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Murder without moving
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The film noir aesthetic of BBC hit drama
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03/11/2017 12:56
03 DARK DEEDS: The BBC’s great new three part drama, Gunpowder.
Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridgeshire CB22 3HJ UK
EDITORIAL EDITOR Julian Mitchell
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Definition is published monthly by Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge CB22 3HJ. No part of this magazine can be used without prior written permission of Bright Publishing Ltd. Definition is a registered trademark of Bright Publishing Ltd. The advertisements published in Definition that have been written, designed or produced by employees of Bright Publishing Ltd remain the copyright of Bright Publishing Ltd and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Prices quoted in sterling, euros and US dollars are street prices, without tax, where available or converted using the exchange rate on the day the magazine went to press.
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Welcome
There is so much new drama that to catch the eye you need something that works on every level; the story, the look and the execution. Talking of which, Gunpowder happened. We were impressed; it has a BAFTA feel to it. As we all know there are lots of elements to a successful production but Gunpowder had a hugely visual movie director and director of photography in J Blakeson and Philipp Blaubach and they also had a certain freedom to chase their film noir visions. It also had a low budget but proved that the creatives can run with that and by association can shine. If you haven’t seen the three-part drama, expect dark deeds in dark surroundings. Technically Philipp used his love of the Dutch masters to use the shadows as another character. Senior colourist Thomas Urbye brought all his experience to do, by his own admission, some of his best work to date. In our cover story Thomas also elevates a problem that is only going to get more frustrating for artists like him. As cinema recedes and TV drama grows how do you grade television for the myriad of displays out there? How do you warn productions about the need to heed inch-wide displays when you should be concentrating on the main display in the living room?
JULIAN MITCHELL EDITOR @DEFINITIONMAGS
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In the Marvel Cinematic Universe it’s time for comedy. Thor: Ragnarok moves away from the earnest superhero epithets and adds mirth and japery. It also has a great look, filmed with ARRI’s large-format ALEXA 65 camera IMAGE Thor himself looking slightly confused without his trusted hammer and a strange elevated tent hovering above him. Bottom left is the ARRI ALEXA 65 camera.
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irector Taika Waititi brings a new broom to the third phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with new characters like Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson, and a barnstorming turn from Oscar-winning Cate Blanchett as Hela, the Goddess of Death! DOP Javier Aguirresarobe brought his huge experience to the fun with ARRI’s largeformat camera, the ALEXA 65 and a full CODEX workflow. He also used ARRI’s own large-format lenses for the movie, the Prime 65 and Vintage 765.
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NEWS INTERVIEW
WORKFLOW WARRIORS CODEX has come a long way from being just a recorder of data, now the company wants to democratise Raw recording. VP Business Development Brian Gaffney explains
Definition: CODEX has always been known as a recording system for the high-end cinema cameras, what has changed? Brian Gaffney: Coming out of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 we really rounded out our toolset. Prior to that I think we were considered ARRI-centric, although we supported Sony F55 and F65 and various other cameras from Canon and RED. However, it was the convergence of having the new Canon EOS C700 and Panasonic VariCam Pure cameras introduced and the release of CODEX Production Suite that changed things. A near-set post company used the Suite to manage all DEFINITION DECEMBER 2017
the dailies on Guardians of the Galaxy 2, on our hardware, providing one workflow to do it all. The DOP Henry Braham also used the Phantom Flex camera and the GoPro cameras, all done with CODEX. Definition: What other cameras are you now looking at? BG: We focus on Raw camera workflows. With Netflix specifying 4K Raw capture for original series content, we expect to see more Raw cameras appearing on the market. In the case of Marvel, they do all of their VFX turnarounds in-house, all their pulls, on the CODEX Vault platform.
ABOVE The Canon EOS C700 camera with CODEX recorder.
So any time that there’s a new camera that comes through that pipeline we need to accommodate it, now more than ever. Definition: Do you now support Raw Cinema DNG? BG: Up until now we hadn’t, but we are testing various cameras for projects our customers are considering. A recent new camera that has come on to the market that we are going to support is the DJI Zenmuse X7. It’s a 6K drone camera that has the proper colour science integrated to allow it to better match with other log-based cameras. DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
INTERVIEW NEWS
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A RECENT CAMERA THAT WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT IS THE DJI ZENMUSE X7 . IT’S A 6K DRONE CAMERA
Definition: What about the new Canon EOS C200 with its new light format? BG: Yes, we have some test files from Canon. Our solution should be announced running up to next year’s NAB Show. We already have support for Canon cameras and we are excited about the release of the new 4.5K global shutter version of the EOS C700 with Raw recording.
