Michael Cioni

FOUNDER AND CEO, LIGHTIRON DIGITAL

In addition to scores of RED commercials and music videos, Michael has been involved with several high-profile features during the initial few years of the camera’s existence.  These have included Steve Soderbergh’s The Informant, starring Matt Damon; Manure, starring Billy Bob Thornton, directed by the Polish Brothers, and shot by M. David Mullen, ASC; S. Darko, A Donnie Darko Tale, photographed by Marvin Rush, ASC; and Hybrid, shot by John R. Leonetti, ASC.

“My team is made up of data-centric enthusiasts working almost entirely with digital cameras,” says Cioni, “Fifty percent of our recent projects are RED-based, and the other half come from cameras such as the Vision Research Phantom, Sony F23, Panavision Genesis, ARRI D-20/D21, and the Thomson Viper.  Some of those are tape-based cameras, but we encourage filmmakers to transfer their project into a tapeless workflow as early as possible.  Then we can start to cut out all the time-consuming and limiting issues tape entails, such as cross-conversation, frame rate concerns, resolution, and aspect ratio incompatibilities, and help our customer start saving money.

“We have many RED ONE workflow guides we use that ask the client which camera build, aspect ratio, frame rate, resolution, and so on,” adds Cioni.  “Then they specify whether they want to edit with Avid, Final Cut Pro, or Premiere and have footage delivered on tape or hard drive.  It’s like buying and configuring a car online, for example: Do you want four-wheel drive, an eight-cylinder engine, etc.?  And with our checklists we can tell them, ‘That car doesn’t exist.’  In other words, ‘That workflow won’t work, but here’s one that will.’”

Along with educational outreach, Cioni tries to make sure LIGHTIRON’s workload is balanced between larger projects and more independent fare.  “I have worked on well over 100 indie projects,” he says. “It really helps when producers on a tight budget do their homework and determine how much work they can do on their side of the fence and how much they need us to do.  They might, for example, do all their editing offline, and then we come in and conform and color correct their material.”

Regarding RED’s proliferation across the Internet and the heated online discussions it often stimulates, Cioni takes a hands-off approach.  “I typically stay away from the boards,” he says.  “We come by our post information through firsthand experience.  My team has executed around two hundred RED jobs and counting, and we’ve worked hands-on with the camera for the last few years.  We’ve had our share of mistakes and successes, and all of that feeds into our ongoing development.”

With a dozen Final Cut Studio workstations, LIGHTIRON has extensive capabilities with Final Cut Pro and QuickTime in the high-end arena of 2K and 4K digital intermediates.  “Because LIGHTIRON is tapeless, it’s very easy for us to move up and down the ladder between difference resolutions up to 4K uncompressed DI mastering,” Cioni notes.

When it comes time to finish a project, LIGHTIRON brings heavy-duty hardware to bear.  “Our color-correction suite features Quantel’s 4K Pablo, which is one of the premiere DI tools in the world right now,” emphasizes Cioni.  “The system allows us to produce 4K DPX files, suitable for film or tape output.  We can edit, color correct, and composite in 4K all in real time.  Almost no other system can do that.  It’s a great way to color-correct high-resolution footage like RED and the work looks beautiful on the big screen.  Our team is used to doing two to three features a month along with music videos, commercials, and other short-form work.  It’s all pretty challenging for a DI lab, but we work hard to be fast and efficient.”

Asked about his own expectations for digital cinema’s future, Cioni is highly optimistic.  “I’m looking forward to the next generation of RED cameras with even higher image quality and lower compression,” he says.  “This is really just the beginning.  Imagine how much time it took for Ford to build the first Model-T and then how long for cars to evolve into how we know them today; with this camera, that’s all happening overnight.  Other manufacturers are now building their versions of the RED, which means more competition and cameras to choose from.  It will also inspire everyone to switch to tapeless, and we see that as the most exciting thing for this industry.”

Author Noah Kadner has assembled the most comprehensive RED guide to date entitled “The ULTIMATE guide to using the REVOLUTIONARY CAMERA.”  It is truly a great resource for new and old RED users.  Members of the LIGHTIRON team were excited to participate in Noah’s book.  Below is an excerpt from Noah’s book regarding some of the work on which members of the LIGHTIRON team have participated.