Chasing with RED

[Phil Bates]

We will be chasing this coming week with the RED-MX Camera. The RED is a digital cinema camera that is becoming accepted as an alternative to shooting film for features. Recent movies shot with the RED include The Informant, Knowing, The Book Of Eli, and coming up, Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. It would be great to catch a tornado with this camera!

We'll be shooting at a resolution of 3840 x 2160 (2X HD), using Nikon zooms rather than PL cinema lenses because they're less bulky. The setup will be similar to the image below without the matte box. Annette (shown on right) will be the shooter.

Phil

http://www.artbeats.com

"Soli Deo Gloria"

 

[Ben Tillotson]

I have heard a lot about the quality of RED cameras and have often wondered if any chasers were using one of these. I would really be interested to know how things turn out. If I had the money this would definitely be the camera of choice.

 

[Phil Bates]

Ben, I will post an image if we capture something cool.

If I could recommend a good storm-chasing camera, it would probably be the fixed-lens Scarlet, in development by Red right now. Digital cinema quality, 3K resolution and should blow away any pro-sumer HD camcorder out there. I expect it will be 6 months before they ship. Tentative price around $5K.

Phil

 

[Jason Foster]

I had to search a bit, but I remember this thread from a while back:

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=16036

Good to see someone will get one out in the field now. It does seem to have proven itself more versatile than expected.

 

[Darren Addy]

I highly recommend not sticking that out of your window in the hail.

Also curious what sort of computer set-up you have for editing those filesizes. Have a back door to Pixar's rendering farm?

 

[Rob H]

I looked into "going RED" a few years ago when I was working on some short films and the quality to cost ratio and specs really impressed me. What are your plans for this footage?

 

[Terrence Cook]

Quite envious of that set-up, NAB 2010 had dual RED's side by side in a 3-D rig, it was ridiculous! I hope you guys have luck with that thing, slow storm motions would be your best friend to be able to sling that thing on a tripod. Hand held would be Intense!

I am also curious what project/intention you have shooting with a RED.

 

[John Wetter]

Also curious what sort of computer set-up you have for editing those filesizes. Have a back door to Pixar's rendering farm?

Not to answer for them but the only reliable setup I've seen is using Final Cut Studio with ProRes codecs on Final Cut Server...

 

[Phil Bates]

I highly recommend not sticking that out of your window in the hail.

Also curious what sort of computer set-up you have for editing those filesizes. Have a back door to Pixar's rendering farm?

Mac Pro Towers for processing the files. I don't do editing per se since we are processing single clips. I use After Effects for color correction, frame blending, and basic fixes. File sizes aren't too bad since RedCode is very efficient.

We do use a small 5-CPU render farm. It can keep up, -usually.

Phil

 

[Phil Bates]

I looked into "going RED" a few years ago when I was working on some short films and the quality to cost ratio and specs really impressed me. What are your plans for this footage?

Since we are a stock footage company, it will go into our library. However, our business model is not typical for what storm chasers are used to. We offer footage for movies, TV, events, game developers, corporate and commercials. Almost everything BUT editorial/media/news. In fact, in our world (royalty-free licensing) tornado shots are almost unheard of.

Here's an example: One of our largest selling titles is Storm Front. ("http://www.artbeats.com/collections/237"[/COLOR]]http://www.artbeats.com/collections/237) (We not only license single clips, we also sell collections of 30 or so clips. They cover nearly every category from Healthcare to Fire Effects, to Aerials of cities.) Storm Front is nothing that anyone on this forum would be impressed with. Simple storms, rain shafts, lightning and threatening clouds. Nothing dramatic. Yet, in my world this material sells very well, even just SD. But it must be shot well on stable tripods with high-end cameras. (Storm Front was shot on 35m film).

It is fascinating to me that there is almost no overlap between my customer base and those who license footage from storm chasers. After selling footage now for 14 years, is only THIS YEAR that we have started representing older storm chaser footage shot in Beta-SP and DV SD formats.

To capture a tornado or even interesting supercell structure like massive cumulus, shelf clouds, beaver tails, crawling lighting, etc. in 4K will be a huge deal for us.

