Monday, February 23, 2009

RED Camera Build 18 version 3.6.0 Let's jump right in



It's always a good time to eat junk food while watching women who could probably benchpress you. 

Last week I had a multi camera infomercial job, but only one camera at a time. The first day with the HDX900 went well, no problems. Learned a few new things about the HDX900- you can turn down the black gamma to crush your blacks a little better than you can with the pedestal. Also, as you increase gain your contrast increases--counteract that by decreasing your gamma.

Rest of the job was RED Camera and this was my second time using the new build. Encountered a few inconsistencies. I was excited to use build 18 again. Because we had to go straight to tape on set I got to do a lot of color correction in camera. We started by upping the contrast and then began to use the different color gain channels to warm up the image. Ultimately we found that the white balance alone achieved the look we wanted and was a cleaner solution. Most of this job was shot at 120 frames per second, so we had to shoot 2K (2:1) at 120 frames we were pushing the edge of the light we had at our disposal. I was able use exposure and brightness controls to boost the exposure on darker skin tones without having to re-light. 

Had a few problems with the 2K. First I noticed that when I set the framerate to 120 and adjusted the shutter the image was excessively dark. Readjusted the framerate and got basically another stop of exposure back. This seemed to happen fairly consistently; if I adjusted my shutter first then framerate it did not seem to be a problem. Also found the 2K playback through the VTR system to be soft. Whereas the 4K through the same system was sharp. All of the final clips were sharp regardless of the softness of the playback. 

We also shot the rest of job at 4KHD allowing us to have properly HD scaled QT proxies. This along with in camera color grading helped to speed the export the on set export to tape. This HD mode is very handy, it is unfortunate that it does not carry over to 3K and 2K. There are quite a few new features in build 18, the few I like the best so far are the View RAW Histogram, the exportable user settings, user definable aspect ratio, and the ability to diable the EVF Wheel.

Monday, February 16, 2009

RED Camera, HDX 900 Prep

Today I prepped a 3 day job--2 cameras, RED and a Panasonic HDX900. Standard RED Camera package with Arri ultra primes. The move to build 18 version 3.6.0 is exciting. I'd used 18 before, but most of the rental cameras are still on build 16 (being the most stable build). Sadly I cannot be specific about the changes between builds; and will note only the immediate improvements I saw. Among them, 4KHD was added to the resolution list- with this resolution setting there is no need to scale or crop your QuickTime proxy settings before editing. For example, the high resolution proxy is 1920x1080. So by applying your look in camera your offline editing can start immediately. This applies to 2k and 3k shooting as well. There are some additional metering functions; the most interesting of which is the raw histogram option in the view finder meter menu. Timecode out option will be big for sound. Lastly I'd like to point out the addition of user definable aspect ratios as well as exportable user settings. Check out the Red User pages for a full list of improvements.

Ran a few tests at the rental house. Everything downloaded and played fine. No sound issues. Have not taken it through a full post, but do not foresee any issues. Tomorrow is HDX900 only, fortunately I have cine style lenses. Nothing too exciting- informercials rarely are. RED Camera the following two days. Best part of this job is that we will be dumping QuickTimes to DVC Pro Deck to speed imput into their post production pipeline. Sadly this workflow does not does not take full advantage of all RED has to offer, so we will be doing a lot of painting in camera.

Yeah, the photo's not a red camera, but me and my Captain sure can prep. 

Sunday, February 15, 2009

nike snowboarding

2008
1st AC on RED CAMERA

nike.com


2008
1st AC on RED CAMERA

links to other spots:
start training true (flexible)
start training true (cameleon)
start training true (feather)

Oregon Lottery "Clue" Commercial

2008
1st AC, 35mm

Full Commercial

Miss Scarlet Teaser


me goofing around on set

Friday, February 13, 2009

Benoit Pioulard "Ragged Tint" Music Video



2008
Director: Ryan Jeffrey
DP: Matt Barbee
Shot on HD Digital Video

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Music Fest NW


2008
1st AC, RED CAMERA

Friday, February 6, 2009

The Dead Trees Music Video


2008
DP skills on loan to this collaboration between The Dead Trees and Benji Brucker