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 :)

Testshoot with Alexa and Epic Dragon in germany

H

Hilmar

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2008
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Northern Germany
Hey Folks,

I'm not such a good writer but I thought this was worth mentioning...

We are planing a vfx heavy feature for next year and did a testshoot on friday to see how we could get the vfx to work. These days it looks like everyone in germany is shooting with Alexa and during the last years mainly on Quicktimes! I had to struggle alot with this low quality and lag of resolution in the post. We just finished a kids feature where it was nearly impossible to get the greenscreens to work because of overexposure and colors of 4:2:2 because of 120fps. Yes, when you set the framerate higher than 96fps in the alexa you only get 8-bit colors. And since I also didn't know it it was my own fault...

The weird part is that when I talked to people about the Epic and shooting Raw I often got really insulting replies. I digged deeper on why they could hate a camera which is responsible for changing the industry. The bitter result was that the most critics came from "not knowing"! Mostly it was about the handling and that they didn't know which modules there are to make the life on set much easier (e.g. the Meizler,...). Even in vfx houses it is not common to ask for Raw-files. They get pre-graded 10-bit DPX-Sequences like they got before when everyone was shooting film. If you ever open your raw .r3d file directly in Nuke to shift the colors of the greenscreen in the Red SDK at the exact point you want them to be you can not stop yourself of getting a very big smile in your face!
I know, it will be a big task to change a whole pipeline of a post house to Raw or OpenEXR (I'm not the biggest fan of Aces yet since there are some artefact problems when colors are moved out of wide gammut...) but it is time!

I'm sorry! I was carried away... its just in my mind for a while... I will behave now...

Since the mentioned film will have alot of diffucult vfx I was in a good position to ask for the Epic. When I told the DOP (Who is a total alexa fan) about the Dragon he got very curious and asked me if I could get one for the test. I was sooo lucky that Gunleik was so kind to rent us his new acquisition! Thanks again Gunleik!!

In the morning we had a Alexa Plus with a new software someone called "open gate" cause it had a llitle bit more than 3400 pixels horizontal. The other data was still the same I believe. In the afternoon we had Gunleiks Dragon and were shooting with the Alura 15.5-45 and Angenieux 45-120 zooms (the Alura had slight vignetting at 15.5mm at 6K of the Dragon). We were shooting in a loft studio with lots of windows so they just put a diffuser/shade cotton in front of them. No fill lights, only with styros on closeups. Iso 800, small NDs and exposures around 4.
I didn't get the footage of the day yet and I don't know if I'm alowed to share some. But the improvements of the Dragon were already obvious on the small screen on set! The DOP likes to overexpose the Alexa by 2/3 stops (to what the light meter says) and did the same with the Dragon. The result was a totally filled histogramm from the top to the buttom. What we liked the most (And I mean also the DOP was impressed) was not only the dynamic range but especially the nice fades from the highlights in to surrounding more contrasty areas. Very soft and natural!
The DOP liked it so much that we shot a series of tests with a color board after the shooting. It is unbelievable how far you can push the ISO until you notice any noise! I love the idea, that you don't have to worry about any sweet spot anymore and therefor don't have to use massive ND filters anymore! As others have mentioned before: Until ISO 2000 you can shoot without any concerns. Even higher ISOs looked still very good. This I call a cinematographers dream come true! ;-)

So, even since we didn't start working on the footage there is already a very good chance that we will shoot the feature with the Dragon!
I hope I dind't bore you with my little lucky story!?
Have a great christmas time!
cheers,
Hilmar


---
Jan-Hilmar Petersen
VFX Supervisor

Farm Studios Germany
 
A little bit of ground for RED won back again in Arri-Land. :)

Thank you very much Hilmar for sharing!

And of course major thanks to Gunleik!
 
Gunleik's Dragon is already making it's presence felt :)
 
I understand you, I had the same problems here with me in Switzerland. All fans for Alexa, but without a reason, or the usual sentence said that RED heat and Skin tone suck. and blah blah blah .. I realized over the years that fear comes from the fact that no one is able to eleborare the raw or if they do they do disasters. Red took the right road with the Raw R3D be very flexible, I can not help it the most.
I'm glad to hear that DRAGON has convinced a DP fan of Alexa, it means that there is a big difference.
With Gunleik you are in good hands.

