RED Digital’s new 6K camera the RED Epic Dragon is about as exciting as it gets for filmmakers. There are times when 6K is just overkill, however, aerial shots is not one of those times.
Recently filmmakers Nathan Garofalos, Doug Holgate and Luke Neumann used the RED Epic Carbon Dragon (a lightweight version of the normal cam) in some gorgeous test footage using the GSS C520 gimbal mounted to the front of a helicopter.
Screencap from Neumann Films
The results speak for themselves.
On the RED User’s forum Nathan also wrote:
“GSS worked with me and my company, Horizon Cinema to integrate my carbon fiber Red Epic Dragon delivered on November 12, 2013. The moment I received the cam, the GSS engineering team integrated the Dragon within hours and had it ready to fly in less than two days. Angel City Air provided use of their Fujinon Premier 18-85 and Canon 30-300 for the aerials. Helicopter Resources provided use of their Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm lens as well. We flew one day in Grass Valley November 18th with Doug Holgate and Neumann Films. I saw a storm was coming through Lake Tahoe, my back yard, its very rare I get to work where I live, and thought it’d be fun to go fly around for a couple hours after the fresh snow later that week, and this is a teaser of what I came up with…”
The Dragon has also been creating fire (pun, anyone?) within Hollywood with director Peter Jackson (The Hobbit) posting this picture to his Facebook page recently, posing with the new camera.
Jackson went on to say:
“The Hobbit has been shot on Red’s Epic cameras. We used prototype cameras in our first weeks of shooting, after conducting extensive testing. They were then replaced with production models as the shoot progressed.
Now, in our last week of shooting, Jim Jannard at Red has sent us an early model of their next generation camera “The Dragon”. The Hobbit is Jim’s favourite book, so I suspect the name is more than a co-incidence!
We won’t be using the Dragon for Hobbit shooting during our last two days, but it gave the camera team a welcome diversion, and they have launched into full-on testing, including having the new camera positioned alongside our Epics so we can compare the two images directly under the same lighting.
Red have singlehandedly pushed digital cinematography into realms undreamed of 5 years ago, and we’re looking forward to getting our first glimpse of images from The Dragon.”
For more info and to find out where you can get your own Dragon, check here: http://www.red.com/products/epic-dragon
