Buzz
The chatter about the Red project continues apace.
This time around it’s a recent flurry of jokingly contrite posts from Jim Jannard that has got people talking. The latest is that Red should be in a position to show 4K images at the forthcoming IBC2006, but to do so they’re going to have to “cheat”. The punchline here is that because their current yield from the sensor is, wait for it, roughly equivalent to “5K” (more pixels), they’re going to have to scale down the image for the presentation!
As far as viral marketing campaigns go, this one seems to be doing it’s job—the project has certainly gained notoriety! There’s a lot of passion out there, both from the cynics and the true believers. The story has clearly caught the interest of a lot of people, including me. It really is fascinating to watch, so while there’s no camera yet, and so many questions remain unanswered about workflow, if you too want to participate, you can join “the rebellion” yourself with a US$1000 deposit! (Personally I’ll be saving my money for the next big update to FCP!)
There’s another aspect of this I would like to comment on. Mike Curtis recently apologised for a somewhat hyperbolic comment he made about future film students learning of the moment Red transformed cinema. Now while this may not come to pass, I’m curious about all the comments I’m reading about how it’s art that will transform filmmaking, not technology, because that doesn’t really reflect what we know about the development of medium to this point. From the earliest experiments, through the coming of sound and colour, now digital NLEs, DIs, and the latest trends in digital projection, technology has always played a part in shaping our experience of cinema.
1 Comments
I agree that technology will be what will shape cinema. It has so many times in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Wait till CGI becomes so life like that it becomes difficult to differentiate between a CGI character and an actor.
I don’t quite see art transforming filmmaking. Technology may make it easier for independents to get their stuff out there, but you think Hollywood is going to be changing what it green lights because of that? I think they’ll focus more on technology than art as issues like portable movie players, downloading movies (satellite, digitial cable, Internet) instead of renting, the cinema experience, etc., are far more fisically important to them.
cheers.