FORESIGHT.

A patron of the RED USER.net forum mentioned seeing the Social Network in NY this weekend.  He inquired as to whether or not the film was projected in 2K or 4K, commenting how good it looked on the large screen.  I responded to the forum, but wanted to include the response here since this issue is much bigger than The Social Network.  In fact, it goes back to another post I made earlier regarding the logistical differences between 2K and 4K, which is worth revisiting because these issues keep coming up.  Overall, the more these issues come up and the more they are discussed, the more evidence to suggest a 4K distribution world is right around the corner.
2K or 4KThe Social Network was onlined, vis-effected, DI’d, and mastered in 2K based on number of factors. 4K is becoming a serious discussion point for a lot of films, which is really encouraging. And most of the studio meetings I attend routinely have a “what about 4K?” discussion. -So even though 4K distribution is not here yet, I can testify that from a studio perspective, it is on everyone’s radar, and it will need to constantly be discussed.

Speaking specifically about this film, Paris makes an interesting implication: -That it was not clear whether or not the film was projected in 2K or 4K. Here’s another question for the original poster, (Paris): Do you know that it was a digital projection? Or could it have been a print?
The flattering implication is that the projection was good enough to possibly exhibit 4K qualities, even though it was not. But that statement may also support claims that 4K is unnecessary and, perhaps, invisible. But consider this: Even high-resolution images that are evaluated up-close seem to lack resolution. Think of the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when Cameron views George Seurat’s painting, “Sunday Afternoon.” As the camera moves in closer and closer, the (effective) resolution seems to get lower and lower. But this painting (by comparison) is veyr high resolution - I’ve seen it in person in Chicago and it’s incredible to experience up close and far away.  Interestingly enough, I’m experiencing the same characteristics in viewing Seurat’s painting with RED footage for large-format projection.

I watch different iterations of our “RED Reels” with Jim and Jarred probably 3 times a week while in between watching 2K versions of The Social Network and other films. When I am up close, 4K is clear and impressive. But when I stand at the back of the theater (nearly 100 feet away), it’s unbelievably magnificent! That’s where the resolution really starts to settle in and begin to offer up another level of compelling imagery that cannot be replicated with scaling.
Below is an (iPhone) image of the Epic from the Pablo living on RED Stage 4.  If you look at the first photo, some people might mistake this for being a shot of the Vegas street corner (but you can see my shadow in the bottom holding the camera).  The 2nd photo represents the spot where resolution becomes more impressive.  With the naked eye, the resolution of the 4K projection (from the 5K source) increases as you move further away.  Unfortunately, this particular photo is too low res to demonstrate that.

The reason this is all important is how it applies to improving the motion picture expreience - not only for today’s viewers, but viewers of the future.  But in order to achieve this additional “dimension” of a film, one needs to oversample because 1080p up-close vs. 1080p far away exhibit very similar characteristics. With RED starting with an unsharpened oversample, the 2K debayered result with mild sharpening delivers much more temporal resolution than a normal camera-sharpened 1080p source. The Social Network is a perfect example of this working successfully (thanks, Paris, for noticing). The images people will see on TSN are 2K results in a 2.40:1 aperture from a full debayer / RED 4K 2:1 source. 90% of viewers will see 35mm prints, which were made from the 2K DSM. As everyone knows, release prints will only carry 1.5K resolution at best. So when it comes to high fidelity in a world dominated by low-res exhibition, once again, it pays to oversample.
| m |

3D Summit

This past Wednesday and Thursday at the Universal Hilton was the annual 3D Summit event.  This event boasted some of the latest and greatest 3D talent and tools which were spread out amongst a myriad of key speakers and hallways filled with prototypes, proof of concepts, demonstrations and demos.  Myself and Ian Vertovec were asked to accompany the Quantel booth and help demonstrate the new 3D options in Pablo v5.

