"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Slec]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Thanks.
You know, I checked that and ESPN2 only had the Chelsea game offered.

So, my DVR is recording the SD broadcast on Fox, as we speak……..I think……..I hope, as I just returned from a morning ride and haven't checked. So, no speak-ee of the outcome or even the pace of the match until I watch-ee.

Hey, I thought you were from the Blu Ridge Mtns. ………Virginia, etc.
Did you move up North?

Originally from MD. Went to school at Clemson (SC) in dem Blue Ridge Mtns for undergrad and grad school. Now in NE while the wife gets her doctorate. Good memory Penton

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Sounds great.
I didn't know you coached .......and soccer to boot!

Good man!

I played soccer from the time I was six all the way through high school. (It helped I was left footed...I got to play a lot of left-wing and left-halfback ).

This is my 8th year coaching and it's a ton of fun...the kids make me feel young again.

Unfortunately, we lost today 5-3. My team was asleep and gave up 4 goals in the first five minutes of the game, then finally woke-up and we outplayed them the remaining 55 minutes. Oh well...first game of the year and they have hopefully learned their lesson.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Slec

Originally from MD. Went to school at Clemson (SC) in dem Blue Ridge Mtns for undergrad and grad school.

I should have recognized your avatar.
I just glanced at it and assumed some funky color corrected dog or bear paw print.
I should work some on my tracking skills.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

I played soccer from the time...

I did too and gave 2 ACLs, 1 MCL and one medial meniscus to the sport.

The orthopedic surgeons have had a field day with my body between soccer, motorcycle and bicycle racing.
When I end up with severe osteoarthritis that should probably pay off their third vacation home somewhere in the country.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

Unfortunately, we lost today 5-3. My team was asleep and gave up 4 goals in the first five minutes of the game, then finally woke-up and we outplayed them the remaining 55 minutes. Oh well...first game of the year and they have hopefully learned their lesson.

It was vividly reinforced in my mind yesterday that soccer is often a matter of luck in regarding who wins rather than which team played the better game.
At least Arsene provided some drama at the end of the game that I have never seen before………and the visiting Arsenal supporters went wild!

Heck, at least Max should be dancing in the streets this weekend.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Aygie

P Man i know you hate the screen shot scientists (and i'm usually with you on that)......

Hey, I like dem screenshot scientists!
I like ‘em so much that I may have a colleague get screenshots of the Kodak and daVinci collaborative tool first announced back in May because Kodak are the film people and those folks embrace their “film look” with a passion……

“da Vinci will integrate Kodak's proprietary Motion Compensated Grain Management into its Resolve R-series Color Corrector, which allows grain levels to be manipulated in scanned film. Kodak's Adaptive Sharpening Technology, which preserves the detail of the image throughout processing, will also be incorporated into the Resolve R-series Color Corrector” (http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion...09/May20_1.htm)

You see, coming up at IBC 2009 in a couple of weeks - http://www.ibc.org/-, they’ll be demo-ing the product at Stand 7.D08, and I’ll ask him if he would be kind enough, if he has the time, to snap a few screenshots of Kodak’s latest and greatest tool, something which filmmakers have been asking months for.

I think the screenshot scientists would love to see screenshots posted of these tools in action as they just can’t get enough of this dnr and ee stuff. I’ve heard you can run the most underexposed grainy negative through this software and it will wash it good!

[Buddy Christ]

If da Vinci is new, what are most using now. Looks interesting and love learning about this.

Thanks!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Hey, I like dem screenshot scientists!
I like ‘em so much that I may have a colleague get screenshots of the Kodak and daVinci collaborative tool first announced back in May because Kodak are the film people and those folks embrace their “film look” with a passion……

“da Vinci will integrate Kodak's proprietary Motion Compensated Grain Management into its Resolve R-series Color Corrector, which allows grain levels to be manipulated in scanned film. Kodak's Adaptive Sharpening Technology, which preserves the detail of the image throughout processing, will also be incorporated into the Resolve R-series Color Corrector” (http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion...09/May20_1.htm)

And not to be outdone , not only are the film people getting involved but, the camera company primarily known for its film cameras is getting in on the action!

“create Blu-ray masters by eliminating the data payload caused by film grain; create virtually noiseless HD masters that hold up in the bandwidth squeeze of cable TV; control the texture of images, regardless of acquisition or exhibition format; and re-purpose and optimize libraries of films and tapes to generate new HD revenues.”

