EPIC - ARRI, SIDE BY SIDE FACTS.

[sergio arguello]

Direct-to-Edit, i.e. the Alexa's number one feature. It's still the one area Epic can't touch (though 3rd party solutions are coming soon that will close the gap a lot, and of course RED will have a module of their own some day).

Oh, and the Alexa is also available today to anyone with the $$$, with all options and full kit. The Epic-M is still unavailable to most (I've been on the waiting list for months now, for example. The Epic-M also regularly ships without all of the parts -- missing EVFs, REDMotes, etc.). This is not RED's fault (Japan crisis, etc.) but it's still a point of comparison today.

When Epic finally gets widely available with full firmware, it's definitely going to be the camera to beat. I'm certainly waiting for mine. If I can't wait any longer, I'd buy an F3/S-Log/Cinedeck over an Alexa at this point.

direct to Edit? there have been solutions for month Aja kipro mini for one, secondly, blackmagic has one as well.

Alexa has a hefty wait for the camera as well, so you may not be on a simular list, but you do fall on a list. Unless you are a prefered vendor.

As for shipping without everything...no comment

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

this resolution discussion is strange.
red cleary said on day 1:
we want to deliver an alternate format to 35 mm film.

with epic and HDR the DR and resolution is here...and most importantly at affordable prices, be it the camera itself
or postproduction. the post part even gets cheaper every minute which passes.

mission complete.

imho its pointless to discuss the secondary distribution paths.
i mean nr.1 is the cinema, nr.2 bluray, nr.3 web and TV.

if your camera can easily serve Nr 1, and the past proves that nr.2 and nr 3 gets better and better than epic is the only viable choice to produce future proof and have the best digital master today.
and if you serve the market for nr2 and nr3 be glad you have the power of oversampling plus you can easily reconform with an edl in the future if needed.
you dont have to, but with a 4 and 5 k masters you can.
my 2 pesos.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

red cleary said on day 1:
we want to deliver an alternate format to 35 mm film.

with epic and HDR the DR and resolution is here...and most importantly at affordable prices, be it the camera itself
or postproduction. the post part even gets cheaper every minute which passes.


i mean nr.1 is the cinema, nr.2 bluray, nr.3 web and TV. that are the distribution ways of today.

if your camera can easily serve Nr 1, and the past proves that nr.2 and nr 3 gets better and better, than epic and r1 is the only viable and affordable choice to produce future proof material and have the best digital master today.
and if you serve the market for nr2 and nr3 only, be glad you have the power of oversampling plus you can easily reconform with an edl in the future if needed.
you dont have to, but with a 4 and 5 k master you can.
my 2 pesos.

 

[sergio arguello]

i had a subscription for 20+ years and let it go due to its unwarrented biased towards the past and what seemed to be ,willingness to ignore the future. Honestly, i wasnt learning anything by hearing how someone addressed vision 2, or 3 when i was switching gears to Digital aquisition. IMHO it doesnt need to be proved that the magazine has its agenda. It just needs to feel that way. David if you do have influence over there you may want to have that dialougue with the editors before the magazine gets any thinner. ICG actually seems to have more advertisers than AC theses days.

just thinking out load

I buy it every month religiously. all good mate.

 

[christopher witzke]

I just spent a good portion of my weekend at a film festival. Most of the films were shot on 1080p cameras... A few on red. One film in particular won at sundance and was an amazing story with amazing acting.... Yet was shot on a $3000 camera! And it showed! I sat watching it on a 40 foot screen thinking how sad it was that it looked the way it did. It really bothered me. Over sharpened with ringing contrast. I wanted to raise my hand during the q&a and ask " why didn't you guys take this amazing story and amazing screen talent and do it justice with a better camera?" I just sat there thinking " I would have shot that for free "

It's easy to buy a red..... And it's easy to shoot gorgeous images with it.... It's really hard to find a good story and good on screen talent.

The camera expense is nothing compared to all the other aspects of a film. I just don't get why people convince themselves otherwise.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

It's easy to buy a red..... And it's easy to shoot gorgeous images with it.... It's really hard to find a good story and good on screen talent.

The camera expense is nothing compared to all the other aspects of a film. I just don't get why people convince themselves otherwise.

It's easy to buy a Red ? Well maybe we should have a quickie course/thread on film equipment financing.

