Steve Gibby
Red Savant
For everyone who sells a $1m stock library there are 1k people whose footage never sees the light of day again. There will always be the exception but most of the people making camera decisions aren't owner/operators they're producers, DPs and other creatives or executives who have 0 financial incentive to manage a stock library. They will rent the camera which delivers tomorrow what they are most looking for to air on Saturday and replace on Wednesday.Even then going back and re-mastering a TV episode or film is probably extremely unlikely unless you're talking about a film or episode of historical significance.
If people aren't making money leveraging out the footage they own the copyright on, they probably just don't know how to approach putting it to work for them. Nearly every professional I know in my end of the motion media industry, who owns copyright to a footage library, has it working for them, either as stock, repurposing into other TV productions, or both.
The largest portion of the motion media industry in terms of number of productions done per year is the gigantic non-hardlined EFP industry. This is mobile, non-union television, Blu Ray, and DVD production in a wide variety of genres, some of which are alternative sports, travel, wildlife, music, nature, tourism, high-end corporate, cultures, food, lifestyle, and many other genres. Red One has been used heavily in these genres, but with their smaller size, increased frame rates, and other hybrid and EFP-friendly features, Epic and Scarlet will be used even more heavily than Red One has.
The largest share of these non-hardlined EFP productions are independently produced and then self syndicated by medium down to boutique sized production companies - plus those same companies are frequently packagers of non-hardlined EFP cable TV specials and series for various networks. Those who independently produce and self syndicate productions nearly always hold the copyright to the footage acquired in their production, and frequently to the programs themselves. These same companies also usually own their own field production equipment, including camera systems - and they comprise the single largest block of camera buyers in the entire motion media industry. They rarely rent camera systems - it makes much better fiscal sense to own their cameras - and they now purchase a high percentage of the affordable high-end DC cameras like R1 (as they will with Epic and Scarlet).
As I noted in my last post, many cable TV networks regularly re-purpose and re-edit footage from their footage libraries into new series - and for those same shows they also license lots of stock footage.
I don't doubt that your experience in the industry has formed your opinion on footage use options, just as has experience in feature and union EFP experience formed the opinions of others - specifically, that footage libraries aren't a viable revenue option. But, as I've illustrated above, there is a huge and thriving, non-union, mobile non-hardlined EFP industry which is the largest portion of the motion media industry - and that industry buys the most camera systems, and most people who produce and shoot in that industry leverage out the footage for which they own copyright.
By the EFP-friendly modularity and flexibility of the proposed specs for Epic and Scarlet, Red is obviously aware of the massive sales potential of the industry portion I described above - and so is Arri, thus their EFP-friendly move to offer a ProRes recording option. Its a big, wide industry out here - and the needs and business model of some portions of it are very different than others. But that diversity makes it quite cool I'd say...
