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Posted online today by RED's Jiim Jannard:

"About all I can acknowledge is that Spider-man is being shot on EPICs in 3D. The rumors were correct."

Also posted online by the DP of the next "Spiderman", John Schwartzman ASC:

"An Epic First Day :)

Today was Epic, Monday December 6 marks the first day the Red Epic camera was used to shoot a major studio motion picture. I can say for certainty the camera does exist and boy is it ready for primetime, as a matter of fact it's a true game changer. We shot in 3D with 4 Epics mounted on 2 3ality TS-5 rigs today, we did 22 set ups, including running high speed and the images look stunning! I do believe the sensor is iso 800 minus 1 stop for the mirror in daylight and iso 640 in tungsten light but that is really for every dp to determine for themselves, Brook Willard and I figured 640 tungsten but that's just a number. For the first time in digital cinematography, small size doesn't come with a resolution penalty, as a matter of fact there isn't a higher resolution camera available other than IMAX, and this one weighs 5lbs with an ultra prime on it, suddenly 3D isn't a 100lb beast! We had the cameras on dollies and a libra head today and we flew the 3D rig like it was an Arri 435. You guys told me you could do it in September and here we are today, Congratulations.

I am lighting by eye except that I've had to re-train myself to work at lower light levels because the camera is so sensitive. The images we made today were stunning, rich beautiful color and the resolution of a vistavision camera all in a package the size of a Hasselblad 501. We are shooting 2.40 at 5K, there wasn't a hiccup from the cameras all day, the data was flawless, and there was a lot of it. I can tell you without these cameras it would be impossible to move a 3D rig in the ways that THIS story demands, if Jim and the crew hadn't made these cameras available to us I don't think we could have shot this movie the way our director envisioned it in 3D. Guys you've trusted me to take these out on their maiden voyage and I can tell you that after today I won't let you down. I will have the members of my team, most of whom are familiar to the REDUSER site post about things about sub-menu's and stuff my camera assistants won't let me touch. I would like to thank Nate, Brook, Michael, and Deanan as well as my regular camera crew for an unbelievable first day, and Brook thanks for the Tiff's they look amazing!"

Site Admin

http://2-pop.com/DigitalCinematography/article/101052

Spider-man Being Shot on RED EPIC Cameras

"RED Studios Hollywood, Hollywood, CA - Hot on the heels of RED Digital Cinema's recent announcement of Peter Jackson's, The Hobbit, being shot in 3-D with the new RED EPIC cameras, RED today announces that Marc Webb's Spiderman 4 (full title to be announced) will be shot in 3-D and be the first major motion picture to begin shooting with EPIC. Renowned Director of Photography, John Schwartzman ASC, whose credits include Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and Seabiscuit, will exercise his vision with EPIC, which is quickly becoming the "go-to" camera for today's high profile 3-D projects.

Successor to RED's revolutionary 4K RED ONE, EPIC boasts 60% more resolution with its larger 5K sensor (6 times the resolution of an HD video camera), a frame rate as high as 120 frames per second, at full 5K resolution, and a new HDRx™ mode that extends dynamic range beyond anything ever seen in a digital cinema camera. Building on the experience gained in producing thousands of RED ONEs, RED designed EPIC from the ground up, producing an innovative, modular camera, that is smaller, lighter and an order of magnitude more powerful.

At almost 1/3rd the size and half the weight of the original RED ONE, itself one of the smallest, lightest digital cinema cameras ever made, EPIC is perfect for 3-D, where two cameras are mounted on each 3-D rig. Spiderman 4 will be the first major project to begin shooting with the new EPICs, with cameras rolling early this month.

John is no stranger to RED, having used RED ONE cameras for VFX work on Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and most recently, some reshoots with the newer RED ONE M-X for The Green Hornet. Originally shot 2D Anamorphic on film, then converted to 3-D, John was faced with the dilemma of having to quickly provide 3-D scenes that would integrate seamlessly with the existing film. There was not enough time to reshoot on film, so testing began with the current cream of the crop of digital cameras. After extensive testing, the RED ONE M-X was selected, by virtue of its superior resolution, beating out cameras many times the cost of the RED. Four scenes were intercut with the film, the results proving to be, according to John, completely transparent. "As a die hard film user I must say that I have been blown away by the image quality of the MX, it doesn't have the same dynamic range in the highlights as film but I believe with EPIC and HDRx™ it will."

