We just purchased the Canon 5DMk2 for now until the RED Scarlet is released. We will be using this as our primary camera, and may pick up the 7D as well. Here is some sample footage ( click image to view, requires quicktime), 19.9 MB. This is resized by 50% and compressed for the web.

Today, ApogeeCS has been informed that it has been awarded its SECOND GRANT from the Jane Morrison Film Fund. This grant will allow ApogeeCS to further its knowledge of industry standard creative practices in film / video production. Apogee plans to attend 2 - 1 week courses at The Workshops in Rockport, Maine.

For dinner I wandered to the Library Ale house, which was supposed to have descent fair. The space was pretty entertaining, good people and service. The food was on the weak side, but the beverage selection as very good. I enjoyed 2 IPA’s, one from CO, and the other from CA.

After dinner I got a cab ride to West Hollywood/LA near the 405 to see North Face. This movie is about German mountaineers attempting to summit the north face of the Eiger. This was an intense movie, with an emotionally rough ending. Over all, well worth seeing and it makes me not want to do any extreme climbing. After the movie I had to walk for about 20 minutes until I could get a cab. This was sketchy, but I got a ride back to the hotel.

Tomorrow may turn out to be another adventure, since Portland is supposed to be getting a good snow storm. This may delay my return, but I am really hoping it doesn’t. We’ll find out.

A mellow morning led to a visit to Real Food Daily (all organic and vegan), as suggested by Caitlin. The service was great, and the food was very tasty. I had a large bean salad which was very filling, but totally over priced. This was accompanied by a carrot, orange, and celery juice. For desert I had a slice of german chocolate cake, and a shot of espresso. The cake was very dank and rich, well done. this ironically enough cost me less than the salad. The shot of espresso we great, smooth, earthly, no hit of being burt, and a touch of cinnamon.

The rest of the morning consisted of a visit to REI, and going back to the Principle Center. The Center visit was odd, and started by watching a pretty poorly produced video. The concepts had good intentions of getting people to start looking at themselves critically, but fell short of executing an appropriate path. The conversation that followed was long, and ended up where it started. It definitely was preachy, but at least they had good intentions. Over all it is an extremely emotional response to frustration, and urning for change. I tried to emphasize the importance of thinking along with the emotion ( emotion high, logic high) but i think it fell on deaf ears.

The rest of the day will be mellow, prepping for leaving tomorrow. Here’s hoping i dont get delayed due to snow in Philly or Portland.

as the afternoon wore on, I figured i should find some place to eat. I googled “vegan food santa monica” and came up with the Golden Mean. I took this as a definite sign, reflecting the middle path, and the color yellow.I hoped on my bike and rode out there, about 14 or so blocks. the intrior was cozy, and the place smelt very sweet. The reviews of the place said it had the best vegi burger in town. I ordered that with a kelp and ginger dressed salad. the vegi burger was very good and filling. typical toppings plus avacado. it had the texture of Little Lads BLT bacon, but the flavor of a typical vegi burger. The service the was really good, and kind.

After finishing the burger i decided to bike another 10 + blocks to a pub that is a
“new englander’s” home away from home. it turned out to be an Irish pub with a bunch of cussing customers. I had two pints and decided to leave after the place started to get crowded.

On the way home I swung by whole foods and picked up some food for the rest of the evening, and the next morning. after leaving WF, i remembered that downtown was on the ride back, so I swung by and walked threw. It pretty much was a line of nice stores. as i neared the the end of down town, a young japanese woman stopped me and asked if she could ask me some questions. she hands me a card with existential questions, and asked me to pick one. so i chose, and we started to talk more. It turns out she is working with some nonprofit called the principle study center. this place has been around for about 20 years, and it is a discussion on how to create a balanced society. Maiko and i talked for atleast an hour about human development, and approaches on creating a peaceful society. I totally did not expect to have this kind of conversation here in LA, especially within 3 days.  While the intent of the of this center is inline with issues that need to be addressed, as a first impression it seems to be rather emotional. I will be going back tomorrow to continue the discussion with Maiko. I gave here Wolf’s website address (golawolfrichards.org), and suggested that she watch the podcasts.

So after 6+ miles this afternoon (maybe) and about 50 blocks tonight, i am enjoying some seinfeld and laying down.

I arrived in Santa Monica around 10:30am, and checked in. After getting settled, i quickly found a bike and rode to Venice Beach. This place was pretty interesting with all its shops. There are a lot of “kush doctors”, where you can get approved for a medical weed card, and purchase some that day. Having no interest in it, I moved a long. this did make me think about what Maine will be like when they figure out the medical weed distribution system. Its pretty sad, legal drug dealers and pushers. they might as well be out there selling viagra.

I found the skate park, which was pretty cool to watch. a TON of boarders, a few really good ones. not much grinding going on, mostly surf style snake runs in the pool.

Just a little ways from the park was a pier that i hung out on and watch the surfers…pretty entertaining.

After a falafel pita, I rode back past the Santa Monica pier, to the other end of town. It was pretty nice, very mellow on that side.

Next I’m hoping to go find a pub I read about run by somone who used to live in Boston. It’ll probably be a sports pub, but at least it will be a bit of home. =)

Darrell and Tanya ( from maine ) , happened to be visiting LA today from their home in Northern Cali. We ate dinner at Chipotle right in the Culver City plaza. Massive burrito’s, good and filling.

After dinner we walked down to a placed called “Meet”. It looked nice, so we went in and had some wine. It was definitely a little more upscale than we expected and felt like it was an insult not to buy food. We didn’t, so we finished our wine and on our way out a customer suggested this place called Alibi, about 2 miles away. We ended up finding this place, and it was pretty cool. Chill atmosphere, and they were even playing the new Vampire Weekend album. After a long day this was fun, all be it too short.

The RED event definitely gave you plenty of eye candy. They opened with a 4K reel from the original sensor from the RED One. This was, of course, enjoyable. Then they brought out the new 4K reel from the new X sensor. The detail was absolutely amazing, definitely a good amount of difference from the previous reel. You can watch part of the reel here: http://red.cachefly.net/M-X-REEL.mov

No photography was allowed at this part of the event, so all you get is their massive 40′ screen they showed it on.

Following the reel, was a discussion on resolution, and of course RED won that one.

Michael Cioni took over the stage discussing the many virtues of RED CineX. I was pretty sold on it, though you really need the RED Rocket to make it worth while if your under deadlines. I could be wrong…

Next they opened up the floor for us to browse through the main room, where they had Assimilate showing RED 3D imagery. pretty cool. Lucas was there to talk about the product and process. Thanks again Lucas for hooking us REDUsers up with a place to stay.  (no imagery due to low light/blurry photos from my outdated DSLR)

Other booths were showing off CineX, and of course, there was the show and tell area of the new RED gear. It was nice to see all the objects up close, and get a feeling for the weight, and durability of these products. They seem VERY sturdy, though I didnt get a chance to play with all the modules. These modules can build up to a pretty beastly camera.

At the end of the event was an open Q&A. It was really cool to experience all the guys and gals working so hard on these products talk with the users. Jim (started Oakley, and now RED), definitely has a passion for this. No real news leaks, but he did say:

“If the cameras arent released by summer, i will be suicidal.” this was flowed by the usual disclaimer, that everything is subject to change.

CONCLUSION:
Great system, looking forward to getting my hands on it. With no solid release date, I don’t really want to put off working with video anymore. Purchasing a 5D Mk II seems to be the way to go for now. When the scarlet is released, purchase that and use the 5D as a B-cam.

Enjoy the photos!

If you would like to view more photos (more clear), visit the reduser forum .

BIG thanks to Mark Stock at redrocketpictures.com for giving us a ride to and from the event!

a nice warm morning.

i woke up at around 7 due to still being on EST, and looking around, this city was dead until atleast 9am. it gave me a chance to walk around and enjoy the warm weather. the cuver hotel is right around the corner from the culver studios. it looked like a bunch of large sound stages. i saw a few people walking around, but it was pretty quiet too.

I’ll be leaving in about 15 minutes to attend the noon session at the RED Studios in Ren-Mar. Let it begin!

after the epic 8 hour journey west, i arrived in LA. i hopped a super shuttle direct from LAX to the Culver City Hotel.

first thing i saw out the window was a couple of fix gear riders doing tricks in  the plaza. (jody you would of loved it). i think one of them was on a steam roller…

this place is pretty nice, and a movie theater right behind it!  after a quick shower i met up with some of the other people from the red user group that are staying here. all really nice, enthusiastic, creative people.

seeing how it is 2am EST, i think its time for bed!