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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 Scarlet X #316 "Skully"

Phil, there's a growing tendency from EPIC owners to "bash" SCARLET. Also from guys I'd never thought they'd react like that. I don't want to jack your thread, but I'd love to know what you say about that. As far as I know you shot both cameras, you love your SCARLET and you get awesome pictures out of it. What's your take on the difference between the two?
As for RED, they say it's just not as fast/powerful but other than that it's basically the same camera.
As I see it, it of course makes a difference to the owner. high frame rates at 5K, to be able to pull stills from that plus high resolution HDRx really makes a difference. But I also believe that some EPIC owners want to justify and defend their investment and have to find differences to assure that they did the right thing investing in EPIC. Now all this puts me in exactly that spot.

So maybe what I'm asking for is : do you have anything reassuring to say to future scarleteers?

Thx a lot!

Cheers
Patrick
 
Patrick Grossien said:
But I also believe that some EPIC owners want to justify and defend their investment and have to find differences to assure that they did the right thing investing in EPIC.
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I think that pretty much sums it all up right there. That said, if I could have afforded it I would have got an Epic, but with all the other gear that is needed in addition to the brain itself it just pushed the price out of reach for me. Also, I don't really need the higher frame rates for the work I am doing. For commercial and music video work though I can see how an Epic would be a must.
 
Brandon, thanks for sharing my point of view. ;) how's #6 working out for u?
The further investment needed did the same to me here. It just doesn't end with the investment in the camera. If it someday pays out I'll probably get a big brother. But for now the only thing I really miss is 24/25fps 5K for stills pull. I can always rent bigger if needed without real "break-in time", when knowing my way around scarlet. But the bad feeling around the forum these days, just isn't reassuring... ;)

PS. Bruce Lee EDIT: seldom used any slo-mo ;)
PPS. Brandon I just take your posts from your scarlet as an answer to my first question ;)
 
Patrick Grossien said:
Aaaaah man... Ok I eat my words.. :) But you know what I was getting at... Bruce was looking even better in real time. The way it always looked sped up when he moved.
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True. The one, true DRAGON, indeed :)
 
After your tests of the Schneider Platinums, I'm positively stumped as to which NDs to go with now. The Formatt filters look pretty good but if I'm looking at the right ones on B&H, they're going to cost me significantly more, which means fewer filters.
 
Sergio Perez said:
Sorry Phil, for the slight detour. Last post about this here from me :)

RIP, Bruce :) (i see you're also a big fan, Patrick :) )
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No worries. I grew up on Bruce Lee and other old school martial art films. Loved them all.


Harrison Diamond said:
After your tests of the Schneider Platinums, I'm positively stumped as to which NDs to go with now. The Formatt filters look pretty good but if I'm looking at the right ones on B&H, they're going to cost me significantly more, which means fewer filters.
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I've made the decision to go with the Formatts. They do have a look to them, but what they do do and do well is handling the roll off to highlights. Within the correction/grade I'm finding success with the Formatts. Honestly the Platinum IRND material is totally gradable as well, but that roll off to the highlights and overall shadow detail is just different.

In a perfect world I'd buy full sets of both and knock out a hard test with different lighting conditions. I feel shooting the sun (or a strong HMI) into the lens (or just top of frame) will reveal a ton of information about all of our ND solutions. One day I'll get around to doing that, but in terms of a working solution today I've chosen Formatt.


Patrick Grossien said:
Phil, there's a growing tendency from EPIC owners to "bash" SCARLET. As far as I know you shot both cameras, you love your SCARLET and you get awesome pictures out of it. What's your take on the difference between the two?

So maybe what I'm asking for is : do you have anything reassuring to say to future scarleteers?
Click to expand...

This is a toughie. I'll need to do a real side by side to know everything, but at 4k with identical compression at the same frame rate everything should be "the same". I haven't shot on an Epic since I've owned the Scarlet X. Now, that said, Epic is a better camera in nearly every way. In terms of making a 4k feature I can indeed produce higher quality 4k imagery from a 5k source than a 4k source. However, I can produce very high quality 4k material and this is what Scarlet X and future Scarlet X owners really need to focus on. Also the fact that there is an upgrade path via "Dragon" as well.

Epic certainly has more over cranked possibilities and a higher bandwidth than Scarlet X overall. I think/theorize that we will be seeing a 6k-9k sensor coming down the pipe from Red (I'm not saying soon, but who knows). Epic will be able to handle that data rate right now at 24fps. Scarlet X, not so much. But again, upgrades will happen and we'll see what we get with both systems this year.

FYI, my game plan is to own both an Epic and a Scarlet. However, I doubt I'd be able to afford an Epic without making money from my Scarlet first (although if I played this differently maybe I could have purchased an Epic by now). I don't rent my cinema equipment. I made the decision about a year and 3 months ago to move on to becoming a full time Director of Photography/Director from just being a "Digital Imaging Specialist". Much of my work still surrounds VFX, color, and even consulting; but now my primary focus is DP and Director work. So far so good.


On that note, we wrapped day one of a two day shoot for this spot. Discussing image clearance with the client tomorrow, but shot a couple Scarlet beauty shots on set. The spot will be finished at the end of March, but I'd like to show some pictures of this. We did use a Rosco X24 gobo projector to produce some caustic effects (rental), but it died on our last take of the day which was a close up on our lead actor. Ended up creating a similar effect with one of my assistants moving two foil filters over each other and pointing a Coollights CL600 into them. Glad I picked up that matte box because we were framed and setup pretty damn tight. We did shoot some stills for print during the first 3 hours of the day, wasn't able to use Scarlet for that, but it almost was my first actual DSMC shoot. Came down to time and logistics as we prelit the motion work prior to shooting any of the stills. Left the Scarlet setup with a PA (area flagged off too) and after we wrapped our stills we knocked out our first shot before lunch. A pretty fast and functional day. We wrapped an hour and half early. Everybody goes home happy. I went home and took a nap :)

Green screen tomorrow at the studio. Gotta match the hero plate. One hour prep, one hour pre light. Two shots. Should be pretty smooth. Client reviewing stills and motion work tomorrow briefly afterwards. Edit next week and I'll consult on that process. Time for bed!
 
So I guess I'm amongst Bruce Lee fans here... feeling comfortable ! I'm not only a huge Bruce Lee but a martial arts fan up to the point of training for quite a few years. But now I exchanged my nunchakus with the mouse pretty much for good.

Back to topic: thank you very much Phil for your answer. I guess if money wouldn't be an issue, we would all be getting Epic and there would be no need for a Scarlet. I was trying to wrap my mind around the idea of investing in an Epic set, but I decided to play it safe and go for Scarlet. Guess I'm just to old or too non-american in that aspect. Hehehe. As for now I'm still dividing my time between design and motion, with the plan to turning the wheels fully towards DoP/Director. But if that plan won't work out, Epic would really be a tough investment to swallow. Maybe I could have sold it if nothing works out, but well. I made my decision for the time being, and just like you, my plan is to make Scarlet pave my way for Epic. It's the perfect starter drug. Hehehe!

That said, no one is arguing that Epic is the better camera. It's the best as far as I see it. My dream camera. But - although I haven't seen any comparisons - RED said that it's basically(!) the same camera concerning it's innards, and it should perform perfectly identical as long as the settings are the same. But because EPIC is such a bigger beast, it definitely makes a difference to the user. Of course you never know until you really see it side by side, thats why I asked :) Maybe in the future somebody will do a fair/correct side by side, and then we'll know for sure. Until then I'll just believe what Jim, Jarred and Graeme are telling me about scarlet. And it seems that you at least don't have the feeling that "something is off", true?

Here's to hoping that DRAGON will enable Scarlet to get 24fps@5K but as it stands today, this does not seem to be likely. Being able to take stills out of a true 5K motion stream with Scarlet would even more make it a fully fledged DSMC. Right now you have to choose between Stills and Motion, but you can't (quite) have both. What made you decide to not use Scarlet for the stills? As I'm very much hoping to be able to use it for that.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, that the DoP/Director plan works out, but it seems that you're on the right path!

