Red Scarlet X #316 "Skully"

[Steve Murray]

I'm looking at that or the Miller Arrow 55/Splinter II combo. I won't be able to grab a new head until the end of next month, but it's at the top of my list. Very top. These "smaller heads" just won't cut it for the feature at all.

I love my Miller 55 and it works fine with both my R1 and is excellent with the Epic but I would recommend Cartoni H604 CF sticks as they are much, much sturdier for about the same $$.

Or maybe get these heavier-duty Miller sticks as the Sprinter's do not cut it. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/232996-REG/Miller_925_ENG_Carbon_Fiber_2_Stage.html

 

[Phil Holland]

Wow that thing is impressive! Have you thought about shooting the first GIGAPIXEL SCARLET HDRx image yet?

I've thought about doing more panoramas for sure. I guess I could go out a shoot a "big'n". It's an interesting concept as you can push your shutter speed up and just pan, tilt, and roll until you get your coverage. I'll have to go find something pretty and worthy of a gigapixel'n.

I picked up the Manfrotto 509HD head with the 536 Legs and I am very happy with its abilities. If end up needing more umph I'll just rent the O'conner. I am still trying to find a good quick release that I can go from sticks, to shoulder, to my Steadicam, if any suggestions.

I've read good things about that combo from others as well. I'll have to look into it. I'll be testing out some O'Conner gear very soon. Whatever sticks I get I want them to support a small jib as well, so they'll need to be strong.

My dirty quick release that I'm using is the plate that works with all the inexpensive Manfrotto heads. I just mounted it to the bottom of my camera and again to the bottom of my shoulder rig. Pop everything on and off. I'll have to change/update this concept once I go to a bigger fluid head though.

I love my Miller 55 and it works fine with both my R1 and is excellent with the Epic but I would recommend Cartoni H604 CF sticks as they are much, much sturdier for about the same $$.

Or maybe get these heavier-duty Miller sticks as the Sprinter's do not cut it. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/232996-REG/Miller_925_ENG_Carbon_Fiber_2_Stage.html

Interesting and thank you. I didn't know the Sprinter legs weren't up to snuff. Heard only good things until now. I'll be testing a bunch soon so I can make an educated decision.

 

[Phil Holland]

Just a couple of quick things to share today. A green screen test and an anamorphic test/experiment.

Green Screen
Did some cleanly lit and not so cleanly lit green screen tests yesterday. Pretty decent results. Here's an example of a dirty one where I moved in a 1k to flare into the lens and heated up the wall a bit. Tough to yank out those individual hairs in this particular case. This was done fairly quickly in After Effects and with a bit more patience you can certainly add a secondary key to pull more. Mixing up the lighting a bit by using a 2k, 2x 1ks, and one 800w tungsten with some Opal diffusion in there. Tossed the keyed image over a timelapse I shot in 2007.

Easy and fun to key for the most part.


Anamorphic
I have a somewhat rare anamorphic lens, the Iscorama 50mm f/2.8 1.5x. I picked up this lens years ago to do anamorphic timelapse work on my old 1Ds Mark II and Mark III. It was designed to shoot anamorphic images on an 8-perf still camera frame and covers FF35. On Scarlet X unsqueezed the aspect ratio produced is 2.558:1, not a standard format. A bit wide for 2.40:1, but you can certainly crop it out of the frame. For this example I didn't crop at all.

I've learned that this is a fairly strange lens over time. Those two shots are wide open and taken while moving the camera around. I need to do some locked off work to see sharpness from f/2.8-f/16 on the lens.


Red OLPF Port Bushing
I received and installed the new Red OLPF Port Bushing today. Took about 10 minutes with setup. Make sure you're in a very clean and dust free environment if you are going to attempt the installation yourself, keep a blower handy just in case. If you are uncomfortable Red will install this for you and I believe future shipping cameras will also have it installed already. The OLPF Port Bushing will help eliminate extreme flare, regain contrast, and retain more detail with your image. Looks like it works to me.

Here's a before and after image:

The 4k Independent Feature
The cat's out of the bag at this point. I've been working on an independent feature called "Cook" that will be shooting in April. The motion picture itself will be shot on the Red Scarlet X as "A" Camera, with a bit of "B" work on the Epic for some slow motion. It will be shot at 4k with a 4k digital delivery as well as nation wide theatrical distribution, targeted November 2012. We are still churning away in pre-production, but a lot of pieces came together quickly for this project. Currently we are backed by two producers and there is also a Kickstarter campaign to raise some additional funding.

If you are in Los Angeles and free Saturday night, we are having a bit of pre-production party with the cast and crew. Free drinks while they last.

