Matching a Ghost

[Paul Nordin]

Ok, so maybe not a ghost exactly. I'm shooting a feature late spring/early summer in SF with two Reds (date dependent upon camera shipping of course). Due to a unique situation, I am forced to shoot one of the days footage this weekend on a Sony F900R. The footage will of course not be intercut with anything I shoot on the Red, but the story segments I shoot tomorrow also should not jump out as "NOT RED" footage. Pretty much an impossible situation as far as matching the tonal qualities of a camera that hasn't been made yet.

We will be cropping the image of the F900R to a 2.35 frame, to match the 2.35 framing we will shoot on the Red for the rest of the feature. I'm planning to shoot tomorrow's footage pretty straight & clean with Digiprimes & a good Canon Cinema zoom, using the new HD 1 gamma setting, and minimal filters.

If anyone has any other guidance I'd appreciate it.

Cheers,
Paul

[Joel Kaye]

re: matching F-900 to RED.
If anyone has any other guidance I'd appreciate it.
l

I'd be really surprised if you can't get a very close color match from RED back to the F-900. The biggest trick might be matching focal length / DOF characteristics. If you're in two totally different scenes with different vibes then I wouldn't worry at all. I was just watching SPY GAME. Every location had it's own color and contrast highly customized. Viewer's minds fill in blanks - we can handle almost anything visually. Use the audio and pace of editing to make any gaps seamless.