"RED is Dead baby... RED is DEAD" or Chronicle of immature technology

[addie_reiss]

I shot (DP) an Inidie Feature Film, here in the film-peripheria a.k.a Israel.
Being The first production to ever use this VooDoo camera here in Israel.
All Went relatively well, as long as we were shooting inside a studio. this took place during February.

Two weeks ago we shot the ending scene, outdoors.
Climbed ontop a mountain for the view, with trucks, generator, crane, 11 actors ,30 extras and crew. images were magnifisant. we played back what we shot to enjoy the results and to make sure we have it.

little did we know...

the next day i get a phone call from the director. I assumed he was calling to tell me how good the shots came out. wrong. "There is nothing on the hard drive", he said, trying to hold himself.

nothing.

well, it showed that there are 189GB of data. but you just cant access it.
next thing - the rental house suggested we plug the Hard Drive back to the RED, to see if the camera can access the clips. it probably made things wrorse...

Now the disk is at a special lab and they try to recover the data (not to mention the thousands of dollars they charge for this restoration). i hope they make it. The first restoration lab already gave up on the lost data.

"Oh, did you know that theRed disk contain actually two hard drives?" said the data recovery girl.

"wow", i said. "great design. it must be some kind of raid-mirror that keeps data integrity in case of malfunction" i thought there is still hope and that someone out there in RED thought about data recovery during design stages...

"well, no..." she said. "the data is stripped on the two disks." making it harder to recover and less robust... i guess they were thinking of speed rather than stability...

by the way - in case you were wondering. the hard drive was never physically damaged. It's some kind of "logical failure".

On top of that , during the shoots, there was another problem. a very serious one. compared to the data loss it seems minor, but in any other context its unheard of... The camera just stops recording "randomly" and gives the big RED "X" and the message "CODEC FAULT". shit. really shit.
thing is - you never really know when this message will hit you!
My AC said that he thinks this happens when you overexpose the image. anothe AC said that it was because there were too many details in the frame (in my case - spectacular city & bay view of Haifa).

and i say - WHAT VOODOO CAMERA IS THIS???
can i not overexpose ???
can i not shoot spectacular view in 4K???
must i be haunted by fear of losing the footage???

i dont care what "build" it was.

I dont eat half baked cakes.
I dont want to use immature, not QAed, unrealiable technology, claiming to be a camera for cinema.

for me RED is DEAD, baby. RED is DEAD.

you guys neglected, by design, the most important aspect of a film camera: a relaiable workhorse that doesnt get in your way.



Addie Reiss, Cinematographer
Tel Aviv
addie.reiss@gmail.com
+972-54-7778433
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=addiereiss


p.s

when the production reported these accute malfunctions to RED, all they got - so far is some kind of serial number regarding the complaint...
No technitian was sent over to investigate.
No official response or any attempt to understand what went wrong or how to fix this.
do you RED guys have some kind of customer support at all?

[cinemano]

RED has the best customer support in the country. this site proves it..
take it easy and try to approach someone at RED with calm and civility and someone will surely help you.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I understand your frustration but I'm wondering... did you not off load material on set to back up drives?

I continuously do so. When I'm shooting things of importance I shoot it as if it was film and change drives and make back ups regularly.

The codec error happened to me this week, without warning. I'm not sure what it is and just like it was for you, impossible to predict and understand. It's really annoying that you can't get your head around it.

I believe I've read a few posts from you guys wondering what that was all about, I'm sorry for lack of response from RED or that it's not working out for you, but don't let it discourage you from RED. This camera is premature and it has flaws, but it's a risk you take if you use it. It will become better with time as long as we report the problems and RED acknowledge them, so let's hope you guys can figure this mess out together.


Fredrik Callinggard

[Fredrik Callinggard]

RED has the best customer support in the country. this site proves it..

This site is not a proper or true customer support. It's wrong to keep claiming that, since REDUser is not affiliated with RED at all. It's owned and run by Jarred, who is the connection to RED. It's a great forum that accompanies the camera with support from the RED society, but there's very often issues that shouldn't be solved by second guesses from people without the proper knowledge of the actual structure of RED engineering.

Edit: and I believe I've seen posts from these guys asking for help in the past.


Fredrik Callinggard

[Gunleik Groven]

You're right.... And wrong.

The RED RAID is a RAID 0, and we are all warned when we buy it.
The only safe (and practical - for a movie shoot) way to record is to CF cards.

The disk is primarily an intermediate alternative for those willing to take that risk, and really need to record more than 4,5 mins of footy pr shot.

The advantages of the CF route over disk are so numerous, that if the rental house didn't inform you, you've been given very poor advice...

But I agree with you: YOU should not need to be aware of these concerns. Your AC/DIT/Rental house should definitely have spelled this out in very large letters.

As to codec errors, I've seen this 3 times in about 120 hours of shooting. And they are bad and shouldn't happen.

But again: I have to refer you back to the rental house/DIT.

Cam is still officially in beta stage and these are known issues that I prefer to deal with, rather than not having the cam. If you were not informed of this, you were ill-informed.


as the current state of the cam is what it is, it is crucial that you rent from someone in the know. I see people insisting on renting the cam without an assistant who knows what to do, repeatedly getting into big problems of all kinds.

So far all my customers are extremely happy.

It's a matter of (the rental house/ACs) knowledge, and I totally agree: This is not the DPs responsibility.

A good DIT/Renter would have told you to shoot to CF and get the shoot logged and backed up as you go and given you confirmation of the integrity of the shoot ON SET. Playing back from camera is NOT such a confirmation... He or she would also know the cam well enough to give proper advices on all subjects from setup to exposure. This has obviously NOT happened in your case, and I feel for you.

The cam works pretty well, even under pretty extreme conditions.
I would not insist on RED being "mature", but it is crucial that data integrity is handled right. Preview from a RAID 0 is not sufficient... And if you were on any of the last two builds, the preview itself is scaringly buggy from disks.

[cinemano]

i didnt mean this site IS the customer support. Just the fact that we have RED team members reading our posts and replying is proof their interest in their customer's satisfaction goes beyond email responses and phone call support, which by the way, are also excellent. Try finding a Sony website with SONY people replying.

[cinemano]

the best way to recover the footage would be to send the drive to red

[Gunleik Groven]

Cinemano, this is not what addie or Fredrik is refering to. If you rent from Panavision, you could probably have a support man on set pretty quick, and you wouldn't have to wait for Stuart to show up here.

As good as THAT is (and I really think it is fantastic) it's a different thing alltogether.

NOW: Pull that mastercard gold...

[Gunleik Groven]

the best way to recover the footage would be to send the drive to red

I'd rather suggest experts like IBAS...

http://ibas.com/

[cinemano]

NOOOOOO not my mastercard gooold :D

[cinemano]

i dont think red drives record like regular ones.. i'd send it to red. your decision addie

[laguun]

Addie,

sad to hear you might have lost footage.

however, its clear that production and logistics were faulty.

-Never- allow a production running hours of footage without backup.
Never.

Backing up interrupt the production for more than 10 seconds and is done in minutes in the background.

harddisk fails. they did, do and will do this for a long time.
No matter if in a $100.000.000.000 spacestation, a $100.000.000 supercomputer a $100.000 camera or a $100 mp3-player, no matter if in a completly perfect old system or a nasa-prototype.

Therefore: back up. Stored once is a not stored.



i dont care what "build" it was.

If intentionally a non-production beta build was used that would bring another reason for the storage failure.



I dont want to use immature, not QAed, unrealiable technology, claiming to be a camera for cinema.

The movies shot by directors camera "claiming" being for cinema are running in cannes, as steven soderberghs che/argentine, went straight to position #1 in the box office with doug limans jumper and are used as we speak for features here.



for me RED is DEAD, baby.

I wouldnt replace a camera when necessary production and operation procedures were faulty.



RED is DEAD.

Sorry addie, i think you couldnt be more wrong.



do you RED guys have some kind of customer support at all?
They have. They however dont offer negative & production insurance which would be necessary now.

I would strongly recommend to wait, before the data recovery lab proceeds, for exact instructions from red.

Make no mistake about it: Tom Cruise recently lost 4 full days of shooting on the $$.$$$.$$$ production Valkyrie, right here in Berlin. Cameras were 35mm film, lab was Arri. I personally lost 6 reels of 35mm footage in the last 19 years in labs. No cinematographic process is perfect. S**t happens. If it does, stay cool, logical and focussed - thats the only way to clear a mess. ANd with digital recording, chances are high that you can recover.

That the data is still *visible* is good. Smells like a file system error. All images could be recoverable then. But dont let an non-qualified technical service *try* - call red directly, they have good troubleshooters. The forum is not qualified enough to solve this problem.

p.s.
mods, move this one to complaint dept?

[Brian D. Goff]

I dont eat half baked cakes.
I dont want to use immature, not QAed, unrealiable technology, claiming to be a camera for cinema.

for me RED is DEAD, baby. RED is DEAD.


Calm down - you ever shoot film and get the call from the lab: "something went wrong while processing your footage - sorry" - Well, I have been on several productions the last years that have gotten those calls - that's why a professional film production has a film insurance, that will cover cost of re-shooting when things like that happen. Recently shooting with Arri 535, the camera was down for 2 hours because of a pinhead size piece of film caught some where in the transport mechanism - is the 353 a piece of sh...t because of that? People, with the RED you are dealing with a computer, so get mature and start treating it appropriate: Check you footage, back up everything asap and immediately re-boot when problems come up.

Hope they can recover your footage, wish you luck.

Cheers

[Christian Edwards]

Two weeks ago we shot the ending scene, outdoors.
Climbed ontop a mountain for the view, with trucks, generator, crane, 11 actors ,30 extras and crew. images were magnifisant. we played back what we shot to enjoy the results and to make sure we have it.

little did we know...



To have backed that shit up!

You should have backed up as you went man.... you know that !!! hot swap and dump that shit off as you go ... trades man never blames his tools, what was used to try and extract the data ?

[sander kamp]

Cam is still officially in beta stage and these are known issues that I prefer to deal with, rather than not having the cam.

Where does it say that the camera is still in beta?

[Gunleik Groven]

As far as I have understood, Jim declared in february that the program was officially out of beta when build 15 (now 16) and the SDK was released. That was @ the same time as all early orderers got the option to wait "close to indefinitely" on the decission to take the cam when it was ready to ship, as long as the software is still beta.

RedCine and RelAlert is an integrated part of the cameraprogram, and says "BETA" with big words when I open them.

The codec will be changes (it sounds like) with build 16

Lots of functions are known as buggy, but in there (because we want them there, buggy or not. Thank you very much)

etc etc etc.

In other words:
Cam is still officially in beta

(From what I've seen/heard, I must say I do prefer REDs beta stage to some other unmentioned companys release stage, though...)

Cheers

[Patrick Tresch]

Any news about RED Flash Drives?

We know that's "Coming soon…"

http://www.red.com/store/product_detail/74

But when?

Pat

[Andrae Palmer]

Its amazing to see "Professionals" shooting all day long on a striped RAID and not backing up at ALL during the entire shoot... gives amateurs like me a fighting chance. Heck i guess if you have a big crane, generators, RED and a team of people... its a pro shoot. Too bad none of those people could inform you of the basics of backing up your data. Also who knows when the data loss occured? Everything could have been recorded properly on the drives and the data loss stands a good chance of happening post shoot. A multitude of variables could cause the data loss post shoot... such as magnets, shock, operator incompetence on the computer. This issue reflects more of a lack of professionalism with your crew than with RED as a tool.

Now the other issue with the camera is something RED should get on and fix as soon as possible.

[Andrew Walker]

Man that sucks about your footage. But most of the people here on this forum know better than to put all their eggs in one hard drive. I shot a music video last weekend using my Red drive and didn't have any problems. But of course I would dump the footage every 30 minutes onto two backup drives.

If it was something as important as you made it seem I would have backed up every 5 or so minutes. But that's just me.

[Pawel Achtel]

next thing - the rental house suggested we plug the Hard Drive back to the RED, to see if the camera can access the clips. it probably made things wrorse...
Yep, you are spot on. So why did you do it?



"Oh, did you know that theRed disk contain actually two hard drives?" said the data recovery girl.

"wow", i said. "great design. it must be some kind of raid-mirror that keeps data integrity in case of malfunction" i thought there is still hope and that someone out there in RED thought about data recovery during design stages...

"well, no..." she said. "the data is stripped on the two disks." making it harder to recover and less robust... i guess they were thinking of speed rather than stability...

by the way - in case you were wondering. the hard drive was never physically damaged. It's some kind of "logical failure".

The discs are striped in Raid 0 for speed. Mirroring or striping with parity would require minimum of 4 or 6 discs and the cost would also be significantly higher. The design is sound and perfectly adequate for the intended purpose.



and i say - WHAT VOODOO CAMERA IS THIS???

Obviously it is not a camera for everyone. It is a great camera in the right hands. No doubt about that.



i dont care what "build" it was.

So what is the problem? Why are you complaining?



you guys neglected, by design, the most important aspect of a film camera: a relaiable workhorse that doesnt get in your way.

Nothing is 100% reliable. It is how you prevent and deal with failures that matters. If you used Sony cameras you would know the meaning of unreliable. The difference is that Red team is very responsive in fixing any problems encountered.



when the production reported these accute malfunctions to RED, all they got - so far is some kind of serial number regarding the complaint...

That's professional. If you didn't get a number, I would be worried.



No technitian was sent over to investigate.

Investigate what? Your grumbling? :angry03: It would seem obvious that you need to send the camera to Red to be investigated. Your post only gives an angry account of an ignorant operator.



No official response or any attempt to understand what went wrong or how to fix this.

The only official response (without looking at the camera) is that you did not follow any reasonable steps to ensure safety of your footage. If you supply more information, we may attempt to understand what else went wrong.


do you RED guys have some kind of customer support at all?
Yes, they do. In my experience it is second to none.

You are so wrong that it is funny, even though it is not. What was your DIT doing with the media? Did he back it up on the set if it was of any importance to the production? Did you send a backup copy to the director and kept the originals? Is the backup also no damaged?

Anyway, I have 20 years of experience in data recovery. If it is recoverable, I should be able to recover it, even from Raid 0 stripes. Sometimes I can even recover the data if you format or/and re-partition a Raid 0 hard disc. If it is of interest, send me an email (listed on contact page on my website).

Besides, we have a Complaint thread. Did you miss it too?
http://www.reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=36

[Hans von Sonntag]

I'm very sorry to hear this but:

1. Negative insurance was, is and will be a no-brainer. It's less than 3.5% of the budget.

2. Back up data whenever possible.

3. RedRaid is not an option unless you are willing to take the well known risks of harddisks. In my laptops 3 harddisks died in the last last 8 years. I learned it the hard way. I just ordered another 10 CF cards.

The codec-error is annoying. It's Red business to solve this. Everything else is the business of the filmproduction.

Hopefully your footage will be restored.

And in any case: If you feel more comfortable with 35mm, shoot 35mm.

Hans

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

IMHO, all footage that has been shot, has to also be backed-up and verified on set at least three times, if possible.

[istvanttt]

In the early computer-days there used to be the saying: "... there are two types of computer-users: those who once already lost all their data and those who still will loose all there data some day in the future....".

When I wrote this words about a year ago on this forum somebody replied saying that I must have a very bad hard-drive karma because he never lost data....

[Andrew M.]

Addie, don't panic.

If you checked the footage after the shot on the camera and you were able to play it back, it mean that data is there.
I just wary that the outfit you sent the disk for recovery to, may write something to the hard disk and screw things up. Contact RED and they will be able to advise you on this one.

One byte mismatch when initializing volume from not a compatible SATA controller driver and partition table descriptor is gone. Good recovery shop will fix it in 10 minutes.
It is what it sound like, what happened to you.

It happened to me once, we used some no brand clone computer with no brand clone SATA controller.
We did kill the partition just by mounting drive once.

Well, don't try to save on the hardware buying some clone or having operating system patch up with multi boot partitions done by someone that wants to have it all on one computer.

As to support, RED has the best support I ever experienced in my 30 years carrier, if you think otherwise call your legacy local telephone company for support and compare.

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

he never lost data....


Poor fella, he's in for some new sensations.

[Pawel Achtel]

Poor fella, he's in for some new sensations.

That's funny. LOL :biggrin:

[Michael Thornton]

I sorry to inform you, but maybe you didn't even have a problem at all until now.

Sometime the RED RAID does not like your incompatible 1394 "FireWire" cable, and if you jump the gun you could damage the drive.

If this happen to some one else please try a different cable first.

Sorry to say it again, but you should have done copies of the drive(s).

Then you should have back up your back up.

I did it on set last week all by myself as a DIT/Data manager.

Tek

P. S. RED has the best supports for a camera company on this earth, and I mean on this earth for real. One of our RED-ONE had a problem in Vietnam and RED send a replacement right away. I am speaking from experience here.

RED is alive and well, and you can quote me any day. Dan Duran even stayed after hours so I could get my parts one time.

[Chris Parker]

you're a loser. get a good DIT. get insurance. and stop whining.

[Chris Parker]

oh yeah, and shoot on CF Cards, unless you absolutely HAVE to shoot drives.

[Matthew Rogers]

Cinemano, this is not what addie or Fredrik is refering to. If you rent from Panavision, you could probably have a support man on set pretty quick, and you wouldn't have to wait for Stuart to show up here.

And Panavision is a rental house who just happens to make camera gear also. For what you spend with them you better get good support.

From the guy's post, it sounds like he didn't properly prep and understand the technology before he shot with it. It's just a big no no to go into a shoot without understanding the camera you are using (or any other gear also!)

Matthew

[Andrew M.]

First time data lost experiance........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4a1z7NLnNk

[Etienne Caron]

Use the service of a DIT or buy more CF that you can.

For all my respect to people you buy this camera, i find it very "edgy" to offer professionnal service with only 1 Red camera. Those person who get some trouble on set (with no red for backup for exemple) bring more damage to me and burn the name of "Red" on the market.

Please, if you have only one Red, do something to have a security backup body (from a friend or small renting house).

thanks

[gdv]

Guys, You Don't Read Between The Lines And The Lines.
What Adi Is Saying, And I Have Met Adi During His Shot In The Studio, And I Keep Saying It And This Is One F My Problems With Red:
Why Did You Get Out An Immature Camera.
When A Producer, A Dp And Even The Camera Assistant Go Out For A Shoot They Want To Have A Tool That Work, Not Maybe Work, Not Vanishing Data, But Knowing It Works.
True Even With Films And Hd On Tapes There Is No 100% Guarantee That The Info You Film Is Ok, But We Have Very Little Problems With This Because Most, Like 99.99% Of The Materials Are Fine And Useable.
No Producer Will Risk It.
I Am Sure There Are Ways To Overcome All This But I Don't Think Red Is Confronting Them, What Kind Of A Solution Is "... Send The Drive To Red..."???!!!???
Are You Joking Me?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Posts like this get me wondering...

Who supplied the camera, media, accessories? Was there no RED-savvy support tech on hand? No proper instruction or even just a crash-course?

Maybe I'm the paranoid type, but I would never jump onto a professional set as DP without being familiarized with the equipment I will be using. To do so would be suicide.

[Nick Wolf]

Self pity is addictive for those afflicted by the Persecution-Complex. You are not a victim despite the comfort that role would furnish you.

Can you see now how you brought this upon yourself?

Can you see how reactionary "Red is Dead" is?

Have you learned anything from this experience at all?

I feel your pain about the loss, ... but,

Next time around if you are willing to take responcibility for your actions that cause the results you claim not to want, you can insure that it "Never happens again".

In This Case;

Its not Red, Its you = Idiot.


DogDay




_

[Pawel Achtel]

Why Did You Get Out An Immature Camera.

Make the camera idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot.

[istvanttt]

Guys, You Don't Read Between The Lines And The Lines.
What Adi Is Saying, And I Have Met Adi During His Shot In The Studio, And I Keep Saying It And This Is One F My Problems With Red:
Why Did You Get Out An Immature Camera.
When A Producer, A Dp And Even The Camera Assistant Go Out For A Shoot They Want To Have A Tool That Work, Not Maybe Work, Not Vanishing Data, But Knowing It Works.
True Even With Films And Hd On Tapes There Is No 100% Guarantee That The Info You Film Is Ok, But We Have Very Little Problems With This Because Most, Like 99.99% Of The Materials Are Fine And Useable.
No Producer Will Risk It.
I Am Sure There Are Ways To Overcome All This But I Don't Think Red Is Confronting Them, What Kind Of A Solution Is "... Send The Drive To Red..."???!!!???
Are You Joking Me?

Why don't you simply accept the elementary fact that a computer can lose data and if you do not care about that because of a very ignorant and uncultured approach then you are just fu...ed? This is the simplest ad most elementar basics of information technology and has nothing to do with "immaturity of a product". In other words, if you would have taken your laptop and dropped it into a lake and then wondered that your data is lost, then you would have used the same level of "smartness" like your DP who didn't care about a back-up of the RED data.

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Make the camera idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot.


Hahaha.

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

Here I am on set, we just finished the first scenes at 120fps, the Drive has just come of the camera, replaced by another (so they can keep shooting)... now I am checking, double checking and backing up to two disks, and reading this post, shaking my head...

Sorry about the loss, but like so many others on here I have a hard time comrehending how a shoot of that size could go on for a day, without any backup.

[Robert Frank]

Ever have film get ruined by the lab?

*CAN* you back up film...?...minutes after you shoot...?


A few minutes to backup RED footage=priceless.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

nexto cf readers are so cheap...you could triple back up the footy...
and a used macbookpro + a graid is just a small amount of money in comparison to the stress you hav now.

[laguun]

True Even With Films And Hd On Tapes There Is No 100% Guarantee That The Info You Film Is Ok, But We Have Very Little Problems With This Because Most, Like 99.99% Of The Materials Are Fine And Useable.

Its beyond me how someone blames a tool for his lack of qualification.

Would you send a *completly* uneducated assistant into the film lab to develop your negative, someone who never worked with film?

Would you have someone pull the distribution copies from your negative who doesnt understand the *basic* principles of film processing?

In this production, *basic* procedures which are *necessary* for *any* professional digital production have not been followed.

The result demonstrates why these basic procedures, in place since decades in any industery using hard disc exchange, have to be respected. By banks, hospitals, insurances, plane manufacturers, the military and *filmproduction* is no exception.

Backup. Thats a actual *advantage* of digital production, not possible on mechanical film cameras. But it has to been done. Thats a part of the work we do.



No Producer Will Risk It.

Nonsense.
Hundreds of producers, do invest $$$.$$$-$$.$$$.$$$ in red productions - sucessfully. Mistakes as in this case, which clearly exposes misplanned production standards and/or underqualified labour are not common in our industry. Because such mistakes, no matter if film, harddisc or tape are expensive.

Operator, procedure and human error have nothing to do with the tools.
In this case its a clear case of wildly dangerous working principles, it seems furthermore untested.



I Am Sure There Are Ways To Overcome All This But I Don't Think Red Is Confronting Them, What Kind Of A Solution Is "... Send The Drive To Red..."???!!!???
Are You Joking Me?

No.
Mistake 1:
Working with digital harddisc media without backup (applies to all digital media).
Solution:
Swap drives, even better c/f.
Time cost <10 seconds on c/f.
Dit copies.
"Problem" solved.

Mistake 2:
Doing so for hours worth of footage.
Solution:
a) Have negative insurance. Cost 3-4%.
or
b) learn basic procedures, do not repeat own mistakes.

[gbalaji]

I shot (DP) an Inidie Feature Film, here in the film-peripheria a.k.a Israel.
Being The first production to ever use this VooDoo camera here in Israel.
All Went relatively well, as long as we were shooting inside a studio. this took place during February.

.......
i dont care what "build" it was.

I dont eat half baked cakes.
I dont want to use immature, not QAed, unrealiable technology, claiming to be a camera for cinema.

for me RED is DEAD, baby. RED is DEAD.

you guys neglected, by design, the most important aspect of a film camera: a relaiable workhorse that doesnt get in your way.

Addie Reiss, Cinematographer

Sorry for the sorrow. You may be a big cameraman, but you need to follow the disciplines when you are working with digital systems.

You never quoted in your post about the DIT and Backup drives. You were misguided and not prepared yourself to shoot on RED. You will face this kind of disasters with digital technologies and you need to prepare yourself for the worst condition and complaining is not going to help you in your future projects.

Post about the backup recovery if you find time and interest.

[Chris Gearhart]

This thread should become a sticky, and required reading for every DIT. lol

It's also hilariously fun!

I am very sorry, however, that the footage was lost. An expensive lesson, but I'm never happy when someone has to learn it. And I am not immune to cutting a corner here and there and getting burned (did that three days ago--drove 1.3 miles without my seat belt on thinking no accident (or police) could get me, statistically. At least it was only a police officer).

Again, sorry, man.

[gdv]

Why don't you simply accept the elementary fact that a computer can lose data and if you do not care about that because of a very ignorant and uncultured approach then you are just fu...ed? This is the simplest ad most elementar basics of information technology and has nothing to do with "immaturity of a product". In other words, if you would have taken your laptop and dropped it into a lake and then wondered that your data is lost, then you would have used the same level of "smartness" like your DP who didn't care about a back-up of the RED data.

Sorry but this isn't the same if you think it is the same I would rather shoot with a camera that is more trouble free. What advantage do I gat from this camera on film while film has history of shooting scenes with hundreds of extras and delivering results, why should a producer risks such expensive scenes?

[Andrae Palmer]

Sorry but this isn't the same if you think it is the same I would rather shoot with a camera that is more trouble free. What advantage do I gat from this camera on film while film has history of shooting scenes with hundreds of extras and delivering results, why should a producer risks such expensive scenes?

An entire crew of incompetent individuals not acknowledging that it was their mistake. Thank God that RED made it available for people like me to shoot 4K. Notice how the original poster started by stating how big the shoot was.. so many people involved, cranes, etc. All of that with no one understanding the basic operation of the camera.... completely unprofessional.

[gdv]

You are all right guys, there are ways to make sure everything is OK, back up data, check and double check, but why to go through all that when you have a film cameras that proved for tens of years that they deliver the images without so many problems.
i understand the unnecessary need of the human being to swap and change technology but at least lets make in a way so we don't have so many troubles, so we can come to a producer and tell him look we have a new tool it deliver a good image, though different from film, and it doesn't loose data.

[Jason Ing]

Sorry but this isn't the same if you think it is the same I would rather shoot with a camera that is more trouble free. What advantage do I gat from this camera on film while film has history of shooting scenes with hundreds of extras and delivering results, why should a producer risks such expensive scenes?

Tell me what film can actually give you added insurance you do have it "in the can" when, IF you know what you're doing, you can BACKUP several copies of your footage in minutes after shooting it?

[laguun]

Sorry but this isn't the same if you think it is the same I would rather shoot with a camera that is more trouble free.

Film negative can be as troubling as digital can be. The difference is: With digital one can control, check and backup immediatly, which is impossible with mechanical cameras and chemical negative. Film can be damaged pre-production (assistand has negative stored to hot etc), while shooting (mechanical damage or streaks when rotary/shutter misaligned etc), and after shooting (as recently demonstrated when several -shooting DAYS- the A-budget Valkyrie, starring Tom cruises, where completly destroyed at arri) and none can control this at once.




What advantage do I gat from this camera on film while film has history of shooting scenes with hundreds of extras and delivering results, why should a producer risks such expensive scenes?

- because he gets better resolution
- because its cheaper
- because he can *control* if the shot is perfect (film cant do that) immediatly
- because he can perfectly backup his footage (which he cant do on film)
- because he can at once, on the set, add the 1000s of extras digitally and have the VFX dept check that everything is working as intended and planned (which he cant do on film)
- and many more reasons.

[laguun]

You are all right guys, there are ways to make sure everything is OK, back up data, check and double check, but why to go through all that when you have a film cameras that proved for tens of years that they deliver the images without so many problems.


i have lost *many* reels of films, at the best labs, with the best cameras, all operated perfectly top-film gear with skilled people.

Teared negative on a mercedes spot, a friendly production several days shooting due to a camera defect, lost TC on a gone-crazy telecine... no human error,just usual film-problems. Ah and yes, the classic "DONT OPEN THE CA..... AAAAAAAH! ... n." happend also to me once.

film is neither error-prone, bullet-proof or protected against operator mistake.
same with digital.

[Robert Frank]

What advantage do I gat from this camera on film while film has history of shooting scenes with hundreds of extras and delivering results, why should a producer risks such expensive scenes?

I say, respectfully, that if you have trouble with a data-centric workflow then you may want to stick with film.

In my opinion, from a pure workflow POV, data-centric movie production is the winner.

[gdv]

An entire crew of incompetent individuals not acknowledging that it was their mistake. Thank God that RED made it available for people like me to shoot 4K. Notice how the original poster started by stating how big the shoot was.. so many people involved, cranes, etc. All of that with no one understanding the basic operation of the camera.... completely unprofessional.

I am not going to say anything about the crew and the specific Red camera they were using.
But as far as your production I see you are using Panasonic HVX200, I am sure everything was fine with it, have you shot with the Red? will you be saying the same things if you would loose a shooting day because of the camera and a camera that is still in the process of being build, and that is my main problem.
Red is not ready yet, it could be a great camera in 6 months, in 1 year I don't exactly when but it could also be a total failure because of the way it was brought to life, too soon from search and development, too soon from testing, and it is being shaved on our chicks.

[gdv]

I say, respectfully, that if you have trouble with a data-centric workflow then you may want to stick with film.

In my opinion, from a pure workflow POV, data-centric movie production is the winner.

gain I am not arguing about data and progress, I only say it is too soon and if Red is not going to do it right Arriflex "will pass them on the curve"

[laguun]

gain I am not arguing about data and progress, I only say it is too soon and if Red is not going to do it right Arriflex "will pass them on the curve"

red sells more 35mm cameras than arri. Much more.

Even if one combines all arri cameras sales together, mechanical 16, 35, 65 and digital, red sells *much* more than arri.

[Jason Ing]

I'm curious, do you ever make duplicates of your original business documents before you mail them?

[laguun]

Red is not ready yet, it could be a great camera in 6 months, in 1 year I don't exactly when but it could also be a total failure because of the way it was brought to life, too soon from search and development, too soon from testing, and it is being shaved on our chicks.
Nonsense.

The first released movie using red (jumper) went directly to #1 in the box office. Doug Liman, the director (mr. & mrs smith, bourne identity...) commented: There was always an Aaton on my set. Now there is always a red.

Already with the prototypes $$.$$$.$$$ budgets have been shot - as Che, running in cannes right now.

We are producing on two sets with red as i write this.

There are still issues in the camera and the postproduction workflow, but none which would stop pros.

[Jason Ing]

Guys, You Don't Read Between The Lines And The Lines.
What Adi Is Saying, And I Have Met Adi During His Shot In The Studio, And I Keep Saying It And This Is One F My Problems With Red:
Why Did You Get Out An Immature Camera.
When A Producer, A Dp And Even The Camera Assistant Go Out For A Shoot They Want To Have A Tool That Work, Not Maybe Work, Not Vanishing Data, But Knowing It Works.
True Even With Films And Hd On Tapes There Is No 100% Guarantee That The Info You Film Is Ok, But We Have Very Little Problems With This Because Most, Like 99.99% Of The Materials Are Fine And Useable.
No Producer Will Risk It.
I Am Sure There Are Ways To Overcome All This But I Don't Think Red Is Confronting Them, What Kind Of A Solution Is "... Send The Drive To Red..."???!!!???
Are You Joking Me?

The solution is:

When A Producer, A Dp And Even The Camera Assistant Go Out For A Shoot...

...They should be professionals and educate themselves on the tools they use to shoot with. They will "overcome" the "risks" by knowing the simple, easy "solution" of...

... verify it. copy it.

[Jason Ing]

By the way, I work in an Information Systems and Technology department where we are responsible for data that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Every single drive has a mirror, a real time hard-drive back up, an off-site tape copy, etc. etc. It's called common sense. It's also called disaster recovery. And we don't own any Reds. It has nothing to do with a camera. It's technology. And it's not new, "immature", "beta" technology either. We use the old, reliable, tried and true, good, extremely expensive stuff. And guess what happens? Yup. In every single IT department in the world... something goes wrong. The best professionals prepare for it. They don't ask, "if", they ask, "when".

And this is nothing new... you own a computer. If it crashes and you lose the data on the hard drive and you don't have a copy of it... whose fault is it really?

You want 100% guaranteed, perfect technology? It doesn't exist. And won't. Old, film technology that's been around and proven for years still loses "data" in it's workflow process.

If you have important "data", it's your responsibility to take the safeguards to prevent it being lost. Copy it.

[Robert Frank]

gain I am not arguing about data and progress, I only say it is too soon and if Red is not going to do it right Arriflex "will pass them on the curve"

I agree that there may be a problem here or there, but they are the exception and not the norm. CODEC ERROR is not a good thing to see.

BUT from what I see, RED *is* doing things right.

Where RED has the advantage is being able to *verify* that all is well or not while shooting.

Imagine if someone (referring to the OP's problem) backed up on set frequently and were able to point out a problem right then and there.

Just being able to shoot the scene over is time/money/stress saver. Being able to quickly review footage for exposure, composition, background, actor's performance, etc, is a potential movie saver especially for a low budget production.

[Denis Buhot]

gain I am not arguing about data and progress, I only say it is too soon and if Red is not going to do it right Arriflex "will pass them on the curve"

The whole story looks like somebody rushing into people with anger (say, back in 1900's), just because he didn't know reels had to be loaded in a dustless environment), complaining he had a nice sharp scratch throughout his footage and blaming the new technology for that limitation... Because computer procedures are relatively "new", some might tend to forget how tedious good' ol' film routine was to ensure proper results.

[Noah Kadner]

Fear leads to the dark side. But seriously- I love it how someone who has no clue what they're doing shoots RED right into their foot and then pronounces the technology a failure and swears to never use it again.

Well too bad for you buddy. Next shoot when someone wants to shoot RED or some other digital camera you won't get the call. Because rather than getting the proper training and calling up a good DIT and data loader to assist you, you went all gung ho and blew it for your shoot. And of course rather than accept blame yourself for the f-up like a professional, you put it onto a camera that's so new it's easy to blame as some bleeding edge artifact.

Perhaps that will get you off the hook this time around. But in a couple of years when everyone else is shooting digital and film is collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, you'll be an obsolete player. So might just want to rethink yourself bro...

Noah

[Noah Kadner]

Nonsense.

The first released movie using red (jumper) went directly to #1 in the box office. Doug Liman, the director (mr. & mrs smith, bourne identity...) commented: There was always an Aaton on my set. Now there is always a red.

Sorry but you are mistaken on that account. There are a couple of very minor sequences shot on RED in Jumper(which was a box office bomb btw) but the vast majority was shot on film. However, movies like Che/The Argentine and G.I. Joe are entirely RED.

Noah

[Andrae Palmer]

I am not going to say anything about the crew and the specific Red camera they were using.
But as far as your production I see you are using Panasonic HVX200, I am sure everything was fine with it, have you shot with the Red? will you be saying the same things if you would loose a shooting day because of the camera and a camera that is still in the process of being build, and that is my main problem.
Red is not ready yet, it could be a great camera in 6 months, in 1 year I don't exactly when but it could also be a total failure because of the way it was brought to life, too soon from search and development, too soon from testing, and it is being shaved on our chicks.

How I learned to back up on set was with the Panasonic HVX200. One time we recorded for about 30 minutes and the Time Code was running on the FireStore so I thought everything was going fine. I had my MacBook Pro with me and checked the FireStore and it was a big file with nothing in it. Seems I had messed with the Time Code settings in the camera and had thrown everything off. Took another 30 minutes or so to figure out what I did wrong and to switch the camera back to the right settings. My laptop had a data card so I googled the problem online. Other people had the same issue and blamed the camera or the FireStore. Because of my diligence I was able to save the day. I blamed myself for wasting one hour of the crews time. I was prepared on set for such things and the day was not ruined because of this lapse. Now I carry a 17" MacBook Pro, EVDO data card and external hard drives for on set review and backup. Back at the editing room the editor then brings his hard drives for a further back up. Hey I'm an amateur... only have shot with the HVX200's and other prosumer cams... I'm not a pro like you guys. :-)

I am very afraid of wasting other peoples time so I try to approach this like a military operation. The motto here is to BE PREPARED... just like the boy scouts. My 8 core Mac pro at home is also a RAID 5... I spent the extra money to ensure that data failure does not happen in post. The RED drive is a RAID 0 due to speed requirements. All this is very familiar to me perhaps because I come from a geek computer background before I ever touched a camera. Not knowing the limitations of data systems is where you guys mostly failed. Now the Codec Error problem is all REDs fault.. but that was a lesser secondary issue in the OPs post. The main problem was data loss and the blame for that rightly fell on your crew and not on RED.

[gdv]

red sells more 35mm cameras than arri. Much more.

Even if one combines all arri cameras sales together, mechanical 16, 35, 65 and digital, red sells *much* more than arri.

Is it the quantity or the quality you are looking for?

[gdv]

I'm curious, do you ever make duplicates of your original business documents before you mail them?

Exactly! The files shouldn't be lost. It should be reliable system.
It could be but it still isn't. It may be even in a few weeks...

[Patrick Tresch]

Guys...

You are going no where with this steril discussions!

Some people learned in the hard way. Too bad for the film/director/producer...

Now let's stop this discussion!

Pat

[Ed Blythe]

Guys...

You are going no where with this steril discussions!

Some people learned in the hard way. Too bad for the film/director/producer...

Now let's stop this discussion!

Pat

Yes. Blah blah blah. Back to business. You either know, or you don't want to know.

[Andrae Palmer]

Guys...

You are going no where with this steril discussions!

Some people learned in the hard way. Too bad for the film/director/producer...

Now let's stop this discussion!

Pat

I think this thread is very important. I'm sure lots of other people need to be educated about this.

[Ed Blythe]

But the point has been made. Repeatedly. Ad nauseum.

[Patrick Tresch]

I think this thread is very important. I'm sure lots of other people need to be educated about this.

Yes this thread is important in educating people... but I think we all got the point.

There is no need in finger pointing. This is their producer's job not reduser's.

Pat

[Babu Kantamneni]

Feel sorry for that guy.I have 2 reds with all available accesaries for 3 months.I played and got frustrated.No autofocus.Heavy.reboots.sometime slow.
Have too super8 videos.shooting kayotes and dogs.(Reminds me of damn computers 20 years ago.I am not ready for this shit.
On the other hand I let a bunch of 18 to 20 year olds(students of various kinds with my son) do whatever they want for the last month with these.Wow!3 shorts,2 fashion shows,one ?feature in works.
I dont like this shit.I am not ready for it.I am an idiot.
Self pity is Addictive.
Babu

[Finner]

Feel sorry for that guy.I have 2 reds with all available accesaries for 3 months.I played and got frustrated.No autofocus.Heavy.reboots.sometime slow.
Have too super8 videos.shooting kayotes and dogs.(Reminds me of damn computers 20 years ago.I am not ready for this shit.
On the other hand I let a bunch of 18 to 20 year olds(students of various kinds with my son) do whatever they want for the last month with these.Wow!3 shorts,2 fashion shows,one ?feature in works.
I dont like this shit.I am not ready for it.I am an idiot.
Self pity is Addictive.
Babu


Yep. The red is a digital cinema camera and it is not easy or simple. People keep fooling themselves thinking that, focus, post, 1 man shooting, configuration and a bunch of other things are EASY. Well they are not and expect to use a qualified crew to shoot properly with red. If you approach the red like you would a 35mm film shoot with a decent sized qualified camera crew things will likely go well. If you approach the shoot like a HVX 200 or f900 style camera you will sooner or later get burned. My bet is sooner.

[laguun]

Sorry but you are mistaken on that account. There are a couple of very minor sequences shot on RED in Jumper(which was a box office bomb btw) but the vast majority was shot on film. However, movies like Che/The Argentine and G.I. Joe are entirely RED.

Noah

d. liman used film and red for jumper.
heres what he has to say about it:
http://www.red.com/interviews

interestingly enough, jumper colorcorrected the red footage to blend into the film. no one, different from che now, complained....

[laguun]

Is it the quantity or the quality you are looking for?

in the case of red - both.

[laguun]

Exactly! The files shouldn't be lost. It should be reliable system.
It could be but it still isn't. It may be even in a few weeks...

Gdv,

the camera is working just fine for A-budgets released and in production right now.

if you arent able to produce on a red, sorry, bad for you - we are.

there are several rough edges - but thats part of our job to deal with. No matter if 35mm film, hdcam or 35mm red.

[Martin Weiss]

Mistake:
Working with digital harddisc media without backup (applies to all digital media). Doing so for hours worth of footage.
Solution:
Have negative insurance. Cost 3-4%.
I would be surprised if a neg insurance would have indeed covered this gross negligence.

[laguun]

I would be surprised if a neg insurance would have indeed covered this gross negligence.

true. question of budget mainly however.

[gdv]

Gdv,

the camera is working just fine for A-budgets released and in production right now.

if you arent able to produce on a red, sorry, bad for you - we are.

there are several rough edges - but thats part of our job to deal with. No matter if 35mm film, hdcam or 35mm red.

Be sure that I am and will.
In my opinion I should have gotten a more camera ready product.
It has such immature design like when you changing a battery it takes more than a minute to shut it down swap battery reboot the camera... come on... we know it shouldn't be like that, it is not like that in a simple video camera, so you have a booting time sine the technology is different but at least a back up power could be installed inside the camera that will keep it going for 2-3 minutes till you mount the new battery.
But I guess for you it is OK. Too bad because that is not the way it should be and was suppose to be corrected while the camera was under development.
And the big problem is that some other manufacturer will come up very soon with a similar camera free from all these immature simple problems and then you will be left with a camera which as it looks like was made to last not more than 2 years (and I hope I am wrong) while with Arriflex cameras you can still shoot a feature film with a 2C which was made at WWII.
But I guess you are happy with what you have. Good for you for now. Will see you in two years.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/535_1211654489.gif