Redirect surfing and red cameras

Redirect is a competition presented by Red cameras and Surfer magazine, basically they give 11 surf film makers a load of red gear including the Red Dragon camera and they compete to make the most unique and original film.

Here’s the Surfer magazine page: http://www.surfermag.com/redirect

Watch the BTS video above to get a little idea of what’s going on.

I would embed the first finished entry, Erik Knutson shooting John John Florence, but embedding has been disabled, in fact you can’t even watch it on the Red.com website, which is a bit embarrassing. Here’s the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTqRX3_yoDM

It’s a good edit, I enjoyed it, but when the two criteria are uniqueness and originality (aren’t they the same thing?) I was expecting some more angles that I hadn’t seen before.

Probably the most unique bit is at 4:57, when there’s some follow cam style shots, this would have been really hard to do with a giant red Dragon camera in a housing.

Unfortunately we’ve all seen this and better before shot with a GoPro, which is obviously the right tool for the job. There’s no advantage in shooting this type of shot with the dragon.

What do I want to see from redirect surfing?

I’d have preferred to see something truly unique that could only be done with the Dragon kit; and maybe I will from the other 10 entries.

Using (I assume) an old interview with John John as a kid is a really nice touch, I liked the music and it was all very well put together, but I doubt it will win.

You could have shot all of it (probably more easily too) with a GoPro and something like a Sony A7S or Panasonic GH4.

I’m looking forward to seeing Chris Bryans entry in particular, he’s got a track record of making visually stunning surf clips, and that’s what I want to see, although his Phantom camera show reel has probably set everyone’s expectations way too high…

Also, the gear page on the Red.com site doesn’t mention water housings at all, so maybe Erik got one custom made for his dragon camera which he might have to give back, or maybe there were some available to use for the contestants.