The Microfilmmaker Community

JeremyHanke · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:00 am Post subject: The Red "Scarlet"...

Oakley founder, Jim Jannard, has done it again. Barely has the Red One started shipping in earnest after two years of titillating NAB showings, but he's upped the ante with a leak about a new hand-held camera from Red called "The Scarlet."

Jim Jannard is quickly approaching the level of cult status for filmmakers that Steve Jobs has had for computer lovers in a far shorter time period. His intentions to turn the camera industry on its head and democratize filmmaking have made him a hero to a huge number of microfilmmakers. When the Red One first was announced, I foretold that the trickle down effect would hit ultra-low budget filmmakers who couldn't afford the $30K fully-equipped Red One's.

When I said it, I thought other competitors would provide the trickle down effect. I had no idea that Jannard and his team of hand-picked geniuses would deside to do the trickling down for us!

Obviously, there is no word about what features the camera has and won't be until I and the writers of MFM are at NAB, but I want to open this forum up for conjecture? What do you think the price point and features are going to be on the Scarlet? Or, more appropriately, what do you want them to be? (And kudos to Jannard for being the innovator to FINALLY give a camera a cool name. I mean, if you buy a car you get cool names like "Diablo" or "Viper". If you buy Oakley sunglasses they have "Predators" and "Aviators" Finally, we can buy a camera with a name as cool as that, too! *chuckle*)

To start out our discussion with my own picks for what features and tradeoffs I might be able to guess:

* Included 18mm - 55mm lens
* Built-in cinema lens adapter (like its big brother)
* 4:4:4 color space (like its big brother)
* 2K recording ability (half what its big brother has)
* Chipset at 1" diameter CMOS, rather than Super35" diameter chip of the Mysterium
* Not as modular as its big brother
* Under $10K fully loaded

Think I'm a dreamer? Punch in with your own thoughts!

-Jeremy
_________________
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Jeremy Hanke
Editor
Microfilmmaker Magazine
"Improving no-budget filmmaking through technique and critique."
http://www.microfilmmaker.com
jhanke@microfilmmaker.com

JeremyHanke · Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject: NAB Update...

Wow. The new Scarlet is amazing! We have just chatted with some other press folks here at NAB and checked out the site.

3K (which is higher than most movie theaters currently), RAW recording, 120 fps (180 fps burst)--with a target price of around $3,000! While it is a fixed lens (which is to be expected), this is substantially cheaper than even an SD DVX100B! Unless this can't record audio, this will be the be-all, end-all camera for low-budget filmmakers in the next three years! (Release date is currently Q1 '09, but Red usually runs into a few delays, so I'd expect it to start shipping Q4 '09)

You can read what's currently at Red's site at: http://www.red.com/

More on this as we actually talk to the folks at the RED booth later today.

-Jeremy
_________________
--

Jeremy Hanke
Editor
Microfilmmaker Magazine
"Improving no-budget filmmaking through technique and critique."
http://www.microfilmmaker.com
jhanke@microfilmmaker.com

JeremyHanke · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:07 pm Post subject: First hand looks and thoughts...

Hey guys,

Got to go to RED's booth and chat with Graeme Nattress and Jim Jannard. The camera is very impressive looking, although still in a silver-plastic construct mode. It's larger than a palmcorder, but could still be easily held in two hands and could be somewhat awkwardly held in one hand.

While things are still hush-hush on a lot of things on the camera, they feel like they can meet the Q1 '09 deadline they're aiming for. The camera will be capable of recording two streams of audio, but they were a little hesitant over the current interface for it. Right now, they're looking at 1/8" plugs instead of XLR plugs (to save space), but, as audio editor John Howard reminded me later, 1/8" is unbalanced audio. When I went back and asked Jim Jannard about it, he got a very uncomfortable look on his face, admitting that that was one of the reasons the 1/8" hadn't been fully committed to. Due to this reaction, my personal interpretation is that they will either find a way to squeeze two XLR plugs into the camera or create a proprietary dongle interface that will be balanced and go out to standard XLR plugs before the camera is released next year!

Pix of this and more information will be published in our May 1st issue, so don't miss it!

-Jeremy
_________________
--

Jeremy Hanke
Editor
Microfilmmaker Magazine
"Improving no-budget filmmaking through technique and critique."
http://www.microfilmmaker.com
jhanke@microfilmmaker.com

JeremyHanke

Hey folks,

The good folks at CamcorderInfo.net recently posted a helpful video interview from NAB '08 that I thought our readers might find helpful. Feel free to check it out here.

-Jeremy
_________________
--

Jeremy Hanke
Editor
Microfilmmaker Magazine
"Improving no-budget filmmaking through technique and critique."
http://www.microfilmmaker.com
jhanke@microfilmmaker.com