Really Awesome Footage from Afghanistan

[greenlead]

A serviceman took a RED Cinema camera with him to Afghanistan, and recorded some really cool footage.

You can just view the Vimeo version: http://www.vimeo.com/1021632

The discussion thread is here: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=10526

You can also download the three files from the links in the first post of the discussion over there.

[marinepilot]

WOW GL!! Thank you so very much for posting that link...

Lots of places I recognized from being over there. Definitely brought tears to my eyes. And the quality of film was like I was there again.

There's so much I want to say, but I'm just at a loss for words right now...

Thanks again.

[greenlead]

Information I found in another post in that discussion:

Yeah, the setup we rigged up weighs almost 38lbs, so he's going to be hurting pretty quick.

It was a challenge in itself just figuring out what to send. When the opportunity came up we had 2 Reds in our shop (2 more have since arrived), limited lens/accessory supply, and productions going on weekly. Deciding what to send out on what could be a once in a lifetime shoot opportunity vs. what to keep in the shop to pay the bills was beyond tough. Add into the equation that there's a higher than average equipment wear and tear (That superfine Afghanistan sand pretty much rendered an XL1 unusable during MrGlory's last deployment), and it's a complete ENG style enviroment where zooms and general mobility are the order of the day and your options start getting smaller and smaller quickly. On top of all that, we knew his deployment ends at the beginning of April, and shipping averages a good week to get there. Assembling the package and getting it off as rapidly as possible was a huge priority and again prevented us from really getting the best solution as opposed to the "right now" solution (hence the Cartoni and 38lb setup). Again, just another giant public thank you to two other Redusers here on the boards, Pywl and Bret Weeks. The setup that made it to MrGlory wouldn't have been possible without their support at every turn.

We had some other unexpected challenges to overcome as well...first and foremost, MrGlory's been fairly disconnected for a few months now, and I cringed when one of his first emails to me after receiving the camera was "Why are my proxies not showing up?". Things we all take for granted now as common knowledge (for the love of god don't upgrade to QT 7.4) have cropped back up in spades. Since he's been out of the loop we've DP'ed and DIT'ed ~15 shows with #97 and #636, so I've been trying to download as much practical working knowledge of camera and its strengths and weaknesses to him as possible. Obviously workarounds have been found, info has been absorbed, and footage is flowing freely. What you saw in the OP was shot and edited less than 12 hours after he received #97x, and it's only going to get better as time goes on.

Oh, and some perspective on just what kind of guy MrGlory is, since it need to be said and he won't tell you himself...He's not just some fulltime combat cameraman, he's a real world DP that shoots for the Army National Guard all over the country with our company Glory Cubed Productions. He's also a member of the Air National Guard (as is his wife), where he serves as a Aerial door gunner in a very unique (and active) Combat Search and Rescue helicopter unit. They fly primarily at night, meaning he's working a graveyard shift and shooting RED during the day, and he's doing it all on his own time, singlehandedly. This is something we've been hoping to do for quite awhile now, and it's only possible because of the personal sacrifices he's making and the support of our partner company DR&A here in Nashville. In short, the guy is a machine and this is the realization of nothing short of his dream to capture this unique footage at this quality.

We'll keep you all as updated as possible...and for our first teaser there's tentative plans in the works to get airborne in the very near future .

[jrm16311]

Those are awesome!