Mysterium sensor...

[Jannard]

The heart of our camera is the Mysterium® sensor. We stated before that we had images from a "test slice" that proved the design of our sensor. Now we have images from a full size sensor. We still have a long way to go, but there is considerable celebration in our camp. We expect that we are currently on schedule for showing 4k images in the fall (knock on wood).

Jim

[Isaac_Brody]

Woohoo! :beer:

[Jarred Land]

Thanks for the update jim.

That footage in the fall (assuming its good) is gonna be the highlight of a rather boring summer for alot of people.

[Christian Berg]

Jim, when did you start developing the Mysterium sensor? I figure its been in the works for som time, right? Have you seen any 4k images yet?

Jarred, some post... Can´t wait...

[taubkin]

Open up a bottle of Champagne for me Jim!

Congratulations!

[Jarred Land]

Jim also announced the body has taken a totally new design again, The throughput of grey matter over there is incredible.

[Gibby]

A 1,000 mile (or kilometer!) journey has a collection of waypoints. Getting images from the full-sized sensor is definately a key waypoint...

Congratulations to the RED development team! Thanks for keeping everyone in the info loop - something very few manufacturers do for us.

Looking forward to IBC!

Gibby
RED camera #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com

[acrochordon]

Dear Mr. Jannard:

I humbly request that memebers of DVXuser be able to request what scenes are filmed for the demo in the fall. I saw a demo of the SONY XDCAM-HD. What impressed me most was the filming of red flowers. I made a DVD of flowering trees with a Canon GL1 and used Final Cut Pro. I am lookoing to move up to HD. I am considering the RED camera. The scenes that gave my camera the most problems were sunlit red flowers with backlit green leaves against a clear blue sky. The color red causes "bleeding" or "chroma crawl." The color green when fully saturated appears yellowish. The color blue, due to its weaker wavelength and required amplification, causes noise. Also if a flower moves slighty in the wind, but not enough for GOP compression codecs to detect it, the compressed video can apear jerky at the boundaries of the GOP. A backlit tree can cause purple fringing at the edge of the leaves.

My request for the demo is to film bright red flowers against a clear blue sky with a slight wind blowing. If RED can do that, I am sold.

Please form a thread in this forum where other DVXusers can request what senes they would like to see that would be a test of RED.

Thankyou,
acrochordon

[Jannard]

Our plan is to put our "breadbox" into the hands of trained professionals and let them put the camera through it's paces as they see fit. We won't encourage or discourage them as to what they shoot or how they shoot it. The names lining up for this exercise is pretty impressive. My fear is that if we start making a list of things to shoot, we will never satisfy everyone. Our goal is to have three or four great pieces to show at IBC. Much more shortly after. Plenty of stuff before we ship.

Jim

[Emanuel]

Hi Jim!

Good news! When are you saying "FALL" and "IBC" maybe you must say September instead a period of time of THREE months* that ends in the next December 21st or am I wrong?

Emanuel

* a considerable amount of time for anxious people that are waiting since a long time ago perhaps even before than the RED's announcement of the last December...

[Haakon]

My request for the demo is to film bright red flowers against a clear blue sky with a slight wind blowing. If RED can do that, I am sold.
My request for the demo is to shoot empty Starburst wrappers (tropical flavor only!) on a table made of tofu with flamingos in the background giving birth. If RED can do that, I am sold.



...come on people.

[Blaine]

My request for the demo is to shoot empty Starburst wrappers (tropical flavor only!) on a table made of tofu with flamingos in the background giving birth. If RED can do that, I am sold.



...come on people.
That is the funniest thing I've seen today!! :grin: :grin:
:thumbsup:

[FatBird19]

I want to see nothing but static shots of mountains

[Isaac_Brody]

I want footage out of a hotel room in Amsterdam. :thumbsup:

[Blaine]

I want footage out of a hotel room in Amsterdam. :thumbsup:
How about footage INTO a hotel room in Amsterdam...oops! sorry not on this site. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

[Kubrick71]

I pray you are in contact with Steven Soderbergh, it would be wrong, a tragedy to cinema, for him to not be included in this evolution of filmmaking.

I'd like to remind those who have forgotten about Steven Soderbergh's oscar acceptance speech after winning Best Director for Traffic. “Rather than thank some of them publicly, I think I’m going to thank them all privately, I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating. I don’t care if it’s a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music. Anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us. I think the world would be unlivable without art.”

[Batutta]

My life would be unlivable, literally, without science. Art's great, yeah, but it's a luxury.

[Gibby]

Kubrick71,

A point of trivia on Steve Soderberg: he began his filmmaking career producing/directing/shooting surfing films in the late '70's/early '80's. Right from the start he showed good talent for capuring aesthetics and telling the story.