ABOVE The CODEX XL-Series Vault. BELOW The CODEX rackmount transfer drive with Thunderbolt 3.
is needed right now in the world of Netflix 4K movies is the need for speed. There is so much data coming off the set these days. For instance, shooting with multiple 4K and higher resolution uncompressed Raw cameras can generate as much as 1520TB per night on average and must be able to be turned around as dailies every night for editorial. With CODEX, because of our Vault platform, DITs can do that. We’re also on a couple of Marvel features right now; they use the ARRI ALEXA XT and ALEXA 65, plus ALEXA Mini and they also use the RED and other cameras like the Canon EOS C500 mostly for their VFX inserts. We’re able to take all those different formats from all of these different cameras and on one platform allow you to review them in the same space, include them in your colour pipeline, be it in ACES or any colour space you want to work in. Then you have the capability to do QC, sync sound files, adjust and
optimise CDL grades from set and generate all the dailies for editorial and streaming media as well. In the past we have been seen as a cloning and archiving system and then passing data to near-set and on to the lab. Now CODEX is doing both the on-set component for cloning, archiving and getting the capture drives turned around quickly, but near-set our customers are starting to use the CODEX Production Suite and Vault platform for dailies creating the deliverables for editorial. Now we’re inside of studios doing all the VFX turnarounds. We have one workflow that starts on-set and carries through to the near-set post-production teams and follows you all the way through to the visual effects turnaround process. That’s a pretty powerful for one platform. Our Vault XL is allowing DITs to back up and transfer over 20TB of Raw data per night, using our networked attached Vault appliance to move data at rates of 2400MB/ sec. It’s the fastest solution
Definition: Tell us about your One Workflow message. BG: We all know that there is no ‘one camera’ used in production on-set anymore. The one thing that @DEFINITIONMAGAZINE |
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SHOOT STORY GUNPOWDER
Losing my religion In England in 1605, a group of Catholics plotted to bring down the government. The BBC decided to bring the full force of realism to this famous story WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL PICTURES BBC o earn a coveted slice of weekend evening comfort programming – think Victoria and Poldark – sometimes you have to turn the tables: to scare, to even provoke revulsion. The BBC’s recent three-part drama Gunpowder took on that challenge – and blew traditional, cosy Sunday night ‘sanitised history’ out of the water, offering instead some grimly realistic ‘horrible history’ on a Saturday. There were some scenes that were so gruesome the production had to have a compliance conversation with the state broadcaster. Director J Blakeson and cinematographer Philipp Blaubach had worked together on the movie The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a dark tale of kidnap, violence and deceit. So the duo were perfect for Gunpowder on at least two of those counts. Philipp remembers that the director and he were left to their own devices for the shoot. “We had to check how much blood and guts we could use for some scenes; creatively, though, we had a lot of freedom.” Gunpowder wasn’t a co-production but all BBC money. However, this is a ‘no excuses’ high-end drama comparable to anything you might find on Netflix or Amazon Video. It’s an HD show due to available budget at time of shooting and owing to an HD-only delivery, although sales internationally
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might be restricted when deliverables are increasingly asking for 4K. If you haven’t seen the series, the colour palette is certainly on the dark side, which was good news for Philipp. “Any cinematographer gets excited about darkness, shadows and contrast – that’s sometimes why horror movies or thrillers are more expressive in that sense, and I felt this wasn’t far off that. It certainly wasn’t your typical costume drama and I saw the potential in taking it into a dark world, with the clandestine conspiracy and the inevitable plotting. It was almost like a modern-day terrorist story.” Blakeson talked to Philipp about a film noir feel, with single-source lighting and deep shadows. Philipp had his own ideas, mixing in references to Dutch masters such as Vermeer. “There is a courtroom scene, and I wanted some kind of Vermeer ideal, with a big window on the left. That period with costumes and candlelight really lends itself to single-source lighting; in a contemporary film you always have some kind of light whether it’s from a streetlight or even a fridge. Here, if there’s not a fireplace burning it’s basically dark – the only lights were candles and there’s a lot of fun doing that. You’re using shadows and contrast, letting light fall off panelled walls and such like.”
