

So those gun flashes were not composited, right? How were muzzles created?

All gun flashes (and shell ejections) are real in that short....

Keeping the shutter the same as the framerate (or multiples there of) or the keep them both in sync with what ever flashing is going on (if you can control it) should yield superior results I think.

 

[Marc Bachli]

Hey Marc, educate me a little,

I didn't know that the Kona did 4K or am I missing the point? Would you mind explaining your intended workflow? Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

Method

Well the workflow seems to change weekly as Red is doing a great job making the software more user friendly. Kona cannot do 4k but redalert cannot out a 4K quicktime, only 2K and the kona can do 2K. The red raw codec now seems to work great FCP6.

1. Shoot 4K
2. Import into RedAlert (untill redcine is available)
3. do a grade in 4k
4. Save grad, make proxy at 2K in Redalert
5. Import 2K proxy into FCP6
6. Quick render in FCP6 / use the Kona 3 to do a 2K crop so you can output and monitor 1080Psf
7. Be very thankfull that this all kinda works finally
8. collect paycheck
9. Do it all again but hopefully with new builds and bugs

 

[LighthouseMEdia]

So can we expect to see this problem manifest itself on most quick flashes of light quicker than 1/24th of a second? Gunfire, explosions, quick lens flares, how about live music events and such will these all be problematic?

 

[purefilm]

Does film camera have the same problem with strobes?

So could this be fixed in post?

 

[R. Gonzales]

Does film camera have the same problem with strobes?

Yes and no.

Depending on frame rate a film camera can miss a flash but I have yet to see half frame flash exposures.

However when shooting high-speed sfx or food (lets say orange juice spray and you want to see every drop individually), High-speed flash is used (photosonics).

These flash strobe twice per film frame position. Once so the op can see what he or she is shooting.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jarred Land]

All gun flashes (and shell ejections) are real in that short....

Keeping the shutter the same as the framerate (or multiples there of) or the keep them both in sync with what ever flashing is going on (if you can control it) should yield superior results I think.

The flashes in Crossing were a mix between real and simulated (added in post), you can see the effect on the real ones very clearly.

 

[liquidigital]

Syncing gunfire between multiple subjects may pose a real problem for some of the stuff I need to shoot, no?

 

[purefilm]

So is this something that eventually can be fix, or is just something we will have to deal with? Will it be impossible to say shoot a live concert? Where you have no control?

 

[Greg Voevodsky]

wow... this could be a bit of a problem. How do HMI's work in slow motion?

Is it possible red can have a switch to change from a rolling shutter to say a fixed 1/24 or 1/30th of a shutter for FX?

Lightning, flashing lights from cop cars, airplanes, lighthouses, hmi's, gun fire, sun reflecting off shimmering water - would all look unnatural compared to normal film or video?!

Some are not possible or practical to sync... can RED create a better solution that would look more like a normal shutter?

 

[Finner]

wow... this could be a bit of a problem. How do HMI's work in slow motion?

Is it possible red can have a switch to change from a rolling shutter to say a fixed 1/24 or 1/30th of a shutter for FX?

Lightning, flashing lights from cop cars, airplanes, lighthouses, hmi's, gun fire, sun reflecting off shimmering water - would all look unnatural compared to normal film or video?!

Some are not possible or practical to sync... can RED create a better solution that would look more like a normal shutter?

Totally agree. not being able to shoot with HMI's would be really bad. Not to mention all the other things you bring up.

Flashes happen all the time in many different ways.

 

[Nick Shaw]

I agree it could be a problem for certain things, but I don't think people should start worrying that anything that flashes would look odd. It will only have the horizontal split effect on a light that transitions between off and on almost instantaneously ie in the time between when the rolling shutter is on one line of the image and when it is on the next. This will not be the case for most naturally occuring phenomena like the sun glinting off something. Nor I suspect (but somebody who knows more about lights than me feel free to jump in) on normal tungsten lighting which I think ramps up from off to on, even if the ramp time is very short.

 

[JohnF]

This effect is common to most electronic camera's/sensors. You have to have your strobes sync'd!

Unlike gun-fire/muzzle flashes a strobe flash is extremely short in duration (unless I'm missing something I've always been under the impression that strobes produced burst of light that were no longer than a few thousandth's of a second) enough to cause the type of problem we're discussing.

One of the general work arounds is to use the electronic equivilent of a 360º shutter and leave the strobe to do the work of providing that "staccato" feel.

Start going into faster shutter speeds un-sync'd and the chances are you'll miss the occasional flash or in some instances (like this) the flash'll go off midway through an exposure/readout and only appear to illuminate part of the frame.

JohnF

 

[JohnF]

Note:

Unlike the on/off light curve (more like a square wave) of a strobe a muzzle flash has more of a light curve (bell shaped) so gun fire is more likely to vary in brightness rather than be totally missed. though of course this does depend on ones shutter speed.

If you really need to catch it then always think 360 shutter...

Anyone know different?

JohnF