Still hard to beat for the money

[Barry_Green]

I just don't get the strength of partisan feeling either for or against Red. Their cameras are just tools same as any other and the only thing worth taking seriously are the cameras you can actually buy at the price you can afford on the day you need to buy it.

And with this I agree.

As far as my feelings for Red go -- they've gone full circle. I was an early believer. I was an early adopter. I bought a Red One, #364, I paid my $1,000 reservation, I got my "Red Key", and in February of 2008 I got my Red One. And you know what? Two months later I sold it. It was terribly premature, and while I'm more of a tech-head than most, I just thought -- no way. Not for me. Others can go through this, I'm not gonna.

So four months later, NAB hits, and they announce the Scarlet, and I thought -- this is it! This is what I was waiting for. The Red One isn't really for DVXUsers anyway, the Scarlet is. I was all fired up, and made hundreds and hundreds of posts on ScarletUser and actively managed wishlist threads and everything, and then... nothing. Nothing and more nothing. Revisions and changes and ... nothing. And at that point, I got off the Red train, and adopted my current state of mind, which is "I'll believe it when I see it."

So why am I basically cynical now? Here, I'll let Hywel tell you why:

Putting off shooting until the right camera appears is no way to make a living doing it ;-)

Right there. Because I think Red has actually caused a stunting of growth among so many of our members. How many of you, if there'd never been a mention of a Scarlet, would have just gone out and bought something and started shooting? How many of you have been waiting two and a half years for Godot to show up? What have I done in the last two and a half years, since I got off the Red train and started working with the existing tools? Well, pairing with Jack, we've made short films that have played the opening night Red Carpet gala at SlamDance, played Tribeca, and played South By Southwest, and now have finally finished the script and funding is in place (cash now in the bank!) for an indie feature film. Will I wait for Scarlet? Should I have waited for Scarlet? HELL NO.

I may rag on the DSLRs for their shortcomings, but by gum, Marlon Ladd is nearly done with "The Jones", a feature film, shot on a T2i. Should he have waited for Scarlet?

While everyone's waiting for Scarlet, we've seen participation in our DVXFests drop off, to the point where our last October festival, ThrillFest, was our lowest-participation October fest ever. Is that Scarlet's fault? Probably not, but for some reason or other we've got more members here talking, and fewer actually filming.

Will I be shown up and told off when the magical Epic Lite comes along and it's so much better than anything? Maybe. But I won't notice because we'll be six months into production on a feature film that is going to launch Jack's career.

I have no need or interest to wait for an "Epic Late". When it is a real product, that I can really evaluate, it's really real, it exists, and can be bought, then I will become a very interested customer. In the meantime, there's work to be done, and for those who aren't at the point of earning their living from their tools yet, well, there's learning to be done. Get out and get shooting. Spielberg didn't wait for the Epic Light. Cameron didn't wait. Hitchcock didn't wait. Michael Bay didn't wait. They just went and shot. You should too.

 

[Barry_Green]

Sony could gobble them up for lunch if they wanted them.

Dollar-wise, yes, but in actuality no because Red is privately held and will always be. Jannard has said he has no intention of taking Red public.

 

[HHL]

Barry's on fire people. I suggest you log off NOW...and go shoot something (for real)...cause he's bringing out the big guns if you don't!! YOU TELL'UM BARRY!! (I need to repent too.)

heh...you know I'm joking...but...kinda not joking right?

Oh ya...+1 to the "Vapor-ware Rant".

 

[greymog]

Barry's on fire people. I suggest you log off NOW...and go shoot something (for real)...cause he's bringing out the big guns if you don't!! YOU TELL'UM BARRY!! (I need to repent too.)

heh...you know I'm joking...but...kinda not joking right?

Oh ya...+1 to the "Vapor-ware Rant".

I'm grinning ear to ear. That was awesome. Mr. Green just made my blood pressure go down.

Disclaimer: Was shooting two days ago, shooting tomorrow. Don't shoot me.

But really, that felt so good to read.

 

[Mike@AF]

Another +1

I'm on the bandwagon too. Shot 2 shorts and some commercials this year, got into some fests too. GH2 and AF100 on order to shoot a micro-budget horror feature starting as early as January. Wait for nothing, just go shoot it with what you have in front of you. Robert Rodriguez didn't wait either. He took what he could grab and went and shot a feature.

