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MillimeterNew Stock
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Darroch Greer
Mammoth HD opened its 4K library with footage shot with the Red Digital Cinema Red One camera in November 2007.
Mammoth HD
Mammoth HD is a relatively new company, having started in 2003. But like many young companies without a dated infrastructure or library, the company is able to jump in with the latest technology. We're a stock agency specializing in high definition, says CEO and Creative Director Clark Dunbar, and now, we're going to be saying and above, with the 4K library opening up later this week [November 2007] in fact.
We didn't do much inhouse shooting per se this year, Dunbar says, but a lot of our shooters are sending in some really great material. Where we got real excited was when the Red [One] camera started shooting late August. Several of our guys have gotten cameras. I had a chance to get my hands on one and did some shooting myself. It has lived up to all the expectations that I had already built in, and we're starting to get footage in that is really spectacular.
Dunbar got his hands on a Red One camera last September when he was at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, and he's not looking back. I see it as a huge expansion, Dunbar says. I see it as the future of stock footage. It's just a matter of how much can be shot to build a library around those specifications. The images are so clean, and the camera is affordable. Compared to a lot of the tools that are out there now, it's anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of the cost of other HD cameras, and it shoots four times the resolution.
The Red One camera is the brainchild of Oakley founder Jim Jannard, and it has been the buzz of the entire industry. The main reason Dunbar is so excited is that with an image of 4,000 pixels, he can downconvert it to any format possible and the infrastructure is finally in place from which to work.
We can down-rez it to 2K for the current postproduction pipelines that are in place now for 2K, and that opens up indie films and a lot of feature films with everyone slowly moving into 4K for post and 4K production, Dunbar says. Then, on our digital-signage side of the world of our client base, we can actually do a vertical HD clip right out of the 4K without turning the camera. We just use that same clip we shot and fulfill the vertical format needs with just a center-pull or a pan-and-scan across the 4K image. That's one of the things we love about 4K. It gives us every one of those market segments from feature films to digital signage to broadcast for whatever spec you want.
Dunbar reps 70 people shooters and production companies that supply him with footage. Of that group, 15 to 20 have ordered Red One cameras; four have them in-hand as of November.
Yes, your stock house is a whole new home.
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