Or, even at a step nearer the beginning of the pipeline…………..
“The GPU-based motion analysis tool to reduce grain and noise is aimed to become part of the DI process, to adjust grain and texture. For that use, a scene with heavy grain can be processed at 6 to 8 fps.”
http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/?p=1573

Hmmm, I wonder what happens if the colorist makes the mids and highlights grainless while leaving a lot of grain in the low end with this tool.

P.S.
I skimmed the article and although the reporter doesn't mention it, this software also does sharpening (ee) too!......as was demonstrated at Fotokem back in June.
So there , the Kodak/da vinci people are not one up on the ARRI/Cinnefilm people in terms of digital manipulations offered, as an uninformed reader might have assumed that has not seen these tools in action !

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Blu2U

If da Vinci is new, what are most using now.....
Thanks!

Kinda like how many fingers you have on one hand.

Hey, have you been keeping up with the Cliff Notes, or have the posts slowed since Bill’s review ?
All I heard was that one of our mods got another notch in his belt when some freak went WILD.
We should have an emoticon thingee for a guy holding a gun with smoke coming out the barrel.

[Jeff Kleist]

I look forward to seeing what it can do, I just hope people dont go too crazy with it in DI, a little grain ads texture

[Penton-Man]

Bribery will get you everywhere.
They showed in the demo this stuff is so great that you can take out big 16mm. grain and put back in finer 35mm. grain !

If that’s what you want.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Thanks.
You know, I checked that and ESPN2 only had the Chelsea game offered.

So, my DVR is recording the SD broadcast on Fox, as we speak……..I think……..I hope, as I just returned from a morning ride and haven't checked. So, no speak-ee of the outcome or even the pace of the match until I watch-ee.

Hey, I thought you were from the Blu Ridge Mtns. ………Virginia, etc.
Did you move up North?

ESPN2 is fixing to start broadcasting US Open matches. I hope my boy Roger can keep up his hot streak.

[SquidPuppet]

Thats right ladies. Uh huh.

Let me know when I can speak freely.

[Buddy Christ]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Kinda like how many fingers you have on one hand.

Hey, have you been keeping up with the Cliff Notes, or have the posts slowed since Bill’s review ?
All I heard was that one of our mods got another notch in his belt when some freak went WILD.
We should have an emoticon thingee for a guy holding a gun with smoke coming out the barrel.

After Bill's review everything changed, A very respected viewpoint changed the game. Then most of the posts just became "I'm Buying it anyway" and "I just cancelled my Amazon pre-order" I am starting to think we need Mods jumping in and people saying the most outlandish things to qualify for Cliffs notes. Sorry I let you down

[Penton-Man]

lol, you would certainly get the impression that there are a lot of people out there that don’t have access to rental establishments.

And if that were truly the case, why is it that I hardly ever get what is at the top of my rental queue?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Thats right ladies. Uh huh.
Let me know when I can speak freely.

I haven’t caught up to speed yet.
I’ve been making my way through soccer recordings.

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I did too and gave 2 ACLs, 1 MCL and one medial meniscus to the sport.

The orthopedic surgeons have had a field day with my body between soccer, motorcycle and bicycle racing.
When I end up with severe osteoarthritis that should probably pay off their third vacation home somewhere in the country.

MCL strain on my right knee and I'm in physical therapy for my right Achilles, which hurts like a MOTHER every morning. Damn, it sucks getting old (turned 40 a couple of months ago).

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I look forward to seeing what it can do, I just hope people dont go too crazy with it in DI, a little grain adds texture

I think some filmmakers are gonna go nuts with it, like a lot of them did with color grading. It made Harry Potter in IMAX look like mush (VERY disappointed, I want the extra money I paid for that presentation back).

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I look forward to seeing what it can do, I just hope people dont go too crazy with it in DI, a little grain ads texture

Absolutely. I hope and pray that the industry will not go crazy on a technology that claims it can perform magic. It is hard to believe that there would be a technology that could match human eye/brain combination in image recognition which is essentially needed to remove grain without compromising details. I cannot imagine how an image recognition algorithm faithfully simulate the human eye/brain image recognition characteristics which consider millions of detailed aspects of an image including emotions.

I hope that the industry will rigorously test this type of "new technology" prior to application. Development of a testing framework will be needed with human factors input that could objectively capture the impact of this type of technology.

[Penton-Man]

Don’t everyone now get their panties in a knot, because we’ve had these tools for years.
This is yet another software solution from yet another vendor using another platform that claims to be a little better or more robust than others, at best.