The RED Camera
I heard about this 'revolutionary' camera sometime back last year and posted a discussion on the Cinematography.com forums. Lo and behold, I got a reply from the creator of this brand new camera. His name is Jim Jannard and most of you probably won't know who he is. I myself didn't know who he was then but through the geeky grapevines, I learned that Jim is the Founder and now Chairman of OAKLEY! (Really, I kid you not)
When someone of that stature makes a statement that he's out to create something revolutionary, you don't take it lightly. After all, he's got a track record for doing it.
So now, fast forward to 2006, the RED team will be making an official announcement with a prototype of the RED camera come NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and I believe it's going to be a huge thing, especially for the independent filmmaker. Jim himself said that the camera will be priced with the indie filmmaker in mind. This is mind-boggling, really, as this camera, according to the specs on RED's website blows ALL the high-end cameras from Panavision, Sony, Panasonic and just about anything else in it's league right out of the water! And these cameras cost more than your average house. In any case, we won't know what Jim means by 'priced for the indie filmmaker' until we actually see the numbers. Soon. soon.
Here are links to the RED website, some recent info about RED and an interview with Jim on HDforIndies: