Red Scarlet X #316 "Skully"

[Peter Mosiman]

there seems to be many Scarlet and Epic shooters in LA, so maybe you guys could cook something nice since the internet audience is really "hungry" for Scarlet content!

I'd love to be apart of something like this Phil. Just let me know when and where!

 

[Phil Holland]

First, Phil, can't thank you enough for all these helpful, detailed posts. You could almost write a book with this- think about it, many Scarlet users (even Epic!) would buy it for sure.

I know you're doing this on your free time over your busy schedule, but, for sharing sake, do you think you can accept a small "challenge?" Can you just go out and try to do a small short just at night, natural lighting, with footage ranging from ISO 800 to f ISO 12800 - denoised, sharpened, etc with a 1.2 or 1.4 lens- a bit like "Vincent Laforet Productions" to share with us? No artificial lighting- ok, one or 2 portable LEDS - shot in a "Dogma"/Verité style? Sebastian from Cinema 5D shot a beautiful natural day light short, how about pulling something like this but at night on your beautiful LA setting? Just to see how far one can get away with it. I challenge you because Your stills look absolutely stunning and there seems to be many Scarlet and Epic shooters in LA, so maybe you guys could cook something nice since the internet audience is really "hungry" for Scarlet content! Maybe someone could help you with the post-production side, since it seems like it will be the most time consuming part?

Just asking, Phil! What you've done so far has been, like I said, a must read and a very important ressource for upcoming redusers!

What's our budget? Much of that "Hollywood Night" video was ISO 800-6400, with only the cityscapes being ISO 320 and 640. When I'm in Austin next week I'll see if I can put something like that together. Maybe when I'm back in LA. Depends on timing.

I'd love to be apart of something like this Phil. Just let me know when and where!

I think around February, once more people have their cameras, it would real cool to have a big Scarlet meet up. I have a space for this. It could be fun. Then again Red has Red Days occasionally and I'm sure they'll have at least one event this year. I'll have to bounce this around in my noggin for a bit and see what others would be interested in.

 

[Mike Halper]

I'd be open to joining the shoot, even just to help out if I don't have my Scarlet yet. Let me know please.

 

[Ben A.]

Hey Phil,

Do you ever work with Syntheyes and 3D tracking? Im dying to get my Lcd and SH so I can shoot something to track with my steadicam. Oh and I bet Green screen is going to be ridiculously easy vs. HVX footage which was that much easier to key than the DVX!

Has there been any advances in making spherical maps in the last 6 years. I played with a mirrored gazing ball with my canon 10D, but I gave up real quick, lol.

I have been dreaming of shooting over cranked to help with 3d tracking, then speeding it up to normal. I bet I could get amazing tracks with bouncy footage at >48fps... but test test test.

Btw, are you using any LTO's to back up to?

 

[Armando Barker]

Incredible post.

I'm also in LA. While I don't have a Scarlet yet, I'd love to help out in any way at this potential Scarlet Mexican Standoff.

 

[Sergio Perez]

Please do it, Phil

 

[Phil Holland]

Hey Phil,

Do you ever work with Syntheyes and 3D tracking? Im dying to get my Lcd and SH so I can shoot something to track with my steadicam. Oh and I bet Green screen is going to be ridiculously easy vs. HVX footage which was that much easier to key than the DVX!

Has there been any advances in making spherical maps in the last 6 years. I played with a mirrored gazing ball with my canon 10D, but I gave up real quick, lol.

I have been dreaming of shooting over cranked to help with 3d tracking, then speeding it up to normal. I bet I could get amazing tracks with bouncy footage at >48fps... but test test test.

Btw, are you using any LTO's to back up to?

Hi Ben. I haven't used Syntheyes yet, but I've seen it in action. I have experience with two studios proprietary 3D tracking software packages though. Without overcranking the higher resolution of the Red versus HVX/DVX/HDSLRs will assist you greatly for all your tracking needs. Slow motion can certainly help out if you're getting crazy with the camera.

