Lost 2 Rentals This Week!

[Wayne D]

hi - i'm an editor......have been doing this for about 15 years.

your biggest problem is that you don't produce a phyiscal medium that we can touch and feel and love. makes us scared.......where do the pretty pictures live? we are strange bunch.

as for any editors reading this - get with the program!
our first RED job came with the usual horror stories from all who threw their (and at most times unwelcomed) comments in. it took us about 4 hours to research, sort and build a pipeline for the project. ran like a dream.

our job is to create stories in whatever medium....so learn your tools!

Team RED - keep pushing the boundries.....love the new toys and the pics are great to work with.

there.........venting over........i feel better now.....

 

[Kip Hewitt]

OK,
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Red Team, give us a nice 1080 "clean" output so that these goofy jobs can benefit from the Red One. Forget about the preview bus... What about a hardware module that replaces the CF module on the side and does a real-time, high-quality debayer with 4:4:4 Dual Link HD-SDI? What about partnering with Sony, or Panasonic, or AJA on this one?
I've lost at least a dozen rentals this way since getting the camera. Editors are the SLOWEST in the world to pick up new skills, or update their systems... so help us on the imaging end by letting us coddle them...
I know it's a Digital Cinema Camera blah blah blah... RAW blah blah blah... but...

Harry,

I totally understand where you are coming from. I too have lost a few good jobs because of a nervous post-production team. But I have also won just as many by putting in the long hours convincing producers/editors that the post workflow is sound. I go to their office, I install RedAlert, and I walk them through the whole process step by step.

After the shoot wraps I be sure to make myself available for any tech support assistance they may need. Which, surprisingly, is never a big deal.

RED has done a pretty stand-up job giving us the tools to compete in the real world. I just think it's the least we can do to get out there and do a little missionary work now and again.

-99

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

the most impressive and simplest ways to deal with stuff like this is to arrange a quick demo. Anyone that thinks the Red workflow is anything short of amazing just doesnt know what they are looking at. I've been able to set up effective onset editing several times for clients of differing levels and garnished nothing but awe from clients agencies and post houses. it's just not as complicated as they think it is.

Demos are definitely the way to go. The only problem I've had with doing demos is that I can't always demo to the right people. Post people -- editors, colorists, are the ones that need to show up to see how it works and they're the ones who typically don't show up, usually in the wake of some lame excuse. Only to later be the ones who complain about RED throughout the project. On the brighter side of things, the ones who take a moment and learn how it works, quickly become converts.

I'm not very high up on the ladder of production, I kinda consider myself a bottom-feeder. But I've witnessed incomprehensible amounts of stupidity. Stupid follows money like a little lost puppy that you can't break from pissing on your nice persian rug. ...It's been that way with any industry I've ever involved myself in.

 

[Harry Clark]

99,
You're right. I have been a crummy evangalist. But my style is a bit more passive; I offer up the Red One, say how great it is, and then get the call, "well, the post team says they've had trouble with Red" and I back off. D-21? OK, whatever. My HDX-900 with my Pro-35? OK, whatever.
I love the Red One. I don't want to shoot with anything else, really I don't. But I can't just be the "Red Guy". It's their project; it's their money; it's their call.
In one year we'll all be laughing about it. But for now, it sometimes burns me. And it's not fair.
But like I said, I'm over it.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

D-21? OK, whatever. My HDX-900 with my Pro-35? OK, whatever.
I love the Red One. I don't want to shoot with anything else, really I don't. But I can't just be the "Red Guy". It's their project; it's their money; it's their call.
In one year we'll all be laughing about it. But for now, it sometimes burns me. And it's not fair.
But like I said, I'm over it.
Cheers,
Harry

Harry -

everyone that I know that knows you, likes to work with you - you work all the time - you own an arsenal of gear - you are doing just fine.

By the time we have our Epics - we'll swap these stories and laugh our asses off -

you know, I remember very clearly - when people were terrified to edit "non-linear" - and everybody talked about how editing with a computer would "ruin" the art of editing - Lightworks/Avid - it was DRAMA -

 

[Harky Jewett]

The Fotokem bashing is pretty hilarious.

Be aware that there is a difference between their student tour division and the guys doing the high end DI projects.

I too did NOT have a good experience with Fotokem as a student (flex file nightmares, crummy looking dailies, etc). The tour guy was patronizing too.

