As promised, at 12:01 AM, Jannard posted information about RED Rocket, a PCI-Express card for Mac, PC and Linux workstations. RED Rocket will enable those working with native RED R3D files to decode, debayer and playback high quality, 4K (at 30fps) and 5K (at 25fps) files in realtime. RED Rocket will also accelerate Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Assimilate Scratch, RED Alert! REDCINE, RED Rushes and any application using the REDCODE SDK. The card will sport Quad-DVI and Quad-HD-SDI and will sell for under $5,000.

Jannard and RED decided to skip the NAB conference in Las Vegas this year, opting to deliver this news about the company’s latest product directly to the faithful via the RED user community boards at REDUSER.net.

(Executive Producer John) Wells went to a party and got into a conversation with director Steven Soderbergh, who had just shot the four-and-a-half-hour Che with the Red One camera. “He was raving about it, and that piqued John’s interest,” says associate producer Dieter Ismagil. When Wells shot the pilot for his upcoming series Southland, they used the Red camera to shoot a test for interiors and exteriors. “They liked the image, and they liked what they could do with it handheld, so they used it for the Southland pilot,”. “They were happy with the results and with not having the added expense of film processing.” The decision was made to give it a try for the last few episodes of ER.

Next was a cryptic, yet intruging post on REDUser.net from the man himself, Jim Jannard, CEO and Founder of RED courtesy of Studio Daily and Pro Video Coalition blogger Scott Simmons via twitter:

We have just made a number of final changes to our program. It has become clear that our competition is finally paying attention to what we are doing so this time we will NOT announce what the changes are.

I will say the following:

1. No negative price/performance changes.
2. Only positive feature and system changes.
3. No additional slip to the target schedule.

If our competition is shooting at us, they will be shooting at where we were and not where we are going to be.

Speculation is dangerous because people post what they think or hope and others read it as fact. Just know that every time we change something, it gets better.

See you in Las Vegas.
Jim

Looks like it’s shaping up to be an interesting spring in the digital cinematography world.

Alex Proyas has never shied away from utilizing the latest digital technology to make his films. I remember getting a call from him back in 1994 when I was cutting “Civil Wars” for Steven Bochco Productions, one of the first network shows to be edited digitally on the Avid. The company had given the director my name to give him some feedback on what is was like cutting long-form on the Media Composer as he was considering using the system on his first American feature, “The Crow”.  So it came as no surprise to me when I heard he and his cinematographer, Simon Duggan were shooting his latest film “Knowing” with the RED ONE digital cinema camera. The film, which opened last week, is the largest budget film to date to shot with the RED.

From Wired

Alex Proyas has made plenty of films in traditional fashion, shooting Dark City, The Crow and I, Robot on old-fashioned celluloid.  For his new sci-fi thriller Knowing, the Australian director decided to go digital for the first time and put the ultrahigh-resolution RED camera to the test.  Now that he’s worked out the kinks, Proyas says, “There’s no going back.”

ASL Gear is a company that designs and manufactures accessories for the Red ONE and other HD camera systems. The Remote Interface Box, or RIB Kit is comprised of two of the company’s products, RIP and RIB (remote interface breatkout box) designed to provide crews using the RED some more robust interface options for getting video, audio and timecode signals in and out of the camera.

From the company’s website.

Now you can finally plug full size XLR’s and BNC cables directly into your RED ONE® without the need for adapters. You also get Genlock and Timecode functions via the BNC panel. The ‘RIP’ provides quick and easy access to the RED’s I/O interface. The RIP easily attaches to the connector side of the camera and can be used in Stand Alone Mode, or with the ‘RIB’ Break-Out Box

In the video above RED user Jay A. Kelley reviews and explains how this product came about and how it can be used to make camera crews lives a bit easier when shooting with RED  in the field.

AMA is an entirely new protocol for getting media into Avid. It has been described as a “plug-in” type architecture. As of the initial release in Media Composer 3.5 (as well as Symphony) AMA currently supports Panasonic P2 media and Sony XDCAM, including XDCAM EX. To sweeten the pot Avid can now write XDCAM media as well, in a number of different bit rates. To sweeten the pot even more is the promise of what Avid Media Access might offer. RED R3Ds, AVCHD, AVC-Intra, Canon 5D Mark II H.264 files … the possibilities seem endless.

Read the rest of the 2-part series over at Pro Video Coalition.

As a follow up to our series of interviews with John Leonetti, ASC about his experiences shooting one of the first feature films with the RED Digital Cinema Camera, here is a clip from the soon to be released film, “Hybrid“. The film was produced by Oliver Hengst and Elizabeth Wang-Lee, directed by Eric Valette with cinematography by John Leonetti, ASC. Hybrid was also the first feature film in Canada to be shot with the RED.

Thanks to Jakob Boersch at Stallion Media, LLC for helping us get this clip online.

Link to Interview with John Leonetti, ASC Part I
Link to Interview with John Leonetti, ASC Part II
Link to Interview with John Leonetti, ASC Part III

Today we have the 3rd installment of our 3-part interview with cinematographer John Leonetti, ASC, about his experience shooting his latest film, “Hybrid”, with the RED ONE digital cinema camera. In this last segment John and I talk about the state of screening dailies in present day Hollywood and whether he had a DIT (digital imaging technician) on set while shooting “Hybrid”. I then get down to brass tacks and ask John my two most pressing questions; his feelings about the future of celluloid and if he thinks the RED digital cinema camera is revolutionary enough to change the balance of power in Hollywood.

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Link to Part I
Link to Part II

Today we have Part II of our interview with cinematographer John Leonetti, ASC about his experiences shooting his most recent film “HYBRID” with the RED digital cinema camera. I ask John about the level of training that was needed for himself and his crew and the kind of support he received from Toronto rental house PS Production Services. We go on to talk about the Cooke S4 lenses he used and his thoughts on how these lenses complimented shooting with RED. Next he tells us about shooting 4K RAW and what it is like reviewing his work using 4K stills on his MacBook Pro. Finally I ask him if and how he changed his working style shooting with RED. It’s a fascinating and informative talk for anyone who is interested in the “bleeding edge” of digital filmmaking.

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Link to Part I
Link to Part III

The RED digital cinema camera is causing a stir. It’s the paradigm shifting, production tool equivalent of Apple’s Final Cut Pro and it’s changing everything about ultra-high resolution digital cinematography. Directors such as Peter Jackson and Steven Soderberg have embraced it, and the Southern California based company can not make the camera and its accessories fast enough. In fact, if you were to order a RED camera today, it wouldn’t ship until December; that’s how hot this thing is.

That’s why I was delighted when I heard my friend, cinematographer John Leonetti, had just shot his latest film, HYBRID, with six RED cameras on location in Saskatchewan, Canada. HYBRID is an action thriller, and as John reveals, the thirty-one day schedule really put the RED system to the test. Here is part one of a three part series on John’s experience shooting with the RED; his background with digital cinematography cameras from other companies; his thoughts on the future of film and finally, the RED camera’s potential effect on the future of Hollywood.

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Link to Part II
Link to Part III