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June 2010

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While Red proliferates in commercial work, up-start DSLRs are making headway. By Christine Bunish Red Digital Cinema’s Red One camera has become a fixture on commercial shoots that value high-resolution images and an efficient production-to- post workflow. Although a roster of competing cam- eras has emerged to challenge Red’s dominance, the introduction of Red’s Mysterium-X sensor and the Red Rocket accelerator card have solidified Red’s po- sition in the commercials arena where high-quality and speed are essential. OFFHOLLYWOOD At New York City’s Offhollywood (www.offholly- woodny.com), an early proponent of Red produc- tion and post, CTO/founder Mark L. Pederson says commercials shooting digitally have made Red their camera of choice.“We’ve seen Red-originated com- mercials for a while, and since the introduction of its Mysterium-X sensor, Red is being extensively em- braced for spot work because of its greater sensitiv- ity and increased dynamic range. At the end of the day commercial shooters want to be on a 35mm chip with 35mm glass. A 35mm PL-mount camera, which is what Red is, delivers the depth of field characteristics and image quality shooters demand.” He believes that Red was adopted for spot shooting “a lot faster on the West Coast than in New York, but New York is a com- mercial hub and it’s finally clicked in here.We can’t keep cameras on the shelves.” Offhollywood provides Red rentals to shooters, sends its DITs out on spot shoots if needed, sup- plies ACs and DPs for Red pro- ductions, and also serves as a pro- duction company for commercials. It has supported over 60 commer- cial projects shooting on Red, in- cluding Absolut Vodka spots, Sam- sung’s LED TV campaign, numer- ous 3M product spots and promo- tional spots for Comedy Central,VH1, Cartoon Net- work,TLC, Bravo TV, HBO, CNN, Food Network and ESPN’s Sports Center, to name a few. Offhollywood also provided cameras and techni- that keying on Red footage was a significant advantage. While we were championing Red, others were saying, ‘It’s new and different, and it will take us a while to get there.’Now we’ve come full circle: Everyone wants Red for commercials, and we’re operating at capacity.” Pederson calls Red “a very flexible format” with multiple potential post workflows that can be tai- lored to the project. What’s new in Red post is the Red Rocket accelerator card, “a full 4K-quality de- bayer, which can render to HD, ProRes and Avid DNx36 in realtime.That dramatically speeds up the time it takes to create edit dailies; now we often do them on set while they’re still shooting. That’s be- coming more and more popular.” Back at the Offhollywood facility, Red RAW (.R3D) files are transcoded to ProRes for Apple Final Cut Pro or DNxHD36 or 175 for Avid editorial out of house. Spots return for conforming to the original RAW data and for color correction with colorist Milan Boncich.“We use Assimilate’s Scratch, acceler- ated by Red Rocket, cards so we’re always working from Red RAW in full 4K quality in realtime,” Peder- son emphasizes. DIT Brook Willard (center, striped shirt) pictured with the Southlandcrew, says, “With Red Rocket, on-set transcoding is becoming standard for commercials.” San Francisco’s Beast posted these Red-shot Sega Airplanespots promoting Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. cians for an IBM spot that shot in Houston, Louisiana and New York; a Ford F-150 greenscreen studio shoot; a Claritin location shoot; and a series of Web spots for H&M apparel shot in Los Angeles and New York. It furnished cameras and techs for a T-Mobile promo and performed the spots’ DI at its New York facility.The company also sent a full production team to an LA-based Subaru tie-in with Spike TV for the 2009 Scream Awards. Although Offhollywood saw Red spot business, al- most, from the time of the camera’s introduction,“for some shooters it was an experiment, something new to try,” reports A.J. Del Cueto, director of camera and production services.“People may not have had the Red post workflow worked out, so there was some resis- tance to it, although those doing heavy VFX discovered Del Cueto reports a trend that began last year and is gaining momentum is high-end fashion advertisers scheduling Red shoots so they can do their print and motion work at the same time. “It started with hybrid shoots where fashion pho- tographers shot traditional stills but wanted a Red camera and operator to shoot motion content,” Ped- erson explains. “Now it has morphed so they’re shooting only Red and pulling stills from Red. By the end of the year I don’t think there will be any still shoots that don’t shoot motion. I think the iPad has clearly demonstrated that Web and mobile devices are hungry for moving content.” As fashion advertising has transitioned from stills to motion it has maintained a tradition of smaller crews and efficient production, he adds.“They have a differ- ent way of going about shooting motion that’s very ef- fective, comfortable and fun, and I think that will affect the way everybody shoots commercials,” he predicts. Offhollywood will be one of the first with a 5K Red www.postmagazine.com June 2010 • Post 19

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