BBC's Red Technical hold?

[Simon Blackledge]

The BBC have a RED of their own...

Says who ?

for testing ?

 

[Andrew Martin]

The BBC have a RED of their own...

Hmmmm. Here's me thinking all they had were Anamorphic polar bears.

Andrew

 

[Eren Ozkural]

Can't say where or who I know this from but a certain branch in London got a RED recently. The BBC has a remit to go totally tapeless before the olympics. They don't like P2 or XDcam, they're curious about Cf. I know, odd reason to get one but Im sure they're testing many other aspects aswell.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

... they're curious about Cf. I know, odd reason to get one but Im sure they're testing many other aspects aswell.

 

[David Wyatt]

In Love with Barbara is a drama shot on Red cameras provided by Kinetic Cameras & ICE Films. It is a biopic of the famous romance novelist Barbara Cartland and is set in the 20's, 30's and 70's. It was shot by Tony Miller and was a hassle free happy shoot. It will be shown on BBC4 and BBC HD on Sunday 26th October at 9pm. it is a critics choice in the Radio Times.

NICK ALLSOP
RED TECH
KINETIC CAMERAS

That was great, just saw it on BBC4 (wish I could've seen it on BBC HD, though). All in all it was a very good advert for Red and ample proof for the BBC to take up Red on a large scale. Compared to similar BBC4 productions like the Tony Hancock/Frankie Howerd biopics (which I'd guess used Sony 750s or something similar?) I thought it looked far superior. Nice lighting & grade too - well done to all involved!!

 

[Dave Blackham]

I've just had some helpful advice from a BBC friend. The position appears to be this but may well change.

At the moment there is a complete restriction on in-house use of Red. Its is more to do with the codec than the camera. They are limiting the number of codecs used by in-house productions (the same ban applies to other codecs/camera too). For Independents there is no restriction but the BBC do like to know the end to end route for HD production and unless its approved the Indie has to take the risk until the programme is successfully delivered.

This is only my interpretation of the position so Id check first to get a formal answer before committing the use of the camera or workflow.

Hope this helps,

Dave
UK

 

[Stephen Williams]

Says who ?

for testing ?

Hi,

The BBC usually buys kit, then takes it to pieces so they know how to fix it if it goes wrong! I remember 20 years ago facilities houses in London would have kit in use months before the BBC, althrough they all got the kit delivered the same week. A64 was one example used at SVC in Wardour on a paying job within 2 hours of being delivered.

Stephen

 

[David Wright]

BBC wildlife films

BBC wildlife films

I shoot wildlife films for the BBC (see our website) and just got back from Wildscreen, the natural history film festival in Bristol. There were several meetings discussing cameras that were being recommended for the next few years. Basically the RED workflow is the problem as detailed in the previous posts. The big new series are recommending the new Varicam (P2). I did hear the most senior producer say that within 2-3years they will not be shooting anything on tape. Hopefully the door will open to using the RED as well.

David Wright
www.lunaseafilms.com

 

[Stuart English]

Codecs

Codecs

Lets keep in mind that the RED ONE camera has been out for 14 months now, and if memory serves me correctly, the pretty successful Varicam mentioned above had no native codec based workflow at all for at least the first year, maybe two.

Then when it did, the initial uptake was by the independent sector as the only NLE platform that supported it was Final Cut Pro.

With a large number of RED ONE cameras already in the market, and an SDK available to multiple developers, time will solve this acceptance issue with the majors.

 

[Johnny Johnson]

We're more than likely to be servicing a long running primetime bbc drama early next year so I'm sure they will be coming around to red in due course. I should say that this particular job is being made by an independent, but once a few of the bbc independent commissions come back to them successfully, they'll be more comfortable with the idea of red.

Its always the big institutions who take longest to accept change.

 

[johannperry]

I've been tying to get Red onto several Doc series for the last 6 months for the Beeb but all have ended up on DVCPro HD which seems to be their format of choice for doc work at present. All fears were based solely on perceived workflow problems. All pretty frustrating.

Also I had a camera assistant out with me three weeks ago who confirmed that DVSolutions (The BBC's In House Equipment Hire) had just received their first Red Camera. So there is at least one In House Red at the BBC

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Lets keep in mind that the RED ONE camera has been out for 14 months now, and if memory serves me correctly, the pretty successful Varicam mentioned above had no native codec based workflow at all for at least the first year, maybe two.

Then when it did, the initial uptake was by the independent sector as the only NLE platform that supported it was Final Cut Pro.

With a large number of RED ONE cameras already in the market, and an SDK available to multiple developers, time will solve this acceptance issue with the majors.

I apprechiate this. But it is the first couple of untits that get their heads capped...

I have personally experienced this. People being extremely happy with the results, but not very happy with the hours it takes to get that result. Moral has been: I have to take those expenses or lose the customer.

No real complaint, except that this is a lot of my reasoning to shout for a better SDK implementation. Not because I cannot get good images out of the RED in an overall cheaper way than I could out of 35mm film, but because - for TV applications - it is still worse than SR...

Someone has to take that cost, be it me or the customer. By now it is me - which is kind of... welll.. ok... but not really... sorta...

In other words: I made twice the money on P2 that I've done on RED... Which is kinda fun. And doesn't make me go back, but an interesting observation. Even when my cam paid itself whithin two months of arrival... And I was pretty early in to the P2 game as well...

That is NOT to say I want to back. Just a practical notice...

Just my 2 cents...

 

[Volker Ehlers]

hi,

Same here - several projects quoted - all went back to tape because of extra post costs. Quality is not as important as how much more a producer can put into his own pocket.

Coming down from a 35mm budget to RED is a very workable situation where as stepping up from a HDCAM budget is rather frustrating.