John Schwartzman ASC went on RED's public forum, reduser.net, this evening, just before 7pm, PST, and wrote the following:

(http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52652)

"Today was Epic, Monday December 6 marks the first day the Red Epic camera was used to shoot a major studio motion picture. I can say for certainty the camera does exist and boy is it ready for primetime, as a matter of fact it's a true game changer. We shot in 3D with 4 Epics mounted on 2 3ality TS-5 rigs today, we did 22 set ups, including running high speed and the images look stunning! I do believe the sensor is iso 800 minus 1 stop for the mirror in daylight and iso 640 in tungsten light but that is really for every dp to determine for themselves, Brook Willard and I figured 640 tungsten but that's just a number. For the first time in digital cinematography, small size doesn't come with a resolution penalty, as a matter of fact there isn't a higher resolution camera available other than IMAX, and this one weighs 5lbs with an ultra prime on it, suddenly 3D isn't a 100lb beast! We had the cameras on dollies and a libra head today and we flew the 3D rig like it was an Arri 435. You guys told me you could do it in September and here we are today, Congratulations.

I am lighting by eye except that I've had to re-train myself to work at lower light levels because the camera is so sensitive. The images we made today were stunning, rich beautiful color and the resolution of a vistavision camera all in a package the size of a Hasselblad 501. We are shooting 2.40 at 5K, there wasn't a hiccup from the cameras all day, the data was flawless, and there was a lot of it. I can tell you without these cameras it would be impossible to move a 3D rig in the ways that THIS story demands, if Jim and the crew hadn't made these cameras available to us I don't think we could have shot this movie the way our director envisioned it in 3D. Guys you've trusted me to take these out on their maiden voyage and I can tell you that after today I won't let you down. I will have the members of my team, most of whom are familiar to the REDUSER site post about things about sub-menu's and stuff my camera assistants won't let me touch. I would like to thank Nate, Brook, Michael, and Deanan as well as my regular camera crew for an unbelievable first day, and Brook thanks for the Tiff's they look amazing!

Mazel Tov RED!

Jim Jannard, owner and founder of RED, considers John's adoption of EPIC for his latest project one of RED's most shining moments. "John is a consummate artist, a friend, and a professional that I have great respect for. His faith in our program and belief in what we are trying to do is immensely gratifying." The team at RED has been working with John for many weeks in preparation for shooting and looks forward to continued support through the project.

Site Admin

Michael Cioni of LightIron Digital Post had this to say regarding the on-set workflow they are employing on Spider-man:

"With the help of all my partners, I have been heading up the end-to-end workflow on this film for about 3 months, along with a slew of other Epic 3D and 2D projects. I will comment on this workflow as best I can in the coming weeks. For now, I've included a picture of our OUTPOST carts which are now optimized for Epic downloading, processing, and delivery to AVID, PIX, and iPads for editorial and dailies viewing.

What is important for all soon-to-be Epic users is to start brainstorming a way to manage their Epic data which, compared to RED MX:

1. is 2-3 times larger than MX RC42
2. is saved to cards that are 128GBs (8x larger than 16GB CF)
3. requires window-burned 3D side-by-side file creation (for 3D shows)
4. requires convergence adjustments (popular 3D trend is to shoot parallel)
5. requires 3x copies of all media prior to leaving set each day

At an average of 6GBs-8GBs per minute, what many people will run into on their first Epic adventures is the potential (and dangerous) bottle-neck of improved image fidelity in the form of increased file sizes. This needs to be well thought out on Epic productions to insure there is no bottle-neck in the download and processing stations. Without a newly optimized set of gear, productions could fall behind set and the data-techs/DITs/wranglers will be left on set backing up and processing for hours after wrap. A surge in increased processing times could have a negative impact on the Epic if producers notice a significant delay in the ability to provide files in the same manner as they are used to with MX.