I imagine for a number of people I know, a summit dedicated entirely and exclusively to 3D would be the last place they’d want to wander around a sea of blurry monitors and three-dimensiontal pitchmen.  For others, the 3D box-office success that 2010 has shown made this a momentous year of justified 3D expansion and reinvestments-especially in the broadcast market, which was surprisingly in full array as compared to years past.  I find it very interesting to research and observe the arguments about 3D from consumers, professionals, and the average filmgoer.  
[Taking out the issue of profit for a moment] - I find there are so many different components going into making and exhibiting 3D pictures that I really don’t think basic conclusions can be made for or against the medium are as simple as “you like it or you don’t.”  For example, as an artist, I find that animated films are absolutely superior in 3D and that the experience is personally much better than watching the same film in 2D.  I have found this to be a fairly common feeling as substantiated by overwhelming positive consumer feedback Disney’s (soon-to-be highest grossing film ever) Toy Story 3D.  As a digital intermediate supervisor, I find that 3D movies are a lot more complex, which makes them fun and challenging to coordinate and execute.  Plus I enjoy the challenges of a 3D DI in that they offer some very unique opportunities for progressive colorists to show their skills as compositors and imagists as they prepare to master a film in nearly a dozen different configurations.  But as a technologist, I think that 3D is all over the map, and the 2010 3D Summit taught me one thing above all: in 2010, the mark of acceptable quality for a 3D feature is not nearly as high as it needs to be.  The culprit, I believe, rests within the controversial term; dimensionalization. 

Dimensionalization is the process in which two-dimensional images (images shot with a single camera/single eye) are brought into a 3D space using space differential tools (such as rotosplines) in order to separated foreground elements from background elements to generate two distinct images from one source.  Upon experiencing my first advanced conversion tests earlier last year, I was genuinely excited to experience the results.  As 3D markets grow world-wide, the demand for 3D content must be equalized in order to stimulate further penetration (especially with broadcasters).  But as 3D content is much more expensive, requires more expertise, and is more technically challenging to acquire, dimensionalization of 2D content is quickly becoming an Achilles heel in the 3D industry.  For films that originated in 2D, I recognized dimensionalization as the only option a single-camera film has to be considered for a 3D market.  But what bothers me and some of my colleagues is that now that people are actually planning on 3D distribution prior to shooting, they are still seriously considering dimensionalization instead of bona fide stereo capture.  The result in our opinion is an inferior picture nearly 100% of the time as compared to stereo capture.

Here’s a seeminly obvious statement: I can only perceive what I can perceive.

The idea behind that statement is that without a side-by-side comparison, some people simply cannot see the difference between dimensionalization and stereo capture.  The most important thing to understand in this whole blog is the reason for this is not because there is no difference.  The reason is because people have yet to tune their senses through experience to identify the good 3D from the bad.  I am confident this will change because the level of attraction to 3D images will increase with quality, not decrease.  In other words, as time goes on, consumers will learn to identify high fidelity 3D from low fidelity 3D.  Though they won’t be able to determine that dimensionalization is the reason for a poorly perceived image, they will be able to pick out the good from the bad.  Evidence for this can be found in the similar roll-out of HDTVs.  Over the past decade, consumers have improved their ability to determine the difference between standard definition pictures and high definition pictures and even the difference between 720p and 1080p.  In less than 10 years, hundreds of millions learned the terms, learned what to ask for, and even learned how to see it, so will go their accelerated comprehension of 3D.

The reason this is a problem for 3D is that consumers are vulnerable right now to accepting 3D.  Nearly every prime-time commercial break contains a feature film advertisement for a 3D release and even cable is starting to push their 3D channels such as ESPN and Discovery.  Because they are genuinely interested and even excited, we must deliver them high fidelity.  This is fundamentally why I am weary of all the 2D dimensionalization.

Consider this:Avatar comes out and pretty much breaks every film record that exists (more or less).  But in terms of 3D fidelity, Avatar is basically a flawless representation of the best 3D ever experienced (at least the best I’ve ever experienced).  So while all of us have experienced 3D images from James Cameron that are stunning, most of us have not seen anything that matches up.  In fact, with many films capitalizing on Avatar’s well-groomed 3D road to profitability, dimensionalization is actually feeding consumers lower quality 3D, which will ultimately hurt the ability for 3D to stabilize.  Contributing tho this is cheaper  3D televisions, automatic & realtime 3D conversion, and short-cut ways to capture 3D with cheaper 3D cameras is also lowering the 3D bar.  Many manufacturers are cashing in, but some are at the expense of what should be an improving medium, not a declining one.

But it’s definitely not all bad: 3D Summit had some amazing technology and I experienced some major improvements to current 3D technology.  From new 3D rigs like the Element Technica Neutron, to the Panasonic 3D 103” Plasma (breathtaking 3D display), to new and improved (and stylish) 3D glasses, there are some major developments that consumers and professionals are going to want to get ahold of.  But peppered throughout the show floor were numerous dimensionalization examples - some good, some not so good, but all completely inferior to the real thing.  

What I hope is that professionals consider that the consumer of 3D may not be as naive as they may seem.  They may not know it now, nor can they put their finger on it, but the distinction from low and high fidelity 3D is going to become a key issue that will be a reason for the potential rejection of this transplant.  We are obligated to delivery the best to the consumer - so make sure that tests for stereo capture vs. dimensionalization are done right and done extensively.  This goes for the way in which the 3D mastering and color are performed as well.  If you are of the camp that wants 3D to fail- just keep pushing dimensionalization and I am confident the magic will quickly wear off.  If you want it to stay, then push the boundaries of true stereo capture.  If you really put your own creativity to the limits, you will also see the difference and the difference, I believe, ultimately spells the acceptance or extinction of a three dimensional filmmaking and broadcast world.
| m |

Since 2008, a significant number of post production houses seemed to have disappeared. Some have been sold at a loss, others were merged with a group of pre-existing facilities, some were liquidated, one I know of simply changed its name, and a few just went out of business.  No doubt, the world of filmmaking is changing, and we at Light Iron believe that some of the future of profitable post production lies on set.  
For the most part, post production has become an IT based entity.  But interestingly enough, for the most part, production has remained largely unaffected by much of the advantages an IT infrastructure offers.  
My partners and I at Light Iron have mobilized a large portion of our efforts to introduce new IT based system integration to the world of production.  I’ll talk a lot more about my on-set (post) observations later, but I wanted to take a moment to highlight one of our newest products.  

Many people already know that Light Iron provides on-set mobilized dailies systems called OUTPOST.  In a nutshell, OUTPOST is a software/hardware combination data-center for file-based acquired projects that wish to compress the time it takes to make backups, dailies, sync sound, and archive and manage all that on set.  Our newest software, LiVE PLAY, is a streaming video playback system that offers the fastest, cheapest, non-tethered, meta-data rich capture, viewing, and saving of recorded images ever.  Below is a link to the Li website that shows a more in-depth video of how LiVE PLAY works.  In this blog, I included some stills of the application as well.

http://www.lightirondigital.com/LightIRON_Digital/LIGHTIRON_OUTPOST_2.html

LiVE PLAY STILLS

+ Ability to create as many custom users as required by set

+ Ability to browse directories for video clips and organize by Scene, date, movie, episode, etc.

+ Ability to make custom notes saved as meta-data to an XML file that can be retrieved later in post production

Notes are based on uses for Directors (performance), DPs (Camera/Lighting), and Script Supervisor (Scene & Take).

The result with LiVE PLAY is a more meta-data rich hand-shake between production and post.  Giving a tremendous of amount of control to the creatives on set as well as tremendous speed in the ability to view and make near real-time evaluations on their days work. 

As IBC 2010 begins, there are a number of products that are going to be released, announced, and examined closely.  One of which that I think will deserve all the recognition it is going to get is Dolby’s new color grading monitor.  When I first started talking about this monitor about 6 months ago, people asked me “Why is Dolby making a monitor?  I thought they were a sound company…”  My answer to them was that if you look at it a bit more closely, you’ll realize that Dolby isn’t specifically a sound company, but rather an experience enhancing company.  Some of the earliest Dolby products were all about improving the quality of a movie experience through noise reduction.  This eventually led to Dolby Digital, Dolby Cinema Servers, Broadcast systems, a slew of consumer products, and now a color grading monitor.  So while Dolby does have a large stake in the world of improving the fidelity of audio, their real mission is to improve the fidelity of the entire experience - now with a monitor to truly boast about.

I have had the privilege of working with some of the great team at Dolby and they have let us put the monitor through some real world testing.  After some initial evaluations and careful calibration, colorist Ian Vertovec decided along with David Fincher (who was interested in the capabilities of the display as well) to do all the broadcast color trim mastering of The Social Network on the Dolby.  After spending some long hours with the system, Ian is more than impressed with what it delivers and I’d like to share some of the highlights (pros and cons) of this new technology.

