Littekens (“Scars”) feature film

Meanwhile, our feature film Littekens (“Scars”, Director: Martin Beek) – shot on Red Scarlet & Canon glass – has been doing well in Asia (Hong Kong), Washington and will feature at the West Virginia Filmmakers Festival next month.

And with that event, the festival season is over for Littekens and we’ll start focusing on further distribution! Keep an eye out for Littekens!

Meanwhile, if you want to see the full movie now, it’s available on Vimeo on Demand here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/littekens (with trailer and English subs).

Website: http://littekensfilm.nl (Dutch)
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2748180/
Vimeo page with trailer: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/littekens
Facebook (English) page: https://www.facebook.com/littekens
Facebook (Dutch) page: https://www.facebook.com/littekensfilm.nl

I downgraded from Red Scarlet MX to Blackmagic Production Camera, but it feels like an upgrade!

I’ve thought long and hard about my next move, camera-wise. My Red Scarlet MX was eligible for upgrading to an Epic for 9000US$, or upgrading to a Scarlet Dragon for 9500US$. I paid a small fortune for my Scarlet and adding another 9 grand meant that i could’ve better bought an Epic in the first place. IMHO, not much of a deal or “gesture” to Scarlet owners.

I decided eventually to sell the Scarlet now it’s still worth a few bucks. Emphasizing on “a few”.
I had to let it go a few weeks ago for 7200 euros including a cage, Redmote, two 64gb SSDs, 5″ LCD, sideSSD, etc.; the complete scarlet package plus tophandle and cage. That amount of money is peanuts, but hey, you know that it devaluates starting day one.

I decided to “downgrade” to a 3000US$ Blackmagic production camera, for having a camera around the place and have something to play with during the fall and winter. Bought myself a great Sigma 18-35 1.8 zoom and a cage with handles plus three 500GB SSDs. Still had enough money left to buy some extra audio gear, Vmount batteries and pay a few months of mortgage for the house! 😉

I thought i’d bought Martin’s next plaything and considered it to be a downgrade just to please my desire to own a camera.
I was almost shocked to learn that the 3000$ silly looking package produced way sharper and detailed images that my Red scarlet ever did! It has roughly the same dynamic range and s/n ratio, but seems to reveal much more micro-detail instead of bags of noise when blowing images up to 200%. VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE!

I shoot 24p exclusively in 4K on any camera – i rent highspeed cameras when i need them. So the Blackmagic production camera is a gift from heaven to indie filmmakers. For the price of renting a Red (don’t you ever think of buying one!) you can buy two or three BMPCs !!!  And, just to make this clear, i am not paid of sponsored by BM to tell you this! 😉

I’ll definitely shoot my next feature on multiple BMPCs, i swear!

Cons?

• It needs bags of light (so buy a speedbooster or <=1.8 lens)
• 400 ASA natively: use a ND filter and don’t switch to 200ASA (limiting DR)
• 800 ASA is too noisy, just stick with the 400 ASA and crank the exposure up in post; it’ll look great!
• No white balance. Just a range of Kelvins to choose from. Shoot a color card or WB card and adjust in post.
• Internal battery wears down just below one hour. Buy one medium sized Vmount battery and you’re good for hours.
• The BM CINEMADNG Raw codec is HUGE and will slurp your precious SSD gigabytes before you know it.
  BM HAS to device a way to adjust the compression level of the codec or come-up with something new, because this data-rate is outrageous. Recording just 12 minutes on a 500GB ssd is something i can NOT live with. Imagine shooting a feature film with this… My storage and backup costs would go through the roof! The Red Scarlet recorded 34 minutes of full 4K with low compression (1:6) on a 64GB ssd !

Pros?

• Lightweight form factor, though very well build metal design – feels solid
• Record prores and raw (Cinema DNG)
• Super 35mm large sensor, great filmic shallow DOF with the right lenses
• Comes with a fully licensed version of DaVinci Resolve (including dongle)!
• Very nice skin color representation and silky smooth light transitions (just a personal / subjective opinion)
• Low (audible) noise
• full Canon EF lens communication and LANC (BeBop lanc controller will even control focus)
• 4K SDI out
• 12-35 volt input, so hookup any juice that doesn’t kill you 😉
• Easy operation, easy menu’s

My next project… Taking a scene shot with my Scarlet, and repeating it with the same lens on the same location and under the same lighting conditions and show you the difference!
Shooting some hi-contrast winter footage with the BMPC!

