On the Road with the Toads

Currently i am two weeks into the documentary shoot 'Cane Toads 2' for director Mark Lewis, maker of the original Cane Toads film in 1988. We are shooting with a small crew in the Top End, from Darwin across to Kununarra until early December.

The Final Grade

Just finished the grading process for 'The Combination' with a final check today of all the reels in the DI suite before sending to film out. The DI was done by the talented colorists at Efilm here in Sydney, on the Lustre system with monitoring on the Barco 2K projector.

Very happy with the final results, the RED has come through with pleasing results, not withstanding some scenes that were quite difficult to grade. Even though i rated the camera at 500 ASA, effectively underexposing, we had no noise issues in the image at all - at least not when viewing the fully calibrated DI room projector, or on the 35mm print. Going through a full DI process for filmout does put the image under the greatest real world scrutiny and the camera held up pretty well - except for some particular situations.

The most difficult scenes to grade properly were without doubt those shot under tungsten light, especially if low level or a bit underexposed. As the sensor is native daylight balance, the warm tones of a tungsten lit interior seem to push the colour imaging capabilities of the camera close to the limit in the red part of the spectrum. Of course it is possible to correct the balance in the DI suite but an apparent colour depth limitation rears it's ugly head making many shots look 'funny' and not quite right. Again, it is fixable, but does often require a lot more work on the part of the colorist to make images acceptable.

On the other hand, many of the scenes shot in daylight or with HMI lighting almost grade themselves and look terrific with just a simple contrast curve applied. In retrospect i would do a some have suggested and use a quarter blue filter on the lens when shooting tungsten, just to take a bit of red out of the image. Apparently the new Red Build 16  does have 'improved tungsten tolerance' which would be very welcomed. I look forward to testing it when next i have the opportunity to shoot with RED.

'Recommended ASA'

Interesting now with the imminent release of RED'S Build 16 update that Jannard is now suggesting a 'recommended' ASA rating in the 320-500 ASA range for the RED ONE camera; i guess we were a beat ahead of time rating it at 500 for 'The Combination' shoot. Image (right) of Russian church from our test shoot, shot on RED build 14.

RED - the setup - ISO, resolution, compression

Unlike a regular high-end HD cameras such as the Sony F900 or Varicam, the RED has little in the way of menu adjustments to manipulate the image. As i have mentioned before, the adjustments available change settings of the HD monitoring output only and leave the actual RAW recorded image data at a 'factory' setting.

Given this, the biggest impact you can have on the image with the menus (as opposed to lens settings like iris and focus) is your choice of ISO or ASA setting. After our tests and some advice from John Bowring at Lemac, for 'The Combination' i set the ISO at 500, up from the nominal setting of 320 ISO. If you are using the waveform and monitor output to set exposure, then this essentially underexposes the sensor by two thirds of a stop, helping to protect the highlights in the scene from clipping and in effect increasing the useful dynamic range. Of course in a controlled studio environment the contrast of a scene can usually be manipulated with lighting so there is less need to underexpose. But shooting a low budget feature on location presents many situations where the contrast in a scene cannot be easily controlled so i know that if my highlights are starting to clip on the waveform, at 500 ISO there is a little more headroom on the RAW image. In fact the more contrast in a scene, such as full sun onto white shirts with a shaded wall in the BG, the higher the ISO can be set to hold details in the highlights on the shirts.

Even though low light and nighttime shooting typically has less contrast - except for any light sources in frame - i find 500 ISO a more intuitive speed to use thanks to years using 500 ISO film for night shoots, knowing what lamps are needed to cover given areas to a particular T-stop and so on. So i left the ISO setting constant throughout the shoot. However, this does present a problem when shooting in bright sunny exterior day conditions with a camera rated at 500 ISO . The amount of ND filtration required to get down to a T stop of around 2.8 or 4 is about 5 stops  - which unfortunately creates an magenta tint to the image caused by excess infra red hitting the sensor compared to the visible light. While it can be graded out in post there are IR cut ND filters becoming available to deal with this issue.

Jim Jannard (RED's founder) touches on this relationship between ISO setting and dynamic range in a recent post on the RedUser forum. It sounds like the forthcoming Build 16 will have much improved ways to judge exposure at the sensor rather than just the HD monitor output which will be very helpful if it works. The most difficult part i find of working with HD video and the RED as compared to film is setting exposure and containing highlights.

Other settings we had were frame size and frame rate - we shot at 4K 2:1, using the full width of the super 35mm sized sensor, then setting the monitor frame line markers to 1: 2.40 aspect ratio. Base frame rate was true 24fps (not 23.98). For slow motion footage up to 50 and 60 fps, we changed resolution to 3K 2:1 then set variable speed mode allowing recording on the same media, in our case usually the Red drive. We shot at Redcode 28 compression rather than the higher quality Redcode 36 to save on disk space with the 2.2 terabytes of original footage duplicated twice for safety backups. Redcode 28 gave us a higher top frame rate also, up to 60 fps at 3K.

