Kinetta -- Almost a religion
I was invited to attended a special get-together last night during NAB where Jeff and Martin were showing off the Kinetta in its current state to a bunch of their fellow filmmaking friends. I have to say right up front that this duo is a great think-tank. From that session I can discuss a little of where they are in the project. But I can't get terribly descriptive, mostly because not all the details have been fully decided yet. The real feel for where this is going is not captured with a mess of statistics to be compared with what other manufacturers are offering. Kinetta doesn't fit into the rat race. It's a totally different feel, driven by a different force. With Kinetta, the camera will evolve to its peak when it's ready, and not just because the world is clammoring for it. Money is not a driving factor for Jeff or Martin, but making the perfect gift to the general filmmaking community is.
The project is at a stage of further brainstorming as Jeff is now "putting out the feelers" a bit more. So basically it will be a while until it hits the market... in my opinion at least two years. Only one prototype unit has been made at this point with the lens and a Rockwell CMOS imager having been tested. Much more tweaking will be required for things to really progress. And it may never end up really being a truly mass-produced camera. Instead it could be like Ferrari, with each unit being hand-built to perfection. And never rushed.
Pricing is still being discussed. Also some work with the RAID-3 hard drive array being used in the magazine. (It consists of twelve little 1.8 inch 40-gig iPod drives ganged up together, ultimately offering 420 gigs of storage.)
Anyway, after getting all the right combination of features together, it will end up being the perfect digital Cine cam for someone who has a total background in film, and never wants to really leave it.
An important underlying theme woven into the project is versatility. The sheer fact that you can change out sensors is truly amazing. Nobody is doing that. This is a tinkerer's dream. And most filmmakers do a fair bit of tinkering with their equipment to get the right effect. The idea is to allow full creativity and not get bogged down with detail in the process.
Another interesting thing that surfaced during last night's discussion is the real reason that Jeff and Martin started this whole project. It's not for money. Sure, that would be nice, but the real motivating force is that they are taking something they love and trying to make a better digital extension of it. They admit that the result will never replace 35mm film. But they're trying to come as close as they can with an upgradeable and very modular technology. They both have an absolute passion for filmmaking, which is seen in the kind of friends they have in life. If it's not about film, they don't talk about it.
So the bottom line is that although there is still a substantial amount of detail to work out with the camera, it will end up being revolutionary on one scale or another. Perhaps only ever amongst a few thousand close friends. More likely with a wider and very eager filmmaking audience.
I could see a large manufacturer eventually attempting to buy into this whole idea. Perhaps coming to Jeff and Martin saying, "Okay, I like what you've done, so spend whatever you want, and let's take this to the next level and mass-produce it." But part of me would never want that to happen, either. For me Kinetta can be summed up as being simply a love of film, and that can't be embodied in just one specific camera. It's a community of people with ideas, each contributing to a greater whole. Kinetta is really the infrastructure to see it all through.
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