At last, I have obtained the tracking numbers to our 1st RED ONE and tomorrow I will be waiting patiently to take delivery TOMORROW! I went ahead and activated my insurance a few weeks back in case the FedEx truck gets held up on a bridge and taken over by terrorist…must protect the precious cargo.

48 hour film competition is right around the corner so we might as well double it as a our RED camera test. I just hope the workflow does not slow us down considering we only have 48 hours to complete the short film. I have been experimenting with Final Cut Studio’s log and transfer tool which encodes the R3D (raw RED file format) into a 2k ProRes format which I feel is more then enough to deliver in. The results are stunning and this was all done on my laptop.

If you live in the NYC area and are interesting in participating in a 48 hour film festival then drop us a line with you name and contact and include “48 hour crew” in your subject line.

To make matters worse, I over budgeted due to recent RED ONE investments, leaving my pockets pretty empty….if you walked into my bank account you would here the echo of your foot steps. One of the main reasons you should never turn down work is cause the seeds you plant in your past gigs often times grow to lift you up in your future…this month I celebrate those seeds. Documentaries for example will often result in repeat work and last week Richard Cummings Junior called me up to DP another one of his Subway Busker Documentary shoots that he likes to refer to as his “Crack Habit”….keep at it Richard, I believe in your Project!

Then Mark from OffHollywood Studios gave me the opportunity to be a RED TECH this week for a PBS shoot so I could brush up on my RED experience before I take delivery of SPUTNIK, RED # 1781. I enjoy being a RED TECH, all those hours spent researching this new emerging technology is finally paying off. I love watching the crew be enamored by RED’s capabilities. I enjoy downloading the shots off a CF card the size of a matchbook and watching the images come down the pipeline making me feel giddy like a school boy each time, thinking…”ok, this is the future of Cinema” …F^&*@ing PHENOMENAL. I would like to get permission 1st before I post any details about this particular shoot but I will report to RedUsers that RED firmware build 15 is holding up strong, completely stable…unreal, look forward to 16…it just gets better.

So thanks John Mitchell, Jessica Lambert, Patrick Sarni, Ryan Morris, Kendall Smith, Mark Pedersson, Richard Cummings Jr, Jim Jannard and the RED team, my father Richard Haskell My mother Ann Richardson, My aunt Ann Haskell, Lainie Gratz my sister, and last but certainly not least, my wife Anabel Bouza…and everyone esle for all being little seeds that grew in the month of May. I will not give up, just keep pushing forward….more to come.

The RED Bomb Squad was created to manage the reservation holder’s accounts, when your number is up you should expect this email and identify who your contact is. To find out what serial number batch is currently shipping check the www.RED.com home page. I will warn you, when this email arrives you may want to keep a clean pair of underwear near by. I will not further disclose info about this sacred email as it is prohibited, but in a nutshell it means now is the time to finalize my order.

Ted Schilowitz, voice of the RED rebellion

“From soccer mom’s to indie filmmakers, docs, episodic tv, commercials and big studio features, no boundaries of what Scarlet can do.”

RED continues to break all the rules, continues to change the industry and make the best tools possible for everyone. The SCARLET will be compatible with RED ONE accessories as seen here and support WI-FI control. Indie filmmakers worldwide rejoice, affordable high end filmmaking just got better so keep an eye out for Scarlet 2009 delivery.

RED RAY. Although slightly hidden under the hype of Scarlet and Epic, the announcement of Red Ray has me very excited. In a nutshell this is a RED deck of sorts and when connected to a display, projector or HDTV it will auto scale for screening dailies directly from the CF card or a hooked up RED drive…but that’s not all! This box is capable of playing back 4k, 2k, 1080P, 720P or SD on a standard DVD.  From what I told it can store two hours of 4k on a 9gb DVD and 1 hour of 4k on the 5gb DVDs.  Imagine if film festivals that are already adopting in high end and expensive digital projectors would consider shelling out an extra grand for the ability to screen 4k, a RED READY festival if you will.

I will do a follow up when I gather my thoughts and have time to reflect on what is all going down in the world of RED Digital Cinema.