A brief history of RED and me

At some point in 2006 or 2007, a co-worker (lets just call him Bobby Francis) alighted me of a company that was producing a 4K digital movie camera for a fraction of the cost of what a comparable digital cinema camera would run.

At this point, Lucas had already shot Episodes I and II digitally, as had Robert Rodriguez on Spy Kids 2 and 3, and other "films" had been shot digitally, but all of those movies were shot on cameras costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. RED was something new- 4K for the masses. There were naysayers, people called it a scam (RED was accepting deposits for the unproven camera). But RED delivered. Big time. The RED One was born, and changed the industry and continues to change the industry.

As affordable as the RED One was ($17,500 without lenses or accessories), it was still way out of my league. So RED fell of my personal tech radar. Then sometime in 2008, another co-worker (lets call him Troy Wuelfing), told me about Scarlet. 3K for $3K was the tagline, and I was hooked.

I had already been in pre-production on Holodad at this point, mainly deep in the trenches of writing the screenplay, and had been pondering what camera to use. I knew I wanted full progressive scanned HD, not interlaced footage, and not 720P, but full 1920x1080P. And I had a very limited budget to spend on a camera. I was leaning toward an HVX-200. It was popular with the indie film crowd, and I did want as much manual control as possible. But it was a tad expensive for me, so I looked at other alternatives- HV-20, JVC Everio, ugh.

Enter Scarlet. A 3K, 2/3" sensor (the same size sensor, by the way, that the above mentioned films were shot on), with higher dynamic range than the RED One. Amazing! After debayering (a process of downrezzing the footage to remove aliasing) you still get larger than 2K resolution, which is what the majority of theatrical films are projected at. That means options in Post! Camera Shake, Reframing, Zooming, even a little pan and scan if you are so inclined. Not to mention the RAW format it shoots in. Want to change your white balance AFTER you shoot? No problem. Want to change your exposure AFTER you shoot? No problem.

Scarlet is slated to ship late this year, and I eagerly await it's release. Don't let it fall off your radar. :)

www.red.com

Oh, almost forgot- 2/3" sensor footage, shot on a 100mm RED Pro Prime lens at T5.6 It's a must-see!
http://redgrabs.com/izzy/