multi million dollar production

[david farland]

There has been a lot of talk about the rates people will charge when hiring their out kit, which made me think….what will be your hiring approach which screams….I do multi million dollar productions………..and get you the big hiring bucks!

What measures will you undertake to provide a high level of service to your clients or your own team?

Things such as:

Physical Protection: What type/size of equipment box & how much padding. Will it be pelican, aluminum /ply? What cage configuration should Red 1 be stored in, if any? What Red equipment are you housing together?

Maintenance & Security: What are your maintenance/calibration checks before camera & accessories go out? What is your Red 1 emergency replacement arrangement?

Backup: If power is available, will it be computer with raid, or if battery only….laptop with raid 1 & blu-ray burner? Do you know any Red drive (raid1) or flash card data recovery techniques?

Monitoring: Red does playback luts I hope, but what ‘cheap’ s/w does same for dailies?

Commercials: - Types of Insurance cover & key terms for hiring without owner. Preferred payment types & hiree references?

Others: Quality of equipment, spares, couriers, kit security, support/ trouble shooting guides, environmental protection, hirer web-site details, etc etc.


Cheers,

[Evin Grant]

We'll if you're doing a "Multi million dollar" production then they should be renting at least two bodies, so that's your emergency replacement program right there. Send the down body to Red, they should be able to send a "Stand in" in a few days, after all they said the were going to be providing professional support.

As for field back up I found that you can off load simultaniously to two FW800 bus powered drives in about the same time it takes to shoot an 8GB card. Two seperate laptop drives in individual enclosures offers the best protection in my opinion. No worries about power failures, one drive can be sent on to the editor for archive while one stays with the production for reference and if one gets dropped or damaged both mechanisims are not in the same case.

You should periodically take your Red into a professional rental house and have them check the mount, the rest you should be able to test on your own.

Get the most sturdy case you can and still move around, I think Pelicans are fine, so are ETA/Anvil style but unless you have a camera truck this is a bit cumbersome.

LUT previews we just don't know yet.

[Christian Edwards]

see this is where AUSRUG will come in handy

[Chris Parker]

I will be renting out a fully outfitted truck that takes care of ALL the issues you mentioned. And more. It will be costly, but it is a safe place for multi-million dollar shoots and big budget commercials to go. I suspect big shoots won't be renting much from the independent owner/operator due to many of the issues you listed above. This segment of the market will largely remain servied by rental houses.

[dino g]

we have had success renting our camera with a configuration that includes two ingest stations and at least three drives. usually the production company has their own drive too, so it is important to get the data onto the production companies drive first, then off load it to backups in time for the cf card to be used again.

re: cases, red sells a custom case made by pelican that has all the right sized cut outs for the body, batteries, charger, mounts, etc...

without getting into to much detail i will say that the support from red is the best product support of any product i have purchased in my life. they are more of a production partner than a camera vendor.

finally, i agree it is all about the service, if the director and dp are not praising you and the camera after a rental, you did not do your job. this camera makes everyone's life very easy, the camera dept, production, art direction, director, ad's, lighting and grip all the departments love it because it helps the production move forward without a lot of downtime, reloading CF cards and formating takes about 20 seconds total, switching monitors from onboard to external large monitor for every one to gather around, is a breeze...

[donatello b]

"Multi million dollar production"

then CF cards are CHEAP ....
SAFE = the CFcard is your negative or master - it is not use again - the production buys them and puts them in a safe storage ... maybe a copy is made onset or they are sent to editorial and they make the backup copy and ingest to editng systems ...

[david farland]

...if the director and dp are not praising you and the camera after a rental, you did not do your job. ...

Excellent advice....thank you!!!


they are more of a production partner than a camera vendor...
Nice words....I think when 4000 cameras are out there....that support paradigm must change.

Their support focus must be to get the bugs out by the time 4000 cameras are released and there are no hardware bugs in the camera body. I just hope they stuck some Reds in the tumble drier set on -50° to +125° for the week!


"the CFcard is your negative or master - it is not use again ...

I'm not sure I agree.
In film where you get generational loss, copying is a problem. But I can't see the advantage in the digital world where for long term storage, data needs to be copied at regular intervals.


Cheers,

[dalemccready]

I think he was referring to CF in that if budget is not a problem, you buy as many CF cards as you would have rolls of film. Shoot on them once and move them onto post for backup and ingest. Then put them in a shoe box on the producer's shelf/safe.
I can see this becoming common as the price of cards drop. Still they could be re-used for the next feature once the 4K master is compiled and archived.

[donatello b]

"he was referring to CF in that if budget is not a problem, you buy as many CF cards as you would have rolls of film. Shoot on them once and move them onto post for backup and ingest. Then put them in a shoe box on the producer's shelf/safe. "

yes - thanks for making it clear dalemccready ...
but no shoe box - store CF cards in a vault - just like they do neg, tape etc ...

[oldphart]

"he was referring to CF in that if budget is not a problem, you buy as many CF cards as you would have rolls of film. Shoot on them once and move them onto post for backup and ingest. Then put them in a shoe box on the producer's shelf/safe. "

yes - thanks for making it clear dalemccready ...
but no shoe box - store CF cards in a vault - just like they do neg, tape etc ...

CFs will not be hazardous, but they will hardly last as long as nitrate negatives. Expect them to self-erase in ten years.

[Adrian T.]

CFs will not be hazardous, but they will hardly last as long as nitrate negatives. Expect them to self-erase in ten years.

Just refresh the data at any time to get another ten years of lifetime.

[david farland]

Bit like a corrupted floppy disk, if the data is corrupted earlier than expected you'll need to rewrite it with a copy another copy that isn't corrupted.