The RED camera: A thing of awe to micro filmmakers. A creation whose results can catapult the visual look of a micro budget film to a level undreamed of only a few short years ago. But is it something we should be aiming to use on a shoestring or will it just cause more problems than it solves? There have been several articles on MFM dealing with using the RED on low budget films. From memory though, those projects still had a significant cash outlay, at least from a microfilmmaker point of view, so I thought an article on how the RED handles in a true microbudget environment might be of some interest.
I recently shot my short film Quinkin. A difficult and ambitious project, this was a $20k* film that we thought we could get away with on $10k. We only had $5k so we did it anyway. We’re filmmakers dammit!
To give my shoot some context, here’s my set up. Through various nefarious schemes and stand over tactics, (ie – pure luck, helpful contacts and some slight fudging of how long we were shooting for) I secured two RED’s for the shoot, costing me $1500 in total for three days, a Big Baz Bargain in any language. A further $1600 was spent on lenses (a big zoom and a set of superspeeds) and grip equipment including a Digi-Dolly and a jib arm. We had a cast and crew of 9, including myself, shooting in two exterior locations, 2 hours apart, both approximately 3 hours from Melbourne where we all live in urban comfort. We all stayed in a tiny farmhouse around five miles from Location 1. Both locations were miles away from electricity or other facilities and we didn’t bring a generator. We planned to shoot entirely in sunlight, as the shadows and time of day were integral to the plot of the film. Additionally, this was Australian high summer, with temperatures expected to exceed 35˚C (95˚F).
Which leads to the first question you’re probably asking – why two REDs? I’d had it on advice from several people that REDs run hot. And when they run hot, they shut down. They weren’t wrong. Taking a second RED was a failsafe against this. As it turned out, we ended up running the two cameras fairly concurrently in order to get the coverage to complete the film with Camera A set up with an Agenieux 25 – 250 zoom, and Camera B broken down to a minimal rig for handheld work with the faster lenses. We had icepacks, umbrellas and eskis (cooler bins) to help cool them down if needed.
And we needed.
