Red
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Digital Motion Picture Cameras in 2015: The Dust Settles
Have you heard? The United Nations designated 2015 the “International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies,” and cinematography made the cut. But is IYL 2015 finally the year in which the dam burst of innovation subsides, and new digital cameras and techniques no longer threaten to drown us? Surveying the latest advances in large-sensor digital cinema cameras for Filmmaker’s fifth annual round-up — written, as always, on the eve of NAB — gives me pause to consider how far we’ve come in the five years since Sony’s F3 and FS100 were cutting-edge… since Panasonic’s AF100 stirred passions, ARRI’s Alexa represented a bold choice, and RED’s hand-assembled Epic-M […]
by David Leitner on Apr 28, 2015 -
Color Grading The Kings of Summer
Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ coming of age comedy The Kings of Summer premiered successfully at Sundance this year, but it took a hectic few weeks of work to grade and produce the final deliverables in time to make the Sundance submission deadline. The Kings of Summer was graded by Narbeh Tatoussian, senior DI colorist at Blacklist Digital. Tatoussian has worked in the industry for over 16 years. He started in the shipping vault, then moved up through post-production and the QC department before becoming a tape room supervisor, assistant colorist and finally a colorist. During that time he says that’s he’s […]
by Michael Murie on Sep 6, 2013 -
Shooting with a RED EPIC in Indonesia: Interview with David Kruta
Cinematographer David Kruta spent a week in Indonesia this February shooting footage for the SurfAid charity to use in their promotional and educational campaigns. He took with him a RED EPIC, and says that the goal was to “bring a cinematic approach” to something that would be more often shot in a documentary style. Filmmaker: How did the project come about? Kruta: The director, Michael Lawrence, is a good friend of mine and I’ve done five or six projects with him. He said he had a shoot in Indonesia, and that he was going there to revisit the places he photographed after […]
by Michael Murie on May 24, 2013 -
Back to the Future with 4K: Large-Sensor Motion Picture Cameras in 2013
A motion picture camera used to be a light-sealed box with a strip of film running through it. Was it easy to thread? Did it run quiet? How bright was the viewfinder? Today’s cameras are exponentially more complex. They are literal bundles of separate technologies, each lurching forward at a different rate. To understand today’s cameras, you must understand the parts to understand the whole. This is my third annual overview of digital cinema cameras for Filmmaker, and it is being written in the run-up to NAB 2013 in Las Vegas, the world’s largest trade show devoted to digital video […]
by David Leitner on Apr 5, 2013 -
Sony Responds to RED, Blackmagic Fix and Avid Continues to Decline
Two weeks ago RED announced that they were suing Sony for patent infringement for technology used in Sony’s PMW-F5, PMW-F55, and F65 cameras. Last week Sony posted a response on their Pro video website. First noting that the F65 has been commercially available for over a year, and that the F5/F55 were announced in October, they go on to say: Sony has now had an opportunity to study Red’s complaint and the asserted patents, and categorically denies Red’s allegations. Sony intends to defend itself vigorously in the Red lawsuit. Sony looks forward to prevailing in court, thus vindicating the Sony […]
by Michael Murie on Mar 4, 2013 -
RED Sues Sony and Other News
In case you are living in a cave and missed it, the big news of last week was that RED is suing Sony. RED claims that Sony’s F65, F55 and F5 infringe on patents RED holds, specifically relating to REDCODE RAW. It appears that the issue may turn on the compression of a RAW video stream in the camera. Jim Jannard posted on the REDuser Forum: We are heavily invested in concepts, inventions, designs, development and manufacturing of RED cameras, REDRAY and the RED Projector. Each is unique and has motivated the industry to get better, for the benefit of […]
by Michael Murie on Feb 18, 2013 -
The Week in Cameras: The Empire and the Rebellion
This week saw Sony announce two new cameras, the PMW-F5 and PMW-F55, as well as some details about 4K recording for the NEX-FS700. Unfortunately, they didn’t announce many pricing details, other than the $2,000 price for the interface unit for the NEX-FS700. The cameras are expected in January, and pricing information will probably come sometime in December, but we have been left to depend on whispers from those who say they have been told numbers, even though Sony continues to say that they haven’t told anyone the prices. That said, it appears that the PMW-F5 will be under $20,000 and […]
by Michael Murie on Nov 5, 2012 -
Leitner’s Mondo NAB, Part 3: SSD, Tapes and Storage
Originally posted April 2011. At back-to-back press conferences prior to the opening of NAB’s show floor, both Panasonic and Sony acknowledged the still-unfolding natural disaster in Japan and asked that our thoughts be with the Japanese people. Sony added that despite critical damage to its media plant in Sendai, supplies of HDCAM-SR tape would return to normal by June. Sony’s Sendai Technology Center (which I’ve visited) practically invented the high-performance tapes necessary to DV and HDV (metal evaporated) and HDCAM-SR (metal particle), and still manufactures a preponderance of them. Having persuaded both film and television industries to adopt HDCAM-SR as […]
by David Leitner on Nov 27, 2011 -
Reaction To The Canon C300 And Red-Scarlet-X: Part Two
In my previous blog post I interviewed several directors of photography who are shooting material for web and television to get their reactions to the recent Canon and RED announcements. You might sum up their reactions as, “We wanted to like the Canon, but it’s too expensive!” To complete the picture, I talked to a couple of people who have worked on a number of indie films, and have worked extensively with cameras like the RED and Arri Alexa. Finishing Artist and VFX Supervisor Dermot Shane is based in Vancouver and routinely works with material from REDs, and Arri’s (both […]
by Michael Murie on Nov 14, 2011 -
Reaction To The Canon C300 And Red Scarlet-X: Part One
The dust is still settling from the recent announcements from Canon and RED, and many of us are trying to figure out what it all means: is the Canon too expensive? The Scarlet too complicated? Will they have a big impact, or are these cameras outside the reach of most indie filmmakers? Ultimately, we won’t know their impact until these cameras start shipping in quantity, but I asked some DP/Editors to share their initial reactions to the cameras. Max Esposito is a DSLR shooter who is looking to upgrade from the Canon 5D Mark II, but says he doesn’t think […]
by Michael Murie on Nov 8, 2011
