Red Competition Running Scared?

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the Studio's don't tell productions what camera to shoot .. go over to sony studios and you'll find non sony camera's on many stages of projects that sony is producing ...
most studio's are more then few arms length away from production = it's sony studio's presents a X production of a Y production in assoc with E productions - the studio may give the OK for a digital production but not what camera they use ...

"And where a release on TV is concerned, a 4K imager is something that may not be needed."

studio's have been shooting 35mm for SD TV for years & years ... AND remember you don't have to shoot 4k .. shoot 720p or 1080p for TV ..

IMO studio's tend to play it safe - they go with what they been using - they know it works !!
it is going to take a free thinker to get hollywoods attention - somebody big not tied to hollywood to break in a RED .. ( could be Robert R , maybe George L will give RED a spin over at ILM ? ) or over time indie's ..
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
You guys are speaking as though you are going to tell the client what to shoot on.
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Well, if we ARE the client, then yes - we're precisely the ones that get to pick what we shoot with! :)

When I'm hired to DP a project, I gladly shoot on whatever equipment they're renting for their show. Film, digital, HD, SD... doesn't matter. I love creating visual pieces of art regardless of the medium or tool I'm using. For my own films, however, I have no client to please but myself. I'm not a rental house, I'm a filmmaker. Given the wealth of options that RED is presenting to us, I honestly don't see the need to personally own any other rig. There is nothing else like it, especially anywhere near this price point. If I was a rental house, no, I wouldn't be putting all of my money in RED - but I don't think the majority of users on this website own/run rental houses.
 
Here's something to ponder......

Well as of late, every shoot I go on whether it be an Arri 235 shoot, or an F900 shoot I get the lovely oppurtunity to speak with some fellow operators/dp's on the grand topic of digital cinema and the RED camera.

Not surprisingly at all, there tends to be a pessimist present on every set. What do they complain of in regards to RED?

Usually archiving, ramblings of garbage like, well I just don't trust a hard drive to store my footage, I love to have a tape, or in some occasions, a roll in my hands.
- Well for starters, film, as does tape, goes through a stage of degredation each time it is re-archived. Once tape or film is digitized it no longer suffers from degredation but it does lose quality in the digitization process. This process in the long run destroys our chances of holding onto a film in its pristine condition.

So the only true answer to archiving is in a digital storage device. So why not shot in an uncompressed digital format in the first place, in this aspect, digital is superior to either film or tape. And if you're that worried about archival, heck, create 20 backups, what are the odds of all of those copies going down the drain afterall?

Then ofcourse it comes down to their opinion on digital being inferior in its look, but that again is all a matter of taste, ask Michael Mann and his Viper...

If you check out sites like cinematography.com, you'll find tons of film fanatics flaming RED's every move.

My opinion on why soo many of these DP's bash RED is fear.....

Fear? Yes, they fear the fact that no longer will their IMDB credits and ties to big production companies allow them to operate on a production using cameras such as the genesis or panavisions, or arri's. You have to remember, as a DP or camera operator, the quality of your work is instantly boosted when you work in such a format, and these cameras allow dp's works to look that much better.

Who wouldn't prefer to shoot on a Genesis vs. an HVX200? They fear the fact that with a RED camera, in the right hands, their work will no longer look so spectacular.

Shooting on the high end cameras hollywood uses is like using a Barret to snipe with instead of a .22. It is truly like belonging to an elite club once you get into the industry and have ties to big productions using these high-end cameras.

Hopefully with the RED, our work, call it indie call it what you want will be displayed in a format and level of quality allowing our work to truly be taken at eye level with that of the great ones in the industry. With the RED camera in my hands, I hopefully will no longer have to feel like less of an artist.
 
Mr. Blonde said:
My opinion on why soo many of these DP's bash RED is fear.....

...You have to remember, as a DP or camera operator, the quality of your work is instantly boosted when you work in such a format, and these cameras allow dp's works to look that much better.
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Spoken like a true outsider. The camera and format doesn't matter nearly as much as talent.