Cheers!
Patrick
 
Hey Phil,

I received my Obox first impressions are good, but having come from a Genus matte box with nun knickers I've gotten used to quick and easy lens changes without unscrewing rings etc..

Do you know of an alternative to the bellows and reduction rings? Im currently using an old neoprene mouse mat as a donut. It does the job but I dont want to risk any light leaks. (see photo)

Also, Im a big fan of 4x4 circular polarizers, with the Obox if your rods poke out beyond the bracket you are unable to rotate the tray. Slightly annoying as I like being able to use the same 8" rods when jumping from a 16-35mm to a 70-200..

Anyway, overall this matte box rocks, feels like I could drive over it in a car and it would still be intact!

Cheers for all your efforts on REDuser, its greatly appreciated dude.
 

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Harry,
Just ordered an O-box as well and should have it in a couple days. I was curious as to what plate you have that the sliding handle and LCD are attached to. It looks to me like the wooden camera easy plate, is this true? It also looks like that would be the 50mm swat rail that the top handle is on correct?
 
Got a few hours today to write and thought I'd update.

Bags and Cases
I've received a couple questions about how the heck I'm getting the Red Scarlet X from "headquarters" to location. Here's a photo of the 3 bags and cases I use:

redScarletCases.jpg


(far left) - Lowepro DryZone 200 - This is a "waterproof" backpack that I've had for a while that became a must have tool for me while working in Vancouver on a feature a few years ago. Working in wet, damp, and muddy conditions in the woods near Hope and eventually working out in the Burrard Strait and over the Coquitlam River; this bag gave me a bit more confidence in case our zodiac decided to take a tumble into the sea that we wouldn't lose our work. When I work out in nature this is my go to bag.

(far right) - Stormcase - This is my trusty and well abused on set and travel case. Fits in a plane's overhead compartment and has wheels to boot. I can just fit the Red Scarlet X in there with a bunch of goodies. I will likely pick up another hard case as they do well on set when other folks are moving your gear around. You can see by the scuffs on the case that sometimes it's good to more protection surrounding your camera.

(middle) - Cinebags CB-01 Production Red LTD Edition - This is my newest edition to my "Scarlet Transport Family". This bag should be what I keep the Scarlet X in the majority of the time working out here in Los Angeles. It can hold a great deal of supplies as well as the camera. Depending on how I build out the bag I can actually plop my rig in there without deconstructing it, which was a goal for me when it comes to moving things around. He's a picture of the Red Scarlet X broken down inside the Cinebag:

cinebagsCB01ProductionBagLTD.jpg


What's inside the main compartment? OConner O-Box WM, two GMP160Wh V-Mount Batteries, the Red Rock Follow Focus, 4x RedVolts (inside a separate pouch to not damage the camera and batteries), top handle, and rods. I've mounted the 5.0" LCD Touch facing away from the camera, might make a foam sleave for it to live in. My only quibble with this bag is that the top flag on the OConner O-Box is just two wide to fit in the main compartment, so I have removed it and slid it in the back pouch. Had some light rain today and the water resistant fabric performed well.



Behind The Scenes Grabs

bts_pfizerInlytaSpot_0004.jpg

So I did snap a few behind the scenes stills from the spot last week. On Thursday we shot at the Long Beach Aquarium, Aquarium of the Pacific. Above is a shot of me DP'ing and operating behind "Skully" and our Director. This entire spot was shot at f/2, f/2.8, and f/4 using the Canon 35mm f/1.4L and the Canon 50mm f/1.2L. I compare pulling focus at f/2 with still lenses to diffusing a bomb.

bts_pfizerInlytaSpot_0002.jpg


There are certain rules about lighting in the aquarium. For instance you can't have lights directly pointed or visible to the sea horses/sea dragons as you could potentially kill them. So we had to flag a bit to protect those little guys.

