Shooting a feature film in the next 2 weeks. Red Scarlet or Fs700?

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Daomay

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I guess you all probably know me on this forum by now. I have been ask to be the Cameraman for a a feature film that they will shoot for 10 days. I know nothing about RED and have never use it before. I know abit about the FS700 cause I own it for 10 months. They said it is up to me to shoot with whatever camera I am most comfortable with. If I was to go with RED they will hire a technician who know how to operate The RED to assist me. If I go with the FS700 I won't have any assistance. You all know that I have only been shooting as a Hobby for 10 months but they love my works so much and the Director want my style and the actor and actress seem to have a fair bit of faith in me.

I am taking on the project but I want to ask an honest question. Should I go with RED or the FS700 for a feature film?

Please advise because I start shooting on the 15 of September.

Kind regards,

Daomay Keo
 
Hi Daomay,

First of all, congratulations! We are thrilled to hear that you are going to work on a feature.

I also really like the look and feel of your shooting and can totally understand why they hired you. That said, remember they hired YOU. I would bet you can work your magic with any device that can capture light. My thought though, is that they really love your FS700 footage, you might want to stick with the FS700. Unless the quality provided by the camera (and any external recorders you might use) is not of high enough for your client, I would stick with what I know so I can focus on getting the look and feel I want. Not worry about how to run the camera. (I know there will be a tech there if you need them)

I recently worked with an AMAZING cameraman based in Lake Tahoe. I found out he worked with film cameras for many years and hesitated moving over to digital because he feared having to navigate all of the menus. This shocked me. I watched him use a fairly basic HDV camera and I have never seen anyone work the lens the way he did. He bought a Red about 6 months ago and is flying all over the world to shoot documentaries because his clients keep asking for HIM. They love HIS WORK. Honestly, it wouldn’t matter what camera he used. He could tell a more captivating story using a Fisher-Price toy camera than 95% of people could make with an Alexa. (P.S. He was VERY excited to see our brand new FS700 and was pretty impressed with it)

This client loves YOUR WORK. The camera is simply a tool that you use to get the desired result. No matter what camera you choose, we are excited to see the result!

Andrew
RedDogRecords.com
 
First off.....

Congratulations! What an accomplishment! You deserve it, you've shown some great ability from what I can see of your
style. Don't forget to have fun on this gig! A lot of times, you get something like this and it gets to be so much stress, that you
forget why you do it in the first place. Knock it out of the park!

Second.....
I have to be honest, I'd be tempted to go with the Red....but that's because I'm a gear junkie and it would probably be my only
chance to get to shoot with one. If I look at it not from my 'gear junkie' side, I'd say this....the images that they have seen that they
love, what did you shoot those on? What do you know well? What can you already make great images with, without needing to learn
new things? Those all seem to point towards the FS700. That's a tough choice honestly, hard to say what I'd choose. I'd probably
make each choice 600000 times, and then finally flip a coin and just go with it. Or convince them to get me a 7Q and shoot it all in
4K on the FS700.

Best of luck!!!
 
The RED is a great camera system, but like anything it will take time to learn how to use it to the best of its capabilities. It is a very different beast than an fs700, which you have proven you understand very well.

However, to me the real issue is not which camera you choose. Rather I think it's about getting the help you need. On a 10 day shoot I think you'll need an AC no matter what. Seems to me that if they're willing to pay for an AC and a RED rental, then you should be able to ask for an AC to help you out with the fs700 if you choose to use that instead. For myself when it comes to shooting something like a longer narrative I want to know my equipment well enough to be able to get the best out of it, but I also don't want to be bogged down with all the fiddly work of setting it up and moving it around, etc. It doesn't make sense to me that they'd offer AC help with one but not the other.
 
congrats Daomay! Another aspect is: who will grade the shots? I have rarely seen such beautifull images from a FS700 as yours. Your grading was excellent and if you will finish the film also my choice would be the FS700. If you hand over native clips to a postproduction house I probably would go for the RED and deal with the rental house to supply you the cam for a day or two to get into practice.

