The RED Diary, Day Three

Editor's Note: The following is part of a two-week series of guest entries authored by Mark Pederson, Owner and Executive Producer of Offhollywood Studios, about his experiences with the very first two RED cameras to hit the public market. The RED is a boundary breaking technology that offers unparalleled HD imagery in digital format at a price point 1/10th that of similarly equipped cameras.

It's 1:15 am. My wife has been asleep for a few hours now. I am still up, and RED ONE #007 is on my dining room table getting a quick "firmware update" as I just received a file via email the Red Team which will enable yet another feature. Jim Jannard, founder and visionary behind the camera, likes to tell people that the camera will NEVER be finished. It will just keep getting better.

The day we picked up our cameras, he made a short speech and he used a great analogy - you buy a new camera, and all excited to try it and test the features. After some time, some other camera comes out that is "better", that has "more features" - the excitement over your camera is OVER. You toss the other camera in the closet or flip it on Ebay and buy the next latest and greatest. What RED is doing is very, very different. From the beginning, Jim and the Red Team specifically designed this camera to be 100% upgradable. What that means is that in 9 months or a year, or how ever long t takes for their team to make ANOTHER version of their sensor with more dynamic range or higher frame-rates, etc. - you will be able to UPGRADE THE SENSOR. The "guts" of this camera are MODULAR. That's a hardware upgrade.

Many, many features can be added by changing the SOFTWARE embedded in the camera (FIRMWARE) via a small file that RED sends you in the email, you drag the file onto a COMPACT FLASH CARD (or an SD card) stick it in the camera and turn the camera on - the camera will immediately see the new firmware and ask if you would like to 'UPDATE" - now, you have NEW features to play with - and you are STILL excited about your camera.

Today we are doing a camera test for a director who has made several Hollywood blockbusters. His most recent film, budgeted over $100 million dollars, recently wrapped principal photography and he is interested in shooting some second unit next weekend.

We chatted with the post production team at the studio today and they are all excited give RED a test run with Offhollywood. So, if things go well today, before I complete my guest appearance on Zoom In - we will be shooting some 4K Red on a major motion picture, TWO weeks (to the day actually - if this goes down) after getting our cameras. Not too bad, ehhh?

Obviously, it's a test, and there is a studio involved, so there are some politics, there always is - they could decide to shoot the second unit material on 35mm for many reasons, even if they love the images from our RED cameras - so I have no idea how all of this will play out - you will need to stay tuned to my diary here on ZOOM-IN to find out -

But, I AM feelin' lucky.

In addition, today, another 25 cameras (#26-50) will be released at RED headquarters.

The little RED SNOWBALL has just started rolling down the mountain ...

Now, I need to get some sleep ... stay tuned ...