EXCLUSIVE: Both Ridley Scott's EXODUS And Matt Reeves' DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES To Be Released In Native 3D!!

Yes! I believe MarketSaw is the first to have this information for you. I'm very excited that Ridley Scott's EXODUS and Matt Reeves DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES will both be released in Native 3D! While we have known for some time now that both EXODUS and DAWN were going to be 3D, we didn't know if they were going to be conversions or not. They're not.

I've further found out that both of these stereo projects will be using the industry leading 3ality Technica rigs for the productions! These guys are at the top of their game, nailing tentpole after tentpole with an upcoming list that also includes X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, POMPEII, THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG and HERCULES.

I've heard from two very reliable sources (not 3ality Technica obviously - they are under NDA) that this is happening and I couldn't be happier!

The photos are taken from the set of EXODUS (Christian Bale is standing beside the 3ality Technica rig that is holding the new 6K RED DRAGON cameras!) and the sets are impressively massive and detailed.

Dariusz Wolski is again teaming up with Ridley as his cinematographer (they simply nailed PROMETHEUS - gorgeous picture!) and they are at it again with EXODUS and they are shooting with 6K cameras.

Here are some details on the RED DRAGON:
- Dragon's full frame resolution is 6144x3160 and it's sensor size is 30.7x15.8mm, which is an aspect ratio of 1.94:1.
- What does 6K work out to for still shooters? 19.4 megapixels, print resolution of 20.48x10.53 inches at 300 DPI.
- Dragon's ISO 2000 appears "cleaner" than the Mysterium X at ISO 800. Basically less than half the noise of the MX sensor.
- Dragon's currently been measured at 18+ stops of captured dynamic range. Noticeably more than modern film stocks.
- The Dragon Upgrade itself represents a new sensor, new ASIC boards, and other new technologies.
- Max frames per second at full resolution? 100fps at 6K for Epic Dragon, 60fps at 5K for Scarlet Dragon.
- What about IR and the OLPF? There's a new IR OLPF designed specifically for Dragon.
- What about power consumption and heat? The Dragon sensor uses less power and generates less heat than the Mysterium X Sensor.
Above is a quick look at how the Red Dragon sensor compares to standard motion picture film formats. Notable observations to take from this are:
- Dragon's 6K is noticeably wider than S35, but nearly exactly as tall as S35 Academy. Useful for anamorphic shooters.
- Dragon's 5K is a smidge wider than S35 Full Aperture and a smidge shorter as S35 3-perf. Likely providing enough room for all S35 designed lenses.
- Dragon's 4K is just a bit thinner than S35 Academy.
- Dragon's 3K is noticeably wider than S16, and just a bit taller.
6K is the maximum resolution of Epic Dragon. 6144x3160 or 19.4 megapixels at a 1.94:1 aspect ratio.
6K is 9.36x more pixels than 1080p.
6K is 8.78x more pixels than 2K.
6K is 2.2x more pixels than 4K.
6K is 1.4x more pixels than 5K.
At 300 DPI you can make a 20.48x10.53 inch print from a full 6K Dragon image.
At 150 DPI you can make a 40.96x21.067 inch print from a full 6K Dragon image.
6K is 14% more resolution than 5K for a pristine full debayer down to 4K. Meaning it's a 66.7% down sample/debayer to 4K.

More info when I get it! I'll check with 3ality Technica to see if I can get any information about the rigs / tech / crews they are using despite their NDA. The 2014 3D movie calendar will be updated shortly...

DRAGON specs from RedUser. First photo via JustJared.

HOBBIT: Last Day of Shooting PJ Blogging All Day!

Tim here, and it looks like today is the last day of shooting on The Hobbit films. This information comes from Peter Jackson's Facebook Page, and as a surprise treat Peter Jackson has promised to blog from the set all day! He started off with a picture (left) from his iPad and a note. Below is his first blog note:

Our last day of shooting.

Ever since starting these blogs, there's been something I thought I'd like to try one day (as well as answering the other 19 questions I owe you!) - blogging throughout a shoot day in real time. Try to give you all a feeling for what we deal with on an average day.

Today is not exactly "average", given it's our last day of shooting, but if I don't do it today, I never will!

So here goes ... I'll try to update as much as I can during the day. At least with a quick photo. Text will depend a little on how busy it gets.

Right now, it's just gone 6.30am here in Wellington. I'm in bed, about to get up! I didn't get much sleep - too stressed about how we're going to get through everything we need to shoot. I kept running it over in my mind.

We're shooting scenes for Film 3 today. Stuff you will see in Dec 2014, so I'm going to try and make this honest, but spoiler free.

I've been lying here in pitch darkness, watching fight rehearsals over and over again. Our stunt co-ordinatior, Glen Boswell, worked with the actors last weekend, designing some climatic battle moments. He filmed them, and I have them on my iPad, in an application we wrote called "WingNut TV". It's a program that allows a huge amount of material to be catalog used and updated each day over the Internet. It contains all our dailies, edited films, previs, music, and much more. I'm looking at the fights, figuring out the angles I'll need to film them today. A huge amount to do, and it needs to get done.

Our shoot day starts at 8.30am, and is supposed to finish at 7.30pm. I suspect we'll be working late. Whenever we work a long day, I joke with the crew that I'm just softening them up for when Jim Cameron shows up in Wellington to shoot Avatar 2 and 3. Well ... It's not really a joke.

I'll try and update often today.

Make sure to check in regularly to see what more he posts! We'll post a recap when he finishes all his posts. Also, don't forget to scroll down to see the pic he posted yesterday of him with the early release model of the next generation RED camera... "The Dragon"

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hits IMAX 3D and RealD 3D theaters December 13^th, 2013, and The Hobbit: There and Back Again hits IMAX 3D and RealD 3D theaters December 17^th, 2014.