Marty Knapp

March 6, 2013 / 4 Comments / Posted in: Digital Cinema, Personal Projects

Marty Knapp

I’ve always had an affinity for West Marin and the Point Reyes area in Northern California. Having spent my early childhood years in Inverness, I have a special connection to the area. I learned about Marty Knapp after receiving one of his framed black-and-white photographs as a gift – and shorty after I approached Marty and asked him if I could do a short profile film on him.

Personal projects are important for many reasons and this turned out to be a magical experience. Spending time with Marty and learning more about his commitment as a photographer and artist has been a real gift.

Marty Knapp

Marty Knapp

After retuning from one of our filming sessions I decided to take a quick detour and show Marty one of the two houses where I grew up as a young boy in Inverness. As we turned the street corner and looked up at the house, Marty told me that he had lived in that very same house as well. We were both amazed by the coincidence of living in the same house at different times of our lives. I knew I was drawn to Marty’s work on an emotional level and this revelation certainly explains part of it.

Marty made a photograph at that house titled “Inverness Porch” – a photograph he considers a signature piece and he told me “that it was perhaps the first truly excellent photograph I ever made”. As someone who is interested in making images and also has deep appreciation for Northern California I can honestly say that I was on an emotional high for several days after this discovery.

Marty Knapp

Marty Knapp

Marty Knapp

Marty Knapp

Marty Knapp

A few quick production notes; I shot this piece on my RED camera and edited the project in Final Cut Pro X. The edit was done in native 4k (.R3D) and I mastered the project in 4k resolution. The music was composed and scored by the amazing and talented Dexter Britain.

Marty is extremely generous with his time and knowledge. The most rewarding part of this project for me was the time we spent hiking and chatting together, all loaded up with camera gear out on the rugged coast of the Point Reyes National Seashore. I’m happy to be able to call Marty a friend.

Here’s an insight that Marty shared with me; “When I pick up my camera I hope that it’s intuitive, so I can be free from any technical distractions and focus on the beauty that surounds me”. I can only hope that I get to that point one day.

If you find yourself in the town of Point Reyes Station, go to the Bovine Bakery for a morning bun, then make your way over to Marty’s Photography studio and discover the beauty and charm of this wonderful part of the world.

This is a personal project. I hope you like it.

UltraStudio Mini Monitor

February 10, 2013 / No Comments / Posted in: Apple, Post Production

UltraStudio Mini Monitor

I recently purchased the UltraStudio Mini Monitor by Blackmagic Design. We’ve been longtime fans of AJA and their PCIe Kona cards, but as soon as DaVinci Resolve was released on the Mac we starting to migrate to Blackmagic solutions.

I guess you can think of Blackmagic monitoring hardware as the dongle for DaVinci Resolve. Regardless, after a month of working with the UltraStudio Mini Monitor we’re sold. Toss it in your bag and you’ve got proper RGB to YUV monitoring in the field. We’ve used it in hotel rooms using in-room HDMI displays and back at the studio via SDI gear.

The output is 422 and 10bit, the image looks identical to what is coming out of our Kona cards and it’s dirt cheap. I’m using it with Final Cut Pro X, Resolve, After Effects and Photoshop. The device also supports Avid, Premiere and Nuke for output. My typical projects are edited in 4k native with RED footage in FCP X, and with the UltraStudio Mini Monitor I get a nice 4k to 1920×1080 down-convert when monitoring in HD. If you need a 444 monitoring path you’ll need the UltraStudio 3D for Thunderbolt, or one of the DeckLink cards if you are using PCIe machines.

A quick note on Thunderbolt; it’s not the fasest I/O in the pro video space but you can’t deny the beauty of the one-cable convenience that T-bolt provides. Also the price / performance for the current crop of drives, like the Pegasus R6, is hard to beat. Even more true if you value the flexibility of the mobile edit suite like we do.

I’m now mastering the majority of our projects in 4k. I’ll continue to use the UltraStudio kit in the studio as a monitoring stop-gap until the Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K ships – as we continue to update our studio for 4k post and monitoring. For $140 the Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor is a no brainer purchase for anyone who needs broadcast monitoring via Thunderbold on the go, or in the studio.

