Works in Progress Works with the RED One Camera

By Stephen Pruitt

Lewis and Clark

When my wife, Mary Settle Pruitt, and I began preproduction for our first film, Works in Progress, we thought about using Panasonic’s HVX-200 24fps HD video camera with a 35mm adapter. We had purchased an HVX to shoot a couple of music videos and, while we were very pleased with the remarkably narrow and film-like depth-of-field that an HD camera with a 35mm adapter allowed, we weren’t entirely happy with the loss of resolution inherent in such systems and – more importantly – we were dissatisfied with edge softness on every 35mm adapter system we tried. Overall, the images looked very good, but they weren’t exactly Hollywood-quality, either. We were clearly looking for more.

About a year before the shoot, a brand new camera company known as RED Digital Cinema announced its first camera — the RED One — which promised the ability to shoot at a truly remarkable resolution known as “4K RAW.” To put this resolution into perspective, the Hollywood films you see at your local multiplex are shot on 35mm film and then digitized and “finished” at 2K, which has a pixel density about 14% tighter than the very best 1080p television signals. In other words, since 2K films obviously look great, 4K footage had the potential to be truly out-of-this world! Why? Because 4K isn’t twice the resolution of 2K as you might initially think; rather, it’s four times the pixel count of what we are used to seeing in theaters.

Even more amazing, the camera, while certainly not inexpensive, was expected to sell for about one-tenth the price of industry standard 35mm film cameras such as the Arri 435. (But don’t for a second believe the “It’s a $17,500 camera” lie, because that’s just the “doorstop” price. You can safely count on spending at least $25,000 for a credibly-equipped RED One system, not counting a quality tripod or lenses.) In addition, because the RED One creates RAW film files, its footage is almost infinitely adjustable with respect to color, white balance, and gamma settings, just like the pictures produced by a first-rate digital still camera.

But what about our beloved depth-of-field? Unlike standard 1/3″ prosumer HD video cameras (such as the HVX-200), or even truly professional 2/3″ cameras such as the Varicam and F-900, the RED One camera was advertised as having the exact same depth-of-field characteristics as 35mm film cameras because its CMOS image sensor was the exact size and shape of a frame of Super 35mm film.

Clearly, if the hype was at all true, the RED One was going to be a camera to be reckoned with. So, we took a deep breath, plunked down our deposit, and sat back and waited. Indeed, we waited so long that we became very concerned that our camera would not arrive in time to begin shooting in May 2008. But arrive it did. “Lewis” (RED One #791) became the very first RED One camera out here on the Kansas prairie. Shockingly, when Mary saw the quality of the footage we were capturing with “Lewis,” she immediately suggested we buy a second camera (which we named “Clark”), as well!

Production: Optics, Audio and More

Careful rigging keeps Lewis and Clark secure during a scene shoot

Let me cut to the chase: The RED One camera is everything we had hoped it was going to be. Properly lighted scenes really do look almost completely indistinguishable from the finest footage shot on 35mm film. Noise (except in improperly lighted scenes) is almost nonexistent.

As you might imagine, the resolution is extraordinary. Although, sadly, we do not have a monitor capable of actually letting us watch our footage in 4K (4K displays have yet to appear on the market, although 4K projectors do exist), even watching 2K proxy files pulled from the 4K RAW originals is a revelation. And artistic control over depth-of-field remains as bewitching as ever.

The ability to use completely different types of lenses on the front of the otherwise lenseless RED One camera is one of its great advantages. We shot our movie using Nikon manual-focus primes (single focal-length lenses) and controlled focus using the relatively inexpensive Redrock Micro follow-focus, since we cannot afford the PL-mount lenses and Arri follow-focus units typically used on Hollywood sets. The lenses were superb. The look was, well, just like film. Optically, this camera is a winner! (We have since changed out the front-end of the camera, and now use Canon L-series electronic lenses with a just released — and truly revolutionary — wireless follow-focus system developed by Birger Engineering.)