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GUNPOWDER SHOOT STORY
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LEFT Robert Catesby (Kit
Harington) prepares to enter a shadowy world – in more ways than one...
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SHOOT STORY ELECTRIC DREAMS
Electric Dreams
Channel 4 in the UK took ten Philip K. Dick stories and adapted them for television: but not without some technical hiccups WORDS ADRIAN PENNINGTON PICTURES CHANNEL 4
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ELECTRIC DREAMS SHOOT STORY
he paranoid, melancholic and prescient imagination of genre writer Philip K. Dick has been a fertile source of science fiction for directors including Steven Spielberg (Minority Report), Richard Linklater (who rotoscoped A Scanner Darkly), Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall), John Woo (Paycheck), Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), and most recently Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049). Amazon Studios with Sony Pictures Television and Channel 4 has returned to the author’s extensive short story catalogue and plucked ten to adapt into individual hour-long films. The result is Electric Dreams. Packaged as an anthology, and interpreted by ten sets of writers/ directors, each film is unique, ranging from the present day to millennia ahead. Production was split, with five episodes in the UK, and five in Chicago Studio City, shot concurrently under separate teams. THE COMMUTER The first episode to complete production, and the third to transmit on Channel 4, is The Commuter, written by Dick in 1953. Adapted by Jack Thorne (This is England ‘86, ‘88 and ‘90) and directed by Tom Harper (War & Peace, Peaky Blinders), the story centres on Ed Jacobson (Timothy Spall), an unassuming employee at a train station in suburbia who is alarmed to discover that a number of daily commuters are taking the train to Macon Heights – a place that shouldn’t exist. The episode also features Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake) and Tuppence Middleton (The Imitation Game). Naturally, when cinematographer Ollie Downey (Harlots, Clean Break) first got wind of the script’s origins, he immediately thought of Blade Runner. “Yet the first 15 minutes of our story are set in Woking Station.” He continues, “The first thing that struck me when reading the script was that any sci-fi influence was negligible. It is a beautifully rich, emotionally complex, honest look at family, loss, love and resilience. When Jack introduced the script at the cast read-through, it gave me goose bumps. It’s about a man stuck in an impossibly difficult situation with a son who is emotionally disturbed.” As an escape from his home life, Ed discovers Macon Heights, a utopian world that whilst not wildly different from his own reality, is devoid of any emotional pain or @DEFINITIONMAGAZINE |
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THE FIRST EPISODE TO COMPLETE PRODUCTION IS THE COMMUTER, WRITTEN IN 1953
LEFT The Commuter
was the first story to be adapted.
BELOW On-set with
DOP Ollie Downey and the RED.
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suffering. The story could be read as an allegory for mental illness or even for addiction, in which Macon Heights is a place one goes to hide from mental anguish. MACON HEIGHTS These two contrasting worlds as a set-up is a gift to a cinematographer. The obvious approach would be to treat the real world as harsh and unforgiving, and the other world as soft and dreamy, but to Ollie Downey and Tom Harper that felt wrong. “No matter how unbearable our character’s life is, it is at least real,” Ollie explains. “The subtext to the story can be read as, ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all’. Understanding this, we wanted his real life to feel dirty and out of control but also rich and organic in contrast to the parallel universe, which should feel more rigid and confined, synthetic even. As the film progresses these worlds begin to bleed into one another.” Tom had shot War & Peace on Kowa anamorphics in 2015 and, according to Ollie, loved the look of the aberrations, the focal drop-off, bokeh and associated characteristics of the old glass. “We felt it would perfectly reflect Ed’s emotional state,” says Ollie. “However, they are rarely used for drama because the colours don’t match across the range and if you shoot anywhere near wide open then different parts of the image go soft and they bow terribly. They are inherently inconsistent.” Ollie wanted to use Crystal Xpress, a set of Cooke Series 2 and 3 Panchros given the anamorphic treatment by Joe Dunton Camera (JDC) in the 1980s. “They have a richness and beauty that I think is unsurpassed,” he says. “Because our story is about the disintegration of a man’s personal life we felt the best
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GRADE STORY PADDINGTON 2
Paddington 2 takes the colour from the first film and bends the management rules. Technicolor senior colourist Peter Doyle explains how it was done WORDS JULIAN MITCHELL PICTURES STUDIOCANAL
addington Bear is back, and the sequel is as charming and well made as the original: and it looks great. But have a closer look and you see something has happened to the colour, not of Paddington but the whole movie; something wonderful. Critics have called it ‘day-glo’ or ‘full of primary colours’ or ‘like a storybook’. They have, by chance, picked up on the plan by director Paul King, DOP Eric Wilson and colourist Peter Doyle. This is the look that this triumvirate had planned as an extension of what the first film looked like. It’s a triumph of colour management as this time round Technicolor was booked to do a setto-screen model, so to handle all the rushes, the colour management, all the VFX pulls including the colour, the DI and the various deliverables including the HDR 10. It was a full colour-management service for the film. The film was shot in ARRIRAW with ARRI ALEXAs and master prime lenses running at native resolution all the way through to the DI. DEFINITION DECEMBER 2017