The increased resolution and color depth makes keying a breeze. Especially if you're coming from the HVX. Just remember to light your green screen/blue screens properly and it's a fairly trivial process. You'll still have to deal with things like lace or slightly transparent fabrics, but it's so much easier.

I'd say there's been some advances in the last 6 years when creating Spherical HDRIs I've developed some software called "Panorganizer" that makes on set HDRI acquisition an easier process for the HDRI Operator. The rigs I'm building are extremely cost effective and outperform "the other two big guys" which land at $50k-$96k. I've got the time down to 19 seconds for 8k (32 megapixels), 40 seconds for 15k (112 megapixels), and 60 seconds for 20k (200 megapixels) depending on the setup. There are now 36 of these rigs out in the wild being used on productions all of the world. Movies I'm not even working on. Pretty cool actually.

If you'd like to read up on more about that and see the interface here's a link: http://www.artbyphil.com/phfx/panorganizer/index.html

I will likely be purchasing an LTO-5 setup within 30 days. I currently have triple redundancy with my drive setup. This works nicely, but it's also not the best solution. Also, when material is sent to studios they back things up with their own methods. I might build a half rack storage solution to have back at "headquarters". I'm also exploring building a quarter rack DIT station to haul out on set. So much to do! Much of my concepts and solutions on this front will be determined by work I'm doing this year. I'm in the talks for something very "nature" based at the end of the year and I'd probably want somewhere around 40TB in a field unit for that type of work. If that gig a go I'll be designing a fairly customized rig that I can travel with.



Globalmediapro Battery Review: As Zac C mentioned, these suckers are powering the Scarlet for around 3 hours. Which is very nice. They report their percentage back to the camera just fine. I'm still waiting on the DSMC Side Handle as I feel the added functionality of hot swapping and having a more accessible controls for handheld/shoulder setups is worth the price. I will be ordering two more GMP 160Wh batteries though. I've shot with them for a couple days and have had no problems whatsoever. On that front, the Wooden Camera IDX V-Mount Quick Back is working like a champ. Popped it off for a compact setup the other day and mounted it on top of the camera. Fast and functional.


Red Workflow: Over the course of the last couple days I've met with several "industry" folk out and about here in LA. Notably Steve from Zacuto and Bob Primes, ASC. Lots of tech talk about working with different systems discussing things like image quality, weight, and usability. Interesting stuff. I sought out a lot of advice from Bob Primes about some career decisions I'm making right now on a couple projects. He's walked about 10 miles in the direction I'd like to be going and his words certainly had a lasting impact. Very grateful for that talk.

Also ran into some fairly "anti-Red" folk out there. Showed them the Scarlet X and the material it was producing after having a quick meeting discussing several other cameras, both out now and not announced yet. It was a real eye opener for a few of them. I'm a little shocked by the fear, confusion, and misinformation. Mostly due to a lack of information post processing and workflow of the material. After showing off literally 15 clips there was a lot of "there's so much detail", "I can't believe the latitude", "I can see the dirt on the ground". That kind of stuff. There is certainly something about Red that gets people's blood moving.


Resolution: If shooting at 4k or with Red is new to you, once you get your post workflow down you're going to notice that there's just a lot of resolution and detail to be had in your R3D clips. One clips I showed off to the people mentioned above was shot at f/2.8.

Full resolution image here: http://www.artbyphil.com/phfx/photography/redScarletSkully/bigs/jacobTattoo4k.jpg

There really aren't many digital motion picture cameras out there that can do this. Red makes 3 of them though.


Black and White/Color:

One thing I really wanted to try out was some black and white work. Oddly, I've never produced anything in black and white with any of the Red cameras until my last shoot. The freedom you have grading your images in post is astounding. The tonality is really wonderful. You can crush your blacks, lift your darks/midtones, and retain your highlights with no problem at all. This for me is a huge selling point on the camera.

