How to convince a Producer to use RED

[Antonio Forjaz]

Hi all,

Today I approached a Producer that is preparing a feature film and tried to convince him to shoot on RED.
He said that he had heard that RED was great for shooting things for TV, but that if the film was for the screen, there were big problems.
What big problems he was not able to explain. I told him that that was not true.
But, I would like to point him to some sites that explain how to go from RED to FILM and why it is NOT a BIG PROBLEM.
I really don't understand why some people talk badly about things they don't have any idea about.
So, if any one can point me in the right direction, please do.
Thanks

Antonio

[Martin Weiss]

You might also want to show him REDs NAB showreel

[Antonio Forjaz]

I have, he is not worried about the quality but the work flow, from digital to film.

[Andy Jarosz]

What do you think will look better going to a filmout, upscaled 1080p or oversampled 4k?

[Antonio Forjaz]

that is a good question, but I feel that 4K

[Emanuel A.]

António,

Mera curiosidade, trata-se de algum produtor português?

Out of curiosity, is this producer portuguese?

Cumprimentos,
E. :-)

[David Mullen ASC]

Appeal to his pocketbook...

But seriously, just find some other filmmaker in the area who has made a feature on RED and taken it all the way through to projection and introduce him to the producer. Or a post house that has done it.

If he simply thinks the quality won't be there, take him to see "Knowing" or "The Girlfriend Experience".

[Peter Hodgins]

So, if any one can point me in the right direction, please do.
Figure the cost on 35mm vs the cost with RED to 35mm ... is there much difference .... explain how the RED gives much more coverage.

[donatello b]

is he currently planning to shoot on FILM ?
what country is he located ? ( could be some post items not available there-which could spell post problems in that country)

[Antonio Forjaz]

Alo, não em Portugal, mas sim em Mocambique.

[Antonio Forjaz]

Appeal to his pocketbook...

But seriously, just find some other filmmaker in the area who has made a feature on RED and taken it all the way through to projection and introduce him to the producer. Or a post house that has done it.

If he simply thinks the quality won't be there, take him to see "Knowing" or "The Girlfriend Experience".
The problem is there is none here except mine. His problem is not the quality or the look, that he knows the Red is good, but he says that there are technical problems in the whole digital to film process from a Red.... He seems to think that there are less problems from a Sony F900 to film, and what I need is some evidence and a work flow to show him.

[Antonio Forjaz]

is he currently planning to shoot on FILM ?
what country is he located ? ( could be some post items not available there-which could spell post problems in that country)
No, he is not planing to shoot on film, he is more inclined to shoot on Sony F900...

[Antonio Forjaz]

No, he is not planing to shoot on film, he is more inclined to shoot on Sony F900...
We are located in Mozambique, but usually post is done in Portugal

[jimhare]

Tell him that he shouldn't base his opinion on 18 month old reports, when no one knew what they were doing, plus the RED build was in its infancy.

Tell him to ask what's happening NOW, and who is having trouble.

Knowing, Angels & Demons and the lot. These people had choices and they chose RED

I'm sick of hearing all the 'old news' as if it was the case today.

If it's good enough for Steven Soderburgh and Peter Jackson, it may just be good enough for him. ;-)

[David Mullen ASC]

We are located in Mozambique, but usually post is done in Portugal

Then I'd start talking to the post houses in Portugal to see who has experience with RED footage because if the producer takes his RED movie to some inexperienced place, he will have more problems than if he used a more common format like HDCAM.

The RED workflow is not a problem, but you don't want the producer fumbling around with it because he took it to a post house with no clue as to how to handle it.

You have to work backwards from the post to figure out how to shoot something. Find a post house with RED experience, take the producer there, talk though the workflow, take some tests through there, and the producer will be happy. Don't just shoot a feature on the RED, hand the footage to the producer, and tell him that he can take it anywhere and make it work, because he may not end up with the right post people helping him.

[Antonio Forjaz]

thanks all for the pointers. I will let you know what the outcome of this story was.

[Paul Leeming]

Antonio, what do you edit on? Why not show him that as a start, so he knows it can be done on any computer today? If you have Adobe CS4.1 it's pretty much shoot, import R3Ds, edit at any resolution, then when finished either render out via Media Encoder or if they want a 4K filmout, render from After Effects as 4K DPX sequences which can be taken to just about ANY film recorder house and burned to film. Even the colour correction can be set in AE to match the film stock via a quick test and LUT application.

HTH

Paul

[Antonio Forjaz]

I have a Final Cut Studio set up. His concern is and here goes a quote from his last email to me "what I think will be more diffcult for you
is to offer guarantee that the post house in France and/or Belgium is
prepared, confident that they are equipped to deal with this particular
technology... Based on my initial superficial research I have been advised
from various sources to be extremely careful with the camera choice in
view of post requirements. Therefore , the route is necessarily to work
backwards from post to acquisition ."

[Paul Leeming]

Contact Oliver Imfeld in Belgium, he will be able to help your producer inspire confidence in the Red post production workflow:

http://web.me.com/noproblemproductions

The caution from "various sources" sounds like a bit of FUD being ladled out by people with vested interested in keeping their own workflows safe in light of Red's easy options today.

My question today would be whether or not the producer wants to work with a post company not able to handle Red footage, since there are enough options out there today that pretty much ALL the major NLE packages, from FCP and Adobe up, support Red RAW footage natively. And that's quite aside from Red itself offering FREE transcoding tools to get you to DPX, TIFF etc if necessary, after which even traditional film DI workflows will have zero issue with the footage.

HTH

Paul

[Ido Karilla]

If he wants to try us here in Israel he is welcome. 2 feature films behind us, all red,we print in a kodak lab in greece and the results are amazingly good. in terms of budget the savings compare to 35mm are enormous.

[Antonio Forjaz]

Thank you very much Paul, I will try my best to convince him, and give him Oliver's contact.
Thanks you very much again

[Antonio Forjaz]

Thanks Ido, I will forward him your details.

[Stephen Williams]

If he wants to try us here in Israel he is welcome. 2 feature films behind us, all red,we print in a kodak lab in greece and the results are amazingly good. in terms of budget the savings compare to 35mm are enormous.

Hi,

I shot 33,000' of 35mm on a commercial in Greece last year, that lab is VERY VERY GOOD, far better than I am used to.

Stephen

[martinnoweck]

there was a guy from portugal on this board who also owned a post facility ... not sure what his name is ... emanuel?

maybe some one can chime in for the contact details.

best wishes,
martin

[Emanuel A.]

Nuno Rocha, young portuguese moviemaker, shot a short with a smooth experience as far as the 35mm film-out process is concerned. You can contact him here. He's reduser.net member.

Shot on 4K RED ONE S35mm sensor size.

2K (Workflow).

Exhibition's print, 35mm film. Kodak, I believe.
(lab) Tobis [ LINK (http://www.tobis.pt/default.aspx?sid=1d47fdd7-e475-4e57-bf59-e8cf2a910d4c&cntx=QyFC0MObQyKJ8PlbKtlfFpgFTiveQ9Va2WLW3aoaV%2FU %3D) ] in Lisbon.

It went fine, especially 4K IMO. Nevertheless, on the big screen, I felt some gap between the use of distinct 4K and 2K footage into the same scene. So, I wouldn't recommend its abuse or even its choice in the same scene unless if strictly motivated from the script.

[Emanuel A.]

António,

Mensagem enviada.
PM sent.

Abraço,
Emanuel :-)