Epic Will Have A Deep Impact On "Film" As An Artform

[Daniel Silva]

This post will serve two purposes. First, to simply be my first post and introduction. Second, to be my 2 cents on why I think the "Red Digital Cinema Camera Company" is about to completely change the landscape of the "film" world.

I should probably start by introducing myself, but I won't.

Most of you probably noticed that in the first paragraph I had placed the word "film" inside quotation marks and you chuckled at this. Most of you are aware that with the Epic the Red Company has created not only a new camera but a new paradigm. A Game-Changer. Here are two quotes by Jim Jannard, a guy that has placed himself in a position to become the Steve Jobs of the "Film" Industry. He's an entrepreneur and an artist. I don't know if everyone already knows this but I just found out that Jannard started Oakley in 1975 with $300. For the first 20 years of the company, Jannard shot all of Oakley's ads and commercials. He then went on to sell Oakley for $2.2 billion dollars in 2007. Let's get back on topic. Here are the two quotes.

EPIC is alive and shooting incredible images... actually, the best we have ever seen.

Jim

There are a couple of simple facts...

The ACTUAL MEASURED resolution of the very best 1080P camera (Sony F35) is 1,625,625 pixels.

The very best MEASURED RESOLUTION from slow speed S35mm film from a 4K scan is 5,760,000 pixels. That is 3.5 times the measured resolution of the very best 1080P camera.

EPIC actual MEASURED RESOLUTION is 8,847,360 pixels. That is about 5.5 times more resolution than the very best 1080P camera.

Once again, simple facts.

Jim

Here's what I think the reality of the situation will be in less than a year. Epic will be out and people will slowly realize a bunch of things.

1. Epic is visually superior to 35mm film. PERIOD. It has more resolution and in terms of dynamic range and lenses it's just as good or better.

2. Epic is cheaper. PERIOD. If we compare costs this is obvious. Now I'm talking about really comparing costs. Comparing apples to apples.

Let's start with the media we will be shooting into. On an Epic we have a lot of choices of media. For this example we will shoot onto an SSD. On Film we will use 35mm film stock. The average Hollywood production that uses film will at least spend $15000 on film stock. I'm talking about a 90 minute feature with a shooting ratio of 6:1. Here are the calculations.

A modest $15,782.

$3200. On the Epic all we need is an SSD. Now in order to not completely humiliate Film, I chose the most expensive option of media on the Epic. The glorious 256gb SSD. Film stock (90 minute feature with 6:1 shooting ratio) is almost 5 times more expensive than a 256gb SSD. Not to beat a dead horse even more.
:beatdeadhorse5:
But once you shoot film that's it! You can't erase and re-shoot. With an SSD you simply plug into your computer, transfer files, re-format and you're back to square one. This is exactly like what happened in photography. The minute you invent a storage technology that is substantially cheaper and re-usable it will end by completely taking over the old, more expensive and not re-usable technology.

Now let's talk about the cameras. On one hand you have a big clunky film camera on the other you have the small Epic. I understand that there's a lot of types of film cameras so for the purposes of this post I'll choose the camera that is considered to be the most popular of 35mm film cameras. The Arriflex 435. This camera has been used on Best Picture Winners like "The Departed" and "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy.

The first thing we should consider is the price. Let's focus only on the price of the two cameras. The Arriflex 435 vs. The Red Epic-M.

Finding the price of an Arriflex 435 on the internet is not as easy as it sounds. Keep in mind this is the most popular 35mm camera and it has been shooting movies for 15 years. I go to the Arriflex website, find the product page for the 435 and look for the price. Nowhere to be found. I look in the PDF brochure, it must be there, I think. It isn't. I have to go on Google and type: "arriflex price list" to find a PDF of the official 2006 price list that isn't even on Arriflex's site. So finally what is the price of the most popular 35mm camera on the universe...

72 200... Euros. So today January 10, 2011 1 euro is worth 1.29541 USD. Meaning the Arriflex 435 costs $93,528.95

Now let's see about the Epic-M. We still don't know the individual price for the brain of the camera. But we do know you can pre-order a package for $58000. This package includes some things we have to subtract in order to get a fair comparison.