Take a look at Stephen Goldblatt's "Conspiracy" shot on 16mm, a wonderful example that format doesn't really matter. Or Allen Daviau's "Sweet" shot on VX1000.

The camera don't matter nearly as much as what you can do with it. Just because you've got a nicer camera doesn't automatically make the pictures better.

I watched all the HVX, XLH1, HD-100 and Z1U stuff on the web when these cameras started hitting the market. 99% of that stuff on-line is crap. A cheap 4K camera, doesn't change that 99% from being crap, cause turds can only take so much polish.

ARIF
 
ARealIndyFilm,

Crap to who? You? I would agree the talent means more then the camera? Who are you to call others work crap? I applaud anyone who tries.
 
ARealIndyFilm said:
Spoken like a true outsider. The camera and format doesn't matter nearly as much as talent.
ARIF
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It seems you have your blinders on completely my friend.

My point is an unarguable one......

Let's say we have Janusz Kaminski, Steven Spielberg's DP lighting our film....

Janusz, shoots the scene with both an HVX and an Arri S35....

Which one will be taken more seriously, have more latitude, and an overall better look in the end?

Exactly, and that my friend is what RED may allow us to deliver. With the proper lighting and acting...etc. our work will have the potential to look just as good as Kaminski's! And ofcourse, I'm no idiot, if something isn't lit well it isn't lit well and...will look like crap. Talent is talent, and there will be many talented people shooting on the RED!
 
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Mr. Blonde said:
It seems you have your blinders on completely my friend.

My point is an unarguable one......

Let's say we have Janusz Kaminski, Steven Spielberg's DP lighting our film....

Janusz, shoots the scene with both an HVX and an Arri S35....

Which one will be taken more seriously, have more latitude, and an overall better look in the end?

Exactly, and that my friend is what RED may allow us to deliver. With the proper lighting and acting...etc. our work will have the potential to look just as good as Kaminski's! And ofcourse, I'm no idiot, if something isn't lit well it isn't lit well and...will look like crap. Talent is talent, and there will be many talented people shooting on the RED!
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Nice example!
(I just love Kaminski's lightening by the way!)
 
Ahhh Indy....

See? This is what happens when you forget to treat people like they are sitting across from you with a gun in their hands.. Know why people are agrueing with you? It was NOTHING to do with the point you made.. It has to do with that "intelligent" first sentence: "Spoken like a true outsider".. You may not be aware of this, but in some cultures that line could be taken as... "insulting". You could have saved your hands a little work and stopped your post right after typing that little gem, since people won't really pay that much attention, they will be angry and looking for a way to get back at you.

Also, you know the most important aspect of a hired DP aside from talent? He's kind, personable, and easy to get along with... Hint hint

I can only assume you must be quite wealthy to have such an air about you.

Jay
 
Blonde and guys,

I think we're taking the comparison too far. I am of the opinion that once you cross a certain line, good lighting can produce professional results in many cameras. Example: I will put my AJ-SDX900 against RED on a standard television set and hold my own quite nicely.

The difference: RED will not have to be as careful as I will, but I will still make some beautiful stuff.

There are some cameras with narrow range, but I would assume we're not speaking about those. Once you get within 7-10 stops you have something to work with.

My main job is directing.. As a director I got a kick out of what you said:
"Which one will be taken more seriously, have more latitude, and an overall better look in the end? "

My opinion? The one with the best acting, story, and editing. Most audience members don't care about pretty pictures as long as the story is
captivates them, I have seen HUGE movies with out of focus shots and bumped cameras.. Not one audience member remembers them

You know the one element they will NOT accept any mistakes in? SOUND. But that's another forum

Me
 
Personally I don't care if RED will change the world or not. I just think it's pretty awsome to be able to take this thing, slap on some Nikon glass, shoot my picture in 2K and then be able to edit the damn thing at home...

That's the revolution. The big companies won't come falling down. You won't see pictures of Sony executives hurling themselves from Tokyo skyscraper windows..

