The CRAZY story behind the ABANDONED Viper Filmstream
Вставка
- Опубліковано 26 лип 2024
- Head to squarespace.com/framevoyager to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code framevoyager
Voyager Ungraded Podcast with Darren Orange: open.spotify.com/episode/4q9k...
💥ABANDONED CAMERA SERIES EPISODES💥► bit.ly/3xn2QVm
Welcome to another ABANDONED Camera video! In this episode, we take a look at the ABANDONED Thomson Viper FilmStream camera. An underrated camera that helped early adopters of digital cinema cameras develop the processes we have in place today!
⭐️⭐️⭐️
🖥️Editor: John Owens
✏️Writer: Cheecken | John Owens
📚Researcher: John Owens | Cheecken
🖼️Thumbnail Squad: Tim LaPointe | Jeyycie | Cheecken | Jordie | DVS
🤖A.I. Programs Used: NONE
⭐️⭐️⭐️
💬FRAME VOYAGER COMMUNITY💬
=============================
💭Join our Discord Channel💬 ► / discord
🐦Twitter ► / frame_voyager
📷Instagram ► / framevoyager
🎵TikTok ► / framevoyager
Join our UA-cam channel 📺 ► / @framevoyager
=============================
0:00 The Thomson Viper FilmStream
1:12 Sad day for fans of 8K resolution
2:17 Thomson, Grass Valley, FilmStream... Why are there so many names?
3:41 Atomos new sensor from Grass Valley?
4:08 The Viper FilmStream revealed at NAB 2002
4:25 Nonya Nerd Strikes again!
4:50 The Panavision Genesis, Dalsa Origin, and Sony Cine Alta have similar timelines
5:22 David Fincher Hate the Panavision Genesis
5:58 Explaining the FilmStream Log format on the Viper
7:15 The green and cable drawback of FilmStream
8:28 Discord member sent us RAW clips
8:57 Darren Orange on the Voyager Ungraded Podcast
9:41 In 2005 The Viper FilmStream was riding high
10:04 CCD sensor... Here we go again
10:26 3 ISO selections and shooting formats
11:56 The mechanical shutter of the Viper FilmStream
12:36 Darren Orange on using the mechanical Shutter
12:52 Other details on the mechanical shutter
13:30 Collateral 2004 - Michael Mann (Side by Side)
14:34 David Fincher's Zodiac and the Viper FilmStream
16:15 Robert Downey Jr. complains about digital cameras to David Fincher
16:37 The Zodiac helped to pave the way for VFX shots through a digital framework
18:25 David Fincher on using digital cameras in post-production
18:56 But... WHY WAS THIS CAMERA ABANDONED?
20:37 DAVID FINCHER RANT | ABANDONED GENESIS
Disclosure - Some of the links in the description box are affiliate links. At no extra cost to you, if you use those links to purchase an item, I will receive a small commission. I appreciate your support :)
-----
#grassvalley #abandoned #FrameVoyager - Фільми й анімація
I'm not surprised this camera was abandoned - when you have much higher resolution cameras like the *FRAN 8K* , 1080p just doesn't cut it.
How could anyone want anything other than the GOAT of all cameras the Fran 8K?
@@FrameVoyager You should do a cheeky video of why Fran 8K should be revived. I'll get the kickstarter going. :)
@@CNC-Time-Lapse hahaha that would be hilarious
The Fran 8K had "Why" Balance! Dadum tss!
@@FrameVoyager
April 1st is approaching!
Man this camera was right at the crux of change from film to digital, I didn’t realize how switching from 10 minute film mags to longer digital media would affect actors. Thanks for yet another entertaining and informative video, this is one of my favorite series. It feels like it’s sponsored by Netflix, love the production quality
Appreciate it! Sometimes in making these I do wonder sometimes if the overload of technical information is too much to make it entertaining. But glad that it's still entertaining!~
Supposedly, when Thomson merged with Technicolor, most of the Viper bodies were destroyed. There must be only a handful of examples left.
