Well,

I have to come clean. Last year I was fairly harsh when speaking of the hype and “Balsa-Cam” showings from the folks at Red. (“Billet-cam” is more accurate, since a block of billet aluminum was what folks were foaming at the mouth over in the Red tent last year.) Anyhow, I felt that much of what was going on was old fashioned flim-flam and snake oil salesmanship, gettin, in g people to slap down thier hard earned money on the deposits for an as-yet existant camera. I must now eat a tasty plate of CROW!

The folks at red were true to thier word and have delivered a working prototype, as well as some lenses, accesories and a 12 minute “Demo-film” from Academy award winning director, Peter Jackson. ( The film is worth seeing at the Red booth, even if you have to wait an hour in line!)

Yep, Red is well on their way to producing working models that will ship out to the reservists waiting out there. I spoke to a fellow today, who lives in my home town of Seattle, who is on the waiting list, with his deposits in, and he knows of three other cameras destined to come to northwest shooters.

So what does all this mean? Well, on the “American Dream” side of things, it is a neat story to see someone come up with an idea to take on the huge players from overseas, and design a dream, then sell it to would-be clients on a promise to deliver “sometime”, and to then go about using the hype of great promises to get those interested buyers to front more money for development. Now the fruits of that dream are starting to smell ripe. It will be interesting to see how they taste!

I for one, am curious why so many are rushing to jump into the 4k world when, as other writers have quite accurately stated, our eyes are plenty happy with 2k or even HD. We can’t even SEE 4k for its details. Then again, if you can get an initial image that is that much better, for the same price, why not, right? Wrong. Edit systems, storage, peripherals and accesories, delivery, end user systems… all sorts of variables that may determine reasons NOT to invest in 4k technology. Really, if you are not producing for main stream cinema, perhaps the Red is overkill.

I am not saying there is not a market for Red. I think it has a lot of potential, and from what I saw at thier booth theater the material that Jackson created was STUNNING!

What I am saying is that the camera market needs people like Red’s! But we need something a little more low key in the product line. How about using that rebellious Attitude, and bringing us an HDCam or CineAlta level camera and recorder and allow the high end EFP shooter a chance at that level of quality. Considering that Red is aimed at under 20 thousand dollars, when other 4k type tools cost 5 times that much or more, that would indicate that the CineAlta equivalent would be about 8 or 9 thousand dollars!!!

We can call it “Green”. As in, we all would have a green light for affordable high end HD! Something far more useful to the masses of producers out there.

Just my opinion.

Will Holloway