Red Rental Revenue

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Doc Holliday

Member
I am getting this camera because it haunts me in the night, but most of my income comes from editing (I do both editing and video). Will there be any money to be made from renting the camera out? Do people kill cameras when they rent them? Will I have to create a "camera package" in order to rent it out (lenses of all sorts/cages/drives and whatnot)? Are there other Red-Maniacs in Atlanta who know if this is viable in the local market?

Side note: Professionals still use Beta SP everyday. That makes me chuckle. Good to be livin' in the 20th century.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Will there be any money to be made from renting the camera out?
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Yes, but especially if you go along as DIT/camera tech.

Do people kill cameras when they rent them?
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Absolutely. But not if you go along as DIT/camera tech. :thumbsup:

Will I have to create a "camera package" in order to rent it out (lenses of all sorts/cages/drives and whatnot)?
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Yep. You'll at least need a solid package of camera/lens/power/tripod/etc.
 
Good points Barry.. the good thing with RED is that the support equipment is standardized.. it will work with ARRI rods, CHroz Matteboxes, Any PL Lens, etc.. so for the expensive stuff whoever is renting from you can pick up from a normal rental house.. until you can afford to buy a box of primes and add them to your rental kit.
 
I'm in the same boat as Doc Holliday. I make 95% of my income through editing a TV show, I live near Atlanta, and I'm wondering what the market will be for the Red camera. And yes, I have reserved one - wondered if I was crazy after I did. I will probably have to rent it out to justify the cost, but mostly I bought it for shooting my own projects. Crazy? Maybe.
 
Me too! Editor and doing own projects and wanting to rent out! We should start some information exchange. I also think it is no so strange to buy a RED cam as an editor now, especially if you want to move on to higher quality stuff. I notice there is still a huge gap between working for video and working for film. My hope is that knowing how to work with RED footage and showing results will get me closer to editing a feature. Besides that it will be a real joy to work with super quality footage.
 
Well, I'm in Australia but I too plan on hiring out the camera as a package with myself as camera op (or at the very least on site camera tech). I plan on hiring out the lenses initially as I won't have the money to buy any until I have made some with the camera (will be putting a deposit down for the Red Zoom). Will buy a good tripod, a couple of Red Drives, battery kit (looks like IDX or Anton Bauer ones will work just fine) and probably Red Rail, then hire the lot plus myself out as a package. Gives me income AND experience AND networking for when I direct my own films.

Oh and I also plan on having partial or complete post workflow as well for additional cost. The partial will be basic encoding via RedCine to the production's preferred format, on a hard drive they supply. Full workflow will be encoding plus post production elements like colour grading, editing suite hire etc. This will come in stages as I get the money/revenue to put it all in place. I do work in computers right now, so building the hardware isn't a problem as I can do it at cost. Hell, I just built myself a Core 2 Duo system with 1.2TB of hard drive space and an eSATA port to ingest footage and push it back out to a normal hard drive.

I also plan to do all this from a hired out small warehouse which I can paint a nice greenscreen colour downstairs and have a top level with all the equipment and computer gear. Business loan for initial financing, hopefully with a small list of clients ready to go upon arrival of the camera. Will probably do an initial discounted rental price to get a queue ready. Don't forget business/equipment/liability insurance as well to round it all off!

Hope that gives people some idea.
 
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at some point start to mention the RED to your editing clients ...
let them know that yours will be up for rental ... IMO rent to persons you know somewhat vs. strangers ... if you can only afford the body you might check in with local camera rental houses to see what kind of package you can work out with them ( you rent RED to persons and the lens & accessories come from rental house ) = camera package ...

ALSO you might be able to work out a agreement/deal with a camera rental house to rent out your RED when you're not using it.
 
Are you an editor or a rental house? At this point, why not get a good lighting package to rent out? My Dedolights/Kinos/Arris have made me much more income compared to my DVX... and they don't depreciate: they will be just as usable 20 years from now as they are now. The trick is: I'm a DP and finding work for my kit is easy. I've had them out on just about everything I've been hired to shoot. That's the key: Things that I've been hired to shoot. I'm not out pounding on doors looking for rental clients.

Cameras are a different beast. Right now I won't get one (well... a "real" camera. I have a DVX). My clients shoot on SP, DvCam, DigiBeta, DVX, DVC-Pro and now DVC-ProHD EX. I don't want to stick all my money into one of the formats hoping for it to pay off itself. I would lose other clients' work because I'd be just trying to get that $60,000 camera package work.