Zodiac is definitely the best-looking digitally shot film from the 2/3" era. Alot of this has to do with Harris Savides, who probably underexposed more film than any other DP. Normal for him was two stops under. He was ideally matched to the Viper, which resulted in deep blacks, no blown highlights and punchy contrast. Also, the fact that the Filmstream raw footage resembled negative scans helped you plug directly into a DI workflow as if you had shot 35mm.
Collateral was partly shot on this, which is why some shots look kinda different, dirty, video ish, and some shots are ultra clean film shots. Which in retrospect gives the movie its unique charm and look
You can see how the early digital cinema cameras were still very much stuck in the mindset of being built like film cameras. Red being a new company were not confined by their old ways and didn't even try to make digital cameras like film cameras.
Oh THAT camera. When I was in cinema school it was the poster child for the "Digital Cinema sucks" because of the video noise in Michael Mann's Collateral (and Miami Vice, but I think in this case it serves really well the style of the movie).
I was one of the only one who wanted to shoot with it (I never did :/).
Because people didn't see how noisy film would have been when pushed anywhere near that hard?
@@tommihommi1 Frankly I don't know. I think it was just some classic "film or nothing" attitude.
Haha that's sad you didn't ever get to film with it!
The noise in those movies looks really nice IMO.
@@Pastrybfs Agreed.
I have always loved the image a CCD give you. Minus vertical light smear, but as said that was able to be accommodated for.
Same! I've always had everyone involved with these cameras talk about how much they LOVED how the image looked coming out of them. WE actually discuss this some with Darren Orange on our Voyager Ungraded podcast! Link in pinned comment and description if you're interested
I have been waiting for a long time for this video to release, today is gonna be a good day for me
haha hope you enjoyed it!
I think the reason this camera was useful for its time was all because of David Fincher. Because, so far, he is one of the very few directors who knows how to make digitally shot movies look good.
I still have and use my Red One MX, an insane camera considering it's age, no wonder it left all the others in it's wake.
Yeah it's crazy to me how fast RED was able to get ahead of everyone with little to no experience with cameras haha. Granted, they did hire well from all their competitors to get technical engineers who knew what they were doing
Ok not kidding : I love watching your videos in the tramway exactly when you show Thomson's building I'm like "This reminds me of something but idk what", I tilt my head and BOOM : It's right in front of me !!
Love your videos man, keep it up !
Cheers from Paris
👀👀👀 haha that's awesome! Bringing history to life 😉
I love this series of videos. Just by luck, I recently found a Viper and bought it without hesitation. Will post a video on it soon.
So cool to see my little town has a big history in the film history. GO Grass Valley!
Cameras have gotten so mush better sense then, but most still don't have global shutter. I wish that was more common. Great video!
Yeah, Global shutter is hard to perfect in cameras. It seems like their are a lot of dynamic range issues when it comes to that.
@@FrameVoyager That makes sense. Thanks for replying, a lot of times I comment on a UA-cam video and a scammer replies and tries to send me to another platform. I have my own channel and it be frustrating to deal with that. Thanks for the legitimate reply, I appreciate it!
@@johnmorrisproductions no problem! This question actually comes up a lot. Blackmagic actually tried to put global shutter in their first URSA mini cameras but for technical problems, including not high enough DR, they changed to rolling. It's kind of interesting and it seems only some have found solutions
@@FrameVoyager Very interesting! You should do a video diving deeper into the aspects of Global Shutter, and why it is so hard to make. Thanks for the Reply!
What is global shutter
There are so many zingers from Side By Side, i’m glad someone else noticed!
The CCD talk reminds me of the changes in the video camera industry. Back in the day, there were discussions of the differences between Inter-Line and Inter-Frame transfer CCDs. I think the Viper's lineage has less to do with Grass Valley and more to do with Philips. Philips video products division is what got absorbed into Thompson, along with Grass. The "LDK" designations on the cameras goes back to the 1960s and Philips. Also, Philips studio cameras (Branded BTS for a time) had the mechanical shutter. It was explained to me by some broadcast engineers that the shutter also allowed the camera to be able to black-balance on every frame while it was covered. --- I have an idea for another Abandoned Camera video. The RCA TK-48. Okay, it was a "studio" camera and not a cinema camera. One of the guys who was developing it was Larry Thorpe. He just recently retired from Canon. Before that, he retired from Sony. Go talk to him!
