Red ONE in Zero-G?

[Yannick Sadler]

Has anyone tested/filmed the Red ONE in zero gravity environment?

I'm starting pre-production on a movie that require hundreds of reduced, reverse and zero gravity effects. It was assumed that those effects were to be digital FX. But since many of those involves liquids and cast, I suggested to the producers the option of renting a specialized plane that can do parabolic flight path to shot many of those effects for real (www.gozerog.com for those who are interested).

So my question again, did anyone done this before with a Red? Any counter indications as far as hardware is concerned? I'm pretty sure there isn't any, but cost of a shooting day of this kind of rig is enough to make me ask what may be obvious. :smile5:

[Karl Gustav H.]

Zero-g it self shouldn't be too much of an issue; even so, avoid spinning media.

Id be more concerned with the impact on the camera on the return to 1g conditions, both in terms of the shock of impact if its free floating and people/objects impacting it.

If the camera is locked off (as I think they did it for Apollo 13 which was also done with parabolics) then that is one less worry.

[Yannick Sadler]

Yes indeed, hard drive was out of the equation for me.

Camera will not be locked for all shots. Some of them require motion control rig and some will be handheld.

[Loic Parent]

Avoid spinning media and any device that has accelerometers (like some laptops), we had some bad surprises during the first flight..

with parabolic flight you are not going from 1G to 0G but transiting by a 2G phase during injection and ressource:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Parabolic_flight.png
this what you need to worry about.
Obviously be sure that everything is tighten and secure, things like stereo rigs works pretty well in 1G but go out mark pretty fast during the 2G 0G transition.

shooting parabolic flight is hard, you can assume that the first flight (30 parabolas with eesa A300zeroG) will be the time required for the crew to adapt it's pretty hard to frame, focus and do anything in zero g, and you only have 20 sec each time!

anyway good luck with your shoot! it's an amazing feeling, just don't move you head in 2G or you'll be sick ;)

[Brent J. Craig]

Remember that everything that is temporarily weightless in zero G suddenly weighs twice as much at 2G! Great way to damage gear if you are not prepared.

[Rich Schaefer]

I have shot on the Zero G plane! There is much to know to make it work (and FAA issues to contend with).

I would defiantly shoot CF cards or RedRam. While you have 45 seconds of 0Gs you have to pay up and shortly you will have 2Gs to contend with as the plane pulls up.

I would be happy to share more info, PM me and we can chat on the phone.

Prost,
Rich

[P Andersson]

love it - soon pretty much every possible shooting issue will have been covered on reduser

[Rich Schaefer]

ZeroG shoot Pix for ya: (notice the strap to hook feet on!)