Shooting in 4K or 2K, especially in a clean RAW format, is a very exciting prospect. It does, however, introduce many new variables and potential bottlenecks in your production and post production workflow. Having a good grasp on these variables is crucial to deciding whether or not to shoot in that format and to ensuring a successful process.
Here are some of the things to consider when deciding whether to shoot with the RED ONE camera.
PRODUCTION
Final output: is it going to be projected? Is it for HD television or DVD? If it's going straight to standard def broadcast then there's not really a need to shoot it at 4K or 2K (or even HD for that matter). If it will be projected, transferred to film or used as plates for special effects or motion graphics then the RED ONE is a great pick. Of course, you can always make an argument for shooting as high resolution as possible for future proofing.
Subject matter: Are you shooting a documentary that requires lots of footage or with multiple cameras to cover every angle? Is it long-format or short? While it may look glorious at full resolution, if you're fooling with your CF cards or RED Drive and miss the compelling shot for your story then you've lost the point of the project. The RED ONE is a perfect fit for short format with decent control of your environment.
Location & Support Gear: Much like a film camera the RED ONE lacks some of the conveniences of other video cameras. Things like built-in ND filters, auto functions, and zoom controls. Because of this, you can't move quite as quickly as you can with a prosumer or ENG-style camera. So, you need to have enough time and control over your location so that you can light your subject matter and rig and move the camera properly.
Resources: Because it is more like a film camera, you will need the people resources around to assist on your shoots, Ideally you woul have a good AC who knows the lenses and the menus of the camera for changing frame rates and frame size, etc.. Additionally, you may want to have someone to wrangle the data - ready to transfer footage from drives or CF cards to firewire drives (at least two for backup purposes).
POST PRODUCTION WORKFLOW
The RED workflow seems to always be in flux, with new approaches happening daily depending on how you want to finally treat your footage. Here are some quick overviews with link to some of the most common workflows.
Use the proxies: The quicktime proxies that the RED ONE camera generates are pretty brilliant. You can instantly view your footage in 2K, 1K, and even as a web version with a simple rec709 gamma applied. You can also use those proxies right in a FCP timeline (assuming you have Studio 2 and an Intel-based Mac). You can edit the footage no problem but the render times are fairly long since it is still referencing the RAW footage.
Use Log and Transfer: With the latest Final Cut Pro, you can log and transfer your footage just like Panasonic P2 footage. One difference here is that you can actually establish a LUT (look up table -- or "look") for all of the footage that you bring in. Since most RAW footage doesn't look good right out of the camera, you do want to apply some kind of gamma correction for viewing in a timeline. By using RED ALERT to establish a LUT, you have the ability to do a first-pass color correction on the footage before editing. In the end you get a high-res ProRes quicktime for use in your editing system.
REDCINE: RED developed REDCINE after RED ALERT as a way to view your actual 4K files. It's very useful in a lot of ways but limited, in that it's not really an editing system. It's for viewing and doing a first-pass on color correction. But you can also do things like temeprature and ISO speed adjustments, crop and scale the footage in case you need something different than what you shot on set. If your project is fairly short, you can treat all of your footage here and then export high-res quicktimes (in any codec flavor - but probably ProRes for quality and efficiency). Then you can take those quicktimes right into FCP and edit away.
You can download the latest version of REDCINE here:
http://www.red.com/support/release_history/6
Invest in Scratch: Silverado Systems has created a series of software solutions specifically for RED ONE footage. With their solutions you can do anything from single-pass color correction and dailies to full-featured color grading and telecine. These are not cheap solutions but they are the only high-end finishing products (to dade) for working directly with the R3D footage.
You can find their software here:
http://silverado.cc/shop/product.php?productid=1048&cat=4&page=3
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