Reducation 2011
By Daniel Restuccio
June 13, 2011

Reducation 2011

HOLLYWOOD — Constantly seeking to “plus” itself, the latest Reducation held recently at Red Studios in Hollywood featured hands-on experience with Red One and Red Epic cameras, in depth knowledge of production and workflows, a visit by Spider-Man DP John Schwartzman, and a simultaneous training session happening in New York City.

"Every time we do the class we get more ambitious with it," says Red’s Ted Schilowitz. "I don't have the leave it alone gene. This time we had a 4K Barco projector right in the classroom. We broke up the class into a three-day overview which I taught, and then a two-day master class in post production taught by Michael Cioni and an advanced cinematography class taught by DP Peter Holland.”

All of the nearly 16 students got hands-on experience shooting with both Red One and Red Epic cameras. "We load the R3D's into Red Cine X and play them off the Red Rocket card in 4K,” describes Schilowitz. “We're oversampling the 5K Epic footage to a 4K projector. We never thought we'd hear that two years ago.”  The Red Epic also shoots in HDRx (high dynamic range) mode allowing for nearly 18 stops of exposure latitude.

Red Epics were recently used with 3ality Digital 3D rigs to shoot director Mark Webb's Spider-Man reboot. Cinematographer John Schwartzman spoke during class about how he enjoyed using the Epic on Spider-Man, how stunning the images are, and how he shot and lit the movie the same way he would with a modern film stock and got the look he wanted with great ease. Red Epic cameras are also being used to shoot Peter Jackson's The Hobbit 1 & 2, Bryan Singer's Jack The Giant Killer, and Måns Mårlind & Björn Stein's Underworld 4: New Dawn. James Cameron recently purchased 50 Red Epic-Ms. Could Avatar 2 be next on this list?

Adobe’s Mike Kanfer and Dave McGavran demonstrated how the new Adobe CS 5.5 Premiere Pro and After Effects applications equipped with an updated Red plug-in can import and edit Red Epic footage.

Leo Marini, digital intermediate producer from Local Hero Post, demonstrated how Scratch Assimilate uses the two exposures in an Epic HDRx shot to dynamically balance over and under exposed sections of a shot. “HDRx is a new frontier in cinematography,” says Marini. “You're no longer limited by the dynamic range of your camera or film stock.” The Foundry also demonstrated working with Epic footage in their Red grading and post application Storm.

NEW YORK GETS INVOLVED TOO

The New York class was held at Tekserve, one of the biggest Apple dealers in the country. Offhollywood Post DIT Pat “C” proctored the session with Red One and Red Epic cameras at the NYC site. Attendees ranged from recent film school graduate, a Red owner and director of photography, to a fireman who uses his Red to shoot active volcanoes. The teleconference used a Panasonic KX-VC500KTA-D.




 

Schilowitz’s vision of Reducation is going global. “The goal is to spread the educational footprint for those that want to get this level of knowledge.” He sees a potential future where multiple plasma screens are on the wall with live feeds from all over the world with local proctor techs all tied into the Los Angeles Reducation class. “There’s really no technical reason we couldn’t do that,” he says enthusiastically, “and that’s pretty cool.”