Nevertheless I would discuss this with your client in advance regarding the aspect of his needs (slomo vs RedRaw) If he decides for the FS700 don't forget to charge him for bringing your camera :-) I agree with what's been said: make sure to hire an AC anyway
 
The producer is paying for DIT or CA. with the Red. He or she is not offering this service with the FS700 . Why is that ?

Simple because they have more faith in the Red to deliver a higher image for cinema. Plus hang a 4k recorder off the Sony there's your price of that extra person per day.

Look at this as a opportunity to broaden your horizons. Study the crap out of the Scarlet get to know & rejoice in its difference on the big screen. Your ability as Dp is not being judged by what camera you use , or by what fanboys say, but by your ability to get outside of your comfort zone & deliver a cinematic image & style regardless of camera. This is what Producers/directors are looking for .....I know because I'm one.

P.S Just in case Sony fanboys think this is a Red love in. My reaction would be very different if the OP. had posted the choice between either the the F55 or F65.
 
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I shot a feature with 2 FS cams, my reasoning was that the FS ecosystem as a whole (lens, grip etc,.) was a better fit for the budget. We did contemplate going down the Epic route but the knock on costs with the weight, lenses and data management didn't make sense in our case. (Partly due to owning a certain amount of kit already)

My only concern was that would we capture what we needed to justify all the rest of the work putting a feature together, or would i be doing everyone a disservice by not going for the best capture i could. Shooting it is just a small part in the overall project.

It worked out in the end, there were places where i would make different decisions in terms of profiles used, but overall i was happy. If i'd had the O7 then it would have been a no brainer but that isn't an option for you at the moment either. I have a planned second chunk of shooting coming up too and will continue in the same way.

So i'd ask the following questions

1. What Lenses are you comfortable with?
2. Is the grip + lighting package what you need - better spend the money there than Red+DIT
3. Will you get time with the camera to become familiar.
4. Do you have a camera department - do you have a focus puller? Do you have Grips? If you're operating by yourself then you have to go with what you know.
5. Are there reasons that the RAW workflow would be a benefit for the type of feature?
6. what are the backup situations. If you go with Red can you get another quickly if it fails. Same for the 700. Could you get a couple of 700s?

feel free to PM me with questions.

cheers
Paul
 
I think above is good advice.

My, limited, experience with red cameras is that they are for cinema production..

-IMO really around 640 ISO, or even 320 - and that means a lighting package.
-Very heavy (built) - and that means an A/C to carry and Pro level grip for any rigged shots
-data you might need a DIT

Beyond that the image is IMO far more flexible and better than the 700 (which I have more experience of) - an amazing camera for 'grab it' productions

Id go Red - but only if I had the FULL resources to go around it.

Incidentally I think a Red is fine with nikkors or similar - you don't need cine glass which adds another level of cost and mass
Also I think Red has a minimal learning curve! (if you are experienced with raw stills) - its not something to be scared of but the ISO is (IMO)

S
 
Use your FS700 and rent better glass. I was amazed at how well our FS700 looked with expensive cinema glass. It brought the camera to a whole new level. The RED Scarlet is beefy just an FYI if you are moving around a ton.
 
Depends on the style of the movie. If it's going to be locked off, movie style shots at 24fps, then probably RED. if the movie is going to be more handheld with some artsy slow motion and you have to work fast because of a small crew, then the FS700 is great.

A large part of your style is based on handheld and slow motion. The Scarlet cannot really do slow motion. At 60fps on a Scarlet, the crop is more than 2x greater than on the FS700 which IMO makes it difficult to use.

Also, the RED has no NDs so you will have to rig a matte box which makes it much harder to be spontaneous. You could use a Fader ND but almost all of them (and I went to various camera stores and test a lot of Faders) have this green tint that I don't like. So yeah, spontaneity takes a hit with RED vs. FS700. RED is a lot heavier when fully done up compared to an FS700, so that would effect handheld for sure.
 
Why not F5/F55 if renting? XAVC could be sufficient and is much easier to work with than RED RAW.
 
Sorry, but I tend to question productions like this... Two weeks out from shooting a feature film and you guys are unsure of what camera you want to shoot on? Makes me wonder what else has slipped through pre-production?
 
