Twenty398

So you’re working away on a MacBook Pro all day long cutting RED footage and you want to have a little time off. Or maybe just need some cool new gadgets. Check out our sister site, Editors Store. Offering everything from Apple t-shirts and gear to NeatReceipts mobile scanners to Flip video conversion software. Head on over and take a peek at Editors Store.

Jay A. Kelley produced (and stars in *the red 101 dvd – it’s quite comprehensive and a good starting point if you like an audio / visual way of learning. *Jay is a super early red one adopter that works with his camera professionally on a regular basis, He really knows the gear and how to use it.

It’s not meant to be a learning tool for those already well versed in the camera (although it’s a good refresher for those like me that work with the camera in some fashion almost every day) It’s well designed and executed to give you the run down of the camera, its functionality, the menu structure etc. * It covers how to set up projects and use the internal tools of the red one to expose the camera, set up the camera for various styles of shooting for different types of projects and deliverables and a number of other needed areas of learning to be ready to get great results from your red one shooting.

The dvd covers quite a lot of info, and Jay is on camera talking to you for a lot of the video – His homespun style is fun and enjoyable, it’s not a a flat, boring instructional dvd – he’s got lots of his personality weaved in there. *I would recommend taking watching it in small to medium sized chunks, and not watching it all in one sitting, while having the red one operations manual as a reference point to review each section that’s covered (a free download here: *http://www.red.com/support)

Jay covers the red pretty much from all angles to get you primed and ready to shoot, and a bunch of 3rd party gear as well. *Note that red did not have a hand in producing this, so there are some things in his video we may not totally agree with (different opinions on certain things is what makes life interesting), but overall I wouldn’t recommend it if if didn’t do a good job handling the material and covering what is needed to make the right choices when jumping into red, which it does very well.

For more info, please visit:

http://www.red101dvd.com/order/

Noah Kadner helps us unravel the mysteries of the Red camera. What is Red? What makes it so great? And will it work in your workflow? Find out with Noah Kadner. Dan talks about Noah’s book “RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera” written for Peachpit Press.

http://www.workflowjunkies.com/2009/09/24/episode-18-red-rules-with-noah-kadner/

I’ve just launched a new blog focusing on DSLR-Cinematography:

DSLR Cinematography is the blog for news, reviews and tutorials about digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras. These are the latest and greatest cameras capable of shooting high definition video using high-quality still camera lenses at frame rates like 30p and 24p. We’ll look at digital cameras from Nikon, Canon, Panasonic and more.

Digital SLR cameras are an intriguing hybrid between digital still cameras and high definition video cameras. They allow you to achieve cinematic shallow depth of field and expressive cinematography at relatively low prices. These cameras include the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 7D, the Nikon D90 and D300S and the Panasonic GH1 and DMC-GF1.

In addition to news and reviews you’ll also read exclusive interviews with professional cinematographers and photographers shooting digital stills and video at the same time with their DSLRs. So grab your camera and let’s get shooting.

So head on over to http://www.dslr-cinematography.com/ for a sneak peek.

As readers of RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera know, we have a printed version of the RED ONE’s menu map in an appendix. As time marches on, Scott Jones of XL Films has updated his map for Build 20. (And we just got 21 a couple of days ago!) We’re always playing catchup! To download it head over to this link:

http://www.xlfilms.tv/2008/shared_images/XL_Red_Menus_Build20.pdf

RED released Build 21 of the RED ONE firmware today. This is a big one, enabling 4.5K resolution and REDCODE 42! Of course I recommend carefully testing this release before using it on a full production. You get the following:

* Addition of 4.5K WS (Widescreen 4480 × 1920 pixel) RESOLUTION recording setting.

* Addition of REDCODE 42 QUALITY setting for 4.5K WS, 4K 2:1, 4K ANA, 4K HD record resolutions.

* Addition of VIEW mode indicator, vmRAW / vm709 / vmRSP, in upper GUI status row.

* Addition of Video Genlock for HD-SDI PVW output(s) when GENLOCK selected in SENSOR menu.

* Enhancement of USER PROFILE function.