Lewis and Clark cooperate on the set of Works in Progress

Fortunately, shooting with the RED wasn’t all that different from what you’d expect from shooting with either another HD video camera, or even a film camera. Metering is different, due to the nature of the camera’s RAW data files, but the RED’s many exposure and focus assists are extremely helpful and easy to use.

We recorded audio using a double-system (recording audio both on the camera and an external Sound Device’s 788T digital mixer/recorder), but now that the RED One camera has an upgraded audio board, its internal audio circuitry is first-rate.

Like all other HD cameras, the RED One camera loves natural daylight, and gets noisy (particularly in the blue channel) in the absence of sufficient light (although, again, owners of the RED One receive free software upgrades which have substantially improved the noise performance of the camera since its initial release). The camera’s usable dynamic range is pretty much the equal of any other high resolution digital camera, but is not quite the equal of the best film stocks, so careful attention to detail in lighting is essential.

Overheating was an issue for us on the hottest days, when we’d have to put ice packs on the top of the camera to keep its internal temperature down (to say nothing of the crew!).

But, overall, the camera performed superbly under some very difficult conditions. We certainly have no regrets about our RED One purchases, and only wish we could have kept both cameras after we finished with the film. (“Clark” was sold to a company in Hollywood to help pay down our voluminous debts from the making of Works in Progress.)

Stephen Pruitt, co-writer, director, and producer of Works in Progress

RED One Accessories

Is the RED One a perfect camera? No. Is it for you? Maybe, but it’s definitely not for everyone. If you are used to shooting with a fast-paced “run and gun” shooting style, the RED One camera is not likely to be your camera of choice. The RED One is a digital cinema camera — not a quick-as-lightning ENG system. It was designed primarily for set shots (“Lights! Camera! Action!”). It does not come with a lens and does not offer either auto-focus or zoom options. It has no internal microphone (but it is almost impossible to capture good cinema-quality audio with an on-camera microphone anyway).

The RED One camera is a bit bulky and heavy, as well. Our fully-equipped cinema set-up, which includes an LCD monitor, an electronic viewfinder, a typical lens, a follow-focus, hard-drive, audio connections, battery, carbon fiber rails, shoulder mount, front handles, remote camera trigger, and a swing-away mattebox, weighs in at about 27 pounds. That might not sound like much, but as anyone who has actually tried to use a RED One camera in hand-held mode can tell you, it gets very heavy in a hurry. Indeed, it is so heavy that we ended up investing in a special hand-held rig known as the Easyrig 3.0, to take the weight off our poor DP’s shoulder (a $2,500 accessory that we highly recommend to all hand-held shooters).

And it doesn’t end there. Given its size and weight, the RED One camera is almost certainly too large for the tripod you’ve been happily using for years. Unless you are willing to use a tried-and-true dinosaur such as an O’Connor 50D fluid head, you can certainly count on spending upwards of $4,000 for a good used fluid head and tripod system capable of handling the RED One. And if you are wanting to use a jib, it had better be a strong one!

RED One accessories

Post-Production

Post is another (sad and expensive) issue. The 4K data files produced by the RED One are enormous. One 8-gig compact flash card will store about 4 minutes of 4K footage. As I write this article, I am sitting next to 8 terabytes of footage from our film. And those are just the off-site copy files! In addition, unless you like to spend your time watching Final Cut Pro’s spinning wheels go round and round, you’ll want to invest in a very fast and state-of-the-art computer system and editing program (the just-released Final Cut Studio 3 is particularly RED-friendly).

The Bottom Line on the RED One Camera

So this, in a nutshell, is the bottom line on the RED One digital cinema camera: If you are seriously interested in trying to create Hollywood-quality, set-shot footage for your indie film, and are willing to make the monetary sacrifices necessary to invest in the ancillary resources necessary to fully buy into the system (including the cost of buying and/or renting an excellent lighting kit), you absolutely owe it to yourself to seriously investigate the very same camera used on some of the biggest Hollywood films being made today — and, of course, on little indie films like our very own Works in Progress.