Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • 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 :)

Steven Soderbergh...

Roadshow version is still playing in NYC until Friday, though that doesn't help those elsewhere at the moment. Not sure what kind of wide release pattern this film will have.
 
I saw the second one this evening. It was the first time that I have seen Red footage printed to film and projected, and frankly, I was amazed. It is an incredible tool.
 
Saw PT 2 at the Academy of Art last night (projected from a DVD i believe). Because it was projected from a DVD, I can only say that the footage was OK.

They were supposed to show PT 1 last night and PT 2 tomorrow, but they were having trouble and played PT 2 last night and didn't tell the audience they were going to do that.
 
CraigWB said:
It's unlikely that Che will ever be screened in New Zealand, I think it will just turn up in the video store one day like W. will.
Click to expand...
I hope you are wrong - I want to see what kind of job the red camera does on the big screen.

The 2 films got good reviews in Cuba itself. I read Bolivian Diary by Che and the book by Pombo. Quite a bit of history for Steven Soderbergh to compress into 2 films. He is a great film maker.
 
Che 1 & 2 are playing on DirecTV PPV now, I watched them is sequence this past weekend. I would like to have seen it on the big screen, but it is not likely to show up in theaters in my neck of the woods either. The dynamic range limits of the Red prototypes was evident compared to film, but it was handled very well and I thought the look of both films was appropriate to the story locations. The improvements in RED 1 since then are pretty amazing.
 
Fuji vs. Kodak printstocks for CHE 1 and 2

Fuji vs. Kodak printstocks for CHE 1 and 2

The Roadshow version seems to still be showing in San Francisco,

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Market/SanFrancisco/SanFrancisco_Frameset.htm

Opening night the Director was there and I spoke with him after the film and asked him about the filmout, it seems CHE#1 was printed on the lower cost Kodak print stock, and CHE#2 was printed on Fuji print stock. I was told some time ago by someone from Fuji in Japan that Fuji print stocks are higher contrast than Kodak print stocks.

CHE#2 did look less saturated and higher contrast with more blown highlights, so maybe some of that had to do with the Fuji print stock and not the RED ONE prototype.

Mr. Steven Soderbergh also said that the prints were made on a "Cinevator®" direct to printstock as far as I could make out, I was not sure about the K size but Cinevator seems to be only 2K?

http://www.cinevation.net/cinevatio...ion.net&page=p_product.jsp&cat=Cinevator&id=6

http://www.cinevation.net/cinevatio...ion.net&page=p_product.jsp&cat=Cinevator&id=8

http://talvi.com/livin-pictures/movies/red-4k/

For being 2K (?) prints made with an LCD screen at 24fps, the transfer looked good, not maybe as good as it could, but when the projector was close to being in focus the detail was clear and there was little aliasing.

I am also working on using LCD for filmout with my DANCINEL.EXE (tm), but using three exposures for each primary should give better highlight and shadow detail from the RED ONE footage, my tests using the "gamma spread" feature in DANCINEL.EXE (tm) look much better than what a single exposure gets off the LCD, so far. I have been doing some black and white tests onto Kodak 2302 direct off the LCD using some RED ONE footage and the results with "gamma spread" look quite good in both the highlights and shadows as well as the mid tones, better than the results from film negatives since the RED ONE shots are sharper and have a linear gradation, without film grain. One way to get great color prints is to make three color separation printing negatives on 2302 and then use the better Vision print stock in a step contact printer. The total exposure time for the three exposures off a standard LCD monitor is about 1 second at f/4.
 
I assume what I saw on DTV was a direct digital copy, not from a film print. Don't know though.
 
Che on the big screen

Che on the big screen

Hey!

I saw both parts and loved part I but not really into part II.
For some reason at IFC Center in NYC - where I watched both - part I was 2.40:1 and part II was 1.78:1. Anyone else noticed this?

The footage looked better than the usual 2K copies I watch in regular theaters. So start scanning those babies at 4K if your budget allows, big studios. Or... just shoot it on a RED! You'll save the expensive 4K scanning. Just a thought.

I would love to just say amazing things about the RED in this film, but that would make me biased. So let me point out some of the "flaws" that I'm sure will be corrected (or may have been corrected already).

In a scene in part II, where they're having a press conference and reporters are taking pictures, the flash issue was noticeable (appearing on the upper part of the frame alone). I've read about this issue and it seems to have smtg to do with global shutter vs. other types of electronic shutter; not sure about this but I've heard it's being addressed or maybe even solved at this point.

Also, another issue, probably not a RED issue but just a bad lens. In some wide shots in Part I you could definitely notice a blur in the lower/center part of the image. It became a little annoying, it was like the mole in Austin Powers, I just couldn't stop looking at it, wondering what the hell was causing it and praying that nothing like that would ever go unnoticed in one of my films. Kudos to Soderbergh and the amazing DP though, I'm completely nitpicking this beautiful masterpiece that was part I.

Sorry if I'm repeating anything that someone might have pointed out, but didn't have time to read the whole thread.

Just felt like sharing.

Great job RED! It made me really happy to think that this year I will own something that shoots such amazing images as those seen in "Che".
 
Interestingly enough, a small part of the film was shot on S16 film before the RED was ready... I believe that included the "flash footage" you are talking about. I've said all along that film has many of the same issues that people complain about here.

I am quite sure the movie(s) would look significantly different if shot with today's RED ONEs instead of pre-production prototypes. That fact that SS was brave enough to shoot it on RED is still incredible to me given the state of the two cameras at that time. Having said that, the movie(s) are a credit to his story telling abilities and camera expertise. To get the look he got with what he had to work with is unreal.

A reminder... these two prototypes had almost no features enabled. Ask some of the 1st 50 customers how few features they had when they took delivery the end of August a year and change ago. SS started shooting Ché 3 or 4 months before that!

Jim
 
josemnorton said:
For some reason at IFC Center in NYC - where I watched both - part I was 2.40:1 and part II was 1.78:1. Anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
Part 1 was shot with anamorphic lenses, part 2 wasn't. That's how Soderbergh wanted it, he chose a different look for each part...

josemnorton said:
Kudos to Soderbergh and the amazing DP though, I'm completely nitpicking this beautiful masterpiece that was part I.
Click to expand...
Soderbergh and the amazing DP ARE the same person:wink:
"Peter Andrews" IS Steven Soderbergh... He always DPs his own films.
 
Hurray Early Adopters

Hurray Early Adopters

Jannard said:
Interestingly enough, a small part of the film was shot on S16 film before the RED was ready... I believe that included the "flash footage" you are talking about. I've said all along that film has many of the same issues that people complain about here.

I am quite sure the movie(s) would look significantly different if shot with today's RED ONEs instead of pre-production prototypes. That fact that SS was brave enough to shoot it on RED is still incredible to me given the state of the two cameras at that time. Having said that, the movie(s) are a credit to his story telling abilities and camera expertise. To get the look he got with what he had to work with is unreal.

A reminder... these two prototypes had almost no features enabled. Ask some of the 1st 50 customers how few features they had when they took delivery the end of August a year and change ago. SS started shooting Ché 3 or 4 months before that!

Jim
Click to expand...

That's very interesting.

I knew that he shot with a 16mm as well, but I assumed that was the black and white footage at the UN.

Now I can't trust my footage IDing skills anymore...

Yeah, it's pretty awesome that he chose to use the RED.
 
Nils Ruinet said:
Part 1 was shot with anamorphic lenses, part 2 wasn't. That's how Soderbergh wanted it, he chose a different look for each part...


Soderbergh and the amazing DP ARE the same person:wink:
"Peter Andrews" IS Steven Soderbergh... He always DPs his own films.
Click to expand...

Oh! That's too bad, I love anamorphic.

Thanks.
 
I met him tonight and we briefly talked. At the end of our talk I asked him if he'd seen this thread, he said he hadn't, so I told him to go to Reduser sometime when he's bored :-).
 
Would love to check out CHe on Blu Ray but not much info. Some non-reliable sites list a US release date of 6/29. Anybody know? Unfortunately there were no screenings in my area.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top