Just two and a half weeks ago Oscar winning director Peter Jackson shot a short film shot on the RED 4K camera in NZ, which premiered this morning on the RED booth at the NAB trade show in Las Vegas.
UPDATE: Now with our second NAB podcast, a roundtable discussion of Monday at NAB 2007.
This weeks podcast features guests Emery Wells and Scott Broock in a roundtable discussion on a new fxguide joint production “Project Red”, Imagineer’s Motor (including a show special), more on the Apple announcements and a lot more.
Fxguide managed to make only the second screening of the new 12 minute short film by Peter Jackson, but by the time we emerged from the 4K Cinema on the RED Booth, a huge queue had already formed around the booth and down the hall.
It appears that all the speculation that the RED camera would not be able to deliver on their announcement just 12 months ago is wrong, as the Red Booth shows multiple working cameras on their booth. RED also announced a new Pro-Pocket Red Camera, 4K RED screens and 4K RED projectors just hours ago as users and fans mobbed their booth at NAB.
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson contacted the RED team some weeks ago to see about shooting some tests in New Zealand. Initially the RED team agreed thinking he might want to shoot ‘standard camera tests’ which often involve camera charts and focus charts. He did not intend to shoot static cards. Instead Jackson’s idea was a film, with tanks, explosions, air to air photography, period costumes, helicopters, cranes, steadicam and a full crew.
Jim Jannard and crew flew by private jet to Wellington, and the resulting film was shot just two and a half weeks ago in New Zealand on two “alpha” versions of the RED camera – nicknamed Boris and Natasha. These two cameras had “an on/off switch and not a lot else” one RED staff member explained. Jannard who was on hand to personally introduce the film to eager attendees of the NAB trade show, told fxguide that the purpose of the film was to show some inital real footage, but that the film – while stunning was not meant to represent the final image quality but rather to show people what is already possible – and the camera will only improve from there.
In terms of story, the film is about two men in a first world war battle environment, one in the trenches and one in a biplane. The film involved air to air footage of two planes in a lengthy dog fight – shot by a follow helicopter. The Red camera was just side mounted for the chopper footage, and the air to air combat was enhanced with visual effects tracer bullet style gun fire and some great epic footage.
The ground footage was shot more hand held and involved stunts, explosions and antique tanks. It is widely speculated that the equipment came from Jackson’s personal collection, it is well known that Jackson is a keen collector of war artifacts.
New Products
Announced but not shown at the show was a new camera, monitors and a 4k projector from RED. The new camera is a “professional pocket camera”, which Ted Schilowitz – from RED explained was really a professional camera “not pro-sumer – not consumer – professional – it’s NOT plastic” he said jokingly, but assertively. But Ted would not be drawn on when the new camera will be seen – or what it is – other than a professional ‘video’ camera, that is much smaller and thus more affordable still, than the main RED camera.
There was also a new supergrip shown which will provide new additional options for both ENG and cine applications.
New Workflow
REDCINE is a new software application from RED which allows users to convert RED CODE RAW data to any other format or Codec such as DPX. The RED CODE RAW is actually supported in the new FCP 6, but with REDCINE users have full control over data conversion. While details are not published it is believed the software will be available to post houses not just RED owners, and as such will allow RED owners to have their files handled by almost any posthouse.
Interestingly, there are other workflow aspects of interest to the visual effects community, Cooke has developed a system of encoding camera information called /i technology. This technology provides lens information on a per frame basis which can then be encoded into the data stream of the recording device. Cooke is working with RED on this technology and Jim Jannard confirmed that not only are Cooke helping RED with this but also all the RED lenses will have this built in from the first lens – even if the RED does not yet actually use this data. This means all lenses bought now will be valid when the system does get implemented. The system is of great interest to the post community as companies such as Pixel Farm’s PFTrack can use this information when it is encoded in the DPX stream. From this nominal ‘text file”, the PFTrack software gets the unique serial number of that lens, and then checks the Cooke database for the actual individual lens distortion and characteristics at every single f-stop. So no longer do you need to shoot grids and chart and estimate lens distortion – you get the factor tested exact measurements in your camera solve. According to Richard Spöhrer at Pixel Farm this results in 3D tracking solutions vastly more accurate – so accurate people are thinking of having the PFtrack generate data accurate for Motion Control.
New Lens
A new set of prime RED lens were released. This includes a
f2.8 15mm lens
f1.9 25mm
f1.9 35mm
f1.9 50mm
f1.9 85mm
For only US$19,975 , which is an amazing price point
And also a new Zoom 18mm-50mm (f2.8) for $6,500 but the previously announced 18-80mm zoom has been delayed slightly.
Shipping
The first RED cameras will ship April/May – the first being approximately 12 cameras, the next batch is to follow some 30 days later assuming no field issues arise from these early adopters. Going into NAB there were 1500 cameras orders on the waiting list – and all these cameras should be placed with customers by the end of the year, but Schilowitz pointed out once production really starts they will have a much better idea of the rate of cameras per week leaving the factory.
Refund
And if you are on the waiting list from last NAB, and you’re not convinced – you can now get a 120% refund on your deposit. (serial numbers below 750)
Project RED
In the podcast we discuss in detail a new venture fxguide is co-producing, Project RED. This is a collaborative open source film project for the RED community. You can sign up for updates on the web site for the project at projectred.net. Check back regularly for updates over the coming weeks.
Imagineer Systems – NAB Special on Motor
At NAB, Imagineer Systems is offering a great deal on their new Motor roto plugin….US$995 ($600 off). We asked if we could pass this on to our readers…and they were happy to do so. What you need to do is download the application and fax it to Imagineer by April 20. Be sure to provide all the information they ask for.
You must fax this to 44 1483 685586 by April 20, 2007 to obtain the special pricing.