And you thought rabid comic book fans dissecting the latest page-to-screen superhero adaptation sounded geeky. Just wait until you see cinematographers gushing over Amazing Spider-Man footage on a forum dedicated to RED cameras.
If you don’t know, the RED digital camera is Hollywood’s cutting edge recording equipment that allows cinematographers to capture more frames per second at higher resolutions. The latest model, the RED EPIC, is being used by Spider-Man director of photography John Schwartzman to film Marc Webb’s anticipated reboot of the web slinger’s franchise, and it was the EPIC footage that reportedly was screened for a handful of professionals at Sony. In their collective opinion, the footage looked epic.
"This is the best looking footage I have ever shot,” Schwartzman told the moderator of Reduser.net prior to screening the footage. “These are the best images I have ever seen!”
The poster, named Jim, agreed. “I have to say that we were all stunned. Shocked. So incredible. Not like RED ONE MX. Not like anything we had seen from another camera. Same resolution and feel of our new EPIC reel, but with actors and a story and Schwartzman's ability to light,” Jim added. “The consensus in the room (to a person) was that this looked like film. Like 65mm film. Better. Without any trace of film's blocky detail in shadows or grain. Jaw dropping.”
Notice how the reaction avoids any possible spoiler. We don’t know if they were watching a daytime scene or a night shot; whether it was a quiet conversation or that library fight Stan Lee recently described at a Dallas comic convention. Either way, it’s fun to see professionals geek out over footage, even when they’re focusing on the look of the film as opposed to what’s actually happening in the scene. And their reaction only makes us that much more excited for Webb’s take on Spider-Man, which won’t be in theaters until next summer.
