01.21.2010 RED Goes From One Scene to Shooting Entire Movie

There is a great article about the RED camera being used on “The Book of Eli” in the latest issue of ICG Magazine.

Burgess did extensive tests with the RED on location in the New Mexico desert, where most of the exteriors would be shot. [The Book of Eli was shot in the small rural town of Carrizozo and on stages in Albuquerque]. Burgess had mounts made for the camera so he could use Panavision Primo lenses. Then he tested it side-by-side with an Arriflex 435 from Otto Nemenz International. “Because of its desaturated nature, the RED was able to provide the look within its limitations,” Burgess explains. “We didn’t need the full dynamic range of color negatives. And there really was no difference for me than shooting film. It worked out very well. More…

07.28.2009 Albert Hughes is Hooked on RED

• Albert Hughes describes his is experience with the RED camera after shooting “The Book of Eli”.”RED was the answer to all my dreams. Speed, flexibility and an incredible look that can be seen right away. I was especially thrilled with my options in post, applying different looks, repositioning the image or scanning in a bit to reframe. At one time, I considered myself a film purist, swearing never to go digital but RED has changed all of that, proving itself against film in a side by side test. With all of its flexibility, I cant see going back to film.” Albert Hughes.

07.23.2009 The Book of Eli HD Trailer

• You can view the HD trailer here: www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thebookofeli/

01.18.2009 The Book of Eli Shooting on the RED Camera

• Jim Jannard has just announced that “The Book Of Eli”, staring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis is shooting on the RED camera.

Synopsis: “Denzel Washington plays a lone hero in a not-too-distant apocalyptic future who must fight across America to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption.”

• Directors: Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes
• Director of Photography: Don Burgess
• Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman
• Producer: Joel Silver
• Writer: Gary Whitta

Albert Hughes on their film out test: “We did a side by side test with a RED camera and an Arri 435 at the locations where the movie was to be shot. After processing and D.I., we did a film out and presented both sets of images to the producers. All picked the “shot on film” images on the right as the best ones. They were half right. It was the best footage, but the footage on the right was shot on RED, not film. Both Don Burgess and I were shocked that RED handled the actresses’ skin better than film. It had a creamy quality, more of an old style trick that dp’s used to use when they put pantie hose on the back of lenses. We are now one week into shooting and we couldn’t be happier with the look we are getting.” Multiple industry resources have confirmed that they are shooting on “Panavised” REDs with Panavision glass.   We are still waiting for official confirmation, however.

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RED has just announced that the 7 remaining episodes of NBC’s “ER” including the series finale will be all shot on the RED Camera.

• Ninja Brook Willard is DIT on the project.
• Read the official post at www.reduser.net

Update: 02/26/2009  Tonight is the first episode of ER that is all shot on the RED Camera!  Source.

Update: 02/19/2009  Three shots in tonight’s episode of ER were shot on the RED camera.   Source.

Ninja Evin Grant has posted some pictures of Element Technica’s new RED camera raincover used on the set of ER.

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TNT’s new heist series “Leverage” is being shot on the RED camera and post is being done in Final Cut Pro.

Dean Devlin, the shows creator and executive producer, talks about the workflow they use:

“We do the entire show in Final Cut Studio,” says Devlin, who also runs Electric Entertainment. “We shoot on the Red One camera, bring it back on hard drives, and put it in our Xsan. Then every department here pulls off those servers whether it’s for digital effects, sound effects, sound mixing, picture editing, color correction, everything.”

Read more at www.apple.com/leverage

Devlin also did an interview where he talks about the RED camera.  You can read it here: www.videography.com

• Director of Photography: David Connell
• Executive Producer: Dean Devlin
• Channel: TNT

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Update 03/07/2009: You can view the first five episodes of Sanctuary at www.hulu.com/sanctuary

‘Sanctuary’ premiered on the Sci-Fi channel this fall and is being shot on the RED camera.