This is true. The Viper was made in the Netherlands and shipped and supported out of Salt Lake CIty Utah. Grass Valley CA really didn't have anything to do with it.
Collateral was such a well shot movie, even though it wasn't "Clean"
You can see the iso noise and lack of shadow detail, but it amps up the gritty vibe i guess.
@@Dennis94913 Yeah exactly, I almost feel like more modern movies are all too clean and similar-ish looking, like the cleanness is almost dull and sterile
Another awesome Abandoned Camera breakdown 👏 Love your narration style and the humour. The references back to the Fran 8k in several of your videos is gold 😅
Appreciate it! Yeah, too easy to make Fran 8k references 😅
I loved getting to know more about this camera and also rediscovering the amazing behind the scenes Fincher's films used to have 💯
I first heard of the Viper through Dion Beebe and Michael Mann’s use. Those films like Miami Vice just looked absolutely stunning at the time, and really looked markedly different to most other releases. Still look good today I think.
I’m pretty sure the later Michael Mann films were all shot Sony Cine-Alta. I think they F65 and F23 were used to make Public Enemies. Gotta love Mann for pushing digital technology as far as it could do at the time .
Right... We probably should have mentioned the more limited role in those movies. At least that's what our research led us to.
Genuinely a very interesting camera. I now understand why so many people wanted a video on this camera
I had no idea this existed and now I want it so bad. I am a sucker for good CCD cine cameras.
Same 😢
I love this series!!
Idea: Do the mythical Disney Sodium Vapor Camera!! I would love a good history on that.
Appreciate it! And I have thought about doing that, honestly makes a good abandoned episode since they only ever did it once
Check out our Voyager Ungraded Podcast as we talk with Darren Orange about his experience with the Viper FilmStream and more!
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4q9kbOiPT9p8p4jduDst0W?si=4a2f62ed2cfd4593
UA-cam: ua-cam.com/video/AwZuSasH4zQ/v-deo.html
Its astonishing how far digital cinema/video cameras have come. Whats also amazing is how good cgi could be , so far back. The bts shots from zodiac really show that
It is really cool!
the most anticipated episode by far, thoroughly enjoyed this!
Glad to hear!
Damn.. i wish CCDs were further developed.. they looked more filmic imo.. Bolex d16 especially,,
I love your content, thank you
It is sad... I talked more with Darren Orange on our podcast about the difference in using CCD sensors. That should be up here soon!
@@FrameVoyager thank you for all your hard work., you're channel is incredible.. camera history is so awesome 😁
@@toneohm appreciate it! Trying to keep the history alive as much as we can!
This camera is basically Robert Downey Junior's nightmare on the set of Zodiac.
I remember going to one of the warehouses of one of the largest broadcast service companies over here and seeing several Vipers gathering dust, some of them even laying on the ground like they were worthless. This was in 2015 and it was a bit disheartening. Had I had the chance, I would've grabbed one of the camera bodies and run in order to properly preserve it.
@The Creator I think so
@The Creator Given how big they are, it's not like I could put one under my jacket and get the door. Also, I am not the same person I was in 2015. I'd probably try to talk to the warehouse manager \ guardian though, to see if we could work out a deal...
this was an incredible video man great job.
Appreciate it!
Nobody better to be in picture with Alexa than that potato showoff.
Wait, did I just hear Grass Valley? As in the printer manufacturer? Now I’m intrigued.
I worked at Plus 8 Digital and we rented the Viper camera for such films as Collateral, Miami Vice etc. Michael Mann liked this camera.
Plus 8 Digital one of my favorite camera rental facilities back in the day. Marker the owner was one of the best to work with.
@@jamesoreilley2557 That's awesome I saw him not to long ago.
1080p was the standard for digital video resolution in the early 2000s. Most people in reality would be lucky to get 720p in a consumer digital camera. The 4k resolution is a new standard that only has really been so for the last 10 years.
Lastly to put it into perspective, the Arri Alexa cameras like the Arri Mini did not shoot 4k but rather around 3.2k that was up-resed to 4k. It is only in 2022 that Arri finally released a new series of cameras, Arri Alexa 35 that shoots natively in 4K.
