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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Attitude adjustment...

Ryan De Franco said:
I don't know about you, but every time I head into my local rental house to pick up a set of primes, an FF-4 and OConnor head, I get a sad look from the techs.... owner operators coming in for piecemeal kits do not help rental houses. I highly doubt DuAll enjoys renting me a few filters, an EVF mount, an FF-4 and an OConnor head when back in the day you picked up an SR2 package with everything.
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Agree. Here in Spain is quite difficult to find rental houses that are willing to rent only accessories. The great majority only rent a whole camera pack. They even prefer to have a whole pack without renting than rent a part of it...
 
My point is that, the situation you are describing is going to happen regardless. Don't forget the RED isn't going to be the only camera in town anymore. People will make there crappy movies on something else they can afford. Go to any festival, the majority is not shot on RED, but cheaper cameras. RED can't govern what goes on out there. They can only build the best cameras at a price that's competitive.

Michael Millichamp said:
Let me clarify, im not calling anyone out as mindless fanboys.

Also Bob, when people make a lot of movies that are shit, it makes it harder on everyone else. Sure, if someone actually gives you the chance and watches your film and it's better, then that's a different story. But it's so easy to pass up films in this era because people lump them together into being amateur and bad. That is a fact.

Also, cheaper prices mean less work trying to find funding. They can rent an Epic for a week at 800 or they can get an Alexa for 800 a day.... Obviously cheaper prices mean more people can make movies and have the "SHOT ON RED" logo there.
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So the way Im looking at this is some people say this is a 50% reduction in price, that may be so on terms of a single item of equipment. When you take a complete camera channel in to account, batteries, EVF, cards, lens and so on its to my calculations about a 20% reduction in overall cost. Add in to the mix a Meizler module and its about 17% overall price reduction. These figures are very rough and every one can create their own list of kit depending on what they consider a complete camera channel. I can completely understand any one buying an Epic in recent months being pissed off. Id hope day rates on cameras don't suddenly drop as they shouldn't if cameras were fair priced to start with. I also think Red need to look after recent customers to keep the Red family on side. They understand this so am sure this expectation is understood.
 
Jordi Figueras said:
They even prefer to have a whole pack without renting than rent a part of it...
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Yes! Because problems arise combining owner/op gear and pro rental house gear, and then they have to answer questions about equipment that isn't theirs.... shameful.

Rental houses are the backbone of our industry. I sincerely wish Red would offer a private discount on the MEIZLER MODULE to Abel, TCS, the big ticket rental houses.

That beast needs to get out there and sway the hearts and minds of crew everywhere. Reducing pricing might open the door to new customers, but a Meizler on every six figure production needs to happen. (This private reduced price offer would also be a way of making up for the fact that every Epic will now rent for less... a big part of the bottom line for a house with a fleet of 10 cameras that rent every week.)
 
Bob Gundu said:
My point is that, the situation you are describing is going to happen regardless. Don't forget the RED isn't going to be the only camera in town anymore. People will make there crappy movies on something else they can afford. Go to any festival, the majority is not shot on RED, but cheaper cameras. RED can't govern what goes on out there. They can only build the best cameras at a price that's competitive.
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I understand Bob...

But if this race to the bottom keeps happening, where is the line between consumer and professional cameras?
 
Michael Millichamp said:
Obviously, but it's doing a lot more than just helping people buy Epics. And such a drastic price cut out of the blue?

I would understand if they slowly started lowering it, but just doesn't seem like it's the only reason.
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Well Red's price cut also happened to fall exactly on the day that Sony promised to reveal their pricing of their new F5 and F55 which are marketed directly as Epic killers. Unfortunately I think Sony seems to have delayed their price announcements but ofcourse Red's price reduction seems to have dual purposes, one is as stated previously and the other is to directly compete much more aggressively with Sony's new F5/F55 since the rumored price tags of those cameras are around 20k somewhere give or take which now the Epic competes with.

