when you have to shoot - shoot. dont talk. (was RED IS DEAD)

[addie_reiss]

Okay...

Just came back from a lovely day at the beach here in Tel Aviv. And wow...! so many replies... in such a short time...

I must admint that i got what i wanted. I started this thread to tell the story, which is an educative one. I guess I like drama, therefore i chose the phrasing the way i did. after all - i did want to get responses and different angles and opinions from fellow camera people, and i wanted to get attention to the problem from RED technicians. after all if the post had a dry title like "CODEC FAULT" or "RED DRIVE FAILURE" and the presentation of the issue was a list of dry facts, not so many people would bother responding.


and after all - we are here to make drama...and to tell the story...

Its a shame, though, that the Thread, which was so active and lively was closed... (the problem is not solved yet...)

I am happy to see that the forum here is alive and responsive.
I was shocked that some people here "took it personal". my appologies.
I'd also like to thank the kind souls here, voluntairily demonstraring their SCHADENFREUDE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude).
And also thanks to all those guys who chose that the best way to defend their beloved is to attack my professionality.

Between all the responses it seems there was one guy "Andrew" (http://www.reduser.net/forum/member.php?u=805) who was on to something quite disturbing...

but before that, just to clear things out:
- It was against my judgment to work on Hard drive (in the studio we worked on CF).
- it was against my judgement to work without swaping drives.
- I never trusted this technology. it always seemed immature to me. The producer tought i'm paranoid.

the producer was aware of my recommendations and precautions. but obviouly trusted this technology more than you guys. Schadenfreude. spare the finger pointing please.

back to Andrew. if there is a chance that the disk was damaged when connected to the computer, then there is a missing link in the product. red should supply a proper download/backup solution. Something like the Portable P2 reader (panasonic AG-HPG10). and by no means allow accidental loss of data because of computer interface issues (a scenario that could happen also in the field).

The basic thing is that you need to trust the camera. tripple backups means people dont trust the workflow. tripple backups also means production overhead.

when i look at the Arri D-21, i feel safe. a robust and trusted tape mechanism to store the data that i know was tested over and over again by Arri in extreme conditions. They dont ask me to open a portable delicate IT office in the field. they "say": trust us - we are Arri. RED "sais": dont trust us - we are RED. watch us real close. one moment you look away and we will bite you.

Schadenfreude.
Thats the way to treat a trusting customer.

but regardless of the data loss, the real annoyance is the CODEC FAULT. this is unforgiven. almost no reply about that. are you guys living happly with a camera that may not always be able to shoot? do you like double guessing what kind of images this CODEC is capable of dealing with and what images you just arbitrarily cant take?

when you have to shoot - shoot. dont talk.

lets admit the truth. its not ready. not yet.

 

[Rick Darge]

Booyakashah..

This thread reminds of peoples subjective impressions of hard drive failure. Some people swear by Western Digital drives while others swear by G-Raid.

It's all subjective. I've been shooting on Red for over 3 months and have never had an issue with lost footy (knock on wood) I'm sorry to hear about your troubles..

Realize though that RED is practically 2 years old and is still in BETA form. We have been told this forever. If you don't like it. Don't use it.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

when i look at the Arri D-21, i feel safe. a robust and trusted tape mechanism to store the data that i know was tested over and over again by Arri in extreme conditions. They dont ask me to open a portable delicate IT office in the field. they "say": trust us - we are Arri. RED "sais": dont trust us - we are RED. watch us real close. one moment you look away and we will bite you.

Schadenfreude.
Thats the way to treat a trusting customer.

Addie,

the rule no. 1 in every serious business is not trust to anybody.

Trust to ARRi is just "a dream" of a certain professionals in movie business.

The rule no. 2 is GET INFORMED (get somewhere a professional intelligence service about a product {RED}
or visit often REDUser forum) before you make any serious decision or even an opinion.

Then everybody here talk about to TEST, TEST, TEST... and always TEST.

Hope this help to get a minimum of any professional success with RED.

 

[Kreisky]

Hey Addie,
schadenfreude is for idiots......
Im very sorry to hear about your problems.
It will be all good.......

bruno

 

[Bruce Allen]

Hey Addie

Sorry your data got messed up. That sucks. Hope you recover everything.

RE: Codec fault, did you get that with the CF media too?

BTW, I think RED is trying to address this codec fault flakiness with Build 16 - it is taking a very long time and that is presumably because they are doing more thorough testing than before.

Personally if I were you I'd wait for a month after Build 16 (non beta) comes out, and if there haven't been major showstopper bugs with that build, then you might want to look at trying the camera again. By that point it will hopefully be competitive with other cams, reliability wise.

Nice thing is you can always buy / rent two Reds and have a backup on set, ready to go, plus laptops, etc, for the price of a D-21 rental... I understand laptops aren't exactly ideal in the field for everything, but you could get a ruggedized tablet PC or something'...

