For people that cancel, can others 'buy' their reservation?

R

razerfish

Member
I imagine at least 50% won't be able to take delivery of the camera when it's ready. Can other's take their spot? I'm not ready to make a reservation now, but don't like the idea of not being able to reserve one until 2nd quarter or late 1st quarter of 07, either.

What happens to all those cancellations?
 
If someone cancels, everyone else just moves up one spot in the queue. Surely that's the best thing to do. Otherwise you've got a black market in RED-reservations which doesn't seem in the general spirit of things here. It may be hard to wait until late 06 or 2007, but lots of people will be in that boat too. If you have to shoot sooner, I assume the camera would be available on the rental market.
 
Reservations are non-transferrable. Cancelled reservation numbers will be used for demos and put into the service group.

Jim
 
I had assumed that the reservation #s were just "your place in line" ticket numbers, but from this I understand that each reservation is fixed to specific camera hardware.

I have worked for a few electronics companies and I can't imagine them planned future manufacturing to match that strictly with advance orders; this is certainly another way in which Red is different from the rest!
 
Geez, if you have something like 50% of the reservation holders not following through (I don't know the true percentage, but there's not way 100% of the people can come up with $16500 plus the money for options), then why not let people come in and take those reservations. Otherwise you've built way too many.

Anyway, I'll wait, then, until I see more footage.
 
i don't think you will see a 50% cancel rate or 50% can't come up with $$.
i have no problem with cancelled REDs going into demo's or "service group" ?
i would think that many rental houses could not reserve enough camera's - 5 camera's just is not enough for rental houses ... i think some of the cancelled reservations should go to them - which put's more REDs in use/available to all ...
 
then why not let people come in and take those reservations. Otherwise you've built way too many.
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Razerfish, I see it as a strong committment to customer service and to those of us in the field. If a problem should arise the cameras in the service group will be there as our safety net. There are many stabilizing facets to this train of thought IMHO.
 
I think the Red will have a high reservation to purchase ratio (okay, I don't the official name of the ratio, if there is one), but there will no doubt be a high degree of cancellations because this camera is being aimed at a lot of indie folks that can't really come up with that kinda cash in a hurry. There's a lot of wishful thinking, hoping against hope. And to be able to come up with the real costs --- what, about $35K - $40K for the red with a lense package, and other necessary pieces of equipment is just too far out of reach for a good deal of folks around here. Just won't happen. So that's a lot of cameras being built that won't find homes with the original reservation holders. Maybe Jim's already figured a ratio out and is building to that number instead of to the numbers of reservation holders.

It will be interesting to see how many people actually pony up $17K plus when they get the phone call telling them the camera's ready, now pay up. I think 80% retention would be a miracle.
 
razerfish said:
…there will no doubt be a high degree of cancellations because this camera is being aimed at a lot of indie folks that can't really come up with that kinda cash in a hurry.
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RED One just aimed a “a lot of indie folks”? I am sure the reservation list also includes many highly-experienced professionals from various portions of the cinema and television industry. I’ll simply use this passage from my published (April 2006) interview with Jim Jannard to disprove your statement:

Gibby – “Target markets? Obviously this camera, by its design and accessories, and what’s been said about it, it can be used for the digital cinema market and the ENG market. It can be used for everything from a feature film, an indie film, a commercial, a music video, stock footage, high-definition television, you could do news gathering if you needed to – so address the latitude of target markets, what was your thinking?”

Jannard – “You just named it. You did it perfect! I’m not sure I could add much to that, except to say the idea is to create a camera that is inclusive.”

razerfish said:
There's a lot of wishful thinking, hoping against hope. And to be able to come up with the real costs --- what, about $35K - $40K for the red with a lense package, and other necessary pieces of equipment is just too far out of reach for a good deal of folks around here.
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Barebones Starter kit:

RED One, 2 batteries, RED Drive, Nikon mount, Nikon prime (or zoom), inexpensive gearless reverse-direction follow focus, basic matte box, filter kit. RED detachable monitor will be 720p, and RED says their focus assist will be real good, so that may suffice for field monitoring on small projects. I'd get an inexpensive screen hood for outdoor use. You can do all that for under $20k if you buy wisely...

Yeah, you can spend tons of money on lenses and accessories if you want/need to, but to imply that $35-40k is necessary to get shooting with RED is simply not true. Even motion media projects bid for between $2.5k and $3.5k per edited minute, so $20k to $30k projects are routine. There is usually at least a 55% profit margin on them, so paying for a $20k basic RED kit is as simple as closing a few medium sized motion media business projects.

Then simply rent what you need on a per-project basis. No rocket science involved…
 
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And just to clarify (because these things keep getting asked), Gibby's mention of a Nikon "adapter" is nothing more than the interchangable Nikon mount for the camera, which if all goes according to plan, will be out at the same time that the camera ships.
 
Exactly...its a mount, not an adapter, and I just changed the word in my post. Earlier in another thread here I clarified that, but I just did a copy/paste from my original for this post without catching the correction.

Thanks Haakon.
 
Hehe, no problem. I know with everything we have to discuss right now, it's easy to mix up terms accidentally. To be honest, you could technically look at a lens mount as an adapter - it's the piece that adapts your lens for use with your camera body, after all - but since there are a lot of 35mm "adapters" on the market at this time, it's good to distinguish between the two so there isn't confusion. The nice thing is that it should be pretty inexpensive to switch between the two mounts; it's nothing more than a piece of metal that needs to be screwed into place.
 
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