Working with RED at night

[Alex Moore Niemi]

Looking to shoot a short student production with a RED to finish up my degree. I had some questions to figure out if the RED is a good camera for me, and what it's like to work with. Any other general advice is appreciated, but do forgive me being a noob.

 

My big question is: how well does RED perform for night shooting? What build would you recommend for that? What lenses? (I assume primes, but other than that--?)

 

I know there are some issues using steadicam with RED. Any advice, experiences, or links?

 

Finally, what's the experience doing post with the RED if you want to down-res? My hope was to down-res a version to 1080i to edit, and project on a digital projector at the museum where we show our work. But I'm also thinking of trying to keep a higher quality version, apply for a grant, and get it transferred onto film. Any thoughts on that process? Pain in the butt? Pipe dream? Viable option?

 

I'm probably going to ask all this on reduser.net, too, but thought I'd tap broader resources. Thanks guys!

[Brad Grimmett]

I know there are some issues using steadicam with RED. Any advice, experiences, or links?

There really aren't any specific issues. It's just a matter of finding the right configuration for the particular operator who's going to be flying it. Other than that it's basically the same as flying any other HD camera.

[Brian Drysdale]

There really aren't any specific issues. It's just a matter of finding the right configuration for the particular operator who's going to be flying it. Other than that it's basically the same as flying any other HD camera.

 

I've got a Steadicam RED job next week and at the moment my concern is fitting my 15mm bar follow focus motor brackets onto a camera that's currently basically set up for 19mm bars. That's a pretty standard 35mm film camera issue that's usually sorted by the rental house supplying their own specialised Steadicam mounting brackets either with or without motors. However, the rental house does know the requirement.

[Jamie Metzger]

the red at night is fine....depends on what kind of look you are going for.

You can always set a base to avoid mily midtones and then go in with shadows and highlights...

 

As brad said, the red is no different than other camera's in flying it.

 

The red outputs proxy files which are reference files to the RAW uncompressed data. you can use these to make an offline edit, and then online when you are picture locked and ready for CC and Sound post.