We asked Peter Doyle, a veteran of such films as the Harry Potter films and Lord of the Rings, if the new film was trying to enhance the story like a romantic comedy does. “Compared to the first one, it is definitely the same kind of world,” he says, “but I believe the looks are at least more consistent in the world that we created. “Romantic comedies are an interesting sub-genre from a grading and lighting viewpoint in that there does seem to be an assumption that they need to be bright and poppy, I don’t have an opinion. Especially in a romantic dinner scene for instance where everyone is made to look fabulous. Paddington was slightly different, certainly it needed to be
IMAGES Paddington himself and the Brown family on set.
SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED TO THE COLOUR, NOT OF PADDINGTON BUT THE WHOLE MOVIE
bright and poppy, it needed to be more light rather than just like a romcom. Paul King, the director, and Eric Wilson the DOP, wanted to have a depth, a kind of hyper-realism, ‘pantomime stage’ but not really: so the scary bits still remain theatrically scary. It’s quite fun in that respect to go for the realism but heighten it and keep it kind of storybook. “I think technically what you might be seeing is a full implementation of a fully managed colour workflow. For the first film Technicolor wasn’t involved in the initial rushes; this time round we were able to implement this workflow with the use of ACES colour space DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
PADDINGTON 2 GRADE STORY
for the exchange of the visual effects. The actual display colour space was ultra-wide gamut so ultimately it was Rec 2020 then folded down for the different display mediums. That allowed us to get these extremely pure reds but also keep a handle on the skin tones.” GRADING LANGUAGE From an initial LUT design process to the final DI, creative language is used to explain to very experienced colourists like Peter what is needed. Peter takes that language and interprets it. “When you grade a film it’s a very odd situation in terms of conversation. You have the creative team who have their idea of how this film should look and obviously that’s intellectualised and inside a bunch of people’s heads. The only real way of trying to describe that is to just use references – there is a standard way of working which is to refer typically to artists and photographers. Paul and Eric ended up using some of the same @DEFINITIONMAGAZINE |
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photographic references that I have been collecting over the years. “For instance, there are the New York colour photographers from the 60s and 70s like Saul Leiter, Fred Herzog, and the slightly more modern ones who tend to get a bit more conceptual with their work like Mitch Epstein and Steve Shaw. But there is a common theme to all these guys which is how they approached colour. It was these references that we all shared and one of the things that stood out was that they were using old film stocks, particularly in the case of Saul Leiter. “He, at the time, had very little money so he used to buy old stock out of the chemists and he would do a deal with Labs in New York so they would keep a print or two in exchange for the processing costs. The end result was the colour being very distorted, because those guys were using film which is organic and pigment and gelatin based, the reproduction of the colours was quite organic. Modern electronic
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SHOOT STORY MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Train Set
How do you portray a long train journey on 65mm film without going anywhere? We asked DOP Haris Zambarloukos the tricks of the on-set trade PICTURES TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
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MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS SHOOT STORY
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Definition: You’ve done five pictures with Sir Kenneth Branagh. How did you come to work with him? Haris Zambarloukos: He was about to begin a film called Sleuth and was looking at some of the newer cinematographers who were in England at the time. I had shot a film called Enduring Love and he really appreciated the film and asked me to meet him. That’s how we met. I worked on that film and have pretty much shot his films since. Def: When did it become evident that creating the world outside the moving rail cars of the Orient Express could become a central technical challenge in this production? HZ: Early on, and I mean really early on. That was one of the first discussions. I knew about the technique. We discussed it a little bit on Cinderella, if you remember, but it was such a small scene and I think that to do something like this, and do it successfully, you need a good chunk of a page count. And this film made perfect sense. It couldn’t have been a better scenario to do this. Also I think it was pretty evident that there was no way we would get our cast to go on location. Number one, they had to book an ensemble cast of 13. Scheduling this film was a logistical nightmare. So it was definitely going to be a studio technique. I think that the
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THERE WAS NO WAY WE WOULD GET OUR CAST TO GO ON LOCATION. THEY HAD TO BOOK AN ENSEMBLE CAST OF 13 IMAGES With such a cast of A listers, keeping them together for the entire length of the movie was a scheduling nightmare.
