Misconception

[Brad Webb]

If someone says that the post workflow on Red is too complicated just whip open a laptop and start cutting Raw files in Adobe Premier. That usually shuts them up.

 

[Petri Teittinen]

I am DPing the reboot of Arrested Development for Netflix and Fox and using Epic.

You had me at Arrested Development. Epic was the icing on the cake.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Whenever I hear the too complicated/slow/etc rap about Epic post I wonder if the people speaking have a clear understanding of the infrastructure required for 35mm film acquired images to get to and through post. IAC, it seems the real issue is more perception than fact, we all should be used to that in an (US) election year ;-)

Perhaps when it comes to molding perceptions we should mimic the tactics of political operatives. It's easiest to start from an actual fact and then present it in the most favorable light. One example would be the poster who noted that the larger frame and RAW color space would provide the opportunity for producers to extract multiple compositions and moods from the same source footage. As a DP I am always concerned about editors changing my compositions without fully understanding why I chose them, but it can counter the "who needs 4K in a 1080 world" argument.

I find it illuminating that a primary basis for evaluating merits in the Epic vs Alexa discussion is often about financial incentives, even to the point of discrediting the Epic option purely by dint of tying it to nefarious financial motivations (DP/Director just wants to use it because he owns one and doesn't care about how it looks) . IMO that tack reveals two things:

1) "industry" people are all about the money so they figure everyone else is (individual perceptual distortion caused by flawed schema)
2) rather than reveal that they don't grasp the technical intricacies of the projects they manage they default to a familiar and easily understood narrative where they can discredit the Epic advocate by throwing them under the biased by self interest bus.

Most of this follows the typical "entrenched players vs disruptive technology" script. IMO established talent like Peter Lyons Collister, ASC championing the new technology (in this case Epic) is the most effective agent of change, just expect the usual obfuscation along the way.

Cheers - #19

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Anyone who has ever complained about RED post production workflow has never tried dealing with Alexa's LUTs. Incredibly easy to download. Incredibly difficult to get to work right.

R3D -> EXR -> (Optionally RG3 at the end of the comp) ... Done.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

"R3D -> EXR -> (Optionally RG3 at the end of the comp) ... Done." - thanks Gavin - appreciated!

Graeme

 

[Max M.]

The militaristic aspects of the naming conventions: bomb, gunner, etc, bother me a lot as I'm not a 15 year old boy any more and I think cheapen the achievement of red in building a great tool.

I kind of agree with this, perception is hard to change, and red has a rebel reputation with not reliable enough camera's. The red one and the epic has alot of problems on set, too much software errors, glitches, crashes etc...

it's as simple as when you zoom in to 1:1, the image stutters all over the way till it makes it to 1:1 mode, the sdi port goes black etc, video village shouting they have no image...these small things give people a feeling to camera is buggy instead of like the clean zoomin of the sony ex1 and c300. This is a small example of negative perception creation.

Another example, timecode... It's all over the place in the red one, and didn't get much better in the epic, it's not 100% reliable. If i hang a lockit on the camera, sync it with sound a few times througout the day, and autosync all the takes, alot of takes will be off by random amount of frames...just doesn't work good enough to really trust on it...

The boot time of the red one made it that sometimes the whole set was waiting for the red one to boot after a crash. Those 90 seconds feel like hours and that is moment alot of people think "argh its the red again"
I shot a commercial on the epic, half of footage was not viewable in rcx, and had to be brought back through red undead. The producer doesn't want that to shoot on the epic anynore and is going to shoot alexa next time, because he never had a problem with it....

The big thing were red is loosing it, is reliability... Camera's should function always, all the time and never crash...people remember the problems more than the highlight moments. I recently was at a conference for a mobile phone carrier and they
said: "99% of the time our network is up and running, but it is that 1% of the time, when the network is down and people can't call or be called (and it screws there bussiness up), is what they remember and form their opinion about us. People don't praise us for that the network works, they assume it works and burnus when it's down. So to make the difference we have to by 100% up and running."