On shows that shoot to uncompressed DPX files (such as the file-based adaptations of F35, Alexa, and Genesis), many producers are holding transportation longer than anticipated due to the delay of the data. I'd like to encourage people to start benchmarking their systems now and upgrade where necessary to adequately handle the size of Epic data which is similar to the size of uncompressed HD (upto 180MB/s), which can be 10GBs per minute. The simplest way to start preparing for this is to make sure you can maintain the ability to move files in real time. In other words, your system needs to be capable of moving up to 8GBs-10GBs to multiple locations in 1 minute's time. RED has helped solve the problem with the new RED Stations, which deliver incredible speeds of SSD transfers to multiple targets. From there, you need to optimize your systems with the ability to:

1. check sum all data to each target directory (2-3 total)
2. color, sync, converge every shot
3. process AVID, ProRes, H264 (we do all 3 for every mag)
4. transfer to a shuttle drive

Some hints to begin designing your workflow (both on set and in post) is to:

1. 100% eliminate dependance on FireWire800. Reliance on even 1 lane of FW800 will likely start putting Epic shows behind schedule well before lunch.
2. Rockets are standard. Accelerating your viewing and processing has always been a must, but with files of this size, reliance on CPU power alone to debayer in a reasonable amount of time is simply impossible.
3. Look at different transfer potentials. We have been relying heavily on SAS (we did all of Pirates 4 with MAXX Digital SAS Raids) and lots of eSata shuttles. GTech now makes an incredible, quiet, and mobile SAS Raid (GSpeed eS Pro)which can easily deliver over 500MB/s R&W (4-8TBs @ Raid 5). In other words, you don't want to get stuck moving multiple terabytes per day over FW800.
4. Multiple Computer Terminals. With 2+ camera shows (or in 3D 4+ camera shows), you will need to have multiple computers to aid in the processing, checking, viewing, coloring, transferring, etc, of these files. Design your stations to handle more than 1 CPU.

Granted, all of this is brand new, and this film has taken a lot of the arrows, which means we can share our experiential knowledge with the community. Deanan and Matt have done incredible work with REDCine-X. (I think we might have received 10 builds inside of a week). REDCine-X is a critical part of the process, and with the addition of a number of new tools in the app, Epic shows are poised to out-perform the competition with the power RC-X delivers to on-set operators.

Lastly, the most important tool for a solid workflow are the genetics of its team. Commenting on the on-set workflow, I have to give major props to the small, but powerful team we've assembled for this Epic production.

1. Files come from the camera through Brook Willard and head to what I call his "lilly-pad" station. Brook colors each clip (LE & RE) with John, sets convergence with Rob, and creates an RMD profile which independently accompanies the R3Ds.
2. R3Ds and RMDs are delivered to the OUTPOST stations where the FreeHill team, Steve Freebairn and Zach Hilton, begin the processing tasks. They check sum 2 copies to 2 raids, apply the RMDs, create side-by-side media, window burn it, and create AVID, ProRes, and H264 across 2 terminals and transfer it the eS Pros for delivery directly to editorial.
3. A fully-completed set of synced, graded, watermarked file dailies is processed and files are transferred to iPads for production to take home with them (iPads rarely contain the last clips of the day since principles leave soon after the last take).

I have to say considering all the unknowns of a contract like this, I speak for a number of people on the team who have said we are happy with the results thus far. With the right amount of pre-production and testing, every Epic job can be as smooth as a RED MX - only the stakes have gone up, so we all need to re-evaluate our talent and tools to insure we deliver the best results to all our clients."

Site Admin

More from John Schwartzman:

Today I think we made some incredibly beautiful shots, in the 3D anything that helps define your depth is a plus and today we shot a scene in the rain. The Epics we bagged for water protection for 3 hours without ventilation and didn't overheat, they got very warm but didn't shut down which was very encouraging. I can't tell you how great it is to have Deanan on set everyday, we are still beta, all the features for this camera are not available to us but the ones that I told Jim I needed are, our red remote is a bnc cable right now. Deanan is working his ass off on set everyday working on giving us more things that make filming easier, any DP who gets an Epic in June owes me a bottle of red wine and I ain't talking 2 buck chuck, we are testing the crap out of this camera in every possible situation and it keeps working like a champ. Today John Frazier our special effects man did his usual big rain and drenched us, the camera was under a 100' rain bar off a construction crane feed by a 5" fire hose, we were looking down and seeing the rain drop in front of the lens while we were on a 50' techno and it worked like a champ until the rain water got so high on the sidewalk it tripped my shock blocks.