RED feedback 1

Finally i get to provide some feedback on our experiences shooting with the RED camera on the local film 'The Combination' which wrapped at the end of April.

We shot for just over 4 weeks with one RED ONE camera shooting 4K 2:1 24fps with a set of Arri Ultra Primes and an Angenieux 25-250mm HR zoom. The camera was using Build 15 (firstly the beta version, then upgraded to the release version  on set) and in terms of reliability it hardly skipped a beat. I was expecting a few more issues to crop up considering some of the operational history with earlier builds but i was pleasantly surprised. There were some minor issues with the Red LCD and we lost one clip when the camera went into timelapse mode by itself, but all in all it worked as advertised.

More notes to follow soon including - my setup; the camera's best points; it's bad points, and things to improve.

The RED Combination

We shot the second test day with the RED camera in preparation for the feature film  'The Combination' to be shot here in Sydney in April. The camera, supplied by Lemac Films, behaved itself very well, apart from a niggling problem with setting the correct white balance setting. To get a natural looking daylight balance on the monitor we had to set manual WB to 10,000 degrees K which is clearly incorrect. Switching to the regular 'daylight' setting produced a rather blue image. So a bug i guess. I probably need to check the Reduser forum about it. Looking forward to seeing the pictures filmed out for us on 35mm.

RED rides again

Last week we got hold of a RED camera kit and lenses for testing for an upcoming indie feature film shoot i will DP. The gear was courtesy of Lemac Films in Sydney, who currently have two RED kits and are expecting a few more soon.

I was interested in having a look at the latest update, known as 'Build 14', and Lemac boys updated their camera to 14 when we arrived, which only took a couple of minutes. A few things have changed since i shot with the camera last year and have really helped the camera along as a viable option for a feature film shoot.

We tested the new 3K mode at 50 fps; recording to the CF card and switching to the REDDRIVE - when you change the shooting mode from 4K to 3K you must reformat the record media, ie 4K and 3K material cannot exist on the same media. So a good method may be to record the bulk of the film at 4K on the drives and put slo-mo 3K footage on the CF cards. Audio can be recorded and played back in the headphones; and the startup time seems to be halved, about 45 secs. All in all some good improvements. Simultaneous video outputs are still not enabled but apparently this will be fixed in Build 15, due in March.

We will be staging a location test shoot soon.

Varicam Hula Hoops

I recently completed a shoot with Panasonic's venerable but still impressive Varicam HD camera, a Summer Promo for cable channel TV1. We utilised the variable frame rates of 60 and 40 fps for much of the spot shot on Sydney's Cronulla Beach with two Varicams blazing away

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Stupid Stupid Man - series 2 on air

This 8-part comedy series was shot in August-September 2007 and is now on air in Australia on cable channel TV1 on  Tuesday nights - click here for official site and download of various Episodes.

We shot the show on the Canon XL-H1 HDV cameras and down-converted to SD with excellent results, for the full article see the Jan 2008 issue of Digital Media World Magazine . I'm on the cover, caught in a rather serious moment on what was really a very funny show.

Shooting with RED - 2

A bit more on my experience with the RED camera #22 on our TVC shoot in Sydney. Currently of course the camera only records to CF (Compact Flash) cards, and we had a maximum 8 GB size cards - about 6 of them. At 4K resolution, 25fps with Redcode compression we get about 4 and a half minutes record time per card. Actually it's about the same as a 400 foot roll of 35mm film. Pulling the CF card out and inserting another one and formatting it takes about the same time as changing a film magazine. The RED behaves more like a film camera than i would have imagined, at least for the time being while we are waiting for the hard drive. 

One of the most interesting things about this camera from a cinematographers point of view is that it is much like a film negative in the way that the imaging characteristics are 'fixed' in camera for later manipulation only in post. Unlike a HD video camera there are no in camera 'paint' or setup menus for adjusting the look of the pictures, no gamma controls, black level, knee adjustment etc. Just physical adjustments like the lens, iris or filters actually affect the RAW images. Even the white balance and ASA settings only affect the HD video 'preview' output and don't actually change the RAW image - but they are added as metadata for viewing in post. Really very much like a film negative where the characteristics are designed by the manufacturer and tend to be manipulated later at the lab or in telecine. 

Shooting with RED

Finally a new post to this blog, it's been awhile between drinks. But the good news is i have actually had a chance to shoot hands on with the RED ONE 4K digital camera last week here in Sydney for a low budget TVC for 'Lava Life'.
Last time i saw the RED was at the night held during SMPTE in July, and that camera was just a non-working dummy. This time i had use of Mike Seymour's (FX Guide.com) camera, serial number #22, plus the RED zoom lens and accessories. TVC Producer Jason Sinclair was keen to try out the RED, being on the waiting list himself, so he bit the bullet and hired the kit plus technician Jimmy for the ad shoot.