Color is equally as impressive. If you want to crank up the saturation on something to "surreal" levels you can without an issue at all. In fact I don't know if I've used a camera that you can do this much pushing to and have it hold up.

Here's a quick shot of that setup as well:

I found an old Manfrotto HDV501 head in storage and I'll be using it with this Kirk Low Pod for some very low level shooting. This was just a test to see if the head could pan smoothly at macro and how the body balances on the Kirk Low Pod. It did fine. I loathe this head, and I've been using it only for support on my Cobra Crane Backpacker. It's found new life here and with this setup I can get a bit lower than my Hi-Hat.

For those following along you'll notice I've changed my top handle a bit to add support for quick release 15mm. This is to assist with supporting longer telephoto lenses, which I needed to do yesterday for sunset shot. That is indeed the Redrock Micro DSLR baseplate mounted upside down on top the Scarlet X.

I'm still waiting on my machinist to finish up my "exoskeleton" for the Scarlet. I have to say though, I'm having way too much fun with my little hacked together rig and all the strange configurations different shoots have led it too. The 3 pronged leg thing happening on the shoulder rig I'm absolutely sold on. It's somewhat similar to how the Clutch sits on the ground. I'm going to have him build a dovetail on the bottom 15mm rods so I can properly balance the rig with longer lenses. I'll also tackle the shoulder support pad too. Kinda dislike this one. Good for all weather situations, but bad for comfort on real long days.


I'm off to Austin for a about a week, but I'll be checking in and shooting along the way. Might even post some pictures from the road.

 

[Trevor Meeks]

Dude, that pushed saturation example is outstanding. Looks INCREDIBLE, and you're right... I can't think of another camera that creates footage that will handle a crank up in saturation like that!

 

[Luc Bouvrette]

Phil, I can't thank you enough for posting these. Really informative and gets my creative juices flowing while waiting for my Scarlet.

 

[Peter Staubs]

I can't say this enough, Phil is one awesome dude!

 

[John Bannister]

Phil, I just wanted to tell you how much I am loving your tests and the shear effort you are putting into this post. It is so invaluable for many of us that are moving into RED TECH and workflow for the very first time.

There has been a fair bit of the unknown and nervousness on the forum as of late, but with so many taking advantage of the Scarlet, this is of no great surprise. There are many like myself that are beginning a new journey with this technology and you have been able to put to rest MANY questions and doubts surrounding the Scarlet.

Your posts have been invaluable....INVALUABLE! And if ever decide to put this information into a single publication, I will be first inline to purchase the download/hard copy.

Cheers mate, your a legend!

Mods, is there anyway to Sticky this info or consolidate Phil's efforts some way?

 

[Lliam Worthington]

+ 1

What John said. Massive asset to the community Phil.
New users should be advised just to click on the new Scarlet e book found on REDuser...
"Phil Holland, view forum posts"



Best

Lliam

 

[Ben A.]

Hi Phil,

Looks like we are both on the same VFX wave length and your comments about how much better tracking and keying are, have me in a tizzy wanting to test.. That shot with the pushed color is amazing. DVCPro would have turned crazy colored pushing that hard.. lol

Thats awesome that you came up with a solution for shooting Spherical, funny I have a software company too. In fact if you would like a free copy of Shot Logger Pro I'd be happy to send you a serial. I have been dying to know if the support we added for Red One still supports Scarlet/Epic.

In a nut shell, SLP allows you to log each shot right after it happens. At the end of the day it automatically assigns the correct shot info to each clip. Then you can go straight to edit with fully annotated footage. Better yet you can add pre-named markers in real time to make finding parts of a take instant in editing.

Now Im wondering… Would there be any advantage to shooting a spherical with the scarlet?

I can't wait to try a 4k laser projected rear screen, with the scarlets sensitivity I bet you could get the light levels to look realistic on camera.. I hope… how amazing would that be though….

Keep up the amazing work!