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 9:30pm - 2am
1540 S Robertson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035 - map

If you'd like to hang out with the cast, drink some champagne, and eat a few oysters prior to that there are "VIP Tickets" available at 7:00pm

As we move forward with shooting I'll be blogging/sharing images and videos from set as well as all the way through post. I'm going to try and make that as interactive as possible during production/post production. We'll be shooting locally in Los Angeles and we have a week in Chicago.

I've shot a lot of material for large budget productions, but this will be my first theatrically released project as Director of Photography.

Can't wait for April!

 

[Brennan Clark]

I'm sure your movie will look slick if you use the Iscorama! I tooooo have an Iscorama 54 that I was going to have stepdown rings made for to get them to work with the Zeiss lenses I'm getting. The guy who made my last stepdown ring has since retired, so now I gotta find someone else who knows what they're doing. What lens is the Isco attached to? I think those look pretty sweet. Anamorphic just makes everything look more epic. Do you have any closeup filters that actually fit in the Isco? I use sticky tack to make the ones work that I have which is suuuuper ghetto, but it totally works. I am also verrrry glad to see that the Isco 50 does in fact cover the whole 4K sensor. I put mine on a buddie's 5D with a 50mm lens and it totally fringed and looked like crap, so I was thinking 4K may be a little better since it's cropped in.

 

[Phil Holland]

@Brennan - I'm using the stock 50mm f/2.8 fixed focus lens that comes with the Iscorama here. I occasionally pop on a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 and I've seen results from the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 with it. There's too much barrel distortion for my liking with those setups for motion work, but that's just me. I won't be using this lens at all on the movie. I find it performs best between f/5.6-f/16. It will either be shot on Canon, Leica, Zeiss, or Red Pro Primes. I'll know a lot more next month on that front. The Iscorama has no problem covering a 36x24mm sensor, FF35. It was designed for that format. The vignetting comes from people adapting glass that doesn't cover the anamorphic front element.

Here's FF35 coverage from a 1Ds Mark III and the stock Iscorama 50mm f/2.8 1.5x lens:

 

[Lorenzo Straight]

Man, exciting to hear, Phil. Congrats.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Can't wait to see what you do on this feature Phil, congrats!

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

Grats Phil! You should link the kickstarter campaign here.

 

[Anthony Vu]

Nice work Phil. I love the green screen test. Are you planning on releasing the r3d file for the green screen test?

 

[SUNILPREM]

Congrats Phil for your new film.

 

[Peter.G]

Phil,

Thanks for keeping the posts coming...really great. Congrats on the film.

-P

 

[Justin Talley]

I'm sure the multitudes have offered already, but if you need another operator, let me know. God willing my Scarlet will be in before then.

 

[Phil Holland]

Thank you guys. It is indeed a great opportunity. This project is a fascinating one and it will be extremely challenging. There's even a couple of motion control shots in there.

Grats Phil! You should link the kickstarter campaign here.

Good call Jeffrey:
Kickstarter Link: http://kck.st/u5S5jI

The money we are raising within the Kickstarter is directly going towards production costs and the post budget. We've got of good going on outside of the Kickstarter. It will be nice if we make our goal. If not, we need to put the pedal to the metal to raise additional funds within 60 days.

Here's the teaser/sizzle trailer we put together in one day for the producers. 3 locations, 22 hours, 10 lighting setups, and a whole lotta hustle. Had to do an interesting mix of LED Panels, on site flourescents, and a vertical Kessler Cineslider move for that last shot.
Appropriately enough, this is likely the last thing I'll ever shoot at 1080p.

Nice work Phil. I love the green screen test. Are you planning on releasing the r3d file for the green screen test?

I'm going to see if I can ask her to let me release more from the shoot. We did some rather "shear" tests too that are interesting. I'll make some .R3D snapshots and upload maybe 8 of them. There were 16 setups with different wardrobe. Including a super red coat to test out saturation on the tungsten and the ability to pull that as well. Gimme a day or two and I'll see what I can do.

I'm sure the multitudes have offered already, but if you need another operator, let me know. God willing my Scarlet will be in before then.

Nah. It's fair game at the moment as we're still building the team. A couple local shooters even tried nabbing up the gig from under me recently I've been working on this for a few months now and am contractually signed luckily.

We will have a few situations where we will be rolling two cams and there will be a couple opportunities on that front. I'll put the word out on RU for other types of help we'll need too when it's time. The shooting schedule will be finalized at the end of February and March is hard core gearing up time. I'm very excited. I really like my first AC that we currently have attached. He's a rockstar. Hope we can hold on to him for the project. He's been busy though and being getting nabbed up lately by a much bigger fish than me.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Nice going Phil! I'm happy for you catching a feature as DP. They couldn't have found a nicer guy. All the work you put in for us redusers is just incredible. Thanks so much for doing this!