On one hand this is viewed negatively by some because it seems to indicate that Sony does not view the Epic as direct competition to their F65 but to a lower market class and Red could be viewed as acknowledging this by marketing it directly against the F5/55 price wise, but on the other hand one can infer that Red is simply light years ahead of these guys in terms of technology and are able to compete with the F65 image quality wise, and with the F5/55 price wise simultaneously.
 
Michael Millichamp said:
I totally get that, and it could be a great business strategy, but it could also get companies real pissed, and those companies, for example ARRI, have followers out the ass that will be off put by this.

I think the state that RED is at is very fragile. They are just now starting to get people more interested in them and building a great client base. Cutting the prices in half has made a lot of people upset who are clients. But in exchange are getting clients as well.
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I don't know what you mean by "they are just starting to get people interested in them". Sounds like you're new to the world of Red with that statement. The highest end hollywood productions have been using Red cameras since its inception. Every year after 2007 has had high level big budget productions using Red and Red cameras have dominated the lower level film festivals as well so how is it that they are "just starting" to get peoples attention now?
 
And by the way, the 50% cut is really 30% for the epic and something like 20% reduction for Scarlet if you think about it. The reason is as I've stated multiple times elsewhere in the thread is that for those people that have forgotten, the original Epic price was actually only about 27k and many people purchased it at that price. The only reason it went to the recent 34.5k is because the tsunami catastrophe that hit japan destroyed many electronics components factories and made them more expensive to import and thus forced Red to raise the prices. So really the Epic as originally designed was always a 27k brain to begin with so in some ways the real reduction is from 27k to 19k which is closer to 30%, which while huge, is not as drastic sounding as a 50%++ cut.
 
Peter Dmitriyev said:
I don't know what you mean by "they are just starting to get people interested in them". Sounds like you're new to the world of Red with that statement. The highest end hollywood productions have been using Red cameras since its inception. Every year after 2007 has had high level big budget productions using Red and Red cameras have dominated the lower level film festivals as well so how is it that they are "just starting" to get peoples attention now?
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Professionally it is just starting to catch peoples attention.

Go look at all the movies that have been released this year, and how many of them are shot on RED... Point proven.

Professionals who were on the ARRI bandwagon who might have been looking over to RED might be put off by RED's attitude. How convenient was it for them to release their pricing just as Sony was releasing there's.
 
I wouldn't call it a race to the bottom. It's a race to the ultimate camera. The line between consumer and professional camera should not be dictated by price. The best camera isn't always the most expensive. There is definitely a line between amateur and professionalism though. Luckily gear doesn't dictate that. Remember not to long ago, no DP owned a camera. Did it make them less worthy or talented? I don't walk into a room and get them to take me seriously because of my gear. You would hope that you're there based on your talent. Todays best gear will be left in the dust in a few years. Your work will hopefully stand the test of time regardless of the gear it was shot on.



Michael Millichamp said:
I understand Bob...

But if this race to the bottom keeps happening, where is the line between consumer and professional cameras?
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Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
It was gone from the store within a couple of hours of going up; I think they only had a handful.

Mike
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I missed seeing them on the store before they disappeared. I'm curious; how much did the BT R1 with CF module sell for and did they have MX or M sensors?
 
Michael Millichamp said:
Professionally it is just starting to catch peoples attention.

Go look at all the movies that have been released this year, and how many of them are shot on RED... Point proven.

Professionals who were on the ARRI bandwagon who might have been looking over to RED might be put off by RED's attitude. How convenient was it for them to release their pricing just as Sony was releasing there's.
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Huh? I don't think your point was proven at all. No offense but there were tons of movies shot on Red, much more than any other camera probably including the Alexa, or at least they are neck and neck.

I can name half a dozen Red movies AS WE SPEAK in theatres right now including The Man with the Iron Fists, DREDD, Flight, Silent Hill Revelation 3d...lol are you kidding that's half the movies in theatres right now and there's many more. I don't think you realize how off you are
 
Peter Dmitriyev said:
Huh? I don't think your point was proven at all. No offense but there were tons of movies shot on Red, much more than any other camera probably including the Alexa, or at least they are neck and neck.
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.........what....?

