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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Where to find some information about the history of the RED camera?

G

Gregor Myller

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Hello,

my name is Gregor and am currently writing my diploma about the workflow of 35mm and RED camera data.

If tried the search of this board already with "history red camera" but couldn't find anything (linky) specific.

Also the FAQ and the About Us does not hold any info on this.

Googling didn't bring much up either.

I remember reading (but where?), that one of the founders of RED was fed up at the speed and progress of the development of digital cameras by major vendors like ARRI, Sony, Panasonic and so on.

So he (or better they) got together and managed to pull off the RED ONE camera in a shorter timeframe than the biggies could do.

Could anyone point me into the direction where to find more information about the story behind the RED?

Thanks for any help and have a good Sunday.

Gregor
 
There isn't much information available online on that subject. Red's first customer, Mark L. Pederson, http://www.reduser.net/forum/member.php?u=205 made one post here maybe 1-2 years ago with a few recollections about the early days of Red. Jim, as Red's founder, knows the most, but he has not yet told this story.
 
Thanks for the link.

I have some time to kill now to find that post.

Do you (or anyone else) think, Jim might mind a personal email asking some questions about those dark ages?

I ask here, because I only spend some time here once every 6 months and don't know anything about Jim (except him being the Founder, now) and don't want to piss him off.

Thanks again for any assistance.

Gregor.
 
I can't afford a camera (well, until Scarlet 3K is introduced), but I've been here as a spectator from the beginning.

I wrote a post some time ago that was well thought of by others as a summary of the RED story.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4194&page=2

Later in the thread, some of the people who were there at the beginning were kind enough to post replies and give some more detail.

Hope that helps with your research.

D
 
Thanks for the link. Have some reading to do then. That means working. Ahhh. ;)

And I hope too to be one day at least an owner of the Scarlet.



PS: a emoticons instead of smileys. wonderful. (not meant sarcastic)
 
I have a personal connection to the early history of RED. Some insight:

I've known Jim Jannard for about 25 years - probably far longer than anyone on this board, with the possible exception of Big Jon of RED Team. I've never been an employee of Oakley (or RED), but Oakley sponsored many of the professional alternative sports tours in the '80's and '90's that I was involved in televising.

In mid-2005 Jim described his general dream for a new camera system to me. On December 14, 2005, at Oakley headquarters, a small group of invited attendees, gathered for a think tank about a possible new camera system. All attendees are under NDA about the details of that meeting, and specifics of what was discussed. With direct permission, a few of the meeting attendees have been revealed on the former DVX User RED Forum, here on RED User, and elsewhere: Jim Jannard, Graeme Nattress, myself, and there may be others whose names were revealed with permission to do so. Many more were there, but they're under NDA, and its not for me to divulge who they were, much less what was discussed.

I was stoked to do the first magazine published interview with Jim Jannard about the RED camera and the new RED company. The interview was conducted in February 2006, and published by Studio Daily on April 20, 2006. I own copyright to the interview, so it can't be quoted directly without written permission, but there is some fascinating insight in the interview about Jim's early thoughts about the RED camera (many which evolved before RED One was finalized), including at the end of the interview when I asked him why he was making the RED camera.

Link: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/searchlist/6388.html

I wrote several more early articles about RED and RED products - all of them published in Studio Monthly in 2006 and 2007.

The first shipping RED cameras, serial numbers 6-24, were received by reservation holders at the same time, all on the same day (August 30, 2007), except some reservation holders who couldn't attend.

As he has posted before, Mark L. Pederson's pathway to RED came through Ted Schilowitz in 2005. As noted above, my separate pathway to RED came through Jim Jannard in 2005, enabled by my earlier association with Jim.

Some early shipping RED One history tidbits:

The first 3D footage shot with shipping RED cameras was shot, edited, and projected on September 1, 2007, at Paradise FX in Van Nuys. Cameras used were my RED #8 and Billy Summers RED #13. Max Penner of Paradise was the 3D guru for the shoot, and Lucas Wilson from Assimilate edited the footage on site using a Scratch system. We all sat around that afternoon with 3D glasses on, 2 hours after shooting the footage, and happily watched our short RED 3D movie projected in 1080p. Way cool...

The first underwater footage shot with RED was shot by Ken Corben and Johnny Friday at Catalina Island (off Southern California), in mid-September 2007. The camera used in the housing was my RED #8, which was also used for a 10 days before the shoot date by Mike Hastings in Florida to design and fabricate the housing.

I'm sure a lot of others here can add in tidbits of the early history of RED. Everyone in this "RED Family" has their own unique stories of how they found out about RED. I would guess RED has been documenting, with footage and stills, the history and developmental process all along. It would be fascinating for someone to eventually write, and edit with footage and stills, the history of the development of RED.

I hope the info above helps you with your project...
 
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