So I'm going to milk your niceness even more and ask you about your feeling towards voigtländer lenses. You shot with at least one, did you try more of them? How would you compare them, or to what other class of lens? Canon/Zeiss/or even Leica?
I'm thinking about getting me some nicer primes, but I can't afford PL glass at the moment. The funds went into the Scarlet and it's price increase from the 2/3rds back then... So I'm trying to find some glass to put on my canon mount. Maybe you have a tip...? Since it shows that you know what you're doing and I really like what you pull out of the hat with your tools, I'd love to hear your opinion on canon mount glass possibilities.

thanks a ton!

cheers
Patrick

ps. love your portrait shots on your site! sarah elizabeth johnston? wow. looks so natural!
there's really great stuff there! There are so many different looks, and each one "works" and just looks great. Chapeau!

 

[Paul Whittington]

Good luck with your feature, Phil... the trailer looks great!

 

[Phil Holland]

Nice going Phil! I'm happy for you catching a feature as DP. They couldn't have found a nicer guy. All the work you put in for us redusers is just incredible. Thanks so much for doing this!

So I'm going to milk your niceness even more and ask you about your feeling towards voigtländer lenses. You shot with at least one, did you try more of them? How would you compare them, or to what other class of lens? Canon/Zeiss/or even Leica?
I'm thinking about getting me some nicer primes, but I can't afford PL glass at the moment. The funds went into the Scarlet and it's price increase from the 2/3rds back then... So I'm trying to find some glass to put on my canon mount. Maybe you have a tip...? Since it shows that you know what you're doing and I really like what you pull out of the hat with your tools, I'd love to hear your opinion on canon mount glass possibilities.

Thanks Patrick! I'm a bit of a lensaholic, but I search high and low for glass I enjoy using. I have different lenses and even lens combinations for different looks, but I'm weird. I like Voigtlander lenses in general. The 40mm f/2 Ultron SL II is a must have lens for me. It's compact, built like a tank, has a smooth focus ring, and produces great images. That particular lens reminds me more of a Leica R build quality and finish, which I am very fond of.

If they made a 75mm f/1.4-f/2-ish prime for EF mount, I'd be all over that.

Everybody has their own preferences on glass, focal lengths, and brands. A good place to start with primes is to grab a 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm. I like shooting at f/1.2-f/2.8 a lot and most of my lenses are f/2.8 or faster. The Canon 24mm f/1.4L is getting used a lot at 4k on my Scarlet. I really like that length. At minimum I'd recommend that. It's always good to have a wide, medium, and telephoto lens in the bag. I usually carry sets of 3, 5, 7, 9, or 11 primes on me depending on what I'm doing. Filling out more length and width when I need to go further to the extremes.

You didn't ask about zooms, but I would certainly say the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is a lot of bang for the buck and incredibly useful when you need to get some super wide coverage. The Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L is also an extremely useful lens for general use.

If you are on a real tight budget, check out Nikon AIS lenses. I have a few and love them. I have a 50mm f/1.4 from the 1960s that performs pretty damn well. Cost me $100 and $9 for a Nikon to Canon EF adapter. Can't beat that.

Hope that helps.

Good luck with your feature, Phil... the trailer looks great!

Thank you Paul. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out considering the time constraint. I really can't wait to tackle the movie itself. There's going to be so many challenges, but a lot of interesting visuals.


Only real update to share, which is pretty important to me:

Scarlet X Date Received: December 22nd, 2011
Scarlet X payed for itself (plus current accessories): January 27th, 2012

36 days later, which is pretty incredibly to me.

This is important as prior to this a digital medium format camera was the most expensive camera I ever owned. And technically, that never really payed off in my mind. Ended up selling it ages ago. Miss the large sensor and glass though.

The plan from here? Accessorizing the Scarlet (more media, rig stuff, etc). Then likely PL glass of some sort. Then onto purchasing an Epic.

We'll see how that goes!

Other than that, scouting a location for a 15 second spot on Monday. Shooting on the 9th and 10th of February. Interestingly there will be a print campaign as well. I'm curious if I'll be doing this all "DSMC". Which would be nice, because the DSMC Side Handle should be here next week. Just in the nick of time!

I'm going to try and squeeze in one quick shoot prior to that. Personal project. A one day thing. I really want to balance out my work work and play work this year. I've been sitting on several things I've wanted to shoot for too long.

