Red's transparency

[Colin Hubick]

I was reading a post by Jim about his feelings about being transparent in the development of the Red, and currently the Epic.

I for one feel that Jim's decision to be transparent in the past was a good thing, but also understand the trepidation he has in being that open going forward as misinformation and miscommunication may have negatively impacted the reputation of the Red One...initially.

Jim, it's your company, your vision, your camera, you do what you think, as your decisions in the past have lead to the current status of your company, and it is working. Congrats.

cheers
Colin

 

[David Quinn Carder]

There are simply too many people in here. Have you ever looked at the member list, or the overall thread/post count, or how many people are online at any given time? You have people here who post a lot and seem to think they're buddy-buddy enough with all the RED guys (due to how open RED is with customers and even non-customers) to be disrespectful or overstep their bounds… and then you have tons of people who don't necessarily post a lot, who manage to completely ignore simple instructions like "don't post in this thread, we'll just delete it". Big deal right? But for anyone who has run a big forum—and when I say big, I mean one that is just a tiny fraction of the size of REDuser—they know what a pain it is to put up with that sort of crap. And mods can't bitch as much as they want to, and as much as they'd be justified to bitch.

Not to mention, there are threads like this one which seem to me to circumvent the thread closure in Recon. I don't think I could keep my cool as well as Jim and the rest of the team do… I'd be swinging a banhammer around like a berserker.

And then… look at me. Posting here anyway, being a hypocrite. I feel bad for RED, I really do… they should feel on top of the world right now (albeit exhausted) but then they have this thorn in their side all the while.

:rant:

 

[Colin Hubick]

There are simply too many people in here. Have you ever looked at the member list, or the overall thread/post count, or how many people are online at any given time? You have people here who post a lot and seem to think they're buddy-buddy enough with all the RED guys (due to how open RED is with customers and even non-customers) to be disrespectful or overstep their bounds… and then you have tons of people who don't necessarily post a lot, who manage to completely ignore simple instructions like "don't post in this thread, we'll just delete it". Big deal right? But for anyone who has run a big forum—and when I say big, I mean one that is just a tiny fraction of the size of REDuser—they know what a pain it is to put up with that sort of crap. And mods can't bitch as much as they want to, and as much as they'd be justified to bitch.

Not to mention, there are threads like this one which seem to me to circumvent the thread closure in Recon. I don't think I could keep my cool as well as Jim and the rest of the team do… I'd be swinging a banhammer around like a berserker.

And then… look at me. Posting here anyway, being a hypocrite. I feel bad for RED, I really do… they should feel on top of the world right now (albeit exhausted) but then they have this thorn in their side all the while.

:rant:

I didn't mean to garner such a negative response from this. Just offering some support.

chill out David.

 

[Graham Foulkes]

I agree with Colin RED deserve our Support .

 

[David Quinn Carder]

I didn't mean to garner such a negative response from this. Just offering some support.

chill out David.

I wasn't trying to slam you either—like I said, I'm posting here too. I apologize for my wording.

 

[Colin Hubick]

I wasn't trying to slam you either—like I said, I'm posting here too. I apologize for my wording.

No problem David.
Cheers

 

[Ken Chan]

How about if Red set up a blog page. Sort of like Teslamotor's blog or Leica camera's blog for communication/transparency..

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog
http://blog.leica-camera.com/

That would be really nice..

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

I for one feel that Jim's decision to be transparent in the past was a good thing, but also understand the trepidation he has in being that open going forward as misinformation and miscommunication may have negatively impacted the reputation of the Red One...initially.

Transparency is a double-edged sword, especially in a virtual place where everyone can express their opinion: on one hand, it allows people on these boards to receive first-hand information from Jim & Co., but it's no mystery you can't control how that information is handled once it's out there, it's part of the game, so to speak. It also means that sometimes a tiny little bit of "news" can be enlarged and become an "issue", whether it's good or bad, important or almost insignificant. This unfortunately doesn't happen just for Red, cameras, technology, but for any kind of "news", even the serious stuff. It's part of the nature of the internet, I guess.

Frankly, I think the way some people "feel" about this or that camera (or any piece of technology) is very different in the real world (compared to what happens on Internet forums): if you only looked at boards and online communities, you may think a Red shooter would gladly sabotage an Alexa and vice-versa, just like a Star Trek fan would cut a Star Wars fan's head off, or a Nikon user would destroy a Canon lens just for fun. In the real world, a professional shooter/cinematographer/filmmaker may have a preference for this or that camera (or lens, monitor, film stock, etc), but not to the point where he gets to "hate" every other tool just because of that preference. I guess what I'm trying to say is that cameras are just means to an end, and to dismiss one camera just because "i read on the internet it sucks" or "i hate the way they run their official forum and the people on them" is quite pathetic, and doesn't really happen as often as some people may think. In other words, the reputation Red (as a company) and their camera have is largely based on what people think of it after having used it in real world situations, not on what it's posted here or on other websites, and the fact that it's widely accepted as a filmmaking tool should be proof enough, IMHO.

While I think Jim's policy to be quite open and transparent to the Red community is 99% of the times a good thing, I also think that the people who read this forum daily are a small percentage of the ones who in the end use their cameras. Maybe it's just me, but I know a good amount of people who use cameras every day, including Red, who've never been here and don't even know this forum exists. Most of them know there will be a new Red camera coming out soon, but it's not like they come here to see what the story is about. Quite simply, they'll put their hands on the camera when it's released, they will test and try it, and then will use it when they'll feel it's the right tool for the job. Some will love it, some will not, not a huge deal. We're not talking about world domination or the cure for cancer, are we?