Cheers!
Martin.

PREVENT PIRACY: secure ways of archiving and distributing dailies, footage and DCP files + shocking facts

 

 

UPDATE april/2014: The CYPHR file encryption software is now freeware!  Get your free copy and license @ provost-intel.org/CYPHR  

Edit: quick link for those only interested in the CYPHR software: http://www.provost-intel.org/cyphr

Piracy and the theft of copyrighted (film-) materials is ever increasing and the perpetrators are getting more advanced and even more brutal by the day.

The times of people smuggling their video camera into a cinema to share their shaky images with friends has long gone by.
Pirated movies, bootleg DVDs/BluRays and even illegal movie theater-viewings(!) have become almost a commodity.

Let’s not forget that only a small fraction of all “pirates” do their work for the “common good” in order to raise their streetcred in the PirateBay-like communities.

THIS IS ABOUT MONEY AND NOTHING ELSE. Of course…

Bootleg DVDs and Blurays are sold, but also produced in large quantities by – sometimes – advanced production facilities. New cinema releases are shown on subscription sites.

This is for us, as film makers and copyright owners, a tough thing to deal with, but what i find most disturbing are the inventive ways of illegally acquiring the footage that seems to become more harsh and – indeed – brutal!
If you Google on the subject, you’ll find some cases of footage theft, but i know from trusted sources in my network that most cases are hold silent.

Digital cinema (DCP = Digital Cinema Package) should have made things difficult for criminals to copy movies. That’s indeed true, but it has made them more inventive and look for other ways BEFORE the footage get’s to the cinema in it’s  DCP form. And that hasn’t made things better….

Here is a short and definitely incomplete list of practices i found, with some comments – prepare for some shocks…:

• using a mobile phone or video camera to film a movie at the local cinema
  • This method is the least favorite among serious criminals – we want HD copies, not shaky images.
• using a Telecine device
  • a small device,  with sprockets and a CCD sensor, that is clamped on the physical film strip, on the projector. Only applicable if the movie is projected from celluloid. The perpetrator needs to have access to the projection room – AND HERE COMES THE LEAK NUMBER ONE: the projectionist
• illegal copying of footage and masters at the premises of post production houses, by post production personnel
  • this happens more and more often and is easy to do by the people that are trusted and have access. The people who involve in this are the ones you’d probably suspect the least and are well paid to do so..!
• illegal copying of footage and masters at the premises of post production houses BY FORCE
  • believe it or not: breaking and entering, armed robbery and even extortion seem to belong to the possibilities in order to acquire footage and masters
  • there are known cases of footage transmitted digitally between producers and post production facilities AND HAVE BEEN INTERCEPTED
  • there are known cases of required ransom for footage illegally acquired
• footage stolen on-set, at production houses and private premises
  • either physical or digital: backup devices and digital media are easy to copy or steal, specially by trusted people…
• movie previews are stolen from film festival offices
  • AND HERE IS LEAK NUMBER TWO: film festival offices and personnel! Who runs these operations? Who has access to our materials? We seldom know…
  • Preview DVDs and Blurays are easily copied, or even intercepted before they even reach the festival’d office. THIS IS THE WEAKEST LINK!

OK, let’s be honest, i don’t expect hooded villains to raid my house soon, BUT i want to take all the precautions available to me and my budget.
At Marvels Film we have to a certain protocol for the handling, back-up and protection of footage – of course – but alarmed by the issues pictured above, we have taken some extra measures, which include:

• Packing and encrypting all footage, dailies & masters that are to be backed up or sent to other facilities or people
  • we have made a modest investment in this great software tool: Provost CYPHR  available from www.provost-intel.org/cyphr
  • CYPHR let’s you add artwork, images, footage of all kinds, documents and even applications to a “.cy” file that can only be opened and browsed by the recipient if they have the correct password.
  • these Cyphr “.cy” files can be safely transmitted through unsafe media such as the internet (email / ftp) or on a harddisk or stick
  • anyone, who i fully trust, that needs our CYPHR file can call for the password
  • a great product for a great price and IT WORKS! Absolutely un-crackable and absolutely useless in the wrong hands. The user interface is very simple, but don’t let that first impression deceive you.
• Handling of all backups on set or at our premises is always done accompanied by either Patrick, Roland or me myself and i – if we have a break, it’s done in visibility range of the backup laptop
• DCPs and other finished products of our work are only sent to theaters and broadcasters (specially including film festivals) in an encrypted fashion, also using the Provost CYPHR software
• Always DEMAND that all media is to be returned or destroyed. We have a contract with clear statements of liability that needs to be signed by the recipient. Do it! Have it signed! I know, for indie producers it can be embarrassing to request this – specially at impressive facilities – but never forget that you PAY these people and that they are in principle not to be trusted. That is the cruel truth…

I realize that even major production houses are having trouble with these issues and are ever looking for solutions to end piracy.
IMHO, trying to stop people at home to download movies from the Pirate Bay is not the way. Trying to prevent it from showing up at the Pirate Bay is also our responsibility.

Cheers!

Martin.

Brief update by Martin Beek

Hello followers and fans! 😉

I hope you’re all doing well!  I know, i’ve been silent for some time now. It’s not you, it’s me..!

 

Since april 2012 i’m involved in directing and filming a new Dutch feature film called “Littekens” (English: Scars), using Red cameras and a lot of other new gear we had to get used to.

I turned 50 last year and despite that, and having over 25 years of film making experience, the new digital cinema cameras and techniques freaked me out, got me down, picked me up and eventually gave us the most beautiful images i’ve ever pulled from a camera!

Another few shooting days and principal photography is over, so editing can commence…  More info in Dutch on www.littekensfilm.nl and  www.friendweb.nl/littekensfilm and  www.facebook.com/littekensfilm.nl

 

 

I have also worked in parallel on a new script for a short movie to shoot next year AND – for my Dutch friends – got involved in creating a new Dutch social networking website “FriendWeb” ( http://www.friendweb.nl ) that is targeted towards Facebook dropouts 😉 -> FriendWeb has (at least) two great pros for creative people: very loose rules towards content (->Dutch law) and – in sharp contrast to Facebook – your content stays yours and is provided following the most restrictive Creative Commons license.

 

 

 

Just give me some time to complete my current feature film project and i promise to get back to you with some very interesting stuff on digital film making..!

 

Peace,

 

Martin

48 fps HFR Cinema? I’ll pass on this if you don’t mind…

I’m almost scared to post my “verdict” here, after seeing The Hobbit in 3D HFR this morning – because many of you will probably disagree…

I thought it looked horrible. Very disappointing. It looked like video many times, including the video-like blown out highlights.
The camerawork looked haphazard and even sloppy and the fight scenes were stroboscopic. Many shots out of focus, probably because of shallow DOF and lenses wide open.
I must say, all more or less as expected…

If this is the future of cinema (all hail the video look), i definitely don’t want to be part of that future…

Martin.

Jim Jannard says… Red vs Film

 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was shot on film by Peter Jackson. He shot 7 million feet of film for all three features…

Peter has now shot The Hobbit on RED EPICs in 3D. It is the film equivalent to 27 million feet of film. And he is not done shooting. 27 million feet of film would weigh approximately 67,500 tons.

Some RED SSDs were used over 1000 times. We know because the production complained that our counters only went to 999. We fixed that. Interesting facts.

Who knows what this means. 

Jim
Further reading: Film vs. Red

UK phone number changed

Hello friends. My UK direct line number has changed, so below are my contact details as also published on my website’s Contact page.

Marvels Film
Martin Beek

Director of photography
IMDb: http://imdb.me/martinbeek

Netherlands office:
Mobile: +31 6 46 570 853

UK representation:

Marvels Film
Pinewood Studios, Room 235
Pinewood Rd – Iver, Bucks.
SL0 0NH United Kingdom

UK direct local (London) number to Martin Beek: +44 203 129 5093

Cheers!
Martin

Building a heavy slider for Red with “RigWheels” and “CamOnWheels” parts

When looking for suitable skateboard wheels for a heavy duty slider for my Red Scarlet camera, i stumbled upon the www.rigwheels.com website. They sell small wheel assemblies that can be mounted on (under) almost anything to get things moving… So, i was blinded by the great looking website and neatly produced demo videos and was lured into buying a set of Rigwheels for 130 dollars.

