HD For Indies

The guys up at Tekserve shot it, edited it, and compressed it, so I'm hosting it - here's the entire Red presentation Mark Pederson from Offhollywood gave at Tekserve the other week. Click here to open a new window and play the movie.

Only here at HD for Indies!

Labels: Red

Top Spot of the Week: Halo3 "Believe" | Studio Daily

This is the kind of creativity I like. A 30 x 40 foot diorama, with 8 inch tall figures. Recreating a battle scene that otherwise exists only in CG in a video game. They could have done this all in 3D, with greater detail. They could have used some loud, pounding music. Instead, soft, simple piano music, and hand painted figurines (Stan Winston Studios no less!). A quiet tour of a battlefield, frozen in time.

Would that YOU (or, ahem, I) would have such creativity, and NOT take the obvious route.

Would that you or I would have such a budget, as well.

-mike

UPDATE - here's a stills gallery of the diorama, and oh, how about a 720p version of the spot? RIGHT CLICK AND DOWNLOAD LINKED FILE AS. Sorry, .wmv only, how I got it.

-mike

This year I didn't get to see nearly as many movies as I would have liked due to travel and work considerations, but it was a good year nonetheless. My favorites were Aachi & Ssipak and Time Crimes. I also liked Exte for the weird factor even though it wasn't a great film. The Cold Hour was dark but interesting, and I was especially curious about the production since I did a little consulting on it - they shot F900 (mostly dark interiors, therefore little video blowout potential), Cineform/Premiere Pro, color correction and post-y stuff in combustion (!?), and VFX done with XSI. I'd say a very successful effort to make it "look like a movie" but shot on video (although high end HD).

Southland Tales was a mess, but an interesting train wreck to watch, Girl Who Leapt Through Time was my second favorite animated piece (but better story/characters than the spastic Aachi & Ssipak), the Big Man Japan was novel fun mockumentary style, and obviously There Will Be Blood was the best "serious" film that I saw. I missed too much to call these best of, but they were my favorites that I saw.

Here's the press release from Tim League on the winners, with a few notes of mine in italics.

---------------------------------------------------

2007 FANTASTIC FEST JURY AND AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Awards were announced last night at the closing ceremony of the 2007 Fantastic Fest in Austin Texas. Taking top honors was Nacho Vigalondo with CRONOSCRIMINES (TIMECRIMES), a world premiere screening. Vigalondo won the "Best Feature" award in the AMD Next Wave Competition and wins a $3500 editing system from AMD/Dell and a $1000 cash prize. The Audience Award went to Ernesto Diaz Espinoza's MIRAGEMAN, a Chilean martial arts film featuring Marko Zaror. The complete listing of awards is below:

HORROR SHORTS COMPETITION
Competition Films
CRITICIZED
DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE
IN THE WALL
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 2 YOU
MAQUINA
ANESTHESIA
THE RUN
LUMP
FAR OUT
THE FIFTH

Jury Members
Joe Lynch (Director, WRONG TURN 2)
Adam Green (Director, SPIRAL)
Bill Lustig (Founder, Blue Underground)

Bronze Medal: FAR OUT - Phil Mucci
Silver Medal: THE FIFTH - Ryan Levin
Gold Medal: IN THE WALL -Mike Williamson

Special Jury Prize For Best Screenplay: THE FIFTH
Special Jury Prize For Best Actor: Sam Lloyd, THE FIFTH
Special Jury Prize For Best Actress: Bianca Rusu, DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE
Special Jury Prize For Best Cinematography: HAPPY BIRTHDAY 2 YOU
Special Jury Prize For Best Effects: DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE

ANIMATED SHORTS COMPETITION
Competition Films
APNEE
THE BIRD, THE MOUSE AND THE SAUSAGE
EVERYTHING WILL BE OK
INTRODUCTION TO LUCID DREAM EXPLORATION
IT CAME FROM THE WEST
POSTMAN
SHUTEYE HOTEL
TALE OF HOW
X-PRESSION

Jury Members
Ryan Schifrin (Director, KING IN THE BOX)
Jonathan Brands (Funimation)
Michael Lehrman (indieWIRE)

Bronze Medal: X-PRESSION - Laurie Thinot
Silver Medal: RAYMOND - BIF Filmmaking collective
Gold Medal: EVERYTHING WILL BE OK - Don Hertzfeldt

FANTASTIC SHORTS COMPETITION
Competition Films
ANGE
BATTLE FOR THE SERPENT STONE (mikenote - this is a GI Joe live action film - geek ahoy!)
THE FAERIES OF BLACKHEATH WOODS
KING IN THE BOX
MONSTER JOB HUNTER (mikenote - they did color correction at my place - excellent CG in a cute short)
SNIFFER
LES PETITS HOMMES VIEUX
THE LITTLE GORILLA
MEBANA
UN-GONE
SUITYMAN
WAITING FOR YESTERDAY
DREAMTIME

Jury Members
Todd Brown (Twitchfilm)
Don Hertzfeldt (The Animation Show)
Travis Stevens (Imagination Films)

Bronze Medal: SUITYMAN - Jon Spira
Silver Medal: SNIFFER - Bobbie Peers
Gold Medal: WAITING FOR YESTERDAY - Julien Lecat, Sylvain Pioutaz

FANTASTIC FEATURES COMPETITION
Competition Films
WICKED FLOWERS
MAIKO HAAAAN!
OFFSCREEN
THE SWORD BEARER
AACHI & SSIPAK
A DIRTY CARNIVAL
NEVER BELONGS TO ME
WOLFHOUND

Jury Members
Marc Walkow (New York Asian Film Festival)
Chris Cargill (Ain't It Cool News)
Tom Quinn (Magnolia Pictures)

Bronze Medal: AACHI AND SSIPAK - Jo Beom-jin
Silver Medal: NEVER BELONGS TO ME - Ki-woong Nam
Gold Medal: OFFSCREEN - Christoffer Boe

Special Jury Prize For Most Original Scenario: NEVER BELONGS TO ME

HORROR FEATURES COMPETITION
Competition Films
Alone
Devil's Chair
Ferryman
Summer Scars
Exte: Hair Extensions (mikenote - saw this, enjoyed it, drank their victory beer with gusto)
Hell's Ground
La Hora Fria
Taxidermia

Jury Members
Scott Weinberg (Cinematical)
Harvey Fenton (FAB Press)
Ian Rattray (UK FrightFest)

Bronze Medal: DEVIL'S CHAIR Adam Mason
Silver Medal: ALONE Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom
Gold Medal: EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS Sion Sono

Special Jury Prize For Best Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom for ALONE
Special Jury Prize For Best Actor: Kevin Howarth for SUMMER SCARS
Special Jury Prize For Best Actress: Masha Wattanapanitch for ALONE
Special Jury Prize For Best Gore: HELL'S GROUND

AUDIENCE AWARD COMPETITION
Bronze Medal: The Girl Next Door - Gregory Wilson
Silver Medal: Time Crimes Nacho Vigalondo
Gold Medal: Miragemen - Ernesto Díaz Espinoza

AMD NEXT WAVE AWARD
(Fantastic Fest Best Picture)
Competition Films
THE ENTRANCE
SPIRAL
FIVE ACROSS THE EYES
MIRAGEMAN
TIMECRIMES
BEAUTIFUL BEAST
END OF THE LINE
JACK KETCHUM'S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
WRONG TURN 2

Jury Members
Charlie Boswell (AMD)
Eric Vespe (Ain't It Cool News)
Anne Goetzmann Kelly (Austin School of Film)

Bronze Medal: MIRAGEMAN Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
Silver Medal: SPIRAL Adam Green
Gold Medal: TIMECRIMES Nacho Vigalondo (mikenote - saw it, liked it, talked to Nacho a bit - fun guy!)

Special Jury Prize For innovative Vision: End of the Line, Maurice Devareaux

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
Fantastic Fest is an eight-day festival of the best new sci-fi, horror, fantasy and genre films, as well as choice classic and obscure cult titles from all over the world. The festival director is Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema). Programmers include Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Kier-la Janisse (Big Smash, Cinemuerte), Matt Dentler (SXSW), Todd Brown (Twitchfilm.net) and Paul Alvarado-Dykstra. Festival co-chairs are Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies (screenwriter, Iron Giant). The 2006 festival premiered over 60 features and 30 shorts. Fantastic Fest is co-sponsored by Ain't It Cool News and the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar in Austin, Texas. Dates for the 2007 Fantastic Fest are September 20-27, 2007. Additional information can be found at www.fantasticfest.com

FANTASTIC FEST TESTIMONIALS
"Considering Fantastic Fest is in its infancy, it has already established a solid reputation on the global festival circuit as a world leader: the ace in the pack of cards. With an awesome list of guests and movies, Fantastic Fest also has the best cinema in the world, period: "The Alamo". Founder Tim League has succeeded a mission impossible with a bruiser of a movie festival with a touch of genuine Texan hospitality. Take my word for it: Fantastic Fest rocks our planet."
- Jay Slater, journalist, HOT DOG MAGAZINE UK

"The best film festival I've ever been to, at the best theater in the world. Everyone at Fantastic Fest really cared about the filmmakers, and worked incredibly hard to make every screening memorable. Thanks to everyone for making this first-time short film director feel like a Hollywood superstar." - Phil Mucci, director, THE LISTENING DEAD

"I attend a solid handful of film festivals every year -- and Fantastic Fest was (far and away) one of the most entertaining trips I've ever taken. >From fest-head Tim League down to the part-timiest festival volunteer, these folks were absolutely sterling. If you have even a passing interest in films best described as horror, sci-fi, fantasy or "plain old weird," I could not recommend Fantastic Fest highly enough. In only its second year of existence, FF looks to be one of North America's premiere genre festivals -- and I can only imagine what the 2007 event will look like." - Scott Weinberg, journalist, CINEMATICAL

Labels: FantasticFest

TG Daily

Good for 800 MB/sec reads, 600 MB/sec writes, 640 GB capacity, is a PCIe card. In tests, did 380 MB/sec with a huge number of I/O's per second.

