We've just wrapped "The Lookout", a cop drama feature I lensed for first time director Gustavo Morales. We shot throughout Los Angeles with a bare-bones crew on Red's brand new Scarlet, in a package provided by
Digital Film Studios. Breaking in a new camera always has its ups and downs and the fragile infrastructure of a micro-budget independent feature can certainly be a scary place to discover all those little quirks that we've come to know and love with modern technology, but with Red's Scarlet we were fortunate enough to find a familiar workflow and reliable functionality.
If you've worked with Red's Epic you are already on familiar ground when you get the Scarlet in your hands. You've got the same touchscreen interface with Red's on-board monitor, or the option to control the camer with the Redmote or DSMC handle. We decided to forgo the DSMC handle, as in practice with the Epic I've come to recognize the DSMC as a glorified battery holder: my assistants rarely use it to handle the menus, and the hot swap convenience here is mitigated by the need to carry and maintain entire separate battery format apart from the Anton Bauer bricks we were using to power the rig. We found it easier to use the Redmote whenever the touchscreen wasn't the easiest option; I have to admit that I've really come to love that stupid thing. It doesn't have a ton of range and the correspondence between its buttons and their function in the menu system is cryptic at best, but it put a smile on my face to be able to quietly dial in a rough look-up-table at video village, yards away from the camera.
The images from the camera were everything I was hoping for. This camera captures all the resolution and color depth of the MX camera for that bulk of narrative work which doesn't demand hi-speed. It's also a very fast camera; shadows look fantastic and the broad dynamic range makes for a very pleasant curve in the higher-contrast, noir style that this film was looking for. Highlights are of course much more the danger here; with a little testing Gaffer Coco Moore and I lit for a 640 ASA exposure, but monitored at 800 ASA, with an eye on the RAW waveform. As I mentioned earlier I love finding a moment to rough in a look for monitoring on set; Red's onboard controls for the metadata color, although rudimentary, provide just the controls I want. I find it's important to me to keep from staring at that low-contrast image that the RAW can provide; of course your meters and your eyes are your best tools to judge exposure and contrast, but having a higher contrast image on monitor means to me that if I'm happy here it'll be achievable in the color bay plus a little wiggle room.
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