Keep video and film seperate please!

[Shaw]

Personally I see no basis for the arguement that digital should not be used cinematically. The claim has been made but no real arguement has surfaced to back it up. If I have missed something please point it out! Just because something has always been done one way implies nothing about how good it is!

My fear is that the "look" that we all are trying to obtain will one day become very generic looking.

What look is that though? I honestly don't know - not trying to bash here. That's also where art comes into play. Creativity is a wonderful thing

This is what separated the high and the low. It is also what made certain films have quality to them that an audience can recognize and appreciate. Today...it seems that with digital innovation, "everyone" is able to make a great looking movie; and in turn, movies are becoming less and less unique looking.

This I don't understand. Anyone can go out and pick up a video camera but few can produce gorgeous images with one! Are tools becoming more accessible? Yes. Is artistry and talent? No. Is there going to be more competition for these sorts of jobs? Yes. Those who want to succeed will need to combine technical skill AND creativity. It's no longer just enough to know a few things. This is very good for the medium. Those who can produce professional results will always be in demand no matter how many people 'enter the arena.' Artificial boundaries created by cost are not the means for creating the best art. Open access to tools will produce the best. The classification of a pro shouldn't rest on what tools he uses but on how he uses them. Just because you have a tool that can produce pretty images doesn't make you a pro.

everything from selecting lenses and filmstock, to lighting the set. Digital filmmaking in a way is taking away from the artistic aspect of traditional cinematography.

The only thing taken away is film stock choice. Choosing lenses, lighting etc are all just as important as they once were. In fact, now that we have digital grading choosing a look (what choosing a stock effective was) has become even MORE complex and open.

Another response.. QUOTE: "FILM CAN BE PRICEY; IT'S A MATTER OF ECONOMICS." <--- Um...I'm glad you figured this out on your own. Filmmaking is supposed to be pricey. This is why many years ago there weren't as many amateur filmmakers.

This is really an elitist attitude. Why should it be pricey? So that just being a DP is enough for a high pay check? Really that is the only reasons for the arguement. Art shouldn't be restricted to those who can afford it. It restricts creativity. Wanting good pay isn't a bad thing of course!

Now, if we continue in the direction that we are headed, salaries for cinematographers are going to drop dramatically. Too many people are becoming cinematographers. The skill and art is being compromised.

This seems to be the heart of the issue. Yes, more people are becomming 'DPs' but how many of them are actually GOOD? This isn't a film vs digital issue this is an issue of wanting to be payed a high salary and ultimately the main issue at hand here. The thing is a good DP will always command a fine salary. Of course just being a DP will no longer qualify you for good pay - you will need to actually be talented and creative! It sounds like you j want to be, by virtue of being a cinematographer, paid a high salary. DPs will now need to prove that they are worth the amount they are paid. For pros, this shouldn't be too large of an issue.

This industry is about competition. And it seems to be getting more and more generic.

And this will make it only more competitive! What is getting more and more generic are generic cinematography skills. Now anyone can develop the skills necessary. Those who want to excel will need to not only have the skills be be able to utilize them in the most effective and creative manner.

EDIT: For the record, none of the above was meant as an attack. I'm not trying to question your skills and creativity just pointing out that these are the things which will guarantee a high pay check these days. Just being a DP is no longer enough. It sounds like you're a perfectly capable and creative person so I wouldn't be so worried.

 

[D_and_G]

I love film. I have shot film. But I love the realization of the artistic dream even more. :beer:

Edited (since Shaw said eveything I did above )...
RED # wish I was higher

 

[dasonras]

Red Questions...

Red Questions...

A few questions about Red:

1. That is great to say that it has super great resolution, but why does that matter if all that does matter is the output of the final product. Are we saying it has the capabilities of outputing high res?

2. How exactly does the camera use 35mm cine lenses and why would you want to? Just because it is a cine lens, doesn't mean it will produce good optics.

3. Is the image upside down?

4. What kind of mount system for the cine lenses and will it support variable lenses?

5.Is it battery operated?