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credit has to be given to our VFX department as well on this. And of course production; often we don’t praise production in studios enough but it was a huge commitment. I mean the LED screens as a way of creating the enhanced environment is one thing, but to commit to four months before production even starts, sending camera crews and eight cameras halfway across the globe to film these environments, then stitch them together etc., to have them ready in time. You’re not even at the final script stage at that point. For all you know, the writers could have turned it into a static train. It’s a massive commitment and they loved the idea. And because none of us had actually done it before, it was another big leap of faith. And we were so grateful for what it does. I think the photographic reasons absolutely speak for themselves. You just need to experience the film because people unfortunately will not believe that it is all in camera. That’s the problem. But the real test was our actors who truly felt they were going on a journey. And it’s an incredible thing to have an ensemble cast like that, including Kenneth who was directing and acting. He was responsible for creating this film and putting these people in this situation where they really feel like they are travelling. I think this is a fantastic solidarity amongst the creators DECEMBER 2017 DEFINITION
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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE G-TECHNOLOGY
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When you’re planning a film that involves working in remote and harsh environments it’s not just the cameras and crew that have to be tough, the storage needs to be up to handling the challenges as well.
hen planning an expedition to film in one of the planet’s most remote corners, deciding on a workflow is never easy. Couple that with a complex set of deliverables, including a 6K feature length documentary, fast-paced Video News Releases (VNRs) edited in the field plus content for social and offline edits, and you’re facing a huge task. Flight of the Swans was the brainwave of extreme sportswoman and Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) conservationist Sacha Dench. In a bid to raise awareness of the decline of the Bewick’s swan, one of the world’s most threatened birds, she strapped a paramotor to her back and took to the skies. Her aim was to fly 7000km from Arctic Russia back to the UK, following her quarry’s autumn migration. Just as Flight of the Swans pushed every boundary in terms of expedition planning and conservation, the project’s workflow
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PROVED ITS WORTH IN TERMS OF RELIABILITY
BELOW Working out in the field, the WWT team appreciated the robustness of G-Technology kit.
also called for some pretty creative thinking. Above all the solution needed to ingest and store more than 250 hours of high-res raw footage quickly and securely, as Flight of the Swans film director and producer, Amber Eames explains: “The expedition was 100% dependent on reliable and fast storage. The challenge we faced was needing to film in remote, harsh environments, as well as editing on the go.” One of the most important issues for a project like this is ensuring you have several copies of your media, and master and clone combinations are, of course, essential. “We opted for a combination of G-Technology G-DRIVE ev ATC drives, G-DRIVE ev ATC with Thunderbolt and three 18TB G-SPEED Shuttle XLs,” says Amber. “These were located in the UK and in the field with the expedition film crew, to ensure both locations had access to the rushes.” Meanwhile, for offloading Amber used ShotPut Pro because it can do MD5 checksum verification as well as copy multiple drives simultaneously. During the expedition WWT’s six-strong media team was split into two parties, and each had a different remit and required a bespoke workflow. The first crew was filming on-the-fly in remote locations, from isolated Estonian islands to the Russian tundra, and so needed a rugged, all-terrain storage solution, in the form of G-DRIVE ev ATC drives. “For me it’s all about being able to access my images at any given time,”
