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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 One slammed in Feb issue of AC?

D Fuller said:
I'd be happiest if he could pull focus.
Click to expand...

Okay, if your DIT/AC dude could pull focus...

...but didn't know that RED took a while to reboot...
...and didn't know that shooting 2K is severely windowing the sensor and will look soft even at HD...
...and didn't know about the white balance / preview issues...
...and didn't know that the camera won't tell you it dropped frames if you're zoomed in...

(etc. for all the things he mentioned in the article)

...would you be happy?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce Allen said:
Okay, if your DIT/AC dude could pull focus...

...but didn't know that RED took a while to reboot...
...and didn't know that shooting 2K is severely windowing the sensor and will look soft even at HD...
...and didn't know about the white balance / preview issues...
...and didn't know that the camera won't tell you it dropped frames if you're zoomed in...

(etc. for all the things he mentioned in the article)

...would you be happy?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

I'd be thrilled if all he/she did was help carry stuff. Cuz I've never had either.
 
I think the AC article made some valid points, but did so with a negative slant. I'm impartial, because I don't own a Red camera, but I've worked on many Red projects in post -- along with similar projects with the Arri D21, the Genesis, Sony F900, F950, F23, F35, and many others. They all have their pros and cons.

In post, we try to be format-agnostic; our goal is to make good pictures regardless of capture format. Having said that, I'm not happy with the Red's much-discussed rolling shutter problems, and I thought the most recent theatrical projects I saw -- Michael Jackson's This Is It and District 9 -- suffered quite a bit from a lot of motion blur issues. But at the same time, I think the Red is capable of making beautiful pictures with a good DP, good lenses, good lighting, and a good colorist. And I'm also confident the cameras will get better, particularly with the new pickup.

Speaking as a digital colorist who's worked on more than 300 feature films here in LA over the past 25 years, my preference is for 35mm film. But I think a good artist can still get superb results out of digital cameras; even the live-action portions of Avatar looked beautiful to me (as one example), and they were just uprezzed 1080.

To me, it's not about the resolution; it's more about the lighting, the exposure, and the skill of the guy behind the camera -- and certainly not the camera itself. I'm hoping the new Red models will improve exposure range and reduce the rolling-shutter issue, which will make my job easier, and I can't wait until they get here.
 
I usually don't post on any of these kinds of threads, but for some reason I feel compelled this time. I think your example is a little weak Bruce. You are presuming that the shooter knows nothing about the Red and that also the AC knows nothing about it. That's just a bad situation for any camera system. I haven't seen any articles on how buggy the Phantom camera is (and it DEFINITELY is), or any other computer style camera. It is the Red that's at the brunt of negative comments. I guess what really makes the article seem like a Red-bashing fest is that all of the large quotes are of the Red's negative aspects. The two other issues are the "Red made a mistake in making a Daylight balanced digital camera" as if there is any other kind. Also, the bayer pattern is in many high end digital cameras and not unique to the Red. The last part of my issue was that there was no real constructive talk about shooting with the camera or posting it. It was more of a "Look out for this" and "Oh I also don't like this" kind of an article.

Regardless of this, it's obvious that Chris knows how to shoot, especially with the red. The stills in the article are amazing. Exposure and grading are right on. I just wish he talked about that aspect more.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Okay, if your DIT/AC dude could pull focus...

...but didn't know that RED took a while to reboot...
...and didn't know that shooting 2K is severely windowing the sensor and will look soft even at HD...
...and didn't know about the white balance / preview issues...
...and didn't know that the camera won't tell you it dropped frames if you're zoomed in...

(etc. for all the things he mentioned in the article)

...would you be happy?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

absolutely. because I would have time to indoctrinate yet another person
on the joys of shooting RED... which to me, far outweigh the negatives.

Id start with a list similar to one you started in these threads for a crash course... im actually doing an orientation Friday for a FIRST TIME RED shooter... and do it almost every week.

Red is a 3 year old company... and the imminent future appears light years from where we are today... RED listens, and adopts as fast as they can...

they listen almost too much... (hence the delays)... almost.

I get your point Bruce and too don't think the article flamed RED... its old news.
 
Life is ironic sometimes...

Guess what footage just came in for me to pull greenscreens from today? Shot by a reasonably famous DP.

Underexposed 2K footage shot with tungsten lighting at RC28.

And the best part: NOT A SINGLE SHOT AT 120FPS.

There are a lot of wingnuts floating around who have no clue about RED.

The famous guy who shot my crap footage probably reads American Cinematographer though. If he reads the article, perhaps he will get a clue. Because the article points out the issues in a concise manner, not 500 threads on REDUSER. Then we'll have less terrible RED footage being shot.

Geez guys, stop foaming at the mouth. Don't you WANT less terrible RED footage being shot?

Thanks for the support, Tim.

Everyone else, thanks for laughing at me like manic fanboys.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I hate to say it, but wouldn't it be easier just to grease the skids with AC and run some ads? I mean, look at those full back-page "bribe" ads that Kodak has been running for decades at AC.
 
I love RED like I love my wife? Are those adverts really by Kodak and for film? I thought they were Poes?

Graeme
 
Bruce Allen said:
Life is ironic sometimes...

----BREAK-----

Don't you WANT less terrible RED footage being shot?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...