Rigwheels claims to specially manufacture these wheels (with high quality bearings), but alas…, the Rigwheels are nothing more than very cheap runners (with very cheap and noisy bearings) meant for sliding doors – your Ikea bedroom wardrobe is probably equipped with “Rigwheels”. They are not really wheels, but cheap plastic-coated ball bearings.

Never the less, i used the 5 times over-priced Rigwheels to construct a PVC pipe dolly by just putting them under a square piece of MDF furniture plank. I tried to run them on PVC pipes and on metal heating pipes as shown in the picture.

 

Conclusion: Rigwheels are not fit for slider use, and i feel ripped off!

• They are extremely and unacceptably noisy on any surface
• Bearings are of the cheapest chinese manufacture (not sealed, noisy, open for dust, plastic closures)
• Website suggests that noise can be reduced by treating the rails, which is nonsense
• The “wheels” do not run smoothly at all
• Again -> the noise is unacceptable when recording live sound

Here is a little video my camera operator Roland Jacobs shot yesterday, with the Rigwheels rockin’ their socks of – AGAIN:  using pvc pipes or even wooden broom sticks do not change the loud noise (much).

After having recovered from the first shock, i replaced the Rigwheels with a frame with skateboard wheels, which is a little more work, cheaper, smoother and operates noiseless. There are many videos on YouTube that show you how to build something useful with skateboard wheels. Such as this classic one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ua_MDnlTXY 

But, for a slider, a frame with skateboard wheels is too bulky to my taste, so i didn’t despair and Googled for “diy camera slider wheels” searching for a better Rigwheels alternative, and found http://www.camonwheels.com 

Cam On Wheels offers a Rigwheels alternative at half the price. For $50, they provide much better “runners” with better grade bearings (real Abec-grade bearings) with a softer rubber coating. These are far less noisy than the Rigwheels and look more professional too. The CamOnWheels CW2 wheels run smoothly on any surface, so your slider top can also be used as a tabletop dolly.

I used the Manfrotto HiHat to hold my fluid head, just screwed it on a piece of MDF board, screwed the CamOnWheels CW2 wheels on and rode them on the metal pipes. Far less noise than with the RigWheels and much smoother operation.

I’ll try to post a video of the final product soon.

 

Final conclusion: If you need to use small wheels for a slider or tabletop dolly, go for CamOnWheels. If you want to build a PVC pipe dolly that doesn’t need to be elegant, go for skateboard wheels. 

 

Cheers!
Martin.

Free RedCine-X Film Look for Scarlet and Epic

I’ve finally decided on a look for our interior shots, for the feature i’m working on at the moment. A look for on-set preview and a good base for the style and look we’re after in post; inspired by the (in-)famous orange and teal look (Tony Scott and others). I hold back on the exaggerated orange skin look. Blacks are black, but low-midtones and shadows will appear teal. I personally don’t expose to the right (ETR) but expose skin @ around 50%, since we have controlled lighting on the set. If you shoot ETR or on maximum sensor exposure, adjust the Shadow and Mid Gamma Raise controls in RedCine-X, or adjust the FLUT value. The look uses three different curves for R,G and B. Touch the latter and you’re on your own… 😉

The pictures below are not the best demo, but apply it to your own footage, play with it and feel invited to discuss and/or upload your variation on this theme.

I show you before and after pictures, but don’t forget that the source is a 4K raw image that can look like anything “before”. Click on the images for the full 4K picture, although with 80% JPG compression. You can download the RedCine look file below.

Before… 4K@24fps 35mm@f4 Redcolor-3 Redgamma-3

After… Orange and Teal. Exposed skin @50% avg, 60% max peak

You can download this RMD file for free here: http://mediatube.marvelsfilm.com/METERED_ORANGETEAL.RMD

You can use this file to import in RedCine-X Pro (download free from Red.com) or put it on your SSD and import it into your Scarlet-X or Epic camera.
Cheers!

Martin Beek

What i love about my Red Scarlet-X

Wel… absolutely everything, but it’s ultra configurability for sure!
Take a box of old and new rig parts, a screwdriver and a hex key, and build a whole different camera 😉
Oh yeah.. also giving all your savings money to Red.com helps…