So head on over and look for the Beta build release here:

http://www.red.com/support

Stand by for a further review. In the meantime, to check it out yourself go to:

http://redgrabs.com/REDCINE-X_ALPHA2.zip

and the changes:

· Fixed losing Rocket support after playing with video controls or making color setting changes.
· Made timeline a moveable window and cut down the extra space on the bottom.
· Added a scrollbar at the bottom of the Timeline.
· You can move scrubber now by clicking on time instead of clips so you can make changes to other clips, but keep your scrubber in the same spot if wanted.
· Added tool tips to all the buttons on the video player.
· Dragging clips off the timeline crashing issue fixed.
· Fixed the video player window resizing bug a reduser mentioned.
· Curve presets are saved beyond application level now. You can exit application and go back in.. and last stored presets are loaded.
· H.264 export option has been changed to .mov
· Increased audio clip loading speed

da Vinci should be on your radar for two reasons- they support RED and they are makers if incredibly expensive, high-end color grading suites most of us will never be able to afford to sit in. And yet they just got bought up by bargain video card maker, Blackmagic Design. My question is- will this mean greatly reduced prices on Davinci software in the future? Or is this just good news for the high end post houses that can already afford them? A few words from BMD head, Grant Petty on the purchase:

In reality, I cannot believe we have purchased such as legendary brand, and one of the things that totally blew my mind when I first started in post production as an engineer way back in 1988 was the color grading room with a DaVinci. The image on the monitor was such incredible quality, I just stood there staring speechless. It was amazing. Now we have our opportunity to care for the DaVinci name, and it’s exciting but a little terrifying too! We have some big standards to live up to, but we want to exceed what people expect.

Read more at fxguide:

http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1448/blackmagic-buys-davinci-confirmed

RED has released an ‘Alpha’ preview of their REDCINE-X grading application and it’s a winner. Designed as a replacement for both RED Alert! and REDCINE, REDCINE-X combines the functionality of both applications while taking huge strides forward in usability and speed.

What I Like:

User Interface: the big boys of editing could learn a thing or two from this. I was able to load, grade and export a clip a minute after firing it up for the first time. With no instructions at all. It’s just that intuitive.

Play bin in media by hovering mouse- again another one of those things you see in the high-end software that is just something you want in all of your editing apps.

Auto-Scan for R3D- this is what computers are meant to do, find your footage wherever it is on the hard drive so you don’t have to.

Performance: On my 2 X 3 Ghz Quad Mac Pro with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 I could play and grade with decent performance up to 1/2 resolution. This rocks and saves you a lot of time. Expect to see much higher performance if you have a REDRocket card installed.

What I Don’t Like:
Runs only as a full screen application. This means you can’t have it in a floating window with other applications at the same time. I realize this is for performance sake, but it’s less practical when you want to have several other apps going as you grade. At least the dock stays visible and Apple-H hides REDCINE-X as it should.

Still an Alpha, this app is useful and much-needed, so here’s to RED’s engineering team getting it up to full production speed and stability asap.

To check out REDCINE-X on your own system, try out this link:

http://redgrabs.com/REDCINE-X_ALPHA1.zip

(It’s Mac-only for now but a Windows version is promised at some point.)

Noah’s RED book has received its first review and it’s a nice one from Steve Sherrick, a longtime REDuser and fellow blogger. Here’s an excerpt:

If you have never heard of the RED One, also known as R1, well you will definitely want to pick up Noah’s book and read it from cover to cover at least 2 or 3 times. It will get you up to speed in a hurry. If you have heard of it but never actually used the camera, the book will answer many of the questions you may have and provide you with enough information to feel comfortable to take the camera out and shoot with it. If you are an experienced Red user, well, there’s still a lot you can pick up on in this book as not only does it cover the basics of operating, but gets into the details of data management, postproduction, and how to integrate audio.

For the rest of the review, follow this link:

http://www.redfilmmaker.com/2009/08/red-ultimate-guide-to-using.html

This blog has been a little quiet for 2009, due to my hard work writing the first and only book on the RED camera. RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera is finally done and available now! From the official press release:

“With the release of the RED ONE™ digital cinema camera, the possibility of recording stunning, cinematic-quality images with an affordable camera became a reality. Now that the industry has embraced the nascent technology and added new tools and workflows, filmmakers—from independents on up—are leading the charge on establishing new rules.

Here to guide newcomers and RED veterans alike, popular trainer and filmmaker Noah Kadner picks up where the manual leaves off. You’ve got the basic operations down and now you’ll learn how to use the camera in a production environment and discover the various options in post. Using a clear, objective approach, he offers best-practice advice on utilizing RED’s proprietary tools, explains the workflows for Final Cut Studio, Avid, and Premiere Pro, and gives workaround solutions where needed. Well-known filmmakers and industry leaders share their own bleeding-edge production methodologies throughout, offering a rare view into this exciting new world of filmmaking.

