Arri's New Camera

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What I find humorous here is that we're basically talking in circles. Pretty much every one of Sam's examples show how an ARRI camera is not preferable for his type of work. But that doesn't mean it isn't preferable for someone else's. When faced with the "What Would Deakins Do?" question, Sam tosses this off as the high rollers can do whatever they want but it doesn't apply to him. Fair enough, they are different markets as I have repeatedly said. But it's not like ARRI only caters to 5 people shooting the most elite productions. In fact there is a vast industry of feature films, network television series, major productions for streamers and pay channels, large commercials, and so on. For these jobs having an extra crew person or two in the camera department is not a big deal and is in fact expected as the type of work is also expected to be completed in a certain style. And for those types of crews working on those types of productions the ARRI level of camera is still far better suited. I would note that these jobs are fully open to bringing in a small camera on a gimbal or other specialty device for a given scene or shot because they have the freedom to do so if it will yield the desired result. But they will not tie one hand behind their backs and force themselves to use a camera less suited to their needs day in and out simply because they do not wish to pay ARRI prices.

Yes the "not ARRI" market is bigger. But you appear to underestimate the size of the higher level market. Also, I happen to be privy to the sales numbers for many different camera models from different manufacturers. ARRI does not sell as many cameras as Canon, but it doesn't need to. It does just fine, thank you.
 
Mitch Gross said:
What I find humorous here is that we're basically talking in circles. Pretty much every one of Sam's examples show how an ARRI camera is not preferable for his type of work. But that doesn't mean it isn't preferable for someone else's. When faced with the "What Would Deakins Do?" question, Sam tosses this off as the high rollers can do whatever they want but it doesn't apply to him. Fair enough, they are different markets as I have repeatedly said. But it's not like ARRI only caters to 5 people shooting the most elite productions. In fact there is a vast industry of feature films, network television series, major productions for streamers and pay channels, large commercials, and so on. For these jobs having an extra crew person or two in the camera department is not a big deal and is in fact expected as the type of work is also expected to be completed in a certain style. And for those types of crews working on those types of productions the ARRI level of camera is still far better suited. I would note that these jobs are fully open to bringing in a small camera on a gimbal or other specialty device for a given scene or shot because they have the freedom to do so if it will yield the desired result. But they will not tie one hand behind their backs and force themselves to use a camera less suited to their needs day in and out simply because they do not wish to pay ARRI prices.

Yes the "not ARRI" market is bigger. But you appear to underestimate the size of the higher level market. Also, I happen to be privy to the sales numbers for many different camera models from different manufacturers ARRI does not sell as many cameras as Canon, but it doesn't need to. It does just fine, thank you.
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I agree to a circularity. What Im not seeing you 'getting' is my theory that canon et al can have loss leaders with thier flagships that are just promotional and testing the next gen tech. There is a risk that one of these beat an Alexa and not on price.

When I said Arri should be bust that was partly demonstrating that is it were a R+D numbers game etc they would be.. but the reality is different from that :)

As for the size of the industry yep I get you, when I operated on a small tv show we had 5 cn17s (on FS7) on the go - I was b camera on the 1st unit, but there were also 2nd and 3rd units spooling arouund getting other elements. - that is one tiny show no one has heard of using a chunk of glass. (and other bits of course) Most brits have never seen a Cn17, let alone 5 on the desk in the morning

Cars wise - I know nothing - follow nothing - but have a general concept that maybe the F1 cars are made not by specialist brands, but by Suzuki and the like who use them as testbeds for tech that will work into the family car.
 
Mitch Gross said:
This type of comparison has been true for some time. They are still different markets with different needs and the crossover will remain relatively marginal.
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The gap between the $10,000 C300 MKII and Alexa was filled, by and large, by the various Red models. And, as SMM mentioned above and others many times prior, FS-7 became very popular at the lower end of that gap. To that extent, C500 MKII and FX-9 are a threat to the bottom-to-middle Red lineup rather than LF's.

