I loved the flexibility I had with frame sizing and shifting, allowing me to experiment with some zooms and twists not done in camera. You can punch in up to 200% with 4k without any loss of picture quality. Even so, it does get a bit soft in Pro Res if you go that far. Nevertheless, when I placed the edit into a 16:9 SD sequence for export to DVD studio, the punch ins became as crisp as if they were shot at that framing. The brief colour grading I’ve done has only been on the ProRes conversion not on the original RAW image so it’s not particularly relevant to discuss here.
It may sound from this article that this was an unsuccessful nightmare shoot beset by nothing but problems. Happily this is not true. A punishing shoot yes, but with a crew experienced in microfilmmaking and used to thinking fast and on their feet. A great deal of planning went into pre-production, which did help compensate for our lack of RED experience. This plus the little bit of luck every microfilmmaker needs saw us through.
This is not a reflection of the standard of the onset catering.
Brett checks his contract for loopholes.
The footage we took is magnificent with a breathtaking colour range and scope, the camera really capturing the harsh epic look I was after. Although we shot barely more than was needed, the pre-planning and design was aimed to achieve exactly this. I had plenty of choices in the edit and am extremely excited about the potential for Quinkin. Even in the ungraded rough with no sound design, it still looks like a project with a much larger budget.
My overall verdict? Well, the output of the RED is difficult to argue with. The visuals captured by this cam give the microbudget filmmaker an aesthetic far beyond the price paid. However, it is just not robust enough at this stage for easy use in a cash strapped filmmaking environment. There are other, more strenuously field tested cameras available. Indeed, experienced camera manufacturer ARRI is set to release their new digital system in mid 2010, though its impact on microfilmmakers will be tempered by the fact that its starting price will be around three times more than the RED.
Would I use the RED again? Yes, definitely. But I would allow more time and more crew to compensate for its issues and idiosyncrasies as well as sourcing better grip equipment. I would also carefully consider whether the RED was appropriate to the shoot. There are several cameras out there that will provide you with high quality images for a reasonable price so you need to evaluate what the RED is bringing to your project. With Quinkin, the RED was definitely the right camera in terms of what I wanted to capture and how I wanted it to look combined with the money available, but this may not always be the case.