Here are just a few things you’ll learn to do:
•Build a RED package that fits your budget
•Set up for sound recording and learn which audio tools to use
•Achieve the optimal exposure using RED’s onboard tools and external gear
•Edit your footage with step-by-step instructions for Avid, Final Cut Pro, and Premiere Pro
•Work color correction into your HD, film, or Web projects
•Prep your project for output and archive your footage
•Learn from pros such as Rodney Charters, ASC (DP, 24), Simon Duggan, ACS (DP,Knowing), Albert Hughes (Director, The Book of Eli), and many others using RED”

For more info, visit the book’s homepage here:
http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321617681

To order direct from Amazon, visit this link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321617681?ie=UTF8&tag=callboxlive-20

How RED and a messed up economy will revolutionize everything… back to how everything was – pre DV. Or: Time for a cold shower if you are a gold-digger and not serious about your commitment.

These are hard times. With posts like these popping up:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=25850

http://newbreed.workbookproject.com/2008/12/red-one-rentals-impending-crash/

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=25858

It’s time to think seriously through any investment of any kind and what you do and why you do it. Even more is NOT written. People and companies are selling off their gear at high rates. Dalsa, Grass Valley and Quvis have thrown in the towel. I was underbid by Panavision UK on a small Norwegian feature. Panavision! Go figure. Panavision! «Service first!». Hey! I am a really small shop in the middle of nowhere! Panavision gave away optics, Genesis, support and accessories, for less than the rebated price of a Master Prime set for a feature.

No one is mentioning the bankrupcy word, or the insolvency word. But it’s often: Cash on delivery when people are realizing their assets. Please – no account transactions. Credit is gone. The money you have under your pillow is real.

Heck. You can even get some good glass these days. Optics have been rare for a year and a half, if you’ve been looking. But now. It’s not cheap yet, but still. Everyone tend to look brave about it to keep the prices up, but it’s happening.

I know that I literally heard Lehman Brothers go bust. The phone stopped ringing. The mailbox went empty. I dunno how many handshakes I am away from them, but I do know I’m not living in NY. Still the silence was ear-shattering. Almost immediately.

I read an article in a Norwegian newspaper about the commercial-industry here. Not one single new major contract signed for any of the big producers, that wasn’t negotiated by August 2008. But quite a few cancelled. There’s not one good reason to go public with bad news like this for a production company, but to fend off their creditors.

And I tend to agree with Jim. We haven’t seen the worst part yet and it’s not over by July.

Not this or the next July at least. It’ll get a lot worse before it gets better. And last time I checked, none of the governmental finance «packages» went to the movie industry, be it indie, big-time or ad-agencies. We’re in for a bumpy ride… On TV I mostly see poster-like «powerpoint» or recirculated ads.

I didn’t predict the finance crisis. But when discussing the RED investment with my partner back in 2006, I said:
Expect a RED to rent for about the price of an HVX when the backorders are filled. Too many people who cannot handle the tool technically or story-telling wise will buy it, because they see the beautiful images it can give them. At that price point, the market will be flooded. Too many people will not realize that technical potential is not what touches the general public. 6 months after the backorders are filled, you will see RED packages going at around 50% of purchase price.

The price of optics will skyrocket if RED cannot deliver the promised prime-set in due time, when the demand becomes thousands of sets a year in a market that is used to hundreds. We just have to be good. And it will still be a rocky road.

I was wrong. My predictions were too optimistic. I have seen RED ONE packages with optics (Zeiss standards), FF, matte box and good support (O’Connor 2075) at 250$ day rates already in November last year. For the front page rates of any Norwegian rental house, you are just allowed to take a look at the O’Connor for that price. You are not allowed to even take a close look at the S4/Master Prime set of optics you’ll need to pull off «that shot»… And despite the Epic-X upgrade offer, I think you can pick up a RED ONE for 8.000,-$ today, if you can stomach the wait and have the cash. To pay fast.

And who am I to complain? We ROI’ed the cam-package after one month of pure testing and one month of work. So. Shut up! Don’t be so gloomy! Go buy that dream!

