Playing with Weapons

I recently worked as the DIT on a car commercial with DP Stuart Graham. We shot using the RED Weapon cameras. This was my first hands-on experience with the Weapon. The cameras were great to work with, always extremely versatile and adaptable to many scenarios. 

I used a Blackmagic HDLink LUT Box and Flanders Scientific CM-171 Monitor for each camera to manipulate and monitor the incoming signal. We were moving between Cooke Xtal anamorphic and Zeiss Master Primes, often using the two simultaneously on different bodies inside the same scene.

The look being embedded in the RMD in a non-destructive way is great as it was the perfect way for the DP to have hands-on control. I would create CDLs and LUTs which matched the cameras in a scene and controlled the nuances of each look. This allowed for a fast turn around when getting footage to post. The footage was available in real time with the reference look applied for approval.

CG select shots were made everyday on set. These shots were then set aside for upload. Due to an extremely tight delivery time, post needed source footage as soon as possible. We were sending RAW files as well as compressed MXFs to the facility as soon as camera wrapped. This was made possible by the great guys over at File Transfer Africa. We could get the source footage of the selects available for download  8 hours after camera wrap. 

It was an intense shoot with many locations and late nights. The versatile workflow that we setup allowed for both creative control and a fast turn around. 

All the best, and verify on!

- Rusty Ruthven