Yes, Fotokem is notorious for not treating students all that well. (I gotta say, I loved Deluxe and their student price beat Fotokem's to boot). Your point, about the difference between the work they do for students and their high end stuff is well-taken though.

That said, people who had come on set, seen the Red working, seen what the footage looked like, and had become instant fans, left that tour with serious second doubts. It can be frustrating...

 

[David Battistella]

Most of the time, we just tell people now, "forget everything you heard, everything you read, this is how we would handle your project, and these are you options."

They stop kicking and screaming pretty quickly when they see how simple it can be.

This is absolutely true. RED is actually really simple, it's everyone who has been told what it is instead of actually "seeing" how wonderful the system is that seem to be a problem.

We've spent MANY MANY hours trying to let people in this city SEE and UNDERSTAND how excellent the system is.

Post Workflow is the NUMBER ONE issue that everyone wants to know about and because it is a bit different than what people are used to. If the RED had a simple clean feed out the HD SDI port it would shut a lot of people up.

Most people are taking a video tap out recording it and doing some rough edits or looking at stuff for composting. Some think it is still simpler to do this from other cameras. If RED sent a CLEAN output option out the side of the camera it would help solve some of these issues.

I am not agreeing with the people who demand this and I am very confident about putting the RED IN ANY SITUATION, it's just that not everyone is as forward thinking as many of the minds here.

David

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Actually, on Build 16, that's exactly what the camera playback is doing.. creating 1080p from the recorded .R3D files. On Build 15 and earlier its limited to 720p playback from the .R3D files. The QuickTime files are not used by the camera, they are generated by the camera for use by QuickTime enabled computer systems.

So the live image is 720P but the played-back image is 1080P now with Build 16? Why isn't the live image also 1080P then?

 

[david farland]

Why isn't the live image also 1080P then?

Everyone asks that!!
I guess once build 16 wears off, people will renew their requests for this....know I will. There was a hint it was in the pipeline.
But your other point of how much noise and how much it's debayered is as important.
Obviously (hopefully) high on Red's design list for this area.

So, will the live image be 1080p in build 17?

D

 

[TedRed]

This all seems very strange to me, when you can shoot RED, and load the CF card media onto a Vanilla Mac Pro, or Mac Book Pro, and do an offline edit right on the set with the Proxies, without any rendering at all. I see jobs do this all the time, during breaks they load up footage and play it, and sometimes edit, time permitting. On a 17" MBP they can play the 1k files in real time and edit those -the quality is fine, and if they want they can render out to ProRes to see higher quality. And if they have a tower with a small Raid attached and a Kona 3 card they can edit the 2k and get very good quality images to cut with right away... It's just a education issue that people don't think this can be done, and feel they need 1080p tape recording on the set to do an edit. I spend part of almost every day on the education front... but with the amount of RED shooting, it always seems like there is more needed... We need more evangelsts to show the studios, and agency producers how this works. I can not tell you how many meetings I've had to "show people the light" it's fun when they get it.

+ Ted

 

[jimhare]

I imagine because the camera is using all it's power to record the image. When not recording, it can process more of the signal at the same time.

Just a guess but would make sense.

 

[jbeale]

So the live image is 720P but the played-back image is 1080P now with Build 16? Why isn't the live image also 1080P then?

Note (per Red Build 16 manual) that the 1080P image area is not the same as the 720P image. The 1080P output shows a cropped version of the full 4k. I assume so that they could do a simple 2:1 downscale from 3840 to 1920 pixels, and avoid doing any debayer in-camera.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

We're a weird bunch us editors. We like to have a tape on a shelf at the end of the day, no question. We see the weird shit our edit applications do, and we're a little uncomfortable without the safety blanket of being able to recapture if it all goes cockeyed.

That said, many of us are also geeks, and new technology is always inviting. RED presents a great opportunity, and it's one that some of us are happier to investigate than others. Many 'dramatic' editors are very unwilling to get into technical stuff, and RED can certainly seem that way, but if you can provide them a little support they'll probably be okay with it. All they want is pictures to edit, they don't want to worry about file names, or codecs, or conversion, or anything else.

 

[Darren Orange]

We're a weird bunch us editors. We like to have a tape on a shelf at the end of the day, no question. We see the weird shit our edit applications do, and we're a little uncomfortable without the safety blanket of being able to recapture if it all goes cockeyed.
.

