An Epic Change

There aren't many times that I'm astonished, but this is one of them. The web-things are all vibrating because James Cameron has just (who knows when "just" was – recently at least) bought 50 Red Epic cameras. Wow, that's true conceptual art. Can you imagine what that really looks like. 50 boxes of $58,000 cameras sitting all in a row. Amazing as a concept, what would it be in reality?

(OK, it's true that Peter Jackson bought 30 Red Epics to shoot the Hobbit with, but maybe both of these together is even more impressive. What do you think?)

So much for the hype and yelling, what's it really mean? Well first it's a validation of the Red concept and the Epic format in particular. This is a camera that shoots 5120x2700 for a 5K format. That's 6 times the area of an HD camera. On top of that the camera body (just the body, so you can triple that for the full effect) weighs 5 pounds. The lens will probably weigh more than the camera. Talk about freedom of movement. And it's got 13 stops of exposure.

OK, just before we hyper-ventilate what's the point? It's the business model guys, it's all new. It's also the workflow, not that it's that new, but that he's committed to it in a really big way. It's the future of making (big) films. It's the future period. Film is dead, tape is dead. Really.

This is real trickle down technology. Ronald Reagan was an economic fool, with the highest deficit, at the time, ever (only supplanted by George W. Bush thanks to years of an unfunded war) and Reagan's trickle down economics was just voodoo (the rich kept all the money). Later Reagan actually raised taxes to try and get out of it – even he knew it was a disaster. However, now, this kind of technology/business trickle down (which actually does benefit all of us by permeating the work process) will change the business landscape of filmmaking at the high end and cascade down the food chain to even our level.

We can also see how this all plays out as a workflow. We shoot at really high resolutions – all digital – edit high (isn't that what the new Final Cut Pro and Thunderbolt really mean – really high data rates, meaning large files, meaning large frame sizes), compress it all down and distribute at smaller resolutions (meaning HD – isn't it amazing that small size now means HD). On the distribution (selling side) we're now looking at radically many different sizes and ways to sell, rent, give away the work. Work high, sell low – but often. Kind of an odd mantra, but there it is. It's seldom you get to stare the future in the face, but here it is.

Oh, look, they've got the rods! I knew I needed the rods.

gunther (4)