BUT...$30/GB. AKA, $20K for 640GB. Ouch.

Great for servers and database stuff, not so great for video. Formats to a hair under 600GB, so over 50 hours of DV or HDV. So if you needed to have LOTS of editors accessing a relatively small amount of data, that might make sense - reality TV offline editing in groups or news or stuff like that.

Thanks to Chad for sending this in!

-mike

So last night after watching PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood (see trailer below)



The Awards Ceremony was casual and fun - there was even a break in the middle for a quick round of Fantastic Feud, where the host of the other night's Feud Scott Weinberg took on the winner of the Feud in a round of movie geek knowledge in the category of directors of sequels. These guys know their stuff!

Awards were traditional - traditional for Fantastic Fest, that is - beer mugs were the awards, presented full of beer, and award winners were expected to chug on stage. For the short films and lesser awards this was doable (single Stella Artois serving size), but the feature length were big steins, 2 Stellas worth. For those who weren't in attendance, volunteers were found. One of my favorites, Exte (Hair Extensions) won, and they called for a volunteer - I, never shy in public, raised my hand and shouted "Yo!" and Scott Weinberg called me out. I start in on it and the crowd is chanting "Chug! Chug!" and I start to dribble down my chin about 2/3's of the way through. Scott says "He's dribbling!" like it is a flag on the field foul or cheat, and in my head for some reason I'm amending it to "He's dribbling....like a little girl!" and I start to laugh and lower the mug. The crowd, dissapointedly says "Awwwwwwww........" but I laugh, breathe, and polish it off to crowd approval. I am such a drunken attention slut in those situations. What can I say? Maybe comes of being the littlest kid in class (was 5 ft 4 as a high school sophomore, now 6 ft 4). Anyway, Mary Sledd was ever on the job and snagged this shot:


Yes, technically, that is me working - drinking on a stage with Tim League, in his best 70s Telly Savalas look (you shoulda seen the pants!). Somehow, that furthers my career. Right? Sure. Maybe. Anyway...

After the final big award (I was going to list those but can't find'em on website, will update when I get'em), which went to Nacho for Time Crimes (and I heartily agree with the decision), we all caravanned over to Donn's Depot for the closing party, which was a total blast. Free booze for quite a while (Thanks Tim, Carrie, and sponsors!), and many good conversations. It is always surprising who knows who how. One award winner's producer turns out to know Mark & Aldey at Offhollywood and writes software for AJA. Who knew?

And then, home and to crater into bed. Another Fantastic Fest, indeed.

VIP badges are already sold out for next year, unfortunately - so I missed my slot on that AGAIN. They'll go on sale sometime next year with more badges.

I'll amend the award winners when I get the list, and post the YouTube-able content associated with'em.

-mike

Labels: FantasticFest

I'd only seen the the teaser for this film before tonight, and didn't know what it was until Tim announced it immediately before the screening.

Wow.

I'd taken it to be some period piece with some bitter feud building up for decades. And it was, but not of the sort I'd been predicting At All.

Daniel Day Lewis turns in one of the darkest but most believable characters I've seen in years. This is a heart dead but not cold, kept warm by the seething hate of all humanity, the love of nothing real, and one could just picture the black blood of oil and greed pumping through his caustic, poisoned, bitter veins.

So...not a nice guy.

An impressive film, a languidly paced film, with tension but not of the usual sort.

He's definitely going to be up for some awards on this one. He who? Daniel and Paul Anderson (the director).

OK, award show about to begin, more later....

Labels: FantasticFest

Macsimum News - Apple releases iPhone Update 1.1.1:
Apple has released iPhone Update 1.1.1, a software update that adds support for the iTunes Wi-Fie Store. The update is now available on iTunes. New features include: louder speakerphone and receiver volume; a Home button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls; a space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space; Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape; stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered; there’s now Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar; support for TV Out has been added; there’s a prereference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally; new passcode lock time intervals; and an adjustable alert volume."


Apple also says that if you modded your iPhone, using this update may forever fubar your iPhone.

Nice guys. Real nice. Anybody got a confirm on that? Why couldn't you just Restore?

Shenanigans or BS?

-mike

Yes, that is what it looks like - I just swung a sword to decapitate a champagne bottle that Tim League, founder of Alamo Drafthouse and organizer of Fantastic Fest is holding. I'm doing this in his back yard. Click image for larger view.

WTF?

OK, I'm not REALLY swinging the sword - I started off with the sword already resting on the bottle. And if you look closely, the dark blob you can see above the blurry 3 other champagne bottles is the cork (with some glass still attached).

Tim described it thusly:

"Napoleon, before battle, used to gather his men at Moet. They'd sabre off the top of champagne bottles the night before battle. If it shattered the bottle, it was a dark harbinger, the battle would go poorly.

So the men should drink heavily.

If it was a clean break, it foretold victory in battle.

In which case, the men should drink heavily."

I like that kind of logic.

I'm proud to say when he asked for volunteers I popped right out, and got my bottle open, with a clean break, on the first try. Others were not so fortunate, but I wouldn't read anything into that in terms of their manliness, fitness for battle, etc. I'm just sayin' I got mine right. First try. Ahem.

: D

Yes, I am a geek, but at times I do enjoy revelling in it.

Here's the deal: I ran into Tim in the hallway the other night at FantasticFest, and he mentioned he was doing a special event the next day, and would I like to come. Would I like to do something extra Tim thinks is cool? Hell yeah - after watching Open Water sitting in inner tubes in Lake Travis at a Tim event, I'm down for ANYTHING he comes up with - I like the way this guy thinks.

So while one group of folks piled into the Drafthouse to catch a screening on 35mm, a smaller group jumped into vans and cars and caravanned over to Tim's house with the huge yard, where he had the Rolling Roadshow inflatable screen set up.

While talking to Ludo about Blu-ray vs. HD DVD specs, and the various clever bits that Blu-ray can do to stop piracy, Mary Sledd walks up and with nothing said just hands me a lens to hold. Mary is my favorite event photographer in Austin - we met at the debut of an IMAX film at the Bob Bullock History Museum when one of us overheard the other was a native Austinite - there aren't that many of us around in what we do. So we became insta-friends. She rocks, if you have an event/wedding/rock star to shoot, hire her. She's good, nice, and fun to be around. See link below for pics from the event.

So she handed me a lens to hold while she swtiched out one on the body, talked to Ludo some more, and we all circled about in the yard until it got dark. (She also took the pics on this page).

Once dark, Tim League got up front and welcomed us, and the head chef from Alamo Drafthouse brought out the first of many excellent Japanese courses to match our movie, Uncle's Paradise. Tim described it something like this - in Japan, up and coming directors get their start in the pinku genre - basically soft core porn. They are given a very small budget (some 10s of thousands of dollars for a feature), told they must include a certain number of minutes of sex in the movie, but beyond that are cut loose to do whatever they want.

"Whatever this guy wanted" was just wonderfully bizarre - there's a giant squid theme throughout the movie, an uncle with priapism run amok, a friend that needs to die for the plot to go forward so they just cut to him with a giant (foot long) spider on his back black spots on his face as he falls over dead, the uncle writes his name in Sharpie on the back of the nephew's girlfriend during sex so the nephew finds it later during sex with the same girl, the uncle gets a snake latched on his penis while masturbating in the park on it and dies and goes to a sexual hell where the nephew gets him out. Huh? Don't understand? Right, us neither. But it was still bizarre fun.

....and this is runnning on a big screen in an open yard in a neighborhood. Tim said he didn't realize perhaps how much sex was in it in the context of screening it originally on DVD at home, vs in a yard, 20 feet wide, with 50 people, in the neighborhood, with moans heard down the street from the screen. But he said he'd do it again anyway.

Like I said, Tim rocks.

The meal was exquisite, with squid on the salad, some great ahi tuna, a gelee and japanese ice concoction for dessert...fabulous. Fantastic. Festive. A FantasticFest, for sure.

Mary has additional delightful pictures here to give you an idea of the lovely setup, including one of me with my girlfriend Erica....whom I had to keep reassuring that this wasn't the kind of stuff we'd been watching all week. "Uh huh....I believe you...."

Sure she does.

: )

-mikey!

UPDATE - here's Tim showing me where/how to slide the sword down the bottle's seam. I didn't wind up and swing it or nuthin'. That would have been cool, but Tim probably would have lost a hand. We need him to have that hand...to drive the remote so he can screen DVDs for FantasticFest...he probably has other uses for it too. Mary's pics also have decapitated champagne corks if you're wondering how it works.

Labels: FantasticFest

....so I'm come into the studio this morning to check on an overnight MPEG-2 compression I'm doing for a friend. Said friend is a DP who shot their own feature, I've known Friend for several years, Friend knows exactly what I do for a living, friend knows I Know Stuff.