6. What medium is the footage recorded to?

7. Is this a dream product or something that is actually in production?

8. Estimated cost and time frame for availability?

9. What is this mysterium chip?

 

[mike the beginner]

I like movies. I love watching a good movie. There are movies that most movie goers know has probably cost a fortune to make and there are movies that most people know cost very little to make. Apart from you guys, few movie goers look at a movie with a critical eye as to whether it was shot with film or video PROVIDED it looks good and sometimes when it looks bad (Blair Witch). Really keen movie buffs do watch out for a good story, special effects or good filming techniques and good acting etc but not whether it is film or video. Thats my opinion anyway and for what it is worth (probably nothing) but SHAW has just posted a cracker of a post. As each year goes by his comments will ring more true than ever......impressive and thats not from me as a beginner but me as a movie goer (got plenty of experience watching movies ) Michael

 

[taubkin]

1. Yes, ic can output dual HD-SDI or in the form of DATA, wich can be rendered as any type of video format you need, or just as film scans are output, in 2K or 4K.

2. It has a PL mount. You put whatever you like in it, and the image is formed into the mysterium sensor, that has the size of a S35mm gate.

3. The image is naturally upside down, but the camera knows that's the right orientation, so no, you will never have to flip the image in post, because the camera will display and output an image in correct orientation.

4. It will support any PL lens you have, including S16mm lenses. The problem with those is since only a central portion of the sensor is used, so only 2K acquisition is possible. Also, using S16mm lenses, you'll get s16mm Depht of Field. RED will also manufacture their own PL lenses, but only a 300mm prime has been announced so far.

5. Yes, onboard batteries. Probably they will supply AC options too.

6. The footage will be recorder to proprietary systems, using hard drives or flash digital magazines that can be attached to the camera, as well as a proprietary external RAID system, that will have to be wired to the camera, for high speed 4K work. (up to 60fps - progressive in 4K and 120fps in 2K or 1080p)

7. It's in development. In september they plan to show us some images, and they plan to start selling in the begginging of 2007. It can all change, of course, but they are still in schedule, according to their last announcements. It's not a dream product, because they have credibility. The owner of Oakley is the owner of RED, and he is a very resourceful man. Besides, their cheif crew is composed by VERY reputable developers in the Digital video world. Graeme is one of them.

8. Ops. Answered already...

9. The mysterium chip is their digital electronic imager. Is where the image from the lens is formed and where it's transformed into electrical signals. It's the heart of this camera, since it's an affordable 4K capable CMOS chip (works like those in digital still SRL cameras). Nobody knows where to get one of them, because it's been developed by RED themselves instead of just bought from other manufacturers.

Hope I managed to answer those. There are lots of people here that can do a better job, or fill in the gaps.

For more info, why not try www.red.com ?

 

[imgentertainment@mac]

A few questions about Red:

1. That is great to say that it has super great resolution, but why does that matter if all that does matter is the output of the final product. Are we saying it has the capabilities of outputing high res?

2. How exactly does the camera use 35mm cine lenses and why would you want to? Just because it is a cine lens, doesn't mean it will produce good optics.

3. Is the image upside down?

4. What kind of mount system for the cine lenses and will it support variable lenses?

5.Is it battery operated?

6. What medium is the footage recorded to?

7. Is this a dream product or something that is actually in production?

8. Estimated cost and time frame for availability?

9. What is this mysterium chip?

All these question can be found on the forum very easily just do a search or scroll down the page. For someone that is such a film guy and dose not know why it would be beneficial to shoot a higher resolution or why you would want to use a 35mm lense. that doesn't make any sense to me. search the forum and all will be reviled

 

[Haakon]

Now, i would not call myself a filmmaker, because i don't usually deal with writing or directing. I am simply a DP. I get paid to capture the scene. So... when people are at the theatre and would watch the film, i don't take any credit for how captivated they are to the story. My job was to capture.

I feel very sorry for you if you feel that as a DP, you're not a filmmaker. The image is the very thing that makes the story a film and not just some words on a paper! Everything from lighting to composition to how the camera moves all have implications on how an audience perceives a story - whether overtly or subconciously. I don't know who you are (your profile doesn't give any information), but I'm surprised to hear you make comments like these if you're indeed an experienced cinematographer. Are you sure you're not hanging around just to stir things up?