His early surfing films: "A Matter of Style" (1980), "Ocean Fever" (1980's), and "Ticket to Ride" (1983). In the mid to late '80's he started making the transition to feature films.

If you'd like to check out his early surfing films, here's a link:

http://www.obsurfshop.com/Surfshop/Videos/195.html

Like many of the top-tier directors and filmmakers, Soderberg has been real versatile in the genres of film they work in.

Like Soderberg, my start in motion media production was in surfing films, alternative sports, and adventure travel in the late '70's/early '80's. Then I branched into multiple other genres of production. A couple of my previous surfing documentaries (1997), which aired on Outdoor Life Network (OLN), are contained on a DVD carried on the same index that Soderberg's are. Here's a link:

http://www.obsurfshop.com/Surfshop/Videos/245.html

Long before Soderberg hit the "big time" he was a grassroots indie filmmaker. I would think Steve Soderberg would be highly interested in RED. With Soderberg’s alternative sports filmmaking roots, that paralleled the time frame of the development of Oakley, and Jim Jannard being the founder of RED, it seems like a perfect fit for collaboration.

Gibby
RED camera #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com

[Jarred Land]

Soderberg has always been a fan ofdigital filmmaking.. too bad Full Frontal was a disaster for Canon. As Gibby stated i think hes a perfect fit.. I would say even a little more then even Mann, as long as he doesnt butcher the footage :)

[acrochordon]

Breadbox. So that is the secret internal code word RED engineers use? Hummmm. I call my Mac G5 my cheese grater.

[donatello]

"too bad Full Frontal was a disaster for Canon"

Disaster is Katrina htting new orleans !!

i think canon would disagree ... canon got alot of free advertisement out of it ... maybe XL1 sales didn't increase but other models did ...

so why do we rip apart filmmakers that use a digital camera that give their projects the look they want !!! StevenS said he wanted a "dirty " image ... so that dirty image didn't show the BEST image that the XL1 could produce ..
how many 35mm films have you seen and they are not the BEST image that 35mm can produce ?
once you hand a person a RED or any camera and tell them to make a project - it is subject to artistic decisions and that includes the final "look"... if RED was to hand me a camera ( BIG hint-hint) to test i'm not going to go out and try to make it look like 35mm ...

[Gibby]

Donatello,

Soderberg simply does what all good directors do - analyze the production values and "look and feel" that most maximizes the project, and direct so as to achieve that end.

You don't need to worry about RED bringing you in to test the RED One, I already invited you down the coast to shoot with my RED camera, one of the first ones to be delivered.

See ya in SLO! Sorry I missed you at Cine Gear.

Gibby
RED camera #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com

[Kubrick71]

Full Frontal, what a great movie!

Thanks for that link Gibby. What's up with Steven adding a 'h' to Soderbergh? Is that mistake at the website?

Soderbergh has something deep in his personality which I believe could change the form of films, or come as close as possible.(2001 a space odyssey)



I don't think that's true. I think you have some very definate ideas about what should be done with Danny and I'd like to know what they are.
You think maybe he should be taken to a doctor?
When do you think maybe he should be taken to a doctor
As soon as possible?!?!?!?

[taubkin]

Jesus Christ, It just got to me! I have to raise 17000 Bucks!

[Jarred Land]

"too bad Full Frontal was a disaster for Canon"
i think canon would disagree ... canon got alot of free advertisement out of it ... maybe XL1 sales didn't increase but other models did ... ..

actually its just the opposite. Canon spent more money then ever before in its prosumer histroy on advertising the fact he was shooting full frontal with the XL1. They spent a fortune. I guess they just assumed it would look good.. when Soderberg(h) crippled the footage from the canon to make it look very bad, heads rolled and it went down as a P.R dissaster.. and which is whey Steven hasn't pimped anything for Canon since.

[Sidderke]

Jesus Christ, It just got to me! I have to raise 17000 Bucks!

LOL, yeah, it could be about time to start thinking about that.

About Canon and the XL1: I think they better had advertised Danny Boyle's 28 days later, which made the XL1 shine a lot more.
But that movie was much later produced and made then Full Frontal, if I'm not mistaken.

[Gibby]

Though you'll find it mis-spelled Stephen Soderbergh, Steven Soderberg, and various other ways - his name is Steven Soderberg.

If someone at Canon didn't fully discuss the production values that Soderberg was trying to achieve with Full Frontal, it was a mistake on that person's part. The concept of Canon supporting a notable director's feature film that was to be shot on DV with the XL1 was a very good promotional concept at face value. Not ascertaining that Soderberg wanted to dirty down the look of the XL1 footage was probably a mistake.

I've used multiple cameras from virtually every manufacturer for my projects. Everything from F900's down to DVX100's. I've used an XL1 and an XL2 for many of the standard definition national television projects I've worked on - when the look & feel, interchangeable lens ability, etc. of the XL1/XL2 cameras made sense for those particular projects. My DSLR and all of it's lenses are Canon. I've also used tons of ENG-style Canon HD and SD lenses over the years, with excellent results.