Hopefully in the future you'll be able to choose between:

1. Two (relatively-stable Build 16) Reds, plus two ruggedized PCs and some external drives.

2. One competing digital camera (and you have to phone the rental company and wait precious hours if this camera goes down)

3. Film

...for the same daily rental rate / cost to production.

Which one do you think would be the most dependable way to get the shots you need?

I'd say it'd be either Red or film, depending on shooting conditions.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[tylerhawes]

Look if you are shooting film and have a lot of dollars on the line for a day of production or a scene and know up-front you can't afford a re-shoot, you rent an extra camera for the day as safety, you don't just "trust" that the camera will work because it has up to now. I don't care whose name is on the side, you plan for equipment failure because none of it is 100%.

If you look at any of the digitally acquired studio films, they always have multiple camera bodies, fault-tolerant RAIDs, duplicate tape stock, a person dedicated to logging and checking data integrity. They don't take it for granted that because it says Panavision on the camera it will work (believe me there were plenty of issues on Superman Returns to deal with the Panavision Genesis).

We just finished an 18-day shoot with RED on an indy film here in LA (no studio work, all location). For 17.5 days it was fine until the last day the power connection crapped out on us. It brought the set to a stand still just hours away from finishing. But there was no need for panic, since not only did we have a backup body, but the on-set RED tech owned a body also.

If something like your drive issue had occurred on our shoot, our RED Tech would've caught it when he swapped drives the next scene and raised the alarm. The files would've been duped to another drive within minutes to prevent any possiblity of a single drive failure losing our picture. That the files would be on my SAN here in the studio, the next day they'd be on an LTO, and finally then (with 4 copies in existence) the RED drive could have its files wiped (there's plenty of room for a few days' shooting with a 3-drive rotation).

My point is, we would've absorbed your issue within minutes or a couple hours at most and moved on, never losing any sleep worrying about finding a problem the next day. Worst case was redo a few takes. This was on a low-budget indy, not a studio film, so it's completely possible.

I know you say you protested at the flimsy workflow you went with. So really you should confine your wrath to your Producer, because apparently they made some very poor decisions. As far as the RED "X" issue, that's something else and it hasn't afflicted me so I guess it's some kind of bug. But you did get the shot after retrying, right?

 

[Brandon Fraley]

lets admit the truth. its not ready. not yet.

people pointed this out and agreed with you numerous times in the other thread. I'm not sure what response you're looking for. It's as if you want to FINALLY REVEAL RED AS THE IMMATURE BUGGY PRODUCT IT IS, but everyone here already knows that, and we choose to use it anyway.

And you yourself seem to admit you had this knowledge also. If your producer insisted on using RED even after you explained the problems with it, and now he's on your case, then he's entitled to a polite "i told you so"

Educate yourself, research, test, then make the call.

(this is in response to the subject matter of this particular thread. The reliability of hard disc and data recovery is another topic)


EDIT: Tyler expressed my thoughts more eloquently and is apparently a much faster typist.

 

[JohnLands]

bugs

bugs

here is the deal. Red is full of problems just as any other camera is. You need the right people to support your camera if your going to do something serious. Every camera does that from a d20 to a f23 you need the people support to make it work. As for footage being lost i hope it stops with in a year.

 

[cinemano]

Insisting on defaming the camera, seems more like revenge than problem solving. Same mentality in politics over there.

 

[laguun]

but before that, just to clear things out:
- It was against my judgment to work on Hard drive (in the studio we worked on CF).
- it was against my judgement to work without swaping drives.

common sense.
you didnt follow common sense, and went the max risk, no security way. could have worked, didnt - i would never produce that way.

Something like the Portable P2 reader (panasonic AG-HPG10). and by no means allow accidental loss of data because of computer interface issues (a scenario that could happen also in the field).

test *everything* in your workflow, especially if its a new workflow. thats valid for any filmrecorder, digital camera, di computer etc.

The basic thing is that you need to trust the camera.

The camera is trustworthy.
harddisk arent. never were, never will.

backups also means production overhead.

backup, first and foremost, means security and production value protection.
swapping a cf in a automated copysystem (which costs ~300$) takes <10 seconds. can also be done by the dp.

when i look at the Arri D-21, i feel safe. a robust and trusted tape mechanism to store the data that i know was tested over and over again by Arri in extreme conditions. They dont ask me to open a portable delicate IT office in the field. they "say": trust us - we are Arri. RED "sais": dont trust us - we are RED. watch us real close. one moment you look away and we will bite you.

The D20 (discontinued) and the D21 arent used as much for top-cast, a-budget productions as the red. if you can live with the D20/21 much weaker lightsensitivity, its hefty price, its lower resolution and want to benefit from using it with hdcam or hdcam sr or uncompressed raw - good choice.

however thousands of customers, from academy award winning directors, over large scale rental houses, over top-class commercial DoPs, over small indiehouses all the way down to students choose red instead of arri. Be it digital or mechanical.