Very cool. I'm not a photographer but interesting old & new gear makes me want to get into a new hobby. I hope Red Camera won't be able continue to stop progress like how one company had a monopoly on All in One liquid coolers for computer hardware, and another company strangled the progress of the 3d printing industry with patents.
Playback on the Genesis :
The record review function could play back the last 3 or 10 seconds of a take in a “check the gate” kind of way.
It wasn’t recommended to shuttle about the tape because you could lose continuous timecode on the tape.
- paraphrased from the Panavision Genesis User’s Manual v 1.3
The SRW-1 tape deck does have an option to playback the entirety of the take.
I still sometimes shoot tape on my F35 and I playback the entire take. Haven’t experienced a timecode mismatch yet.
Fran8K comes up, and I instantly giggle 😂
😂😂😂 I feel like it's a joke that will live on for a long time on this channel haha
Rename the channel to "FRAN8 VOYAGER"!! 😂😂😂
I just love how the FRAN 8K makes an appearance in your videos as almost a meme shoutout... the gold standard in bad ideas. It'll become synonymous with coined phrases like, "don't FRAN 8K this!"
It's fun to actually have a reference everyone gets in this series 😂 it's literally the joke episode of the whole series
7:59 LOOOOL 😅
😏
The Viper was initially developed by BTS/Philips/Bosch Fernseh, not Thomson or GrassValley.
title suggestion “the abandoned david fincher’s ZODIAC camera!”
Not bad!
I think you forgot to mention sensor size, was it a 3ccd 2/3 inch regular broadcast size sensor? And if yes, how did they achieve a super35 look? Focal reducers?
lighting, production design, mise en scene, good actors, etc. give you that "super 35 look" lmao. Almost everything pre 2010 was shot at a fairly deep stop.
We talk about this in the podcast episode (linked in description if you're interested) but yeah I forgot I didn't add that too the video. It actually had a pretty unique sensor that would allow you to shoot anamorphic without an anamorphic lens.
@@FrameVoyager in my old company we had grass valley ldk6000 cameras with the viper adapter in the back for use as slightly more compact wireless cameras for live broadcast (combined with a backpack for the batteries and wireless transmitter). I've heard that it should be essentially the same camera minus the external 444 recording. But also great video, big fan of your channel!
@@DJEntroP It would make a lot of sense considering the lack of sensor manufacturers at the time! Appreciate it!
The info around Collateral is wrong. The majority of the HD section of the film was the Panavision HD900F. The viper was used in just a few shots. Michael Mann used the viper more in Miami Vice.
Your video about DJI Ronin 4D and that it may become abandoned camera soon didn't age well, since they introduced new, better version recently 😁
Already knew about that when I made the video 😅 I still feel like it's still niche. I will say though, I hope it is not ABANDONED, I love the camera. It's a lot of fun to use and I love the innovation and technology. My video was mostly based on data and historical precedent and we lined it all up with cameras that are around today and it was the one that matched the most for being at risk. Until Bosma release the G1 lol
Apparently not that great in the dark, in Collateral they clearly had a full 360 degree shutter in many/most shots 🙄
I wonder if anyone has utilized ccd tech with higher resolutions?
Since the Viper shot in 1080, can _Zodiac_ be released in 4k? If so, would it have to be upscaled? Thanks.
This was an interesting exploration or the Viper, but it never got to the reason it was abandoned. The real story has to do with business politics. Another major camera manufacturer was competing against the Viper and made a deal with several key giant clients: we will sell you our camera at a huge discount if you give us the Viper as a “trade in.” The Vipers were then taken to a landfill and literally plowed under. What few were left soon gathered dust as they were seen as rare oddball machines and no longer credible. The defeat of the Viper had nothing to do with the release of the RED One. It was corporate machinations that literally buried it.