 

[Mike Garrick]

Phil, thanks for the detailed reply ref the temp. rig & monitor arm. It just confirms my opinion that the touch screen cable as shipped is short....very short. Also having the screen screwed down to the top of the camera can restrict viewing options for the operator. Definitely seems an "arm set up' is a more flexible option . Once again thanks for the insights.

 

[Phil Holland]

Thanks again everybody! Really happy that you're finding this all so useful.

Your posts have been invaluable....INVALUABLE! And if ever decide to put this information into a single publication, I will be first inline to purchase the download/hard copy.

Thanks John. Once all is said and done after about a month of use I'll grab all the useful information and put it somewhere were it can be easily digested. Likely online and for free.

Hi Phil,

Looks like we are both on the same VFX wave length and your comments about how much better tracking and keying are, have me in a tizzy wanting to test.. That shot with the pushed color is amazing. DVCPro would have turned crazy colored pushing that hard.. lol

Thats awesome that you came up with a solution for shooting Spherical, funny I have a software company too. In fact if you would like a free copy of Shot Logger Pro I'd be happy to send you a serial. I have been dying to know if the support we added for Red One still supports Scarlet/Epic.

In a nut shell, SLP allows you to log each shot right after it happens. At the end of the day it automatically assigns the correct shot info to each clip. Then you can go straight to edit with fully annotated footage. Better yet you can add pre-named markers in real time to make finding parts of a take instant in editing.

Now Im wondering… Would there be any advantage to shooting a spherical with the scarlet?

I can't wait to try a 4k laser projected rear screen, with the scarlets sensitivity I bet you could get the light levels to look realistic on camera.. I hope… how amazing would that be though….

Keep up the amazing work!

Thanks Ben. I tend to work on VFX heavy productions and I certainly have had many thoughts about integrating the Scarlet material into post workflows. So far it's identical to the Red One/Epic in regards to working with the material. Keys are real easy to pull off of R3Ds at 4k+ in my experience.

Shot Logger Pro looks really nice. I am a PC/Linux user as are most of the studios I work for. So I tend to stick to that world for my workflow. I use a small Perl/CGI program I made to assign shot information and details that can merge with certain studios SQL databases via a web interface for set data collection purposes. Addressing set data issues on productions has been something I've had to simplify down a whole lot. Really pushing for any studios still using a "paper" system to modern database infrastructure. Now we can shoot and send information pretty much instantly, which is nice.

I'm very curious to see if there will be a place for Scarlet to jump into my spherical HDRI pipeline/techniques. I've seen others rig reflective spheres to the camera and jog around sets capturing 180 degrees while rolling HDRx via Epic. That's certainly one use. The spherical rigs I utilize shoot between 7k-20k for a full 360x180 degree coverage. I'll probably experiment with tossing the Scarlet panoramic rig at some point and see what I can use it for.

Rioht now I'm more interested to see how it fits into my texture photography workflow as each frame could potentially be used for a 4k/5k map. I'll do some testing on this front in about two weeks. There's specific lighting techniques for this type of capture that I've been dying to toy with in motion.

Phil, thanks for the detailed reply ref the temp. rig & monitor arm. It just confirms my opinion that the touch screen cable as shipped is short....very short. Also having the screen screwed down to the top of the camera can restrict viewing options for the operator. Definitely seems an "arm set up' is a more flexible option . Once again thanks for the insights.

The short cable is certainly useful for the very common center/top LCD placement. It keeps things nice and neat without wrangling any cable. I like rolling with one or two monitors for most situations. I'll get an EVF eventually. I know I have use for one in March/April. So far I really like having the 5.0" LCD Touch in that position for shoulder work, but I know for some they would prefer an EVF for that type of operation. The longer cable and arm really allow me to get the monitor anywhere I really need it no matter the shooting situation. A sunshade really helps for daytime use too.



