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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

How many in LA planning to rent out their Red?

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Bruce Allen

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Dear Red users...

I'm trying to decide whether to get on the Red list or just plan to rent one.

So, prospective Red owners... how much are you planning to rent a package for? Email me an offer and convince me not to buy one myself :)
I'm in the LA area.

I am estimating that out of the 1000+ pre-orders for Red, at least a hundred will be from LA. By the next rounds of pre-orders (Jan, NAB), we might hit 1000 cameras in LA... Since I don't exactly need to use the camera every day, it seems a bit greedy to want one all to myself. So, I should rent? Of course, the same goes for lenses! But the natural human instinct is to hoard, right...?

What do you think?

Bruce Allen
boacinema@gmail.com
www.boacinema.com
 
I've wrestled with the same question myself and I'm buying. I know of a few people in my area that already have reservations and I'm sure there's some I don't know about and probably a lot more to follow. But I think I can be more productive if I own the camera myself and don't have to work around rental schedules and fees from others. I'll still rent the expensive glass when needed and at first see how my Nikkor lenses work out. But I'm not about to go buying Cooke primes, even used, until I have need to. I'm also interested to see what lenses RED will offer. Their upcoming zoom is intriguing... Their 300mm prime looks nice too, but I don't think I need it if my Nikkor 50mm-300mm zoom can do a decent job and get results that at least compare favorably.

I will probably rent myself and my RED out on occasion, but I won't try to make that a focal point of my business. As for rates, I don't even want to guess at this point because I don't even know how much my complete RED setup is going to cost just yet.

But I would bet that to rent a RED One from a major rental shop or some place reliable, you'll be looking at $2K per week or more. To rent an HVX in my area is about $1200/week, Varicam is $2500/week and that usually just includes one lens. So if you plan to use the camera for yourself 10 weeks or more over the next year or so, you may as well buy one. Also depends on how you plan to purchase. If it's financed out, the interest may eat you up if you don't have enough work for the camera and it's been my experience that renting gear out all the time just wears it down and eventually you have to repair it in order to get proper use out of it.
 
Bruce -
I've spoken with a couple of people about this very topic. I can guarantee you there will be fairly priced RED rentals in LA - even if you can't find anyone else, you can ask me or LonewolfHD, who is probably going to show up on this forum any day now.
When I get a little more time, I'm going to try to organize LA RED owners who want to rent - hopefully create some kind of unified group so no one gets undercut, screwed over, et cetera; not sure what form this will take at the moment, but that's what forums are for, right?
 
penfever, that's an excellent idea. I have foreseen a quick devaluation of the rental charge of this camera as those who have invested a lot of money in their package get panicky a few months in and start renting it for a song, or "throwing it in" when they get hired for jobs with it, etc. The producers will catch on to this pretty quickly, and next thing you know it's "we can get a RED for $200/day, can you match that?"
 
I rent nationwide, but will be spending a lot of time in LA this year so I will be available.

If anyone has a project coming up this year, feel free to contact me about Red #172 and operator.

Penfever has a great idea and I have spoken with him about helping create an LA Red database if you will.
 
I think the key idea here is standards and expectations. There are certainly going to be producers out there who rent RED for $200/day from a kid who doesn't have to support himself off of it...that's unavoidable. So what we can offer, together, is a guaranteed network of available, experienced shooters.

For example...
A RED breaks down on set. If you went with an individual, you're SOL. Through a RED group, you could potentially have another camera up and running the same day. All you have to do is 'reserve' camera availability for some shared portion of the sum. Which means you can make something from a RED "on standby" even if you're not out with it that day.

Another example...
Shooters can support each other through this network. We can talk about experiences, good and bad, and refer jobs to people who are just starting out; make sure that they get a fair rate for their equipment and expertise.

Yet another...
Possibly a collective arrangement for insurance. Something that would simplify it on the producer's end...one stop shopping for paperwork that guarantees him an 'in' for a whole network of RED camerapersons. This is especially appealing if linked to a website with live updates on how many cameras are still available for a given day.

I am compiling a mini-list of users, so anyone interested is welcome to PM me with an e-mail address.
 
Penfever - I am in with you on this. I love these ideas, especially the shooters supporting each other through the network.

The thing that I am mostly concerned about is being able to deliver the data to the producer.

Perhaps we need some place in LA that can process the "negative" and make dailies for the client?

Or would it the client be expected to offload their own data for shooting the next day?

I just want their to be a smooth workflow for clients as everyone makes the transition to tapeless workflow.
 
In this together

In this together

I am down the road a piece in San Diego but I figure that my RedOne and I will spend plenty of time in LA - there's a ton of work up there. My plan is to buy a van and outfit it with computer, hard drives, monitors, etc to support the camera and allow for on-set (or near set) data management. It also could serve as a video village either inside the van or under an opaque awning/tent rig on the side.

I am very interested in the kind of "I got your back" collective you are talking about, especially if there is a slick group rate insurance deal that someone can rig up. Having a phone list of available RedOnes at your fingertips every morning would be huge. I envision a deal where anyone who is interested puts their rig in the on-call queue with an approximate address. If you have a gig that day you can print out a list of on call cameras in order of how close they are to your shooting location and stuff it in your back pocket just in case you have a breakdown or the director suddenly decides they want multicam coverage of a tricky sequence.
 
It's a little like the temp agencies work now; and everybody from independents to studios uses the temp agencies.
As for the offlining idea - I think there could be a basic laptop-based "dailies" setup, especially w/2 RED-DRIVEs handed off. Just pop it thru REDCINE into a quick-compression format such as DV, and give the client a very good idea of what his final footage will look like - only he'll be pleasantly surprised when he sees the real thing! :)
If you do that on set, then I think the remainder of the offlining would be project and editor-dependent; I.E. more of a post problem. But these things are always negotiable.
 