Great episode, love the series! but... watching the feed from a camera and being able to play back shots was not revolutionary at all when the Viper came out. We had digital taps on film camera's in the early 90's. Video Assist operators could record the feed onto tape, often VHS or U-matic, and playback could be watched right after a take. It was of course an SD feed in the beginning, and it was black and white. Even after colour video tap systems came out many DP's kept the feed at black and white as you couldn't trust the colours at all. However, judging performances, framing and other things could, and absolutely was, the norm using live monitoring during, and video playback after, each take. I remember as a P.A. helping the Video Assist lugging their U-matic recorders around and running endless lengths of BNC to the client monitor, the directors monitor, this monitor and that monitor.... and of course the monitors where huge heavy CRT units!
Anyway thanks for the nostalgic lookback. I remember a Thomson HD camera turning up on set in 1994... it came with three French chainsmoking techs and was attached to a truck by thick cables!
I mean back then something like the Viper wouldn’t have been much better for any workflow except that you didn’t have to scan any film. In a DI workflow the footage would have been graded just the same and filmed out back to print film for release. And I don’t really believe that these digital cameras were actually meaningfully better in low light back then. I mean even nowadays film is still very capable in low light.
More like a quickly obsolete camera than an abandoned one, bit it does fit the series profile. Not complaining! Had its run, but killed the company behind it. They didn't release any cameras after this one, right?
Another thing! Can you give us some insight on your studio lighting setup? I really like it!
Yeah, Thomson sold it off almost immediately after this. So they kind of just abandoned the whole cinema camera project idea. We talk a little bit about this in our podcast (linked in the description if you're interested). And thanks! I have a bunch of smallrig lights, nanlites, etc. But for my studio I use smallrigs light with a massive dome.
Why do the stock photos look messed up?
finally i understand why films like miami vice and especially public enemies looked so (in my opinion) bad. it had this weird feeling of sharpness that i really did not get. There was a narnia film (voyage of the dawn treader, i think) that also looked very weird, sharp, strange feeling of movement. Collateral however i really loved, and still do. how!
I can control my Zv~E10 with my pocket pc… and save to and external device.. but nobody talks about it.
Film cameras had videotaps for decades.
To see what was shot right after the take.
can someone just bring back ccd sensor cinema cameras?? shouldnt be hard to make a camera with all the good tech we have now but just swap out that damn cmos sensor for a color-rich ccd
15:37 Showing film camera because the Viper couldn’t shoot with very high frame rates.
I didn't think the Genesis was as bad as David Fincher made it out to be. Other cinematographers didn't seem to have any issues using it. I believe the Genesis was Dean Selmer's favorite camera to use. I thought it was a pretty good camera that delivered great images and I have a hard time believing that you couldn't playback the footage that was just recorded onto the tape. Also, it looked far less complicated to use than the Viper camera.
Yeah he went HARD on the camera. In all honesty though, it was a lesser copy of the Sony F35 that panavision basically paid Sony to help them develop a "panavised" version of it. Even their new modern camera today is essentially a RED camera 😅
It was very easy to playback on the Genesis. It was just discouraged with some clients who it was perceived that they would not be disciplined enough to record over their own footage or not use the Record Review button after playing back to avoid control track and timecode breaks. At the time some film completion guarantors were offing a massive discount if productions agreed to not playback the original tapes on set and if there was a HDCAM-SR deck on set to clone the tapes as they came out of the camera. It was also common to tell certain directors that the camera couldn't play back so they wouldn't waste time replaying every take instead of geting on with shooting.
F35 came out 5 years after the Genesis. There was only a few minor tweaks. F35 and Genesis were essentially identical.
