Epic a Phantom Killer?

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Wow, what a thread...

 

[Jared Caldwell]

Firstly digital has been replacing film gradually for years so it comes as no surprise, digital however is NOT a panacea and has plenty of its own issues for starter if anyone thinks MPEG4 AVC / .264 for instance is without faults think again. What strikes me always about Reduser is the sheer arrogance displayed by so many and ignorance to what contribution Sony, Panasonic, Panavision, Arri, Aaton, Cooke, Zeiss etc have made to making films, TV or commercials. The day we have one manufacturer supplying this industry will be the day to get out of it. The very reason great movies have been made are because so many talented people in backrooms gave us good cameras, lenses, post-production tools, sound etc.
Will digital shoot big budget movies? It already has from Star Wars, Superman etc etc so its a pretty easy bet to asume this will continue and become the bulk of production, it already is in TV and going that way in commercials. Red has moved the game on but it didnt start the game and hopefully plenty of other players will continue because thats what drives innovation without it you get monoplies like Microsoft.

I wouldn't really place all of the digital talk as arrogance. There is just a lot of excitement and passion about these products, and people like to show it.

You are 100% correct about all of the other players. They definitely were here first, and what we had before RED was in large part due to them. The main issue with those companies is competition. You are correct that with all of these different companies, we don't have a monopoly. The problem lies in the stagnating competition. In a healthy, competitive market, the price of the product goes down, while the quality of the product goes up (as a generalization).

If you look at the cost of these pro tools created by "Sony, Panasonic, Panavision, Arri, Aaton, Cooke, Zeiss etc", they have not dropped dramatically in price whatsoever. Also, though nobody wants to release a camera that is worse than the previous model, the quality has only risen in small increments. A ceiling has been created that keeps these tools out of the hands of those with less money.

RED has thrown a monkey wrench into the market. They are making the very best product for the absolute lowest price they can. When you have a 4k monster that costs less than a new car, companies that make 1080p cameras for the cost of a house are going to have to rethink some things. These other companies are going to have to make the very best products they can for the cheapest price to catch up. Not only does this lower costs and raise quality (the consumer is the winner here), but in the cinema market, it is speeding up the switch from film to digital.

And people are very excited about this. And passionate. And we like to talk about it. So even though this may not speak for everyone, I feel that generally people aren't being arrogant or aren't paying homage to the other companies who have helped build this industry, we are just excited about what has been going on! :biggrin:

 

[Robert Sanders]

Well said Jared.

While it can get a little bombastic around here and little closed-minded...criticizing the enthusiasm as "arrogance" is a bit extreme. That would be like expecting a Democratic Convention to honor the contributions of Republicans to government. Ummm. No. And a REDUser forum is no different than a convention. It's where RED Users and RED Dreamers come to get pumped and excited about all things RED.

Are there displays of over-exuberance at times? Sure. Put they get smacked around by others too.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Stephen... this is not a bet between Tom and you. This is between you and me. I have given a timeframe for a bet. Over 50% of the US movies starting shooting after Jan 1st, 2011 being shot 90% digital with budgets over $30M and David Mullen is the judge. I'll take whatever amount you say.
What is your bet?

I'll still strongly caution you that you will be better off to take whatever amount you are thinking and donate it to charity. If you do that, I'll match the amount you give to the same charity.

Jim

Jim, these are in fact the terms of the original bet as I last left it at c.com. Stephen was trying to pull a fast one with this "100% digital" and "no studio subsidiary" technicality stuff. The bet was basically that "as of" Dec 31, 2010/Jan1 2011, 51% or more of American films with budgets over $30 million would be shooting digital rather than on film - that means shooting in the months of Dec and Jan. (Your "90% digital" number sounds reasonable, Jim, allowing for a few shots on film for specialty stuff.)

The thing that a lot of people don't consider is how exponential trends work. 90% of the human genome project's senquencing was done in the last 10% of the project's timeline. Exponential trends start slowly and then gain a huge amount of momentum, ending with a near vertical trendline. We saw this happen with digital SLRs.

I think Jim proved his point on this thread.

Thanks, Jim.

 

[Roberto B]

jim this.. thanks jim.. wth of new are you bringing unless you can show you're typing jim twice in successive lines?

 

[Stephen Williams]

Stephen was trying to pull a fast one with this "100% digital" and "no studio subsidiary" technicality stuff.

Hi Tom,

I thought Max's points from his post were included in the terms of the bet?, we later agreed $30 Million rather than $50 Million budget at your request. Re Reading film would be allowed in very limited quantities.

Do you think it will actually make any difference to the outcome?

