Return to San Francisco Bay Area

Bitterman Productions after a year plus hiatus is returning to the San Francisco area and is going to resume working in the film and photography arenas. Hopefully with the return comes an added inspiration to create!

The Golden Question - Tripods?

So for a while now I've been reading on RedUser.net the ongoing battle to find an appropriate entry level tripod that will be able to be used with the Red One. Now I don't mean entry level as in "my first tripod", but rather entry level to the tripods that can manage the weight of the Red One. The camp for this discussion is split into two very distinct groups, those without money and those with. The groups with money typically are the ones who are professional cinematographers and who understand the value of a tripod that you buy once and use forever. The group without money is your indie set who are coming from the HVX world and trying to get their hands on the Red One for as little as they possibly can.

The ranges for usable tripods for the Red One range from a $1700 setup from Manfrotto to a $12,000 O'Connor setup and more. On the boards people suggest using the Manfrotto 526, the Miller Arrow 55, the O'Connor 1030 (all of which get more expensive as they are listed). The 526 supports 35lbs., the Miller 55 supports 50 lbs and the 1030 can support upwards to 40lbs. Now with the extra support in the weight capacity of the tripod, one gets better (smoother) panning and tilting.

Manfrotto 526

For myself, I'm in the resource constrained indie filmmaker set, and I use the Manfrotto 526, which I got used with a bag and a pair of legs for less than the cost of the head would be new. I have yet been able to use it in conjunction with a Red One, but for just a "stand up" tripod, I don't see why it would give me any issues. With the ability to handle 35lbs, I am constrained on what I can use on the rig, but with the ability to possibly offload a couple elements like batteries and drives, the 526 should be able to handle the load of a lightweight Red One rig.

When I do get around to testing it, I'll probably be using the Red One, production pack, battery, RAID drive, Nikon lenses, Red Rock Follow Focus and Mattebox. One thing that I will avoid doing is tilting and panning, and I wouldn't leave the rig unattended.

Red Rock Micro Mattebox

Got mine today, review and un-boxing video coming soon!

Zacuto Jeep

So in my efforts to bridge the gap between the 19mm and the 15mm world, I needed something so I can use my 15mm gear that I have for use with my Red Rock M2 gear with the Red One gear I also use. The two pieces of gear that I wanted to go between these two worlds are my Red Rock Follow Focus and my Red Rock Mattebox. So what options are out there for this sort of adaptation? Well not many, but Zacuto recently released the Jeep ($265) , which does exactly what I needed.



So how does the Jeep perform? Well it had its ups and downs for me. The build of the Jeep is solid and metal, but the tension adjustments for the rods seemed like they could be problematic. Also, if you don't know which way you need to tighten, it can take you a while to get the equipment read for use (thats just me though). Over all it did the job it was supposed to do, which is allow me to mount my 15mm Red Rock Follow Focus onto the standard 19mm rods that come with the Red Standard package. I used it in correlation with the Element Technica 15mm 6" rods, which I don't know if it was the Jeep or the rods, but sliding the Follow Focus from the front of the rods to the back, closest to the Jeep was next to impossible. So getting the gear under the lens was a challenge, but I don't know if that was due to the new rods or how the Jeep was holding the rods.
One last gripe about the Jeep was after using it for a matter of an hour or so, the black finish was already showing lots of scratches and dings, which might be just cosmetic, or if its losing its finish in the rod ports, might pose some issues. Only long term use will tell.
Over all for the money and the speed of availability, the Zacuto Jeep does what its advertised to do, and is easy to use. Next test will be to mount the Red Rock Mattebox and see if the jeep can handle the weight.

Zacuto, Element Technica and Red Rock Micro

Well this week we should be taking shipments of the Jeep from Zacuto, light weight 15mm rods from Element Technica and the Red Rock Micro Mattebox, which I'm dying to get my hands on. I'll be doing a video review of all of these items hopefully in the next few days after I get all of them in house. So far we've received the Micro Filters, the Zacuto Jeep, which I'll be using to bridge the 19mm Red One setup to my 15mm Mattebox, and we'll receive the rods tomorrow.

Look out for that video review coming in the next few days!

Red One...Audio?

This weekend I meet up with the owner of BD Pictures to help test out some issues that he is having with his Red Ones, most of which are audio problems. I was aware of some issues with the audio on the Red One, but I had figured that with the newer versions of the firmware that those issues had been resolved. Turns out that they haven't and that the audio issues with the Red One are one of the major issues. I had meet up with Ajay in Alameda with his two Red Ones and we set them up and swapped mics, enabled and disabled audio channels, and tried out phantom power all to find out that the Reds that he has do not do audio. There would be times where the audio level meters would come alive, but they would not sustain a signal. I guess with the Red you should always record your audio to an external DAT recorder in addition to the in camera audio recording just to make sure that you've got your audio. Yet another needed accessory to the Red One!

Another thing that we are going to try out is checking if the line level input on the XLRs works and that there might be issue with the Mic input and the pre-amps of the XLRs. Any ideas?

Red Rock Micro = Frustration

I got an email yesterday stating that the Red Rock Micro Mattebox was almost ready to ship and my heart started to dance, till I read the rest of the email. According to Red Rock Micro, the Mattebox is delayed again for another couple of weeks. There is a lot of talk online about the practice of vendors taking %100 payment on pre-order items which may or may not ship when they are said they will ship. This is another slip in a continuing trend with the Red Rock Micro Mattebox. Now I have to say that Red Rock has always been good at getting product out to me and responding to support and sales inquires.

So now we are all left to question, is the manufacturing and shipping delay what makes up the thousands of dollars in comparable product price difference and is it worth it? After spending $700 or so dollars on this product and not having it for two or so months after I paid for it is aggravating to say the least and the only thing Red Rock offered to offset the expense of time for their customers is an additional set of blue knobs.

The real question is will this cause customers to abandon the small companies like Red Rock that are trying to revolutionize the digital cinema market place? There are also delays with companies like Birger and View Factor that are also experiencing similar manufacturing issues. Seems like cheap parts and manufacturing comes at the expense of customers and time.