Field Report: I'm currently in Austin, Texas around 1500 miles away from my Los Angeles HQ. This is officially my first field work with Scarlet and the camera is performing wonderfully. I've already had some strange weather from dust to rain. I've been keeping the camera clean/dry and I have had no issues at all. Skully is producing lovely colorful and detailed imagery. Field work with RCP on my 4 year old Sony laptop is fine at 1/8th resolution for making selects and light color corrections. I'm going to be constructing a better system closer to a portable DIT workhorse very soon that will hopefully fit in a large briefcase. I'll share my process on that front when that time comes. Triple redundancy drive back up for this trip on compact USB drives. Pretty much standard for my typical on location post workflow. R3Ds get delivered on drive and selects go via FTP overnight.

Tomorrow I've got a bit of a commute and some beautiful things to shoot. I'll be back in LA on Sunday though and get cracking on two previous shoot's material as well as what's being capturing here in Austin. Teaching my next semester at Gnomon on Sunday. Two classes this time. Gotta ship off two HDRI rigs next week too. Busy, busy.

Until I'm back and have some edited material, here's a few grabs from some R3Ds off the Scarlet X.

It's actually been a real fun experience out here so far. I'm finding it strange how much Red has penetrated my life after picking up the Scarlet. For instance, there was a cover band at one of the local bars in Austin playing. They were called:

How crazy is that?!

 

[Trevor Meeks]

It's actually been a real fun experience out here so far. I'm finding it strange how much Red has penetrated my life after picking up the Scarlet. For instance, there was a cover band at one of the local bars in Austin playing. They were called:

How crazy is that?!

hahaaaaa NICE dude! That IS crazy!

 

[Carmine Scalzi]

Ehi Phil, U really help a lot of Us with your posts!!
A qustion for U, if I may.
Are the batteries from GMP the standard ones (Li160s) or the specified (on their site) red gmp (Li160s-R)?

What about the duration of them and the charge time?

thanx a lot again, Phil, very kind of U!

_________________

Carmine Scalzi
filmmaker
www.carminescalzi.it


Quote:


___________



"Once I was home today I had a package from Globalmediapro with 2x 160Wh V-Mount Batteries and their Dual Charger. This should give me around 2 hours and 45 minutes of operation time per charge. If they work out I'll be purchase another two. I'll be testing them tomorrow extensively. IDX I trust, but GMP is new to me. Here's a shot showing the size difference of the IDX Endura 10 (98Wh) I've been using since receiving the Scarlet compared to the GMP 160Wh:

A bit taller and a bit wider, but not much heavier at all. Upon first inspection, build quality is decent. On this side profile shot you'll see the D-Tap port on the GMP 160Wh as well as where you can plug in their travel charger.

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

Is the GMP 230wh to heavy or why does so many choose the 160wh version?

 

[Phil Holland]

Are the batteries from GMP the standard ones (Li160s) or the specified (on their site) red gmp (Li160s-R)?
What about the duration of them and the charge time?

These are the Li160S-R. I'm getting around 3 hours running time on each charge. About the same to charge them, but I need to time that.

Is the GMP 230wh to heavy or why does so many choose the 160wh version?

Unknown why others like them. Personally the 3 hours run time/charge time works well for me and the price is certainly right. I think many Red shooters seem to like batteries that land in the 140-160Wh capacity.




Image and word heavy post below.

*Always make sure your slider is level, especially near water.


Cold Weather
Just returned from a heck of a week in Austin. This was the first time I've been during the winter. We had rain, cold, and extreme wind chill. I found myself standing on a rooftop at 27 degrees and with windchill I have no idea what we were dealing with. My camera assistant Jacob was a champ and hiked around with me in the strange weather, but when the cold got well past "shrivelville" he jumped back inside. I did occasionally as my gloves weren't providing enough protection. Scarlet however did fine. Most of the time the in camera temp floated around 30 and 47 depending the wind. Fun note. I didn't notice a dip at all in battery performance in this weather.

