If you’ve been to my “About Me” page on this site, you’ll notice I have down as my favourite camera the RED One from RED Digital Cinema. For those that aren’t familiar with this camera, Wired magazine wrote a brief background for the average joe non-filmmaker (its not entirely accurate, but worth a read anyway) which I have linked here:
“Analog Film Meets Its Match in RED Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Res Camera”
Now, I’m not writing the following to “big note” myself in any way, more putting the words to page recounting for myself (and hopefully one day, my posterity), my chance encounters with RED (as they have been so varied and random), as I consider it extremely revolutionary, and a company that is completely changing the landscape of motion picture capture.
When I worked in the Latter-day Saint Motion Picture Studio’s (LDS MPS, located in Provo, Utah, USA, tucked away semi-secretly behind Movies 8 and the Shopko there) camera department with Brian Wilcox, back in 2005, it seemed like the Church’s AudioVisual department was at a crossroads. Brian was in one camp, the stalwart who stood behind all the 16/35mm film cameras and gear (and all the history that went with it), with, what it seemed like at the time, the rest of the entire AV department firmly backed into the video camp (one dude up in the Conference Centre Studio even had a “Film is Dead” poster on his office door), having all come from broadcast backgrounds.
I was intrigued by what I was reading in the industry mags of the day about the new Arri D-20 digital cinema camera (that was to eventually come out at the end of 2005), and what Dalsa had in store with their 4k Origin camera, and how these new digital “video” cameras could take all the film accessories and lenses we already had, and captured RAW images (as close as yer gonna get to capturing film in an electronic environment right now), which allowed you to capture a lot of information initially, and decide on a look in post (similar to grading and post colour correction). Right before the big National Association of Broadcastors (NAB) exhibit in Las Vegas in April 2005, I started compiling all the information I could about the specs of these new digital cinema cameras into an Excel spreadsheet that I passed onto Glen Willardson (the guy we reported to in the camera department...maybe he was head of production??), detailing the pros and cons of each one, mainly so I knew what to look for when I dragged Kimbo down to Vegas that year :)
One of the most technically amazing of all these (I think at the time there was the Origin, Viper, D-20, Genesis maybe??, Panavised F900, and...) was an old, crazy looking guy named Jeff Kreines’ Kinetta Camera (seen here).
“Analog Film Meets Its Match in RED Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Res Camera”
Now, I’m not writing the following to “big note” myself in any way, more putting the words to page recounting for myself (and hopefully one day, my posterity), my chance encounters with RED (as they have been so varied and random), as I consider it extremely revolutionary, and a company that is completely changing the landscape of motion picture capture.
When I worked in the Latter-day Saint Motion Picture Studio’s (LDS MPS, located in Provo, Utah, USA, tucked away semi-secretly behind Movies 8 and the Shopko there) camera department with Brian Wilcox, back in 2005, it seemed like the Church’s AudioVisual department was at a crossroads. Brian was in one camp, the stalwart who stood behind all the 16/35mm film cameras and gear (and all the history that went with it), with, what it seemed like at the time, the rest of the entire AV department firmly backed into the video camp (one dude up in the Conference Centre Studio even had a “Film is Dead” poster on his office door), having all come from broadcast backgrounds.
I was intrigued by what I was reading in the industry mags of the day about the new Arri D-20 digital cinema camera (that was to eventually come out at the end of 2005), and what Dalsa had in store with their 4k Origin camera, and how these new digital “video” cameras could take all the film accessories and lenses we already had, and captured RAW images (as close as yer gonna get to capturing film in an electronic environment right now), which allowed you to capture a lot of information initially, and decide on a look in post (similar to grading and post colour correction). Right before the big National Association of Broadcastors (NAB) exhibit in Las Vegas in April 2005, I started compiling all the information I could about the specs of these new digital cinema cameras into an Excel spreadsheet that I passed onto Glen Willardson (the guy we reported to in the camera department...maybe he was head of production??), detailing the pros and cons of each one, mainly so I knew what to look for when I dragged Kimbo down to Vegas that year :)
One of the most technically amazing of all these (I think at the time there was the Origin, Viper, D-20, Genesis maybe??, Panavised F900, and...) was an old, crazy looking guy named Jeff Kreines’ Kinetta Camera (seen here).
Kim and I (and Dustin Olenslager, a missionary companion of mine who lives in Vegas, and who comes to NAB with me every time I go) passed him on the showroom floor, but I honestly can’t recall if I said anything to him (should have tho!).
At that particular NAB we were swept up in Panasonic P2 fever (I had scored some Panny party invites somehow on online that got us into the P2 launch event one of the nights; we also met up with an old workmate of mine, Todd Hamilton, who used to work at BYU’s Technology Assisted Language Learning Group [TALL] with me) and fell in love with the HVX200 (we owned a Panasonic DVX100 at the time, which we ended up selling to help purchase our tickets to Sydney), and digital cinema cameras suddenly took a backseat.
In July 2005, Kim and I were off to Sydney for a masters degree in film at the University of Sydney, and we missed NAB 2006, wherein the Oakley founder and billionaire (and, I’m assuming ex-, Latter-day Saint), Jim Jannard, showed off a prototype RED One camera, which at the time was “not much more than an aluminum box about the size of a loaf of bread” (as the Wired article put it), and spec sheet. At the time, apparently 500 people put down the US$1,000 deposit and secured their place in line. John Bowring, managing director of Lemac Films, my current employer, was one of the first....well, that is until he got distracted, and lost his place in line to the likes of Mike Seymour of FX PHD...and ended up with serial numbers 64 & 65 (still, not too bad).
Kim and I returned to the USA in 2006 and went off to Washington, D.C., to work at National Geographic Television. While there, I befriended the VP over my department (Production Operations), Mike Castro, and went out of my way to create maps of the exhibit halls, lined up booth tours and invite only VIP party registrations, and eventually weaseled my way into a trip to 2007’s NAB on NatGeo’s dime. My initial American Airlines flight never left the tarmac (engine malfunction), so I missed the opening day on Monday (and the schnazzy Apple booth tour I lined up), and didn’t arrive until late Tuesday (when all the awesome SWAG has been depleted around the entire showroom floor - no free t-shirts to increase the size of my wardrobe...to the disdain of Kimberly, who hates when I get free shirts :). The weeks prior to NAB I had been reading the forums and industry sites about the RED and that it was surely to be the must see booth at NAB.
I lined up with Dustin (yup, he was there at NAB 07 with me as well) in the endlessly long line that wrapped around the RED tent (this was on the third day and there was still this much pent up demand), and finally got in to see the short film Peter Jackson (yes, of LOTR trilogy fame) shot on two alpha-prototypes (Boris and Natasha - seen in my Moto RAZR crapcam pix below), called “Crossing the Line”. Completely stunned after seeing the film projected in glorious 4k via the Sony SXRD projector they had, I wandered up to Jim Jannard and handed him my card and said National Geographic would be interested in finding out more. He said “Great, why don’t you speak with Ted...” and pointed me in Ted Schilowitz’ (RED’s Leader of the Rebellion, essentially Jim’s right hand man, and maybe even the technical and marketing brains behind the whole operation) general direction. We exchanged business cards and I told him I would get in contact with him to see what we could set up in our neck of the woods (D.C.).
RED’s logo outside the tent camera setup with video out
"Boris" & "Natasha" alpha prototypes Close-up of "Boris"
RED's Spider...just looks cool RED’s “Fire Chief”, Jarred Land scratching
(or picking?:) his nose, behind a
prototype RED
MORE SOON....
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