If its so easy to get a loan, I'll just call up Red and order an Epic M package tomorrow - because that's where my business is headed. (Assuming they'll even sell me one <sigh>)

Here's the thing ... I don't think its easy to get such a loan anymore. 5 years ago, I could take a loan readily for a house or a Ferrari, today I really can't buy a Red One or Epic X body - much less a full kit.

 

[shashbugu]

It's easy to buy a Red ? Well maybe we should have a quickie course/thread on film equipment financing.

If its so easy to get a loan, I'll just call up Red and order an Epic M package tomorrow - because that's where my business is headed. (Assuming they'll even sell me one <sigh>)

Here's the thing ... I don't think its easy to get such a loan anymore. 5 years ago, I could take a loan readily for a house or a Ferrari, today I really can't buy a Red One or Epic X body - much less a full kit.

I don't think everybody needs to own a Red to use it. I don't own a Red. I rent pacakages that come with excellent cnematographers and DIT's at bargain prices. In the film/Industrial/TV/Viral business the Producer or client pays for the Equipment its always included in the production cost. Its good business. Everyone gets to make a living. Clients are happy with the quality from a small production that looks like what they see on TV. I will definetly buy a Epic, its a no brainer, I can always travel with it a do so very cool personal stuff, which based on resolution alone I could sell. Even if I own an Epic, I will Always still rent an owner operater cinematographer package. I live in Hollywood where filmmaking is not about the cost of equipment but about relationships and expertise. A cinematographer that knows his craft will always be hired whether he owns his equipment or not. Now that is fact. But in todays rapidily advancing technology an artistic cinematographer with his own equipment is worth a lort more to a director or producer than a guy who need 5 extra crew members to help him operate the camera.
Never quoute a client based on camera equipment thats bad unprofessional business. I have nothing against DSLR's, but at the end of the day the price for an ergonomically and technically equivalent package with DP is only slightly less than a Red package.

 

[christopher witzke]

Sorry? Let me rephrase.....

The cost of the camera is minor compared to what it takes to make a compelling film.... the actors, story, set, locations all are much harder to acquire than the camera.

But.... I scavenged everything I had laying around the studio that I did not immediately need, including any video cameras and specialty lighting and grip.... and sold them to raise the $26k I needed to buy my RED One. Within weeks I was getting projects I never would have landed if not for having a RED in my market. The marketing aspects of possessing a camera of it's caliber alone were worth the investment.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Jim has been right on so many issues that I'm inclined to bury my natural pessimism and just trust him on this "4K TV is the future" thing.

The problem with being a working cinematographer is that the immediate problems of here and now hit you on the head every day on a movie shoot and it is hard to indulge a little bit and imagine a brighter future, so I'm glad we have people like Jim Jannard doing it for us -- and making it a reality. For that, the industry should be eternally grateful.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Been thinking and there's another fork to my argument above that I'd forgotten to mention:

Ignoring specific cameras , if you want to achieve a full 1080p on screen with maximal resolution and minimal aliasing you need to start with a lot more than a 1080p image in camera. I'd say this is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a full 1080p image and there's a number of cameras out there that are oft or always used for 1080p that have higher resolution sensors, but even still fail to deliver a fully measured 1080p.

So, even if 1080p is "sufficient" for the screen (I think not, but...) that is telling us a 1080p camera is NOT sufficient unless it it's deriving that 1080p from a much higher resolution, and even then it doesn't always work out, and as for the cameras that do work that way, the badge on the side of them says "RED".

Graeme

 

[Martin Stevens]

If Jim Jannard is truly depressed and actually ends up not posting anymore on his own site,
then I think that all of us "believers" should send him a mass of flowers/cigars/etc. and ask him
to come back.



Reading his posts is something I try to do everyday. The man is a cinema genius.
I do not want Jim to be depressed.

 

[Robert Frank]

If you can shoot higher resolution images for less money, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to do that. You can alway output to lower rez delivery formats.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

It's hard for us who work with 4k+ images every day, and get to see really nice projected 4k images regularly to understand the arguments against 4k when what we see is the plainest and simplest argument for 4K+ capture and 4k delivery. I can do all the math arguments I like, but it's meaningless until you see and live with 4k and don't really want to go back to 1080p.

Graeme

 

[M Most]

Jim has been right on so many issues that I'm inclined to bury my natural pessimism and just trust him on this "4K TV is the future" thing.

The problem with being a working cinematographer is that the immediate problems of here and now hit you on the head every day on a movie shoot and it is hard to indulge a little bit and imagine a brighter future, so I'm glad we have people like Jim Jannard doing it for us -- and making it a reality. For that, the industry should be eternally grateful.

