Tribhuvan Babu has just finished shooting an entire feature on the RED Camera and shares his experience with us.
* How was the experience shooting on Red? Was this the first time you shot something on Red?
Yes it was the first time for me on the RED… and it BLEW me away…. we had done a basic test on it though, which was to replicate the situations we were looking at in our mis-en-scene. day int, day int/ext, nite ext, nite int/ext, extreme low light, and all this was done in available light.
* What was the recording format? Tape/HDD/Memory Cards? How long were the takes?
We chose the full resolution of the Camera, i.e RAW 4K 2:1, composed for 1:2.35 aspect ratio. and there are two REDCODES,namely RC28 & RC36 to choose from. which is essentially deciding the frame rate for the entire production. in RC36 at full resolution one can shoot max 30 fps on a CF card and RC28 gives you the option to shot till 120fps on a CF card. since we didnt have any high speed shots in the film we chose RC36. during my research most people recomended to use the Flash card. these come in two configurations… 8Gb- 4 mins & 16GB-8mins at 4K 2:1 resolution. i had a HDD but please avoid as its a spinning wheel type drive and not solid state, u may loose ur footage because of jerks while transport etc…. we used to take immediate back ups after finishing one CF card… that too TWO back-ups on a 2 TB LACIE HDD. we had 6 CF cards with ue the max time of a shot we took was 4mins …. dadagiri !
* Which lenses did you use?
I used the 1.3 high speed ZIESS lens package for the production … the REd lens comes in 18-50 Zoom with a 2.2 opening. i wanted as much opening as possible because our’s was an AVAILABLE LIGHT shoot…. DAY n NIGHT….
* did you at anytime, miss ‘Film’, when shooting in contrasty situations/otherwise
I did miss Film in lot of places da…. given the extremes we were woking on… but nonetheless RED performed quite well…. must say that in the existing digital domain RED surpasses all in details in Highlights and Shadows….. but the drawback is a bit of noise in the extreme low lights conditions….. more so in Tungsten lit situations…
* I have heard RED kind of heats up very soon and takes some time to reboot? Is this true? Did it affect the shoot?
Heating was an issue till Build 15… i shot with the build 16…. the cam does heat up but doesn’t hang…. but ya after changing the battery it takes 1 min-20secs to boot…. ya its frustrating …. but during the course of the shoot i realised that due the heat the Flange gets rogered, as the electronics are embeded around the PL-MOUNT….. i lost couple of shots to that….. they r SOFT…. cant do shit about it…. they claim to have corrected that flaw from the BUILD-18, but have to see it yet..
* Do you feel that workflow for cameras like RED are completely smooth and sorted today?
We r far from sorted about RED…. Major post facilitied are Shiting in their pant with this…. in theory they r sorted but practically we know what they do…. Man they screw the regular DIs, forget what they’ll do to REd footage…. in mumbai only the 8M Mchaps have acquired the SCRATCH ASSIMILATE… which is one of the recommende tool for working on the RED code RAW files…. but they are very new to this….. so they too are figuring it out…. and we are the BAKRAAS …..
* Anything else?
am waiting for the calibrated monitor and the coloring tool interface at the 8MM facility… i’ll do a test print of my rushes…. wil let u know…. Also RED is an American co….. it comes with an American attitude….. Better have all the accessories when u use it otherwise its a pain…. quite cumbersome…..
* How about a RED workshop at the Institute?
ya man… wrkshop is due…. but after i have something on print…. that the acid test…. on the small monitor it looks gorgeous…. have to c it on BADA PURDAH …
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