FORGED – New RED Weapon 8K Footage is Insane!

Earlier today, LA-based Director of Photography and long time RED user, Phil Holland released his latest work – a short piece shot on the new RED Weapon 8K digital cinema camera. And yeah, it’s kind of mind-blowing to say the least. The 8K RED Weapon 8K features a Vista Vision+/Full-Frame 35 sized 8192 x 4320 sensor capable of outputting the impressive 75fps at the maximum 8K resolution. Plus, the camera will provide ProRes recording internally along with the well-known R3D RAW files similar to the 6K WEAPON Dragon cameras.

The 8K Weapon sits on the top of the RED food chain, followed by the RED WEAPON 6K camera Carbon Fibre with high frame rate recording options in ProRes (up to 120fps) over the next model down – the RED WEAPON Magnesium (up to 60fps).

I highly recommend seeing the video above in the highest possible resolution screen you have – and click the YouTube settings for 2160p max quality.

Here’s what Phil had to say about the video:

During February 2016 I had the special opportunity to shoot with the upcoming RED Weapon 8K camera. These are the earliest of days for 8K and this was as much a camera test as an actual shoot for me. However, this format size and resolution are two important things for me as we are getting into the VistaVision+ format size.

As for the concept, I wanted to put together something fairly unique for my first 8K shoot and have wanted to work with Bladesmith Tony Swatton for over 7 years as he’s swords have ben on a few films I’ve worked on in the past. This video documents Tony over the course of several days as he forges and constructs a modern take on a Roman Gladius Sword that features damascus steel.

It was a special few days shooting with Tony in his shop as he gears up to move into a new location after 25 years. I’ve always found damascus to be one the most beautiful ways to craft a blade. In this case there’s 93 layer damascus technique in the blade, twisted in the grip, and detailed pieces throughout the guard and pommel nut. The finish of the blade maintains a darkness, yet still captures a shine from the light.

The new footage is the latest from the monstrous VistaVision sized 8K Weapon, the first of which was shown a few weeks back courtesy of Michael Cioni of LightIron, which you can check out below.

From Michael Cioni:

So as I said at the beginning;
“There are already a number of people chatting about how unnecessary 8K is and that the ‘race for resolution’ is a pointless contest.”

What I encourage everyone to consider is that 8K is not the new 4K.  Instead, 8K is about to open up an entirely new era of cameras which I now call “The Super Sensors.”  Super Sensors are camera systems like Alexa 65 or Weapon 8K that are capturing with so much resolution that (like a DSLR) they are able to create a new level of smoothness that makes things look more like a photograph and less like a digital representation of film.  Ansel Adams shot large format and no one has ever said, “His images look too sharp!”

On the contrary, Adams’ images look smoother, cleaner, and multi-dimensional because they were super samples.  These are the creative words I think people will begin to use when describing what they see while shooting Weapon 8K.

But creativity aside, there are also technical elements that I used in my test that I was excited to evaluate.  I used the new Panavision Primo 70mm lenses which cover the 8K sensor beautifully up through my widest lens, which was a 24mm.  They are a perfect blend between clarity, size, weight, and texture.  If ultra-high quality glass is important to you, you need to get to the nearest Panavision and do some tests with the Primo 70s.  You will fall in love with how perfectly they harmonize with a super sensor.

To check out the rest of his article on 8K head over to his blog here.

While the RED Weapon 8K is out of reach for the majority of people out there and surely reserved for top end projects with large budgets, the possibilities of where capture technology is headed are enormous.

However the good news is that for many of use with limited budgets there are less expensive ways to get into the world of RED via the RED Raven or a 2nd hand Scarlet or even the good old RED One MX, which go for less than what it costs to buy a fully rigged Sony A7RII these days.