My take on the Full Frontal/Soderberg/XL1 issue is that someone at Canon didn't fully understand the production values planned for the finalized version of the feature. I also feel that Soderberg's choice of look & feel for Full Frontal was a good one for portraying the emotions he was trying to convey in the movie.

Sidenote: My most recent Emmy Award was for my work as a director on a nationally airing television program, I’m a national Emmy Awards judge who regularly has to judge specific skills like direction, and I have a very high opinion of Steve Soderberg’s work as a director.

To move this thread back onto RED, I expect that the RED One camera will be versatile enough to be used in a myriad of genres, cine-style and ENG-style, and by every one from new professionals who may have to rent the entire system for smaller projects, up to Oscar-winning professionals like Steve Soderberg who could use it on features.

Same tool – re-accessorized for many users and uses.

Gibby
RED camera #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com

[zakforrest]

actually its just the opposite. Canon spent more money then ever before in its prosumer histroy on advertising the fact he was shooting full frontal with the XL1. They spent a fortune. I guess they just assumed it would look good.. when Soderberg(h) crippled the footage from the canon to make it look very bad, heads rolled and it went down as a P.R dissaster.. and which is whey Steven hasn't pimped anything for Canon since.

not to be a tool, but in ocean's twelve that little guy is rocking the XL1/XL2 in some scenes for almost no reason, jus twalking around in the background shooting stuff with it.

[Zig_Zigman]

Full Frontal would be a very good movie if re-shot. It looked like crap, and was even too irritating to get past the look to get into the story.

That said, I love the fact that Soderberg will try almost anything. He's like Gus Van Sant, either hit or miss but baby they take some big swings.

[KHendrix2]

I agree with Zig. "Full Frontal" looked absolutely horrible. I saw it on the big screen when it first came out. There were 15 people in the theater when the movie started and when it was less than half over, all that were left were the 5 people in the group I was with.

I tried watching "Traffic" but all of the hand held camera work really took me out of the story. Soderberg really needs to stop shooting his own movies. I just don't care for his "syle".

[Greg Lowry]

Ocean's 11 and 12 and Solaris are beautifully photographed movies. Solaris particularly. Soderberg just gets better and better as a cinematagrapher IMO. I haven't seen Bubble.

[Kubrick71]

It's certainly impossible for everyone to agree and opinions make us different, which is a good thing. I don't think that Full Frontal, along with Bubble, are movies for mass audiences. I understand many people walking out during Full Frontal just as I understand when people haven't heard of F For Fake. I think some movies can be particularly appealing to other filmmakers, in a filmmaking sense. F For Fake is an example but is more difficult to explain why, take the way Stanley Kubrick films appear to be lit by natural sources. It always seems as though you can identify the sources of light he used, something other filmmakers admire but is lost on most of the audience. Although Kubrick's achievement in cinematography is opposite of the bad picture quality Soderbergh used in Full Frontal, I think they are both directorial decisions which create the movie we experience. Perhaps Full Frontal would benefit some from having the video footage improved while keeping the realistic feel it presents.

Syriana kind of caught me off guard with the shakey hand camera feel but after a few minutes I was right back into the story. Unless the movement makes you feel sick or dizzy I don't see what is distracting. I strongly urge to you watch Traffic again if you can stand the camera work, the story is great and the acting/directing/editing are even better in my opinion.

Check out Bubble for the cinematography of the F-950 if nothing else. Soderbergh shot Bubble using only available lighting of the locations, never adjusting lamp positions or changing the way places were lit. If you appreciated Solaris I think you will enjoy Bubble very much, for all it's aspects. It has an amazing audio commentary too with Soderbergh and Mark Romanek.

[HenryK]

not to be a tool, but in ocean's twelve that little guy is rocking the XL1/XL2 in some scenes for almost no reason, jus twalking around in the background shooting stuff with it.
And in Superman Returns there is a guy doing the exact same thing with a JVC HD10u, again for no reason.

[Greg Lowry]

I tried watching "Traffic" but all of the hand held camera work really took me out of the story. Soderberg really needs to stop shooting his own movies. I just don't care for his "syle".

It's important to recognize that the handheld work in Traffic is a directorial choice. The director chooses, the cinematographer executes. For Traffic, they just happen to be the same person.

[Gibby]

Many credible sources list his last name as Soderbergh, with the “h”, so perhaps they are right on the spelling.

He does take artistic chances, both as a director and cinematographer, but then again the good ones usually do. If you view the films he has directed and shot, he uses a wide variety of styles. Some actually approach traditional in production values, while others are patently avant garde.