BIT DEPTH   |   TSN is shot entirely at a T1.3.  Most of the film takes place indoors with practical lights spread amongst the deep-focused backgrounds.  For many monitors, this ultimate shallow depth of field spells disaster for panels that cannot fully display 10bits per channel.  Banding, quantization, solarization and random noise patterns are all artifacts of a low bit depth panel.  The Dolby resolves greater than 10bits- so even when one feeds a base-band 10bit signal, the monitor can accept higher samples for a much higher quality result.  This translates nicely into the deep, precise black/shadow components of the monitor.  It is no joke nor exaggeration that we honestly asked each other (more than once) if the monitor was actually “on” when our Pablo was feeding black.  Most impressively, Ian was able to move the lift on a picture less than 1/2 of an IRE and see a clear response on the monitor.  On an LCD panel, it is not typical to experience response in values less than 1 IRE-especially below levels of 3.  The Dolby borrows from both LED and LCD technology - enabling it to harness the strengths of both.WIth a film like The Social Network, the RED MX sensor delivered show detailing that I’ve literally never seen before-more than can be displayed on even the best DLP chips.  The heart of this film lives between 5 and 15 IRE - making the shadows an important part of how the film looks and feels.  The Dolby has really enabled Ian to have the precision of a CRT with the size and sharpness of a large plasma.

FILED OF VIEW   |   One of the biggest challenges of any LCD display is the limitation of consistency across a wide horizontal viewing plane.  The Dolby is amazing when it comes to a strong horizontal FOV.  In fact, one can clearly rely on a consistent response even when 90º off axis from the center of the monitor.  Color imagery, contrast, and brightness all remain surprisingly equal.  In most timing bays, the viewing arrangement is with a colorist in the center and a cone of view filtering out from the center of the display to the clients viewing the display either beside or behind the colorist.  With a 90º viewing angle, clients up to 15 feet away can easily be 15 feet apart from each other without any visual variation to what the colorist sees in front.  The limitation to the monitor is in the vertical viewing plane.  The monitor only has about a 15º vertical plane-especially with brighter pictures.  So the monitor must be level in the room and all people viewing the display must be within 15º of the center-but this is fairly typical for LCD screens, so while there is weakness in the vertical capabilities, the horizontal is the bigger challenge with viewing angles and the Dolby delivers.

MENU & CONTROL   |   The Menu system we have on the Dolby is not the final version.  But even in this testing version the menus are easy to use, clear, concise, and the monitor comes with an external control pad that can be remoted right to the operator.  I really like this idea because when have a post house, you will inevitably feed the monitor a multitude of signal types, multiple inputs and types of inputs, and color spaces.  With the Dolby control surface, the operator can easily see the on-screen-display and know what they are looking at and quickly change a calibration, an input, or even a color space without having to go behind the monitor or navigate on-screen menus while a client is in the room.  

P3 CAPABILITY   |   Perhaps one of the most interesting characteristics about the Dolby monitor is that it offers both Rec709 (full range and SMPTE) as well as P3 color space display.  For a busy facility, this is a great option because you can easily grade a film in P3 on a DLP and then make trim passes, changes, or even fixes to the film in P3 without having to be in the theater.  This also makes the P3 option great for QC’ing work and not having to book a large room or run a DLP lamp.  While I’m not advocating you color correct P3 movies on the Dolby, it is something that is now on the table.

SIZE   |   The monitor is 42” diagonal (36” x 20”).  While this is not bigger than some of the plasma screens that people are doing broadcast grading work on, it is larger than the largest of the CRT options for color correction.  It’s much lighter and smaller than a CRT and though it has fans in the back to cool it (about 12” total depth) the monitor is fairly easy to move and place on even an average sized desk.  Size is important when considering what to put in a grading bay and since most bays were originally designed for 32”-36” monitors, the Dolby 42” is a good fit.

RESOLUTION   |   The fact that the monitor is not a 2K monitor is a problem with me.  The Dolby will only display up to 1920x1080.  This really does become a problem-especially if you plan to work with P3 content on the display because P3 content is going to be 2048 or 1998 H.  The monitor will accept a 2K signal, but will automatically perform a center extraction.  One example that hurt us in the TSN broadcast pass was that we are working with a 2048 source file which is getting trimmed and pan-and-scanned to 1920.  Because the monitor cannot display 2048, the east-to-west pan-and-scanning has to be done without the ability to view your over-sampled edges of the original aspect ratio.  So when you pan-and-scan the only way to know you’re approaching the 1920 line is to go too far.  In all honestly this is not a huge inefficiency but the fact is this Dolby display is clearly built for cinema and cinema is not a 1920 format and it is quickly moving further away from 1920 in the coming years (years in which I hope to still be using my Dolby monitor).