We had a very simple scenario of two girls sitting at a table in a leafy backyard, discussing the virtues of the Lava Life service. Direct sun was diffused with an overhead grid cloth and augumented with HMI and Kino lighting.

The RED camera proved to be pretty straightforward to use, and we had Jimmy to take care of our data management - and there was a lot of data. But the RED is still definately 'a work in progress' unit; we had a scary few minutes where the camera refused to accept any inputs until we turned it off and let it 'cool down' for five minutes or so. Heat does seem to be an issue and we were using a damp cloth draped over the body to try and help keep the camera cool, although it was hardly a hot day.

But the pictures looked great on my 17" HD monitor - the output via the HD-SDI is 720P and impressed everybody. But the biggest problem with the camera at the moment is the fact that there can be only one video output operational at a time, ie you can have the on-board monitor, OR the viewfinder, OR the external HD-SDI working. So we ended up shooting using the 17" monitor 'wheeled over' close to the camera so i could see it along with the director and client crowded around. Certainly not a real world solution but no doubt the RED team is working to fix this.

More details to follow soon.

Revelation continued

I had the opportunity to speak on two presentations at the Revelation Screen Conference, 'HD Heaven I and II', see the audience comment by Kate in an earlier post. The Artistic Director of Rev 2007, Megan Spencer kindly invited me to participate this year and it proved to be a great experience over the four days i was in Perth. Other talks such as the 'Inside Track' session with Jeremy Sims, director of 'Last Train to Freo', and the producer of low budget gem 'Boxing Day', Kristian Moliere were a highlight for me along with the chance to meet and chat with other filmmakers at the Rev Club and other venues. The special event sessions of the 'Wholphin' Shorts collections, presented by Wholphin's founder and editor Brent Hoff were a great example of what can be done with the short film medium, and in fact inspired me to think about short films again.
The opening night film 'Monkey Warfare' was terrific Canadian indie filmmaking, along with others such as 'Jesus Camp' and the world premiere of 'Streetsweeper' getting a great audience response. http://thestreetsweeper.blogspot.com/

Some extra notes from the Screen Conference audience:

Inside Track: Last Train To Freo & Boxing Day
Speakers
Kristian Moliere (Producer – Boxing Day), Jeremy Sims (Director – Last Train to Freo)
and Reg Cribb (Writer – Last Train to Freo)
Chair
Richard Sowada
Kicking off the Revelation Screen Conference we were treated to delicious insights from filmmakers Kristian Moliere, JeremySims and Reg Cribb. Similarly these two Aussie features were both shot in real time with a superb focus on performance and creative vision. The term ‘low budget’ is obviously one that varies greatly but it is certainly closely aligned with both Boxing Day and Last Train to Freo in differing degrees.
Directed by Kriv Stenders (Illustrated Family Doctor, Blacktown), Boxing Day was made for just $150,000 and funded entirely through the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund. This experimental approach to narrative was shot on HD with one location and six characters, rehearsed over two weeks and impressively shot in just one week. Kristian said they approached the production not unlike that of a short film where Kriv (who shot and directed at the same time) captured the whole film on mini DV during rehearsals to work out the choreography. With a 360 degree set, up to five actors conversing at once and 10 minute shots, the sound recording was a major challenge for the team who were fortunate enough to secure the talents of Bad Boy Bubby sound recordist James Currie. But the biggest feat of all was that the final 81 minute film was cut together from less than 100 minutes of rushes.
Last Train to Freo was supported via ScreenWest’s West Coast Visions initiative ($750,000) plus private investment. West Coast Visions sped up the process for this old school Perth team who were keen not only to bridge the gap between performance and storytelling and film but also cement the relationship of the creative team, or as Jeremy refers to it, the ‘tribe’ “Tribes can develop their own projects and their own storytelling”. The questions soon arose of what came first the film or the market? It’s that old commerce versus art debate – both as relevant as the other. The Last Train team decided not to secure market attachment prior to production and wanted to see what would happen if they owned the whole film themselves. After much international travel of physically taking the film to buyers overseas and an extensive learning curve the film has now successfully been sold to about 15 territories. But according to Jeremy the bottom line is that filmmakers have to have a great product and they’ve got to be smart “there is an arthouse audience out there – you just have to make a
shit hot film.” Being your own distributors is another possible solution becoming increasingly and certainly in the next five years distribution deals will be all electronic. The theatrical release, if nothing else, becomes an excellent promotional tool.
Kristian’s take on the commerce discussion is to concentrate on performance where, in the low budget world, the only way to compete with high budget flicks is to maintain the audience’s interest in the story.