Thanks for reading!

REDRAY

November 30, 2012 / No Comments / Posted in: Digital Cinema, Red

REDRAY is a 4k Cinema player designed to bring ultra-HD content into the home, business or theater. The device can also drive up to four 1080p monitors at once, providing unique presentation options for trade-shows and POP displays.

RED also just released the worlds first 4k native format: .RED. This is a cinema grade codec compressed to an ultra efficient data-rate of 2.5MB/s. Brilliant. Encoding to the .RED format is done via RCX with the RRENCODE plugin installed.

To close the loop RED have partnered with a new company called ODEMAX, a comprehensive distribution platform for 4K movies. Designed to exclusively support the REDRAY player and CRIMSON projection systems from RED. ODEMAX provides filmmakers, production companies and independent distributors direct access to cloud enabled REDRAY 4K home players.

The last piece of the puzzle is going to be the 4k projector and/or 4k displays. In the meantime – until you get a proper 4k display – REDRAY will output to a 1080p display just fine as the REDRAY player will downscale your content on output. Expect more news on the 4k display front soon.

This is exciting stuff for presentation and distribution for filmmakers – you can be sure we are following the development of the RED ecosystem closely. Thanks for reading!

KITSBOW

October 30, 2012 / No Comments / Posted in: Branding, Digital Cinema

It’s official, Kitsbow have just launched their exciting new mountain bike apparel company. The product line prioritizes function, craftsmanship, and style, and unabashedly aims to be the nicest stuff out there.

We were commissioned by Kitsbow – “a by-mountain-bikers-for-mountain-bikers company” – to create their product launch / brand film. Some assignments are about the journey, some are primarily about people and some about the work. This one checked all three boxes.

We shot the piece in tandem with the photo shoot alongside the supremely talented Alex Farnum. On set we had the Kitsbow founders as well as superstar Creative Director Tom Crabtree from Manual. Our location has to be one of the most spectacular MTB cycling destinations in North America, Bend Oregon.

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FINAL CUT PRO X 10.0.6

October 23, 2012 / No Comments / Posted in: Apple, Post Production

Thanks Apple. This is the BIG one that I’ve been patiently waiting for. Apple have released the next version of Final Cut (10.0.6) and I couldn’t be more excited about this update. Seriously, this is huge. I’ve been an editor for almost 20 years now and I’m more excited about the 10.0.6 release than any piece of software I can remember.

Some of the new features include:

  • Advanced multichannel audio editing
  • Streamlined sharing and export
  • Unified import
  • Dual viewers
  • Improved range selections
  • And the biggest of all: Native RED RAW (.R3D) support

    • The big change in my workflow is embracing the shift to working native. This native support for RED files means you can now import RED media directly and make nondestructive RAW settings adjustments all within Final Cut Pro. This allows you to take advantage of the full latitude and dynamic range contained in the RED clips.

    I have always been a proponent of transcoding to an “edit friendly” codec like ProRes LT, but with the way the RED RAW format performs in FCP 10.0.6 I’ve completely changed my tune. Working native allows for a blazing fast turnaround and a direct to edit workflow, completely eliminating Producer fears related to transcoding during post production.

    I have been experimenting with different workflows for different scenarios.

    Scenario 1: 4K finish with all 4K material

  • Edit 4K native
  • Master to ProRes 4444 at 4K

    • Scenario 2: 4K and HD mixed timeline with 1080 deliverable

  • Edit in a 4K timeline
  • Up-convert the HD (Canon/ GoPro) during the rough cut
  • Bounce the 4K timeline to 1080
  • Reframe any 4K content

    • The above are 2 scenarios are where you are working with either 100% 4K or 80% 4K. This is a huge shift in the way I would have thought about this in the past, but it really comes down to how well the RED footage works just editing natively.

    The beauty of working with 4k, even if you are doing an HD delivery, is the flexibility you have when reframing the 4k image. For example, when using something like the Ken Burns effect you are continuing to use the full quality of the 4K source media when reframing — you haven’t converted it to 1080 by editing in the 1080 timeline as part of the rendering pipeline. You get a super high quality zoom in because of this.