Red won't come stomping in like Optimus Prime, guns blazing, ripping the competition apart. That's fun idealism, not realism...

But that won't stop me from shooting my 2K movie with nikon glass edited in my garage....Revolution in the hands of the individual..

The world doesn't have to change..
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I think that sums up the situation pretty well i reckon!

Jay made some good points that will probably become factual. Like rental houses who MUST have a reliable camera to rent out. Yes they will probably get a few Red cameras for sure, if the specs come out as expected, but the people who rent it out in the first year anyway are unlikely to be big screen film crews intending on using Red for their MAIN camera. But if i were spending a lot of money making a movie i might just throw in a Red camera as a spare somewhere just to see how it matches up with what i am using and possibly for evaluation purposes for maybe doing a cheaper production at some point or just a nice way of saving money!

Heres another take on it (right out of my depth here i know) but who cares? If you intend to use Red in much more modest productions /videos or for any kind of work that is not likely to reach the mass public on the big screen, then what does the total cost of Red and several lenses that would get the job done (not expensive lenses right) in relation to the total cost of your production. To be clear on this i mean total cost everything all added up in total?. Then compare that total percentage wise with Red on a BIG PRODUCTION. When Jay commented i reckon she may have been thinking along these lines too. Why would a big production outfit want to risk the whole production on something new and as yet unproven when the cost savings in relation to total price is not that large!

So whilst most of us are going to jump with joy when Red finally ships (including Red 312:) yours truly) i think Jay got it about right in suggesting that Red will take a little longer to be acceptable to certain groups and those at the very top might never use Red as a main camera....who knows....who cares.

Lets stop and think what Red was developed for......to put a camera comparable in resolution, lattitude and dynamics to the big high end cameras hollywood would use into the hands of ordinary people.

Thats you guys, not big productions so they can save money, not film crews using big high end cameras already, but YOU GUYS here on this forum. Hopefully your projects will be the better for it and that is probably what most can expect. The few (very few) exceptions with great talent/skill and dedication will be propelled to the big league. Not because of Red but because of their talent. All Red will have done is to provide a tool that allowed that talent to show through by having something (the Red camera) that would normally be prohibitive in cost.

There is still a lot of work to be done yet by Red most of us are confident and we have good reason to be so far.......

I dont really care who uses it initially or who uses it in two years time. If i can use it in poor low light conditions when i could not get usable footage with my little XM2 then marvelous. If i can get everything in the picture at a distance i want to film from (i couldn't with my xm2 because of the restricted FOV) great! If i can do slow motion shots in camera great and so forth the list goes on and on. My only BIG MAJOR problem with Red is the focusing issue and the ability to provide an increased DOF as opposed to a shallow DOF when i need it. Let hollywood use whatever they want lets hope Red has concentrated on you guys first, therafter they can adapt the Red for the bigger guys.

Red will change things..............for sure.

Michael
 
I've lurked around this post long enough. Time to wade on into the fray...

I think that we need to separate out two things: 1) the options the RED will open up to us as artistic individuals on our own projects; and 2) the impact it will have on the larger industry.

1) On my personal directing projects, format is determined largely (not exclusively, but largely) by budget. If I'm making a 10min short for $3,000, my money is not going into renting a camera package. It's going into art, talent and (mostly) food. I'll shoot on a DVX and my DP (who is a genius) will make it look fantastic. If I'm shooting a short for $30,000, I have more options. For these larger projects, I now have a (hopefully) fantastic new option in RED. But make no mistake, renting a RED for a week with a full cine kit and lenses will still be a pretty penny, money that will come out of other parts of the budget. Still, I'm extremely excited about what RED promises to open up. But camera is only one (small) part of a budget. There is always a push/pull with other areas. RED just adds a great new option.

1a) Now if I were planning on buying, not renting, a RED: we're talking a different thing here. We're not talking the $4G I dropped on my lovely mini-DV camera. We're talking upwards of $20G (probably closer to $30G) for camera, lens, etc. That's a down payment on a house. If I'm going to spend that much, I want a return on my investment and that means commercial work (see below), not just my own personal projects.