says expedition cameraman, Ben Cherry, “even when I’m out in the field. Whether it’s having to forward something to the press or sharing content on social, I need to be able to turn content around quickly.” Ben also needed to keep everything backed up regularly. This often meant downloading files while still in makeshift filming hides in order to free up SD cards or, more importantly, RED storage – all without mains power. “The G-DRIVE ev ATCs offer the perfect solution. Their compact nature and bus powered running with inbuilt USB 3 cable means they’re not only easy to carry, fitting easily into one of my shoulder bags, but the rugged water protection means filming around wetlands is less of a hazard. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take one or two tumbles in a bog during filming!” FASTER STORAGE WWT’s second crew required a faster storage solution, capable of handling RED raw 6K media. It’s always challenging editing on the road, but the nature of this project meant that a seamless workflow was required between in-field assembly edits and offline edits back in the UK for the likes of Autumnwatch and BBC Breakfast news. “The G-SPEED Shuttle XL proved an invaluable asset,” comments expedition camera operator and editor Matt Harris, “and really helped to speed up our workflow on the road.” DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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With read and write speeds of up to 920MB/s and 880MB/s respectively, the towers could offload a full 512GB RED mag in under 15 minutes. The team was using very processor-heavy workflows: in the field they needed to quickly edit native 6K RED raw in Avid Media Composer for news teams and, for the larger edits, high-res DNX185 files were used, also in Avid. The speed and capacity of the G-Technology products was something Amber found particularly valuable. “The G-SPEED Shuttle XL is available in up to 72TB with two ev series bay adapters,” she observes. “This allowed me to use the ev series MINI-MAG reader, so I could simply plug a RED mag directly into the MINI-MAG reader to maximise the offload speeds.” But fast transfer speeds and reliable storage were only part of the challenge. The expedition team travelled thousands of miles, braving extreme weather conditions – not exactly ideal conditions for sensitive computer and storage equipment, especially when most hardware is designed for office use. “With the G-SPEED Shuttle XL all of this was solved,” says Amber. “Its portable rugged storage unit means it’s made for indoor and outdoor use. This expedition really showcased the towers’ transportability and ruggedness, and they were well protected by custom Peli cases, tough construction and top handle.” @DEFINITIONMAGAZINE |
The expedition lasted three months, with the crew using multiple cameras, codecs and file sizes. But now the team has returned home, how is the kit standing up to the rigorous demands of an offline edit for a feature length documentary? “Your rushes are your most important asset,” says Amber. “You need to know they’ll be kept safe in the field as well as fitting easily into your post-production workflow. Now that I’ve come to the edit, it’s a huge relief to know I’ve not lost anything. G-Technology hardware has proved its worth in terms of reliability and ability to match up to my complex workflow requirements.” During the edit, the G-SPEED Shuttle XL has continued to prove its reliability, connecting to a Mac Pro via Thunderbolt to set up a standalone edit suite. The simplicity of this system has been invaluable, as it meant that when Amber had to move out of the edit suite temporarily, she quickly and easily dismantled the kit. This system also offers a great deal of flexibility, allowing a choice between any of the main editing platforms. Amber has been working with over 250 hours of footage, much of it shot in 6K on RED cameras and, working with Avid Media Composer, the stability is impressive despite large, complex edits and workflows. The goal of any Avid-RED workflow is to maintain and exploit the advantages of the R3D files – Avid can deal with 6K and RED media natively. High-res DNx185 transcodes
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are being used for the edit, and these are then conformed back through REDCINE-X Pro. “Although we’re not editing natively, this is effectively what we’re doing with high-res files,” says Amber. “Despite this, the system hasn’t crashed once and it’s all proved very stable during the edit. I’ve found this a very stress-free way of working.” So how has G-Technology kit held up overall? “What we needed was a workflow solution that was flexible enough to support a stand-alone edit suite,” Amber says, “one that was fast enough to enable the team to edit natively in the field, robust enough to withstand the physically challenging environment we would be faced with and stable enough to ensure we returned with all our rushes intact ready for post-production. Ultimately G-Technology products delivered on all fronts, and you can’t ask for more than that.”
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TOP RIGHT RED and
G-Technology were speedy partners for this project, with a 512GB RED mag offloading in under 15 minutes.
