“Red Bull Rampage: The Evolution” 3D Returns to 3Net

Sep 21, 2011 1 Comment by Jonathan Tustain

Hi-Ground Media’s free-ride mounting bike show for Red Bull Media House, Red Bull Rampage: The Evolution 3D, will return to 3Net this October after a successful first series.

Red Bull High Ground Red Bull Rampage: The Evolution 3D Returns to 3Net

Red Bull Rampage: The Evolution 3D captures the excitement and adventure of the top riders from around the world as they compete at the world’s most extreme free-style mountain biking event called Red Bull: Rampage.

“It had all the ingredients we are suited to capture,” says Gregg Katano Co-Founder of Hi-Ground Media. “Fearless free-ride mountain bikers navigating down a rugged 1500’ virtually vertical landscape merging speed, style, and agility together. The scenery of the Utah Mountains and surrounding areas added to the depth and made it optimal for 3D.”

“We shot with multiple SI2K 3D camera set ups strategically placed throughout the site to best capture the essence of jaw-dropping event. We also included an additional high-speed camera in conjunction with Element Technica’s Pulsar rig,” explains Co-Producer, Wayne Miller. “The compact, easily movable, package was perfect for the rugged, rocky terrain we knew we would be encountering. It also proved to be robust enough to be set-up and precisely aligned in the short period of time we had.”

The production crew worked to a tight five day schedule to capture all the footage including the practice, qualification and the competition itself. After completing production, the rushes were immediately taken back to the Hi-Ground base in Culver City for the offline edit, graphic design and animation, technical optimisation, color correction and final convergence.

“When we returned to Hi-Ground we had a pretty good idea of the story we wanted to tell, but we always know going in that it could be ultimately influenced by the quality of the 3D we captured,” adds Hi-Ground Co-Founder Ajay Relan. “Sometimes the difficulty when working in 3D is that ‘ideal moments’ could potentially be omitted due to less than ideal 3D framing or technical conditions of the shot,” Katano continues.

“There is a huge difference between 3D and 2D,” Katano adds. “It’s all about margin of error. It is extremely small in 3D and the slightest miscalculation can be devastating to a shot, or worse, the entire project. The old adage ‘we’ll fix it in post’ doesn’t apply here. Though there is becoming more latitude in 3D post with each new geometry and color software that comes out, the actual ‘fixing’ of poorly shot 3D is very minimal or even non-existent.”