The Red One Digital Cinema Camera offers a replacement for shooting 35mm/16mm film or an alternative to shooting HD.

Due to the nature of Red One digital acquisition Highdef offers a 'camera to grade' service so you can take full advantage of the amazing quality that the camera can deliver. Our pipeline has been constructed to ensure the best image quality, workflow efficiency and cost savings.

Our approach covers all aspects of the Red workflow. We continuously research and develop our pipeline, consult, make deals, draw up production plans and supervise productions through to final grade.

Below is an explanation of what we can bring to your next Red One production:

We research and test the latest tools and equipment to support the Red One pipeline.

For the camera there are a constant stream of new add-on elements that will make life on set easier and more productive on.

For post production there is an endless evolution of tools developed for the Red One that makes the workflow more efficient and cost effective.

Highdef is dedicated to finding and applying the best of these new technologies to our pipeline, so any issues are sorted out before your production enters our doors.

From initial meetings through to final grade, we guide you through the production process.

We work with you to solve all equipment, technical and logistical hurdles to complete the workflow map in pre-productiion.

The knowledge we have acquired allows you to concentrate on the creative aspects of the project rather than sacrificing time and energy to technical and workflow issues.

Highdef can supply all the camera elements for your production. One central supplier means much less work in production organisation, ensuring compatibility of technologies and tools and efficient equipment replacement.

One central supplier can offer an overall package from ‘camera to grade’ that ensures security, efficiency and cost effective leverage in one deal.

Our highly experienced colourist works with the DOP in pre-production to establish the ‘look’ or ‘looks’ for the production. The ‘looks’ are loaded ‘in camera’, so the image seen on set can be as close as possible to the final graded image.

This ‘metadata’ sits with the RAW footage as it passes through post-production, allowing dailies, off-line editing footage and any other material generated from the footage to accurately reflect the vision of the director/DOP.

When the original RAW footage is conformed for final grade it already has a ‘look’ to start work with, allowing the grader to spend more time making finer adjustments.

Camera Assistants

All our camera assistants are industry professionals with years of experience. They are fully trained in the Red One camera and have had experience in Red One production. They receive retraining with every new camera update.

Data Wrangler

The Data Wrangler manages the many gigabytes of data generated from the camera on set.

As soon as the media is handed over by the camera assistant the Data Wrangler examines the footage for any errors, data or human. If an error is detected the material can be re-shot immediately, saving expensive re-shoots or post production manipulation to fix the problem.

After checking footage the Data Wrangler backs up the data on two separate drives. The two copies offer security over hard drive failure.

Shots are loaded into a laptop connected to a video monitor for screening immediately on set at standard definition quality.

Highdef transcodes the Redcode Raw files into any file format for offline editing on our 34 core render farm.

We can supply Final Cut or Avid suite equipped to the editors specifications.

It can be installed on location or you can use one of our edit rooms, either way, we provide all the necessary technical support for your off-line edit.

Highdef backs-up your valuable footage to LTO tape when the disk arrives from set.

Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology was developed jointly by HP, IBM and Quantum to provide data backup solutions for major corporations and banks. It is the accepted solution for large post houses. For absolute data security, HighDef recommends having several LTO tape back-ups in multiple locations.

The LTO tape can be sent to our purpose built facility for medium or long storage, just like a film lab. The vaults include 20cm reinforced concrete, double brick, a 4 hour fire rated Durasteel fire protection barrier with temperature and humidity controlled environments. The facility will cycle media on a set time table, i.e. they will copy the data onto new tapes so it can be stored indefinitely.

We can conform quickly from EDL or ALE files supplied by the offline editors .
The conform process assembles the original RAW files matching the offline edit to prepare for final colour grading.

As the process is completely digital, the risk of error is significantly reduced, the speed of conform greatly increased and the cost of getting to the grading suite appreciably reduced.

Highdef uses SpeedGrade, a native RAW grading solution from Iridas.

SpeedGrade is designed as a companion application for RAW camera workflows and offers powerful review, grading, and finishing tools.

The smaller RAW file sizes reduce the hardware data throughput requirements for realtime playback. Our colour grader can grade in our studio, or on longer projects the suite can be installed on location. The colourist can work in parallel with the rest of the post-production team, so everyone sees the work as it's being done.

Highdef delivers HD Master files and tape through to 35mm film prints.