MORE INFORMATION: www.g-technology.com www.wwt.org.uk DECEMBER 2017 DEFINITION
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USER REVIEW CINEO S410
CINEO LIGHTING STANDARD 410 Cineo Lighting’s new LED light offers a beautiful white spectrum and a multitude of colour options WORDS KYLE HARPER, EMBER
e’re already familiar with Cineo at Ember – we’ve had one of the company’s HS2 lights for a while. It’s a really good hard source and we use it quite a lot. It’s very portable, fitting nicely in a large Peli case, and easy to use for all different types of shooting. The new Standard 410 soft light offers the whole colour temperature range, and you can dial in RGB as well, which is interesting for us. A lot of our work is run-and-gun – we mainly do personal story shoots, not really documentary, but that style. Compared with the other types of lighting we use, the 410 is heavier, because it has ballast built in. The whole thing feels impressively robust. Its wattage and how much light it pushes out are two of its key features. DEFINITION DECEMBER 2017
WHITE LIGHT Now that we’ve used it for a while, I’m really impressed by the consistency of the white light. When you’re changing colour temperature and hues it stays very consistent – this RGB, dial-able technology is important and that market is very competitive. ARRI’s Skypanel is, at the moment, the one to beat. The softness of the Standard 410 light is impressive as well. At 2x1ft it gives a nice, soft talent light which was primarily what I used it for. It drops off really gradually and lightly, and the built-in hues mean you don’t have to use gels and lose that stop of light that’s the result of applying gels – this keeps the light consistent. I used the Standard 410 on one of our personal story shoots about a
CINEO S410 USER REVIEW
local sign painter. We were shooting in his studio, and I wanted quite a natural, softish light. I needed something versatile as I didn’t know what I was stepping into, and with the 410’s colour temperature and RGB range you can pretty much match or contrast any lighting style you encounter – just what I needed. These kind of shoots never really go to plan and it was a hard location to shoot in, but the Standard 410 definitely helped. I tried to use a lot of practicals to keep it natural, but mainly lit with the 410. This gave a really nice, soft fill, and when I wanted to do some close-ups it gave great soft talent light, too. I found some of the practicals had a slight green hue to them, so I used the 410 to try and match @DEFINITIONMAGAZINE |
that and then match the colour temperature accordingly in camera. It did a good job of matching, and showed how versatile the light is when shooting on location without studio controlled conditions. USER INTERFACE The Standard 410 has just four dials, which are really well designed and very intuitive – ease of use is a big strength. The four dials dim the light, change the colour temperature, dial through the hues and add saturation. Even if you need just a small amount of colour in the shot you only have to dial the saturation of that hue up a tiny bit to achieve what you want – that really impressed me. On the screen there’s a whole rainbow of colours with an indicator
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IT DID A GOOD JOB OF MATCHING, AND SHOWED HOW VERSATILE THE LIGHT IS
THIS PAGE Offering a beautiful white light and a host of colour options, the Cineo Standard 410.
showing where you are – you just dial through the colours and then dial up and down the saturation. I was one-man operating for this shoot with the camera rig, so adjusting the Standard 410 was pretty easy. I could quickly go over and dial the light up a bit and use the colour temperature really easily without worrying about bending down for the ballast, or connecting a ballast. I wouldn’t say it was totally suitable DECEMBER 2017 DEFINITION
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4K CAMERA LISTINGS
DEFINITION’S 4K CAMERA LIST
As the professional video world moves towards 4K production and UHD broadcast we have the camera reference listing you need
ARRI ALEXA CLASSIC EV 120FPS
14 STOPS
PL MOUNT
2880x1620
ARRI ALEXA MINI
SxS
Even with the new SXT models coming on-stream this year, you can still buy or rent this original ALEXA model with the original great performing sensor. There are signs that the classic won’t be available for long, so be quick.
SPECIFICATION
200FPS
14 STOPS
PL MOUNT
2880x1620
SxS
New features include the EXT Sync function, which allows sensors and operational parameters of up to 15 ALEXA Minis to be synchronised to a master ALEXA Mini. Slaves can assume parameters like frame rate, shutter angle or ND setup of the master.
SPECIFICATION
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
Single CMOS, 16:9 (1.78:1), 23.8x13.4mm – S35
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
Single CMOS, 16:9 (1.78:1), 23.8x13.4mm – S35
FRAME RATES
0.75–120fps (120fps with paid-for update)
FRAME RATES
Up to 200fps in ProRes
LATITUDE (STOPS)
14
LATITUDE (STOPS)
14
LENS MOUNT
PL
LENS MOUNT
PL, EF, B4 w/ Hirose connector
DIGITAL SAMPLING
2880x1620, uncompressed ARRIRAW/1920x1080
DIGITAL SAMPLING
2880x1620, uncompressed ARRIRAW/1920x1080
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT AND TIME
3.2K: 3200x1800; 4K UHD: 3840x2160 (up-sampled from 3.2K); 4:3 2.8K: 2880x2160 (up to 2944x2160)
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT AND TIME
3.2K: 3200x1800; 4K UHD: 3840x2160 (up-sampled from 3.2K); 4:3 2.8K: 2880x2160 (up to 2944x2160)
WEIGHT (KG)
6.3 with PL mount
WEIGHT (KG)
2.3 with Titanium PL mount
DEFINITION DECEMBER 2017
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4K CAMERA LISTINGS
ARRI ALEXA SXT EV 120FPS
14 STOPS
PL MOUNT
2880x2160
ARRI ALEXA SXT W
SxS/SXR
SXT ALEXAs get the sensor from ALEXA, the electronics from the A65 and the colour management from AMIRA. In-camera rec is ProRes 4K UHD/CINE. A direct response to requests for cutting-edge digital capture with traditional elements of the film cameras.
