"Knowing" Director Alex Proyas: Digital RED Camera Rocks
- Thread starter bmattock
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 8
- Views 2K
.ken
I like pictures
Its kind of funny looking back how there were a few people who were touting RED camera as a smoke-ware... for the price, it seems like a majority of studios would be moving to RED soon.
ampguy
Veteran
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19267
link doesn't work for me, but interesting lens choice!
link doesn't work for me, but interesting lens choice!
photogdave
Shops local
Well, for every Proyas there is a director or cinematographer who insists digital can't touch film and they will never ever shoot a movie on digital. Same old arguments as we see here - just pick up an issue of American Cinematographer magazine.
At least the Hollywood guys are more civil about it than we are! Rodriguez and Tarantino are best friends who work on each other's films. Rodriguez is 100% digital, Tarantino 100% film.
At least the Hollywood guys are more civil about it than we are! Rodriguez and Tarantino are best friends who work on each other's films. Rodriguez is 100% digital, Tarantino 100% film.
rogers
Still developing
I worked on "Knowing" and I've worked a lot with RED on various projects. For every pro, there is a con (and vice versa). Really what it changes in terms of cost and workflow is the shift of expenses from one aspect of the production to another -- more money to put somewhere else.
RED is revolutionary for the ownership price/quality (see competitor's prices). Imagine an upstart company with no track record producing a full-frame M8 for 1/4 of the price... although different in many aspects, that would parallel what RED have done.
Considering the near hegemony that Panavision have in many markets; RED is gaining (gained?) traction as an "own-it-yourself" alternative (Panavision do not sell their equipment). But you would be surprised at how many studios and advertising agencies are (inexplicably) very wary of digital. This is not because of aesthetics. The correlation between camera price and quality has not been broken like this for many years; breaking formulas like that freaks out accountants and bean counters!
As far as Knowing goes, Alex Proyas has an exceptionally keen eye, and despite his cheerleading for the RED, I don't think for a moment he isn't aware of its flaws. However, it does represent the current "best case" scenario for a director like him (and, I suspect, many others).
As for grainless? Well, if you don't count the compression artefacts...
RED is revolutionary for the ownership price/quality (see competitor's prices). Imagine an upstart company with no track record producing a full-frame M8 for 1/4 of the price... although different in many aspects, that would parallel what RED have done.
Considering the near hegemony that Panavision have in many markets; RED is gaining (gained?) traction as an "own-it-yourself" alternative (Panavision do not sell their equipment). But you would be surprised at how many studios and advertising agencies are (inexplicably) very wary of digital. This is not because of aesthetics. The correlation between camera price and quality has not been broken like this for many years; breaking formulas like that freaks out accountants and bean counters!
As far as Knowing goes, Alex Proyas has an exceptionally keen eye, and despite his cheerleading for the RED, I don't think for a moment he isn't aware of its flaws. However, it does represent the current "best case" scenario for a director like him (and, I suspect, many others).
As for grainless? Well, if you don't count the compression artefacts...
Last edited:
telenous
Well-known
Thanks for the link Bill. Stephen Soderbergh seems to be a convert to Red also (there's a link of him talking about it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo32Zn70LIw).
An interesting thing Proyas says is that 100% of the movies we see now are the result of a hybrid workflow, we don't know anymore what film looks like. As a result our aesthetic expectations for movies have undergone a 'paradigm' shift. The latest aesthetic will then be further entrenched in a new generation of cinema-goers who will in the future ask specifically for it.
Perhaps he 's right, a comprehensive shift is on the cards. But if so, he is not just predicting the waning of film and its craft but actually the loss (or marginalisation) of an enitre aesthetic. Sometimes we like films partly for reasons that are intertwined with the rememberence of a particular viewing experience. A complete industry move to a specific medium will eradicate something that so far was a creative choice. Maybe with the old generation of cinema-goers slowly dying out, the memory will also die out and that choice will not be requisite or even desirable any more. A paradigm shift has happened and fast with CGI vs traditional animation - how many traditional hand-drawn animations are made nowadays? ('Spirited Away' and 'Les Triplettes de Belleville' come to mind but they are in the minority and even those were produced with the aid of computers). Much earlier monochrome film stock also had the same rapidly declining production rate, to the point where major productions presented nowadays in black-and-white are very often shot first in colour. So, perhaps this is the cycle of things but it's not necessarily something to rejoice about.