It's not the camera. It's the person. No camera is going to make a bad story good. Focus on your story, actors, and production design, then shoot with the best camera you can actually get at the time.

 

[Joe Walker]

Barry I can't wait to meet you in person

 

[Barry_Green]

Robert Rodriguez didn't wait either. He took what he could grab and went and shot a feature.

How did I leave him off the list? He shot on standard-16 on a noisy coffee grinder of a camera, but he made a career from it. A DVX100 can make footage that looks better than what Rodriguez shot on.

Focus on your story, actors, and production design, then shoot with the best camera you can actually get at the time.

+1000.

 

[Barry_Green]

Barry I can't wait to meet you in person

How's Monday? :thumbsup:

 

[Joe Walker]

Oh I'll be there!

 

[EndCredits]

I'm surprised by the number of people holding out for the scarlet. I'm also surprised any one would think there was RED bashing going on. There seems to be more RED fanboys than any thing else.

My understanding was that RED missed the boat with the Scarlet when the Canon DSLR turned up with HD video. That pushed them back to the drawing board and hence all the delays and changes. Its not unusual or surprising and happens to companies all the time. I would speculate that the release of the AF 100 and the F3 could have the same effect for RED with the Scarlet and possibly other products. I personally think the Scarlet will never turn up.

I have ordered a pair of AF100s and already have a booking for them come the end of feb (so hoping for no delays) I also plan on convincing a director I work with to shoot his next feature on something like the AF100 and not the RED one, which he shot the last feature on. The lower cost means the production can buy the cameras not hire and have more than one speeding up the production.

Now considering that 28 days later was shot on DV with a Canon XL1S and the up coming movie Monsters has been shot on a EX3 I am putting my money on the AF 100 being more than capable. And if Arri are happy to make the Alexa shoot 2k based on the fact that no one really distributes in anything more than 2k then the money used to hire a RED one and all that for a low budget film I believe is better spent on other things.

And I agree with Barry, go shoot, thats why we are here.

 

[BobbyMurcerFan]

Yes, that seems very reasonable and logical and no one can argue with that business philosophy. The problem is, why didn't management know that two years ago before dragging people down the affordable cinema camera red brick road for the last two years and then saying ...nah, I don't think so. Man up. Red is for pros at pro prices. When they said everything is subject to change, I think people thought they meant it the way a normal company would mean it. Meaning changes in minor specs etc, not the elimination of corporate philosophy and a whole product line. I don't know, I've never seen this before from any company with any other product.

I don't know why everyone is MAD at Red. Acutally, they have done all us users a tremendous service. B/c if they hadn't promised Scarlet for the prosumer market, no way, IMHO, do the AF100 and F3 get released as quickly as they did and at the price point they will inhabit. Red PROMISED Scarlet, Panasonic and Sony actually made them!

 

[izoneguy]

And with this I agree.

As far as my feelings for Red go -- they've gone full circle. I was an early believer. I was an early adopter. I bought a Red One, #364, I paid my $1,000 reservation, I got my "Red Key", and in February of 2008 I got my Red One. And you know what? Two months later I sold it. It was terribly premature, and while I'm more of a tech-head than most, I just thought -- no way. Not for me. Others can go through this, I'm not gonna.

I knew that you had acquired a RED but did not know that you sold it. Was it the workflow or the camera? I rented RED's for some TV spots and knew that the RED workflow was not for me. OK for spots, and I guess if you had the budget working with a post house that does it everyday that would be different. My biggest client now is a MotorHome dealer. We are producing at least 6 20-30 min shows per month. Still shot with an HVX. We do use a 7D for some wider shots and for stills. I am the crew. There is no way I could this kind of work with a RED or the RED workflow. I do want want to look into the AF100 after it has been out in the field a few months.

 

[Barry_Green]

I knew that you had acquired a RED but did not know that you sold it. Was it the workflow or the camera?

At the time I had it, the camera was very much incomplete (which, to be fair, was well known, and they told us we could accept delivery or wait for it to be done.) But I knew it was something I couldn't use on a paying gig in the shape it was in -- which is, again, fine, I knew they would be upgrading it to get it to a good and stable position.

