|
welcome
tour
contact
publicity
media relations
projects
admin
features
on site
reviews
The RED Camera Symposium
On November 1 2008, Anansi Moving Imagaes in collaboration with Ryerson, SUNTV, and Lynk Promotions hosted
this groundbreaking event featuring a symposium where leading digital cinema experts provided deep insights
into the emergent opportunities created by new digital motion media technologies. Stay connected for details on
the 2009 symposium and submission deadlines for the SUNTV pitch contest and RED Shorts contest, to be posted by
March 2009
The RED CAMERA
Leading The Digital Cinema Revolution
The RED ONE Digital Cinema Camera was introduced at NAB 2006 by founder Jim Jannard to much cynicism,
including the perspective (prejudice) that quality matches price point ( you get what you pay for). The nay
sayers began to sing a different tune when the RED ONE camera was used by Peter Jackson to shoot a twelve
minute WWI film in New Zealand. It took 2 days to shoot. They accomplished 100 set ups per day. Something
according to Jackson that would have been impossible with film.
With a fast reloading digital magazine (a ridiculously small Compact Flash Card) , the RED ONE saved the production an incredible amount of time. People lined up for hours at NAB around the RED tent to see Peter Jackson's mini "epic" projected in 4K super high resolution digital glory, and were almost universally blown away by the jaw dropping imagery. Celebrated filmmaker Steven Soderburgh commented that he wasn't prepared for such amazing imagery and couldn't get over it when he first saw it. He went on to shoot his two part epic film on Che Guevara that was recently screened at Cannes on two preproduction RED ONE cameras
According to Ian Sun of Anansi Moving Images Inc. in Toronto and coordinator of the RED ONE Users Group, called TorontoRED, "This is not video. For those of us who love the look of film, we finally have a digital medium that can be spoken of in the same breath as 35mm film with no apologies. The RED ONE workflow heralds the true democratization of filmmaking, where the high cost of film is no longer a barrier to the production of beautiful imagery."
Ian Sun is a passionate film maker with a history that began in theatre. Ian wrote, directed and performed in Popular Theatre, a form with the objective of empowering those without power. In 1992, in the wake of the Rodney King beating and the riots it sparked in Los Angeles and as far away as Toronto. Ian made a film called Small Change, which explored the racially charged environment and alienation of young people of African decent. The film was made for and with the active participation of the young people who's lives it explored. Ian describes his "project" as moving the audience from observer to participant. It is one thing to apply this in the world of theatre where there is an audience to interact with, it is another thing in the world of the recorded moving image. Key to his project goal of involving the subjects and audience in the filmmaking process is the accessibility of those tools to novices. Ian sees the development of the RED ONE, though it is a fully professional tool, as a major milestone in the march toward truly democratized filmmaking.
Now known as Toronto's Red Guru, Ian Sun is going to be one busy guy. The Toronto Red Users Group consists of about 30 members who are the proud owners of the RED ONE Cameras in the GTA. The group shares knowledge, resources, and offers digital cinematography education.
The RED ONE captures images in a "raw" format just like a DSLR digital still camera. RED's version of this image encoding is called RED Code Raw, developed by a well known Programmer Graeme Nattress who develops plugins for Apple's Final Cut Pro. RED has worked closely with Apple in the development of RED Code and the formats integration in Final Cut Pro allows editors to work as fast as if they were working with footage from a DV camera
There are more involved high end processes that closely match traditional film post production workflows. Hollywood often implements a digital intermediate process which involves copying the footage at a lower resolution for an "offline" edit, as the high res original may be too much information for the system to process responsively. Once a final cut has been reached the low rez material is matched back to the high quality originals.
RED has a very active user community that is creating tools to complement those the company has released. One such tool is ClipFinder, a program developed by Hans-Georg Daun, that replicates the DI process used with film and allows the edited project to be matched back to the high quality original RED files for output to Film stock of a Digital Master file.
Most of the major post production software manufacturers including AVID are working on RED workflows. Now what does this tell us? A camera with 35mm film resolution, that eliminates much of the cost and complexity of film, is going to get some attention.
The original skepticism about the quality of the RED ONE Camera surfaced simply because its unheard of, that an unknown company could develop this kind of product before Sony or Panasonic. Who knows. Of course people were skeptical, thinking it to be vapor ware. Now, the impact this technology is having on the industry is not easy to ignore.
For anyone interested in purchasing a RED ONE Camera, you'll be waiting for close to a year. Ian Sun ordered his camera in October 2006 and just recently received it in May 2008. Prior to getting delivery of his serial number #1080 RED ONE, he accessed a RED ONE at PS Production Services, which is one of the few film supply companies carrying the camera.
Ian has become increasingly busy since his camera arrived and has stepped forward to create the first International Digital Cinema Symposium here in Toronto which took place on November 1 2008 at the Ryerson Rogers Communication Centre followed by a two day Red One Boot Camp on November 15th. The two day hands on workshop and boot camp featured live shooting, post production, demonstrations
using Final Cut and Scratch, screening, and a pitch and RED Shorts! Also a short film competition with $10,000 in prize funds from Sun TV. For information on the 2009 symposium or interest in a presentation
visit www.torontored.org or call 416-875-7065.
More information on the RED Camera itself can be found at
www.red.com. Submission details for the SUNTV Pitch Contest will be announced in March 2009
By Eryn Vogn & Ian Sun
|