Couldn't agree with you more.

Sure there are lots of well-informed people here; but if Red hitting the AC helps inspire more people to get informed themselves, then that is a very good thing.
 
Oliver Schietinger said:
Couldn't agree with you more.

Sure there are lots of well-informed people here; but if Red hitting the AC helps inspire more people to get informed themselves, then that is a very good thing.
Click to expand...

I don't think this article would inspire anyone to get informed - it would inspire them to use another camera system. This is what many of us are taking issue with. No one is against full and open disclosure and the education of first-time RED adopters. I go out of my way to inform my clients and colleagues about the pitfalls and gotchas that have cropped up throughout the RED journey. But when the first substantial RED article in AC is largely negative and features giant pull-quotes to that effect, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

My memories of AC's coverage of other HD/digital systems (Viper, Genesis, Dalsa et al) was of a far more balanced and constructive tone, with giant pull-quotes from the director and DP frothing about how stoked they were with the system. I also remember those manufacturers having full-page advertisements in those very same issues.

Now I'm not naive enough to think that the fickle attentions of the press can't be swayed by advertising dollars. If they were to keep ignoring RED as they have been (despite it punching at at least the same weight as the aforementioned camera systems), that would be one thing. But to publish an article that sustains a negative tone for 11 pages makes me wonder if AC is a subsidiary of FOX News.
 
After reading the article, I'm left wondering what he actually likes about the camera, and why he used it on 50 shoots when the article lists nothing but complaints.

I thought the shots from his work looked quite good, and I quite liked the look of "Waking up in Vegas" and "Poker Face" before I had any idea they were shot on RED. So, he's certainly getting some good results out of it.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Life is ironic sometimes...

Guess what footage just came in for me to pull greenscreens from today? Shot by a reasonably famous DP.

Underexposed 2K footage shot with tungsten lighting at RC28.

And the best part: NOT A SINGLE SHOT AT 120FPS.

There are a lot of wingnuts floating around who have no clue about RED.

The famous guy who shot my crap footage probably reads American Cinematographer though. If he reads the article, perhaps he will get a clue. Because the article points out the issues in a concise manner, not 500 threads on REDUSER. Then we'll have less terrible RED footage being shot.

Geez guys, stop foaming at the mouth. Don't you WANT less terrible RED footage being shot?

Thanks for the support, Tim.

Everyone else, thanks for laughing at me like manic fanboys.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying Bruce.

If you look at my past posts you will see that I am anything but a "fanboy".

However, do you think this "famous DP" had any right charging someone to work with a camera that he did not fully understand? Apparently, his AC and DIT did not know much either.

I have just purchased a RED One and RPP this week.

No matter how much money is offered to me, I will not shoot a professional job until I feel 100% confident with this camera. That would be reckless ... unprofessional ... and my ignorance would reflect badly on a camera that did deserve it.

Until that time comes, I will rock my Sony EX3 and Letus Ultimate.
 
Come on guys ... lay off Christopher Probst. I love his work.

That "Survivor" show is amazing!

:wink:

In all seriousness, Chris is certainly free to have his opinion, but perhaps he should review this next:

wrightplane.jpg
 
The article was honest and to say that because it didn't try to put a positive spin on the facts that were reported, therefore Christopher and the magazine are "biased" is nonsense. How can telling the truth be a sign of bias? If being honest is a "hatchet job", then we need more hatcheting and people need to develop a thicker skin. Sure, he could have been more politically correct and put a happy spin on everything -- in fact, a number of times in the article he mentioned that things were changing, being improved, etc. But not enough I guess to please people.

This is just the downside of releasing a product that is being refined and upgraded in the open air, in public. You can't have it both ways, get to participate in this grand experiment in developing this camera and yet expect people to not report on the problems they have run into.

I knew when I read the article that Chris was going to take a lot of crap from people here for daring to actually enumerate all of these real issues in a single article. He's a braver man than I am.

Fault him perhaps for not making a better effort to look on the bright side of the Red experience, but he wrote an honest account and we don't need to make the RedUser site look pathetic by posting a bunch of paranoid rants about how the ASC is "out to get Red" -- because it simply is not true. The magazine will only be valuable when it tries to avoid sugar-coating the filmmaking experience and report honestly. We get enough of those politically-correct "offend no one" puff pieces in industry rags and I was happy to read Chris' no-nonsense direct approach. I hope there are more articles like his -- about every tool out there -- but we won't get to that state if we slam articles that report the facts, even unpleasant truths, rather than try to sell people something. Leave the marketing to marketers.

The only problem with Chris' article is probably that it's six months too late; it would have been more valuable if it had come out in the midst of the main problems with the Red rather than at the tail-end of these problems just as they are being fixed. But that's the nature of magazine publishing and their lead times.
 
Enjoyed that rant. Great points Graeme. I write this from a cab in NYC comming home from a RED tv series and jus find this all very ammusing. Cheers.
 
The file that the Phantom HD generated at 2K resolution was, on average, approximately 8 times larger than the Red’s 4K file.
Click to expand...

As someone who understands codecs, has been a fan of wavelet codecs since Bink was released ten years ago, and is familiar with the size, weight, and power requirements of an HDCAM-SR deck or a Codex Digital recorder, I would like to say thank you, Graeme, for giving us Redcode.
 
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