VCU's Entry into Hollywood: Purchasing a Red Rocket HD Camera

Nestled in the first floor of Temple, VCU's primary Mass Communications building, is the university television station, VCU TV/HD. When you first enter the station, you face the editing cave, where Film, Cinema, Mass. Comm., and English major interns stare for hours at computer screens to determine the best cuts and transitions to submit to their PBS-affiliated channel. Turn left and you face the director's corner office, a few more computers, and the other staff member's desk. The set-up appears to be a humble abode for housing film and video equipment. So humble, in fact, that the station is clearly not as widely known as other branches of campus media, such as the student newspaper, The Commonwealth Times. It's not surprising, then, that roughly a year has passed since VCU TV/HD purchased a Red Rocket HD camera and yet the buy remains a virtual secret to the VCU community at large. After suffering the horrors of sitting on a long product waiting list, VCU TV/HD finally bought a professional Hollywood quality camera last summer--but who knew?

The Red Rocket is a digital movie camera used by elite filmmakers and very few, very lucky students in film and video programs across the country. The camera, though HD, has sensors sensitive enough to mimic the same angle of view and depth of field as Super 16 and 35 mm film. Super 16 and 35 mm are two extremely expensive formats that have traditionally been used in the film industry but are difficult for independent filmmakers to afford without grants and commissions. Films like "The Lovely Bones," "My Bloody Valentine 3D," "The Book of Eli," "Che: A Revolutionary Life," and "Labor Pains," among a few, have been shot using the Red. The Red is the kind of prestigious camera that even students at Columbia University's Film School practically have to beg to use, whereas interns at VCU TV/HD simply have to go through the proper training process and justify using it for a station assignment. Even students in the Cinema department, the most highly-funded film and video department at VCU's School of the Arts, do not have access to one (though that situation is subject to change.)

Dan Brazda, director of VCU TV/HD, is thrilled at the possibilities the Red presents for the university station and the film industry as a whole. He describes himself as a "tried and true filmmaker," yet with an HD camera like the Red on the market, even he's converted to digital. Dan summarizes his career as "twenty-seven years of film and one year of Red." That career is steadily evolving into two years of the Red, however, as VCU TV/HD produces more and more work with it. While the camera's presence may have be relatively unknown to the VCU community now, that is bound to change. Here's what Dan has to say about the Red and VCU's relationship with it:

How did you get the Red? It was a long drawn-out process. Red One is very new technology; I've been following the progress of it for three years. It took a lot of faith to get involved early on because often so-called 'amazing' products are less than amazing. But it's exceeded my expectations. I was definitely a hard convert since I was a hardcore film guy since way-back-when.

Which Red features are your favorite? Thesensor size because in filmmaking a shallow depth of field is an incredible storytelling device. So many digital cameras have too small a depth of field, but in storytelling, you want to focus your audience's attention on a small space. Video has not been able to do that without clunky adapters, but the Red is an all-in-one camera allows you to shoot quality small motion, time lapse, sound. In the film world, I would often get a different film package to do different things, different application. The Red is a one-stop shopping camera. See, often times people will complain about new products, saying the support doesn't live up, but the Red is a smaller company with top-notch customer service. You can trade in camera for epic, "making obselence obselete"

What are your complaints about the Red? I don't like that you cannot have an open shutter for an extended period of time. In a film camera, you can set the shutter to be open all of those ten seconds. If you want to be shooting things like streaking car lights at night, you're very limited in what you can do with that. I also don't like how you shoot 120 frames per second right now at 2 k, not 4 k. It'd be nice if you could use the full speed range at 4 k. They're actually doing that with the "Epic" but right now that's my complaint.

How will the Red benefit VCU TV/HD and the VCU community as a whole? Broaden our approaches/abilities with the programs we produce. Most of what we have done up until now is cinema verité programs. The Red will allow us to do more carefully thought-out, much higher quality programming. We'll also be able to create archive footage. Anything shot on 4 k will be around forever.

How does operating a Red differ from operating other digital cameras? Most other digital cameras are kind of designed to be overly simplified. When you have the ability to manually set everything the way you want it--that's more of the filmmaker's way than letting the camera telling you what to see. You want to tell the camera what you want to see. Especially with the prosumer cameras, most people put it on automatic and just shoot. You want control over everything. You don't want the machine doing your thinking for you.

How heavy is the Red? Fully loaded, with everything on it, 38 pounds. You can strip it down to as lightweight a package as 14 pounds. It's a real, true transformer. The weight of your specific camera depends on learning all the different accesories that work with the Red and knowing your options as far as viewfinders, lenses, and recording/sound. Learning the transformer nature of the camera and knowing all the possibilities to adapt if for the situation. It's a nice, lightweight unit.

How does the fact that VCU owns a Red distinguish it from other universities? There are some, but it's a very limited number. I can safely say we are one of a handful without having statistics to back it up, but as variations like "Epic" and "Scarlet" come out, you'll going to see them popping up everywhere. For the same or less than what you would pay for a broadcast camera, look at what you get.

What VCU productions have been shot with a Red already? So far the only start-to-finish project was on the Macey Cancer Center here at VCU. Otherwise, it's been used for elements for other programs, like B-roll. In the future, I think it will be used a lot more for programs from start to finish. The Red is capable of producing images that are superior to what most desktop editing systems are able to handle. We won't be able to use it to its full potential until the editing systems up their capabilities.

How does owning a Red fit in with your goals for VCU TV/HD? We don't want to get into a niche where all we do is cinema verité documentaries. But when we as a station appeal to interns from Film & Photography, Cinema, the School of the Arts, and you got students producing programs that don't exactly fit into the program of cinema verité...We will not only produce an outlet to have students get their films seen. we can provide the equipment. We want to have the full spectrum, from pro-sumer to a full set with dolleys, etc.

Dan ended the interview in saying, "There's going to be 35 mm out there always. They've been saying it's going to go away since 1975 but it's not going to disappear. This is the first time that digital has actually put a dent in the motion picture industry. Any of those other digital cameras that said they'd put film out of business, this is the first time feeling impact."