Phil

 

[Phil Bates]

Quite envious of that set-up, NAB 2010 had dual RED's side by side in a 3-D rig, it was ridiculous! I hope you guys have luck with that thing, slow storm motions would be your best friend to be able to sling that thing on a tripod. Hand held would be Intense!

Yes, hand-held is challenging! The camera with rails and accessories weighs nearly 20 lbs. The boot-up time is around a minute, so when chasing, Annette sits on the back seat with the camera in her lap fired up and ready to go. When the vehicle stops, a helper grabs the tripod, spreads the legs and levels the head. Annette just snaps the camera in place and she's ready to roll. After a full day of chasing, she will have horizontal bruises on her legs from holding the camera. She's incredibly determined and passionate about what she does.

Phil

 

[Phil Bates]

Not to answer for them but the only reliable setup I've seen is using Final Cut Studio with ProRes codecs on Final Cut Server...

I think you're right that most RED editors use Final Cut, but RedCine-X is also gaining traction. For us, the RED plug-in for After Effects is the best tool for our needs. We output 4K and HD Photo JPEG QuickTime movie files. We've found that it's the best format for retaining as much quality from the RAW file as possible, yet compressed enough to be practical or delivery. It's not the best playback codec, but we know it will just be ingested into another project anyway.

Phil

 

[Darren Addy]

Phil,
I'd like to welcome you to Stormtrack. Appreciate the info you share on the video front. You've clearly got the experience and I think you'll find (like anywhere) that when you are willing to share information others will reciprocate.

Regarding the RED camera, how is its performance in the low light and dynamic range?

I'm curious as to who your chase partner(s) might be? Is this your first year attempting to capture storm footage? I'm assuming that this is for ArtBeats, the company you founded?

For those interested in more info Phil shares on the RED camera, he was featured on a CreativeCow podcast on the subject in Nov. '08.

ArtBeats offers a lot of AfterEffects video tutorials as well as written tutorials on his site.

For those interested in more information on the RED Scarlet that Phil referred to in an earlier post:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Red-Digital-Cinema-Unleashes-the-Scarlet-34906.htm

http://www.red.com/epic_scarlet/

 

[Phil Bates]

Thank you Darren!

Regarding the RED low light performance, I think this was one of the weaknesses of the original RED ONE. When you would try to lift the blacks or even the mids, you could easily reveal noise. The MX sensor upgrade totally solves this, to the point that you can shoot with candlelight and have amazing results. You can get away with 2000 or even 3200 ASA.

Regarding dynamic range, the RED totally blows away any video camera I've used, even the Lucas/Sony F900 (the one he shot Star Wars with). But it's not just about number of f-stops the sensor can see (MX=13.5 f-stops), it's about how it handles clipping on the extreme ends. Film is very organic, with smooth roll-offs. Video cameras clip each channel. For example, shoot a rich sunset with a video camera and you will see posterization in the sky and around the sun where each color channel is clipping. I remember posting this concern on the RedUser forum and Jim Jannard answered back: "We have designed creamy roll offs!". And sure enough, that is true, the camera behaves more like film at the extreme ends of the range.

The RAW format is also much like working with a negative. You have all the potential to change ISO, exposure, tint and white balance. Those variables are only meta-data that can be adjusted in post. Shoot with outside with a Tungsten white balance(3K) by mistake? No problem, just change the WB in post. Really amazing.

Yes, the footage will go to the Artbeats library. We'll probably process it all in the next 2 months.

Chase partner: Ted Keller

Experience: This is my first year chasing tornados. I've chased a lot of lightning and T-storms in AZ years previous.

Ultimate Chase Goal: Chase tornados with an A-Star Helo, using RED camera on an Eclipse stabelized rig. That would be historic!

Thanks again for the welcome Darren, and for placing those links.

Phil

 

[Jason Foster]

Phil, your presence and info in this thread alone is great. I like to see when folks like yourself share the broader film industry input and discussion. RED camera specs certainly seem to be well developed now. It is interesting to hear about the multi-person team...as nearly all the pictures I've seen of folks operating the camera showed at least two people.

RED is perhaps something to put in my "dream" business plan....of course the cost of the camera and bits required to go with would in itself be enough to launch a small business.