As a high-resolution motion picture cinematographer, Phil Holland works with 8K constantly. He travels the world capturing almost everything he shoots in 8K. He needs a computer that can keep up with his workflow with all the demanding 8K editing and rendering he does on the daily.
“A workstation in my world needs to be a multitasker,” says Holland. His workflow is always changing between and even during projects. His workstation needs to be able to keep up.
The Dell Precision Workstation with the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 keeps pace with Phil Holland’s workflow and keeps render times to a minimum.
Why shooting in 8K — what are the benefits?
Holland shoots high-resolution footage for many different reasons. His footage is used by manufacturers and retailers to show off what their 8K and 4K televisions can do. Though he often shoots 8K video, there are benefits of shooting 8K footage for 4K televisions.
“There are a lot of advantages to having greater resolution when it comes to shooting something,” Holland says, referring to the large pixel count 8K has over lower resolutions.
Shooting 8K footage and finishing it in 4K provides huge advantages over shooting in 4K native.
For starters, image noise is greatly reduced. You get much more finer deals when you downsample a 8K clip to a 4K clip. There are more pixels when it comes to 8K, so more details are captured and retained when downsampled.
Holland is either finishing his projects at the resolutions he originally shot at or he’s downsampling his high-resolution files to finish. That way he’s able to have the most clarity and detail possible.
Extra resolution allows Holland to be more creative
The benefits of shooting 8K isn’t just visual quality. Working with high-resolution footage allows Holland and any other high-res cinematographer to be more creative. There’s a lot that you can do with a lot of extra resolution.
With all those extra pixels, Holland has the ability to crop, pan, or zoom to 4K without losing quality. When working in a resolution that’s larger than the intended resolution, he has much more options when crafting his framing. He can center in on an important subject of a scene or he can crop out anything distracting or ruining the composition of the scene.
“My core intentions are to compose a frame that people would be willing to watch over and over again,” Holland says. “They can look around the frame and still find something new, and that’s really something fun to expose people to on a visual level.” With the extra pixels, Holland can look around the scene and focus on the areas he feels are most compelling.
High-resolution editing also allows for frame extraction, reframing and even stabilization. All those help Holland achieve his ultimate intention of making compelling frames. “There’s a lot of advantages to having more when it comes to shooting anything,” Holland says.
When it comes to 8K, a multitasking machine is essential
Holland does a lot of different tasks as a high-res cinematographer. His line of work requires a load of computing power that can handle the high demand of multiple tasks. With the Dell Precision Workstation and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 GPU, he says he has the support of “powerful computer hardware and GPU decoding.” Holland can play back 8K RAW files in their native format “very easily” within his editing timeline.
With all that power, the Dell Precision Workstation and Quadro RTX 6000 should be able to multitask even if the tasks are highly demanding. It’s essential for Holland to have a workstation that’s a multitasker.
“One day I might be editing, grading, finishing, or rendering out high-resolution digital masters for motion pictures — and another day I might be working on visual effects elements.” Holland says. “Having the powerful workstation that I can use for a variety of uses is valuable to me because sometimes even in the same day or even the same time I’ll have a few things running.”
The Dell Precision Workstation even allows Holland to edit while rendering. Often times rendering takes up a chunk of precious work time. Holland with the Dell Precision Workstation can multitask and work while background rendering. To be able to work while his work station is rendering or analyzing, Holland simply describes that as “empowering.”
This article was sponsored by Dell and NVIDIA.
Learn more at Dell Technologies.