BRIGHTNESS & BURN-IN   |   The monitor has incredible brightness characteristics that give it the ability to be so bright it literally will hurt your eyes.  With proper calibration this is (of course) not an issue, however the option of over-driving the brightness makes for some nice options with regard to matching grain, noise reduction, performing QC, and even compositing where brightness can help the artist make precise decisions.  Because the monitor is using LED technology, I’m told the monitor cannot ever have burn in.  Since we didn’t think it was wise to leave a zone plate on the display all night to find out, we decided not to test this one and take Dolby’s word for it.  But I’m sure one of these days someone will forget to black the monitor and we’ll eventually find out if it is, in fact, true.


Overall, this monitor is no doubt better than a CRT.  It’s smaller in size but has a bigger display, it’s lighter, easier to operate, faster to calibrate, needs less calibration maintenance, offers more I/O port compatibility, offers P3 viewing, supports LUTs, and better matches what consumers in general are seeing at home: large LCD and plasma screens.  So if that is what consumers are watching, why spend the money on the Dolby in the first place?  For me, the answer is that you will find better overall consistency in exhibition if you master to the highest quality instead of the lowest common denominator.  The cost of this display is clearly pushing it towards a professional market: around $1,000 per inch.  While Ian graded, we actually looped out of the Dolby directly into a Panasonic 50” series 11 plasma with SDI input board.  This was a great way for us to see how images were going to behave once they ultimately reached the consumer.  The Panasonic looks great!  They have the same resolution and sharpness characteristics.  They have the same brightness characteristics and both deliver a great picture, so again, why spend the money on the Dolby?  The answer is simple:  the further down the above list you go, the further apart Dolby goes from the rest of the fleet.  And the ultimate result can be summed up in one valuable word: CONFIDENCE.  Having technological confidence in a display devices gives confidence to the colorist.  A confident colorist helps make a confident client.  The CRT left big shoes to fill, and LCD and plasma screens never matched what the CRT delivered - even on a subjective level, to which many clients generally feel was the best “textured” image.  From our experience, Dolby can clearly deliver superior images to CRT, and once again give confidence to our monitoring paths with a visible quality that has the name to match.

| m |

I’m pleased to announce that the final color on David Fincher’s [I]The Social Network[/I] is complete and on 35mm film.  To get a first look at what the final film looks like, the TV spots have started airing all with images straight from the DI.  You can also go online and see the TV spots on The Social Network website (]www.500millionfriends.com).

The final DI look can now be seen online in the TV Spot, which is on the TSN site beneath the frame-grab I included below.

Working with the entire TSN team and working at RED Studios Hollywood has been an a wonderful experience, and ultimately the MX performs beautifully on the big screen-both in digital and film exhibition.  The lab work performed by Technicolor to convert the Li DI into film was a 4 month process of targeting, testing, and perfecting, and the results are truly exceptional.  So impressive, in fact, that I encourage everyone to best evaluate the full properties of the first MX feature film on the print.

Though I have seen quite a few R3Ds over the past 3 years, I can honestly say that it required all of the RED experience of myself and my team to make this an accurate, smooth DI and delivery.  There are a lot of moving parts in any DI, but what we experienced and learned on TSN is a cultivation of the work from thousands of hours previously spent with RED files-likewise TSN experiences are already being implemented onto new RED projects to make those films better, and so on.

And that really should be the ultimate goal: to improve and thus to appropriately share the experience of new art and technological practices.  Studios, indies, shorts, and spots alike; experience can yield great opportunities to raise the bar.  RED is one of those companies that literally hates to settle for something in the middle.  -That is really why you are all still waiting for your Epic’s and Scarlet’s.  And more importantly, that is also why I try to steer away from tools that intentionally make compromises.

Consider this:

Continuing to raise the bar becomes more vital when the amount of distractions in the market increases.  While this isn’t an exclusive statement, I generally find that as the roots of digital cinema grow, so do the temptations to find its short-cuts.  But I believe that the future will be a world of increased fidelity across the board, not of maintained fidelity.  Just look at any 5 year old and you’ll quickly realize how much they actually respond to high quality images, TVs, and tools.  I believe the brain of today’s children and their evolved ability to suspend disbelief makes the effort of raising the bar worth it.