@@mikevlack7687 Correction the Panavision Genesis and Sony F35 were in no way identical. The F35 offered 444 recording, SLOG and S Gamut, fiber optic system which allowed separating the SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder from the camera body which greatly reduced the bulk and weight of the F35 camcorder package. Panavision Genesis could only record 4:2:2, incorporated Panalog , had absolutely no fiber optic system . The Sony F35 was a major improvement over the Panavision Genesis which is why it quickly superseded the Genesis which was only available for rental at Panavision whereas the F35 was available at dozens of camera rental facilities. I spend hundreds of hours shooting with both the Genesis and F35 and hands down the F35 was the preferred camera system until the Arri Alexa arrived. Regarding playback in camera all digital tape camcorders could playback in camera but it was risky unless you pressed in the rec tab on the physical HDCAM SR tape or engaged the record inhibit on the SRW-1 recorder panel. The time to rewind and recue the HDCAM SR tape was time consuming and had to be done correctly to avoid breaks in record run timecode, control track and image. It was not problem for those Digital Imaging Technician's who were accustomed to playback earlier generation Sony HDCAM or Betacam SP camcorders. The problems usually resulted from film only literate crews who did not properly understand the safeguards and protocols for playing back a camera original tape in camera. In addition due to IATSE 695 (Video tape operator Guild) they hold the jurisdiction for onset playback of takes. An agreement was made between IATSE 600 and 695 to allow IA 600 camera crews to playback offspeed footage recorded on the F35 camera so that the IA 695 videotape operator could capture it for replay thereafter. Given the time frame the Sony F35 produced an impressive image but it was one hell of a pig of a camera in size, weight, and battery consumption.
I can see why it doesn't exist anymore. SMH
Yeah, honestly you wonder how some of these cameras would have turned out if not for RED. WE could all be using CCD sensors instead
@@FrameVoyager what does red use instead
@@BobbyGeneric145 they went with CMOS sensors. Which are what is predominantly... Well exclusively used pretty much today. Somehow they got their hands on a really good sensor 😅
I worked on a film in 2007 called Pie' Burger (IMDB tt1330045) with Earnie Hudson (Ghostbusters) and Ashley Johnson (Ellie in The Last of Us). It was shot on the Viper. I had worked on one other short that was captured digitally but this was my first exposure to a log format and the use of LUTS. I made friends with the DIT that was an employee of Thompson and really knew the system well and boy did I learn a lot from him. It was pretty heady times.
Rather have that, or a genesis than anything red
Too bad Apple didn’t make FCPX what DaVinci Resolve is now instead of iMovie Pro. Final Cut could have really given on Avid a run for its money
the more i learn about digital cinema cameras the more i am glad that the bolex h16 reflex exists, can easily be fixed and will probably be still usable in the future when most of these digital cinema cameras will be very very fancy landfill. like they look fine, i get it. but i so so much more prefer to reliabillity of film. these are like iphones to me and the cons outway the pros to an outrages degree. they all seem flash in the pan to me and specific top-of-the-line cameras now will be out of date in the coming dacade or so and repairs/updates for them will eventually be no longer accessible. you see it with so much tech these days, i just prefer mechanical more than anything.
Mechanical does seem to add a nice element. I wonder why they didn't try to use mechanical more in digital cameras like some early adopters did
@@FrameVoyager because it would mean the cameras would be easily repairable and therefore not be comercially viable. the other reason film has been dying out in cinema isn't because of it's alleged difficulties but because the cameras used are easy to repair. films like "bait" and "enys men" show that using old cameras is still a possibillity and not only that, can easily be repaired with only a base-level understanding of the mechanisms. this isn't good for the tech world since they want a steady stream of profit. so instead of making their cameras be cameras, they instead overcomplicate their physical functionality so if it breaks then the owners don't have much of an option except going through the official tunnels to get it repaired (which could be even more expensive than the camera itself) or just buy a new camera. apple does this, microsoft do this, arri does this and so do most other digital cine camera brands, including newer additions such as panavision. it's a tech world thing. not neccessarily planned obsolesence but definitley a big "screw you" to the layman. so i stick with what be repaired at home than through a shady big tech company.
This isn't real, surely 😂
The green... OMG the GREEN!!! How about a trigger warning next time :)
nonya nerd seems like the nardwaur of cameras
they abandoned it bc they were too busy with all those tofutti breaks, smdh
1st ahaha
Wow... been a while since you've been first 😉
Why do you Always start and gloryfying Red, a shit company, Sony first with star wars digital sensor, Arri became with alexa quickly the industry leader and still is, only thing red has is a patent
I mean... you can go back through and see how much we criticize RED constantly. But I can't deny that at this time in the industry, RED took digital serious and figured out how to create a far superior digital cinema camera than everyone else that was much more affordable. I don't deny the problematic issues with the patent on compressed RAW or their problematic business model early on, but they kickstarted the digital cinema camera era and probably forced the industry to grow fast than it would have.