David;

I've switched camera's 3 days into a feature... had two Arri ST's and an LT, swaped them for 3 x 535's... took the weight hit in return for a happier sound crew...

Deomay;
Today i'm looking at the call sheet for a tv movie with a 12 day sched, shooting 2 x Epic, a crew list of 82 today, and 19 of those are camera/ grip/ lighting... still not enough support for the scheduale really, and they are moving like crazy mad men, with one or two takes only... exhausting.... most everyone but the trainees have a decade in their craft already...

In contrast last fall i shot a vampire film in Paris on 2 x FS100's, my choice was driven by the script ( 80+ pages at night) and resources, it made more sense to buy the camera package and shoot for 42 days with a crew of 12, but again no newbies... all experienced crew that could do more than one thing (boom op was a former best boy for example).. it was a really great shoot all up... with the same $ i could have rented 2 x Epic for three weeks, or Alexa's for two weeks... last fall the FS100 or the F3 were the best low light camera's on offer, and i look at the camera's as restrictive filmstock choices.. i would not go into 80 days of night shoots with only rolls of 5217 in the camera truck... similar to an Epic really in many ways

Both can work for you, what works for the script tho? what will make the best film on screen? why only 10 days? what is the target deliverable format?
 
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@ jcs.

Don't know where you get your info from but working R3D's is as easy as XAVC or Arri raw. In fact its far easier than most workflows for HDLSR , hacked or straight, BMC system etc.
 
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The deciding factor should be what's you post budget and what you plan on distribution? Tv, theater, online, 1080, 2k, 4k? Do some basic camera tests to get the feel of how each camera takes light and color. Whatever camera wins out for what your going for decides it.
 
Ive been shooting a feature for six days with the FS700 at 1080p straight to SD cards. I do wish I could shoot on a RED, Alexa or have a Convergent Design Odyssey7Q, would be much more flexible in post. One thing I can really recommend though is a good EVF, the one on the FS700 is the least ergonomic piece I've ever seen on any camera!
 
Oh yeah! One small annoyance is that you can't open MTS files in Resolve so you need to render to another format if you wish to color correct with it.
 
Surf it Mike said:
@ jcs.

Don't know where you get your info from but working R3D's is as easy as XAVC or Arri raw. In fact its far easier than most workflows for HDLSR , hacked or straight, BMC system etc.
Click to expand...

If XAVC 10-bit 4K is sufficient, the files are much smaller than R3D, saving transfer time and storage, and don't need to be deBayered in post. If only 2K/HD is needed, the savings are far greater. The F55 has a global shutter, better low light, built in NDs; makes for an easier camera to operate (and potentially higher quality images). If the budget allowed (rental), I'd go with Alexa (solely for image quality; can also record to Prores for fast production).
 
Hi guys,

I am overwhelmed and very humble for your feedback and support this is a great community and I can only say a massive thank you. I am very excited about the job because it is something that I have work hard on learning and anticipating about a chance for me to take my humble skill to the next level . I think most of you are right, camera are just a tools and you will need to look at your budget ( This is a low budget film ). I am confident with the FS700 and where RED is a great camera but I do not want to go down a track where I might get the shot that I want but the technical side of thing I might muck it up. From my last Job I was able to save up to $7000. This week I am about to order the Oydessy7Q. I hope it get to me before the the 15 of september.

I think they probably want me to use RED because the footage they got from they last movie was great but the cinema photography he did a very poor job. I think they want to go with me because my style are a bit more captivating and more cinematic. On monday I will order the Oydessy7Q and hope that it will be here in Australia before the 15th of September.

I think I will stick to the FS700 from reading all the feedback. I have confidence in the FS700 and I believe in myself that I can deliver the good. I hope oneday I can operate a RED camera and get a fell of it but at this moment in time. I think confidence enough that I can make the FS700 shine.

Thank you for the encouragement from everyone who has support me along the way. I will get back to them on monday that I will use the FS700 and I will probably need one AC and tell them the benefit of the Odyssey7Q which I will pre-order on monday.
 
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