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Red Epic-W 8K + Leica R lenses | Kyndal - "Famous" Music Video

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Kenneth C Merrill

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Hey Guys! Here's my second music video of all time. Shot on my Epic-W with Leica R's. Really happy with how it turned out given that we shot almost everything in one day for $3500. The artist is super new and young, and I tried to make her cliche, quotidian song interesting with a visual twist. Let me know your thoughts!

 
Looks great! Felt clean and not overly so. Good color and lighting. I do have a few questions.

1. Which Leica lenses did you use? More specifically the focal length/f stop. I've been lusting after them for a while and may start with a small set, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go crons or luxes.
2. Were you involved in post? Was there sharpening applied in post? If so, I'm curious to this process.
3. Did you shoot in 8k and downres? If so, what was your method of doing that? I've heard mixed feedback on this, but I enjoyed the overall look of your video and thought you might have some insight.

Great work and keep it up!
 
RJ_Ortiz said:
Looks great! Felt clean and not overly so. Good color and lighting. I do have a few questions.

1. Which Leica lenses did you use? More specifically the focal length/f stop. I've been lusting after them for a while and may start with a small set, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go crons or luxes.
2. Were you involved in post? Was there sharpening applied in post? If so, I'm curious to this process.
3. Did you shoot in 8k and downres? If so, what was your method of doing that? I've heard mixed feedback on this, but I enjoyed the overall look of your video and thought you might have some insight.

Great work and keep it up!
Click to expand...

Hey RJ, here are a few answers to your questions:

1. Our set included the 19mm 2.8 V1, 24mm 2.8, 35mm 2.0, 50mm 2.0, 90mm 2.0. Most of the video was shot on the 35 and 50, with some stuff on the 24. I haven't ever used lux's, but I really love the crons. They are a bit soft so don't expect to get too much mileage if you're cropping beyond 5K, but there aren't many lenses that will give you that anyway.

2. I edited the whole thing, and my DP and I colored it. We did not apply any sharpening. I am not familiar with that process either, but if you find out more, let me know!

3. We shot 8K as much as we could, but a lot of it was varispeed--we shot 6K for that, typically at 40fps. I shot 2K 4444 simultaneously, and I did most of the editing in that. Honestly if I wasn't going for resolution, I could have finished in that, but I wanted a 4K master. So, I onlined the raw files and made it a 6K timeline, exported an XML to DaVinci Lite, and did all the coloring in 4K on that. Rountripped back to Premiere for some final FX and exported a 4K master.

That workflow worked really well. Pushing around 8K/6K files can be really taxing on your system, but if you get the edit pretty much locked with proxies then it's not a big deal.

Thanks for the kind words, and let me know if you need any clarification!
 
Hey Kenneth,

Amazing music video! Very Sharp indeed.

Could you let me know if you rememebr which color gamma did you use on the EPICW or did you shoot this in IPP2?

I have yet to roundtrip from Premiere to resolve and back to premiere... is it as easy as you say?
 
Great music video and single! Visuals fit the song perfectly.
 
Really nice music videos! good works!
I was assuming that you were the DOP but then read that you directed, very good concept and execution and I liked the lighting by your dop. As always, the location itself, dressing and makeup played a big role in the overall look of the piece.

Having said that, you do see the look of the Leica R, what I love about those lenses is that they are the closest thing to Primos that I've seen on a budget.
Do you own this set? are they Cinevised? My only gripe on those cinevised is that they are very small lenses and sometimes its hard o reach them with a follow focus and mattebox, on your music video it seems like the are not to many focus pulls, but on a scripted drama when you have a lot of focus pulls it could be more tricky to use them for say 20 days straight...wonder what your thoughts? Will be nice to get your DOP thoughts as well(and his name)...
 
Lovely video! I find my Rs and Helium to be a great match together!!!

Oron Cohen said:
My only gripe on those cinevised is that they are very small lenses and sometimes its hard o reach them with a follow focus and mattebox, on your music video it seems like the are not to many focus pulls, but on a scripted drama when you have a lot of focus pulls it could be more tricky to use them for say 20 days straight...wonder what your thoughts? Will be nice to get your DOP thoughts as well(and his name)...
Click to expand...

I had a set of cinevised Rs before I had them fully rehoused, I didn't have much of an issue using them with a mattebox (since I put 80mm fronts). The problem was with both a mattebox and follow foucs for most if not all the wide angle lenses. I think it mostly was problematic with the follow focus I had a the time though. That was one of the reasons I had them fully rehoused for cine work-now no issues :)
 
its reall beautiful work, the mic shot... im not sure it fits in but itsgot soul and a story worth 10 times more $ than put in to.
 
Oops I didn't see this thread had been resurrected. Thanks for all the kind words everyone!

Oron Cohen said:
Having said that, you do see the look of the Leica R, what I love about those lenses is that they are the closest thing to Primos that I've seen on a budget.
Do you own this set? are they Cinevised? My only gripe on those cinevised is that they are very small lenses and sometimes its hard o reach them with a follow focus and mattebox, on your music video it seems like the are not to many focus pulls, but on a scripted drama when you have a lot of focus pulls it could be more tricky to use them for say 20 days straight...wonder what your thoughts? Will be nice to get your DOP thoughts as well(and his name)...
Click to expand...

You state my feelings exactly. The lenses have really great character. I've found they don't resolve quite well enough to do a lot of cropping with the image, but I LOVE the look. I own a set of 5 now. They are cinemoded. And you're exactly right that it's tricky to fit the follow focus between the mattebox and the camera body and get it on the lens gear. I'm actually looking for a solution for that right now. I'm hoping a Bright Tangerine will fit.



Stephan Knight said:
Hey Kenneth,

Amazing music video! Very Sharp indeed.

Could you let me know if you rememebr which color gamma did you use on the EPICW or did you shoot this in IPP2?

I have yet to roundtrip from Premiere to resolve and back to premiere... is it as easy as you say?
Click to expand...

We shot in IPP2, and we monitored with Medium contrast, Soft rolloff on set, but when we actually graded the footage, I used True Color's Alexa LUT for RWG/3G10. Even though IPP2 is a huge improvement of Dragon Color, I still find the Alexa LUT gives me better skin tones and an overall more pleasing image. We set the LUT to about 75% efficacy and graded from there in Resolve.

The roundtrip to Resolve is really not that bad. You should do a quick test run to see how it works for you. Da Vinci is so much better if you're do actual color work.
 
Kenneth C Merrill said:
Oops I didn't see this thread had been resurrected. Thanks for all the kind words everyone!



You state my feelings exactly. The lenses have really great character. I've found they don't resolve quite well enough to do a lot of cropping with the image, but I LOVE the look. I own a set of 5 now. They are cinemoded. And you're exactly right that it's tricky to fit the follow focus between the mattebox and the camera body and get it on the lens gear. I'm actually looking for a solution for that right now. I'm hoping a Bright Tangerine will fit.





We shot in IPP2, and we monitored with Medium contrast, Soft rolloff on set, but when we actually graded the footage, I used True Color's Alexa LUT for RWG/3G10. Even though IPP2 is a huge improvement of Dragon Color, I still find the Alexa LUT gives me better skin tones and an overall more pleasing image. We set the LUT to about 75% efficacy and graded from there in Resolve.

The roundtrip to Resolve is really not that bad. You should do a quick test run to see how it works for you. Da Vinci is so much better if you're do actual color work.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, those Alexa Luts are very interesting.

As for the Mattebox, I'm guessing any Clip-on mattebox with a slim profile will help a lot, and maybe a follow focus with an extending arm.

Do you happen to have a behind the scene picture of your set-up?
 
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