So what about LTO? That should work just fine.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

I think those things, and multiple copies on hard drives, and redundant network storage will help

 

[Mark Toia]

Everything will change over time...

I sent a HD AD to air from my laptop, H264 1080 about 90 meg.

Couldn't see a scratch of deference on the telly.

All this mumbo jumbo RED voodoo stuff will just be the standard to work in , in about 12 months.

I have no problems with it.
The post house are just scared because it bins there 3 million dollar Telecine chains and there 200k SR tape decks etc.....

It's all just part of the corse of life. I think alot of us are just all to impatient.

RED is just a little to early, to smart and to good all at once.

Bless there hearts.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

It's a massive amount of "mis-information".

Anyone who read a few posts on Reduser or opened Redcine a few times claims to be a "Red Workflow" expert.

We spend a lot of time - explaining to people what SOMEONE TOLD THEM, how they THINK it works, or what they HEARD - is just WRONG.

Most of the time, we just tell people now, "forget everything you heard, everything you read, this is how we would handle your project, and these are you options."

They stop kicking and screaming pretty quickly when they see how simple it can be.

So true. I spend so much energy trying to debunk what people "have heard"

 

[Thor Wixom]

This all seems very strange to me, when you can shoot RED, and load the CF card media onto a Vanilla Mac Pro, or Mac Book Pro, and do an offline edit right on the set with the Proxies, without any rendering at all. I see jobs do this all the time, during breaks they load up footage and play it, and sometimes edit, time permitting. On a 17" MBP they can play the 1k files in real time and edit those -the quality is fine, and if they want they can render out to ProRes to see higher quality. And if they have a tower with a small Raid attached and a Kona 3 card they can edit the 2k and get very good quality images to cut with right away... It's just a education issue that people don't think this can be done, and feel they need 1080p tape recording on the set to do an edit. I spend part of almost every day on the education front... but with the amount of RED shooting, it always seems like there is more needed... We need more evangelsts to show the studios, and agency producers how this works. I can not tell you how many meetings I've had to "show people the light" it's fun when they get it.

+ Ted

I love your guts, Ted, and all the guys at Red. I appreciate that you made a workflow available from the beginning for the majority who typically use Macs. My clients (most of them are on Macs) appreciate it, too.

I'm really looking forward to the SDK, and the ability to edit in an environment that I feel more comfortable with (Windows and Premiere).

Thanks for all the hard work. Godspeed.

-Thor

 

[Darren Orange]

How is a LTO tape any different than a HDCAM SR tape....but better...

For all purposes... CF to LTO should be better than strait to HDCAM SR and after all thats two backups if you keep the CF.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

If you guys had $500,000+ in brand new tape-based equipment leases sitting in your facility when the Red showed up, believe me, you would have "workflow issues" too.

There is a SIGNIFICANT, albeit un-organized, de-facto campaign on the part of many Post facilities to sully Red's reputation. This is part of the natural shake-out that will eventually cut a swath through the Post sector. I was surprised to discover that a supposedly Red-friendly facility (which I shall not name) was suddenly very eager to offer my client preferred rates on Genesis, stating they preferred the workflow and undermined the Red, right in front of my business partner, after practically begging us to bring our clients through there on a tour to see the Red workflow. Obviously, I will not go back, nor will I use them for any other services.

I take this as good news, however. Yes, it's unfortunate and petty, but I think it is safe to assume that anyone who tries to undermine Red now, has an agenda and I would not trust their opinion. Some Post houses are scared of the power Red puts in the hands of the editor.

There's still a lot of money to be made off of Producers that are reluctant to shoot Red. But the fleecing won't last long, Producers will demand the higher-quality and savings Red can give them (when its used by a DP with Red experience) once they discover how much money they're leaving on the table.

We may yet suffer lost rentals through ignorance or malice, but the Post house that doesn't cater to Red will find itself in a narrowly focused market and unable to attract new clients. That vicious little huntress Scarlet will see to that.

I can assure you there are very savvy and supremely capable Post houses that have embraced Red. I am happy to know they're out there and will still be there in two years. Be patient, the camera has yet to fully launch. Build 16 and the upcoming SDK will kick things into overdrive. Maybe then Ted can cash in his frequent flier miles and take a vacation.