Best wishes for your project.
 
Ciao Luigi,

Just noticed that your logo, which resembles the Crestron logo here : http://seeklogo.com/crestron-logo-36622.html I have programmed Crestron systems, for decades and that logo can be animated on the GUI.

Thank you very much

Fury
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Not me ;-)

But I agree too many Alexa fans here. I think it's due to fear and false infos.

Pat
Click to expand...

eheh ciao PAt,
is meant here in Switzerland television :)
PAt hold on, we'll be with DRagon a big step forward ehehe
slowly convince everyone :)
Luigi
 
Hilmar said:
We just finished a kids feature where it was nearly impossible to get the greenscreens to work because of overexposure and colors of 4:2:2 because of 120fps. Yes, when you set the framerate higher than 96fps in the alexa you only get 8-bit colors. And since I also didn't know it it was my own fault...
Click to expand...
It's ironic, that you're talking about lack of knowledge and general confusion and in the same breath you are doing exactly the same. 4:2:2 and 8 bits are not the same thing.


Hilmar said:
Even in vfx houses it is not common to ask for Raw-files. They get pre-graded 10-bit DPX-Sequences like they got before when everyone was shooting film. If you ever open your raw .r3d file directly in Nuke to shift the colors of the greenscreen in the Red SDK at the exact point you want them to be you can not stop yourself of getting a very big smile in your face!
I know, it will be a big task to change a whole pipeline of a post house to Raw or OpenEXR
Click to expand...
Yes, using pre-graded material is a standard type of workflow. That is done for many reasons, one being, that there is no such thing as RAW pipeline. You can't edit, grade or composite RAW material. It must be debayered first and more important, once debayered, you can't go back to bayered image. Use of pre-graded EXR for compositing is quite common. The bigger problem is maintaining the proper color science, so everyone involved in the project are looking at the same image, regardless of platform. FilmLight is making great strides toward this goal by providing a Baselight plugin for Avid/FCP and Nuke. So, everyone in editorial, grading and VFX are on the same page. That is how Elisium was done. Everything was pre graded and exported as EXR and VFX placed and matched everything perfectly with existing pre graded plates. Once color grading received VFX shots back, they were placed in the timeline and usually there wasn't even a need for any additional grading.
 
jake blackstone said:
Yes, using pre-graded material is a standard type of workflow.
Click to expand...

Why don't you use an offline for editing and link back to R3D for RAW colorgrading?
You then could send those graded frames to FX in DPX when needed. I never go to Prores when doing professional grading work (when working with files generated by RED) and never use "mastering codecs" like Prores 422 HQ or 444 for offline editing.

Pat
 
Hilmar,

You are preaching to the choir but may I request you to stick with the facts. You can shoot 12 bit Arri Raw 120 fps on XR module/ Alexa XT series cameras. I am listing a small list of a few special effects oriented films shot on Arri Alexa with a cumulative gross of only a few billion dollars.(Gravity, Life of Pi, Sky Fall, Iron Man 3, Avengers...and the list goes on). So go on I should definitely listen to what else you have to say about workflow and camera tests etc.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Why don't you use an offline for editing and link back to R3D for RAW colorgrading?
You then could send those graded frames to FX in DPX when needed. I never go to Prores when doing professional grading work (when working with files generated by RED) and never use "mastering codecs" like Prores 422 HQ or 444 for offline editing.

Pat
Click to expand...

I think, again, you're missing the point. Please read my post again. That is exactly what I was describing, pre-grade using R3D and send the material as DPX or EXR to VFX. You can't maintain RAW workflow once R3D had been debayered, as you'd proposed.
 
jake blackstone said:
I think, again, you're missing the point. Please read my post again. That is exactly what I was describing, pre-grade using R3D and send the material as DPX or EXR to VFX. You can't maintain RAW workflow once R3D had been debayered, as you'd proposed.
Click to expand...

Ok, sorry, but raw should get better integrated in the standard VFX pipeline IMHO.

