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Which hack resembles Red Scarlet footage the most?
  • kjartankjartan

    Will be shooting a short movie real soon, with 1 Red Scarlet and 2 GH2's. We are looking for a hack that looks like Scarlet footage, and also grades similarly. Which of the current hacks would be recommended to use?

    Currently we are using Apocalypse Now 444, soft matrix.

  • 16 Replies sorted by
  • ShaveblogShaveblog

    Don't mean to hijack the thread but I'm in a similar boat - about to shoot a documentary on Hans Fredrik Beefjerky, and I'm using one GH2 and two Fisher-Price Pixelvision cams. Was wondering if anyone knows of a way to make the Pixelvisions look like a GH2? Plugin maybe, or a hack, or a matte box and some special trick filtration of some sort? Right now the GH2 is hacked with Cannibis Majoris and so am I.

  • OedipaxOedipax

    @Shaveblog, lol

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Yep, fun topic.

  • oscillianoscillian

    Epic humor!

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    Don't know about the hack, but when you start grading start with GH2 footage and try to reduce overall image quality, lose some color information and resolution and finally add some artificial moire and banding. If it still does not match Scarlet, go to reduser forum and try some Scarlet hack.

  • StylzStylz

    Lmao, good laughs...well played.

  • kjartankjartan

    Oh, the internets.

  • spacewigspacewig

    @Shaveblog Bwahahaha...

  • kazuokazuo

    @shaveblog

    LMAO +10

  • Ian_TIan_T

    @Shaveblog ...thanks....that really made my day.

  • kjartankjartan

    But all jokes aside; which hack is the best match for working with a Scarlet?

  • Ian_TIan_T

    The answer is there is none. The reason folks are joking so much is because that is sort of a loaded question.

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @kjartan Many of the settings will provide decent bitrate and often they won't be the limiting factor in terms of the grading process.

    If you shoot each with matched white-balance to start with and then use custom LUTs you can get the colors a lot closer (Rubber Monkey FilmConvert is a great alternative to building your own LUTs) and then you may want to reduce the contrast and sharpness on the GH2 footage and increase it on the Scarlet.

    In terms of Driftwood's settings (since you are already starting with one) I would suggest looking at the two IntraVenus variations if you want to get the most out of shooting a subject that does not have too much detail or Moon if you want one that scales well with high detail subjects (and offers lower bitrates on lower detail subjects).

    As an alternative you can look at his Slipstream variations.

    For me, the two most likely choices would be IntraVenus V2 or Moon 5 but the PTool setting isn't likely to be the most choice you make.

  • nomadnomad

    And do a manual white balance setting in the GH2 to get rid of the greenish skintones.

  • kjartankjartan

    We did the shoot yesterday, it turned out really well. Same settings on all cameras of course, and a very good light technician. The GH2 footage had less contrast than the Red. The DOP was very impressed of the GH2s performance.

    Excuse me if my question was silly. But I'm a director, not a cinematographer.

    Thanks for the advice @thepalalias

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @kjartan Glad the shoot turned out well. I want to clarify a point though, having shot music videos with both (and being involved in operating the cameras, grading the footage, etc.) that given similar contrast lenses and filter, the GH2 is not capable of going as low contrast as the RED Scarlet without image degradation. When the RED looks like it has more contrast, it is the result of having specified high contrast in the picture profil or the metadata in post. It can always, always, always be made to look lower contrast than the GH2 unless something was really different about the lenses or other equipment used to shoot it. The footage codec is just inherently more flexible that way.

    Okay, end clarification. I am glad you had the same result on your shoot that we did on ours: the two cut together beautifully. Just wanted to clarify that the RED footage is more flexible in post. If RedcodeRAW were not more flexible, there would be real concerns about the codec compared to AVCHD in post. :)

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