Cook update: Here's 450 pounds (50 cases of 12 packs) of Pabst Blue Ribbon I picked up for the party Saturday night:

How odd that the DP is the only person on the crew with a truck

 

[Lorenzo Straight]

Awesome that Scarlet has paid for itself so quickly. That's how you know you made a smart purchase. Way to go, Phil.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Thanks Patrick! I'm a bit of a lensaholic, but I search high and low for glass I enjoy using. I have different lenses and even lens combinations for different looks, but I'm weird. I like Voigtlander lenses in general. The 40mm f/2 Ultron SL II is a must have lens for me. It's compact, built like a tank, has a smooth focus ring, and produces great images. That particular lens reminds me more of a Leica R build quality and finish, which I am very fond of.

If they made a 75mm f/1.4-f/2-ish prime for EF mount, I'd be all over that.

Everybody has their own preferences on glass, focal lengths, and brands. A good place to start with primes is to grab a 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm. I like shooting at f/1.2-f/2.8 a lot and most of my lenses are f/2.8 or faster. The Canon 24mm f/1.4L is getting used a lot at 4k on my Scarlet. I really like that length. At minimum I'd recommend that. It's always good to have a wide, medium, and telephoto lens in the bag. I usually carry sets of 3, 5, 7, 9, or 11 primes on me depending on what I'm doing. Filling out more length and width when I need to go further to the extremes.

You didn't ask about zooms, but I would certainly say the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is a lot of bang for the buck and incredibly useful when you need to get some super wide coverage. The Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L is also an extremely useful lens for general use.

If you are on a real tight budget, check out Nikon AIS lenses. I have a few and love them. I have a 50mm f/1.4 from the 1960s that performs pretty damn well. Cost me $100 and $9 for a Nikon to Canon EF adapter. Can't beat that.

Hope that helps.

Thank you a ton, Phil. Yeah that helps a lot! Got you on the right foot there as a lens-a-holic I'm definitely going to check out the lenses you recommended. Especially the Voigtländer

I didn't ask about zooms because I already have the Tokina 11-16 (love it! a new version has just been announced... ...) and the canon L 70-200 IS 2.8 II. But I'll check out the 24-70 as that would complete the range up to 200.
- Do you have some feedback on the extreme telephoto zooms from sigma? the light ones? like the 50-500 or the 150-500? Oh and did you every try the new Tokina 16-28?

As for my primes: I'm trying to "boost my prime performance" a bit. For example: I have the Canon 50 1.4 and thought about getting the Canon L 50 1.2 but now I feel that getting a voigtländer or zeiss might be a "wiser" choice.
Oh, can you point me to the Nikon EF adapter you are using? Also: I have some old FD lenses but I have heard tons of varying statements about the EF adapters for these. Did you ever try a adapting these?

Only real update to share, which is pretty important to me:

Scarlet X Date Received: December 22nd, 2011
Scarlet X payed for itself (plus current accessories): January 27th, 2012

36 days later, which is pretty incredibly to me.

Wow! Awesome! Congratulations on that. I hope your future plans will work out just as well!
I got the misconception that you were mainly testing gear for your feature in the last couple of weeks but it seems that you haven't been sleeping either but just used up your bed time to test gear
May I ask what you shot with it, or did you rent it out to pay for it? Awesome! In just a month, thats really something. Chapeau once more!


... as for the party: I really miss out on a lot of stuff, being in germany. No Nov3rd announcement, no reduser party, no NAB, no Phil / Cook / startup party... damn the finally should invent beaming humans! Have a great time on sunday!

How odd that the DP is the only person on the crew with a truck

maybe that was part of the job description?



Cheers! Patrick

 

[Phil Holland]

Alrighty. Back and on the war path.


LWS 15mm Rod Notes
Just some useful notes for those interested in using LWS 15mm Rods and still lenses. I am using 7 inch and 9 inch rods. I have decided for my uses 9 inch rods will stay on the rig the vast majority of the time. Long enough to support 200mm and 300mm glass and just short enough to stay out of frame of the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at 4k. My machinist came through and provided a new sturdier baseplate that is about 80% of what the View Factor plate is, just with some extra mounting options. My top plate should be done next week.


