The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Forum

  

Peter Jackson must have fallen in cheek-blushing, heart-pounding love on that World War I short/demo reel he did a couple years back, because he’s going to be shooting The Hobbit entirely on RED cameras--every Hobbit hoppin', dragon robbin' second of it.  

Chud’s got the scoop that 30 units of the new, appropriately-titled EPIC model, will be employed on this Middle Earthen set. Their specs break down thusly…

• 5K resolution (which apparently could be higher than that of 35mm.)
• Variable frame-rates (including an aaabbbsssuuurrrddd slo-mo speed of 120 FPS.)
• Cable-free operation (allowing the crew to run around without being tied to any "digital village.")

It’s that last spec that’s likely the most important, as these cameras are going to be used in 15 tag-teams for some stereoscopic recording (that is, shooting for that coveted 3D projection.) 

I’m sure this little-but-big tidbit's going to give you Screened Heads more to chew on than a whole stack of fish bones in Gollum's cave. Myself, I'm neither an over-eager techie nor a film purist Luddite. I’ve definitely seen plenty of flicks that I honestly couldn’t guess were shot on video. I’ve also seen just as many blockbusters that were supposedly shot on super-expensive, cutting-edge HD cams but had image quality that was so painfully bad, I almost would've preferred they'd used camera phones. 

I'll trust Jackson's instincts on this one.

I read the headline and thought Bruce Willis was heading to the shire... 

I have a question. Are they going to be lighter then most cameras used in the industry? I would assume so since they're not going to be as you put it "tied to any 'digital village.' " 

After Public Enemy's I tend to be discouraged when a period piece or a fantasy film is shot in digital. The medium and the content tend to clash and produce something sub par. It would be fine if they were filming something in a modern setting or in the future but I don't feel like a fantasy setting is appropriate for the RED.

Eh, I have a feeling that I won't even notice a huge difference between the cameras.

@ScanCase:  To be fair, a lot of the digital grain in Mann's movies are actually added in post-production. E.g. Collateral was actually given that dirty-ass effect in post. It could've been a really clean-shot movie had it wanted to be, but Mann just likes making them dirty and fucked-up for some reason.

• 5K resolution (which apparently could be higher than that of 35mm.

 
 That depends at what resolution 35mm film is scanned at during the digital intermediate process.
 
Anyway, it's nice of Peter Jackson to beta test the Red Epic for the rest of the industry.

@Rorie: @ScanCase: Rorie's spot on. The Social Network was shot on reds and looked pretty damn good. It's all how you use it.

120fps is nothing compared to the 20,000 - 40,000 fps they use on that show Time Warp

Louis C.K. shoots Louie with a Red. Werner Herzog shot My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? on Reds. He didn't like it:
 
"We used the RED camera for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. It's an immature camera created by computer people who do not have a sensibility or understanding for the value of high-precision mechanics, which has a 200-year history. It's terrible: Whenever you have to reboot the camera, it takes 4½ minutes or so. It drove me insane, because sometimes something is happening and you can't just push the button and record it. An assistant cameraman said this camera would be ideal if we were filming the National Library in Paris, which has been sitting there for centuries. But everything that moves faster than a library is a problem for the RED. Super 35 mm celluloid is still better." ( source)
 
I think he gets old. Digital filmmaking means liberation from the man. Look at Nollywood, Thailand, the Philippines for example.

dude 120 frames in 5k must be MIND BLOWING!

I'm not a fond of the idea of shooting this on digital.  I'm sure it'll knock a few million off the budget saving on film stock and processing. But are we gonna expect blurry-ass action scenes that all movies shot in digital have once the camera starts having to actually move?
 
Fincher's stuff looks great because he is a fairly staid, but incredibly precise director. There's not too much frenetic movement in his films./

RED cameras are pretty sweet, at least from what I've heard from some filmmaking friends.

 Unless I'm very mistaken, why would the image quality from a camera have ANY bearing on a digitally-created image?    

@frythefly said:

" Louis C.K. shoots Louie with a Red. Werner Herzog shot My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? on Reds. He didn't like it:
 
"We used the RED camera for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. It's an immature camera created by computer people who do not have a sensibility or understanding for the value of high-precision mechanics, which has a 200-year history. It's terrible: Whenever you have to reboot the camera, it takes 4½ minutes or so. It drove me insane, because sometimes something is happening and you can't just push the button and record it. An assistant cameraman said this camera would be ideal if we were filming the National Library in Paris, which has been sitting there for centuries. But everything that moves faster than a library is a problem for the RED. Super 35 mm celluloid is still better." ( source)  I think he gets old. Digital filmmaking means liberation from the man. Look at Nollywood, Thailand, the Philippines for example. "

That's a pretty good Herzog quote. I love the part about computer people not understanding the camera's history, it reminds me of his little part in Les Blanks All In This Tea where he talks about how he can taste the history of the world in his tea and Patti Smith's impassioned plea for the book as an object last week. We will loose these things one day and the people who can express will be forgotten as well.
Digital film making is no more liberation from the "man" than traditional film making was, you don't need to look much past Herzog, who worked nights in a factory to pay for a camera and film that can still shoot better looking and higher resolution film than a RED.

@swoon said:

That's a pretty good Herzog quote. I love the part about computer people not understanding the camera's history, it reminds me of his little part in Les Blanks All In This Tea where he talks about how he can taste the history of the world in his tea and Patti Smith's impassioned plea for the book as an object last week. We will loose these things one day and the people who can express will be forgotten as well.Digital film making is no more liberation from the "man" than traditional film making was, you don't need to look much past Herzog, who worked nights in a factory to pay for a camera and film that can still shoot better looking and higher resolution film than a RED. "

Herzog stole his first camera. Don't get me wrong: Herzog is one of my faves among the german new wave and i really like his no-bullshit style (altough he is no Lemke, Thome or Fassbinder), but germany is and was a first world country, where it is possible to buy film stock easily. In Nigeria this is a problem. Tunde Kelani studied in London, but he is "[a]n advocate of ‘Alternative Technology’ in motion picture production in Africa [and he] has successfully produced and directed two digital features, SAWOROIDE and THUNDERBOLT." ( source)
 
  
Not to get too fancy but Walter Benjamin wrote in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reprodruction (not the earliest, but in german speaking countries among the most influental works about media theory), that a work of art loses its "aura" in the age of mechanical reproduction. And since film is in contrast to a painting not a unique piece and reproduction is an essential part of this medium i don't think the digitization of all media is a big problem. Also: Possession of unique pieces of art had, has and will always have a smack of elitism and exclusion: I have something you don't have and I won't share it with you. Jabeesus! How did i get here?

@EddyNZ said:

" I read the headline and thought Bruce Willis was heading to the shire...  "

Me too.  
 
I think this is gunna be sweet. 

Why is this even a news story? Seriously. I don't really think that a movie being shot on a RED camera is a big deal. You know Rooster Teeth? The guys that make Red vs. Blue. They have a RED camera that they use to shoot their shorts. So Wow, Peter Jackson is on the same level as Rooster Teeth Productions.

I'm no technical nerd, but why is 120 FPS so "aaaabsuuuuuuuurd"? isn't that number missing a couple of zeros or something?

Gojira's music video for "Vacuity" was shot with RED cameras, and it looks fucking marvelous.  This can only be good news. 
 
Judge for yourselves (warning - there may be boobies in the video, can't remember if they edited them or not):