Secondly, yes, VIDEO IS A UNIQUE ART FORM, however, it should remain UNIQUE and not attempt to emulate the true look of film.

I realize this is your opinion and not fact (rarely anything is as black and white as "should" or "should not" - especially in art), but I think you'll find that most people won't agree with your mentality on this. As I mentioned before, Superman Returns is a great example of this. The fact is, video has already caught up to film if it's transparent to the audience. Whether or not you feel that the technology is as good a method (yet) or not to acquire images is irrelevant, which brings up the point I made earlier:

audiophiles would argue that vinyl records produce a much higher fidelity sound than digital audio. Just because we moved into a digital direction, doesn't mean that vinyls don't produce good sound.

Of course it doesn't mean that vinyl records don't produce good sound. But most people (probably 99% of the population, at this point) prefer the convenience, random accessibility, and digital features that the compact disc offers. In fact, most people are more than content listening to inferior quality mp3s on their iPods - most of which are created with highly compressed, ineffecient codecs that are most certainly lesser quality than their CD counterparts! So while everyone will draw their own line as to what's "good enough" (and assumingly, the people on a forum like this will care more about the quality of an image than the common layman), it doesn't mean you can't tell a compelling story or captivate an audience unless you're shooting on film. The number of movies shot on video are only going to continue to grow.

About the whole defining "what is digital cinema and what is video". My definition, if the image is recorded electronically onto any other medium other than film, it is video.

I agree with you on this. But while you seem to feel that video must always be inferior to film, I say that video is still in its infancy and we've just begun to see where digital acquisition is going to take us. Red takes a huge step in the advancement of video - not just for quality's sake, but accessibility's sake as well. 4K resolution at the price they're offering it at is huge. That's why there are so many people discussing it on this board.

 

[Graeme_Nattress]

It's funny to play the "definition game". Everything that is not film is video. Fine - film is fairly definate. But what does the reverse give us - what is everything that's not video? To my mind, video is a specific recording format - video tape. A video camera records to video tape. As much as I like film, and I'm very well known for liking (traditional) video, I'm also a big fan of this new definition - digital cinema. DC isn't tied to tape. What DC is, in my mind, is recording in the best quality possible, exactly what the sensor captured with as minimum alteration as possible. This is just like RAW in your digital stills camera - capture as much dynamic range as you can, and deal with all the colour decisions later. Video is differentiated from DC because in video, you process in camera. You produce YCbCr processed video from the info from the sensor. So you can call DC video if you want, but that's a limiting definition, not an enabling one. I like enabling definitions!

Graeme

 

[Haakon]

You'd consider a Digital8 camera from the late-90's to be something that shoots video, right? It shoots interlaced images onto digtal8 tape - that certainly fits your definition. But then what if you take the output from the firewire port on that camera and record the images directly to a computer's hard drive, bypassing the tape mechanism entirely? Those images, which, since they're digital, are identical. So one is video because it was shot on tape, but the other footage is not, because it was captured to a hard drive instead? Hmm, that's interesting - and I'd say ironic, since you're just going to digitize the video that was shot onto the tape back onto the hard drive anyway.

Point is, I agree that getting caught up in the definition game is silly (though please note that I didn't say that "everything that's not film is video" - there were other stipulations). But I also don't think you should be waving a banner that says that RED is somehow a completely different technology than anything video before it. It's just a highly-evolved (and assumingly superior!) variant, but at the end of the day, it's still video. And as I mentioned before, I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. We're entering a new industry-changing era as a result!

 

[Jarred Land]

this is getting a little silly.. everything ends up as video nowadays.. if we like it or not. This is the same fight people were having a mere 5 years ago with Digital still photography.. and we all know who won.

And I have no problem with Graeme standing on my roof waving his new little flag. Red is a new catagory as far as i am conderned.. if it promises to do what it says, it will be the first digital camera that film DP's wont need to comprimise to shoot with.