HDRx
Finally had an opportunity to use HDRx in the field. This particular instance we rolled a few timelapses to show "city movement". I did about 10 tests before leaving LA to see how far I could push it. For several of the timelapses I had HDRx set to 6 stops (max) because I wanted to capture the sun dropping behind a cloud layer. Here are some stills from one of those setups showing the A Track, X Track, Simple Blend HDRx, Magic Motion HDRx, and the final color grade.

Stability
As I've mentioned before my tripods are pretty much at their max in terms of what I would consider stable for a camera of Scarlet's weight and stature. She's no chubby lady, but she isn't a ballerina either. I found that in these windy conditions even with 30lbs of sand weighing everything down that I will be investing a much more stable tripod and fluid head system. I was hoping to make due renting this gear, but it's driving me nuts and I need smoother control overall. I'll be looking at several brands such as OConner, Sachtler, Miller, and Vinten. Hoping to try a few out this week. A couple of these manufacturers are local too, which should make that easier.

Still Lenses
There is no free picnic in the world of high resolution imaging. I'm certainly cleaning up a lot of chromatic aberations off of shots captured with still lenses where extreme contrast comes into play. I have a few ways of performing this action, but I'll likely be exploring other techniques in the coming days. For this project I did this through Adobe Camera Raw when the shot required fixing.

The Red Effect
I found myself out at night doing some street inserts. Being in a budding independent film community like Austin with a Red camera out in the wild attracts a lot of attention. Most people were very friendly and had about a zillion questions. Ran into a couple film students who thought Scarlet was still a 2/3"s camera. I guess they missed the big news.

Working from the Road
I was happy to discover that RCPx 10 Beta was released while I was out and about. Worked fine for what I was doing. Had two crashes when grading two separate HDRx timelapses at 5k and 4k. My basic workflow for this trip was to flag selects in RCP, export the timeline, then import into Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5. I made a Perl script a while ago that utilizes ImageMagik to create slate frames based on clip names and frame ranges. Popped those on the head of my "dailies" to send off. I created 720p .MP4s for quick shot approvals at the end of the day. This project required delivering flat and graded/post processed 16bit DPX frames after approval. I used the Red Station via USB2 on my laptop while out in the field. I have no eSata port on this laptop. The next one I purchase will however. It was slow to transfer each 64GB REDMAG, but not too bad.

Battery usage for the trip was nice. I never really shot for longer than 4 hours in a day. I'm using the GMP160Wh batteries and only used more than one full charge on this trip. I shoot fairly economically though. Meaning I power down when the camera is not in use and I unplug the Wooden Camera Quick Back when in transit with the battery on board so no power is going to the camera. I have a more extreme shoot coming up where I'll certainly be powered up for over 8 hours and I'll know a lot more about battery life and typical usage after that. This was all without the DSMC Side Handle, which I'm still waiting for. Can't wait for those shortcut keys.

Gratitude
It's been a whirlwind of activity since picking up Skully "way back" in December 2011. Lot's of friends and new friends coming out of the shadows with questions and a good amount assistance in regards loaning and testing gear. So far a few quick shoots, but certainly more exciting gigs on the way. Can't wait for the feature in April to come, still lots of prepro to do on that. A VFX heavy short is on the horizon and I'll know more about that this coming week. I'm also going to try and produce a couple of shorts on my own in the next couple months. February is turning out to be a short and music video month. This week and next week I'm hoping to get some time to test out a few follow focus units, tripod/fluid head combinations, and if available those Schneider Platinum IRNDs.

It's been great so far and I've certainly been running off of that new camera fueled adrenaline. Really grateful for the assistance and feedback from everybody. I really can't overstate that enough.

I'm back in Los Angeles for a few weeks. Building an HDRI Rig and training an operator for a feature going out this week. Louisiana seems to be a hot bed for motion picture work at the moment.

 

[Terje Sorgjerd]

Phil,

Thank you for all the work you have done here - this thread is extremely informative.