The future is bright and we all should wear rosy shades….
So… Buy a RED or not at this stage? And what if you have one. And what to do?
Consider the following ramblings and not «take to court business advices…»

Because, if you do – I’ll deny ever having written them.
Ultimately this business – being: Doing commercials, corporate, music-videos, shorts, «independents», or long form films – is about touching peoples feelings. Making «the audience» glad, sad, horny, angry, revolted, craving for, disgusted, happy, interested in, or enlightened. And make them take a glass of wine afterwards and fuck their brains out – or buy that car. It’s about giving people irrational experiences and do irrational choices. It’s about making them feel part of life and in touch with themselves and the world in general.

It’s about being able to manipulate.

And that takes a lot of talent, skill, and rationality. And craft, gear and people… And I promise you: In no way you can pull this off on your own. That’s just plain stupid to think. There are those rare exceptions, but don’t even think about them.

Think of a great symphony orchestra. Or band. Every single musician is spending 10+ hours a day focusing on their individual skills – to be able to pull off “The rite of the spring”, a piece by Xenakis, “Carmina Burana” or Beethoven’s 5th … for the 100th time. And guess what. Not a single one of them are the director, wrote the music, made the budgets or found the audience that made it possible to sound great. Or lame, as it does on occasional days – even with all that effort. But every single one needs an instrument it is not possible to pay down on a «normal» salary. And 10 hours of focus per day to play their unique part. That is unless you only play the piatti and stay out of the Xenakis stuff…

Then, take this into consideration. Ingmar Bergman has said something in the ballpark of: «My first 15 films sucked. Then I started to understand how to do this thing».

For a film you need the whole lot of actors, accountants, lighting crew, director, catering, + the composer, script, gear and eventually: The whole frickin’ symphony orchestra – to really pull it off.

I once saw a breakdown on an early Disney Cartoon – I think it was Snow white. For one man to do the animations only – forgetting about the script, the dramaturgy, the music, the voice over, the promotion or the pure idea – it would take 130 years of regular 10 hour days.

But, when making films or commercials – people all of a sudden think that it is possible to cover all those crafts by themselves.
Fine. This is bad. I sound like a pessimist. Am I saying that you shouldn’t buy a RED? And that the economy makes this even worse?

Not at all! The opposite actually. Really. Pursue that goal. Be passionate! BUT be realistic about what is needed to pull it off. RED ONE is only a part of the equation. A really good, and until recently totally unreachable part – potential wise. But, ask yourself this: Why do you think Christian Bale can do an obnoxious thing like what we heard from the Terminator set and still be hired? Or Klaus Kinski? I think it is because he manages to touch us. He is good at what he does.

That’s it.

If he only was an irresponsible obnoxious drunk, spoiled kid – we wouldn’t care or discuss it. The chap’s got talent. And focus on it. To an annoying degree – true enough. But it pays. For him. For the producers. And for us – the audience.

So, if there ever was a good time to define your talent. This is it. The business is bust. Most of the big companies are too. But people still want to feel those emotions you can serve them. RED ONE is a good and cheap tool for that.

This is actually a time of opportunity where new wealth will be made. But if you’re looking into those opportunities, know that the reason you buy a camera is more important than that you have it.

RED ONE – the camera – doesn’t make a movie. It’s a great tool for movie making, but you will have to define where you fit in, if you want to make visible and good productions. Whether that’s the rental business, lighting department, accounting or directing, writing or DP’ing. You’re a part of an orchestra.

I am not saying you cannot cover several functions successfully. Many have. But even more have failed. If you see that you are good at grading, that doesn’t mean that you’re good at directing, even though both functions are needed to make a good film and they in many ways are related. But so are DP’ing, composing music, script-writing, dramaturgy and accounting. You’ll have to deal with that the different functions don’t necessarily have an understanding of the needs of the other departments. (If you put on your pink glasses: That can be part of the fun!)

Do you really think you can handle all that?

I don’t. Prove me wrong!

What am I saying here? Don’t buy a RED and find a job as a mall cashier?

Nope. Really not! But I say that this is the time for educated choices, passion and focus. THEN and only then you’ll survive… Maybe… Trust yourself. Ultimately in this economy – you are your only durable asset and the only success formula. Be it small scale or big scale. And maybe you DO need a RED or five to prove that!
So this all comes down to, good or bad reasons to buy a R1 these days

Good:

You are in the rental business, are liquid and want to see the glass and accessories moving.

