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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 :)

RED MX on SUZUKI TVC

Mark Toia

Mark Toia

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I just love these cameras.

We did this shoot in 2.5 days and shot it all in camera, No VFX!. no tricks, no Matts!

The Parkour stunty was completely MAD (and amazing) and we had to pull him back half the time as he wanted to do a triple somersault through half of these jumps. Because we were shooting in camera all of his stunts were 100% real. We shot two cameras to make sure we didn't have him repeat big risky jumps to many times. I could here his body wack the concrete a few times, but it didn't seem to faze him. Majority of the shoot was 1 take stunts. Stunty wanted to do more, we said no... Our hearts couldn't handle it.

Huge logistics shooting on roof tops, ridiculous insurances, safety people, stunt teams, nervous clients, producers up my arse, Paramedics freaking out, you all no the drill.

When your shooting for a paying client, UNI student rules with your mad mates sneaking into locations without permission doesn't work.

All this was made very simple and easy by using a couple of RED ONES with a couple of 18 to 50 RED ZOOMs. These lenses are sooooo good. So under rated, so pissed on by brand name users... But man are they clean and sharp!

In two years of flogging these cameras stupid, they still look brand new and they never miss a beat.

http://www.zoomfilmtv.com.au/ftp/SUZUKI_cinema_version/SUZUKI_Swift_Toia_1280_h264.mov

Bring on the EPIC!
 
I think you should get an early EPIC to test on!

your spots are always beautiful and fun to watch, and often seem to push the camera system to the edge... be it snowy mountains...sunny "football" beaches or rooftop jumping madness:)
 
Can I also point out that Mark also cut the job, composited it, graded it ... And you think the stunty's a madman.

Great work as usual Mark. John came into visit us the other day. We joined the chorus singing your praises!
 
Geesh. Exhausts me just watching! That is one seriously athletic dude! And, great visuals for sure. Wow. :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1:
 
As usual, good stuff Mark!

You folks down in Oz get away with a lot more than us in the US.

I've always liked your no BS approach too. You were one of the few I knew who cut and finished with Proxies on a regular basis and the stuff always looked good. You never complained about it. A few years later and we have many workflows, my guess is you use whatever it takes to get the job done with few complaints. You just make good stuff.
 
Thanks Guys, Very nice words :) thanks.

Yes I do Direct / shoot / edit / grade / composite / master... all of my own work. I don't really need to, but I do because I know exactly what I want. I do farm out post when I just don't have enough time to finish it myself or the job is to big for one man I'll then find a team of 3D / compositors to support me. But over all... I do it myself.

I'm a fine painter from young.. I have trouble drawing the outline of something then giving it to everyone else to finish off.. Seems silly to me that someone else finishes your painting. Thats just me. Some people call it compulsive obsession. I just call it finishing my art.

Regarding workflows. Yes I was a big quicktime proxie fan when RED first came out. But the Proxies went from FLAT clean looking files with low contrast to already pre graded things set by the Meta data from the camera. So I ended up with less room to grade with. As well the Proxies were getting to heavy and clunky to work with.. not sure what RED did with them, but they were never what they once were.

Now I'm a PRO RES 4444 fan. What I do is make my own tailor made LOG FILES from the R3D's. I use REDLOG / CAMERA RGB in RED CINE X but first I neutralize my white balance point so I end up with the cleanest purest most flattest neutral looking LOG files I can get. I want to make sure I have every last bit of information I can get.
Here is a link to what we can get from the PRO RES Files if they were many many stops under exposed. Retrieved in FCP in real time in my edit time line.

http://www.zoomfilmtv.com.au/ftp/Dynamic_range/Dynamic range from a 4444 PRORES _ FROM RED.mov

I only go back to my R3D's if I really need to suck a bit more light or dark out of the image. Very seldom I need to do this.
What I loved about my 35mm film days was walking into the telecine and the colourist I'd work with would bring the NEG back to the flat looking, desaturated, super low contrast LOG so we could see everything, Then we would grade from that point dictating every last tone and color we wanted. It was the best.
I wanted that same control with my RED files. So I create the same process using the R3D's and PRO RES 4444 files
The reason why I use 4444 PRO RES as a master format is because I can work in real time and KEY, Grade, edit all in FCP with no image loss.

I used to grade in Color, Scratch and have done a lot in BASELIGHT, but now I grade mainly in FCP using the 3 way colour correctors drop down menus (which people forget are there or don't know they are hiding under below the basic corrector) to key separate tones and colors etc etc.. FCP is far more powerful than what people think. I do this all in real time. All in 2k, everything comes out exactly the way I want it with not a single compromised image.

I view all my work on a 20 foot screen in my edit / online suite and it is pin sharp and beautiful. Clients just love it.
We have been doing a lot of film outs lately using the PRO RES 4444 files and they look as good if not better than the feature movie playing behind it. I'm convinced that I will finish my movie using PRO RES 4444. There is no need for me to work uncompressed. Way way to slow and heavy.

I so wish I could press a button on the REDs and out spat PRO RES 4444 flat REDLOG files.. (without a module) I'd be very very happy camper.