Max wrote"
Sounds easier to prove, but remember, only films that have been produced by the studios themselves, not their subsidies or acquired later count. Your initial challenge was 'major-studio films', so I want to be absolutely clear on that. The average budget of those is probably around 70M or 80M I think, so 10M is a useless figure, I bet there won't be a major studio release that is under that. I think we should put the limit on 50M, after all the purpose of your bet is to prove that acceptance of digital by major studios, not by low budget films

Films that feature a mix of digital and film (think Collateral) won't be counted, unless one of the formats was used in a very limited capacity (highspeed or background elements, etc...)

There are six major studios by the way: Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner & Disney.

Oh and we'll simply COUNT the films of each format and the one with the highest number determines the winner, there's no need for you to try to get your head around percentages."

Stephen

 

[Stephen Williams]

Hi Tom,

I will pay regardless however after I had accepted your bet you wrote:-

"
How about $30 million USD (that's major), and we don't concern ourselves with what combination of studio/production company/distributor actually greenlights the film. Those matters are all tangled up half the time anyway, because of financing, overseas rights, etc. $30 million is a big, legit movie, any way you look at it. That would actually cause films like the The New World and The Fountain to barely make the cut. If you went 40 million, they would not make the cut"

Stephen

 

[laguun]

No matter if +/- 12 or 24 months, no matter if +/- 10%, mechanical acquisition is set to be the minority soon.

The market share of mechanical 35mm cameras sales is already irrelevant in comparison to sensor-basing 35mm cameras.

Probably no one will develop another 35mm mechanical cameras, maybe one or two last models, but nothing relevant.

Projection is also converted from mechanics to digital at full steed ahead.

The postproduction area was the pioneer, and is already nearly completely digital.

And all of this is nothing new anymore - it was crystal clear since 2006 that the red one would become the new 35mm market leader, no longer arris lineup.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Probably no one will develop another 35mm mechanical cameras, maybe one or two last models, but nothing relevant.

.

Hi,

That's correct, the fact that majority of 35mm cameras built in the last 90 years still work & many are used today in high end productions. There is not the same need to bring out a new model or upgrade every year. The pictures produced by an old camera are identical to a new camera if you us the same film & lens. I know RED RENDERS OBSOLESCENCE OBSOLETE, but Mitchell did the similar thing 90 years ago, produced a cameras that could not be bettered for 50 years. It's mechanical steadiness has never been bettered.

Stephen

Stephen

 

[David M]

Drat: Steven has beaten me to the punch

No matter if +/- 12 or 24 months, no matter if +/- 10%, mechanical acquisition is set to be the minority soon.

The market share of mechanical 35mm cameras sales is already irrelevant in comparison to sensor-basing 35mm cameras.

Probably no one will develop another 35mm mechanical cameras, maybe one or two last models, but nothing relevant.

Excuse me?
Sales of 35mm film cameras is already "irrelevant" but
"Probably" no one will develop another 35mm mechanical cameras, maybe one or two last models, but nothing relevant.

I would have thought if the above case were really true no (0) more new models would now be developed. In any case, what further development is really NEEDED in film cameras?

I'd say that if "mechanical acquisition is set to be the minority soon" that might be because nobody really needs any more mechanical cameras, and there were never all that many sold per year anyway.
Just about all of todays 35mm film rental requirements are being met by existing cameras, some dating back to the 1920s, (Mr Redrentals Arri IIc) . Some are stoneage, some are computer controlled, all shoot film made in 2008, which is all that matters.
If you want to be able to rent out 35mm format digital cameras, yeah, you need to buy a RED or something like it, because there's no existing 80 year inventory of 35mm format digital cameras.
Sure, digital still cameras have been outselling 35mm film cameras for several years, but that's not from people needing a new film camera and buying digital instead, it's just people wanting to have a digital camera because it allows them to easily do things that you can't do wth a film camera. Maybe they'll never use their perfectly good film cameras again. But they mostly aren't buying a digital camera because their film camera is broken.

 

[laguun]

i can report first hand that our vintage arri IIs are not *so* popular as the red ones or an cool 435

But one point is indeed perfectly correct: An 35mm *film* camera updates itself to each new "sensor" generation with the stock, and the images are nearly identical with an arricam and an IIx.

However the many advantages of digital outweigh the few remaining advantages of mechanical so much meanwhile, in quality, ergonomics, economics, speed, production security, control etc that the fade out of mechanical as majority is completely logical as well from the business and the artistic POV.

Its an old hat.
The same story happened to almost any creative toolkit already, and our smaller industry now is one of the last to complete the transition.