We'd had a brief conversation about Friend's needs - this is an hour forty-five minute long feature, Friend needs a DVD for Sundance submission (deadline Friday). 4:3 or 16:9 I ask, Friend has some 4:3 and some 16:9 footage in the same timeline. So Friend needs a 4:3 disc for Sundance submission (has to be there by Friday - good planning to start making the disc with an extra day to spare - kept editing as long as possible, must prep now).

I come in this morning and the MPEG-2 is complete, I drop it into DVD Studio Pro to make a self-playing disc. As I'm stepping through the footage making sure things look right....dawning horror.

Folks - remember this rant on 10 THINGS NOT TO DO?.

I go back to Final Cut Pro and discover this:

1.) There's 4:3 60i footage.

2.) There's 16:9 (anamorphic) footage.

3.) The 16:9 footage is actually 24p with 3:2 pulldown. Not 24pA, just 24p. Captured as 60i, with 3:2 pulldown intact.

4.) I'm not sure what camera this was shot on, or whether this is just an offline edit, but...

5.) It was cut with Final Cut Pro 5.x, (budget constraints, couldn't update), so no taking advantage of mixed format timelines that FCP 6 has.

So that's breaking rules 2, 4, & 6, and actually inventing some new ones in terms of Awkward Things To Do.

So at this point, we'll be able to make a DVD that accounts for all aspect ratios and frame rates. That is good.

BUT....HD for Indies, be-ready-to-filmout-or-festival guy that I am, here's what I don't like about the situation:

1.) Since it is a 4:3 60i conventional timeline, not prepared to make a 24p master.

2.) Since the 24p footage appears to be 24p with 3:2 pulldown, if was from DVX100A, that is not optimal setup - shoulda shot 24pA.

3.) Since 16:9 and 4:3 on the same timeline, the project is pretty much married to a 4:3 deliverable - again, not optimal for festival or theatrical screening...at ALL.

4.) Since anamorphic footage has been placed on a 4:3 timeline with non-anamorphic footage, that means the anamorphic footage has to be letterboxed...thus losing 25% of its resolution. It has to be squished vertically to fit the format, rather than stretched horizontally on playback. Losing image quality (see 10 THINGS NOT TO DO link above for more on that).

5.) If Friend DOES want to show at Sundance, a LOT of work will have to be done on this project to get it formatted and presented correctly. While Sundance in the past has wanted 1080i60 HDCAM for digital screening (haven't checked the specs for next year yet), you'd think that'd be an easy conversion...480i60 to 1080i60, right?

Nope.

While it IS possible to do a simple conversion, what you'd get would be this: 4:3 pillarboxed, then a 16:9 frame sitting in the middle of a lot of black framing - top, bottom, left, and right. And it would be soft and undetailed.

The fix? Many are possible, but moving this project to Final Cut Pro 6 would be an excellent place to start...

There are also potential issues in the upconvert - since it is anamorphic 60i footage (even though it started life as 24p, it has interlace lines in it on the 4th and 5th frames of each 5 frame cycle), the letterboxing squish from the anamorphic on 4:3 timeline thing will probably create oddnesses in a Teranex based upconvert...which Friend cant' afford anyway. Regardless, it is going to be a great big pain to get this ready for Sundance, if it gets in.

All this leads me to this - the MOST dissapointing thing about all this is that Friend knows me, knows that I help in these situations...and never asked me how to set up for this - just dove in and did it...wrong. And if your friends know you help on exactly these kinds of situations and don't ask for any help, and end up making a mess for themselves....what hope is there that strangers are going to hire you for this?

Some would say that is the very definition of there not being a market for said services. Those that either don't know they need help, or can't afford it...in economic terms, are they not the definition of non-clients, a non-market?

Very, very frustrating.

This is one of the reasons I'm planning on heading upmarket, why I'm so enthused that the Red is coming along. If you can afford to shoot Red, perhaps you can afford some help, since it is all so new...

-mike

UPDATE - this may be all a bit off - I have a recollection that this may have been shot on HDV and downconverted, so I'll have to ask. This might have been the right way to do an offline given the source, I don't know right now, I will in a bit. But if it HAD been shot on DV, I would still be justified in being this frustrated, I think.

FURTHER UPDATE - turns out it was shot on a variety of cameras, including 480i60 B&W security cameras, some handheld 1080i60 HDV, and the primary camera was a Sony V1U shot at 24p, chosen in part because it would fit into the very, VERY tight shooting conditions.

So all the HD will have to be recaptured anyway, and a proper conform can be done at this time. This actually wasn't a bad way to get it done for creative edit for Sundance submission - the HDV masters were dubbed to DV at 480i60, so all footage was 480i60 for Final Cut 5.0.4 (version Friend had on G4 Powerbook) to edit with.

But Final Cut Pro 6 deals with these scenarios SOOOOOOO much better than FCP 5.x...

Labels: scars

south by southwest festivals conferences

From their description:

The long hours in a smoke-filled editing room has been replaced with long hours hunched over in front of computer screen. HD filmmaking and other new technologies have opened the door to people to make their vision come to life without a big budget or big crew. Are the times passing you by? This roundtable will discuss what is available to today's filmmaker and what can be expected tomorrow.

Moderator: Anne Hubbell Regional Acct Mgr/ Independent Feature Film, Kodak

Mike Curtis The Guy, HD For Indies
James Finn Mkting Exec, Panavision Dallas
Anne Hubbell Regional Acct Mgr/ Independent Feature Film, Kodak
Aaron Simpson Content Producer, JibJab Media Inc
Christian Zak Exec Producer DI, Technicolor

Been busy, had intern collect up a bunch of links, apologies if some of these are repeats. I'm organizing another batch of uncompressed 4K TIFFs to go up.

-mike

Some tips... - Reduser.net

Some tips... - Reduser.net - have latest everything, calibrate your monitor.

"Film is dead!" discussion on Reduser

RAW RULES and 720/1080 debate - Reduser.net - Mark starts it off with a cowboy style, guns a blazin' statement about "Film is dead!" full of passion and enthusiasm for the work we've done over the last week with 4K.

I come back to say something very similar with a fistful of caveats and "under these circumstances" included.

But it amounted to the same general thrust - while there are a number of reasons to shoot film, Red 4K is reallllllllly compelling on a number of fronts:
-fantastic image quality
-simple/direct/easy/fast post
-low cost, huge quality
-the unmentioned (in this thread) physical camera infrastructure Red is launching
-oh - and Redcine's gonna be free (more on that later when I have time to transcribe a Ted interview recording)


Red threads of interest

Now that cameras are out in the wild, the forums on Reduser.net are going nuts. Here's some of the more interesting posts I've come across. Not a complete list, but what I've found of interest.

Macbeth... final test shot. - Reduser.net Jim Jannard shows how they test the cameras, and the charts they use to do so, and posts a Macbeth chart sample.

Prague... a prototype rig. - Reduser.net Jim Jannard posts about his favorite config of a Red in the field so far. Note the carbon fiber rods. It says "Prague" on the side because there were 25 pre-production cameras made given city names.

Delay... - Reduser.netJim Jannard announces a slight delay for units 51-100:
"We are going to delay the 51-100 delivery until September 28th. We need the time to catch up on accessories. The bad news... 51-100 will have to wait a bit longer. The good news... we aren't delaying any other release dates (as of yet). And this is not a camera problem. We want to serve our customers well and that includes accessories. Delivering a camera without an LCD or viewfinder just isn't good. And we are having delays on both. Bummer. I hate it. "

Biggest Camera Problem So Far - Reduser.net Mark Pederson (guy I'm working with) chimes in on the biggest problem encountered so far shooting with a Red, and I chime in on agreement. I don't know that there is any fix for this in the near future. And I don't mind that there isn't one bit. : )

See the video report of RED in IBC �07 - Reduser.net

Premium Package... once and for all. - Reduser.net Tweaked configs from Red, Jim explains:
"The Premium Package is gone. And that is a good thing. 1. The parts have changed for the better. 2. You are not stuck with every piece in the Premium Package (why anyone would want 4 side rails is beside me). 3. Duplicating the package costs only a few dollars more ($75 I think). But now you can get exactly what you want. 4. The Base Package has not changed in price and is the foundation to build the system you really want. "

What will *you* rent it for? - Reduser.net Poll. Current results: most want to rent between 500-1200/day. Hugely divergent rates, so the low ones will probably pull rates down hard for everybody. Good for renters, bad for owners.

Quick trick... - Reduser.net - exporting H.264 from QuickTime Player.

Ya know, there aren't that many billionaire industrialists posting their own notes and tricks online about how to do stuff....Jim's posted about 800 times on Reduser - FAR more than I have (factor of 4 or so I think). Pretty amazing circumstances.

RED Alert! info... - Reduser.net - Red Alert tip from Jim, I ask a follow up question.

Offhollywood Red Camera Test Shoot - Reduser.net - same thread as before, LOTS of discussion.

Hd For Indies - Reduser.net - thread on the images I posted, including some graded versions (more in the Offhollywood thread above).

REDAlert Settings - Reduser.net - Master Grame makes some suggestions on how best to process using Red Alert, and be SURE to read comment #4 from Stu Maschwitz.

RED History... - Reduser.net - Jim shares a list of the names of all the pre-production prototypes.

