Director Peter Jackson volunteered to shoot 4K footage for RED Digital Cinema's highly anticipated RED digital camera to use at NAB 2007. What started out as a test session quickly turned into a World War I era short titled CROSSING THE LINE. Written and directed by Jackson, CROSSING THE LINE intercuts a suspenseful aerial dogfight with an intense battle below, as two heroes try to survive while holding onto their precious keepsakes: a teddy bear and a photo of a sweetheart. Two-hour lines have been non-stop throughout NAB, as attendees encircle the RED booth to get a sneak peek at the RED in action.
Jackson and his team (which included Matt Aitken and Kim Lavery of Weta Digital) shot RED Alpha prototypes, "Boris" and "Natasha", for two days in New Zealand just two weeks before the opening of NAB. All footage was shot using RED's proprietary REDCODE RAW 4K codec and recorded to RED DRIVES. Jackson hand-held the camera himself and the RED 2K workflow was done using Apple's new ProRes 422 next-gen post-production format.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
