Zoom-in Online

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.

Five years ago, Aldey Sanchez and I formed Offhollywood Digital to provide emerging technologies to the film & media industries. Along the way, we formed two business divisions; Offhollywood Studios, which is our team working as a full-service production company, or as "producers for hire", and Offhollywood Pictures, which are original productions and co-productions of feature films.

We pride ourselves on being early adopters and innovators, and actively beta test hardware and software for some of the most exciting companies in the content creation space. On Friday August 31st, Aldey & I picked up RED ONE #0006 and RED ONE #0007, the very first two production units of the new, highly hyped and anticipated 4K digital cinema camera. I'll be posting here daily on zoom-in over the next two weeks sharing some of my impressions and adventures with the cameras.

I'd like to quickly share a story that pre-dates RED. It is the story of THE PRODUCT. Two years ago at IBC 2005, TED SCHILOWITZ who was then the io/Kona product manager at AJA at that time, my reseller Matt Cohen from TEKSERVE and some other folks from AJA were sitting in a "coffee shop" in Amsterdam unwinding after the first day of the trade show. We started talking about how the various corporations hype new technologies at these trade shows and somehow the conversation morphed into a long and funny rant about "how funny" it would be to hype something at the NAB trade show that didn't even exist. In our conversation it was called THE PRODUCT, and it would "change everything about everything".

Months later, Mike Curtis from www.HDforIndies.com picked up rumors of a secret 4K camera project brewing on the west coast. I sent Ted a few emails about the rumors and Ted never responded. Fast forward to Sundance Film Festival 2006. Every year, my company shares a condo with the AJA folks and some other technology companies that like independent film and any excuse to ski. At this time, the RED project was not-public, just a few rumors swirling about.

The first day of the Sundnace Film Festival, after everyone had left the condo, Ted says "now I'm gonna REALLY blow your mind" and he pulled a business card out of his wallet which had the RED LOGO, his name, and the title "Leader of the Rebellion". He told me about Jim Jannard, the founder and visionary behind the project and what they were setting out to do. To be honest, I wasn't really 100% convinced it was really going to happen, because there was no sensor at that time - but Ted was just so excited about it, and it was a very grand vision, so I said "I am all in".

A month or so later, Ted calls me up and tells me Red has decided to "debut" at NAB 2006, and would I help out in the booth. I happily agreed, and what happened at that trade show was an almost eerie deja vu to the exactly what we talked about in that coffee shop in Amsterdam.

RED announced the camera, specifications and a price point so disruptive it caused an immediate sensation. Only one small catch, the camera DID NOT exist. I am pretty sure they did not even have the team of people together that would design the sensor in place at that time. All they had was a vision and literally a FEW rock stars on their team. Over 300 people put down a $1000 fully refundable deposit to get a "place in line", a line now well over 2000 camera units. Lots of folks said it was "vaporware" and a "scam" and that Red could never do what they were saying they would do. All of us in that little booth took a lot flak.

Last Friday, we picked up the first two production units of THE PRODUCT in Los Angeles at the Red headquarters. Saturday night, in Brooklyn Heights, we grabbed a few shots of the skyline and put a camera up on a steadicam rig. On Sunday, we went to a stunt driving school in South New Jersey with 16 volunteers and shot our version of a "camera test".

There is coverage of that camera test on www.HDforIndies.com and a behind the scenes video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OKU5Ni70w).

THE PRODUCT is REAL. And this camera is going to CHANGE EVERYTHING. Stay tuned to Zoom-In for the next two weeks and I'll share my initial journey into the world of affordable, ultra-high quality 4K production and post.

- Mark Pederson

Day Two
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Day Seven
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Day Ten