And from elsewhere:

Quint nabs the first interview with Roger Avary about CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN!!! -- Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.: "I might try to squeeze in a quick micro-budget movie I've been planning to shoot with my new RED Camera. Since I'm financing it myself I don't need to worry about the bond company restrictions on drop dates. "

So Avary has a low #, or a friend that has one, or thinks he's getting his soon, or something.

-mike


Red Day Zero - Cameras. Real. Shipped.

I just had the most thoroughly incredible day today.


eSATA to RAID until RedDrive ships? - Reduser.net

eSATA to RAID until RedDrive ships? - Reduser.net

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3908

Motu V3HD - Reduser.net

Recine Processing Times - Reduser.net

Rendering Fisheye to Rectilinear? - Reduser.net

Is the RedCode codec available this Friday? - Reduser.net


Other articles of interest:

Labels: Red, Redcine

Saw 3 movies today:

Timecrimes (Spanish with subtitles) - a nice little recursive loop of a low key scifi movie. True science fiction - is set in our world but with a change in the science we know. Not a lay-zorr or lens flare or other fyou-choor accoutrements, just a time travel story with the usual message - you probably can't go back and fix what went wrong.

The Cold Hour - also in Spanish with subtitles, also science fiction. This is actually a client of mine's movie, so I'll just say Cargill was walking around saying this was the best thing at the festival. I liked it too. Shot on F900, Cineform/Premiere editorial, combustion color correction, some surprisingly good (for lower budget) CG done with XSI. Congrats to that team, it looked great. Didn't feel "video-y," was just "a movie." But a cool one.

Exte/Hair Extensions - Japanese with subtitles (this was a reading intensive night) - hair extensions with a vengeful, wrathful bent. Tim League intro'd this movie saying he saw the poster and offhandedly said "Now THERE'S a movie I wouldn't show at FantasticFest!" ....and here it is. In the hands of the usual low budget J-horror director, it woulda sucked. This had its moments. The bad guy gets points, BIG points, for originality.

OK, 2 am and to bed. A sneak tomorrow as well.

Labels: FantasticFest

Just saw Aachi and Ssipak - and OMFG....if Bill Plympton and Peter Cheung (of Aeon Flux) got all tweaked to the gills on crystal meth in a plushie toy factory, gotten massively constipated then held a japanimation firm hostage at gunpoint to produce the artwork, they MIGHT have come up with something as deliriously, ludicrously inspired as this.

(Imagine Movie Voiceover Guy in your head)

In A World....

...where all energy sources have been used up, and the government turns to poop to fuel the world. Everyone gets an ID gadget up their behind, which monitors the quantity and quality of their poop. In order to encourage and reward good production, after each successful session you get a blue popsicle...laced with addictive drugs. A portion of the population gets so addicted they become (or create?) blue midgets that band together to form the Diaper Gang, a menace to society.

Roll in Aachi and Ssipak, a couple of motorcyle losers looking to find an angle in this world. Enter Geko, who could give Aeon Flux a run for the money in flying death dealing.

Hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of the little blue Diaper Gang get killed, not only by the cops but by each other and their leader, who has no problem shooting his minions by the bucket to make a point.

Anyway, total sensory overload. If a balls to the wall action adventure movie set in a poo powered future isn't your idea of fun, skip it. Otherwise, have nine Red Bulls and buckle in, it'll be a crazy ride.

Click the link at top of article for write-up, stills, trailer, and the action packed first five minutes.

Update:

Or just see for yourselves:


-mike

Labels: FantasticFest

Today was a catch-up day, so unfortunately I didn't get up there until about 10pm.

I checked in with Rae, she said press could chill and she'd let us know when we could get in so we wouldn't have to sit on concrete for a couple of hours. God Bless the Volunteers.

I ended up chatting for a bit with Harry Knowles for a while (the UberGeek behind AintItCoolNews.com and one of the festival's organizers), talking about HD DVD vs Blu-ray (discussions of hoping HD DVD wins due to price issues, the greater capacity of Blu-ray isn't really doing anything that matters right now), what's up with movies we want to see (resurgence of westerns due out Christmastime this year), video games and that life is too short to obsess over them (he thinks it was all downhill after the Atari 2600's simple mantra: "Joystick. Button. Done.").

I also had a nice chat with Harvey Fenton of FAB Press, who publishes a line of books about truly inidependent cinema. Tim League, founder of the Alamo Drafthouse, was so into Harvey's work he booked some retrospective shows - included in this year's FantasticFest is a Nikkatsu Action Retrospective. Harvey's in the lobby selling books and having great geeky conversations. You should stop on by and check out him and his wares.

Then it was time for Sunday's 11:30PM sneak.

Doh, gotta run, more later on the crazy awesome Japanese giants vs monsters fighting mockumentary we saw.

-mike

Labels: FantasticFest

....so I'm blogging from my iPhone- how trite is that?

I'm sitting in line waiting for the AICN special screening that starts at 6, it is 3:25. (It better be good!)

I'll post some pics and commentary later from laptop.

But FF has been rolling since Thursday, I missed the first 2 days while in NYC.

Just got out of the AICN sneak, was Southland Tales from Richard Kelly, director of Donnie Darko.

A big steaming pile of What The F*ck Was That.

Another reviewer turned to me at the credits and said "I have no idea how to start a review of that movie."

I later thought about adding "so long as you finish with Don't Go."

Another said "I feel like I just watched a filmmaker masturbate for 2 1/2 hours."

More later, but a huge cast, bizzarely uneven surrealistic comedy thriller scifi apocalypse movie. Yeah....that.

Sunday Update - OK, after a day, I'm still pondering Southland Tales. It sets itself up pretty seriously, in a post-9/11 environment where Abilene and El Paso were nuked (targets because what? Snuck nukes in over the Mexican border?), and WW3 is full-on, with fronts in ALL of the Axis of Evil countries. OK, you have my attention. But from there it starts to make fun of some of our media's ridiculousness, then starts to live in that ridiculousness. What starts out as an actor in the movie playing an actor with a bad script becomes...an actor in the movie living out that bad script as if it were real. I'm all for messing with the lines between real, unreal, dream, surreal, media excess, etc. Donnie Darko danced with the line between fiction and reality, but this movie seems to drunkenly stagger over the line, falling over several times. I really liked the WTF factor of Donnie Darko, because you could sense some structure and discipline behind it - it was worth trying to untangle the puzzle, because you could feel it would be worth it (I watched Donnie Darko on DVD, then immediately rewatched the ENTIRE film with the director's comments on...then watched it again one slow Sunday the other year). So I'm definitely a fan of Mr. Kelly. BUT....that said, this film lacks the clear vision, structure, and most importantly the DISCIPLINE of Donnie Darko.

On the one hand, I adore Tim League for booking this crazy mess of a movie - where else could you see it? I definitely wanted to see where things went, but the line between making fun of by being a campy spoof of crappy genre films, then actually BEING a crappy genre film were too intertwined. Is there genius living in this? I don't think so. Other films have messed with this crazy fiction becoming reality theme, and done it far better. As a spoof of bad action scifi apocalyptic movies, it has its moments. As a serious movie projecting where our War On Terror is taking us, it has a very few moments early on that are spoiled (or lost in) the campiness.

As I started to say above, this film lacks discipline, and tremendously so. What did he want it to be? It is far too many things not well enough, it has some great bits (love the musical number in the middle) that are just contextual shift overload.

The casting, however, is totally inspired, and perhaps a clue to what they were trying to do. With a few exceptions, it is mostly tier B of Hollywood - if the Donnie Darko guy called up and said "Wanna be in my next movie?" wouldn't you jump? The Rock, Sean William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz, Ling Bai, Christopher Lambert (yeah, The Highlander himself), and oh yeah Justin Timberlake, with facial scars star in this. Plus a zillion cleverly casted cameos and tidbits (the lead from The Chumscrubber as a Lost Youth, The Highlander as an arms dealer, Justin Timberlake has his musical number but is a drug selling government sniper, Nora Dunn as a terrorist with Amy Poehler etc. - check out the full cast and crew)

One wonders if the whole thing were just a huge joke on us the audience, the investors, Hollywood, and everyone else desperately watching to see how he'd follow up on Donnie Darko. A big "Psych!" shout out to all of us - and we stand here confused - was this a joke, a mess, or just a failed multi-layered thingamabob?

While interesting to watch, laugh at, and occassionally laugh with, this will definitely not ride with mainstream audiences. Too much, too weird, too lost in its own inconsistent non-logic.

And it most definitely isn't worth taking the time to make sense of - life is too short - even though there is a TON of stuff in there.

Also, I saw The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a Japanese animation movie about a girl who discovers she can leap back in time small amounts, and uses it to better her life. Of course, there are consequences, and things aren't as easy to fix as you think....very cute, very fun, highly enjoyable for adults and kids. Hugely successful in Japan. If you get a chance and are any kind of animation fan, HIGHLY recommend.

Also, Michael Weiss from Confidence Bay was parked outside, and they were conducting interviews in the air conditioned interior. Confidence Bay is a mobile HD editing setup in an RV - they have a couple of high powered Macs with HD-SDI ingest & output, a projector for screening (you can watch from inside or outside with their clever setup), and room to sit and be air conditioned and comfortable inside. If you need on set assistance, this is a pretty good way to go without resorting to Plus 8's monster rig. I've visited with Michael a few times in the past, check them out.

