The RED ONE Digital Effect

Recently Thomas Kranzle had the privilege of working as the Director of Photography on a commercial and corporate communications video for one of the world’s leading insurance providers along side the talented interactive agency Something Massive. The production involved significant visual effects which required us to shoot each scene separately against a large green screen at Ben Kitay Studio in Hollywood, CA. Each scene would later be keyed out and composited into a seamless visual experience.

When shooting on a green screen, it is important to shoot in the highest resolution with the least compressed format possible. This makes for a cleaner key when pulling subjects off the green screen. We therefore shot the entire commercial on the RED ONE camera, filming in 4K resolution offering more than twice the quality of a standard HDTV.

Shooting digitally on the RED ONE makes things much easier than 35mm film. We had our editor on set and were able to pull shots directly off the RED ONE to test the key and visual effects. We shot the commercial on a Monday and the edit was completed by Friday of the same week. This kind of turnaround would have never been possible had we shot film. For me, this solidifies the place and purpose of shooting digitally. Far quicker turnarounds are possible at much lower budgets. I think we can all agree that that is a good thing!