Pat
 
i agree - unless i get two versions of a shot (for say, compositing purposes) from somebody who really knows how to pre-grade vfx shots, i'd just as soon have access to the raw file along with a dpx/exr as either a compositor or supervisor/lead. of course, the bigger the film and the more shots you have the more complicated this gets, but i really think it would be good in that (or any) case to have somebody in a post-dit position to consult/manage the images through vfx to the colorist. there's weird workflow stuff going on in-between those areas right now...
 
There is no reason to stick with raw r3d's if it is properly debayered at the start. many times people confuse 'raw' with 'high bit depth' . you can have high bit depth without raw.


Patrick Tresch said:
Ok, sorry, but raw should get better integrated in the standard VFX pipeline IMHO.

Pat
Click to expand...
 
Les Dittert said:
There is no reason to stick with raw r3d's if it is properly debayered at the start. many times people confuse 'raw' with 'high bit depth' . you can have high bit depth without raw.
Click to expand...

I understand your point but as Paul said, I think "there are weird workflow stuff going on...". Like if they prefer to stick to the good old DPX workflow. But I'm not (anymore) a post-production specialist. I won't argue here if a 10bit DPX is as good as a R3D, but why switch format, do you need to embed the look at that stage of the workflow?

Pat
 
Hafta say...

Whatever result of what...

Even if it came out good for Dragon...

;y involement is kinda minimal.

I am not surprised if Dragon was a better option than Alexa, though... :)

That just fits all I have seen.
 
FWIW why not a hybrid approach? During post I think there's a lot of value in working in a common RGB space, preferably with plenty of bit depth and not much compression. (Straight creative editorial can still be "offline" quality, pre-conformed by EDL/ALE to a proper working format). When it comes to final conform/grading/finishing I would want to have all the native assets from practical photography/VFX on hand as needed. That said, assuming a decent RAW to RGB development was done, to at least 10 bit log DPX (16 bit half float OpenEXR preferred), a very high quality finish should be attainable.

If you could promise me that every RAW format in the VFX and live capture pipelines were identical it would be a lot more compelling - in the meantime, RGB benefits from a greater universe of directly comparable measurements. Moreover, most of the best grading and finishing tools are optimized for log RGB material with ever improving handling of linear.

Cheers - #19
 
jake blackstone said:
It's ironic, that you're talking about lack of knowledge and general confusion and in the same breath you are doing exactly the same. 4:2:2 and 8 bits are not the same thing.



Yes, using pre-graded material is a standard type of workflow. That is done for many reasons, one being, that there is no such thing as RAW pipeline. You can't edit, grade or composite RAW material. It must be debayered first and more important, once debayered, you can't go back to bayered image. Use of pre-graded EXR for compositing is quite common. The bigger problem is maintaining the proper color science, so everyone involved in the project are looking at the same image, regardless of platform. FilmLight is making great strides toward this goal by providing a Baselight plugin for Avid/FCP and Nuke. So, everyone in editorial, grading and VFX are on the same page. That is how Elisium was done. Everything was pre graded and exported as EXR and VFX placed and matched everything perfectly with existing pre graded plates. Once color grading received VFX shots back, they were placed in the timeline and usually there wasn't even a need for any additional grading.
Click to expand...

You're quibbling over semantics. There is such a thing as a RAW pipeline in so much as people grade XMLs in Davinci that refer to Raw images, and sometimes go back to change the RAW settings as part of the grade, or layer different RAW settings in a comp with windows. We do it all the time. Yes technically you can't see RAW - it's always debayered somewhere first, but you get my point, and if you don't get my point you're very much just quibbling for its own sake. There is real power in doing things this way as some things are better set in RGB and some things better set in RAW space.

Of course in VFX heavy work this is not always possible, but it does **exist**. Even After Effects comps can retain references to RAW clips within very complex sets of layers. BTW high speed fps Alexa is BOTH 422 AND 8bit as far as I know.

It is also very true that the level of FUD and ignorance (you are extremely knowledgeable, just a quibbler :-) ) in how to deal with Red RAW (or any RAW) is insane.
 
Thanks for sharing. Hopefully you can provide some footage links.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top