2) When it comes to commercial work, I have to agree with Jay. The commercial world is very slow to upgrade. When you're spending six or seven figures (or eight or nine figures, but I wouldn't know about that) on a project, you don't take lots of risks. In my day job, I do lots of work for major networks. Many of them only made the transition from a BetaSP to a Digi-Beta workflow about 5 years ago. Only now am I beginning to deliver projects digitally or on HD tape. I choose my format based on what my clients demand. Until they start demanding RED and are comfortable with a workflow based around it, there is no way for me to recoup my investment. And that means an entire production and post-production workflow based around tapeless digital capture. Some networks - but by no means all - only just developed a tape-based HD workflow and are not about to just throw that away. And the process of converting RED footage to HD tape would be seen by them as wasted time and money. For that kind of change to happen, a much larger shift in the whole industry will be needed (which RED will no doubt help spur along) toward the kind of digital acquisition that RED, Dalsa, SI, etc are pioneering.

I have no doubt that RED will have an impact on the industry, but it may not be as fast or as straightforward as many are projecting.

Finally, ditto on what Jay said about SOUND. But as he said, that's another forum...

...cheers. Go easy.
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
Also, you know the most important aspect of a hired DP aside from talent? He's kind, personable, and easy to get along with...
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Jay, I would SOOO love to meet the DP's you work with...

:Drogar-Sick(DBG):
 
One other quick thing. A lot of the posts seem to focus on the impact RED will have on digital cinema. But while cinema is my first love, we should really be also talking about the impact (though I think it will be limited at first) RED will have on acquisition for television. It is television that is really driving the techonology shifts taking place right now, not cinema. It is television that is driving the lowering prices of HD and driving the shift toward a completely digital workflow from acquisition to broadcast.
 
Yeah I would love to meet those DP's too. Seems today its the complete opposite of kind , personable, and easy to get along with as some of the prerequisite criteria for being a DP. I should, but won't, post some text messages i get everyday from people working on big films on how they feel and what they are going through.
And anyone thinking that the camera is the equalizer for playing like the big boys theres a surprise coming. Theres so much political/economical baggage thats not being talked about and its more valuable and important and unfortunately inaccessible to most people. More important than the RED will ever be.
 
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One other quick thing. A lot of the posts seem to focus on the impact RED will have on digital cinema. But while cinema is my first love, we should really be also talking about the impact (though I think it will be limited at first) RED will have on acquisition for television. It is television that is really driving the techonology shifts taking place right now, not cinema. It is television that is driving the lowering prices of HD and driving the shift toward a completely digital workflow from acquisition to broadcast.
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Something else too that has not been talked about much is the impact Red could have on sales to those who normally carry a DSLR with their camera. Unlikely but possible given that Red if i am right is planning to have the capabilities of using any of the frames shot to be used (extracted from camera) quickly as digital stills. I think this was to allow ENG users to have video footage and still footage all done by the one camera. Money for video footage money for stills, sounds another good use for Red.

I have one request PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, SOMEONE AT RED PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY. Will the Red camera through Red code or Red ram have the pre-record facility like some other cameras (hvx 200 etc). Or does anyone know the answer??????????????????

Michael
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
Blonde and guys,

"Which one will be taken more seriously, have more latitude, and an overall better look in the end? "

My opinion? The one with the best acting, story, and editing. Most audience members don't care about pretty pictures as long as the story is
captivates them.

Me
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I like pretty pictures.

My last project, a music video, involved a lot of outdoor shooting with big wide shots. I wanted it too look beautiful, epic.

Unfortunately we shot DV. Highlights burnt out, shadows were black, except for those brief wonderful moments when the sun went slightly behind a cloud and the camera could cope. We had no control over the lighting. The location looked beautiful, but the camera didn't do it justice. With post grading and a few pick up shots, it was all decent in the end, but I felt its potential was always limited by the equipment used (or more to the point, the client's budget).