I find the best way to raise the bar for me is to make sure that I give every project the best I possibly can.  That means being both creatively technical and technically creative (can you guess the difference?).  I can whole-heartedly say that the team of people responsible for the ultimate look of The Social network absolutely did that.  And I hope it shows.  As for the rest of what makes a TSN a great film?  Well, I’ll just say in 3 weeks time you won’t be disappointed.

The Social Network DI Team

Colorist | Ian Vertovec

DI Producer | Katie Fellion

DI Editor | Matthew Blackshear

Calibration & DCDM Mastering | Chris Peariso

DI Supervisor | Michael Cioni

Since 2007, I have produced and edited 8 company reels for the RED Digital Cinema camera company.  Most of the reels coincide with special event exhibitions - such as IBC, NAB, or in-house RED events and play all over the world and sometimes online (if you know where to look).

Friends that know me know that when I have to make a new RED Reel, I not only go “off the map,” but that I’m not the only one since it takes the effort of my entire team to pull these reels off.  The RED Reels specifically are fairly complex - largely due to the fact that none of the footage that comes in was meant to work together with other footage and the fact that I have no idea when or what footage is going to be received.  Plus, there are individual framerates, resolutions, aspect ratios, lenses, shutter angles, ISO settings, etc.  It truly is a “patch-work” of images that come together to (hopefully) form a cohesive piece.  The other area of complexity is the fact that these reels all go through a full DI and that the DI is completely done in uncompressed 4K.  

Most people that work with the RED Camera never actually see a 4K frame playback at full raster.  That’s at no fault to the RED community, rather it’s still a significant hurdle that the exhibition institutions of the world have yet to implement on a tangible scale.  For the RED company, delivering a product at a lower raster size than the camera creates is not an option, so 4K mastering has been the staple of the RED Reels since the “RED 100” (a montage of footage from the first 100 cameras shipped) which debuted back in November of 2007.  Unless the playback is actually managed by RED (like a RED Studios or NAB), most people view these reels in DCI 2K resolution (2048x1080).  But there are 2 personal reasons why taking the time and energy to master these reels in 4K seems to pay off:

1. Practice makes perfect.

Most people who are asked “Would you ever want to try to run a marathon?” answer “Yes!  I would like to try that.”  But then if you asked them “Would you like to start training tomorrow for that marathon which runs in 6 months?” they answer “Nope.  I think I’m good.”

Everyone loves the idea of going the distance, but everyone struggles with the need to prepare and practice.  This relates a bit as to why post houses love deadlines.  We know that when a film comes in with no deadline, it’s the kiss of death.  I’ve literally worked on films that have been “DI’d” within an inch of their life largely due to the simple lack of a deadline.  With RED Reels, the fact that we can practice working on 4K with numerous challenges 2-3 times a year is a great way for us to improve every aspect of the process.  With RED Reels, workflow challenges from drive formatting to resolution mis-matching to color science and and fast auto-conforming from offline to online make RED Reels a great way to keep up our craft in an area that is full of challenges.  And when we work with RED 4K files, we work with them as uncompressed files, which puts the data rate at approximately 800MB/s.  With this amount of data, reliance on a good workflow, a good artist and a good tool become the difference from sleeping and working round the clock waiting for the computer to catch up to the resolution.

2. Future Proofing

I am a firm believer that preparing for a resolution-aware generation is a good way to insure our pictures will stand up to our children’s pictures.  As I said, most people have never seen 4K playback, let alone have the tools in which to play it back themselves.  Film has always captured high fidelity images, but RED did us all a favor that film never could: they made it easy for the first time.  This ease of acquisition is the first step in preparing for a 4K future-but it’s not because RED wants a 4K future or iseven making it possible.  In fact, I don’t think RED has any say in the matter at all.  The reason 4K will matter is because the millions of young people today being exposed to high resolution images as their brains develop are going to innately demand higher fidelity. Why?  Because the difference in temporal resolution between HD and 6K for them will be the difference between 8mm and 35mm for you and me.  Think I’m wrong?  Ask your kids and grandkids in 2020 and we’ll see.

Today we are finishing up the RED 600.  It’s the 3rd iteration of footage compiled from the RED MX/Epic-X sensor and it further pushes the boundaries of what is possible with a good computer and a good lens.  Where else are you going to have footage from some of the world’s best filmmakers right beside footage from a student short film?  If that doesn’t instigate conversations about 4K, RED, and digital cinema, I don’t know what else will.

Good times.

| michael | cioni |