Quentin Brown
Well-known member
Jim, I'm sure you know not to take this "getting screwed" comment too much to heart.
There are a lot of deep held dreams and aspirations by those who have been taken with the idea of the new cameras you are developing. Many have (perhaps mistakenly) placed their aspirations for future legendary film making careers on being able to afford the cameras that you put out a spec/price for some time ago. When they get a sniff that suggests that their dream may not become a realty they can feel very disappointed and this can turn to anger. I'm sure it is an emotional thing for you too, as you are clearly passionate about developing these dream cams that will change the world of cinema. Dreams can often be extremely painful things to get stepped on. We all try to be adults but we still have feelings we struggle to keep in check.
I really like the openness, the willingness to get feedback and interact with customers during development. It is refreshing and I'm sure it's valuable to yourselves even if it just keeps the pot boiling for your future customers and gives you good feedback on the interest out there though I'm sure it's more than that.
I'm sure the format could improve slightly though. Successive refinements along the way are usually necessary when breaking new ground, I'm sure that applies to this new process of open development you are pioneering. Just don't pull anyone off the Scarlet and Epic development team to refine it right now - we are all salivating and chomping at the bit for our shiny new RED super-cameras.:wink5:
That said I'll share some of my experiences and make a few suggestions.
Firstly, announcements:
My lasting impression is that announcements are currently phrased in such a way that it drags the reader in two directions. I will have to check over some announcements to confirm this but I recall that most announcements appear to state that this is what you will be building and selling, "... very exiting thing...at very exciting price point" and then afterwards you state that this is subject to change and almost definitely will. Now some people can read those two statements and come to a balanced perspective on what has been announced for others it's difficult because if they are excited about the announcement it pulls them one way emotionally and then the second statement tries to pull them back from that by saying don't believe in what I just said. Most people like to be excited and enthused so they don't want to hear the second statement and can subconsciously skate over it. Also posting announcements on a forum without any suggestions for what comment people can make or you would like is like inviting the devil in through your front door.
Perhaps you could change the way you make the announcements to more clearly reflect their nature as a plan rather than a statement of fact. e.g. This is our idea, we plan to make something like this a reality and we think and hope that we can do it for this much money. We will aim for these target price-points. What is your take on this idea?
This may go against the grain of your passionate, can do, go getter attitudes at RED but it may well lead to more balanced response from site visitors and posters.
Secondly, The Forums:
I expect that many people hear about red, can't find much deep info on the planned up and coming products and wind up on the forums looking for more, just like I did. It is very difficult to find the full story on anything in the forums and often you wind up reading stuff that has wound up sounding like reports of your announcements but is actually based on others conjecture. Some other kind of format might work better for the announcements. Perhaps news stories with an option for comments. That way news stories could be in an aggregated feed and everyone could be learning from official posts rather than tidbits and second hand conjecture. Changes and additions to announcements should also somehow be part of this official aggregated space but how to do this I'm not sure. If you edit the original post many comments would become obsolete, but you don't want to blanket delete them all and moderation might be a real pain.
Still forums are a good place for discussion. News stories/blogs are a good place for announcements or feeding us tidbits and if you want feedback then you can enable comments, perhaps limited to a single editable comment per user so that it doesn't turn into a multi-threaded discussion that goes off topic.
As usual I'm writing this late after spending way too much time reading these forums in excited anticipation of the upcoming cameras, to fuel a career that might not happen and which is not dependent on them anyway ( I know I need to be sure I know my craft, have the talent required and have some experience before it's even appropriate to put my money into one of these). It all still gets to me though ( I want one anyway and then I'm going to be brilliant :wink5
and I'm so emotionally wrapped up in knots that I'm not sure if what I said makes any sense. I hope it does. I hope I haven't just added to the off topic confusion of these forums. If I have I guess I'm a case in point. Anyway, any others with constructive thoughts on improving the interaction process with RED?
Perhaps in a new thread?