I agree with much of your post, I'm a writer before I'm a DOP, but cinema is visual storytelling, and anything that makes great visuals easier to achieve deserves some excitement.
 
ZaneIsNumber1 said:
I'm a writer before I'm a DOP, but cinema is visual storytelling, and anything that makes great visuals easier to achieve deserves some excitement.
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I think this is exactly the point that's getting overlooked here. No one is saying that RED is going to instantly make everyone's movies better. In fact, the more tools that are available, the more crap can be made! But for those of us who do care about our image, we want the best tool possible at our disposal. That's it! Certainly you can make a lovely image out of a DVX. An SDX. A Varicam. An F900. I don't think anyone is saying you "need" RED to make a quality film. However, especially considering the price point, RED represents for the first time a quality that rivals that of 35mm film and is available to a whole heck of a lot more people than any remotely similar technology that came before it. And in the hands of a talented filmmaker, that definitely makes a difference. So while I am not one of the ones who thinks that Hollywood is going to be running scared because of RED or that all of the established DPs in the industry are going to be afraid for their jobs, I do know that RED will allow me to enhance my art even further. At the end of the day, that's all I care about. I have no one to satisfy but myself, and I'm elated at the prospect of how much I am going to be able to stretch my abilities with RED in my hands. It's a good time to be a filmmaker!
 
You guys honored me with all the cool posts and replies.. Some of them cracked me up! Lots of intelligent and good-hearted poeple on this forum.

We all agree on what's most important: RED WILL ROCK AND WE WANT ONE!!! Everything else is just details
Jay
 
Mr. Blonde said:
- Well for starters, film, as does tape, goes through a stage of degredation each time it is re-archived. Once tape or film is digitized it no longer suffers from degredation but it does lose quality in the digitization process. This process in the long run destroys our chances of holding onto a film in its pristine condition.

So the only true answer to archiving is in a digital storage device. So why not shot in an uncompressed digital format in the first place, in this aspect, digital is superior to either film or tape. And if you're that worried about archival, heck, create 20 backups, what are the odds of all of those copies going down the drain afterall?

Then ofcourse it comes down to their opinion on digital being inferior in its look, but that again is all a matter of taste, ask Michael Mann and his Viper...
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Where do you get your information????

First of all, the original film negative, as long as it is kept in a safe place that doesn't have extreme temperature changes, should last for decades.

In fact, most film negatives are kept in climate controlled vaults. Studios keep theirs in vaults built into salt mines.

Unfortunately it's only been in the last few decades that studios realized the importance of their film libraries, and have gone to the trouble of restoration.

It is true that every generation removed from the original negative will degrade further, but that's old news.

Right now, all negatives are digitally scanned and film outs can be done to multiple IPs or INs to make prints.

The issue of lose of quality is depending on where you get your film scanned. Go somewhere cheap, and you may not get quality. The technology has progressed to the point where the scanning processed is extremely high quality.

Digital storage device is NOT a true answer to archiving.

First of all, digital storage devices become obsolete faster than they wear out, so it's very possible that you won't even a device around to read the media.

Who's got a Syquest, Bernulli, Exabyte or Metrum drive sitting around??

Secondly digital storage media is never reliable. Magnetic tape are so dense that it can self erase, and sometimes tightly packed that there could be data print through. Either way it's hard to get back.

Mechanical devices like hard drives or cartridges have parts that wear out and fail. Do you think a hard drive sitting on a shelf for 5 to 10 years and then start up like it's new?

Flash media is still new, and no one knows how long it will last. Same will be with holographic storage.

Who's got time to sit around making 20 back ups of their uncompressed feature, especially if the feature takes up 2+ terabytes of storage?

In fact, you'd have to keep cycling the archive backups to newer and fresher media, depending on how critical it is to keep that material.

A film negative is the longest lasting media so far.

I been in the digital data end of film for 15 years now and it's madness to have to restore something that won't restore completely.

How do you replace digital data that is lost forever???
 
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