Released only one week ago, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's video for Can't Hold Us has already racked up a staggering 6 million views. We spoke with Ryan Lewis about shooting on RED.

What does using a RED EPIC or SCARLET allow you to do that other cameras haven't?

"The EPIC has so many features that many other cameras don't: 5K resolution, 120 frames per second beautiful slow motion, lightweight body and the ability to match up with a wide array of lenses. From shooting full-on music videos to capturing the highest quality of footage at live concerts, it's been a dream come true camera for us. The SCARLET was our first introduction to RED, and as a much more affordable camera body it served our needs for documentary/tour footage on The Heist World Tour. For the price, a SCARLET gives you almost identical features to the EPIC shooting at 24 frames a second. For music video performance, it's a useful camera as well."
"Prior to shooting on RED, I shot many music videos on digital SLRs. Investing in a RED setup first and foremost made music videos feel much more like films. The aesthetic of an SLR within music videos is now very common to a viewers eye. It's a particular look that works for some video concepts but wasn't satisfying some of the more extensive videos I wanted to make ("Thrift Shop," "Same Love," et cetera). Switching to RED I found a much larger range of color and shadows/highlights, crispier resolution, no more issues with jello'y pixels from a slow sensor, access to much higher quality lenses, et cetera. The benefits were endless."

How does owning a RED give you an advantage with creating content?

"What RED has done is allowed filmmakers to produce feature-quality content through a camera body not much larger than a digital SLR. The advantages that come out of that are being able to now take a much nicer camera in an environments where that used to be a challenge -- on stage at a show, on a boat shooting in ocean waves, steadicam'd in a van shooting another car. You get the benefits that have come from the wave of SLR videos (lightweight camera production) with much more impressive results."

How did you use the cameras differently in this new video compared to Thrift Shop?

"The new video for Can't Hold Us was absolutely nothing like Thrift Shop. It was shot in 3 countries, over 10 shooting locations and a 16 day shoot. It called for an immense amount of traveling, shooting in challenging conditions and needing a camera that was going to be reliable in all of those situations. The EPIC and SCARLET did phenomenally. We were in the desert heat and way up in the mountains in the cold and didn't have a single issue operating the cameras and getting the footage we needed, when we needed it."
"The goal of Can't Hold Us was to make a rap video that meets Planet Earth. Something that hadn't really been done before. A visual showcase of taking The Heist around the world, in all climates and different cultures. We were grateful to be capturing it through a RED."

Thanks to Ryan for speaking with us about his RED experience. Catch Macklemore and Ryan Lewis on tour now.