This is a no-brainer. R1 is cheap and good, and the HVX kids are curious! Throw it in for free and take good prices for your glass and accessories. Have you looked at the price for a 435 or HPX 3000 with an adaptor recently? Just go!

You want to get into the rental business, have the connections and are liquid for a couple of years

Yup. Now is the time. Everyone and his aunt are selling off their assets at good prices. Optics are still risky, but everything else is cheaper than ever before. If you know you are liquid for the next three years, go for it! As to why to invest in a R1… See the above argument.

You have a project/projects to realize and can pull out the cash for RED ONE and basic optics.

Also a non-brainer. R1 gives you access to many of the aesthetics of 35MM at a fraction of the cost – rental or otherwise. With small budgets, gear is the dominator. Go get that camera. You cannot rent gear for less. You’ll have time to experiment and re-shoot until you «got it right»

You are a big TV-house, or commercial production company with financed films to make.

Sure. But buy one or two more than you know you need, so that when one goes down, you have a spare. Is R1 not reliable? Not at all! The opposite actually. But if you don’t have an extra camera when one goes down, 18.000$ is peanuts.
You’ve been into the high-end/high-def business for a while and see a lot of business go to untalented kids with REDs.
Also a no-brainer. Get the R1 and a B4 adapter and you’re up and running. You can brag about RAW and down-sampling (to a degree) and all your other gear is still useable. That SR deck is still fantastic for mastering. Also a good set of PL primes can be picked up for relatively cheap these days.

You love photography and can afford the kit, inclusive lenses and post gear.
Well… Just buy it. You can’t have more fun for less cash these days. No way!

So… what are the really bad reasons for buying R1 these days
Well… There are a few…
The R1 body is dirt cheap for what it does. Who can complain?

RED’s achilles heel has been workflows. They were never hard. Really. They were easy, accessible and plentyfold almost from the get-go, and THAT created a lot of confusion… It was too film-like to understand for the video-crowd, and the film crowd tried to approach it like video. That made some mess-ups. Now we’re getting over that.

For a while now, Assimilate has given us the only realtime 2k RAW solution for online, but now it seems, Filmlight has managed to take up the glove.

Filmlight has come up with a 30,000E post solution for realtime RED RAW workflow

:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=363990
Seemingly giving Assimilate a good run for their money. Iridas has had «internal» builds of their software doing this, too – for a while, and if someone is figuring out Color’s gamma-infidelity, you have a 1,500$ tool doing 2k RAW for most online applications right now.

The meaning of this being?
Yup. R1 is cheap and has close to limitless possibilities… IF and only if you or someone close to you familiarize themselves with workflow from set to delivery. It’s not hard, but it needs to be understood. Most likely RED will behave differently than anything you’ve been using earlier, and things that look familiar, just don’t have the same implications on a RAW camera. The potential is vast, but she’s a sour lover if you treat her bad…
Spend some time, and you’ll be infinitely rewarded. Don’t, and get kicked in the but.
So, onto the bad reasons to buy a R1 these days

.
You have some projects and hope to cover «the rest» over rentals.
Ouch. Most likely: Double-ouch, as you probably will not have a good sense of total cost of usage. The body is just that: A body.
I find it tiring that some always point out that you need support, optics and a post system for R1 – as you’ll need that for ANY camera. But some seem to forget. The 200$ 8GB flash card from REDs shop, is not really what should make you feel good or bad about the investment. It is a drop in the ocean.
 AND the rental-business is a really easy business. You rent out gear at a rate of 1%-2,5%
pr business day and give discounts for longer periods. Take that calculus and sober up. Check my Panavision experience and come back

RED ONE is a film-like camera. You want to get into the film business. This is a good start.
Nope. It’s not.
The «film business» is about storytelling and – for all practical reasons – handling the tools and people to tell that story. You have a better shot with a PD-150 and a good script, than with a complete R1 kit on its own.
If you have the customers. Go ahead! But these days, they are rare. And hunted by many with a great lot of kit.
You have this really cool gig next month and R1 would make it even cooler. You just will have to cut the audio and post expenses to pull it through
Yes! Sure! But if you haven’t spent some time testing and don’t have access to people who have, don’t! The money is better spent renting a R1 with workflow and kit from someone who knows what they do. Spend that time learning, and spare it for the next gig. Going into a R1 shoot for the first time without an audio-person and recording directly to the camera is close to suicidal. Even with the upgraded audio boards. You won’t get that happy customer and you won’t get that next gig.

The point of all these ramblings?
R1 and the current crisis is revolutionizing everything… back to «normal».
People don’t buy kit. People buy talent.
People go to the movies in the millions to watch «City of God» and «Bourne». Not to gauge DOF, resolution and watch camera-angels. Not conciously – at least. Ever wondered why IMAX was never a worldwide commercial success? It should have been, right?
R1 has a great potential for expression, if you’re talented and in the know.
But make sure that people hire YOU, not the camera. Because the camera is dirt cheap and plentyfold. You don’t want to be that?
If these times have left you with some spare time – and maybe a R1 – don’t despair. Use it. To be a better… DP? Director? Salesman? Whatever. This is a golden oportunity to establish yourself. It’s a really bad opportunity to propagate gear. Of any kind.
The moral of all this?
Be focused
Hone your skills
Experiment

Be better

Because “Normal” used to be that people were hired for their skills, not their kit. And we’re finally heading bigtime back that route – even though it has seemed for some years like that wasn’t the case. But the chain of supply and demand is adjusting – after a credit-blown-up period with a collapse of gear prices and the economy. Don’t expect those times to come back anytime soon. This is actually normality. And on the long run, probably the best for all of us.

But, by all means: Use a R1 if you have access to it. It won’t hurt.

Technorati Tags:
4K, financing, high-definition, indie, indie filmmaking, new techology, production, RED, redcode, economics

Here’s a little piece from DVICE.com:

The SCI FI Channel’s Sanctuary is the first television series in North America to be shot entirely on the revolutionary RED One camera. The crew up in Vancouver, BC, were kind enough to show DVICE how the camera’s insane resolution and tapeless recording system let them keep all their work in the digital domain — and at four times the resolution of HD.

Video and more after the jump:

http://dvice.com/archives/2009/01/how_the_red_one.php

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, digital cameras, filmmaking, high-definition, indie, indie filmmaking, native, new techology, RED, redcode, workflow

RED has followed Avid and Apple in pulling out of the NAB show in Vegas this April, citing a lack of availability of working prototypes to demonstrate. According to CEO, Jim Jannard,

RED has decided to skip NAB 2009. We will hold our own RED DAY when we feel we are ready to present the new systems and when they are fully ready to showcase. Date and location will be announced in future.

A minor delay by a major part vendor will not mean much to the delivery schedules but would mean too many non-working prototypes at NAB… which we find unacceptable.

In other words, RED doesn’t want to come to NAB without substantially new product to show and prefers to focus resources and time on completing their already announced products. Personally, I’m a little sad to not see them there this year. As an early believer in RED it’s been a nice opportunity to check out their gear and chat with the folks who actually make it. Also, NAB arguably holds a greater significance for RED than some of the other companies who are leaving or have left the show, for a number of reasons:

Having a presence at the major electronics show of the year on the international stage is a good way to develop customer relationships and demonstrate a long-term commitment to the industry. Shows like NAB also present a key networking opportunity, not only business-to-business and business-to-customer, but also customer-to-customer.

There are likely to be a lot more customers to reach at NAB- when travel budgets can be justified by all the other vendors and contacts to be seen at once vs. their making a special trip only to check out RED. In this present economy, travel budgets are tighter than ever.

RED’s been going to NAB for only 3 years while the others have been fixtures for decades. Thus, the cachet companies like Avid and Apple are likely to earn at this point by going is relatively small in the scheme of things next to a newer player like RED.

RED’s not as diversified in other trade shows or in advertising and marketing as the others. Their primary publicity machine is in print articles, word of mouth and Reduser.net. There are no RED Stores in the world other than their main HQ, nor do they run TV or print ads like Avid, Apple or the other remaining camera companies.

RED’s also been closely associated with NAB. They made their initial debut at NAB in 2006 and showed the first working cameras and footage a year later at NAB 2007. 2008 became the opportunity to announce new hardware such as the Epic, Scarlet and RED-RAY drive. The show gives them a platform to present their case as the alternative to the other camera companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Thomson, Canon, JVC, etc.

Of course, RED’s never been a company to play by the rules or follow others’ leads. They have promised to hold a RED Day (presumably at their HQ in California), ‘when they are fully ready.’ As always, covering RED is covering the expected.

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, digital cameras, filmmaking, indie, indie filmmaking, RED, redcode, NAB

Here’s a nice little piece from Digital Facility on PlasterCITY Digital Post’s RED Workflow, which they’ve been perfecting ever since the camera first came out. Here’s a quote from owner, Michael Cioni:

“We’re seeing a lot of production companies and DPs make use of the RED camera because of image quality, compact design, cinema lenses and overall lower costs. RED footage makes up a significant portion of our work,” says Cioni. “As early adopters, we’ve worked closely with the RED team to design and deliver powerful end-to-end tapeless and tape-based workflows. SCRATCH is the ideal post tool for RED footage because it’s the only software that can deliver real time results of color grading, down-converting and window-burn dailies from a soft-mounted firewire drive.”

For the rest of the story click HERE.

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, digital cameras, filmmaking, high-definition, indie, indie filmmaking, native, new techology, RED, redcode, workflow

Preparing the timeline, but first…

As this will be a shorter post, I’ll start with a small digression:
Since my last post, the Adobe workflow is out, and I am hangin’ in here with Color and FCP for this project…. What old news one can feel like

After reading up a bit on the Adobe thingy, I think I may as well just stay here a wee bit longer than I thought, though. Seems you cannot get access to the metadata with the Adobe plugin yet. If that’s a fact, then the gain is that you by now can do about the same thing with Adobe as you have been able to since the release of R1 in FCP… But in ”real” 4k. + hangs and crashes.

Seems to me Apple and Adobe have received separate pieces of the RED cake. Apple got metadata control. Adobe got full debayer and resolution. If this is true, you are stuck with the metadata from the cam on the shoot. In that case I’ll still be doin’ my FCP thingy for quite a while.

I do miss full debayer and 4k. Badly (More on that in part 3 of this small series). But not having control over exposure and kelvin is even more scary.

Enough! To the subject @ hand

My project was 9 videotracks high with all kind of speedchanges and a couple of simple comps. I had 4k 16:9 (stock), 4k 2:1 and 3k 2:1.

I sent all cuts down to one videotrack – except for 3k, composites and extreme lowlight shots.
Then made a copy of my timeline to prepare for Color, selected all, rightclicked and chose ”remove attributes.
… and simply ”Send to Color” to see which shots got the repeat frame bug

I spent some time to L&T multiclip shots. To make a long story short:
That’s rather quick compared to developing DPXs, but it feels very unnecessary…

When I had that done, I read that one could edl the timeline out of FCP to Color to avoid the repeat frame bug. Someone needs credit for experimental fantasy!

I’ll just mention one thing, if you choose to follow my work-intensive route: If there’s a spanned shot in there, you can randomly get he bug in both the shot immediately before and the one immediately after.

So here’s a solution for the more effective person… ☺

Thanks to Luca Immesi
1 Shoot 4k/2k 16:9
2 Make your edit in fcp with P or M proxies
3 export the EDL
4 make a new color project
5 import the edl
6 put the right frame rate, resolution (what ever you want), files path
7 resize the clips in the geometry room
8 enjoy

Update2! So I tried with b17 4k spanned files, it works smooth! Also I experimented exporting an xml from fcp and importing into color, it works fine but I noticed a better playback in color with edl method than xml.
But for people can’t load the edl they can try exporting the xml and importing in color.

I haven’t yet tested this myself, but it sorta makes sense (going into conspiracy mode here on how Apple prefers their buggy XMLs over good ole’ EDLs. Self-censorship won! ☺ )

Next:
Preparing the shots that needed reframing, compositing and scaling…
I’ll write a separate post on my thoughts on developing low noise images from RED RAW for grading. BUT that’s not for now.

The important thing is that I had to run 34 out of 142 cuts this way.
Short story is: Despite hassles by having to do this @ all, I saved a lot of time ☺.

The remaining 108 cuts could have been transferred in one batch through an edl. This starts to sound like RED bliss. (Cliffhanger sound…)

As part of this project is to find out whether the new Color workflow holds up against developing DPXs, I have duplicates of some of the ”problem” or suspected problematic shots. Mostly low-light
I feel very comfortable with developing the RAW files and grading AJA wrapped DPXs in Color by now. But will the new workflow hold up? (drum-roll and answer on thursday ☺)

Cheers!
Gunleik

This is part 2 of 3 in a first series of posts.The first is here.

