Ken Willinger
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2007
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- 883
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- Location
- Boston, MA USA
- Website
- www.kenwillinger.com
Over the past year I've been working on a NOVA with a production company that hasn't used RED yet. The last time I worked with them I suggested if any new projects come up they may like to look at RED.
They called me last week to work on the last day of production for the current project which were some recreation scenarios. And they suggested we use the RED. I had a conference call with them and afterwards it was a go. I set up my team, audio, gaffer and our own Steve Sherrick to DIT (Steve lives not too far from where we were recording). And then I headed off to a job I had in Jamaica.
When I returned on Tuesday night (production day is Thursday) I had a frantic email basically stating that they had cold feet and wanted to use the F900 that we'd been using for the whole project. So I got the F900 and cancelled Steve (bummer).
Then they decided that the one slo-mo shot we were to do could be done at 120 frames (2K) on the RED and they could get a bit of experience at least playing with one shot (of course I agreed!).
We set up the shot and it went flawlessly and looked great. I'm sure now that this client will use the camera again. I can't post any video until after this NOVA airs (November). But following are a few stills from the set. This was fast and dirty. We only had 2 hours for set up, record, and breakdown. We were recording in the producers garage. BTW, Steve showed up...thanks Steve!
The recreation is the smashing of an idol 4500 years ago in a burning temple. Here's how we set it up. We were in an open garage. The backdrop was a set flat that looked like a stone wall. The idol was secured to a cloth covered table. We only had three idols (about 14 inches tall)...thus only three attempts. We keyed the idol with an HMI (Joker 800). Then we used two 650 fresnels and a 1000 fresnel gelled with red, yellow and orange strips attached to a flicker box to create the room on fire effect. Along with that we had a fog machine to pump in smoke. And the final gag was using a firestarter square in a cartollini being held on a c stand to create flames in front of the lens. Old school but very effective. The shot looked great and everyone was happy.
They called me last week to work on the last day of production for the current project which were some recreation scenarios. And they suggested we use the RED. I had a conference call with them and afterwards it was a go. I set up my team, audio, gaffer and our own Steve Sherrick to DIT (Steve lives not too far from where we were recording). And then I headed off to a job I had in Jamaica.
When I returned on Tuesday night (production day is Thursday) I had a frantic email basically stating that they had cold feet and wanted to use the F900 that we'd been using for the whole project. So I got the F900 and cancelled Steve (bummer).
Then they decided that the one slo-mo shot we were to do could be done at 120 frames (2K) on the RED and they could get a bit of experience at least playing with one shot (of course I agreed!).
We set up the shot and it went flawlessly and looked great. I'm sure now that this client will use the camera again. I can't post any video until after this NOVA airs (November). But following are a few stills from the set. This was fast and dirty. We only had 2 hours for set up, record, and breakdown. We were recording in the producers garage. BTW, Steve showed up...thanks Steve!
The recreation is the smashing of an idol 4500 years ago in a burning temple. Here's how we set it up. We were in an open garage. The backdrop was a set flat that looked like a stone wall. The idol was secured to a cloth covered table. We only had three idols (about 14 inches tall)...thus only three attempts. We keyed the idol with an HMI (Joker 800). Then we used two 650 fresnels and a 1000 fresnel gelled with red, yellow and orange strips attached to a flicker box to create the room on fire effect. Along with that we had a fog machine to pump in smoke. And the final gag was using a firestarter square in a cartollini being held on a c stand to create flames in front of the lens. Old school but very effective. The shot looked great and everyone was happy.
