Jimmy Gilmore

Edi­tors note: I spent a lit­tle over a year work­ing on the Red Cam­era developer’s other busi­ness, Oakley.

I’ve worked on mostly dig­i­tal the last cou­ple of years and haven’t cre­ated an actual TV spot in awhile. The last national TV shoot I was on we filmed with 35 mil­lime­ter and we got a great look­ing neg­a­tive at the end of the day. So why would any­one want to change? Work­flow, that’s why.

With all the web video pro­duc­tion we’ve done recently, we’ve exper­i­mented with dif­fer­ent HD cam­era for­mats. But we haven’t had the bud­get to use the Red Cam­era until the last job.

The Red has been the first time I’ve gone into edit with prod­uct that has a sim­i­lar look and feel to film – it sim­ply doesn’t feel like a com­pro­mise. And maybe even feels like like an improve­ment when it comes to process. Here are my big take­aways: (To be fair, I’ve never worked with the Arri dig­i­tal cam­era or the Sony F35 – I hear those are awe­some too.)

• It blows up bet­ter than 35 – mean­ing a lot more flex­i­bil­ity for fram­ing dur­ring the edit. Basi­cally you can make cuts that weren’t even shot.
• Every­thing goes faster on the set. No more reload­ing mags, con­stantly check­ing the gate, wait­ing for the cam­era to get up to speed. Heck, you don’t even have to change flash cards. And less stop­ping and start­ing means actors stay in the groove.
• The 4K image blows away every­thing else I’ve worked with from a “video cam­era.” Need a close up? Try the medium. Need a still frame? Got that too.
• WYSIWYG: No more viewfinder taps with crazy screens and title safe areas. Now you’re exactly sure what you’re get­ting on the set. No more sur­prises in edit.
• So what if Avid doesn’t like Red footage. Avid seems to be headed down the road of Quark Express. That may be too bad but it’s not my problem.
• Tweak­ing the color/image in post doesn’t have to be lim­ited to a very expen­sive 2-hour ses­sion with a col­orist. Since you’re not work­ing with a low-quality “one light” you can exper­i­ment with looks in FCP before actu­ally fin­ish­ing. No more on-the-fly decisions.