This may seem all really negative, but i think these kind of things are mostly were the perceptions come from, red has learned this and i think they are absolutely doing there best and when pushing the bar it's difficult to maintain this reliability, but the line between really reliable working equipment and ground breaking technology is difficult and red gets bashed for while
pushing to enveloppe, it comes with a price...maybe the balance can be better but the nice thing is, i know it will get better, it may take long, too long for some, but it will get better

 

[Alex Kornreich]

It makes a whole lot of sense to be frustrated that execs or producers don't want to use the format that you feel is best for the project. However, from their perspective, how is it not a conflict of interest when a DP owns the gear he/she wants to use? I think any normal person would be biased towards using the gear they've spend 10's of thousands of dollars on. I own a lot of gear and I've chosen the gear because I feel it's best for the job, but also every day I don't use that system, I opportunity cost increases.

It's just a matter of perception. If you didn't own the gear and wanted to use the Epic, conversations would probably be different. I don't think, however, it will ever be possible to change this perception, and I don't think it applies to just the Red, but every camera system.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

...

The militaristic aspects of the naming conventions: bomb, gunner, etc, bother me a lot as I'm not a 15 year old boy any more and I think cheapen the achievement of red in building a great tool.

I am not one to second guess a guy like Jim Jannard as to his business approach. However, I have felt for some time that the brand image; lying somewhere between military, motorcycle gang, goth, ax murderer, tattoos and action villains, is more of a damage to RED than a help. I can appreciate the "rebel" idea but I'll admit to embracing RED inspite of its image, rather than because to it. I'd love to see it evolve. I really don't think that would leave anyone behind and it would very likely pick up the support and attention of a lot of additional people (i.e. more "share of mind"). Just my opinion.

 

[Jeremy Torrie]

When we made the decision to invest because of 4K and RAW when nobody else was doing it, that was a good enough rationale.

Red is inherently upgradeable...as Jim has said many times, stick with us and we will reward you for it. And Team Red has delivered time and again (perhaps not to everyone's deadlines but they get there). And guess what? As Peter has seen first-hand Red will kill themselves to solve a problem because they WANT to succeed and be proud of what they've made.

Next up is Dragon. Can you buy an Alexa and receive firmware upgrades for free PLUS upgrade sensors to take advantage of improving color science as well as R&D? I'm guessing that would be an entirely new camera...

Modularity is cool, plain and simple. Leading the tech rev -even better.

But in the meantime am I getting my butt kicked on Alexa rentals in town? Yep. I don't understand it (well, I sorta get it -some comments already made)...I've offered time and again to prospective clients to take the camera for a day or two and put it through the paces. It's worked a couple of times; often however, people simply refuse to even try, deciding instead they want Alexa then try to find the budget to support the request.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

I'm not really certain if this is relevant, but the form factor of Epic has enabled all of us natural history guys a huge, fast-moving mobility, that which you absolutely need when shooting big animals on the go. Never before possible, at least not in 5K.

I would think, that capability would easily translate to static set shooters, Che Guevara warfare guys, ENG animals, and everything in between, what's exactly not to like about this camera? Prores output module?

Apple gave that up, low-end consumer product now, it's a new world out there.

 

[Lewis-M Soucy]

With your filmography Peter, you shouldn't even have these conversations. You're too nice.

 

[Ruff]

I love these new Red cameras. They have transformed my work.

But, this is what I hear on set.

Why is there only one BNC out, on the operator side, and recessed? Have the designers never worked in a camera team?
Why is there only one EVF / Viewfinder out? Have the designers not consulted with Camera Operators and Assistants?
Why is there no power distribution on the camera? How do we power the preston / microforce?
Whats with all the military names?

This is what Producers say to me.

How do we provide dailies?
How do we provide files for editorial?
How do we grade it?

The camera is great. It does things that the Alexa cannot. It is tiny. The over cranking is excellent. The resolution handy for re-framing and stabilizing. It is modular and I love working with it. But here in my market Alexa gets the bookings as it 'just works out of the box'.

I don't know how to change the Misconception.