Arri Alexa and Mysterium-X...

[Tim Morten]

I agree with David. It's this type of nonsense that gives Reduser a bad name. This person is "sad" because one of the top cinematographers in the history of cinema is going to test out a new digital cinema camera??? WTF.

What a lot of people here fail to understand is that for top cinematographers, dynamic range is a huge, huge, HUGE priority. So of course there is interest in Alexa, since it's major claim is film-level DR. Also, a lot of top DPs had major problems with Red One in the early days. These people legitimately went through nightmares with Red One and felt burned. Several guys I know personally went to hell and back on early Red features. This is why many of them will say negative things about Red. The trick is, to get the new cameras into their hands and have those cameras work well. That is precisely why Jim is taking his time with the release of DSMC. He wants to get it right, so guys like Deakins can embrace Epic.

What makes me "sad" is that Roger thinks I made the wrong choice. I was not responding to Deakins testing Alexa, but to his comment that he would rather shoot S16 than Red (the forum doesn't embed quoted quotes, so that made it seem like I was referring to Alexa). It depresses me to think that someone I look up to disapproves of my choice in cameras. I'm sorry that you and others took offense at that comment, but I don't think it gives RedUser a bad name. In fact, it's a sign of how much I look up to the Roger Deakins' of the world.

Do me a favor and knock the Defcon down a notch... .

Peace,
Tim

 

[Michael Hastings]

Much better to talk cameras rather than users. People have many reasons for using or not using particular cameras, and in the end, there is no right choice for everyone, just your right choice for you. Important thing is that you enjoy making images!

Graeme

Absolutely. Even if I wasn't on the r1/epic upgrade path, i'd be champing at the bit for epic and scarlet. Nothing against Arri but for a lot of reasons Alexa wouldn't even be on my radar, I can't even imagine a need for renting one. I'm more in the steve Gibby production world. I wouldn't predict the market share for Arri vs red in the episodic tv/features/commercials market - but I would suggest that in the rest of the high end/high resolution production world (which is much larger) alexa's share will be insignificant relative to epic/scarlet.

 

[M Most]

I wouldn't predict the market share for Arri vs red in the episodic tv/features/commercials market - but I would suggest that in the rest of the high end/high resolution production world (which is much larger) ...

I wouldn't be so sure of that. If you look at the sheer numbers of hours produced for television and commercials, they are rather staggering.

 

[Michael Hastings]

I wouldn't be so sure of that. If you look at the sheer numbers of hours produced for television and commercials, they are rather staggering.

Well, I'm certainly not an expert on that business, but for ball parking purposes, if all of the shows that shoot film or current digital cinema type cameras were to switch, how many cameras would that be?

60-70 broadcast network shows? 300 cameras?
100 cable network shows? 300 cameras?

? Commercials? 500 cameras?

I understand that there are hundreds of other shows that shoot with Hdcam/varicam and HVX/z1 style cameras but I don't see them as a significant customers for Arri - those are red/Sony/canon/panasonic customers.

 

[Tom Lowe]

By the way, let me pose this question for those who think 4K is not coming to homes.

If Dell announced today a 4K LCD for $5,000, how many of us here would be beating down the door to buy one, or at least wanting to buy one? Probably all of us. Once this technology hits the market, people are going to be stunned at how fast it gets adopted.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, I'm certainly not an expert on that business, but for ball parking purposes, if all of the shows that shoot film or current digital cinema type cameras were to switch, how many cameras would that be?

60-70 broadcast network shows? 300 cameras?
100 cable network shows? 300 cameras?

? Commercials? 500 cameras?

I understand that there are hundreds of other shows that shoot with Hdcam/varicam and HVX/z1 style cameras but I don't see them as a significant customers for Arri - those are red/Sony/canon/panasonic customers.

I don't think you can apply the same thinking in regards to sales volumes for high-end over-$50,000 camera gear as something cheaper.

The main issue isn't the total numbers, it's the percentage of the marketshare and the profitability for the camera manufacturer. Red sold something like 5000 cameras, right? That's huge compared to film camera sales, small compared to prosumer & consumer camera sales. But what does that really mean? If ARRI sells only 500 Alexa bodies but makes a profit and captures a significant percentage of the marketshare for high-end production, then it doesn't really matter if it was 500 instead of 5000.

