In less than 24 hours, on Thursday the 13th of November, RED Digital Cinema will release new information about their upcoming Scarlet and Epic cameras. These new cameras were announced at NAB 2008 to suit the higher and lower ends of the digital cinema market. Their existing camera, the RED ONE, is already becoming very popular for use in both big budget and independent movies, music videos, high end video production. It will continue to service most of the market, while the big budget movies will move to Epic, which boasts higher frame rates and resolution. Scarlet, however, is the real revolution, and we’ll be buying at least one.
As it was announced, Scarlet was going to have a 3K resolution sensor (that’s more than two and a half times the size of Full HD!), shoot frame rates of up to 120 frames per second, with the ability to do very short bursts of 180 (where one second of motion becomes seven and a half seconds of video – think ultra-slow, ultra-smooth video), and record onto compact flash cards or an external hard drive using RED’s very efficient and high quality REDCODE codec. And, all of this for just US$3000! But in August, Jim Jannard, owner of RED Digital Cinema, dropped a bombshell:
We have changed everything about Scarlet because the market has changed and we have discovered a lot of things in the process. We have a new vision.
Wipe you minds of the past announced Scarlet. Forget the design and forget the price. It is all different now. We think you will be surprised. Glad we didn’t take any deposits…
Well, after two months of wild speculation, with the only information about the new design being gathered from a few very close up, disorienting shots, RED have announced that they will be releasing the new specifications and prices tomorrow. I’m certain that we will see new renders, and possibly prototypes of the cameras. Whether we’ll see any images or video shot with the camera remains to be seen.
Jim was very optimistic about the announcement, saying on Sunday that “We are so excited that we can hardly stand it. The whole RED team has been working more than I could have ever imagined on this. Probably because we are so motivated by the program.”
Whatever they announce, there will be some disappointed people – as some were even disappointed with the original Scarlet’s amazing specifications. But for those with realistic expectations, and, judging by Jim’s posts, those who are expecting the impossible, Thursday is going to be very exciting indeed.
