The CF module...

[Antoine Fabi]

Jim, Rob,

Is it possible in a near future to buy a multiple RED CF cards module as an expansion option ?

Is it technically feasible ?

Antoine

 

[Michael Morlan]

Right now, four minutes between card changes is just too disruptive on the narrative set - and hard to assure each and every card is properly burned, transited to the data wrangler, dumped, returned to the camera assistant, and cleared.

For myself, I will be buying the CF option and three RED Drives. Two drives will do duty on set and a third as a backup. The CF card system is for when the drive might be a bit strained by camera movement.

M

 

[Steve Freebairn]

Right now, four minutes between card changes is just too disruptive on the narrative set - and hard to assure each and every card is properly burned, transited to the data wrangler, dumped, returned to the camera assistant, and cleared.

For myself, I will be buying the CF option and three RED Drives. Two drives will do duty on set and a third as a backup. The CF card system is for when the drive might be a bit strained by camera movement.

M

This is what a technician is for. I think that pulling a CF card out of a slot, then sliding a blank CF card into a slot could be done in a few seconds. Also remember that card sizes will only go up. We'll be laughing at the 8 gb cards that we started with. I laugh at the 8mb card that came with my Gl2 a few years back. Even though I say all this, I still love the idea of having 4 slots for cf cards with a little light that can go red if it is full and green if it still has space. Then you could keep hot swapping them as the camera moves from card to card. This like many other features would have to be a software update in the future, but it seems like the RED team could work out the hardware now (I hope).

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

4 min between card changes?
imagine shooting a film with 400ft magazines with film..
its the same thing..
have a few cards.. and instead of a 'loader" an "unloader" work the cards if you plan on reusing them..
cf cards on a narrative film only makes sense...

 

[donatello b]

"four minutes between card changes is just too disruptive on the narrative set - and hard to assure each and every card is properly burned, transited to the data wrangler, dumped, returned to the camera assistant, and cleared."

i would think for a narrative the Producer is buying the CF's cards and not re-using them = the CF card would be like film negative ... i believe Steven Sodemberg is using CF cards for his feature - changing every 4 min ...

does anybody know if S Sodemberg project is backing up their CF cards on set ? or handing off at end of day to person to dupe or ship back to US ?

"imagine shooting a film with 400ft magazines with film"

it's been done ... you know it going into a project and you work with it ...

 

[Edgar Pitts]

At 4 minutes per card, that is 15 cards per hour. To use these as a film negative would be $3000 per hour. Not too cost effective for shooting a feature...

 

[Kevin Halverson]

At 4 minutes per card, that is 15 cards per hour. To use these as a film negative would be $3000 per hour. Not too cost effective for shooting a feature...

Even if the shooting ratio hits 15:1 (poor in my opinion) and even if you are getting 6 minutes of coverage per day (fairly optimistic). Then the most you would need is 90 minutes per day. Even if you never reused a CF during a day, you would only need 22 cards at the most. More realistic numbers would reduce the number of cards further. I don't see needing anything but CFs for feature work.

 

[Jannard]

At 4 minutes per card, that is 15 cards per hour. To use these as a film negative would be $3000 per hour. Not too cost effective for shooting a feature...

Still quite a bit cheaper than film... and that is if you use the CF card as the master and don't re-use it. I do know that one director (you have heard of him) is planning on using the CF card as the master. And he is thrilled at the prospect. He gets instant dialies and the most secure form of archive known to man. One hour of footage in a feature is a lot of footage.

A documentary is another story...

Jim

 

[Matt Uhry]

At 4 minutes per card, that is 15 cards per hour. To use these as a film negative would be $3000 per hour. Not too cost effective for shooting a feature...

A bit less than just buying 35mm stock! Not that significant a cost on a typical studio feature, and one the producers and studios are used to.

One would think that the cards could be recycled after the edit room signed off that they had the footage and had made appropriate backups.

Anybody who's on the film want to weigh in ? I know you are out there...

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com


**edit J.J. beat me to it, you have to post quickly around here to be relevant**

 

[Edgar Pitts]

A bit less than just buying 35mm stock! Not that significant a cost on a typical studio feature, and one the producers and studios are used to.

For an indie producer, that can be a significant cost. I agree that a daily backup model would be a much better fit.

 

[Joel Kaye]

One hour of footage in a feature is a lot of footage.

Well... Apocolypse Now was 100 to 1.


"For feature films, shooting ratios of 20:1 to 100:1 are considered typical.

For the Borat crew, however, shooting impromptu, unrehearsed live events with as many as five cameras, conventional ratios went out the window, according to Thomas. “They shot 450 hours of footage,” he said. “And we cut it down to 82 minutes.”
http://nabdaily.imaspub.com/pages/s.0007/t.4954.html

That's a lot of CF Cards.

 

[Brook Willard]

On multicam shoots, footage counts can grow to crazy levels.

We have to step back and have a reality check here. We're talking about a reusable 400' magazine that you can fit into the change pocket of your jeans. Film magazines cost $10,000+ plus film, processing and transfer. Obviously nobody uses a film magazine one time, but I doubt many will use a CF card one time either. Turning a CF card into a "roll" makes no more sense than turning an entire magazine into a "roll".

Narrative: have 5-10 CF cards per camera [overkill, really] playing. Every time one gets full, have the loader/DIT take it and pump it into the post workflow in whatever way a given production sees fit. Confirm the data, wipe it and return it to set. Narrative features just don't shoot that much footage. And if they do? A CF card change is seconds, not minutes. No more threading, no more tensioning, no more pitch adjustment, no more gate check. Click out, click in, roll. It takes longer to focus a diopter.

Labeling the cards is easy. All your loader/DIT needs to do is create a system. Label the cards when they're hot, when they're clean. Label the roll number. Know which pocket hot cards go in, which pockets clean cards go in. It's like loading a magazine. Know where your air is, know where your negative is, know which side of the magazine is hot. Where's the tape? Who cares, you know it by feel. People have been loading magazines in tents for decades - keeping cards safe and transferring data properly just isn't that hard. Professionals are professional... they do it for a living.

On every shoot I've DIT'd or loaded, I've created a system. With one stupid exception that I take full responsibility for, I've never lost a second of footage and I've never lost a frame of film. With all my on-set experience, I personally prefer a shorter shooting medium. I don't want to have to wait for somebody to deal with my footage until the end of the day when it can happen right now. Starting the post process 30 seconds after cutting beats that any day. If I'm DIT or loader, having something to do and actively checking and confirming footage just makes everything work better. Wouldn't it be great to know you didn't get a bad batch of film or a hair in the gate right after a roll-out? Well now we can.

I don't know. The CF option rocks my world.

 

[Brook Willard]

Well... Apocolypse Now was 100 to 1.


"For feature films, shooting ratios of 20:1 to 100:1 are considered typical.

For the Borat crew, however, shooting impromptu, unrehearsed live events with as many as five cameras, conventional ratios went out the window, according to Thomas. “They shot 450 hours of footage,” he said. “And we cut it down to 82 minutes.”
http://nabdaily.imaspub.com/pages/s.0007/t.4954.html

That's a lot of CF Cards.

There's a good thing to consider. What about shoots that don't treat the RED like a film camera? There are directors who will happily roll the camera and hop into frame to get a true "hands-on" tweak with their actor's performance? Is the CF option perfect then?

Probably not. Good thing there are other options! Now we just have to have an editor cut footage down before dailies go out.

 

[Jannard]

If you are used to shooting a feature on film, the RED CF path is easy and very cheap. If you are used to shooting an HVX or a tape based camera, the CF Master program will seem expensive. That's why we have a RED Drive option. 2 hours for less than $1000. And you can offload and re-use. Or you can shoot CF, offload and re-use. And these aren't the only options.

When you shoot a film camera, there is only one option... shoot film. Although you do get to decide which film stock.

Jim

 

[Matt Uhry]

For an indie producer, that can be a significant cost. I agree that a daily backup model would be a much better fit.

Yeah, I hear you. Using your CF cards once would be going way overboard for indies. I think we'll have a good ideas of what would be safe but reasonable data practices in the next few months.

I kind of like the idea of having a day pass before you blank any card, so someone in editorial can give you a thumbs up that they got every "roll".

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com

 

[Joel Kaye]

Good thing there are other options! Now we just have to have an editor cut footage down before dailies go out.

I'm thinking you might be right about the fast dailies though. What if you have say 6 cards on set. You fill one, hand it to a laptop editor, they ingest it to one drive, back it up to another drive, drop each batch onto timeliness and scrub through them... set up a rough edit, clear the CF card and set it out to be reloaded.

Now you're getting rough cut on set and a daily report before you strike a lighting setup. (Ok, you could do this with a RED drive too).

That brings up another thought. Record to CF and RED Drive at the same time. RED Drive is your second or 3rd backup. I don't know if it's an option, but it would be a really good option.

Jim's got a good point about budgets though. Once you're spending $500k+ does the cost of CF masters matter? No.

 

[Darwin]

A bit less than just buying 35mm stock!

The cost of buying stock?..........Try the cost of development for that stock! I could not be happier with useing CF cards

 

[Brook Willard]

I thinking you might be right about the fast dailies though. What if you have say 6 cards on set. You fill one, hand it to a laptop editor, they ingest it to one drive, back it up to another drive, drop each batch onto timeliness and scrub through them... set up a rough edit, clear the CF card and set it out to be reloaded.

See, I think this goes well beyond a laptop on a Magliner. I'll put a post together on my day off.

 

[Jarred Land]

I can honestly say after months of recording 4k onto CF, i wouldn't know what to do without it. I can for sure see the need of some long form recording onto drives (had to today), but Honestly, 98% of the last 100 or so hours ive shot on RED.... has all been on compact flash. Its just so secure, solid and quick.

 

[Joel Kaye]

I can honestly say after months of recording 4k onto CF, i wouldn't know what to do without it. I can for sure see the need of some long form recording onto drives (had to today), but Honestly, 98% of the last 100 or so hours ive shot on RED.... has all been on compact flash. Its just so secure, solid and quick.

So have you been dumping the cards to another drive in the field or do you just have a bunch of cards with you when you go out?