So yes. I never knock RED (other than there slow turnaround time for gear) There cameras work so well and the files are so easy to work with from day dot. For the life of me couldn't figure out why people were having so many issues with RED.
2 years on I realized that the POST house's were stuffing up the color grading and workflow which in turn everyone thought the RED camera images were crap. Blaming the camera was easy to do...
This dawned on me when a director came around to my studio with his files saying how the DOP fucked the images on the RED camera. His ad looked dreadful.. We pushed his files through our work flow in house (actually on my laptop over a beer) and all of his shots were all perfect, We graded them all right in front of him and he just about died. He had to go back to the DP and apologize (I made him) and he never blamed the RED camera again. It just comes down to the way you manage those files.

So thank God this has changed now. The R3D's are just the most amazing part of RED. The camera is well... just as amazing.
 
Mark Toia said:
Here is a link to what we can get from the PRO RES Files if they were many many stops under exposed. Retrieved in FCP in real time in my edit time line.

http://www.zoomfilmtv.com.au/ftp/Dynamic_range/Dynamic range from a 4444 PRORES _ FROM RED.mov

I only go back to my R3D's if I really need to suck a bit more light or dark out of the image. Very seldom I need to do this.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah! That's what I'm talking about.

Mark Toia said:
... I realized that the POST house's were stuffing up the color grading and workflow which in turn everyone thought the RED camera images were crap. Blaming the camera was easy to do... It just comes down to the way you manage those files.

So thank God this has changed now. The R3D's are just the most amazing part of RED. The camera is well... just as amazing.
Click to expand...

This still happens way too often for my liking. Many houses are too quick to drop into DPX, before they've achieved all they can in RAW. Your workflow works because you get the majority done in RAW to give yourself a LOG image. I've seen numerous shots with noise and clumping, all blamed on the Red, but when you go back to the R3D's they're as clean as a whistle. All the crap happened in DPX.

BTW, I laugh every time you rave about your 18-50's. We have one and nobody, but nobody will use it on a production. And none of them are doing with their Cookes what you do with that little zoom.
 
Mark, your methods speak to my soul. I love your directness and that you're not pretentious in your philosophy. Thanks for producing amazing art.
 
Mark, I'm sure I've seen at least one post house deliberately ( a year or two ago, maybe not so much recently) make r3d footage look poor through dodgy DPX transcoding...
That may sound paranoid, but the people concerned are pretty intelligent, and very experienced so I find it hard to believe the mistakes could be genuine.
Pricing for transcoding was sometimes outrageous, and I'm sure it was all motivated to sway people back to film, so that they can milk more hours out of the telecine suites they had invested so much $$$ in.

If the client was dissatisfied, they'd just blame the camera.
 
just for kiddin':

Is it a good message to the audience, that you can outrun the car that being advertised?:)
 
Mark Toia said:
So yes. I never knock RED (other than there slow turnaround time for gear) There cameras work so well and the files are so easy to work with from day dot. For the life of me couldn't figure out why people were having so many issues with RED.
2 years on I realized that the POST house's were stuffing up the color grading and workflow which in turn everyone thought the RED camera images were crap. Blaming the camera was easy to do...
This dawned on me when a director came around to my studio with his files saying how the DOP fucked the images on the RED camera. His ad looked dreadful.. We pushed his files through our work flow in house (actually on my laptop over a beer) and all of his shots were all perfect, We graded them all right in front of him and he just about died. He had to go back to the DP and apologize (I made him) and he never blamed the RED camera again. It just comes down to the way you manage those files.

So thank God this has changed now. The R3D's are just the most amazing part of RED. The camera is well... just as amazing.
Click to expand...

Same thing has happened here. I have a DP friend who does excellent work, but now requires one of a select number of DIT to be on set and create some good looking files for producers/clients to prove that if final image doesn't look good it is neither his nor REDs fault... One post house really screwed thing up on him; he learned the hard way.

Thanks for sharing what you do and how you do it.

Regards,

Paul
 
julian-nüesch said:
Great Work Mark :001_smile:

Did you only used the red 18-50 zoom? no other lenses?

Keep it up...
Click to expand...

and the 50 to 150 RED ZOOM..... You know, that other shit lens RED makes. (apparently) :icon_bs:
.

I'm a huge lens tester. We own lots of cool glass. The RED Lenses are way way way better than I thought they would be. We just bought one for a bit of fun. Not realizing that it would be the glass of choice for many of our bigger productions.
For some reason because they are priced cheap, people think they are crap. They test amazingly well.

We have had two cameras on set one with a $40,000 Angenieux Rouge small zoom on it the other with a $6,000 RED 18 to 50.. Could not tell any difference at all. Images blending perfectly with each other. So we got rid of the Angenieux Rouge and purchased two more RED ZOOMs.. and still have a spare 20k in our pockets.

To be honest the Angenieux Rouge is better made.. but not enough for me to worry about it.
Seriously by the time my RED 18 to 50 falls apart (if ever) I'll pull out new one. we hqve had them for 2 years.. they still look brand new and perform beautifully.

I'm most defiantly not a BRAND name user. I only use what works well, I don't care if the name on the side is Rolls Royce or coke cola... if it works well. It gets used. So far RED is winning that race.

While others are (brand) wanking I'm Banking!
 
Mark, I love your work, it's just great. Also like your workflow because it's so very similar to my own. Not exactly, but I don't have quite your needs, yet. It's another great aspect of all things RED.

Keep them coming!

Cheers.
 
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