It’s no secret that CineGear 2010 was a virtual must-see show for shooters (i.e. cinematographers, camera operators, etc) anywhere near the west coast. And there were certainly ground-breaking products at the Paramount Studio site event, including new PL mount and cinema-style lenses for DSLR camera use, the new Arri Alexa cam, the SteadyCam rig from Gareth Brown and the 3D Screen Plane system — all previously debuted at the NAB show. That said, I thought I should focus on a few new items that were extraordinary even for innovative competitors at CineGear.
In fact, if there were an indie showstopper prize at CingGear 2010, it would likely have gone to two company projects for sheer maverick originality. These tools seem destined to be a hit for a host of people in the production chain, including studio and independent directors as well as producers. Actually, many studio and indie shooters I spoke to at the show agreed.
Here they are:
CINEDECK
At just under $10K, CineDeck is a high-end onset digital 2K/HD digital SSD (sold-state drive) based recording solution that is exceptionally straightforward to use yet low-end on budget for indie or studio filmmakers. CineDeck uses the inventive CineForm standard (see my NAB blog on CineForm) and will also support an uncompressed RGB 4:4:4 codec as well as support for 3D 10-bit recording workflows via the robust CineForm standard – all scheduled for release by the 3rd quarter of this year. CineDeck also supports a feature for stripping together two SSD drives for the upper threshold of 245MB per second for the headroom to do uncompressed 4:4:4 output (an additional $2K for the raid controller). The standard 2K/HD flavor will ship by the end of June. “Because it was conceived and developed by working cinematographers, Cinedeck is the ideal cinematographers solution,” says Charles d’Autremont, CTO and creator of Cinedeck. “We decided to create a new standard for portability, quality and reliability. We’ve packed a number of field-ready features, like rugged hot swappable SSD storage, simple, direct and intuitive touch-screen navigation and cinema-grade image quality into this ultra portable device.”
While it’s no secret most developers tend to take pride at their efforts, this endeavor really is different. With a flexible yet easy UI, bargain cost, and off the shelf compatibility, I’d say team CineDeck is well justified in its achievement account. Put another way: CineDeck is a powerhouse tool and an unexpected show triumph. In and out of 3D cinema, CineDeck coupled with CineForm could well become a fast track I/O standard for indie and studio filmmakers everywhere. It’s that original.
PRG - “Digital Poor Man’s Process”
No doubt the coolest visual demo I saw at CineGear was a service-based creation from PRG (Production Resource Group), which boasts about 20 locations worldwide. Among other kits, PRG showed its console driven interactive LED light panel technology “Digital Poor Man’s Process” (a temp name). The prop for the PRG demo was a so-called “smart car.” Nothing about the car was actually that “smart” or special but what was suspended above it was a treat. A bright PRG 9x9 LED panel was poised above the vehicle playing out previously recorded HD footage of moving night and day light city scenes, tunnel scenes, forest scenes, etc. The LED panel acted as a fully functional light source that allowed interactive scenes to actually flow over and into the car from whatever was being played through — all editable by speed, brightness, position, etc. This is a big deal for projects that need shooting locations that are prohibitively expensive or maybe impossible to get to under time restriction (say Paris or Hong Kong locations for a project with a short deadline in LA for example) and the light emitted into a standard vehicle, boat, room, set piece, or larger chamber is truly interactive on actors in a way not possible to reproduce via greenscreen composite techniques (although PRG’s process can certainly be used in conjunction with sophisticated greenscreen compositing). Lego style panels may vary in size from 18 inches up to 100 feet by 100 feet. PRG “digital poor man’s process” is a rental model and comes fully supported.
According to Paul Kobelja PRG’s account executive for TV & Film and point man for DPMP, “The Digital Poor Mans Process being developed by PRG Lighting (and premiered at Cinegear Expo 2010) is a state of the art digital lighting device that simplifies the task of recreating the subtle interplay of natural light, shadow and movement in a studio environment.”
Long story short – this PRG effort is a budding success story now being adopted by savvy production people everywhere. Very potent. Very innovative.