Here's the package:
1- Machined and hand assembled EPIC-M Brain with titanium PL mount
1- Bomb EVF
1- 5" Touchscreen LCD (machined)
1- Side Handle (machined)
1- Side SSD Module (machined)
1- REDmote (machined)
1- 4- 128GB SSD cards
1- 4- batteries and charger

The Arriflex 435 does not include any media, viewfinders or LCDs. So I'll substract:

1- Bomb EVF ($3200)
1- 5" Touchscreen LCD ($1700 the price was taken from the non touchscreen version)
1- 4- 128GB SSD cards ($1800 X 4 = $7200)

$58000 - $3200 - $1700 - $7200 = $45900

So the price of an Epic-M is $45900.

Epic is more than twice as cheap than the Arriflex 435. To put it on a new perspective instead of buying an Arriflex 435 you could buy 2 Epic-Ms and still save $1728. This might not seem like a big saving but for me it would be. That's more than I make in a month. I'm still in college.

So there you have it in terms of price the Epic clearly beats film. SSDs are better and cheaper than film stock. The Epic-M is better and cheaper than the Arriflex 435.

There's of course a large part of the equation that is still missing that is lenses and other equipment. In this department Red is still making great improvements. They're manufacturing their own lenses and also allow you to use Canon, Nikon and PL mounts. We are also seeing because of video DSLRs a lot of equipment (Rails, FollowFocus, Dollies, Steadycams) going down in price.

Digital has always been cheaper than film. What Epic is about to do is make it better.

What really blows my mind is this. I'm currently 18 years old. Let's say that I direct my first feature when I'm 28. That would mean I would shoot said feature in 2021, 10 years from now.

In 5 years all of us on this forum have gone from not knowing about Red to hearing about Red for the first time at NAB. We have gone from hearing about it to becoming very curious about it. We have gone from being curious to discovering the plans for the wonderful Red One. We have gone from reading the plans to seeing it's release and widespread success. This success includes shooting some of the most culturally and artistically important films of the decade that just finished. "Che". "Rabbit Hole". "J'ai tué ma mère". "The Social Network".

On July 3, 2012, we will see the release of the first feature shot on an Epic. I'm of course talking about Spider-Man. For most people it will just be the new Spider-Man movie, but for us on this forum and for any informed filmmaker in the world it will also be something else. It will be the day film dies. This is what will happen that day:

:anti-old:

The old guy will be film and the new guy will be digital. And of course digital is a nice guy so he won't shoot film in the head, he'll just send him to a retirement home. What I mean by this is that film will always be around. I mean film as in film stock. Not film as an artform. Because this artform that we all love will not be called "film" it will be called "cinema". You see how the Red team is calling the Epic a "Digital Cinema" camera? Well in the future it will just be a cinema camera. The digital part will be irrelevant. Here's a post by Chase Jarvis that talks about this but for photography:

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2010/11/drop-the-digital-from-photography/

So I guess my final question and what really blows my mind is if in 5 years (2006 - 2011) all of this has happened, what the fuck is going to happen 10 years from now?

When I theoretically shoot my first feature at the age of 28.

To end this post I'd like to briefly introduce myself. I'm Daniel Silva, an 18 year-old living in Montreal, Canada. I'm originally from Colombia and migrated to Canada at the age of 9. When I was about 15, I decided that I wanted to direct movies. Since then I've been relentlessly pursuing that goal. I'm now in college and I'm planning on going to film school.

Unlike most kids my age I don't work at a McDonald's making minimum wage. I work for an online company (tweople.com) that makes web spokespersons. They send me green screen footage and I then remove the green screen, clean the audio and output an FLV. I do this from my home and make a decent amount of money out of it. I'm also now thinking of creating and selling After Effects templates. My goal for 2011 is to start my templates business and make $16000 this year.

I haven't done much artistic work yet. Most of what I have done has been for clients not for myself. Here's a little video I made for college last semester.

http://vimeo.com/17751199

If any of you on this forum take a look at it, I would greatly appreciate some comments. I get a bit star struck with some of the names on this forum.

So all of this to basically say: "Thank You!"

Thanks to Jim for starting this revolution.

Thanks to this forum for providing priceless knowledge.

Thanks to cinema.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

Welcome to the fray, Daniel.

 

[Callum Just]

I thought you raised some interesting points but I would say these two things.

Firstly when you’re shooting a major production you need a lot more than one 256gb SSD, getting 100+ would be more realistic and also remember that you still have to back that vast quantity of data up somehow. Servers aren’t cheap.

My second point is that the % of budget that goes on the camera and processing is so small in a major film I doubt it even comes into a DP’s head when they’re choosing what format to shoot on. DP’s just want what’s ever will give them the best picture at the end of the day.

Epic wont take off because they are cheaper than film, they will because they produce great pictures, are reliable, shoot 3D well, have efficient workflows etc. That’s what’s going to make Epic a winner, I say this knowing the film industry irony behind it but its not all about the money.

Best of luck to you,

Callum

 

[sergio arguello]

love it...Welcome Daniel.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

If I could add to Callum argument that film is also going to die because of the dying knowledge of the people and laboratory using film in favor of the development of Digital.

S16 blow up to 35mm was better quality as today 2k scan/DI and film transfert from the same S16 neg. 35mm Direct print had greater quality as of today DI process.

People will also loose their knowledge in filters, lightining, color science on set in "favor" of postproduction...

Don't know if this is progress? It will surely bring some new ways of doing things and eastetics.

Patrick

 

[Daniel Silva]

I thought you raised some interesting points but I would say these two things.

Firstly when you’re shooting a major production you need a lot more than one 256gb SSD, getting 100+ would be more realistic and also remember that you still have to back that vast quantity of data up somehow. Servers aren’t cheap.

My second point is that the % of budget that goes on the camera and processing is so small in a major film I doubt it even comes into a DP’s head when they’re choosing what format to shoot on. DP’s just want what’s ever will give them the best picture at the end of the day.

Epic wont take off because they are cheaper than film, they will because they produce great pictures, are reliable, shoot 3D well, have efficient workflows etc. That’s what’s going to make Epic a winner, I say this knowing the film industry irony behind it but its not all about the money.

Best of luck to you,

Callum

I'm sure there are many flaws in what I just wrote. Please point them out. As I said this is only my 2 cents.

As for the SSDs are you sure you'd need +100? I think with 2-3 would be enough. What you'd need is a secure and reliable back-up solution. Probably a "Raid 1" with 2TB drives. Lets say we want the whole back up system to store 16TB of data and to be redundant (2 copies of every byte). Well guess what Drobo already built this exact solution for you. All you need to do is buy 2 Drobo Elites for $5899 each. For this price you get the Drobo Elite loaded with 8 hard drives of 2TB each. That's 16TB of storage and 8TB if you enable redundancy. Buy 2 of them and you have a great backup solution. That's only $14998 for one 256gbSSD and two Drobo Elites. Still cheaper than film.

 

[Martin Weiss]

Love your enthusiasm and welcome to the brave new world of film making.

A few points:

For normal (and major) Hollywood production, it is never about the cost of the equipment, and less so about ownership of said gear. It is about reliability, quality and politics. [Having said this — it is one of the many amazing facts about the EPIC that a camera used on the biggest budget films of the decade is the same camera that is affordable to a serious, small-scale production house or owner/operator.]

Re-usable media is not automatically superior over "write-once" media; only when the costs including archival are comparable has it gained superiority. For now, backup is still a (increasingly minor) headache.

A 35mm film camera is highly specialized equipment, and as such I would not hold it against ARRI that a price is hard to find online. And a listed price is just that, a starting point for negotiations.

Drobos are o.k. for mid-term, redundant archival, but I would not recommend them for editing.

On July 3, 2012, we will see the release of the first feature shot on an Epic.

I expect the first EPIC shot feature to be released at least one year earlier than that. After all the first EPICS are supposed to be shipping in February 2011.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Welcome to Reduser Daniel,

well placed points, however as you have been pointed out, in the same way as you calculate Film Stock you calculate RedMags, on any Professional shoot,
the digital Media remains intact till it is off loaded in several copies, and for safety they do this at the end of the project, remanning the requirement of
Redmags in a Major Movie will be of well over 100 of them

Before was several Hundreds of 16GB CF Cards, now will be 100 or so Redmags, but compared to Film Mags, a all other story all together,
and Loaders sure love the CF and now the Redmags, way more then those large Film Cans.

 

[Erik Franzén]

Umm, okay? A 100+ SSD:s? Uhm. Yeah. No. I can't see any real world production ever needing that many. Unless they never re-use reusable media in which case, yeah, well...

Maybe Peter Jackson will have a 100+ considering he's getting 30 EPIC:s, but that's 3 drives per camera + a few to spare.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Umm, okay? A 100+ SSD:s? Uhm. Yeah. No. I can't see any real world production ever needing that many. Unless they never re-use reusable media in which case, yeah, well...

Maybe Peter Jackson will have a 100+ considering he's getting 30 EPIC:s, but that's 3 drives per camera + a few to spare.

Exactly Erik,

with 3D movies with Epic at 5k HDRx you can bet that there are 100+ SSD Redmags on set And if you shoot 48fps like we will, then for sure.

with 100's of Millions of dollars in Budget, they want to make sure that what they have captured is safe, and might not Re-Format the SSD's till the very end.

 

[David Rasberry]

People will also loose their knowledge in filters, lightining, color science on set in "favor" of postproduction...
Patrick

Light is the absolutely essential element of cinematography, regardless of the device or medium you are recording too. Controlling what the camera sees will always be a valuable and essential skill, including how one manipulates light. It is your paint.

One thing I love about Red's approach to digital imaging is that it is a true photographer's instrument. The only things that directly affect what is captured are lighting, aperture, frame rate, and shutter speed. You can't manipulate in post what the camera didn't see.

 

[Julio Quintana]

Guys, he's talking about a 90-minute indie film with a 6:1 shooting ratio. Although you would never want to shoot a feature with only 1 SSD card, I don't think it's fair to compare his example to Spider Man.
We all know that RED is cheaper than film, but that is not what is going to shape up the mainstream Hollywood film industry.

 

[Daniel Silva]

Sorry to disappoint you argument Erik,

but with 3D movies with Epic at 5k HDRx™™ you can bet that there are 100+ SSD Redmags on set

Remember that you are not on a Music Video or short film shoot, with 100's of Millions of dollars in Budget,
they want to make sure that what they have captured is safe, and might not Format the SSD's till the very end.

I think you're actually both right.

Of course, if you have a very big production where the budget is in the millions and millions of dollars you can very easily go all out and buy 100 SSDs. Think about it they're only using 300k out of tens of millions of dollars.

The point I was trying to make is that (and you can't disagree with this) it is theoretically possible to shoot a full 90 minute feature with only ONE SSD. This is of course if you have a real and safe backup solution for storage.

I'm not predicting what kind of wreckless and unnecessary spending will be done by big Hollywood productions. I'm saying that unlike film with digital you're buying something you can re-use. If with $15000 you can buy a 256gb SSD and a 16TB backup solution instead of film stock it makes sense to do so because how many movies can you make with the film stock? Only one. You shoot and that's it. Now with the SSD and Raid you can shoot as many movies as you'd like until one of the physical drives fail. In the future we'll probably use SSDs in our Raids so that takes that problem out. Once we begin using SSDs in our Raids and we're shooting with SSDs we basically get a solution that can basically shoot an infinite amount of movies.

Think about it. One vs. Infinity :001_cool:

Edit: Well Infinity is a bit of an exaggeration because SSDs do fail, I just learned. But they're still far more reliable than physical drives. Here's the article I found.

http://www.networkcomputing.com/backup-recovery/ssd-reliability-shouldnt-be-an-issue.php

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You make a lot of good points, Daniel, and no doubt that economics are always a driving factor in why one technology supplants another.

But keep in mind that most movies are one-time temporary legal entities created just for the purpose of making that one movie -- studios closed their camera departments decades ago. Because of that, most studios rent the equipment, they don't want to get into the ownership business.

But the numbers still favor digital even in rental situations once you factor in the costs of film stock, processing, and telecine/scanning. But that's been true more or less for a decade now and we still shoot film.

Yes, the quality issue has been a major factor, and to a lesser extent, the archival and insurance issues. So of course as digital matches or surpasses film AND it's cheaper to use, it's a no-brainer that it will come to dominate over film.

But keep in mind that this is also an art form we are talking about, and artists don't always make decisions based on logical things like cost or technical quality; artists are emotional creatures, even illogical ones at times, and some projects can indulge their quirks, preferences, and even prejudices more than others -- either because the budget is high enough to entertain whatever format the artist wants to use, or because the project is small enough to fall under the radar and the artist does whatever he wants with whatever he can pull together. Because of that, film may stick around a bit longer than you think, for those that want to use it regardless of all the reasons to choose digital.

But for the majority of productions, no doubt that digital will come to dominate over the next several years. 2011 has more major productions shooting digital than ever, mainly because of the 3D craze rather than a love of digital, but that will factor into the acceleration of digital production. But there are still an awful lot of Hollywood movies shooting on film; in fact, above a certain budget level, film is still the most commonly-used medium even this year, and probably for a couple of years more to come.

For one thing, it will take all of 2011 and beyond for enough Epics to be sold to meet the demand of all the people who want to shoot on it... 2012 may be the actual year when most Hollywood production can easily choose to use an Epic if they want to, and those movies won't appear in theaters until 2013.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Yes Daniel, my point was exactly that, if large productions then rules apply as if they were rolls of Film, just that on the next Picture they would be recycled,
for small productions, then 1 to 3 SSD's are good in off.

 

[Daniel Silva]

You make a lot of good points, Daniel, and no doubt that economics are always a driving factor in why one technology supplants another.

But keep in mind that most movies are one-time temporary legal entities created just for the purpose of making that one movie -- studios closed their camera departments decades ago. Because of that, most studios rent the equipment, they don't want to get into the ownership business.

But the numbers still favor digital even in rental situations once you factor in the costs of film stock, processing, and telecine/scanning. But that's been true more or less for a decade now and we still shoot film.

Yes, the quality issue has been a major factor, and to a lesser extent, the archival and insurance issues. So of course as digital matches or surpasses film AND it's cheaper to use, it's a no-brainer that it will come to dominate over film.

But keep in mind that this is also an art form we are talking about, and artists don't always make decisions based on logical things like cost or technical quality; artists are emotional creatures, even illogical ones at times, and some projects can indulge their quirks, preferences, and even prejudices more than others -- either because the budget is high enough to entertain whatever format the artist wants to use, or because the project is small enough to fall under the radar and the artist does whatever he wants with whatever he can pull together. Because of that, film may stick around a bit longer than you think, for those that want to use it regardless of all the reasons to choose digital.

But for the majority of productions, no doubt that digital will come to dominate over the next several years. 2011 has more major productions shooting digital than ever, mainly because of the 3D craze rather than a love of digital, but that will factor into the acceleration of digital production. But there are still an awful lot of Hollywood movies shooting on film; in fact, above a certain budget level, film is still the most commonly-used medium even this year, and probably for a couple of years more to come.

For one thing, it will take all of 2011 and beyond for enough Epics to be sold to meet the demand of all the people who want to shoot on it... 2012 may be the actual year when most Hollywood production can easily choose to use an Epic if they want to, and those movies won't appear in theaters until 2013.

Holy Shit! The DP of "Jennifer's Body" and "The Astronaut Farmer" just replied in my thread.

Sorry. Had to say it. Now to what you just said, you just made me understand something very important. Big movies are not made with owned equipment. It's that simple. People rent. I tend to think that people buy cameras left and right well because that's my very limited experience. I bought a D90 when it came out. I then sold it and bought a T2i. Everyone I know buys their cameras.

But it's a completely different ball game with big productions. These productions are collective efforts and so deciding who would keep the equipment at the end of the shoot would be a big problem. If productions were to buy equipment they'd have to share it proportionally between investors. Meaning the dentist that invested 10% of the budget would get a dolly and a steadicam. That makes no sense. All he wants is for his money to be used in the movie and to possibly recoup and make a profit. So they don't buy, they rent.

Just a little thought. If someone was to be downright sneaky would he be able to buy equipment use it for the film and then return it? The way some people buy a shirt for a wedding and then return it.

 

[dustin lindgren]

Danielson, there are a ton of well know people in the production world coming onto Reduser to chime in. Making positive connections through this site can change someone like yourselves life. Ask Tom Lowe. We are lucky to have ability to connect so easily with some of the best.

You might not want to put to much time into figuring out if RED is going to kill film. Time will tell and as a cameraman its good to embrace all format because you never know what the job will call for. Although, i do agree that the EPIC will be a major game changer!!!! Good luck with all your goals.

 

[Erik Franzén]

Exactly Erik,

with 3D movies with Epic at 5k HDRx™™™™™™™™ you can bet that there are 100+ SSD Redmags on set And if you shoot 48fps like we will, then for sure.

with 100's of Millions of dollars in Budget, they want to make sure that what they have captured is safe, and might not Re-Format the SSD's till the very end.

