The trailer of the upcoming action thriller ‘Red Notice’ has dropped a week ago. The film was shot on a costume-made RED Ranger Monstro paired with Panavision Ultra Panatar Lenses, which is nice. However, more importantly, a lot of FPV shots were revealed. Those were executed with the RED’s action camera, the Komodo. This is the first film that utilized extensively the ‘cinema FPV’ approach.
Red Notice: Utilization of ‘Cinema FPV’
Red Notice is an upcoming American action thriller film written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. It stars Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds. The film will be released on Netflix on November 12, 2021. The film was shot by cinematographer Markus Förderer, ASC BVK. Selected as one of Variety’s 10 Stars behind the Cameras, the German-born cinematographer who graduated from the University of Television and Film in Munich, is the youngest active member of the American Society of Cinematographers (was selected in 2019). Förderer shot the film with a custom-made RED Ranger Monstro (RMT which is the name of the director) paired with Panavision Ultra Panatar glass. Also, the RED Komodo cinema camera was used as action and drone cam.
Based on drone shots
According to Red Notice’s cast, there are 8 drone pilots and operators, which indicates that the aerial action shots of the film are based on drones, instead of helis. Moreover, the trailer which was released a week ago, reveals a decent usage of FPV (First Person View) drones. Although ‘Red Notice’ is Netflix’s biggest budget yet for a feature film ($200 million), it appears that most of the drone shots were executed with the help of small cinema cameras that can be lifted by an FPV drone, which is a smaller drone. The main cinema camera used for the job is the RED Komodo. In fact, Red Notice is one of the first big-budget films that used this camera.
Cinema FPV as a mainstream
As cinema cameras become more and more compact, they can be utilized by FPV drones. Conventional FPV drones are equipped with a small camera that has the size of a GoPro. That means FPV drones have not been designed to meet cinema applications due to their low quality regarding imagery. Obviously, conventional FPV drones can’t carry out a cinema camera on them. That was correct till those compact cinema cameras were born.
On the other side, more advanced FPV drones were developed, to be able to lift those cameras, like the RED Komodo. Besides Red Notice, there’re numerous examples for that: For instance, make sure to read our article – Cinema FPV (First Person View): One-Take With the RED Komodo, and Freefly Wave + FPV Drone = Never Seen Before Slow Motion Shots. Both of them demonstrate ultra epic videos shots by the FPV master, Johnny Schaer. In these cases, Schaer flew the RED Komodo and the Freefly Wave, in order to get those cinematic high octane sequences.
Check out the Red Notice trailer below. Can you notice these super epic FPV shots?
Product List
Here’re the products mentioned in the article, and the links to purchase them from authorized dealers.
- RED Digital Cinema KOMODO 6K
- RED Digital Cinema RANGER MONSTRO 8K VV
