This inaugural blog post is just in time for the release of the new feature film "Real Steel" starring Hugh Jackman. Real Steel opens today (October 7th) to nationwide theaters: the movie looks pretty good and is getting great reviews.
This movie is significant for HDSLRs, but not in the usual way. Yes, it's a blockbuster Hollywood film, heavily promoted, yes it has big named actors, and yes Dreamworks is behind it. But no, it's not about using DSLRs to shoot some portions of the film as a crashcam, bodycam, or insert shots. DSLRs are actually *in* the movie, as in, part of the scene design. Dreamworks thinks a future that includes fighitng robots will be covered by people shooting with DSLRs.... and Redrock rigs.
Redrock's history with this movie goes back two years. An assistant to the propmaster emailed saying they were working on an upcoming movie with Hugh Jackman and could they borrow a bunch of Redrock DSLR rigs. This sounded a little outlandish, but when the propmaster called and discussed their vision of a DSLR-centric futuristic world, about a dozen rigs were headed to the desert for their filming. When asked 'why Redrock?' the production said they really liked the look of Redrock rigs more than anything else available, and Redrock gear can be configured in any number of ways.
If you haven't already seen the movie, here's an early cut of the trailer (no longer generally available) where you can see some of the HDSLR rigs
here's a screen grab showing the always-identifiable Redrock blue accent colors:
You can check out the production credits on the Real Steel IMDB listing - as of right now the rating is 6.9 and trending upwards. Not bad for 'rock em sock em robots'.
