Soderbergh’s making two new movies (Guerrilla and The Argentine) with it; the upcoming Anglina Jolie assassin-fest “Wanted” was shot with it and, from the trailer, looks visually amazing… Peter Jackson’s done a short film with it that’s apparently kickass… the cameras themselves have just recently become available commercially… 4K RAW digital for under $20k US…

I’m just a simple backwoods Canadian with as-yet unfulfilled filmic aspirations, but it seems to me that this camera will really seriously disrupt the whole economics of feature filmmaking, handing a massive amount of further power to independents.  I mean… the ability to shoot really high quality all-digital full-cinematic-resolution footage for the price of a Toyota Corolla? 

That’s somewhat astonishing, isn’t it? 

Has the existence and availability of this camera altered anyone’s plans? 

It has mine… I was going to shoot a documentary next summer in hi-def, using a Panasonic AG-HVX200; but if I can get my hands on one of these… I’m going to use it.

I dont think it will disrupt things too much. It is just another way too soon product getting pushed just like minidv was and hdv and hd, the technology hasnt developed for prosumer, your computer wont handle the video, how will you edit? Pay a facility, all in all you might as well shoot on film. These guys you listed do it because they can. The manufacture probably set it up to help push it, I could be wrong here but that is a common thing to do to get folks excited. Secondly, unless you are shooting a doc for discover channel or something that will really utilize a super hight res image other then just for novelty you could most likely shoot on minidv and just make sure your sound is awesome, people tend to always over look sound. Just one opinion, what does everyone else think?

-jason

They have test footage up from a couple of the owners at http://www.redrelay.net

I’ve shot with the RED One briefly. It is very well suited to theatrical use but because of the weight (30 lbs plus for a basic rig), not so much for run’n’gun ENG work.

For a Doc, I’d consider using something that is easier to move around, but it depends on the type of Doc (Ken Burns or Steve James?). The tapeless workflow is something that needs getting used to also and it may not suit the type of project you’re doing. The RED production workflow is very similar to that of the P2 Cameras. I’ve shot mostly non-tape for the last year and can say that I’ll never go back to tape based workflow, but I’ve made the investment in equipment (cards, RAID storage) to properly support the format, and I use enough crew to handle the data if the project requires it.

Regarding post production, RED has supplied RED Alert software that allows you to easily work with the footage if you’re on a Mac. If your computer can handle DVCPro HD files then it can handle RED files.

RED does indeed sound exciting, but still very few American Consumers by High Definition DVDs and even fewer have High Definition Televisions.  So if you acquired a less expensive HD camera, you’re still going to get some use out of it before you switch to red, because the average consumer will not be able to take advantage of the resolution of either camera.

I attended the RED camera presentation at the HD Expo in LA today.

Here are some details, which might be useful and/or interesting:

- They’ll be shipping more units in the “next 9 months.” You need to preorder on their site, and put down 10% of the value of your order to get in queue.
- They’re soon releasing a set of 5 prime lenses. It will go for “under $20k”
- 50-150mm lens costs around $8,500; 18-50mm costs $6,500
- The 8GB RED Flash card is out; the 16GB flash will be out “very soon.”

“"Regarding post production, RED has supplied RED Alert software that allows you to easily work with the footage if you’re on a Mac. If your computer can handle DVCPro HD files then it can handle RED files.

"""

Thats pretty good, have you used it? Does it really work well?

Thanks,

Jason

Hi Jason

I’ve watched RED Alert in action (but have not used it myself). From what I saw and was told by the DIT, it works very well.

To explain further what the software does, this is from the RED website:
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RED ALERT! is an image processing tool that allows you to load REDCODE RAW footage, adjust image exposure and color correction settings, and render selected frame or image sequences images out to 4K or 2K resolution DPX and TIFF file formats. It will also generate QuickTime reference movies from original REDCODE RAW data(.R3D) files for use by 3rd party QuickTime compatible applications.

Supported platforms: Mac OS X 10.4.9 on Intel with QuickTime 7.0 or higher. Software does not support Windows XP or Linux operating systems.
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To view some demo RED footage (down-res QuickTime), go to our Digital Cinema Society website and click on the RED One rollout link.  http://www.digitalcinemasociety.org

Best,
Simon

RED Alert is good, but RED Cine is the upgrade; it’s more comprehensive, allowing you to do much more. (By the way, it will be made available for free to existing owners of the RED camera.)

For the full-on post software, get yourselves RED Scratch, which I saw in action at the HD Expo.