As part of a guy's night out I saw the new Conan: the Barbarian the other night and it was honestly the first time I found myself thinking in a theater, "this is soft -- I could really do with a 4K image." It was also the first time I thought, "I bet my five year-old nephew could write this." But then I read an honest and insightful post by screenwriter Sean Hood on Quora, and the behind-the-scenes answer (especially with three credited screenwriters) is never as simple as "it was badly written." Getting back to the first thought about 4K, however, internet TV show Film Riot asks the question: once compressed for the web, how different are the RED EPIC and Canon 5D Mark II? Of course there's a big difference in the theater, but how about on your laptop?
It's interesting -- once compressed for the web, the clips are pretty similar and as far as bang-for-your-buck goes, the 5D Mark II is still a hero.
To download 5K footage, go here (at present, the link is dead due to too much bandwidth, which happens with 5K footage); to download the free REDCINE-X, go here.
And, I'm doing things out of order here, but if you're more interested in an overview of the operational functions of the EPIC, here's an earlier Film Riot episode:
I've held an EPIC in my hands and it's an incredible feat of engineering. That said, so is the 5D Mark II. It's a good time to be shooting.
Speaking of which, I'd love to shoot my first feature film (which needs your help!) on an EPIC. DSLRs would be problematic because of their pronounced CMOS skew (which is not ideal for fast action, and which the RED exhibits a good deal less of), and the RED is especially appropriate because the script calls for several slow-motion sequences. As we get closer to the shoot date -- which is not going to be for several months -- if any No Film School readers are lucky enough to pick up an EPIC and want to cut a low-budget first feature a deal, that would be wonderful! Otherwise there are plenty of RED ONE M-X cameras floating around. We'll see -- first, the Kickstarter campaign has to be successful...
