FAQ's

Why Shoot Red? Film Vs Digital.

The red one camera from Red Digital Cinema can produce film like images in a digital format. The red one can record images at 4K (4096x2304), which is an image equivalent to a 35 MM piece of film. The advantage is that there is no film to purchase, no film to develop and no film to transfer to edit. The camera records straight to solid state or Hard Drive memory and is ready to edit once transferred to the computer. Not only does it save you time in not having to wait for devolving, but also it removes film completely from the equation. 

The red one can use the cinematography lenses from 35mm film cameras to produce a shallow or deep depth of field. Which is normally what sets video apart from film. Also most traditional video cameras shoot to a 1/3-inch or 2/3 (2.1 mega pixel sensor) inch sensor, whereas the red one shoots more than four times that information.

This information means more color and more pixels are recorded for more options in post. Whether you are going for a certain look or wish to resize the image, the 4k image is more flexible for post.

Pricing? Film Vs Digital

As stated above film can get fairly expensive. Below is a small chart to process 16mm and 35 mm prices. Current pricing via Technicolor and Kodak and are in Canadian funds.
 

 16 MM  35 mm 
400 FT (Film Stock)  $191.00 = 11 Minutes  $341.66 = 4.5 minutes 
Develop (Chemical Process)  $0.211/Ft  $0.23 / Ft 
Transfer  $460.00/Hr  $460.00/Hr 
Color Correct  $900.00/Hr  $900.00/Hr 
 
Just to get 1 Hour of 35 mm developed film to the editor would roughly cost:
 
Film Stock  $341.66 x 13.3 (Rolls) =  $4544.08 
Develop  13.3 x 400 Ft = 5320 Ft → (5320 x $0.23) =  $1064.00 
Transfer  1 Hr x $460.00  =  $460.00
Color Corrected  1 Hr x $900.00  =  $900.00  

 

TOTAL: $6968.08

Film can get pricey quickly. The clear advantage is that the Red Camera uses a reusable recording media that can be transferred to a hard drive. Here at 4K Film Productions Inc. We can deliver film results for literally a fraction of the cost of actually shooting film.

 

Recording media is too expensive.

As technology advances hard drives and solid-state memory become cheaper. In today’s market, we are at a stage where even if you were to shoot to a Compact Flash card and keep the card, it would STILL be cheaper than shooting film. You can also keep back ups of the RAW files of your footage either burnt to DVD or saved on a personal hard drive. For 500 GB you can obtain a drive for under $200.00 and achieve your own RAW masters.

Recording times are too short.

The current media options for the RED ONE are compact flash (CF 16gb or 8 gb) and/or Hard drive (HD 320GB)

When shooting at full resolution at 4K a 16gb CF card = appox 10 minutes and 320 GB HD = 180 minutes.

Most broadcasters and TV productions deliver masters at 1080p. You can shoot at a lower resolution for this.  While shooting 2K a  16GB card = 40 mins and 320 GB HD = 720 mins on the RED DRIVE.

Compact Flash and Hard Drive recording leave no masters.

As technology changes so do industry standards an expectations. As we have all worked with tapes in the past, newer cameras and digital SLR’s have adopted the new trend of digital masters. With the inexpensive cost of HD space, creating duplicates and triplicates is becoming cheaper every month.

HD or digi beta tape format was large and cumbersome. With compact flash (cf) cards you can instantly back up files in the field. Also playback is now in online, where you would have to wait to rewind on a tape based camera. Larger storage devices inherently suggest that you can have longer takes; documentary work and interviews are now easier than ever..

I produce television, why do I need 4K?

Broadcasting standards are either in standard defintion SD or high definition HD.  Most high end TV shows and movies of the week, still shoot 35 mm film. They do this for an unprecedented depth of field and richer and chrisper images. Also by shooting an image larger than the output you have options to pan/scan, do special effects and stabilize the image.

 

 

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