PS. Proyas is the director of 'The Crow', 'I, Robot' and 'Dark City'. I am not the greatest fun of the first two (after this discussion I will soon watch Dark City though) but FWIW I think I can see why he likes this new look he gets from Red. But like I said, I don't think it is a a one-size fits-all. Films like Tarkovski's 'Solaris' and 'Blade Runner', for example, are enveloped in the aesthetic of film, and owe to it at least partly the visceral undertones, the suggestion of accelerated entropy, without which they 'd be totally different films. (Interestingly Soderbergh has remade 'Solaris' -not on Red- a fine film on its own right but very different in mood from Tarkovski's original). For a great many films this whole discussion is probably irrelevant of course - efficiency and cost will dictate choice.
An interesting thing Proyas says is that 100% of the movies we see now are the result of a hybrid workflow, we don't know anymore what film looks like. As a result our aesthetic expectations for movies have undergone a 'paradigm' shift. The latest aesthetic will then be further entrenched in a new generation of cinema-goers who will in the future ask specifically for it.
Perhaps he 's right, a comprehensive shift is on the cards. But if so, he is not just predicting the waning of film and its craft but actually the loss (or marginalisation) of an enitre aesthetic. Sometimes we like films partly for reasons that are intertwined with the rememberence of a particular viewing experience. A complete industry move to a specific medium will eradicate something that so far was a creative choice. Maybe with the old generation of cinema-goers slowly dying out, the memory will also die out and that choice will not be requisite or even desirable any more. A paradigm shift has happened and fast with CGI vs traditional animation - how many traditional hand-drawn animations are made nowadays? ('Spirited Away' and 'Les Triplettes de Belleville' come to mind but they are in the minority and even those were produced with the aid of computers). Much earlier monochrome film stock also had the same rapidly declining production rate, to the point where major productions presented nowadays in black-and-white are very often shot first in colour. So, perhaps this is the cycle of things but it's not necessarily something to rejoice about.
PS. Proyas is the director of 'The Crow', 'I, Robot' and 'Dark City'. I am not the greatest fun of the first two (after this discussion I will soon watch Dark City though) but FWIW I think I can see why he likes this new look he gets from Red. But like I said, I don't think it is a a one-size fits-all. Films like Tarkovski's 'Solaris' and 'Blade Runner', for example, are enveloped in the aesthetic of film, and owe to it at least partly the visceral undertones, the suggestion of accelerated entropy, without which they 'd be totally different films. (Interestingly Soderbergh has remade 'Solaris' -not on Red- a fine film on its own right but very different in mood from Tarkovski's original). For a great many films this whole discussion is probably irrelevant of course - efficiency and cost will dictate choice.
dfoo
Well-known
Go back and watch some movies from the 70s, like Dirty Harry. Its amazing how the movies look compared with modern films... much of that movie was shot in some very high contrast situations, and quite alot of film has very strong blacks.
sweathog
Well-known
Interesting. Really interesting.
I've been on-off keeping an eye on this RED system. I mean, to essentially completely reshuffle the deck, that's a big move.
If I recall, another advantage of the RED system was complete customisability (I know, not a real word). Is that still on the cards, or was that back in the concept stage?
I've been on-off keeping an eye on this RED system. I mean, to essentially completely reshuffle the deck, that's a big move.
That's an ace analogy.rogers said:
If I recall, another advantage of the RED system was complete customisability (I know, not a real word). Is that still on the cards, or was that back in the concept stage?
rogers
Still developing
Apparently still on the cards, although they have adjusted their delivery schedule back (some financial crisis thing). The interesting thing about the new systems is that you assemble the components like Lego. Pick your sensor, output/record options, etc. Technically, it means you can scale from an SLR-like rig, to something a bit more Cecil B. DeMille.
Similar threads