    A possible 3rd scenario: if you have 80% HD (Canon) footage and 20% RED, I might just cut in a ProRes 1080 timeline. You can also choose to import optimized ProRes and proxy versions of your media and automatically reconnect with one click in the preferences. This is a super slick way to manage reconfirming.

    Additional tidbits / features that I love:

  • Importing has a new Favorites section
  • You can now add freeze frames quickly with a single keyboard shortcut
  • Adjust Audio pan with key-framing
  • New Paste Attributes feature is a powerful way to transfer settings between clips

    • Final Cut Pro X has been out for over a year now and this release shows significant advancements with a promise of thoughtful development of the app. We’ve also found that the MacBook Pro with Retina Display to handle exceptionally well with R3D processing in FCP X 10.0.6. Mobile, instant editing with RED 4k footage. This is progress…

    PASSIONATE BRANDS

    May 30, 2012 / No Comments / Posted in: Branding, Digital Cinema

    We’ve recently completed a few Brand Films for some amazing boutique businesses and along the way we’ve learned a few valuable lessons. In our eyes, the constant here is the shared ethos that comes from a pioneering spirit for their individual craft, and those values are something we thrive on here at Vertical Online.

    We are in the midst of a major cultural shift in the way we produce, consume and share media these days. We think this is a fundamental change in advertising – where goodwill, transparency and truthful storytelling can transport your message. A Brand Film can act as an introductory touch point, demonstrate what the brand stands for, frame a conversation and help amplify the story. Here are a few points to consider when thinking about brand positioning and brand sensibility.

  • Focus on passion and expertise
  • Brands need to be trustworthy, genuine, responsive and accessible
  • Brands need to show compassion, humility and humanity
  • Consumers often buy what they want, not necessarily what that need
  • Inspired consumers are the best brand advocates
  • Authenticity can determine the frequency of how your story gets retold

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    ABOVE CATEGORY

    April 5, 2012 / 2 Comments / Posted in: Branding, Digital Cinema, Post Production

    We’ve just completed a brand film for Above Category. Above Category is a leader in the trend towards a smaller, more intimate bicycle shop focusing on top flight hand picked products. Chad (the founder) and his staff rigorously test every piece of kit they sell out on the coastal roads of Northern California. The team at AC provide an unparalleled level of service because of their knowledge and love of the sport of cycling.

    Here are a few production details: We shot this on our RED Scarlet-x with a set of Ziess ZE primes and the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 II. The Canon 70-200 performed great, but we did learn one important lesson about relying too much on the image stabilizer. If you do any excessive panning shots with IS ON you will be fighting the stabilizer tracking. Luckily, we got some stunning shots and absolutely love that lens.

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    RED SCARLET-X

    April 1, 2012 / 2 Comments / Posted in: Digital Cinema, Red

    We’ve had our RED Scarlet-X for over a month now and we’ve been doing some extensive test shoots with it. The camera has been rock solid, easy to operate and the results are absolutely incredible.

    Our Package consists of

  • Scarlet-X Brain
  • AL Canon Mount
  • 8 REDVolts
  • 2x Travel Chargers
  • 4x 64GB SSD REDMAGs
  • Touchscreen LCD
  • Wooden Camera QB
  • V-Mount Batteries
  • Touchscreen LCD
  • Wireless REDmote


    • The Scarlet is a S35mm camera that shoots 4k resolution. 4K is an emerging standard in digital film and is four times the number of pixels as full HD. There are additional imaging advantages to shooting in 4k, even if you are doing a 1080 finish, because of advantages of supersampling from 4K to HD. The Scarlet can use Canon, Nikon, Leica and PL mounts.

    Our Kit comes with a variety of Ziess ZE primes, Canon zooms and the Tokina 11-16mm. Coming soon: Bomb EVF, Red QR System and the Red Gunner.


    We’ve also been refining our post production workflow and have designed a super flexible path that gives us both quick turnaround and the best possible options for finishing. The beauty of the RED camera is the RAW file format along with all the advantages of the RED color science.

    Pretty soon we’ll be able to show more fruits of our labor with some exciting projects we’ve been working on recently. Thanks for reading!

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