Sanctuary stars Stargate’s Amanda Tapping and is shot in Vancouver, BC.  The Actors are shot against a green screen and the environment is done entirely in CGI.

You can watch members of the Sanctuary crew talking about their experience working with the RED camera here: www.dvice.com

A couple more behind the scenes videos and the title sequence for the show.

www.video.scifi.com/1

www.video.scifi.com/2

www.scifi.com/title

• Director of Photography: David Geddes
• Director: Martin Wood
• Channel: Sci-Fi

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Wallander , a TV mini-series that was shot on the RED camera has started showing on the BBC.  The show will consist of three single dramas based on the Kurt Wallander Mysteries books and stars Kenneth Branagh.

The first episode’s Director of photography, Anthony Dod Mantle, just gave an interview with Broadcast Now and discusses the choice to use the RED Camera:

You’ve been quick to adopt new technology before but how confident were you that you could deal with the Red One?

“We all live in our world of expertise. I’ve hammered through my career and I move so fast – as we all have to – that I just soak up technology as it comes and I look at it with a critical eye and also with an open heart. I know roughly the tendencies. You don’t have to be a genius to know roughly which way things are going as far as celluloid and digital media is concerned. In the world of digital cinema for both theatre and television cinematography is down to fundamental things such as definition, resolution and quality of the final result. What also comes into the bargain, as you embrace new technology, is the slightly new workflow.”

Read the full article here: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk

• Director of Photography: Anthony Dod Mantle
• Channel: BBC

Episode 2 and 3′s DP Geoff Boyle using Element Technica’s prototype hand held system for the RED camera.

More pictures at www.gboyle.co.uk

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Martin Scorsese recently started shooting a feature on the RED camera with Ellen Kuras.

Read more at reduser.net: www.reduser.net/forum

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UPDATE 08/06/2009:

The trailer for “The Lovely Bones” has just been released at: www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/thelovelybones/hd/

ORIGINAL POST:

While the majority of Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones” was shot on film, I was just told that “Lovely Bones Visual Effects elements and New Zealand aerials were shot on Red”. Peter also told me he would send pics for us to post.

BTW… some on Build 16.

Jim Jannard

Read more at the reduser.net link: www.reduser.net/forum

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“Roberto just finished shooting Bond 22. He was gracious enough to allow me to post his comments from another forum.”

Jim Jannard

“When I was doing tests for the last film, which I ended up shooting 3-perf Arri, I shot comparison tests between film and Red camera ( build as of October ’07) digital. I was trying to emulate the film look with the Red as much as possible, so far as having several post facilities go through to a DI film out and project the results A/B. The reason was to prove to the producers that you could shoot part film, part Red, and seamlessly intercut the two. When done properly in the color timing stage, it was highly successful. The Red was able to be timed to match the 5219 without any problem except for scenes with extremely high overexposure and contrast.
I had the film timed first the way that I wanted it, and then asked the color timers to match it as best as possible from the Red data. The Red did superbly, and in fact when I shot night available light it did even better when I rated it at 2000 ASA. The noise was minimal and had great dynamic range.
I know that if I wanted to I could have “rigged” the results and made the Red footage look better ( different). It is such an open playing field that test results from various sources are really open to so much interpretation.”

Roberto Schaefer, asc

Link at reduser.net: www.reduser.net/forum

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Director Alex Proyas: “Oh, well, it’s amazing. I mean, we shot “Knowing” on these cameras, or these red cameras, these 4K digital cameras – the first time I actually shot digital. And it was great. I mean, they really are – the look of the film is fabulous. I was very excited by that. But, you know, it’s terrific that we can – in our own homes now, we can play something that – off Blu-Ray, or whatever – that really closely approximates what the film actually – the quality of the film that was made”.

• Director – Alex Proyas
• Cinematographer – Simon Duggan
• Starring – Nicolas Cage
• Post – Park Road, NZ

Update 02/03/2009: Alex Proyas talks about the RED camera in an interview with www.aintitcool.com

View the HD trailer here: apple.com

More at: darkhorizons.com

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