Filmmaker Profile: Cinematographer, John Leonetti - Shooting with RED
Posted on: September 4, 2008
Posted in: Cinematography, Featured, Tools, Video
The RED digital cinema camera is causing a stir. It’s the paradigm shifting, production tool equivalent of Apple’s Final Cut Pro and it’s changing everything about ultra-high resolution digital cinematography. Directors such as Peter Jackson and Steven Soderberg have embraced it, and the Southern California based company can not make the camera and its accessories fast enough. In fact, if you were to order a RED camera today, it wouldn’t ship until December; that’s how hot this thing is.
That’s why I was delighted when I heard my friend, cinematographer John Leonetti, had just shot his latest film, HYBRID, with six RED cameras on location in Saskatchewan, Canada. HYBRID is an action thriller, and as John reveals, the thirty-one day schedule really put the RED system to the test. Here is part one of a three part series on John’s experience shooting with the RED; his background with digital cinematography cameras from other companies; his thoughts on the future of film and finally, the RED camera’s potential effect on the future of Hollywood.
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September 6th, 2008 at 10:50 am
This interview looks like it was very heavily edited. I wish you could have played it in full without distorting what John was saying. It would have been much longer for sure, but I think it would have been more interesting that way.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Brian,
I take exception with your comment that I “distorted” what John had to say. He, and in fact all of the people I interview, get final approval of their segment(s) before they go up on the site. As a point of fact, Mr. Leonetti was very pleased with the finished “cut”.
If you don’t like the style of the piece, that’s one thing. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I encourage all intelligent and constructive feedback. On the other hand, I appreciate you taking a moment to choose your words more carefully before impugning our work.
Thanks,
Larry Jordan
HDFilmtools.com
September 6th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
in the video, dood says five, text says six red cameras on his movie…
September 8th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Interesting. Thanks for posting this
Here is a technical tip for future episodes.
I would recommend using a frame size where both width and height is divisible by 16 (mod16). That is because in MPEG compression, the frame is divided into macroblocks of 16×16 pixels. Read more about that here: http://tinyurl.com/6prh83 and here: http://tinyurl.com/5vby6x
The height “405″ which is not divisible by 16 (http://www.google.com/search?q=405%2516), is what makes the 1px green line appear at the bottom of the frame.
By using mod16 frame sizes, not only will you get rid of the 1px green line, but you will get better quality and more efficient compression (and decoding).
Try one of these resolutions, for 16:9 aspect ratio (square pixels):
1280 x 720
1024 x 576
768 x 432
512 x 288
You can find these optimal resolutions programmatically by using modulo operation.
“In computing, the modulo operation finds the remainder of division of one number by another.”
If the reminder of both width % 16 and height % 16 is 0, then you are good to go.
To calculate the optimal video bitrate, I would recommend having a look at Robert Reinhardt’s bitrate calculator (just remember to set the codec to H.264): http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/apps/flv_bitrate_calculator/
September 9th, 2008 at 7:22 am
[...] Film Tools has a two part (one, two) interview with John Leonetti, ASC on shooting [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 8:51 am
[...] Part 1 [...]