And yes, you need a full package: for narrative, a good set of primes ($50K used). for ENG, a good HD zoom (not available for RED yet). Tripod new is $8K. Batteries are about $800 each. HD monitor for the director is in the thousands. Plus, you need the manditory camera add-ons: viewfinder, harddrive. Clients want one-stop shopping for camera. They will get camera from one place and g&e from another... but they really don't want to get the camera body from one place and sticks/monitor from a different camera rental house.

It's a whole can of worms if you are an editor. If you are a shooter exclusively it could be a better move. I will look at what kind of shooting market there is for that camera when its out... and then I will get it when I need it. Don't just get it because its cool.
 
all you guys wanting to rent stuff.. ive got a big surprise to make your life alot easier coming (hopefully) tonight.
 
At the current price don't you think all the major rental houses are going to stock up on RED? Thus making it pretty impossible for the "little guy" to rent out his precious RED camera to help paying for it? That's my biggest concern, really. I'd reserve a RED in an instant if I knew I'd be able to rent it out from day one and use the rental money to pay for it.
 
tlorenzo said:
At the current price don't you think all the major rental houses are going to stock up on RED? Thus making it pretty impossible for the "little guy" to rent out his precious RED camera to help paying for it? That's my biggest concern, really. I'd reserve a RED in an instant if I knew I'd be able to rent it out from day one and use the rental money to pay for it.
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Couldn't agree more. SDX-900's are renting for $400 a day now. For a package! I get $300/day for my DVX from one client when I bring it out. Now... why would I drop $50,000 building an SDX package ($17,000 body, $2000 viewfinder, $23000 lens, sticks, batts, monitor...) when it only nets a bit more than my $5000 DVX package?

Rental houses work off of quantity... they are Costco. Producers can always get a better deal from there compared to the little guys. It will be the same thing with Red.
 
My experiences have shown that if the camera and format are in demand you can always find someone to rent to. Even in Los Angeles, I sometimes have a hard time finding cameras I want to rent because they are often out for extended periods - its one of the contributing factors why I buy most of my own camera packages now.

There are always people who abuse rental equipment - I've seen some camera's and lenses brutalized upon return to BandPro - thus I think its important that either 1) the rental houses have adequately trained techs to work on and repair the cameras or 2) Red has a very supportive repair center or network of repair centers that is quick in turn-around and good with their communication.
 
I never rent out my high-end equipment to other shooters, unless I know them well, I'm convinced they will take as good of care of my stuff as I do, and even then I require them to give me a copy of their all-risk insurance policy. It's usually better business for me to only have my top-line equipment on sets that I'm also an above the line or below the line worker.

Interested to see what you're up to Jarred!

Gibby
RED #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.ocm
 
I own an SDX-900 and pull $600 per day for an simple B-Roll package and $800 per day for a package with audio.

Do not plan on renting out a RED without going along. That's my opinion. My personal guess is that I will be renting a RED package for around $900 per day to start. Please remember that while we all love the camera, it's not going to be "user friendly". By this I mean there will be so many damn choices as to how to shoot it, and what you want from it, that you will need to be there in order to keep things moving along.

Red will not be a very cheap rental. While the body may not be that expensive, the amount of stuff that will end up on it will be a pretty penny. Another point is that a lot of your clients are going to want HD Decks on set as back ups.. We may be ready to dump tape, but I do not expect others to be as quick.

One last thing: RED is going to be amazing at ANY resolution. Expect some SD clients to request a final master on MiniDV.. Don't laugh, just wait and seel

Jay
 
For all those interested in renting RED -
I'm also editing in LA right now, and have a red reserved.
I'm starting a website for RED rentals...I'm going to be putting it together in the coming months, got a domain so far...
I'm thinking if we all band together, we could use one page as a hub, so everybody eventually hears about "if you want to rent a red, go to this page - it has individuals from all over the country". We can create a calendar to show who has a camera available when, and we could use a standard rate for rentals, so people know what they're letting themselves in for.
Anyone who's interested can PM me - we could work something out together.
 
geo said:
Couldn't agree more. SDX-900's are renting for $400 a day now. For a package! I get $300/day for my DVX from one client when I bring it out. Now... why would I drop $50,000 building an SDX package ($17,000 body, $2000 viewfinder, $23000 lens, sticks, batts, monitor...) when it only nets a bit more than my $5000 DVX package?

Rental houses work off of quantity... they are Costco. Producers can always get a better deal from there compared to the little guys. It will be the same thing with Red.
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Where are you finding SDX's for $400 a day in LA? I haven't seen a package (glass, finder, bricks, etc) for under $550. I would love to know as this is my favorite SD camera by a good margin. Care to share? (please!)