10PM UPDATE My friend Robogeek nails it with the first line of his comment on:
Whedonesque : "I would call it a fascinating but flawed cinematic curiosity. It's a really weird, inventive, stylishly crafted movie that has no right to exist in a rational universe, and while I'm kind of tickled that it does, it may just be too ambitious and disjointed for its own good. "

Read the link for more on his take. I agree entirely, especially about glad I saw, but I wouldn't want to spend another 2 1/2 hours on it.

Labels: FantasticFest

Last night I went to the Tekserve/Offhollywood Red event (hosted at Tekserve's awesome NYC store).

While I'd met Matt Cohen (one of the owners) at Sundance, I'd never been to Tekserve itself in Manhattan - and what a geeky joy that was. Every Mac or video or audio gadget you'd want, it is all there (and of course iPod stuff galore). Not only for sale, but set up and play with-able. Propeller beanie spin! Or, ahem, an excellent way to thoroughly evaluate equipment for your professional needs. (Whatevs.)

Matt's a true geek - be sure to check out the pictures of his old tech stuff I have- on the wall downstairs is a Lisa, a 20th anniversary Mac, a ton of old 8 and 16mm cameras, tube radio kits, and every conceivable tech in between going back 60 or more years. Fun stuff.

Anyway, after some tech snafus (like a box that wouldn't even turn on that Scratch was to run on, a cable got loose during transit), they got rolling - Mark got up and showed off the camera and talked res and workflow and Red creation stories (and gave me props to the crowd, all luv), and ran down where Red started, where they are now, what he's done the last few weeks (shooting almost every day), including the test footage shot on a cosmetics shoot, and shooting over the weekend in the open ocean from a Zodiac (sorry I missed that - I'd returned to Austin).

Meanwhile downstairs, Tim from Assimilate demo'd how you could read native Redcode RAW files into Scratch and access all the RAW goodness for maximum control at low datarates. The other options? Saving out as 48 MB/frame 16 bit TIFF sequences, or 32 MB 10 bit DPX sequences, with the attendant data rates...and LESS control over the image's lattitude/exposure/color/etc. You can get about 30 frames worth of Redcode RAW compressed into the same space as a single DPX frame. Yeah - no kidding. Not only do you need vastly less storage, it doesn't need to be super ultra fast. So using 4K on a SAN is a doable thing...even multiple streams of 4K on a SAN. You can push it around a GigE network at faster than realtime even with single spindles on both ends.

Across the room Pliny was showing off Red Alert, the stopgap software until Redcine ships. You have control over all the metadata stuff that lets you tweak the image and do a one light type prep to create QuickTimes or TIFF/DPX sequences or stills as needed.

Lots of folks, lots of questions, about 6-10 folks that came up to say hi and that they like the site - much appreciated! Also met a good Apple contact, saw Avram again from last week, saw David Leitner again (we met at Sundance), and had a good chat with a bunch of folks. Thanks to all for saying hello.

Here's my .Mac Web Gallery - Tekserve Offhollywood Red Event for all the pics.

Labels: Red

The RED Diary, Day Eight

The RED Diary, Day Nine

The RED Diary, Day Ten

Mark Pederson of Offhollywood continues to be amazed by what the camera can do - including shooting 4K off the back of a Zodiac in the ocean (see pics). They've also got Scratch (their coloring solution) up and running with Redcode RAW native footage - the ideal solution.

I like this line:

"Shooting moving images in RAW is so powerful and logical, I am not sure why someone hasn’t done this already."

Exactly - which is one reason why I wrote this:

I think, in time, folks are going to want to be able to capture the raw CCD output from their video cameras. Certainly the highest end professionals will want to be able to, and visual effects artists will want to be able to. I think it'll be years before the possibility, and might involve producing cameras with a special "bypass" mode that allows for capture directly from the CCD array straight to a hard drive.

...
I think it'll be very interesting to see where all this goes.


I wrote that...almost exactly 3 years ago.

Give it time, the idea comes around. But this time, affordably and portably.

-mike

Labels: Red

Since I got back last week, I've been busy catching up after being gone for nearly 2 weeks, organizing all this Red material I have, I've talked to 3 (or 4?) indie movie productions that are wanting my help lining up Red packages and talking to them about hiring me on as DIT/post workflow/post super type roles, all that kind of stuff. Whoever ponies up best and first, wins...

I have lots of good info to share...just still getting to it all.

OH - and I'm back in NYC Wed/Thurs, attending the Tekserve/Offhollywood/Red presentation (300+ in attendance), and going to try to crash the Texas Film Commission Event in Soho on Thursday (which is booked+ at the moment).

I'll be catching up with Mark/Aldey/Pliny from Offhollywood on how their weekend do-or-die project went, and sharing notes on Red post process with them. Mucho writing still to be done about the week, just getting pics, stills, Red frames, etc. ducks all in a row.

Thursday day is looking a bit open - if you're in NYC and want a consult, drop me an email...

-mike

PS - Octo Mac is FAST, 30" display AWESOME - as Ferris Bueller once said "If you have the means, I highly recommend." Yet another reason to get a "real" monitoring solution - even with an Octo Mac, EVEN with the best graphics card for the task (the ATI X1900), you STILL can't get full res preview in Digital Cinema Display mode in Final Cut Pro with ProResHQ 1080p23.98 footage - park on a frame it is sharp, hit play it drops half the res- very noticeable on my timecode window burn 1080p footage.

Labels: off topic

Hey all -

if you're a student in Austin and looking for a good internship this fall, this is it - I need some helpers to get a lot of things done - working with Red footage (and my own and other Reds once they arrive), helping with the website code and content, and some other projects I'm not discussing publicly at this time.

If you're reading this, you probably know what I and the site are about. If not, here's what I wrote when seeking fall interns, and here's what I wrote back in the spring seeking summer interns

Drop me an email.

I need folks (yes multiple) stat.

-mike

Toshiba Releases 1080p24 Enabled Firmware for 2nd Gen HD DVD Players

Works with HD-A20 and HD-XA2...but I have the HD-A2, so no joy...drat!

If your display supports 1080p24, you're in luck and can use this for true 24p display stuff (presumably triple flashed at 72Hz? Haven't read up on it lately, brain buffer full of Red stuff).

-mike

....with a wee bit of self promotion folded in:

The RED Diary, Day Three

The RED Diary, Day Four

The RED Diary, Day Five

The RED Diary, Day Six


These are the guys I worked with for 10 days as we all got up to speed on the Red One, trying to be the most knowledgeable group about shooting and posting 4K with Red.

Shameless self promotion? Maybe just a little bit....

: )

But this camera really is game changing. After working in NYC for ten days, meeting A list Hollywood and NYC commercial directors, and blowing their socks off, I really see how much this is going to change the game.

Major feature films are already shooting on it, top tier New York commercial directors are looking at an image on a 30" display, moments after it was shot, and after staring for 3 seconds saying "I want THAT."

This thing is going to be a GAME CHANGER. BIG TIME

: )

-mike

PS - here's days one and two if you missed them.

Labels: Red

Apple - Seminars & Events

My friend (and Mac vendor) Torrey Loomis is throwing a Red training shindig Sept. 14, 10-noon in Folsom, California.

from the release:

Get an up close and personal look at RED ONE Digital Cinema cameras #20 and #21. See the cameras in action with both 18-50mm and 300mm lenses capturing 4k digital footage. Upon capture, RED footage will be ingested into a Apple Final Cut Studio 2 system for editing.

- What you will Learn
Integration between RED ONE Digital Cinema cameras and Apple Final Cut Studio 2

- Featured Solutions
Apple Mac Pro
Apple Cinema Displays
Apple Xserve RAID
Apple Final Cut Studio 2
RED ONE Digital Cinema cameras
AJA Kona 3 AJA IO HD

- Who Should Attend
Directors of Photography
Cinematographers
Editors
Directors
Producers
Camera Operators

Location:

Folsom Lake College
Large Lecture Hall
FL3 173
10 College Parkway
Folsom, CA 95630
USA

Kodak's Reign In Hollywood Threatened By Digital Cinema

Kodak's in trouble as theaters move to digital projection. Duh.

Mike's comments: I dimly recall hearing some statement, ostensibly from Kodak, that they sold more film last year than ever before.

My gut guess (unresearched, so ding me if I'm wrong) is that it was for release prints, perhaps not for acquisition film stocks.

With the studios trying to open bigger and bigger opening weekends, churning out more prints so it is on more screens so no one gets turned away opening weekend, could that be accounting for all this film stock?

Movies used to be rolled out one market at a time, the trend is for same day releases worldwide (in this interweb tube bootlegging age). Again, more simultaneous prints rather than shipping used prints to lesser markets after the first run. Or is that practice still even done? A guess.

This is a hypothesis based on dim recollection of something that might not be factually attributable, so take it for that.

Anyone know better? Clue me in.

And again, with technologies like the Red One coming to market, Kodak's acquisition stock sales are sure to decline as well - while the well budgeted traditionalists may/will stick with film, so many other projects (movies, commercials, some industrials) that were shot on film in the past will switch to Red. Short Kodak stock perhaps?

-mike

A high-definition fight scene in slow motion - Los Angeles Times

Good update on current status of the format war - we're beyond the tech specs, is all about the content available, the price point of the players, and the moves (aka buyouts & payoffs) at the studio and retail level to position content and player availability.

In short, forget about which player holds more, which movies that came out this summer that I want to see are available on which format?

By that metric, Blu-ray is pulling ahead.

