News concerning the production of season 18 has been revealed through Twitter messaging and contacts to New Zealand. First, the Stunt Guild of New Zealand revealed through email to Rangerboard member RangerWisdom that filming will start next month. Mark Harris Stunt Productions LTD will be doing the stunts for this season.
A second bit of production news has bigger effects on this season and others to come. One of the cameramen in New Zealand has revealed that this season of Power Rangers will be shot with the famous RED digital cameras used for such TV shows and as TNT’s The Cleaner, Southland and Leverage, the later seasons NBC’s ER and movies such as Gamer, Angels and Demons, and the Academy Award nominated District 9. This is important to know for two reasons.
1. The RED series of cameras are known capturing footage at resolutions of 4,096 x 2,304 pixels, four times the resolution of 1080p HDTV (1920 x 1080). The raw footage produced by the cameras would then be scaled down to HD. That’s right, you heard me correctly. Power Rangers in HD. The Blu-ray disc buzz words used by Saban and Marvista in the past couple of months will soon be come reality. After three years of the horrid cropping, squashing and other general neglect during the Disney years, Power Rangers will air on Nickelodeon’s HD feed in widescreen format. And…
2. Super Sentai has also started using RED cameras, starting last year with Shinkenger. For the first time, PR and Sentai will be using the same equipment to film. The footage switch, barring directorial and special effects differences, will be a little bit more seamless thanks to the new technology. Not to mention each of the RED cameras alone (without viewfinders, mounts or lenses) cost $17,500. Kinda makes you shudder wondering what would have happened if Disney had continued with the SD video tape used for Dino Thunder through R.P.M. And the old days back when Saban had to use retail VHS copies of Zyuranger for Mighty Morphin.
Next years’ PR is set to be a groundbreaking one with a new cast, a new network, a new resources and a whole new look. Now if we only had a name.