The dealbreaker for me was workflow. When Cineform made a prototype converter so that Windows users could actually use the Red and actually edit their footage, and Red stamped it down and locked it up and prevented it and instead tried to enforce that anyone wanting to work with Red footage would have to go with Apple or Scratch, that was a major WTH moment for me. When they defended it by saying "Apple was there for us in the early days, so we're going to honor our commitment to them, we have an exclusive contract and we will prevent anyone who tries to develop Red support for any other editor" I was like "hey, wait a minute -- I'M the guy who gave you $30,000. I'm the guy who was with you in the early days. What about your commitment to me?" I had absolutely no interest in spending $50,000 to get a Scratch suite, nor did I have any interest in spending $5,000+ for a configured Apple system, just to be able to use what I'd already bought, when Cineform was making it usable right now in the products I was already using. To me, that was not "great for the customer", that was "war on the customer".

But, all the rumors said Adobe would have support in CS4, and CS4 was going to be released at NAB. So I held on, with my investment sitting there doing not much of anything, while I waited for Adobe to rescue me. And they did not. I went to NAB and said "so, where's the Red support?" and they looked at me like they had no idea what I was talking about. While they may have eventually released something, they had no immediate plans.

So with no fully-functional camera, no workflow without spending thousands upon thousands of dollars more and having to retrain everything I knew, and with a serious case of distaste for the way Windows users were treated, and with the imminent arrival of thousands more Reds which would soak up any early-renter interest, and with me not really wanting to put my name & career on the line with the Red in the state it was in, and with people willing to pay thousands of dollars over retail to get a Red One, the decision was easy. I sold it, and pocketed enough profit to put both my kids through that year's college.

Mind you, this was 2008. They've had a couple of years to sort things out since then and it's much smoother now and far easier to pencil out a buying decision now, and there is more widespread workflow support. The Red One of today is not the Red One of February 2008, so anyone looking at buying a new product from them would have to evaluate today's situation, which is not the same as when I made my decision to get in and also to get out.

 

[izoneguy]

"Apple was there for us in the early days, so we're going to honor our commitment to them, we have an exclusive contract and we will prevent anyone who tries to develop Red support for any other editor" I was like "hey, wait a minute --

Now it has gone full circle....Adobe CS5 is hot now and many of the MAC people are buying PC systems....I guess you could get CS5 for the MAC, but CS3 has
always been a little buggy on my MAC system.

 

[reem12]

For me the af100 dosen't look better than the gh2, just my opinion, and it certainly does not look better than the new sony. I love the look and dynamic range coming off that gh2 so much that in just out the camera image quality the af100 for me is no longer a value.

 

[robertrogoz]

I would hazard a guess that Scarlet 2/3rds will not make it out of the Red nursery alive, especially in view of recent developments with the AF 100, F3 and who knows what else will be announced.

The sun hasn't set on 2/3rds, because there will always be a niche in the broadcast world for that format, but for most other things its definitely the twilight hours for 2/3rds.

2/3 is going to be well and alive 50 years down the read in broadcast industry. However Scarlet fixed will not have broadcast friendly codec.

 

[BobbyMurcerFan]

At the time I had it, the camera was very much incomplete (which, to be fair, was well known, and they told us we could accept delivery or wait for it to be done.) But I knew it was something I couldn't use on a paying gig in the shape it was in -- which is, again, fine, I knew they would be upgrading it to get it to a good and stable position.

The dealbreaker for me was workflow. When Cineform made a prototype converter so that Windows users could actually use the Red and actually edit their footage, and Red stamped it down and locked it up and prevented it and instead tried to enforce that anyone wanting to work with Red footage would have to go with Apple or Scratch, that was a major WTH moment for me. When they defended it by saying "Apple was there for us in the early days, so we're going to honor our commitment to them, we have an exclusive contract and we will prevent anyone who tries to develop Red support for any other editor" I was like "hey, wait a minute -- I'M the guy who gave you $30,000. I'm the guy who was with you in the early days. What about your commitment to me?" I had absolutely no interest in spending $50,000 to get a Scratch suite, nor did I have any interest in spending $5,000+ for a configured Apple system, just to be able to use what I'd already bought, when Cineform was making it usable right now in the products I was already using. To me, that was not "great for the customer", that was "war on the customer".

But, all the rumors said Adobe would have support in CS4, and CS4 was going to be released at NAB. So I held on, with my investment sitting there doing not much of anything, while I waited for Adobe to rescue me. And they did not. I went to NAB and said "so, where's the Red support?" and they looked at me like they had no idea what I was talking about. While they may have eventually released something, they had no immediate plans.

So with no fully-functional camera, no workflow without spending thousands upon thousands of dollars more and having to retrain everything I knew, and with a serious case of distaste for the way Windows users were treated, and with the imminent arrival of thousands more Reds which would soak up any early-renter interest, and with me not really wanting to put my name & career on the line with the Red in the state it was in, and with people willing to pay thousands of dollars over retail to get a Red One, the decision was easy. I sold it, and pocketed enough profit to put both my kids through that year's college.

Mind you, this was 2008. They've had a couple of years to sort things out since then and it's much smoother now and far easier to pencil out a buying decision now, and there is more widespread workflow support. The Red One of today is not the Red One of February 2008, so anyone looking at buying a new product from them would have to evaluate today's situation, which is not the same as when I made my decision to get in and also to get out.

I'll never forget seeing a representative from Red doing a presentation at Kappa Studios in Burbank. Avid was treated like the retarded cousin who's locked in the attic/basement and no one wants to talk about.

During a break, I asked about overheating issues. I actually wanted to float an idea past him that Red should consider putting external heat fins on the body, similar to the heat sinks you can buy for RAM. Stupid idea, kind of slick? IDK, I never got to that point. All I said was, "What about the overheating issue with the camera?"

To which he replied with a straight face, "What overheating issue?" I said that there are numerous posts on Reduser about overheating, and I had heard first hand from operators who had to put ice packs on the camera, albeit during rather hot conditions. He just looked at me like was speaking in another language. Then, with an insipid smile, said again that the camera had no overheating issue and that the operator would overheat before the camera would.

Red has clearly changed since that day. But it's always stuck in the back of my head and reading your post reminded me of it.

 

[KyleProhaska]

My first feature came out in bookstores this past August and it was shot on a $3000 Canon A1 with a Letus Adapter and old 1980s Nikon Primes. Had I waited until I was able to afford an HPX or a Varicam or something better I never would've gotten my film started let alone finished.

We're all very lucky we live now and not 20 years ago when this stuff wasn't available. I got a bit of flack when a few days ago I said we were "spoiled rotten brats," but the more I see people posting the more I find that statement to be true. We're really blessed here to have these cameras coming out and I for one couldn't be happier, no matter what shortcoming the cameras might have. Buy what you can when you can (if the project even needs it) and if you can't shoot anyways!

Selling your feature to a distributor shot on a Canon 5D, XL2, or whatever else is better than no feature to sell while you wait for your Scarlet to arrive.

 

[Nektonic]

So four months later, NAB hits, and they announce the Scarlet, and I thought -- this is it! This is what I was waiting for. The Red One isn't really for DVXUsers anyway, the Scarlet is.

Same here. That original Scarlet 3K for $3K concept was great. I want a camera. Not a brain plus thousands upon thousands of dollars of extra stuff I have to buy to make the thing work.

Even though I'm not going to wait around for the Scarlet, at this rate I have to rule it out solely due to the fact that Red keeps raising the price on it. I suppose in a few years I might be able to afford a Red camera, but now I'm more annoyed that the price keeps going up every 6 months to a year. I'm used to the delays.

My first feature came out in bookstores this past August and it was shot on a $3000 Canon A1 with a Letus Adapter and old 1980s Nikon Primes. Had I waited until I was able to afford an HPX or a Varicam or something better I never would've gotten my film started let alone finished.

I'm gonna miss my Canon A1 when I sell it later this winter to pay for an AF100. I think so far, the A1 has been my favorite camera (sorry DVX100, you were number 2).

 

[kprince]

Looking back and forth at footage from the short film commissioned by Sony, meticulously shot and posted to promote their upcoming $13,000 PMW-F3, and then looking at the short-notice, one-man band footage shot by Philip Bloom in the Japan, it's become very clear that the Af100 is a phenomenal value - one hell of a camera for the money. And we still haven't seen it at it's best - maybe not even close. The F3 short film used the best lenses, the optimum environment for soft ambient light, and lots of nice long lens shallow DOF situations in carefully composed shots. And yet when you look at Philip's footage, with much cheaper glass, somewhat overexposed, saturation and detail set too high, I still come away impressed. (Remember those guys didn't have time to really set up those cameras). And let's not forget the Af100 can overcrank at 1080p, and the F3 only at 720p. (that's my understanding).

I know Barry and others have mentioned it already, but let's keep this camera's virtues and shortcomings in context with it's cost. It's an impressive product.

you make Philip Bloom sound like a GWC ( guy with camera )..