If you think there are more professional movies shot on RED you must be crazy... yes, RED is growing in popularity thanks to movies like The Social Network and Prometheus, but still, the camera of choice for most things is the Alexa. That is a fact.
 
I think everyone should kiss and make up and enjoy the times we live in. The tools we use for our craft, are coming down in price giving us more creative leverage.
 
Thomas H said:
I have been following Red since its inception, from those early posts on the Panasonic discussion forum to Reduser now. Seeing this company grow from nothing more than an idea to what Red has blossomed into has been one of the most fascinating things to watch. The story of Red is a case study that should to be taught to all young college students hoping to learn about starting a business from the ground up. I am a tech geek, and a cinema geek, and I have watched Red with a particular interest. Years ago I had the opportunity to work on a few feature films when I lived in Los Angeles, and on other smaller projects when I moved back home to Wilmington NC. These experiences whetted my appetite for cinema tech and for movie making in general. Unfortunately I no longer work in the industry but I keep up with the tech side as much as I can. This morning I browsed Endgadget and came across the story concerning the recent substantial price drops across the entire Red camera line. I was gobsmacked that they were so large, but this wicked little grin began to form across my face. Jim and company had just put one across the bow of Sony, Panasonic, JVC, and the entire industry. With the announcement a few days ago by Sony that they were introducing a new line of "budget" cinema cameras, I wondered how Red would respond. To my great surprise and amusement, Red hit back hard and fast, which is just what they have to do in order to survive in one of the most competitive industries in the world. High end video cameras used to be cash cows for Sony, Panasonic, JVC, and Cannon. Actual cinema cameras were in a completely different league. We, as consumers were given incremental improvements with each camera update but by gosh we paid dearly for those few "professional" features that the overlords at those aforementioned companies deemed us worthy of receiving. We got a few extra bells and whistles but in actuality, the technology was at a standstill and we never really got the tools that we longed for. Along came Red with a transformational product (the Red One), and now the entire industry has been shaken to its very core and is being rebuilt right before our eyes. All of those companies that used to just cruise along, designing products with incremental upgrade paths that stretched into eternity have now woken up to the fact that we as consumers (and potential customers) have many choices and will buy the tools that give us the most bang for the buck. To all those who purchased an Epic or Scarlett at the higher price, I empathize with your perception that you have taken a big hit compared to people who will choose to purchase the cameras at the new lower prices. I'm sure it stings a little, and I'm also sure that Red did not change their pricing strategy without careful consideration of the feelings of its core customers. They have shown time and time again that their mission is to give the greatest value to their customers and whenever possible, to reward their enthusiasm and loyalty with special upgrade offers and other free stuff. Sony and Panasonic never did that for me and I doubt that they ever will. Red is such a small company compared to Sony and the others, and their pockets are nowhere near as deep but they are trading blow for blow in what will likely be a fight to the death. That is the attitude of a company that plans not only survive but to thrive as well, and that is what will help us all out in the long run. For those that paid the higher price for their Epics and Scarletts, you now have an opportunity to grow your business by acquiring even more equipment for less. For others, like myself, it is now possible to purchase a Red Epic and a few other accessories and to follow my passion for storytelling. As more and more people adopt the Red platform, Red will become a defacto standard, and more and more companies will manufacture cool new stuff (at lower prices) to cater to our needs. When this happens, we all win. This is what real capitalism is all about, and as long as Red continues to improve their products and charge us less for them, then this is what we should applaud and support. I wish more companies had the same ethos and spirit that Red has because our nation would be better for it. - Thomas H.
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Nice sentiment. Only thing to add is learn the art of punctuation and paragraphs. It saves lives, i.e. "Let's eat Grandma" vs "Let's eat, Grandma".
 
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