Frame Rate

When the original iPhone first launched, I thought to myself, This thing is incredible, but I’ll never get one because it’s too expensive. Then, last summer the iPhone 3g launched at $200. At that point my interest in this little gadget went up quite a bit. Still, I waited. And for people who know me, that’s a difficult task to achieve. I’m always drawn to the latest gadget. I finally jumped on the bandwagon in December and I’m glad I did. Not for its entertainment value, per se, but for its marketing value.

In my line of work, it’s much better if you can SHOW people what you do, rather than just TELLING them. So, I loaded my phone with some of my demo reel samples. Now, when I’m out networking or meeting with potential clients, I’m able to instantly show them the latest thing I’ve been working on. Not only are they impressed with the work, but they’re impressed that I can show it to them on my phone. Plus, when you’re in a large group, the iPhone gets attention. That’s another plus for me. People will come over to see what we’re watching and I have an opportunity to market my business even further. Use tools that are available to you and you can market your services in new and unique ways. And remember, video will always grab someone’s attention.

This year’s Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival is rapidly approaching. If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend, I would highly encourage you to do so. The caliber of submissions gets higher every single year, and this year marks Sidewalk’s 10th anniversary (so you know there’s going to be some special stuff).

As always, Sidewalk will soon be airing promotional commercials to garner interest in the festival. What’s special about the promo this year is the fact that I had the opportunity to work on the shoot as Director of Photography. Filament Artists produced. The 30-second spot was filmed with Alabama talent and Alabama crew, right here in Birmingham. Hopefully it will further highlight the talented filmmakers and the growing film production market here in our community.

We shot the commercial with the Panasonic HVX-200 in DVCPro50 format at 24fps. To read more of my insights into this particular camera, check out two previous posts, “First Impressions” and “Some Considerations.” I won’t give away anything about the commercial’s concept. You will just have to wait until it airs. There’s a possibility that the spot will also screen before each film in each venue during the festival. But ultimately that’s a call left up to the good folks in the Sidewalk office. Until then, look for the commercial on WBRC Fox6  and Bright House cable.

I came across this juicy little website yesterday — FreshDV. If you work in DV, HDV, HD (anything video) either as a professional or a hobbyist, you will love this site. It has an RSS feed, so you can subscribe to their blog. They have tutorials on topics like calibrating a light meter, working with Adobe Production Studio, and how to find financing and distribution for your film projects. They also have reviews on the latest gear, videos from conferences like NAB, and a podcast. I’ve already started listening to one of their recent discussions on the Sony EX1. This is a great site with a wealth of information. If you’re in to video, you need to check it out.

Every DP (Director of Photography) needs a good camera package at his disposal, but assembling one usually takes a lot of time and a lot of money. For smaller production houses with less capital, getting the camera package together usually means getting it a la carte. Yesterday a friend of mine from Filament Artists turned me on to Zacuto - a one-stop-shop for camera package sales and rentals. They bundle some of your favorite prosumer gear (HD and SD) with specific accessories to fit your shooting needs. You can rent, purchase, or rent-to-own. A quick glance at their website will show you that these guys rent and sell some serious gear. And they recognize and cater to the various needs of the cinematographer.

I finally got a first-hand look at the Red One this past Tuesday night. Some guys from Dead Workers Party came down from Huntsville, bringing with them their latest aquisition - the Red camera. As of this writing, the camera is technically still in beta testing, but will soon go into full production. They guys from Dead Workers Party spoke briefly about the camera, technical specs, workflow, and issues they’ve encountered thus far.

The Red One represents the latest in digital video technology and an advancement in video resolution. The gap between film and video just got a lot smaller and already filmmakers are flocking to this camera because of its extreme versatility, and incredible image reproduction. The Red One has been the center of much hype over the past several months and industry professionals are lining up to get their hands on this thing. In fact, if you want to purchase one, the waiting list is now several months long.

The Red is basically a camera body, allowing users to build their own camera package, much like a film camera. It runs off of a computer hard drive, so it behaves in much the same way. You have to boot it up when you want to use it, and everything is stored in a 320GB hard drive (which stores about 2 hours worth of footage). You can also shoot to copmact flash cards, although each card only holds about 4 minutes. The great thing about the computer-based interface is that the camera will always be up to date with the latest technologies. It is constantly adapting. Users can download updates from Red, then program those updates into the camera. I think that it certainly adds plenty of shelf-life to the camera.

The resolution of the Red is incredible. It shoots at 4K and 2K (4K being the rough equivalent of 35mm film and 2K the rough equivalent of super 16mm) meaning the footage is incredibly deep, incredibly large, and incredibly awesome. You would have to “down convert” to get the footage into a 1080i or 1080p workspace. The Red shoots in a RAW format, and anyone who is a digital SLR user understands the advantages of shooting RAW images. Shooting in RAW gives you an uncompressed image, allowing almost infinite manual control over image manipulation, like color correction, hue, saturation, brightness, contrast, etc. The Red is rated at an ISO of around 320, so users should light their scenes accordingly.

There are some issues with Red Cine, the post-production software and there are concerns about the massive hard drive space needed to store all the footage (the editor from Dead Workers party said that he uses 4TB of hard drive and considers that “temporary storage”). However, the Red One is most definitely going to be THE camera for filmmakers, commercial directors, and other industry professionals.