June 7th, 2020—
It was a calm evening. We had just wrapped up some meetings and Justin was checking his email. He looked over at me excitedly and asked. “You want to try and get a limited edition colored RED Komodo?” He went on to explain that Jared the owner of RED Digital Cinema was going to be selling a limited number of colored beta Komodo units. The catch was it was first come first serve. We had to be quick on the draw if we wanted one. So, Justin set up an elaborate scheme that would alert him when Jared posted on any of his social medias or sent out an email.
Now you might be asking yourself, what is a RED Komodo? To start off, RED digital cinema produces high end cinema cameras. We already own a RED Gemini 5K camera that we use as our main camera. The RED Komodo is a compact cinema camera announced by RED in early 2019. And while many people saw it as a flawed camera because of the lack of features. We saw a compact global shutter camera that shoots beautiful footage and would be a perfect compliment to our larger main RED camera. We knew we wanted to buy one and the thought of having a limited edition version of the camera was even more exciting. Now back to the story…
Over the next few days we missed the first two colors Yellow and Orange. Then we missed on Baby Blue and we thought all was lost until we got the next update from Jared. He announced that he was so overwhelmed by the desire for the beta Komodos that he would personally guarantee everyone who had tried for a colored Komodo the chance to buy a White Storm Trooper Komodo. Safe to say Christmas had come early for us all! Now we just had to await the delivery of our newest baby.
July 31st, 2020—
We all waited with bated breath. The delivery had been dropped off at Justin’s and he just pulled into the office parking lot. As we got ready to meet this addition to our family so many thoughts raced through my head. What would we name it? Would it adjust well to it’s new home? Would it be happy? Justin brought in the box and we suited up. The moment was everything I had dreamed of as we held the Komodo for the first time. Sure it was small but we knew it would have a big place in our hearts. And much to all our surprise we found this was only the 163rd Komodo to roll off the line. After a quick photo op we had to decide on a name. We settled on ST-163— a nod to Stormtroopers everywhere.
Fast forward to today and our little ST-163 is really growing in to it’s own. We are going to be using it regularly on shoots and we’re so happy to call it ours!