 

[JTmoney]

Independent films, that are not even shot on film, hmmm.....Should we correct that one as well? Or say you cut your finger? You ask for a band-aid, for your finger! Then someone speaks up and Says " Well technically we dont have a Band-aid, because as you know Band-aid is a trademark brand!" As you bleed all over the floor, He then says " Can I get you an adhesive bandage instead? " .....A friend asked "what you haveing for lunch?" I tell him a vegetable salad. He tells me " a tomato is a fruit".. Do I call it a fruit and vegetable salad? ....No cause only a fruit would care! Point is , Dont be a fruit! If say "Didital Cinema! " ? Who dont know what I'm talking about?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Why keep them seperate when we can just call them, "Fideo Vilms".

 

[Graeme_Nattress]

I think the main differentiator between traditional video and digital cinema, is that in video, processing decisions are made in camera, whereas with DC they're made in post production (not to say you can't make them in camera too, but you can change your mind later). It's the difference between shooting for the right look in camera, and capturing the max amount of information so you can decide on the look and how the image is processed in post. It's therefore more of a philosophical difference than a technical one, or "media" difference.

Waving the RED flag? I'm no commie Funny though - I'll have to get a little RED flag just so I can wave it now!

Graeme

 

[adaml]

Digital Cinema... I like the sound of it.

 

[Jarred Land]

Graeme you hit the nail on the head.. its exactly what you do with film.

Shoot first process later. Thats what makes shooting on film so damn easy. You have a whole boatload of play back and fort, on film you just gotta make sure your in focus and exposed more or less ( you can push a stop here or there in post) and process AFTER you shoot. Its not the medium.. its the workflow

 

[JTmoney]

No need to wave a RED flag Graeme! Digital Cinema Works for me It's a cinema tool..The word game is pointless
RED#334

 

[Gibby]

True. What I really like about shooting video and DC is having the ability to either shoot clean footage and tweak it in post, or since I'm an experienced shooter, director, and editor, to have the option for certain projects to tweak the camera at the acquisition stage to get the specific look I'm after. Video and DC gives me the versatility in field production and post production choices that I like and need for many of my projects.

On small projects, where I'm the director, cinematographer, and editor, I'll quite often shoot specialty footage up front, and simply cut and do a graphics pass in post.

If I know the raw footage will be released as stock footage (a massive cash cow by the way), I always shoot it clean, so that it has a wider ability to license out.

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

 

[Thomas Mathai]

however the big studies are moving more and more away from real 35mm, just to fake it digitally.

Maybe eventually, but not now.

Outside of several studio features shot digitally, it's still mostly 35mm.

Studios are cost concious, but I don't think to the point where they are shunning 35mm film. In fact on most studio films, the film costs aren't that much compared to the total budget.

In the end, the studio STILL wants a negative, be it film or digital origination.

More than likely it'll be a YCM separations that they can archive.

The person who can create a long term digital archive that doesn't degrade or become obsolete will be rich.

 

[Thomas Mathai]

I am somewhat of a purist. I believe video is video and film is film, and there shouldn't be any sense in trying to make video emulate film.

They are two entirely seperate and different mediums that satisfy different project needs.

If you want your project to look like 35mm film, then go out and buy an Arri.

Well RED is neither, it's digital. Zeros and Ones.

People aren't looking to emulate film, they are looking for a cinematic quality.

Cinematic quality will mean different things to different people, but that is the standard that a lot of people want to reach.

 

[Proteus]

Someone mentioned vinyl records....audiophiles would argue that vinyl records produce a much higher fidelity sound than digital audio. Just because we moved into a digital direction, doesn't mean that vinyls don't produce good sound.

Vinyl quality has been surpassed already not by the CDs but by the later DVD-AUDIO (no relation to DVD movie sound track format) and Super Audio CD.
With 4.3 times higher frequency response than CD (192khz) and 256 times higher dynamic range than CD (analogous to 24 stops total dynamic range) these formats can reproduce even the finest subtle qualities of sound that vinyl had an edge on it, beyond the human hearing, uncompressed and even in multichannel!