I like the ideas on this thread. With over 80% of the world's entire entertainment media volume produced within a 50 mile radius of downtown L.A. there should be tons of RED One cameras based there. Don't forget, RED is headquartered just 50 minutes south of L.A., so it will be interesting to see what RED has up their sleeve for production support to the huge L.A. market.

I'm in L.A. weekly - my business used to be based there. I'll have two RED One cameras, including one of the very first ones shipped. I won't be renting out my cameras, but I will be looking for ace RED One shooters for my larger one-offs and series, when I'm not personally shooting, but functioning as a producer/director.

Networking and alliances are the core of this business (or any business). I'm sure Jarred will have some great ideas for networking RED One owners/users in the L.A. area. He's now based just down the 405 in Newport Beach.
 
Great plan, If anyone wants to work one of the networks on the east coast id be happy to work it, or manage it. Owner/Ops are less common out here, which will make a network MORE nessisary.

-John
 
Jim Exton said:
Penfever -
The thing that I am mostly concerned about is being able to deliver the data to the producer.

Perhaps we need some place in LA that can process the "negative" and make dailies for the client?

I just want their to be a smooth workflow for clients as everyone makes the transition to tapeless workflow.
Click to expand...

Jim, I think there is an opportunity here for companies that already have big investments in decks and edit stations. There's going to be a need for a service where you can drop off a FW drive and they can make some combination of a DLT, HDCAM SR-W, DVC Pro HD, Digi-Beta, DVCAM and DVD's and deliver it to the Agency / Edit house the next day. I know a data only path is better for everybody but it's going to take a little while before it catches on.

Also they would need to apply the correct LUT to the Redcode RAW data. I wonder if there is any metadata with REDCODE that tracks the LUT you were using for viewing so at least you could be confident that what the editor sees the next day is what you saw on the monitor on set?

( I once almost got fired from a movie because the editor mixed up the RGB cables on his Avid and suggested to the producer that perhaps I was responsible for the wacky colors... this was a 35mm job and a VERY experienced editor. )

Matt Uhry
www.fuzby.com
 
Matt - That is great, I figured that the drives would be turned over to the production company every night and they would be responsible for off loading their footage.

If I remember correctly, I think there will be LUT metadata on the Red Code.
 
We'll have plenty of Red gear, support for it, etc. along with all of our existing gear (camera, grip, sound, lighting...), prepro office, screening room, post prod rentals, etc.

There's a lot more to production w/ Red than the body (yes, I know it's obvious).

That being said, barring any changes from Red, we do plan on offering our Red body at an initial rental price that at least seems fair for everyone: $495/day, $1475 a week.

We also follow the method of offering a "low price guarantee". We match or beat any price from any other legitimate rental house. Hopefully that benefits our customers and the industry by stemming off price-wars that could end up in resulting in lower quality gear or support.

It seems wise to agree on a rate to try to stick to, though the market will eventually settle itself on a price. That's why we will try to be fair from the beginning - like Red :)
 
Wow. The camera hasn't made it past the prototype stage, and you are already undercutting the market @ under $500 / day. I thank you as I'm sure the rest of the rental community thanks you - you've continued the bastardization of the rental industry.


What are you- Wallmart?
 
@Bret - Dude...chill out.
@Indie Rentals - 500 is certainly a fair price for the RED body. Are you also going to be offering package rental deals, or is that going to be negotiated with the individual? Also, are you interested in some sort of basic agreement among LA RED owners to prevent drastic undercutting? Seeing as your quoted cost is already at the bottom end of what most RED users were probably hoping to earn in rentals, it would be pretty disappointing to end up in a bidding war against individuals that landed somewhere in the 250/300 range.
One important distinction is that a lot of us (myself included) will be going out with our cameras as DITs. That's a little different than just renting equipment.
 
Water seeks its own level.

Water seeks its own level.

The market forces will settle things. Personally I think the very thing that makes RED available to all of us will make it hard to charge high rates for rental. The Cost for a RED is 10% of the rest of the market (does this make RED Walmart?). How many of us are considering becoming RED renters? The supply-demand curve cannot be fooled.

If RED saturates the market and can pull the prices of the rest of the high-end production camera manufacturer/rental down, then the market will adjust, and $500/day will seem prescient. (I must admit, my hopes were dashed a bit at that rate too, but if it's easy enough for ME to get in the business, then there are enough others who can also get in to make this not a free ride). If RED does not, the Panavisions of the world can continue to garner confiscatory rates to its big production customers, and the average RED rate might side up in that direction because of the quality of the image.

On the other end of things, indie-type small budget productions have a hope of getting higher quality/quantity production--either upgrading their image quality, or increasing the quantity of material they can afford to shoot. They may therefore try to pay a bit more for the camera package they can rent, realizing a better cost value, but we can't hope to charge them massive rates.

In any case, RED renting will find its comfortable, market-supported level, and we will all learn to make a profit at that level or sink. The market will weed out many of us. Hopefully, threads like these will help pre-weed the faint of heart, and gird-up the hungry entreprenuers to do what it will REALLY take.

I expect that RED renting can become a wonderful opportunity for (LOTS) boutique renters, but you have to be hungry enough to make it work. Jim is hungry. . . This is a revolution, people! Not a friendly aquisition! That's partly why this is (blood) RED Digital Cinema, not panzy GREEN! :D
 
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