I've now read all 14 pages of this thread (and boy, are my eyes tired....) and I find it interesting and perhaps significant that the images themselves - what they look like and why one might prefer one camera over another - has not been mentioned even once. Technical specs are important, and they do matter. But the fact that there are different manufacturers, with different sensors, different processing, different color science, different debayer routines, and, yes, different post requirements - allow for choices that are not always determined by which one has the bigger image. It is often determined by an opinion based on liking the images from one more than the other. And that opinion is not always the same, it depends on the project and the story being told. At some point in the next year or so, there will be at least two major manufacturers - perhaps more - that have cameras that are recording 4K or larger images. At that point, the choices will be more about image charactistics and camera form factors than it will numbers. I think that just as Jim finds it difficult to see why anyone would choose a lower resolution capture device right now, it's equally as difficult for a number of cinematographers to see why they should choose a camera based on anything other than the image it produces. We've long had choices between film stocks, and only in specific cases - visual effects plates, for instance - has anyone I know made their choices on anything other than image characteristics, not resolution. I certainly see Jim's point - I always do, I find him very inspiring - but there are things other than numbers that are involved in creative choices. Everyone will get there as far as resolution goes, some within the next year. And for theatrical motion pictures, Jim's points are very significant and very compelling. But in television, there are considerations that are seemingly being overlooked here. At least thats my opinion....

 

[Rich Schaefer]

This was a busy thread overnight.

I am a huge fan of 4k and it sounds like Sony has also seen the light with their existing 4k projectors and upcoming 4k camera and displays.

 

[JanneJansson]

The RED approach with better resolution and higher framerate is the right way. There will always be people that refuses to believe, and those that do.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

It's hard for us who work with 4k+ images every day, and get to see really nice projected 4k images regularly to understand the arguments against 4k when what we see is the plainest and simplest argument for 4K+ capture and 4k delivery. I can do all the math arguments I like, but it's meaningless until you see and live with 4k and don't really want to go back to 1080p.

Graeme

And vice versa, I don't look at 4k projectors on a regular basis, the best images I have seen have come from IMAX when I saw the dark knight or Inception. When I saw 2012 in the theaters the projection was bright and sharp to my eyes and that was on a fairly large screen, the one time I saw a 1080p movie on the big screen and said "This looks really soft" was when I saw 21 and immediately after saw The Incredible Hulk.
But who knows, I live in a 1080p world on a daily basis, you seem to live in a 4k one, maybe if I suddenly lived in a 4k world I would think differently about 1080p but thats unlikely to happen any time soon, maybe in 3 - 4 years as I am in year 6 of "It takes 10 years to be..." as a film director.

 

[Robert Frank]

I honestly believe 4K-TV is the sweet spot for delivery.

I also think that more and more releases will be in 4K via download, many in 2k also, but 4k will be the gold standard at some point. The home theater viewing experience will compete with theatrical releases for a piece of the market. Some theaters will close, hopefully only the crappy ones, and the remaining will have to offer more than popcorn and a night out. Theaters won't go away, because not everyone will have a home theater. But there will be a lot of TV's that deliver excellent pictures, and people will buy them.

It wouldn't surprise me to finally see the convergence of the computer and media center finally happen in the next few years. Download delivery is the future. How far into the future we'll see, but Apple is betting on it.

In my mind one thing is obvious. RED is way ahead of the curve on this one.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

If you can shoot higher resolution images for less money, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to do that. You can alway output to lower rez delivery formats.

For some it's not less money, for others it's about workflow and some people just like camera x because it's shaped like a film camera or made by ARRI stuff like that.
I would ask you why you assume resolution is the only thing important in creating content, I would say that I am more concerned with my ability to write a good script then what resolution my camera shoots, more important than that to me is sound, it doesn't matter how many k my image is if you can't hear my dialogue it's useless.

 

[Robert Frank]

For some it's not less money, for others it's about workflow and some people just like camera x because it's shaped like a film camera or made by ARRI stuff like that.
I would ask you why you assume resolution is the only thing important in creating content, I would say that I am more concerned with my ability to write a good script then what resolution my camera shoots, more important than that to me is sound, it doesn't matter how many k my image is if you can't hear my dialogue it's useless.

My statement was in reference to the ARRI/EPIC comparison. As far as what you assume that I think about what is important in creating content, perhaps I should have qualified my statement by preceding it with "All other things being equal".