first time 1st AC on RED...HELP!

[Sam DiGiovanni]

I am a student in Chicago. A fellow student asked me to 1st for him on an upcoming shoot on a RED. I know very little about the RED One. I know my stuff when it comes to 35mm and 16 mm cameras, as well as hvx / hpx cameras, but the RED is still a mystery to me. Does anyone out there know any good resources for a first time RED AC or even just somewhere to get a pretty good idea for the S.O.P. on a RED? I cant seem to find anything that gives me a clear picture of what I'll be dealing with. Any pointers would be very helpful.

[Robert Tagliaferri]

It's really not that difficult to work with. You can find the manual here: http://www.red.com/support

 

Take some time to go through it at the checkout, the interface is reasonably intuitive and you should be able to figure it out pretty quickly.

 

There are some things they don't tell you... it takes a while to boot up, and it can be buggy. With the new firmware, I've noticed that the thing freezes up while it's 'posting' (adding the metadata etc) the clip after you hit cut. Not sure if there's a workaround for this, but afaik that take is toast and you've got to power down and go again- a real PITA. It's pretty sensitive to heat, so if you're outdoors, make sure to control the temp as best you can, ie, shade, reflective blankets- I've even heard of ppl using icepacks in extreme conditions.

 

Just get ahold of it and mess around- that's the best way to learn. It's no more complicated than any other camera.

[Lars Zemskih]

When you are 1AC on RED it is also usually very helpful to use the "punch in" button on camera to check your focus.

[Ollie Bartlett]

PM me your email. I have very good pdf's of the menu tree's for build 17 and 18 that i can send you.

 

All the best,

 

Ollie

[Zander Kroon]

Hey Sam, which school do you go to and who was the DP you worked for?

[Ari Davidson]

I am a student in Chicago. A fellow student asked me to 1st for him on an upcoming shoot on a RED. I know very little about the RED One. I know my stuff when it comes to 35mm and 16 mm cameras, as well as hvx / hpx cameras, but the RED is still a mystery to me. Does anyone out there know any good resources for a first time RED AC or even just somewhere to get a pretty good idea for the S.O.P. on a RED? I cant seem to find anything that gives me a clear picture of what I'll be dealing with. Any pointers would be very helpful.

 

If you know your stuff when it comes to 35mm and Panasonic prosumer cameras, you'll do perfectly fine. Everything available on those mediums is present in the RED. Honestly, the best you can do to prepare is not get psyched out. It's a great camera but RED HQ has done an excellent job making it seem like one needs to decode the rosetta stone to understand their workflow. Also, if there is a DIT or REDtech hired on the production you really won't have to worry about any of the fancy tech savy stuff, but stick close to that person as they will gladly demystify the camera for you.

 

A few tips:

 

Shoot 4k 16x9, redspace, redcode36, 23.98fps if/whenever possible.

 

on the EVF and the the left side of the camera body there are programmable function buttons. Program the zoom-in function and false color function on buttons 1 & 2 according to your preference. On button 3 on the EVF I would recommend programming the colorspace function which allows you to swap between Redspace, and RAW. When combining this function with the falsecolor, you will be able to see what exposure is being recorded to the RAW image. If i remember correctly it is much more forgiving than REDspace.

 

The menu is really easy to navigate especially if you've owned or operated a cellphone in the past 10 years.

 

Hope this helps.