SPECIFICATION
75
120FPS
> 14 STOPS
PL MOUNT
2880x1620
SxS
Based on the ALEXA SXT Plus, the SXT W has replaced the SXT Plus and Studio models with an industrial version of the Amimon chipset for wireless transmission. ARRI has ruggedised the W mainly for feature work.
SPECIFICATION
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
16:9 or 4:3 sensor mode. 4:3 output only for ARRIRAW and ProRes 2K recording
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
16:9 or 4:3 sensor mode. 4:3 output only available for ARRIRAW and ProRes 2K recording
FRAME RATES
At 16:9 – 0.75-120fps/60fps max when recording 2K ProRes/speeds adjustable with 1/1000fps precision
FRAME RATES
At 16:9 – 0.75–120fps/60fps max when recording 2K ProRes/speeds
LATITUDE (STOPS)
14+
LATITUDE (STOPS)
+14
LENS MOUNT
54 mm stainless steel LDS PL mount
LENS MOUNT
PL
DIGITAL SAMPLING
2880x2160 uncompressed ARRIRAW
DIGITAL SAMPLING
2880x1620, Uncompressed ARRIRAW/1920x1080
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT AND TIME
SxS PRO 64GB; SxS PRO+ 64GB; SxS PRO+ 128GB; LEXAR 3600x CFast 2.0 cards 256GB; XR Capture Drives 512GB; SXR Capture Drives 1TB & 2TB
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT AND TIME
16-bit linear internal image processing in full ALEXA Wide Gamut/Log C colour space. Target output colour spaces: Log C, Rec. 709 or Rec. 2020
WEIGHT (KG)
6.9 with PL mount
ARRI ALEXA 65 60FPS
> 14 STOPS
XPL MOUNT
5120x2880
ARRI AMIRA SXR/XR
With a sensor larger than a 5-perf 65mm film frame, ALEXA 65 heralds the start of Digital IMAX. Now shooting as a main production camera for Netflix, Amazon and the rest. Only available exclusively through their global network of rental facilities.
200FPS
14 STOPS
PL MOUNT
2880x1620
CFAST
Amira is now split up into standard, advanced and premium. Features include in-camera grading with preloaded 3D LUTs, as well as 200fps slow motion. From reportage and corporate films to TV drama and low-budget movies. Multicam mode too.
SPECIFICATION
SPECIFICATION SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
ARRI A3X CMOS sensor, 54.12x25.58mm active image area. Open Gate aspect ratio of 2.11:1 (6560x3100)
SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE
Single CMOS, 16:9 (1.78:1), 28.17x18.3mm – 35 format
FRAME RATES
Capable of recording 20-60fps (open gate) using new SXR media. XR drives allow 27fps
FRAME RATES
Up to 200fps in ProRes
LATITUDE (STOPS)
14+
LATITUDE (STOPS)
14
LENS MOUNT
ARRI XPL mount with Lens Data System (LDS)
LENS MOUNT
PL, B4 mount w/ Hirose connector
DIGITAL SAMPLING
1.78 crop mode (5-perf 65mm): 5120x2880 and 1.50:1 crop mode – 4320x2880
DIGITAL SAMPLING
2880x1620, uncompressed ARRIRAW/1920x1080
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT AND TIME
Codex SXR Capture Drive 2000 GByte capacity Max. frame rate capability: 60 fps (Open Gate) Recording time: 43 minutes at 24 fps
RECORDED BIT DEPTH FORMAT AND TIME
HD 1920x1080, 2K 2048x1152, 3.2K ProRes 3200x1800 4K UHD 3840x2160
WEIGHT (KG)
10.5 kg | 23.2 lb
WEIGHT (KG)
4.1 with PL mount
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DECEMBER 2017 DEFINITION