Site Admin

Another update from John:

"We finished our first week and it went great, 54 set ups the last 2 days, we are all hitting our stride with this new technology. We respect to f-stop, I spent a day with Jim Cameron watching Avatar with the meta-data on the screen and the live action on that film was shot below a T2, it was 2/3" chip but his philosophy was to use DoF to direct the viewer to the part of the frame you wanted them to see.

After a week I think I can sum up my feeling of shooting 3D this way, think of it as black and white, you can light very dark but you need contrast, flat isn't as effective for creating a good 3D, lighting an image with some guts seems to work better, which is fine for me because I don't think of my lighting style as flat."

Site Admin

Some reaction from Jim Jannard on Spider-man:

"John Schwartzman used the RED ONE MX for pick-up shots in The Green Hornet which was primarily shot on film. His comment was "that no one can tell the difference between the RED shots and film". Peter Jackson said the same thing about The Lovely Bones. Both said they either needed to dumb down or add grain to the RED footage to match because it was cleaner than film.

For me, this says it all. The RED ONEs were a perfect match for film. EPIC is an entirely different story altogether... what we are hearing is VistaVision."

---------------

"I had a great 6 days in Fiji with my wife. When I returned, I went to the Spider-man shoot and I fell over dead with what I saw. Unbelievable images and a crew that was so happy with what was going on. It is hard to describe the feeling that I have... EPIC is delivering images that beat anything I could have imagined. Quite a rush of adrenaline that has kept me awake since..."

Site Admin

An update from the DP of the Spiderman reboot, John Schwartman, shooting on RED EPIC-Ms:

"Here in Manhattan for the last 2 weeks of the Amazing Spiderman, since we first started 7 months ago with our beta-tattoo bodies a lot in the world has changed. I speak to many DP's getting ready to use the EPIC, most are shooting 3D and using either 3ality or ET rigs. The 3ality rigs have worked really well for us, they have been quick and reliable by 3D standards and after the 2nd week we all fell into a routine which allows us to do 25 set ups a day.

2 weeks ago I color corrected an 8 minute sizzle reel at colorworks cut together by the editors, it had a little bit of everything in it and we finished out to a 4K 2D DCP, that was turned over to Rob Engel our head stereographer to be made into a 2k 3D DCP. The 4k Epic images are absolutely the highest resolution images I have ever seen, Steve Bowen the colorist, who has lots of digital experience was speechless, the images are gorgeous, dark with no noise, and full of detail. The color tracked really well to the 3D and it looks really great in 3D, I just wish 3D projection would catch up with acquisition. The 2d 4k has 4 times the resolution of the 3d image, when I have done film scans I think the difference between 2k and 4 k scans is there but it is subtle, when originating an image at 4.5k and viewing it at 4k there is nothing subtle about it, sort of like the paint job on Jarred's Porsche, it gets your attention.

My RED experience on the Amazing Spiderman has been great and I am looking forward to using this camera to shoot some commercials this summer in 2D. 10 more days to go on first unit and then Collister shoots another 2 weeks of 3D plates and we are done."

Site Admin

"Spiderman" update posted online by RED's Jim Jannard:

"So we were invited to see some Spiderman footage today at Sony. John Schwartzman was there and we talked a bit before going into the screening room.

"This is the best looking footage I have ever shot... these are the best images I have ever seen!" was his comment. I asked him if this was just his enthusiasm spilling out or if this was actually the case (pretty big statement). He thought for a few moments and said "No, really... this is the best footage I have ever seen from any camera. Ever."

So, with that, we went in. There was a Sony T420 projector (same as we have at RED Studios) in a grading room at Colorworks. We talked to "The Steve" (colorist) about his experience with the EPIC footage and opinion. He confirmed his opinion matched John's and we sat front row with huge expectations.

I have to say that we were all stunned. Shocked. So incredible. Not like RED ONE MX. Not like anything we had seen from another camera. Same resolution and feel of our new EPIC reel, but with actors and a story and Schwartzman's ability to light.

The consensus in the room (to a person) was that this looked like film. Like 65mm film. Better. Without any trace of film's blocky detail in shadows or grain. Jaw dropping.

EPIC is performing as it's name implies it should. We will keep John's comment close to us... to remind us how hard we need to work to never lose this position. We really like it."

Site Admin

http://www.red.com/press/spiderman