I can't really predict what will happen for ARRI but I suspect that they will do well by the rental houses and other companies with deep pockets because of their existing customer base. But I also suspect that EPIC will sell quite well to private owners and production companies.

 

[M Most]

I don't think you can apply the same thinking in regards to sales volumes for high-end over-$50,000 camera gear as something cheaper.

The main issue isn't the total numbers, it's the percentage of the marketshare and the profitability for the camera manufacturer.

I would add that for a relatively successful television program, the camera package is rented for at least 176 days for 22 episodes (8 days per episode). Most features - and I'm talking studio sized features - shoot for less than 1/3 of that. That's a lot of return on investment for a rental vendor.

I would also add the fact that the US is not the only country in the world that makes television series and commercials.

 

[Michael Hastings]

I agree David, I think Arri will be just fine with selling 500 cameras at the 60k+ price point. I was just trying to gauge what that number of shows is (am i close?) and I think they will get 50% or so of that of that market based on IQ, reputation, worldwide service and support, etc. regardless of other cameras.

Just as I doubt if technicolor wants to scan all of our old 8mm home movies, I doubt if Arri is really set up to deal with all of the Z1/HVX/vDSLR customers - they have a different business model. Red is somewhere in the middle. It will be interesting to see how these companies evolve.

Ps. I hope neither you or M. Most thought I was dissing the episodic tv model - I'd be ecstatic if I could get 176 days a year of rental out of my epic, not to mention that I know the camera is only one component of a much larger package - I was just pointing out that it doesn't take a huge number of cameras to fit that demand.

Also sorry for the typing, I'm toying with my new iPad.

Snip...

I would also add the fact that the US is not the only country in the world that makes television series and commercials.

I'm just idly musing about this stuff - so out of curiosity would you say the rest of the world is say 3x the us market? (again film or digital cine style tv production)

 

[M Most]

I'm just idly musing about this stuff - so out of curiosity would you say the rest of the world is say 3x the us market? (again film or digital cine style tv production)

Much, much more than that. The world is a big place. South America alone is probably at least that.

 

[Tim Morten]

Much, much more than that. The world is a big place. South America alone is probably at least that.

Hmm... would be good to get some actual figures. I suspect that GDP may be more relevant than geographic or population size... That's definitely the case for other tech related industries. Without any hard data, speculation is bound to be inaccurate.

 

[Tim Morten]

Hmm... would be good to get some actual figures. I suspect that GDP may be more relevant than geographic or population size... That's definitely the case for other tech related industries. Without any hard data, speculation is bound to be inaccurate.

Below are some charts dating from 1997 (sorry they're not more recent... quick Google search, but at least it's something to go on). From the first chart, it looks like at that point in time, the rest of the world was just over 3x the size of the US. Note however that this is NUMBER of productions and not dollars. Dollars are shown on the second chart, and this tells a different story. It appears that the US is larger than the rest of the world combined in terms of dollars invested in production. Again, old numbers, but it seems reasonable to expect that the ratios would be roughly the same today. Obviously, all these dollars aren't spent on cameras, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a good correlation with camera sales.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Obviously, all these dollars aren't spent on cameras, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a good correlation with camera sales.

Cheers,
Tim

Largest business expense is almost always labor. Look at a TV episode. You buy an Arri for $100k or a RED for $50k, buy it with the assumption that it'll last at least 2 seasons. Pick up 4 cameras and you're still probably looking at a fraction of the price of a US episode of television. Some US actors charge $# million per episode. That could buy a lot of cameras. I wouldn't look too closely at $$ spent. I imagine Asia spends a larger portion of the budget on camera equipment per production than the US by a huge margin.

 

[Tim Morten]

Whichever figure you choose to use as a gauge (number of productions per region or dollars spent per region), the US constitutes somewhere between 25% and 50% of the market. I tend to believe that the bias is towards the latter, as smaller markets tend to have smaller equipment budgets (and use less expensive equipment). In which case, the US is the largest single market in the world.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Michael Hastings]

I'm just idly musing about this stuff - so out of curiosity would you say the rest of the world is say 3x the us market? (again film or digital cine style tv production)

Much, much more than that. The world is a big place. South America alone is probably at least that.