As for renting the RED, I am sure it will be at a bit of a premium at first, but if it becomes popular and enough of them are in the market place, it will fall in line, should be able to get around what a F900 or Varicam gets.
 
I was at a seminar by Band Pro here in Germany. Asked the guy what he thinks about the Red.
He said that if the Red delivers (and he has a reservation since NAB) , it will be the death of the rental houses as we know them.

Jochen
 
Josch said:
I was at a seminar by Band Pro here in Germany. Asked the guy what he thinks about the Red.
He said that if the Red delivers (and he has a reservation since NAB) , it will be the death of the rental houses as we know them.

Jochen
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As exciting as the Red is, I can't imagine that it will over turn the entire rental industry. It takes a lot more than a camera or even a camera and a few really cool pieces of glass to shot a film. The rental houses make money on a lot of items and I don't see any reason that they wouldn't add Red to their list of items that they offer.
 
As for renting the RED, I am sure it will be at a bit of a premium at first, but if it becomes popular and enough of them are in the market place, it will fall in line, should be able to get around what a F900 or Varicam gets.
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Just curious, why should a RED cost as much to rent as a Varicam or F900 when it costs the end-user 1/3 to 1/5th the price of the camera body alone?

Unless you *all* band together and decide that you're not going to rent your RED's for less than $1K per day, somebody's going to purchase one and make a pretty penny renting for half your cost, and forcing your hand to reduce your price if you want to see your package working the streets. IMHO, if you're looking for appropriate rental rates, you need to be looking at the likes of SDX-900, XDCAM-HD, etc. packages and see where those prices are landing.

At $1K per day there's no incentive for rentals . . . a couple jobs would pay for a camera itself, which is kind of ironic since that's been the marketing message from RED, that it's such a great camera not only because of the specs, but because it's so 'cheap' compared to other high-end HD cameras that you could 'purchase it after a couple jobs'.

Frankly, if you're taking out a load for the camera (or leasing), you're looking at $500-700 per month for 3 years depending on how much you spent on accessories. If you decide to rent the camera for $1K per day that means per day you're paying for almost two months at a time. IMHO, that's way too high a rate to sustain . . . you may get that out the outset if you one of the first reservationists, but once the cameras start flowing out the door, you're not going to be able to sustain that, especially once the larger shops get them, or savvy users figure out that there's money to be had undercutting people milking their rental rates.

Again, I simply can't see how one can jusify a $35K package of RED camera, RED lens, and sticks renting for the same price as a $100K+ package of Sony F900, or Panasonic Varicam with a decent $30K HD zoom lens.
 
Jason,

My goal as an owner operator is not to find a cheap item to rent a customer each day.. If it's not going to bring in money to feed family, I would not be interested in it. As for Renting RED out by itself, I would not know as I have no intention of letting my new born RED out of my sight.. What I can tell you is that while the camera may sell for not to much, my time will always be worth somthing.

For the record, I do not see the RED body renting for $1000.00 per day. More like $750-$850.00 A package (Body, sticks, tripod, battery,) would most likely be around $50 more..

BUT

What lens? What kind of capture device? If the client is supplying their own, all can stay cheap.. But if I do... That's another story.

This is going to be a tricky area in the world of RED.. While RED may do a fine job of makeing it's own items inexpensive, it is surrounded by the world of digital cinema where things are as expensive as they can get.

As I said earlier, what if they want an HD Deck on set? Sony's is $1,250 and Panasonic's is $600

Then there are those things extra to a package that RED will need:
Mattebox ($40)
Focus puller ($35)
Filters ($5 each)

Do you need an audio package? ($175)

All too often I come across clients who are looking for inexpensive first, and then professional quality all the way after.. I am fortunate that in my line of work I am able to avoid these people and let the larger rental houses work with them.. The clients that find me are the ones that must have a sellable, excellent product the first time, and they do not want to waste their time thinking about it.. They pay me to do that.

No Camera will be the death of the rental houses. That's because rental houses know what we know, most of their profit is made from everything AROUND the camera, not the camera itself.

I don't care if it's a DVX SDX HVX or IOU camera. They have ALL made beautiful pictures under the care of a DP who knew how to light for them.

As I look at my package, I don't worry about RED'S Picture.. I am excited about the new lighting possibilities that come with it.

You may all hate me for this, but starting out I plan to keep RED as an SD image... 480p all the way baby. Why? Perhaps cause I own an SDX-900 and we know that side by side, you can barely tell us from a Varicam. I am buying the RED so that I can GROW. I will not become an HD shooter overnight, and the way to make the camera profitable it to make sure that my clients can do whatever they want, HD or not.

Jay
 
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