bts_pfizerInlytaSpot_0003.jpg


I mentioned before that we used a Rosco X-24 Gobo Projector as our key light to produce that moving water caustic effect. I learned on our location scout that while the caustics looked great in the tank, they didn't actually effect people in front of the tank. So to "enhance" that beautiful light we added the X-24. That's the projector center frame in the photo above being flagged, bounced and feathered.

bts_pfizerInlytaSpot_0005.jpg


During the last shot of the day we had a "catastrophic" failure on the the Rosco X-24. It just stopped working. The rental house was over 5 hours away and they did good by bringing out a fresh unit for day 2 for the green screen portion of the shoot, but while on location we had to come up with something. I had one of my assistant wave two pieces of foil over each other while bouncing light off of one Coollights CL600 at our lead actor. It was a close up and the solution worked fine. The OConnor O-Box was adjusted to keep the flare of the "effect light" off the lens as it was pretty damn close to camera. To light and add some life to the shot we used more CL600s with diffusion and gels to pretty up the background.

bts_pfizerInlytaSpot_0011.jpg


On day two it was time for our green screen shoot. Used 3x 1k Mole Fresnel to illuminate the green screen. I gelled them to further push the green. Actors stood about 8-10 feet off the screen. It was two simple medium close ups, so our ground plane was never a concern. Off camera the replacement Rosco X-24 flew in earlier in the morning. Having that caustic effect consistent throughout really helps with lighting continuity. I had two back up plans in for some reason that didn't show up prior to shooting. Also out of frame were two gelled CL600s for a little fill light to match the warm fill light from the previous day at the aquarium.

bts_pfizerInlytaSpot_0012.jpg


I forgot to snag a clean shot of it at the aquarium and here, but behind the camera to the right is my "Mini DITy" setup on my trusty Multi-Cart at full extension. I use this thing pretty much on every gig and it lives in my truck. We had an HDMI splitter going to two 27" monitors, one on the cart and one outside into the hallway for client review. . I monitored from the Red Touch 5.0" LCD. Mini DITy was pretty handy as one of the shots for this spot needed to be flopped due to the "pretty part" of the aquarium being on the reverse side of the story board. Easy cheat via wardrobe and camera angles. Pulled up a flopped reference shot and lit to that while working on day 2.

Wrapped Thursday 1.5 hours early. Wrapped Friday on time for the clients to make their flight. Camera worked flawlessly.


Lot's of meetings this week. Music videos, one short film, a television series to be shot later this year, and more work on the feature. I'm going to try my hardest to shoot one other short in the next 30 days. Doing on the prep work this week for that.
 
Phil Holland said:
Lowepro DryZone 200 - This is a "waterproof" backpack that I've had for a while that became a must have tool for me while working in Vancouver on a feature a few years ago. Working in wet, damp, and muddy conditions in the woods near Hope and eventually working out in the Burrard Strait and over the Coquitlam River; this bag gave me a bit more confidence in case our zodiac decided to take a tumble into the sea that we wouldn't lose our work. When I work out in nature this is my go to bag.
Click to expand...

Phil, Been following this thread for awhile and wanted to say thanks for all this crucial information! The Lowepro 200 Bag is awesome! I've been in my Zodiac RIB 310 with $$$$ worth of gear inside the bag and got flipped upside down. The bag was secured to the hull and was under saltwater for ~5 mins while I righted the boat. Not a drop got inside. I also have had to swim a swollen river floating the bag out in front of me. I just wish Lowepro would make one size bigger, so I wouldn't have to disassemble the kit before packing it. Do you use the tripod attachment system? I've been researching a lightweight CF tripod to use on the Lowepro 200 but find it hard to decide on a system that's both short, light and decent quality. I really like the Gitzo Systematic 6, but can't find anywhere to get my hands on one, so waiting for NAB to make the call.
 
I occasionally use my Manfrotto 190CXPro4 and dangle it off that clip and support on the back. I'm using that tripod less and less these days as my camera has gotten just a bit heavier. But, if I was doing a big hike I'd likely still use it.

I agree that Lowepro should make a bigger version of the Flipside, the 400 isn't wide enough and I haven't tried the 500 yet. Maybe I'll go look at that.
 
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