More random observations working with RED and Premiere CS4. Some of these might be obvious issues for folks who work with Premiere all day long, for me it’s been a while. Now on the Quad Core with 4GB of RAM(still below the reported min requirements but this is more machine than most folks have already).

1- Performance needs to be tuned carefully. Got a nice little G-RAID feeding footage and still seeing a lot of dropped frames with all quality settings set to defaults. With resolution set to Quarter, Quality to Medium, Chroma DeNoise Off, Debayer set to Leading Lady(might want to change that to something a bit more understandable in terms of quality) and OLPF Compensation off- I get nice smooth frame rates and the footage looks pretty solid.

2- 16:9 Performance suffers a bit more. 16:9 has always been a problem for REDCode playback because it doesn’t scale nicely down from 4K the way 2:1 does.

3- Load times for complex projects can be long. I’ve got one project with about 2 hours worth of .R3D files that takes forever to load if it loads at all. It’s a little scary to see the progress bar sit there at almost loaded, forever.

4-The unsupported format warning is a little bit annoying. Essentially you drag your entire RED folder into CS4’s project window for a quick import. It sorts through, pulls out the .R3D and ignores the other files in the folders, such as the digital magazine profiles. However it then complains about these being unsupported formats. The option to never warn me about this again would be greatly appreciated.

5-Spanned clips are not marked. For example, if I have one long take that the camera split into several .R3D files, each shows up in the project as a separate clip. It’s smart enough to join them back into a single take but it would be more useful to automatically either- only import the first .R3D of a spanned take or make an obvious note in the project window that a clip is spanned.

6- It seems reasonably easy to crash CS 4.0.1. For example if I have one clip open and I bring up another and scrub through it that will give me a SPOD and then hang. Brings back those somewhat scary memories of the old Premiere which I spent years on and battled crashes and hangs every step of the way… but this is different. Right? More later….

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

Been working a little more with RED in CS4. I had a little bit of trouble exporting a finished RED edit. I’m now updating the Adobe Media Encoder CS4 now, which should hopefully do the trick.

Scott Simmons is on the case as well with some more in-depth tests and performance analysis with Adobe CS4’s new native RED .R3D plugin which you can check out here.

http://www.scottsimmons.tv/blog/2008/12/11/kicking-the-tires-on-r3d-editing-in-premiere-pro/

Scott also provided a nice link to Adobe’s Dave Helmly who has a 30-minute video and text description of the best workflow practices. It looks like Adobe has its eye on being out front with the RED post workflow and it’s a very welcome development. Grab a coffee and then check it all out here.

http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2008/12/native_red_camera_files_cs4.html

And to back up a bit, here’s an older post from Studio Daily looking at a beta version of the plugin and its potential implications last summer.

http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=622

along with their current update:

http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=756

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

So I’ve spent the last evening and morning playing with the new RED native .R3D plugin for Adobe Premiere CS4. Some initial observations:

1- It actually works as advertised, drag drop and edit .R3D. I’m sure some serious magic is happening behind the scenes but it is one of those holy grail moments.

2- Performance is slow. Here’s the min requirements:

Minimum System Requirements
3.0 GHz Quad core system with 8GB RAM
Hard drive with 40MB/sec sustained throughput is required; RAID striped array recommended
Windows Vista 64 Service Pack 1 or Mac OS 10.5
Premiere Pro 4.0.1 update
After Effects 9.0.1 update

Now I’m running this on a 2.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM and I can load .R3Ds, hit play and see stuff. Playback loses frames and ultimately freezes(though not crashing). It’s about the same as you get in FCP working from the M proxies on this sort of machine.

3- The Global RED decoding settings are a little clunky to call up- requiring a right-click on a .R3D clip where a System Preferences pane would be more apropos. But that’s a minor nitpick.

Next up I’m working on the 3Ghz Quad Core Mac Pro we have sitting here. I’ll expect to see performance take a big leap with any luck….

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

An exciting moment for the RED workflow world- native support for .R3D files has arrived. So don’t just stand there. If you’ve got Premiere CS4 for Mac or PC, go get it.

http://www.red.com/support/index

Provides native REDCODE media (R3D) support for Premiere Pro CS4 (4.0.1 and later) and After Effects CS4 (9.0.1 and later). Includes: REDCODE importer (v1.3.0), After Effects Settings Dialog and workflow guide. Note: Supports RED ONE cameras up through Build 18.

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native