just a toy?

[Bachman]

Had an interesting comment from someone in the industry today about the RED. They said it’s just a toy for rich hobbyists and low budget filmmakers, and it’s not a serious workhorse production camera.

I disagreed of course. But it did make me wonder. Out of everyone that’s ordered a RED thus far, how many are from professional production houses and plan to use them on a day-to-day basis in the field for normal production house work eg Corporate/TVC/Doco/Government etc?

[Mardi_Gras]

Had an interesting comment from someone in the industry today about the RED. They said it’s just a toy for rich hobbyists and low budget filmmakers, and it’s not a serious workhorse production camera.

I disagreed of course. But it did make me wonder. Out of everyone that’s ordered a RED thus far, how many are from professional production houses and plan to use them on a day-to-day basis in the field for normal production house work eg Corporate/TVC/Doco/Government etc?

The who-is-who of rez holders is irrelevant imho. What should concern any serious consumer/pro/hobbyists or whatever, should be the camera specs relative to others already out there in the same price/performance range. I think the answers speaks for themselves.

Knocking Red on the basis of its rez holders' backgrounds is the lamest of the arguments I've heard so far.

[Bret Weeks]

I am. Music Videos & commercials. Real Stuff. Ton's of em.

Although I believe that there will still be DP's & Production companies who wish to use film, mostly because they are uncomfortable with a data-centric workflow, I figure that 60-80% of our overall market will switch over to RED when it arrives.

I called one of our clients from the booth at NAB and informed their head of production we can now throw about $7K per video back into the budget with the absence of 52 & 7218. Sorry Kodak. :)

cheers-

bw

[Bachman]

The who-is-who of rez holders is irrelevant imho. What should concern any serious consumer/pro/hobbyists or whatever, should be the camera specs relative to others already out there in the same price/performance range. I think the answers speaks for themselves.

Knocking Red on the basis of its rez holders' backgrounds is the lamest of the arguments I've heard so far.

Its just a question, not a criticism. If i didnt believe in Jim and the boys I wouldnt have ordered one.

We will be draging our RED up and down the West Coast of Australia, shooting anything from hot, dusty mine sites for the big mining companies to glamour shoots for fashion TVC's

[Andrew M.]

I posted it here before and I will post it again.
In 1980 IBM mainframe division VP was approached and asked if IBM is going to produce IBM PC like Comodore or Sinclair or Atari did, the answer from serious industry player was:
International Business Machine (IBM) is not in the appliances business.
Then two years later they released the first IBM PC.
Guess what, they didn’t want to buy this DOS operating system rights from Bill Gates ether. Maybe IBM did recognize business opportunity here but they didn’t act on it.
That is why dinosaurs are instinct now. Large industry players have always trouble to adjust to sudden technological change and I will not wary about it too much.
Have a respect for them but do your job.

I have heard even better comment once, that Internet is like a CB radio (Civil Band) just a toy, comes and goes. (comment was done by high end computer technology guru in very reputable university in 1986

[Petr Dvorak]

Ok who cares. You know and they simply just dont want to know. Let footage speak for itself.... btw its really beautifull toy and I just like to play :biggrin:

... just tell them they are right and dont waste your time :bleh:

[donatello b]

"Had an interesting comment from someone in the industry today about the RED"

that someone has very narrow vision and will be replaced shortly ..

[Bachman]

"Had an interesting comment from someone in the industry today about the RED"

that someone has very narrow vision and will be replaced shortly ..

You gotta realise that there are alot of people out there that are quite scared of this Camera. You have companies like Kodak, Arri and Panavision that stand to lose alot of money if this camera is as good as 35mm. I think the RED came out of left field for some people, I think they feel a bit ambushed. I wouldnt want to be in their position right now.

[Ace]

You gotta realise that there are alot of people out there that are quite scared of this Camera. You have companies like Kodak, Arri and Panavision that stand to lose alot of money if this camera is as good as 35mm. I think the RED came out of left field for some people, I think they feel a bit ambushed. I wouldnt want to be in their position right now.

The war is no doubt going to get ugly. There will unfortunately be human casualties. Im talking about hundreds if not thousands layoffs as the chemical film industry is decimated. And because of this, a huge fight will be put forward which is only to be expected. Families who rely on the bread and butter of the film industry will be facing hardship. Alas this will be the cost of progress. But in any healthy economic society, new value will always be created and old value will eventually be reborn elsewhere. Its not always a zero sum game.

/off the tangent rant over

[redhead]

They said it’s just a toy for rich hobbyists and low budget filmmakers, and it’s not a serious workhorse production camera.
Reminds me of IBM in the 1980s. When they released their PC, it came with a text-only video card. They did not want to design a serious graphics card because their computer was for business, not for games. Hercules designed the first real graphics card.

Quarter century later, how many business applications are still text based?

Sure, this camera will be great for rich hobbyists and low budget filmmakers, but that does not mean it will not also be a serious workhorse production camera.

[Andrew M.]

History shows that well established companies tend to ignore or choose to ignore the sudden change in the technology. Very few do watch the change carefully and buy few leading players of the change. Even fewer know how to integrate the newly purchased companies in to its rigid corporate structure. We just have big technology change in the telephone switch industry going on since few years. It is fun to watch how Nortel or Lucent are dealing with the change but it is excellent analogy.
Good that most of the camera patents expired but I will watch the lenses codec and acquisitions method patents. Big guys may get desperate.

Verizon Sues Vonage in a Patent Dispute
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/technology/20vonage.html?ex=1308456000&en=068442f98cf6cac1&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Greg Syverson]

I sent out an email to a friend that worked on the Planet Earth series program. It is no secret about what cameras they used for the production. I asked about what they would invest if they were me. They suggested waiting and some new things were on the horizon. The Red camera was mentioned. I believe that a lot of people with different levels of production are going to be looking at the RED system.

I feel bad. The first time I heard of the RED Camera, I thought what a joke. Everything they did was abnormal compared to the norm. They wanted 1k down to hold a camera. I was thinking how can they get away in broad daylight with such a scam. My hat goes off to the RED team. An early congratulations on your success!!!! With a little pepper and salt my hat does not taste to bad, because I am sure having to eat it now.

I look forward to my next project. At this time I plan on using the RED Camera for it.

Questions:

1: I allready asked about low light for the auroras (wished we could test this first)
2: What about an underwater housing for it?
3: Is it tough enough to survive an Alaskan Brown Bear. (I am joking and hope this does not happen)

[Jonas Nyström]

One way for some DPs in the guild, to (try to) keep every other DPs not in guild outside, is to embrace the 35mm to the one and only, and that's forever...

But we will see which one who laughs later...

[Álex Montoya]

Independently of what we are or aren't, making such a statement about the RED is simply idiotic.

The subtext is crystal clear anyway. It reads something like: "Ohmygod, I'm frikin' scared that my investment in abusively priced gear will be worthless in a couple of months"

And I completely understand their fear.

[dalemccready]

I'm a DP, I shoot commercials, I shoot drama and music promos. I asked myself when I thought hard about this camera whether it could be useful to me in all those situations, and I believe it will, in all of those situations. In fact I think the lower cost of the camera will help me with jobs that sometimes skewed toward cheaper aquisition formats. When they cut the budget (often from 35mm to 16 or HD), the camera won't be the first thing to go allowing me the opportunity to keep making good pictures.

There's nothing worse than doing a good job on a format that lacks "pop" and not being able to add it to your reel.

[jaadgy akanni]

Independently of what we are or aren't, making such a statement about the RED is simply idiotic.

The subtext is crystal clear anyway. It reads something like: "Ohmygod, I'm frikin' scared that my investment in abusively priced gear will be worthless in a couple of months"

And I completely understand their fear.

You're so right about that. The other day, just before NAB, I brought the word RED to some DP's and some other friends in the business and the look of panic on their faces was just amazing. Then they just went off, saying that RED was just hogwash, and that "just like last year, they'll just show a little mockup of their so called camera in a glass display...and besides, Sony and Canon would never allow that to come to be." The panic was so obvious, just like when someone is told that a beloved family member is on the verge of dying and you start trying to find a way to convince yourself that its just a bad dream.
Besides the fear that their abusively priced gear will be worthless in a couple of months, I think that many people also have some sort of sick romantic-masochistic-snobbish need to know that certain technologies are too expensive to have access to-that only a few can ever use them, even if that includes them. It's like they enjoy having to go through that kind of struggle, if you will.

[John Travis]

I know professionals in post-production who still think Final Cut Pro is a "toy" (they may not use that exact word but the feeling is the same). To be fair there are still, of course, some things the big boys do better than FCP and obviously a colorist isn't going to finish on FCP (we'll see how the new Color does).

However, the prejudice is really about industry standard vs. outside companies. If a new company comes in from the outside with a product many pros will automatically be skeptical. Okay, you can't blame them. But the interesting thing is that if that product is far cheaper than the industry equivalent, the same professionals will dismiss it out of hand.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, or that there's some agreement between the major players, but the industry, Hollywood, generally likes to keep the gulf between amateur and professional wide by making the true pro products very exspensive.

So when the founder of a company that has nothing to do with Hollywood decides he's going to start another company from scratch that'll develop a truly affordable turly professional digicine camera, it's like a slap in the face of the industry. You can just hear them groan "It'll never work" and then "You can't do that", because it goes against the way things are done.

The bottom line is when someone puts out a pro camera at a rich hobbyists price point what does that do to the rest of the market?

[Barry Gregg]

The bottom line is when someone puts out a pro camera at a rich hobbyists price point what does that do to the rest of the market?


At some point it makes them look a little like blacksmiths. Holding on to the old technology, wishing the new would stop taking over everything.

[KETCH ROSSi]

I consider my self... serius, period!

I love the specs, the workflow, the image it produces, the price... ho the look!!!

I come across many schepticals of this camera, so, I could care less, when I get them I will be using them for full production, I have 5 films in the works, my 3 RED's will go to work as soon as I get them, probaly end of summer or end of year.

I consider every other option before RED, so I went with RED!

Ciao,

KETCH ROSSI
www.KETCHFRAME.com

[KETCH ROSSi]

Sorry, forgatten the main answer to your Q?

Just a Toy?

Absolutely this will be my Toys, and I will play with them like I never did with any other Toy before( good think I'm a guy, it almost sound pervert).

Ciao,

KETCH ROSSI
www.KETCHFRAME.com

[Peter McCully]

When 16mm was concieved it was intended as cinema for "the common man", basically, home movies. The rest is history. And we are in a very similar position with digital aquisition. We know things are changing- inevitably. Like any change, there are those who will be in denial about it. The significant thing is, perhaps it won't be Red per se that will alter the landscape but the competition rushing to catch up will. Then Red will get better, then the others, then Red.... But we will know who started it.

[Jason Murphy]

When motion pictures were developed by Edison and the Lumieres in the late 1800's, most people saw them (if they saw them at all) as cheap novelties that had no future, except as the equivalent of some carnival sideshow. A few people saw them as being interesting for scientific study. Then people mainly saw them as ways to record plays, and thus a way for "common people" to get the good seats in the (stage, not movie) theatre.

So, there's a precident here, though I think it's safe to say that people are calling RED a toy now for other reasons.

Edit: Also an excellent point there on 16mm, Peter.

[tj williams]

If you make your living at a thing then you are a professional. If you make your living at somthing else, Then perhaps you are a professional at that. I make my living at this but sometimes I work for a very rich man who owns 2 Sony 900 cine alta cameras. He is a professional at somthing else. Hey wish I had his boat!!!

At NAB while lines of people circled the red booth waiting to get in, while people literally held up their credit cards and demanded to buy, The people at the Sony/Jvc/Panasonic booths went on as before. They will continue to sell their "proven" cameras just about as they did. Maybe they lost 1500 sales last year?, maybe you would'nt have bought from them anyway. The idea that RED with a few thousand sales is going to drive out Sony is pretty far fetched. Of course film is dead.... Then why are most movie chains not willing to step up to the very expensive plate and replace their projectors??? Most of the film sold is for interpostitives internegatives and release prints.... Eastman is just not feeling that much pain..... Next year most of the major films will be shot on 35mm film again.... each year electronic cine. cameras make a little more inroad..... REVOLUTION yea but it's just not gonna kill all the other companies. I know a buncha Dps and most of them have no problem shooting electronic? The question to use film/ele. is mostly about shooting rations, number of bodies needed, difficulties with light control, remote locations, etc etc...

[Ken Willinger]

I think RED has come along at a very pivotal time in the history of the TV/film industry as a whole. I'm a DP, but my main bread and butter for many years has been network magazine shows and cable network documentaries. The interuption in the BetaSP world (for those of us in the US market) after more than 15 years of being the established format has thrown fear and trepidation into the world of the freelance owner/operator. You can't own all the formats. I have shot with the F900, Varicam, HDX900, HVX200, SonyD600WS and some miniDV formats so far this year. There is no standard any longer. And no individual can afford to have them all.

Most of my clients want to walk away with a tape at the end of the day. But many are very interested in the tapeless workflow. Many of us (who are doing network level gigs) have been waiting and watching, trying to squeek out every cent we can from our existing rigs without commiting for the future. I was about to pull the trigger on a Varicam and may still share an HDX900 with a friend as an interim stop-gap solution (because I can hand off a tape at the end of the day). But with RED having come along, it throws a monkey wrench into the whole stew of major manufacturer manipulation of the market (yeah, I think they definitely plan the obsolesence).

Many of my fellow freelence brothers (and sisters) are still skeptical about RED and whether it will be able to fit into the workflow that we exist in. I'm betting that it will and that we will be able to profit from the camera. Whether it will be a replacement for that Betacam standard? Well I doubt that there will be one for some time. But whatever comes along as a standard in the future I think RED will be able to morph itself into conforming to it and be able to give our clients what they want. And we won't have to buy a new camera/format every three years, like the majors would like us to do!

[Wade Weaver]

I was in line for RED on the next to last day of the NAB. When we came
around the conner to go in, I saw at least 10 top guy's from Sony standing in front of the RED booth in a panic. The panic was so obvious on there face's.
It was a perfect Kodak moment. Well digitial phone moment.:tongue:
The truth is this, RED is just one more great tool for us to do our jobs well.
Plus my small production company can afford one or two and that's good!:

[djclinton]

I'm watching this whole thing with great interest. It has already happened in history.

In the early 1990's there was a revolution happening, music was becoming digital AND it was becoming more and more affordable for people to create music in their bedrooms. At about 1997 the mp3 codec was released and some 3 years after that it finally caught on.

So Technology moves slower than the thinking on forums ever will. But for what it's worth, here is the way I seeing it play out.

Major studios (the big 5) will maintain to at the VERY least, release prints on 35mm to keep themselves from having their films released on the internet prior to the screen. It's important that they do that for the industry.

However, especially in Australia and New Zealand, the cinemas are turning down the output power of their projector globes to get maximum life out of them. Therefore a HD video looks better at home on a 2k LCD than it does in the cinema. Of course the encoding has to be done well.

Personally I believe that the Digital movement will create more and more television movies and shows than we will know what to do with. Remember the Internet boom, I think there will be a TV boom that will really get crazy. I believe that content will be distributed mainly via the Internet and that every man and his dog will be making films just as every band and their PC are making music. If you're interested in Internet TV, check out the Dirac codec, but I digress.

Technology generally puts power into the common man's/woman's hand as owning an Arri and producing 35mm film (which is bad for the environment by the way) is as we all know, way too expensive.

Just think of how many short film festivals have popped up over the last 5 years.

This means that more and more buyers will be out there, all with their own emotional needs. Some feel that if they buy an Arri, they're a real movie maker. Some feel that way when they pick up a Super8 (I know I did, I was only 13 at the time)

The future for us, as users, is that there is going to be plenty of work for skilled "talented" individuals. The problem lays with just as it does in the music industry today, there is a lot of sub-standard music out there to wade through to find something good.

If you look at what happened to the analog to digital revolution in music, it's taken 25 years to get to where it is today. If it takes that long for the movie industry, I'll be 60 years old by then.

In the end, all that really matters is the Story, just as all that really matters in music is the Song.

Whew, talk about a rant.

[Michael Schrengohst]

Not bad for your first post....
Thanks

[Bachman]

However, especially in Australia and New Zealand, the cinemas are turning down the output power of their projector globes to get maximum life out of them. Therefore a HD video looks better at home on a 2k LCD than it does in the cinema. Of course the encoding has to be done well.


Add to that the fact that alot of provincial centres get second hand release dubs, often damaged with scratches and breaks. Last time I went to one of these I walked out it was that bad. This would never happen with digital cinema.

[Dennis Guskov]

They said it’s just a toy for rich hobbyists and low budget filmmakers, and it’s not a serious workhorse production camera.

What's their addresses / phone numbers. Somebody should pay them a visit Jay and Silent Bob style...

or we could just wait till the revolution starts for them to fall off the wagon.
:biggrin:

[Corrado Silveri]

I'm watching this whole thing with great interest. It has already happened in history. ./..

Great post, thanks.

This is one of the latest technology that will make the "jump" from analog to digital.
RED is only accelerating the whole thing...

[Dennis Guskov]

When 16mm was concieved it was intended as cinema for "the common man", basically, home movies.

I think 16mm was for TV production, before video. 8mm was for home movies.

[Stephen Gentle]

I think 16mm was for TV production, before video. 8mm was for home movies.

Peter is right; it was indeed intended for home use when it was conceived. This is going back quite a long way... Back to the 1920s. Later on the home users moved to the cheaper 8mm.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16mm

The silent 16 mm format was initially aimed at the home enthusiast, but by the 1930s it had begun to make inroads into the educational market.

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

The analogy from what Red will create to the 90ies digital revolution in music is not all the way correct.

What happened then was that suddenly you could do everything by yourself. Logic, ProTools and Cubase not only gave you a studio, but also let you become the drummer, bass player, the oboist, etc..

This is where the similarities end. You still have to have actors, light, etc..

So, while I feel that I could just copy and paste whole 10 year old threads from rec.audio.pro to the film vs. Red discussions, it misses one important point. Red gives you *one* important tool to being a filmmaker, but the "rest" is still the same.

Jochen

[Greg M]

Peter is right; it was indeed intended for home use when it was conceived. This is going back quite a long way... Back to the 1920s. Later on the home users moved to the cheaper 8mm.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16mm

Correct, the first 16mm camera was made by Kodak in 1923 and marketed to consumers (photo here: http://www.digitalfx.tv/kodak/html/cine.html)

8mm came out 9 years later.

[Andrew M.]

In the end, all that really matters is the Story, just as all that really matters in music is the Song.

Whew, talk about a rant.

I can hear this sentence time and time again.
"In the end, all that really matters is the Story"

I will modify it:
"In the end all that really matters is the Content"

I know, big theater movie is the part of RED end-user crowd, but once accepted there among the top producer, the bulk of RED camera shipments will be destined for EFP/ENG, nature and science content.
Such material makes more impression on the average viewer if you show more details and you show it with outmost clarity. Content is important but it is much easier to impress the viewer with lots of details on the screen, no matter if it is news from the war zone or underwater corals, conquering Mont Everest or balloon expedition to the North Pole, customers will pay more for good quality and some times it will be the decision maker.

It is like with the good cars, you have to get involved in the formula one races to show off, but your average customer has nothing to do with races, well except the rush hours.

[Dennis Guskov]

I think 16mm was for TV production, before video. 8mm was for home movies.

When I'm wrong, I'm wrong!