Stills From Peter Jackson's New Short, Crossing The Line

Red have posted a gallery of stills from Peter Jackson's Crossing the Line - see below for a taster, click to enlarge.

The full film is imminent.

Boris And Natasha Help Peter Jackson Shoot World War One Action Film

Down at NAB, the premiere of Peter Jackson's new First World War film has taken place. The film was shot only two and a half weeks ago, to test the new RED digital camera.

Running just twelve minutes long, the film featured aerial dogfighters and lots of explosive tank action back down on the land. Apparently, the vehicles were shot practically rather than CG created, though effects were added to the footage afterwards - bullet traces and so on.

The film was projected at 4k resolution and, apparently, all in attendance were blown away by the image quality. You have to note that every frame of it was ungraded and represented the data as captured by the RED camera system without any kind of colour correction or digital intermediate. Sounds as though the two RED cameras used on the film - prototypes named Boris and Natasha - really did Jackson proud.

[EDIT: In fact, subsequent reports confirm that a DI was carried out - and the raw RED data held up to it perfectly]

For now the film is going to remain under wraps and only visitors to NAB are going to see it. Downgrading the images from the 4k presented there would be counterproductive, certainly while RED cameras are still rolling out. Jackson being Jackson, however, I'm sure we'll get to see the film at some point - if only as a special feature on the eventual Blu-Ray disc of Dambusters.

Saw IV Scribes

Horror Movies (California style) have named the writers who will be responsible for the script of Saw IV: Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, authors of Feast, and Thomas Fenton who has also written Red, Lucky McKee's next. The imdb also lists Marek Posival, but then again, the imdb is nothing more than mass delusion writ digital.

Saw IV is coming on the heels of some very tedious predecessors, but those scriptwriting names seem to be three steps in the right direction, at least.

Shooting starts in March, which seems to put Palud and Moreau out of the director's seats. Reports suggest that instead, David Hackl, second unit director on the third of those aforementioned tedious predecessors, is in "heavy negotiations" to direct. One big stride back?