Mike's Comments: Well researched shoppers will probably go for Blu-ray to get the content they want, less researched, more price sensitive shoppers will probably go for the less expensive HD DVD players.

Apple - Logic Studio - Logic Pro 8 - New in Logic Pro 8

I'm not an audio guy, but 3 people have pointed out how great this new version looks. Now $500 instead of $1000, so they tell me.

Indies - get to it.

I'm back in Austin now with a hard drive full of Further Research to do.

I don't think I've ever gathered this much golden info on a trip (nearly 2 weeks!) EVER, NABs and IBCs included.

I need to catch up and post interview with Ted on the latest status of everything, production and actual stills from the shoots, etc.

Just need a little time to catch up after being out of town for nearly 2 weeks.

-mike

Labels: Red

General Specialist: P2/MXF Supported in New Premiere Pro CS3 Patch

Catching up on news as I process and test with Red footage...

Sony Creative Software Unveils Powerful New Vegas Pro 8 Editing Solution Offering Comprehensive Industry-Driven Professional Features

This link is the press release, which I found via FreshDV via DigitalCamcorderNews.

Biggest thing (to me) - 32 bit float video processing engine - begone, 8 bit pixel bit depth limitations! It'll now handle and properly process 10 bit stuff without bit truncation. GOOD.

buncha improvements to make digital signage, which isn't exactly my first love, but they also have multicamera editing support, which is helpful, a better titler, and an interesting sounding search engine to look for stock footage from Sony (duh), National Geographic, HBO, etc. - very very interesting feature to add, I'm sure a revenue stream for Sony, and a novel feature to add into an NLE.

Native long GOP editing, AVCHD read/write, Blu-ray burning of timelines, XDCAM FAM mode trimmed conform (??), single monitor full screen preview, available Sept. 10thf or $700. Upgrades available for current users.

Mike's Comments - I'd kinda written them off since they were limited to 8 bit last time I'd talked to them at NAB. For my particular niche interest, independent digital moviemaking, that bumped them out of viability. From the limited amount I know of it, though, I still wouldn't recommend it for long form editing - Avid and FCP are better choices there. But I've always heard their audio capabilities lauded, Blackmagic cards work with it for I/O (AJA too? Can't recall off top of my head), the price is nice. Doing short form industrial work and need stock footage and good titling and digital signage stuff? Sounds like a good fit there. Cutting a music video? Perhaps that as well, based on the limited info/history of it.

-mike

Silicon Imaging SI-2K New Feature Updates at FreshDV

Matthew has already written up what I would have - so go read over there, he has all the links on the new optical viewfinder and other improvements (Lots!) Silicon Imaging has made to their flexible little camera.

FreshDV.com has become an excellent source of ongoing news, I recommend it highly.

-mike

from P+S website (their partner for industrial design):

PS-Technik: "SI-2K Mini Rig The Mini Rig offers the user the possibility to outfit the SI-2K Mini camera head according to his or her actual needs. Modularity of the system includes the possibility to expand or change the setup for different projects. The P S Technik Interchangeable Mount System (IMS) enables the use of hundreds of lenses like e.g. B4 mounted 2/3” video lenses, 16mm and 35mm cine PL lenses, 35mm still photography lenses as well as scientific C-mount lenses for stunning 3-D or stereoscopic capturing."

P S TECHNIK | Member of 35Digital: "Optical Viewfinder for SI-2K Mini P S Technik concentrated its knowledge about optical viewfinders into a solution for the SI-2K Digital Cinema Camera including an 50/50 prism, left eye usability and eyesight adjustment. The unit is compatible with standard accessories for optical cine viewfinders. It is part of the modular accessory structure for the SI-2K camera to offer a maximum of flexibility. Save your investment and use your 2/3” lenses with the SI-2K Digital Cinema Camera."

Labels: SI-2K

Mark Pederson of Offhollywood continues to blog about his experiences with the Red One daily on zoom-in.com:

The RED Diary, Day One

The RED Diary, Day Two

The RED Diary, Day Three

He talks about all the excitement about the camera, the variety of test shoots we've been doing, how we're figuring out the sweet spot for the camera and the optimal techniques and gear, etc., I get a little plug in there from him too.

It has been VERY interesting to continue to wrap my head around what it really means to shoot with a Red. I'm quickly getting up to speed on it, and already have a gut sense on how to get the best out of this camera.

I feel very confident, already, that I'd be ready to go out on a major shoot and handle the DIT/Red consultant role and help the production get the best possible results out of the camera. More on that later.

I'm also building up a library of tools, hardware and software, to help me work with Red footage quickly and easily - on set workflow and gear, converters, tools to make window burned QT's to edit, etc. All this will change when Redcine ships and we aren't relying on Red Alert anymore, but is all good stuff to get my head around.

I'm already clearly seeing the differences between ProRes and uncompressed, for instance, and mentally prepping the go/no-go scenarios on when to use which, and figuring out post workflows for a variety of needs and deliverables - for high, medium, and lower end post solutions to get optimal results.

Etc.etc. etc.

Soooooo much spinning around in my head, so much to test and prove and refine still.

But this thing SERIOUSLY rocks. Long post to write about that, and how it changes the game, but not now.

Busy Brain=Happy Brain.

-mike

Labels: Red

My friend Martijn Schroevers lives not far from where IBC is held in Amsterdam every year, he sends in this report:

Hey Mike,

Just got back from IBC first day.
I went to see Ted's presentation of the RED 4K footage. The auditorium was full of people. Ted told the RED story which is -thanks to you- quite familiar to me. Then he showed the demo from Peter Jackson on a HUGE screen with the new Sony 4K projector. It blew our minds! Pristine digital quality from a $17.500 camera!!
The revolution has really started and some DOP friends of mine told me they felt very lucky they hold a (relatively) low reservation number.

There are some other tidbits from the show. I have not been everywhere since the first day is a short one and RED consumed most of my time.
I've been to Sony to watch the new XDcam EX. Apart from the "handycam" formfactor I don't like it looked kinda cool. 25 or 35 mbit recording on solid state memory cards like P2 in MPEG. 1080 50i, 60i or 25p, 23,97p but also 720p up to 60 fps. variable framerate from 1 to 60 frames in 720p. A HD-SDI output.

Behind glass to be released in spring 2008: A new small 3xcmos HDV camcorder with interchangable HQ Zeiss HD lens!

Also on display in the Sony Booth: A new Alpha version of FCP (6.02a) with 1080 50P (!) Apple ProRez 4:2:2 at 28MB/sec so HDCAM 50P direct edit in FCP!
The same version was in the Apple Booth running native RED 2K footage.
....
Martijn


Martijn also sent in some stills of the new FCP:





As usual, I haven't coded them to open in a new window, because I am lame and hung over. Right click to open in a new window to see full size.

Here's some of the XDCAM EX specs:
-25/35 Mb/sec long GOP 4:2:0 MPEG-2
-3x1/2" CMOS sensors
-100 min record time @ 35mbit on 2 "Sony-manufactured 16GB SxS Pro memory cards"
-1080/720 switchable
-file based recording onto ExpressCard media (hooray! What new Macs have)
-2 slots for those cards in camera
-full 1920x1080 Exmor CMOS sensor
-1080i50/59.94, 23.98PsF, 25PsF, 29.97PsF & 720/50p
-3.5" LCD

Here's a nice little video tour of the camera he shot, feel free to dissect and scrutinize and please do post in the Comments anything interesting you find:



New interchangeable lens HDV camcorder details:
1/3" 3 chip
-interchangeable lens, 1/3" Bayonet tpe
-Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 1" Lens
-HDV/DVCAM/DV
-1080i50 & 25p (this is IBC, Euro market, presumably/hopefully will be an NTSC frame rate version as well)
-2 XLR inputs
-early 2008
-can use 1/2" lenses with an adaptor
-1/3" to 2/3" adaptor as well...but why put awesome glass on small sensor? Only if you have'em already - note to indies - putting awesome glass on this helps but doesn't make 1/3" camera perform like 2/3" camera. Gold rims on the hoopty, dude, as Stu would say.
-shoots 1920x1080 4:2:2, converts to 1440x1080 4:2:0
-DOES have HDMI connector

Here's a little movie Martijn shot revealing the specs on the new interchangeable lens HDV camera due spring 2008, and includes footage from Sony's promotional video as well. Informative.



All hail Martijn for taking the time to write, shoot, edit and post this! Only here on HDforIndies.

: )

-mike, hung over in NYC after a night out on the town - maybe a run in Central Park isn't such a good idea right this minute...

UPDATE - Matthew Jeppsen, more on the ball than I am, also has coverage:

More XDCAM EX Pre-Launch (Official) Specifications at FreshDV

one of his readers reports the camera will only work with Sony Expresscard media - if true, that is oh-so-lame if there aren't technical impediments to using Sandisk or other media. They were showing Sandisk at NAB.

Labels: IBC

All Things Red: Images/Video/Updates at FreshDV

Matthew Jeppsen hasn't been hands on on a Red yet, but has been keeping tabs on where all the best info is. Go over to this link on his site to keep up on all the goodies, as I'm having a hard time keeping up writing about what's happened only with me.

Tagged along for a test shoot today, learned a good bit about some of the specialty modes/features of the camera, and am looking forward to doing more, testing more, writing more.

But also caught up with my editor friend Frank Reynolds here in NYC, he always comes down to visit me so we had a few beers tonight.