Quick and Dirty Deep ND Filtration Test (Schneider Platinum 1.8 and Formatt HMND 1.8)
While running about and in between meetings I zipped over to Panavision for something else entirely. However, while I was there we did a very quick and dirty deep ND filtration test using the Schneider Platinum IRND 1.8, my Formatt HMND (Hot Mirror/ND) 1.8, and just the clean lens as a control. We jogged out into the parking lot and shot these all within a few seconds of each other. The results shocked me and I feel I may have to do more tests. Like a lot more tests. Let me show you the test image:

So "raw" is just the R3D out of the camera at 5600k, ISO 320 due to bright daylight. The "WB" means I white balanced off that center building, again this was quick and dirty. The "WB+DRX" is a white balanced and DRX set to 1.0 adjustment to remove the red/pink tint. The top row is the control and was shot with just the bare lens.


So my observations of what's going on here is that the white balanced Formatt HMND is pretty damn nice, which I knew. Rich shadow detail with no color tint and that's with no DRX applied! The odd thing here, and the thing that really shocked me was that the white balanced Schneider IRND image retains so much of the pink in the highlights and there's a color cast in the sky. Another odd thing I noticed in the Schneider IRND images is that the rolloff to highlights is slightly different, almost as if it's brighter in general. The area you should pay special attention to is the white rectangular bar on that center building and also the general hue of the blue sky.


Honestly, this confused me and is causing me to recondsider everything at this point as I was going to order a set Schneiders and a new matte box this week. Now I feel I'll actually need to rent a full set and really test them under different lighting conditions to really "know" what's going on. I've got a few days to sort all this out though. Right now I'm feeling the Formatt HMND are currently the best solution, which is really not what I expected.



DSMC Side Handle
I received my DSMC Side Handle earlier this week. It's really nice to finally have it and makes the Scarlet X feel complete. I see a lot of people not ordering or selling the side handles, but honestly it's a really useful tool that can actually save a lot of time on a typical production day. I love the 5.0" LCD Touch Screen and fully intend on keeping both on the camera. I've setup the custom buttons and thought I'd show what I've been using for about 24 hours.

I might change a couple things in there, but primarily my DSMC Side Handle button are programmed to be my focus and exposure control quick stop. I have also placed "shutdown" in there as I try to be fairly efficient when it comes to my shootings style, swapping lenses, and ejecting media. All those little time savers really do add up.



Adobe, DIT Station, and CPUS
So I thought I'd talk a little about where I'm going with my processing hardware from here on out. I'm a PC guy and use the Adobe CS5.5 Production Suite exclusively for all of my Red work. I use Adobe products to export quick dailies, process VFX elements, and all the way up to natively editing and finishing 4k projects. For my uses there isn't a better pipeline out there. So knowing that, here's my gameplan when it comes to computers.


The "Big CPU" - I've been working with .R3Ds for several years and have a capable system at home suitable for editing, color correction, and color grading. I will likely upgrade or replace this system near May 2012 prior to doing some really heavy post work. So I'm situated when it comes to the "head quarters CPU" situation for the time being.


The "Mini DITY" - For the last 7 years of my career I've always had the home base CPU and an on set laptop of some sort. My on set laptop lives with me when I travel and without it I honestly couldn't do 1/4 of the work I produce. My older laptop isn't going to cut it with it's 32bit processor and I desire fairly extreme portability and functionality. So today I'll be taking delivery of a MSI GT780DXR-446US with 16GB of RAM and 1.5TB eSata Hard Drive capacity. Depending on how my tests go over the next two days I may go nuts and swap out both eSata drives with large SSDs. I will know more after I install every software package on there. This particular laptop has 1x eSata and 2x USB 3.0 ports, which was a huge selling point. This means I can attach my Red Station to the eSata and two external drives USB 3.0 drives to offload and back up material fairly quickly. I can carry between 6GB and 24GB in drives with this system and have double data redunancy. My target is to hold around 24 hours of 4k R3D data, but have the flexibility for more. Most of these shoots are never over 12 hours of material from my previous experiences, so I should be in the clear if the laptop itself passes my tests. It just arrived at the door, but I have to eat lunch before I get intimate with it.

The "Real DIT" - Prior to going into production on "Cook" I will build an entire other system that will be an actual workstation turned into full blown DIT station. This is several months away.

So the goal = The Headquarters Editing Bay, The Mini DITY for portability, and the Real DIT for on set usage.

If this MSI Laptop works out after testing I'll have two out of my three setups all taken care of. After this and likely towards the end of the month I'll be looking at LTO solutions.


That's all I got for right now. I have a two day shoot for a spot on the 9th and 10th and I'm attempting to free up some time before that to do something "fun". Busy, busy!

 

[Doug Beatty]

Awesome post yet again, Phil. I almost pulled the trigger on a 4x5 Schneider ND earlier this week, but will have to reconsider.

I agree with you on the side handle. I can't imagine ever going back to no side handle after I take delivery. The LCD is nice, but a bit clunky and is a fingerprint magnet!