These people arent stupid, addie. In the contrary.

They know what they are doing. There are more movie productions using red *right now* than the d20 and d21 combined ever had.

but regardless of the data loss, the real annoyance is the CODEC FAULT. this is unforgiven. almost no reply about that. are you guys living happly with a camera that may not always be able to shoot? do you like double guessing what kind of images this CODEC is capable of dealing with and what images you just arbitrarily cant take?

The coded error is a beta bug of build 15.
If you dont want the codec error - then dont use the beta 15 software which *cleary* says: Not for production, but use the stable 13 release instead.

lets admit the truth. its not ready. not yet.

The camera is fully ready. since almost one year its in use for A-budget.

Its getting better almost weekly.

if you cant or dont want to handle the (meanwhile few) challenges it still has (in shooting as in post), then dont use it yet, especially not with beta builds instead of stable builds, especially not without copying your work. From top-budget to small budget films, commercials and clips are successfully released, being released or produced worldwide on red. thats reality. thats the truth.

Once more: Tom Cruise just recently lost 4 days of shooting on the A-budget Valkyrie. On 35mm film. That doesnt make 35mm negative not production ready as doesnt your (hopefully not) loss of a harddisk make the red system not production ready.

 

[Chris Parker]

you guys are hilarious. almost ALL the problems you mention (battery swaps, lost footage, etc. etc. etc.) have already been solved by RED owners, DITs and people who don't just whine about shit. you should stick to shooting film, and think about whether you'll blame ARRI or Kodak for your next bad neg report. It has been painful to listen to you whine....

 

[Jeff Brown]

Please make this a sticky and do not delete!

Please make this a sticky and do not delete!

So would you shoot a big production on film and have no loader on set?
So would you hire a film camera and have no one on set who knew how to load the mag?
To have no DIT and shoot a single drive all day is clearly stupid.

Please Jarred for the sake of educating people out there make this a sticky. Make people realise that in a tapeless workflow you need a dedicated data wrangler who knows his stuff.

If this is deleted it becomes a rumour about how bad the camera is and how dissent is not tolerated at reduser.

When obviously it should be an example of what not to do.

Within a year everyone and his mum will have a red for hire and professional productions need to realise that just because the kit is cheap it doesn't mean that you shouldn't rent from reputable sources with skilled technicians and support.

 

[Brandon Fraley]

So would you shoot a big production on film and have no loader on set?
So would you hire a film camera and have no one on set who knew how to load the mag?
To have no DIT and shoot a single drive all day is clearly stupid.

Please Jarred for the sake of educating people out there make this a sticky. Make people realise that in a tapeless workflow you need a dedicated data wrangler who knows his stuff.

If this is deleted it becomes a rumour about how bad the camera is and how dissent is not tolerated at reduser.

When obviously it should be an example of what not to do.

Within a year everyone and his mum will have a red for hire and professional productions need to realise that just because the kit is cheap it doesn't mean that you shouldn't rent from reputable sources with skilled technicians and support.

(just to clear, the previous thread was not deleted, it was moved to the complaint section)

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

hahahahahahahaha

 

[Caesar]

The next step is gdv coming up and posting...

Unfortunately, I could meet before this gdv. The most unfriendly ebay seller ever. Perfect a$$hole. Here's what kind of people these guys are.

 

[Roberto B]

The next step is gdv coming up and posting...

Unfortunately, I could meet before this gdv. The most unfriendly ebay seller ever. Perfect a$$hole. Here's what kind of people these guys are.

ditto.. crap.

 

[Jason Ing]

"When you have to shoot-- know what the hell you're doing--then shoot. Don't talk."

Here we go again.

it's one thing to simply say, "something went wrong, help me".

it's another to be inflammatory with "it's not ready".

a lot of other professionals (and amateurs and novices!) are making it work. what's your excuse? for someone who hypocritically asks to spare the finger pointing, you're pointing at the camera and technology.

so it seems what's not ready is... you.

Actually, it must really burn and be embarrassing to know that you knew all along (you were against using the drive, right? how come?) and yet you let responsibility and the buck pass on by the DP. And to think it was as easy and simple as having a hard drive and a laptop (you do have this, right? you're ready for it? or still a typewriter?).

 

[Rob Gardner]

Addie
Your posts remind of of the time I spent living with my family in Israel. Everyone was so reasonable, so thoughtful, so measured in their reactions to problems or conflicts. I can't understand why peace hasn't come to that troubled country...

Did you try beating the hard drive with night sticks, or perhaps using tear-gas? Perhaps hellfire rockets. Or driving over it with a Mirkava tank. You never know 'til you try...
Rob Gardner

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

lets admit the truth. its not ready. not yet.

yawn ....