Having skipped NAB this year, I held a Scarlet prototype body for the first time last week when I got to meet Ted again at the Offhollywood camera service launch party. (By the way congratulations guys)
I think this camera is a life changer and I have a really personal reason why.
Prior to moving to NYC, I went through a period of travelling and moving quite a bit. I had purchased what was at the time a very good Nikon DSLR. I made a rule for myself... carry the camera constantly. Though it was relatively heavy, sometimes socially awkward, the camera was constantly in my hands, literally, for over a year. It was an amazingly creative period of time, pictures became a constant pastime, my work improved steadily.
Then when I started getting consistent work doing cinematography the camera became a problem... namely, when you are hauling twenty cases worth of video or film gear onto to an away shoot, something has to go, and your stills camera is the thing you'll need to leave behind. Likewise, I tried for a while using the DSLR as a kind of light meter and poor mans viewfinder on 35mm shoots but eventually it just got in the way. Having a still and a motion camera on set at the same time is just a problem.
So I started leaving the still camera behind. And with it that a type of creativity that had become essential in my life.
Now a camera like the red, you can be creative, sure, but it's a different kind of creativity. It needs to be hauled into place, for better or for worse, the red requires much more preconception, manpower, and general muscle. And thats a problem when you want to run off for a second and grab a shot from the top of a hill on your way to meet some friends.
So enter the epic/scarlet. A camera you can, with some determination, carry constantly. As a cinematographer it can be used for work as well as play. It introduces motion into situations that had previously been the realm of stills. It is essentially changing the craft.
This though has been building over the last year but it finally really hit me after holding the mockup. Previously I had not been as excited about these cameras as I was for example in the early days of Red development, because if you look at the stat sheet, Epic appears to be an upgraded Red One... and well... the Red is already pretty great for what it is. Now I can see the very deep value of these cameras has a little less to do with what you can do with them, than how you can do that thing.
We all have to indulge our inner fanboy every once in while. Keep up the great work guys. I think it's safe to say we can't wait.
IBloom
Originally Posted by Joseph Ward