I know I am coming from a small-minded indie production and I am aware of the inherent limitations that poses to my thinking "inside the box". I just find it baffling that producers (and directors?) would find it necessary not to scrub the "original" footage because of possible problems - even on a 500,000,000$ production. If I got it right, and I suppose it has some valid arguments, then this is because the original SSD recording serves as another valid backup, yes? So, if the transfer fails or something is messed up down the chain, you can go back to the SSD and just do the transfer all over again and everything's merry - am I following the logical chain right here?

If so, I still think it's flawed and stupid. Oh well, maybe not stupid. 'Overly cautious' would be a better way to put it.

See, what I don't seem to get here is why the media isn't formated when essentially the SSD itself is A Bad Idea when it comes to backup. SSD(s) are inherently life-span limited by their engineering and knowing that my trust hangs on there being original footage stuck on media that was never intended for storage (rather than speed) would make me nervous. Of course, the same can be said for spinning drives but those have at least proven to be relatively reliable for longer periods of time (especially backed up consistently enough and in a secure RAID).

For me it would seem like this is paranoia playing the trick. Wouldn't it be easier just making 110% sure the footage transfers alright? Doesn't have to be so extensively done on-set (after all, time is limited!) but could easily be done a day or two afterwards to ensure the media is A-OK. Then just make backups from that master? I don't know. Makes more sense to me.

Anyhow, I guess this all comes from the fact that I am so paranoid with my footage and still I didn't think of ever keeping the original footage on the recording media (be it CF, SSD, RED RAM or whatever).

Below is a quick 'n dirty sketch I made a while ago when working with my DIT to set up an efficient and fool-proof backup system from shooting to backup to shooting. Most of these are variables and idealistic versions of how I would like to do things. For example, the "three day rule" of only formating a drive after it's been idle for three days and the verification process checked out A-OK is probably unrealistic given media costs vs. budget, at least for the immediate future (6-8+ months). But our media budget might go up eventually and allow us to actually do things My Way (TM). :sifone:

Basically, the process is this: the Digital Imaging Technician supervises the offloaders who take the SSDs, do their magic, and then we have a backup safe and sound on-set (offloaded to external 2TB drives). After the day is over, the DIT puts the local drives into his own workstation and makes the Master Backup. From there, the local drives gets put into a firesafe after being anti-statically sealed and shut.

From the Master Backup the DIT makes three more backups - the editor's working copy, the producer's copy and the director's copy. The producer/director's copy are merely yet another backup version - they are also sealed and then put into fire safes (different locations). Finally, the editor's version is offloaded into his own RAID and from there on that is the official Master Copy. The DIT, director and producer retains their backups as well as the "local" original backup - all safe and sound.

After all that is done, it's up to the Footage Scrubber (don't know if there is an actual name for this position...) to verify the footage. He does this the day after it's been delivered, and does it extensively in a way which would be impossible on-set (frame by frame, additional checksums, etc. etc.)

Basically, even if my house (director) my producer's house, my editor's house and my DIT's house burnt down - we still would have at least two copies left; the DIT (in a RAID) and the local, original, backup made on-set that is in a fire safe.

All in all, bullet proof (unless a tactical nuke strikes, in which case I am screwed). The biggest variable remaining is actually REDCode, but I haven't had any chance to test which version would be fit for a feature so that would have to wait.

I'm feeling a bit sick and tired so if I said something that makes no sense I blame that

Best shooting and regards!
~ Erik "Darky Mikado" Franzén

 

[Callum Just]

You might not want to put to much time into figuring out if RED is going to kill film. Time will tell and as a cameraman its good to embrace all format because you never know what the job will call for. Although, i do agree that the EPIC will be a major game changer!!!! Good luck with all your goals.

I quite agree.

Julio Makes a very good point in that not all projects have the same budgets but I’ve always felt data should be treated with the same level of care and respect regardless of the scale of the show.

Mags shouldn’t be re-used until they’ve been check summed and verified a number of times, backed up to a RAID server and put onto LOT. Only then should the SSD’s be re-used. Multi unit, multi camera, 3D projects shooting at 5K will need 100+ of SSD’s. Its gonna be a whole lot of data! (and a whole lot of fun)

Not sure even a Drobo Elite Super+++ will handle it.

 

[Daniel Soderberg]

I think you make a good point in the economics of digital vs. film, but again, there will always be distinct image qualities/look of film that digital will always have a hard time matching. I think many could argue against that first point you made that Red's image is 'better' than film's image.

That being said, you really do make some great arguments. Thanks for the post!