Full Frontal was obviously an experiment, and definitely wasn’t for everyone, but I understand what he was trying to do/say with the piece. It was not commercially successful, and frankly I don’t think it was intended to be. I had no problem watching Traffic, reference the hand held shooting. To me, the shooting style enhanced the suspense and immediacy of the picture, almost like a “fly on the wall/you are there” POV shot. Some very trained eyes liked his cinematography on Traffic, as he was nominated by the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) for the Best Cinematography Award for his camera work on the film, and won the Best Cinematography Award from the Chicago Film Critics Association.

I agree with Greg’s opinion of Soderbergh’s cinematography in Solaris, Oceans 11, and Oceans 12. I think a lot of cinematographers get in a creative rut and their definition of “good cinematography” is very narrow. They don’t take chances, and they are afraid of the harsh criticism of their traditionalist peers. Soderbergh is not like that. Artistically he isn’t afraid to stretch in his craft, and he’s not afraid of what the peanut gallery of critics will say.

Traffic and Erin Brockovich were both very successful commercially. What Soderbergh accomplished in the same year (2000/2001) with those two films is nothing short of phenomenal:

The first director in almost 60 years to be nominated for an Oscar for his direction of two different films in the same year.

Traffic – 5 Oscar nominations, 4 Oscar wins, Best Director Oscar win, overall 57 international and national award wins and 46 nominations. Critics and award judges didn’t seem to be distracted by Soderbergh’s hand held shooting, and neither did the viewing public.

Erin Brockovich - 5 Oscar Nominations, 1 Oscar win (Julia Roberts). 26 international and national award wins, and 41 nominations.

Soderbergh is a versatile, progressive, risk-taking director and cinematographer. Nobody directs or shoots projects that are universally acclaimed by the public and the industry critics. I like directors and cinematographers that aren’t afraid to get out of their comfort zone, and the audience’s, and stretch their craft.

When I act as a judge for the Emmy Awards, and we're specifically judging directing or camera work, beyond the usual skills and production values, I always look for a sense of uniqueness and challenge in the work.

Gibby
RED camera #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com

[Greg Lowry]

You are, of course, correct on the Soderbergh spelling. Apologies to Mr. S ... with the g on the end.

I agree, what makes Soderbergh so interesting is his willingness to take chances. And anyone who has both directed and directed the photography of a project of any scope has to be doubly impressed. Let's not forget that he also edits his own movies under yet another pseudonym (Mary Ann Bernard -- go figure).

[Proteus]

The discussion if very interesting but I'd like to ask a question about the Mysterium sensor:

What is the size of the sensor?
Is it 24.4 x 13.7mm as listed in the "S35" column of "format options"?
http://www.red.com/product/format-options/

[acrochordon]

Hey Proteus, What part of Myster(y)ium don't you understand. The Myster stands for Mystery. If they told you, they would have to change the name to Knownium. The only way to find out is to become a member of the RED team.

[ZaneIsNumber1]

What is the size of the sensor?
Is it 24.4 x 13.7mm as listed in the "S35" column of "format options"?
http://www.red.com/product/format-options/

I believe that's the size, subject to change at any time, of course (their usual disclaimer).

Zane

[evinsky]

My favorite Soderbrgh is "The Limey" awesome camera work fantastic acting by Terranced Stamp and the most creative editing since Pulp Fiction.

[Zig_Zigman]

Limey also has a great script by Lem Dobbs.

Nobody is denying SS's talent. I know I would have been royally pissed if I was an investor on the Full Frontal project and saw the finished product. I have to believe it didn't turn out as well as SS hoped and he intentionally degraded the image so that he wouldn't have to barely miss expectations.

Saw Bubble. Good movie. Definitely looked video, and was suprised to see it was shot with the 950. Knowing now it was shot with available light (good tidbit!) proves how much lighting means to a film to "look good".

You have to admire a guy who feels no pressure to pump out blockbusters, and will dip into the quagmire of the independent flick as often as he pleases.

Wish Spielburg would try it.

[fiercecurry]

What was brilliant about Full Frontal is that the DV footage was degraded to allow for a visual contrast to the 35mm footage that depicted "film" reality.
The film within the film is more vivid than reality. Yet the reality portion of the film was more raw and emotional. Makes sense? Probably not, thats why most people did not like it. Challenge people's notion about what a film should be and they dismiss it as "awful" "stupid" "artsty" "amateurish".

[Proteus]

Hey Proteus, What part of Myster(y)ium don't you understand. The Myster stands for Mystery. If they told you, they would have to change the name to Knownium. The only way to find out is to become a member of the RED team.

Actually there are two mysteries: One is the Mysterium RED sensor that we try hard to guess what it will be like and the second one is the … Mysterious RED customers that the RED team is trying hard to figure out what *we* like...

So things are much more complicated, we are equally mysterious and neither mystery can be solved by payment! :happy: