Thread: RED Film School Proposal
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12-29-2006, 03:32 PM
colleges/schools do NOT buy/build classes around items that are still in development. they need equipment that is available NOW not 6 months from now ... i suggest you try again next fall after RED has been out a few months ...
i've always have found that when colleges have $$ to spend on equipment they need to spend it now or they loose it and they may not get it back for the next semester.
12-29-2006, 03:35 PM
Ok so - remember meeting you in the queue for RED at NAB- your based in NZ right - I was standing in front of you!
OK well I will email them in the beginning of JAN and we'll see what we can make happen - but do you fancy the workshop idea also?
Mike
12-29-2006, 03:35 PM
As it stands at the school the Adrenaline is the only system that has HD monitoring, period. For proper grading it's really our only option.Originally Posted by mikes
12-29-2006, 10:53 PM
*sigh*
We use Sony HDV and Premiere at my school. I'd be very content with what you have at yours allready.
- Mikko
12-30-2006, 01:02 AM
Hey Mike! ;) so your getting one! cool!
Red workflow on FXPHD would be great! It's just the help I'm going to need in 2007.. awsome!
s
12-30-2006, 07:58 AM
For my two cents, your proposal is also a bit long for an administrator to be reading. More personal, less propagandal, even if it's true; after all, they can read RED's website themselves, can't they?
Just a nice, polite one-page letter, addressed formally by name, to the person you have the best connection with, explaining rationally and personally why you think this camera is a good choice for the students.
And yeah - don't scorn XDCAM, my school was shooting on PD-150s until this year (HVX upgrade!).
12-30-2006, 01:39 PM
A big hazzard with proposing a product that is in development is that you don't know what the final workflow will be, or what 3rd party has commited to support it.
Schools probably don't have a team of engineers on the payroll to maintain the hardware, upgrade and modify their hardware like post houses do.
I would also add that the proposal doesn't explain how Red One would fit in the school's curriculum.
Not all schools have big budgets for their film/media programs. If the school is making an investment in teaching new students in advanced digital cinema technology, then Red One would fit into that curriculum.
If the school is offering basic media/film courses, with a few advanced courses here and there, maybe Red One would be overkill.
You also don't know what the school paid for those 2 XDCams. Schools don't have to always pay full price for hardware and software, that may be the case here.
If you want this to be a serious proposal for next fall:
1. Drop the sarcasm, see it as a technical paper, just the facts and keep it straight forward.
2. You need to explain terms and technology that may be unfamilar to the reader, like what is DCT and Wavelet compression and why is one better than the other.
3. Do your research based on your own testing. Don't rely on what others tell you, what is theorized in forums or what the developers say. In the end you have to be prove you done your homework and you stand by your results.
4. Be ultra detailed in what the real costs are. I don't mean just the camera, but what it would cost for complete beginning to end workflow.
You had only listed the cost of the body, not what the lenses, drives, etc add up to.
You can also add how the Red workflow would integrate into the school's current workflows, especially if it would cut costs.
6. You have to be realistic about how Red One would fit in the educational environment. Are you proposing an advanced digital cinema course with Red One, or make it available to all media/film students?
Now a personal rant:
In the proposal there is a heading called "We'll Fix It In Post"
It was explaining RedCode, which isn't a post fix, but a workflow tool.
My experience in post has always proved that the "fix it in post" mentality has delayed, busted budgets and even killed more films than I want to count.
There are more tools to help fix problems, but it's still not easy.
Most "fix it in post" situations are done as best as possible, but the results may not be the same as if it was reshot.
It is inevitable that some things just have to be fixed in post, but it's always better to look at it as "enhancing it in post", meaning the better the source, the better the results.
12-30-2006, 02:28 PM
The ability to manipulate the "look" in post when working with a 12bit RAW 4k image is likely to be substantially greater that 4:2:2 HDCAM or DVCPRO-HD original. I would even imagine it to be a bit greater than what you could do with the result of telecined 35mm film unless the transfer is done very well. It will be interesting to see a year from now if I can still defend that theory. In any case, no matter how wonderful the format is you have to be smart about what you expect to fix in post.
The way I look at it is that 10 or 12bit RAW simply gives you more latitude for alteration of the "look" without seriously degrading the image. I have been working in DVCPRO-HD quite a bit lately and have found it is easy to tweak it a little, but once you try a shift it just a little too much it falls apart incredibly fast and gets butt ugly. I anticipate that the experience of grading RedCode RAW 4k will be similar to what I can do in Photoshop with RAW images from my 8 megapixel DSLR where the final output is 2MP JPEG.
Until we actually have the RedOne in hand and can put it up on a good monitor it is only speculation but I think it is a good reference point.
12-31-2006, 04:46 AM
That's the experience! Just like shooting RAW on your DSLR, and the compression hardly limits the amount of tweaking you can do, which is nice :-)
Graeme
04-02-2007, 06:14 PM
YES starting in the June/July timeframe we will have online workshop classes on the RED and shooting with it - and focused on post pipelines.
Mike
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