But, much the original C300 in the old HD days, FS-7 did take a major bite out of that portion of the market. A 4K s35 ARRI would compete at the top of that niche.
 
morgan_moore said:
I agree to a circularity. What Im not seeing you 'getting' is my theory that canon et al can have loss leaders with thier flagships that are just promotional and testing the next gen tech. There is a risk that one of these beat an Alexa and not on price.

When I said Arri should be bust that was partly demonstrating that is it were a R+D numbers game etc they would be.. but the reality is different from that :)

As for the size of the industry yep I get you, when I operated on a small tv show we had 5 cn17s (on FS7) on the go - I was b camera on the 1st unit, but there were also 2nd and 3rd units spooling arouund getting other elements. - that is one tiny show no one has heard of using a chunk of glass. (and other bits of course) Most brits have never seen a Cn17, let alone 5 on the desk in the morning

Cars wise - I know nothing - follow nothing - but have a general concept that maybe the F1 cars are made not by specialist brands, but by Suzuki and the like who use them as testbeds for tech that will work into the family car.
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I do get it and I can only post so much as I am actually under various nondisclosures and giving too much info would not be proper. But let me leave you with this: Long ago an engineer told me that the biggest fallacy in technology is the concept of Research & Development. There is no R, only D. Every project is moving forward intended to be a production product.

I can tell you that there was at least one major camera release in the last few years that the manufacturer knew was going to be an absolute dud. It was released because the project was so far along in development and the company didn't have anything else in the pipeline ready, so it pushed it out to show that it was making a new product for that particular part of the market. All this even though they knew no one would buy it. And they were right. But this is ridiculously rare -- everything else is designed to sell and there are forecasts for how many at what price over what timeframe. It's how they decide what to make or not.
 
Mitch Gross said:
I can tell you that there was at least one major camera release in the last few years that the manufacturer knew was going to be an absolute dud. It was released because the project was so far along in development and the company didn't have anything else in the pipeline ready, so it pushed it out to show that it was making a new product for that particular part of the market. All this even though they knew no one would buy it. And they were right. But this is ridiculously rare -- everything else is designed to sell and there are forecasts for how many at what price over what timeframe. It's how they decide what to make or not.
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Mitch, if someone had to count how many of these mystery cameras are in the wild, (C)ould they see sever(A)l thousa(N)d or w(O)uld they o(N)ly see seven hundred (C700) of them?
 
rob norton said:
Mitch, if someone had to count how many of these mystery cameras are in the wild, (C)ould they see sever(A)l thousa(N)d or w(O)uld they o(N)ly see seven hundred (C700) of them?
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The Panasonic Varicam didn't seem to sell very well in relation to the amount it must have cost to develop and not research. I know it was used on a few big shows, but hardly any owner operators bought them and the amount of shows and commercials or high end work seemed that they must have really not sold that many. Yeah, I imagine Canon sold even less C700s.

Now compare to Red and Arri, with the Mini and Amiras being popular owner/op cameras and used on big productions, the XTs being used on tons of movies and shows, and the Reds being popular owner/op cameras, and previously used a lot on big productions, less so now, but still somewhat.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
The Panasonic Varicam didn't seem to sell very well in relation to the amount it must have cost to develop and not research. I know it was used on a few big shows, but hardly any owner operators bought them and the amount of shows and commercials or high end work seemed that they must have really not sold that many. Yeah, I imagine Canon sold even less C700s.

Now compare to Red and Arri, with the Mini and Amiras being popular owner/op cameras and used on big productions, the XTs being used on tons of movies and shows, and the Reds being popular owner/op cameras, and previously used a lot on big productions, less so now, but still somewhat.
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I know it's apples and oranges, but I'd like to know how many original VariCams were sold, P2 Vari's sold, V35's/Pure's sold and LT's sold. My money is the original outsold the V35 by orders of magnitude.
 
I didn't get to take pictures when I visited the set (if I had, undoubtedly I would have been roasted alive in the depths of the Slor), but I went back later to get these location pix. '84.

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