And now, to crash...

-mike

PS - I don't think I saw a link to Mike Seymour's second (I think, second one I've seen, hard to keep up) post on his experiences with the Red camera:

fxguide - flame:shake:fusion - Shooting with RED

Read and enjoy.

-mike

Labels: Red

.Mac Web Gallery - OffhollywoodBrooklynShoot

Hey all - here's production stills from the Brooklyn shoot - steadicamming down by the overlook over the piers, then rooftop shooting from the top of a building.

This was the shoot we did first thing - we picked up the Red and got training one day, went to bed, caught a 7am flight out of Long Beach (ugh!), arrived at JFK at 3:30, got picked up in the production van, drove directly to the location from the airport and set up and shot - and got a BUNCH of good stuff I haven't posted stills from yet.

In time. In the meantime, here's production stills.

All the good looking pics are from Jendra Jarnagin, if it is sloppy and low quality camera, it is probably mine (except for that one coolio Red against the sunset pic, my Canon SD1000 did me proud).

-mike

UPDATE - By the way, this is the 3500th post I've put up on hdforindies.com over the last 3 1/2 years.

Labels: Red

.Mac Web Gallery - OffhollywoodNYCpiershoot

We shot some more stuff today, here's some pics from my iPhone of what we were up to.

-mike

Hey all -


Two things of note and fun tonight:

1.) I may have come up with the first usage of a USB accessory of the Red One - I was having a hard time reading the buttons on the back of the camera, and was wishing I had a little task light - but wait, I do! I snaked into my Felix the Cat Bag of Tricks (my trusty Brenthaven Mac bag) and came out with a gooseneck USB light. I plugged it into the USB port, which did indeed have power, and it works! So I just snaked it over to a convenient angle and now I have a task light on the Red One to read the labels on all the buttons. I SHOULD know'em in the dark, but hey, it is still the first week...






2.) Paul MacCarthy, one of the DPs on the shoot the other night, and Aldey Sanchez, one of the partners in Offhollywood, were trying to come up with a way to mount the battery more flush. Since the Red Drive cage is integral to the battery mount (yo Matt! Can we get a battery only mount?), they pulled out some bolts and flipped it around so it could fold down on itself and mount stably.




Red hacking!

Love it.

-mike

Labels: Red

3D with Red Digital 4K Cameras | Studio Daily

Read all about it, link above.

SCHWEET.

OK folks, after tinkering with images for a few days at Offhollywood working with them trying to learn how to optimally prep images from the Red One, here's a few to try out.

Some things to understand about these images:

-for starters, while I love that picture at the top, I didn't shoot, nor am I particularly qualified to shoot in any way - I'm no DP. That's a total vanity shot.
-this was a test shoot, to figure out how to best work with the cameras. It isn't a "here's the best you can get from a Red One" - they're working on getting that answer. This is their 1st full day of shooting.
-many things were tried, not all generated optimal images. This is normal and good to learn.
-this was a run 'n gun operation - there was no measuring distance for focus, it was all shot broad daylight with no clouds, etc
-since all footage was either shot with camera essentially in a lap, or from a crane on a fast moving camera truck, shooting cars that were themselves driving fast....focus wasn't perfect.
-on top of that, this is a Super35mm sized sensor - so pulling focus is all the tougher than on an HVX or somesuch.
-in retrospect, I think it would have been a better idea to process these all with the same white balance value entered in (it measures in Kelvin degrees) rather than using the auto set function. My bad.

That said, Offhollywood got some kick ass footage even under those trying circumstances. Want to see some stills? Sure you do. Here's some notes on what you'll be seeing:

The filenames are a code. The first letter is the camera A (Red #0007) or camera b (Red #0006). The numbers immediately following are the Reel #. Then an underscore and a C followed by a number, that's the Clip # (as in which shot on that reel). Then the date. The genius bit of this system is that you'll NEVER EVER EVER have duplicate file names, even on multicamera shoots if you do it right. And unlike the crazy random seeming filenames on some other solid state recording systems, these names actually are human readable and make sense.

You still have to wrap your head around the fact that you're shooting 4K on a CF card, however. : )

anyway, my own naming code I slapped on the end:

WB=auto white balanced
While all footage was shot with an ISO rating of 320 (although that is relative - you can change the effective rating later in post - it is simply metadata that alters how the footage is interpreted), some stills were processed with an ISO setting of 500 or 640, and the name is labelled as such.
No sharpening was applied, and the footage was processed with a Rec 709 (HD video) gamma.
If it says "OCN" at the end, that is short for Original Camera Negative, as in that is an exactly unaltered version of the frame.

I have some notes on camera setups (polarizers, lenses, NDs used, etc.) back at the office, I'll update this in the morning with that.

In the meantime, click here to see the page with the pics. Clicking on a still will open up a 2Kx1K image - so YES it will exceed the screen size of your laptop. Or any other monitor unless you have a 30" display. Unlike that first batch, these are 2Kx1K JPEGs at 100% - so artifacts when you color correct are normal and expected - it is JPEG! I'm posting these because they are fun to see, and 4K 16 bit TIFFs is a bit rough on my bandwidth bill. So some more to play with, to a lesser extent, in the meantime. These are basically just more of the same of what you saw before.

The images were generated as 4K TIFFs out of Red's software, then opened up in Photoshop CS3, scaled down to 50% using the Bicubic setting optimal for reduction, then exported as JPEG @ 100% using the Export to Web function. NO SHARPENING was applied at any stage, nor has any color correction (Levels, Hue/Sat, Curves, etc.) been used WHATSOEVER. These are unprocessed as far as color goes (the ones labelled OCN) or very lightly processed by using the auto white balance feature and on some adjusting the metadata based ISO in order to boost exposure to make a more pleasing image. But your ISO setting on camera is irrelevant in terms of what pixels are recorded - ISO, tint, white balance, brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation, etc. are all just metadata recorded with the source RAW imagery - you can change them all later.

That is one of the magic bits about shooting with Red - most cameras have a sensor block, then feed off to a processing block where destructive decisions (white balance, gamma, saturation, etc.) are made, THEN that output is recorded to lossy tape. Not so with Red. With Red, the image off the sensor is recorded with the lossy but high quality Redcode RAW codec, and the CHOICES of hue/sat/gamma/bright/contrast/ISO/white balance/etc. are recorded in parallel, but separate from, the image data as metadata. That way you can fully change your mind later. So the only settings that REALLY matter when you shoot are what are you looking at, what's your frame rate, frame resolution, iris, focus, composition, etc. All the color related choices (other than iris) are deferrable decisions - if you recorded with saturation run down to 10%, that's OK - you an dial it up to 150% in post and never have known it was recorded "low" - because it never was recorded with low saturation, that was just a non-destructive look, an interpretive decision, recorded alongside the "real" camera image data. So this all boils down to decisions of ISO etc. are just for convenience's sake in many ways - because you can change your mind entirely later.

More on all this later. I spent a few hours digging through the menu system tonight. Yowza. Lots of good stuff in there, and more to come.

-mike

PS - Offhollywood needs some interns - and yes, you get to work with a Red One and some footage. So drop'em a line at info@offhollywoodstudios.com to get in the interview queue.

Labels: Red

Apple - To all iPhone customers

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week. Stay tuned.


Thanks Steve! Way to split the difference, much appreciated.

-mike

OK, folks, now is the time when you get to annihilate my server bandwidth.

: )

The following are 16 bit, 4096x2048 (yes that's 2:1 aspect ratio, 16:9 mode isn't enabled yet, in a coupla weeks) TIFF files output from Offhollywood's source Redcode RAW files. Pliny tinkered with the optimal settings to get out of Red's software and codec, and here's the results. We agreed that putting them up in the rawest, as-shot format was the best decision - so YES they look flat, but YES that is a good thing - that means you have maximum lattitude in post. If you download one/some/all of these, open them up in Photoshop and click the Auto button in Levels and it'll POP - then boost the saturation if you want to, and you'll have a visually pleasing image. Why haven't I done this for you? Because people like Stu would send me polite but strident emails about how incorrect this is to do, and I would heartily concur. So these aren't pretty as is, but are GREAT to MAKE pretty the way you want them to be, because they have good lattitude to play with.

I'm also putting up these particular images to be instructive as to how to optimally shoot with the Red One - it is a bit of a different beast. Talking to a DP about how to shoot with this camera, he started with working with a light meter and calculating exposures and all those kinds of things. That can certainly work. The thing I'm really looking forward to, when I work on set with folks with my own in the future, is to be able to fire up the histogram and just interactively doodle with lighting, filters, and iris until I get a Happy Histogram - one that has a nice bell shaped curve across the majority of the middle of the histogram - not scrunched up on one side of the other. If you're working in daylight or with shiny items, it is inevitable that you'll have a spike of some size at the far right of the curve where pure white is, unless you're REALLY stopped down or ND'd and polarized out the wazoo. In any case, if you're going to go to the trouble to pull down these 48MB files, open them up in Photoshop and take a good look to see what does and doesn't work well. You will, of course, always have exceptions for particular shots (dark and moody Godfather chiaroscuro bunches to the left, the movie Sunshine bunches to the right at the end, for instance).

Here's an example that works quite well:



Right click here and Download Linked File to download the 16 bit, 4K resolution, 48 MB sized TIFF file. YES, it will take a while to download, so be patient and make sure you want it.