Okay, maybe you guys misunderstood my parameters - I'm basically asking the number of shows that are realistic possibilities for Alexa - i.e. those currently shooting film, Viper, Genesis, D21 ... (So nothing to do with total production dollars, GDP, etc. - just the number of those type of highend productions)

And I'm not even really thinking commercials because although the number shot on film is huge, I don't think it really translates to possible Alexa sales since the cost of film stock/transfer is pretty negligible for a 30 sec spot so transition out of film for them will be quite slow and hugely affected by $9K used R1s, vDSLRs, Epic/Scarlet, etc. and (except for the very highest end first world productions) not very likely going to a $70K camera no matter who makes it.

Same with features - I know bollywood makes hundreds of them, but aren't they much more price sensitive - like indies here - and in the same $9K used R1s, vDSLRs, Epic/Scarlet, etc market?

So would south america or any other continent (maybe Europe) be bigger than US? In other words if my guesstimate for total number of those type of cameras is 1100 for the US then the world total in my 3X (which I agree maybe should be 4x or 5x) would generate a total of 4400 cameras - spread out over three years or so, so 1500 per year and my guess is will get 30 to 50 percent or so of that so 500-1200 Alexas in the next year and half and maybe the same number over the following year and half of AlexaMKII or whatever their next generation is. RED, Sony, et al will get the remainder.

Of course RED and others will also sell many thousands more in the sub-30K market to indies, video producers, and television producers that shoot with the 2/3" or smaller camcorders. (To put a finer point on it, although I personally know about 40 RED1 owners and over a hundred HVX/Z1, etc. owners, only one - a well established film rental house - is/would be considering a $70K Alexa even if they offered a full price trade in on their RED1. (Which wouldn't be a bad marketing ploy for Arri !)

Not that there aren't R1 owners like that, just that probably 60 percent of R1s are either indy film types or EFP video people, where price and the higher resolution are very important.

 

[Tim Morten]

For lack of specific data, we can only extrapolate based on those charts. If we assume a direct correlation betwen the market for professional cameras and the overall production market, then the entire rest of the world (all regions lumped together) is somewhere between the size of the US market and 3x the size of the US market.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Stuart English]

Uses for EPIC / Alexa

Uses for EPIC / Alexa

And I'm not even really thinking commercials because although the number shot on film is huge, I don't think it really translates to possible Alexa sales since the cost of film stock/transfer is pretty negligible for a 30 sec spot so transition out of film for them will be quite slow ...

My sense is that many local, and a significant percentage of national, commercials have already switched away from film to RED ONE.

Either way, I'd expect those who have switched to stay on R1, or move up to EPIC because of its much higher frame rates and smaller size. Ditto for those still shooting film, EPIC offers much more functionality than an Alexa in that application.

 

[Michael Hastings]

My sense is that many local, and a significant percentage of national, commercials have already switched away from film to RED ONE.

Either way, I'd expect those who have switched to stay on R1, or move up to EPIC because of its much higher frame rates and smaller size. Ditto for those still shooting film, EPIC offers much more functionality than an Alexa in that application.

We're basically in agreement, I was just thinking that 3rd world countries where investment dollars are harder to come by may be slower to transition and since film isn't a major part of the cost of a 30 second spot there isn't a pressing need. And for the same reason - investment dollars - I think whenever they transition it will be to R1, vDSLRs, Epic/Scarlet, etc.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

im wondering too many redfans aware of arri doing cameras for 90 years ?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

im wondering too many redfans aware of arri doing cameras for 90 years ?

Maybe at analog, mechanical film cine cameras but not with digital.

Everyone at digital S35mm sized camera field is a newbie:

Arri, Sony, Panavision, Vision Research/Phantom, RED, Aaton, etc,...

 

[Tim Morten]

im wondering too many redfans aware of arri doing cameras for 90 years ?

Arri makes great film cameras.

Kodak made great film cameras too.