Clicking on the above PICTURE will open a slightly larger 1K-ish JPEG preview image, so no great excitement there. Use the text link above to the get full 4K image. You can open it up in Photoshop, click command-L to call up Levels, and you'll see a nicely shaped curve that tapers out shy of the black and white points, with a spike near the right for the chrome highlights. Click the Auto button in Levels and this shot will pop quite nicely.

Here's another example that works quite well:



Right click here and Download Linked File to download the 16 bit, 4K resolution, 48 MB sized TIFF file.

Note all the reflections not just on the car, but also within the headlight reflectors as well. Note all the detail in the turn signal indicators as well. Wow. Pop an auto-levels on this one to make it pop, or get tweaky and do channel by channel curves - whatever works for you. Or, if you have a Pablo or other heavy iron grading system, go to town on it there. Or convert it to DPX (I _almost_ went with DPX files since they are smaller, but there's a teensie bit of detail it doesn't include that TIFFs do, so I figured might as well do it right), downsample to 2K and give Color a go at it (or whatever other system you have).

I like this one for the same reason - nice curve, uses most of the available range without clipping too hard. And where it does clip, it handles it nicely. I particularly like the smooth rolloff on the black door/window frame between the front and back seat passenger glass. Not the hard highlights, but the gradient down the vertical piece:



Right click here and Download Linked File to download the 16 bit, 4K resolution, 48 MB sized TIFF file.

Here's an example of a shot that can still work if graded properly, but doesn't have as much room to play - it was one of our earlier tests in the day:



This one looks a bit milkier to the naked eye. While you can auto-levels it and get nice results, check out the histogram - it is a bit more scrunched up towards the middle, with not as much towards the right. There's a lot of usable range left on the table.

Right click here and Download Linked File to download the 16 bit, 4K resolution, 48 MB sized TIFF file.

I like this one for the dynamic, flyin' sideways action of it:



Right click here and Download Linked File to download the 16 bit, 4K resolution, 48 MB sized TIFF file.

While there is a clipped highlight in the right side headlight mirrors, it is the exception - everything else is WAY below that brightness value. And it shows in the histogram - there's a small lonely spike over on the far right, and then a looooooong gap until you hit other values. Again, it could have been shot a bit differently for better results, but it is still workable if you want a contrasty final result.

OK folks - have at it!!!

So download one of these, play with it, grade it as you'd like. Come back and pull down more (or all of'em) if you like, and we'll see how beat up my server gets at Dreamhost.

: )

Just for kicks - you can put graded frames up at 1K or 2K res up on the Offhollywood Red Camera Test Shoot - Reduser.net thread Mark started about their test shoot.

Have fun!

(I sure am!)

-mike

Labels: Red

The RED Diary, Day One | Zoom In - News, Events, Training and Community for Creatives

Mark gives a little background and history about the Red One and how he came to get the very first ones released to the public.

First part in a 2 week series.

-mike

Gee, have I mentioned I'm in New York with Mark, Aldey, and Pliny from Offhollywood Pictures? And that they are the first and only Red Ones on the East Coast right now? And that we've been shooting 4K?

For those looking for more, here's the Behind The Scenes video, already cut together by Jim Geduldick over Labor Day:



Take a look about 33 seconds in (2:24 remaining)- see anyone familiar?

: )

Good god - these are their camera tests - who know what they'll do when they shoot something REAL.

This has been FUN.

:D

-mike

UPDATE - AND FOR THE RECORD - you can watch it on your iPhone - it has already been flipped to H.264 on there.

Geek away!

Labels: Red

ProLost: The Film Industry is Broken

Emailing Stu tonight about various color/coloring/log issues, and he pointed out this blog entry he just wrote.

I have one comment of one word: AMEN.

He's talking about the need and benefit of an open, interoperable coloring standard to be shared amongst competitors.

There are implementation details - what is the order of operations? What if yours does it differently from mine? What if my package can feather differently inside than out and yours doesn't? Might I also suggest that locations for masks are done via percentages not pixels so they'll work on differently sized images. Also factor in pixel aspect ratio so your temp grade on anamorphic SD works on 2.40:1 'scope aspect film. Etc.

Perhaps the above reasons (and myriad others) make this non-feasible, but it sure would help if somebody TRIED. And publishing your current spec and telling everyone else "Adopt this." is the industry's version of saying "suck it" - not polite, not realistic.

-mike

-mike

fxguide - flame:shake:fusion - RED Day: The Launch in LA

Until I can get my own written, Mike Seymour has written an EXCELLENT piece on launch day.

Note first picture.

: )

-mike

I've updated the online gallery from yesterday that I did by live photoblogging from my iPhone from a remote location (that is SUCH a cool iPhone feature!). I've rearranged them so that they are in chronological order instead of newest first, and put some descriptive text under each so you know what's going on and get a little context. So worth another visit perhaps.

Today I'm up at Offhollywood Studio's offices, setting up my new Octo Mac I bought and had shipped directly up here from Torrey at Silverado. I'm installing extra drives, more RAM, a Kona 3, FCS 2, etc., and basking in the glow of my new 30" Apple display.

My approach is to do it incrementally, verifying functionality at each step, that way verifying that it all works right and knowing where to address the troubleshooting issues should anything crop up. Just shutting down, throwing everything in and powering back up is usually asking for something to not behave, and then you'll have a tough time isolating where the problem is. One step at a time, grasshopper.

Pliny will hopefully be heading up here and we'll review some of the footage from yesterday - about 100GB of Red footage (thus approx 1 hour), and we'll start culling the especially nice selects.

In the "I knew those two facts but didn't put them together that way" category, Pliny noted that Redcode RAW 4K @ 24p is roughly the same datarate as 2K ProRes. How does that work? Well, Redcode RAW is working from the Bayer pattern - so although it is 4K (4096x2304), it is only one channel of data (effectively greyscale as a recordable medium.) It is also 12 bits instead of 8 or 10, but the wavelet compression is so efficient the file size is kept small. Compare that to ProResHQ, which is 10 bits, but it is now 3 channels as Y'CbCr so bigger, but only 4:2:2 color sampling. So flipping approx 100GB of Redcode RAW to ProRes 2K basically doubles the storage required. But that's not bad - you still have good quality stuff to work with.

I'll be going through and writing and photo editing (the group generated over 1000 stills yesterday...yowza.).

OK, now to install RAM, hard drives, FCS 2, Kona 3, etc....more later.

-mike

Labels: Red

I'm live photo blogging from my iPhone from an airfield in NJ shooting on Reds 6&7 from Offhollywood

Link is http://gallery.mac.com/mikedcurtis/100164#grid

Login : hd4nds
password: mikey

If doesn't work comment and I'll see what i can do.

UPDATE 10pm - we got back, unpacked the van & vehicles after sprinting upstairs to the bathroom (Mark chanting "Mind over bladder." the last 30 minutes of the looooooong drive back), and got some pizza. Whew! What a day. We're all glowing...whether more from pride, satisfaction, or sunburn is hard to say.

Here's some stuff I wrote earlier:

Another great day - spent the day shooting with Mark, Aldey & Pliny from Offhollywood Pictures (& Offhollywood Studios) and a cast and crew of 20 shootin car stunts all day. If you haven't seen the pictures, they're posted, see link above.

I did a little prep work and was able to live photo blog from my iPhone (live photo blogging, from iPhone, about the Red Camera - isn't that some kind of a Geek's Hat Trick?).

As you can see, we had a lot to work with:

-two Red Ones *(6&7, the first ones not Jim Jannard's)
-stunt coordinator
-4 stunt car drivers
-6 stunt cars of the beater variety
-one shiny new white Dodge Charger
-camera car with crane
-several DPs
-4 HVX200 witness cams for BTS stuff (that in itself was kind of ironic - I talk to so many indies straining to shoot their piece with a single HVX, we had four...just for behind the scenes)
-about 10 more people to grip/gaffe/rubberneck/help/PA/etc.

...and everybody chipped in their time today off the clock - we all just wanted to get hands on and do stuff.

Fast moving white cars in broad daylight, not even clouds to help - excellent exposure test subjects. No dulling spray or any tricks, no time on this rugged run 'n gun indie style shoot.

We shot all kinds of fun dramatic stuff - burnouts, flying 180s, box 90s, multicar weaving shots, fishtails, etc., and much rubber was converted to airborne particulate.

I love the smell of burnt rubber in the morning. It smells like....money shot.

: )

More pics, more details, stills and footage to come, but for the moment, we need to head back into NYC, unload, unpack, duplicate all footage yet again to safe locations, see/call our women, and get some REST.

Stay tuned, I'll be back on the job tomorrow.

-mike

Labels: Red

Can you guess where I am?

: )

I'm in Brooklyn at the moment hangin' with the guys from OffHollywood Studios - we're shooting timelapse and pans and stuff from a rooftop in Brooklyn shooting back towards Manhattan.

This is NOT a still from a Red camera, this is from my cheapie little Canon SD1000.

We need to get back to studio and find some shots and do stuff and I'll see what I can get up from a Red camera tonight.

We're packing up at the moment, so more later...

This is going to be a FUN week!

-mike

Labels: Red

Blogging from iPhone (I know I know cliche) so brief.

Yesterday I had the pleasure to take part what I dubbed Red Day Zero - first day of the revolution.

I'll have lots more to say later, but short version - the dream is real. I have seen it, touched it, even shot a little bit.

Typing in back of moving van, so all for now

Labels: Red