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Learning to shoot on the RED...how difficult?

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Frankie Fiore

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Hi all,

I am in the market to purchase a RED camera and am curious just how difficult it is to shoot on. I know many of you might suggest the reducation or camp red, perhaps. Is this necessary for someone new to the equipment? Or is this camera fairly easy to learn with basic tutorials?

I'm also curious if you guys have some suggestions for some lower end cameras that still have decent quality but would be a great beginning step before moving to RED (something that might have similar controls or something good to learn on prior to RED)

Thanks :smilewinkgrin:
 
You can make it as easy or as complex as you want, really. For a simple shooting set up, it's pretty easy to get going with a simple workflow and produce some really nice results. The camera itself, especially via the touchscreen is very simple to get used to as pretty much everything is right there for you to use. During Epic development, I picked up a camera and basically started shooting after a few minutes mucking around with the UI with no instruction manual or anything.

For kitting out a camera for your use, the sales team at RED are fantastic in making sure you'll get what you need for your use, as are the redusers here - especially if you find someone who has similar use case to you. If you've got specifics, just shout and mostly the redusers will know, but if it gets into geeky areas I or some of the other red team will help.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
You can make it as easy or as complex as you want, really. For a simple shooting set up, it's pretty easy to get going with a simple workflow and produce some really nice results. The camera itself, especially via the touchscreen is very simple to get used to as pretty much everything is right there for you to use. During Epic development, I picked up a camera and basically started shooting after a few minutes mucking around with the UI with no instruction manual or anything.

For kitting out a camera for your use, the sales team at RED are fantastic in making sure you'll get what you need for your use, as are the redusers here - especially if you find someone who has similar use case to you. If you've got specifics, just shout and mostly the redusers will know, but if it gets into geeky areas I or some of the other red team will help.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Beautiful response; thank you for this. That's what I was wondering, actually - if it's something I could pick up and shoot within 10-15 minutes or if I was going to look at it saying "what in the world is this, and what is that?"
 
If you're had reasonable experience with cameras you're fine. It's not lots of arcane menus to navigate. If you've shot a RAW DLSR for stills, you'll have the shooting paradigm mostly in your head but we do do things a bit different, especially with regard to ISO. http://www.red.com/learn/red-101 has lots of good info though on that side of things.

Graeme
 
Frankie Fiore said:
Beautiful response; thank you for this. That's what I was wondering, actually - if it's something I could pick up and shoot within 10-15 minutes or if I was going to look at it saying "what in the world is this, and what is that?"
Click to expand...

There are a lot of helpful videos from the guys at RED that will help you nuance the camera. Each one short and worth the time spent.
 
As a non-'pro' (scientist/engineer who has an Epic) from personal experience I'd suggest that it's pretty easy to learn the basics, with the touchscreen (and it's very intuitive menus) I was grabbing video, tweaking frame rate and resolution, aperture and auto/manual focus all within 20 minutes of powering it up. Pulling r3d's back to a PC or MAC is equally straightforward. RedcineX is a fantastic tool and pretty intuitive, and at least in the case of Premiere and Photoshop... working with footage is also straightforward. Having said that... the camera is very customizable and that takes longer to sort out, lots of buttons to macro'ize, different ways to do the same thing to decide between... and many advanced setup options that take some time to work through.
 
I reckon easier than a DLSR.................... putting up with all that fudged U.I. & workarounds that only a HDLSR can deliver.
 
Good to hear, guys. Thank you. I have quite a bit of experience shooting on DSLR :)
 
I found learning how to do basic shooting & editing on my RED camera was less time then it took to learn the menu's for my canon 5d mark II( I was a adobe after effects guy then, it is trivial to use RED footage in the adobe suite). After I got my RED camera's though, I realized I had entered the world of cinematography and my footage was "b" level at best and wasn't comparable to A list movies like the hobbit/prometheus/flight. Put in another way, my canon as a tool allowed me to do simple things, RED as a tool opens up a world of cinematography which will take me a life time to master(and perhaps more then a lifetime ;).
 
I have to put in a plug for REDucation. It is totally worth the time and money investment!

Yes, you can easily learn the basics of shooting RED from the Red.com tutorials and a little quick instruction or skimming the manual. However, I'd have to say that REDucation really fills in the gaps and teaches you WHY you want to do certain things and how to get the most out of both the camera itself, and the RAW data you acquire. The actual shooting is not all that different from using a DSLR, except for the modularity of the RED system (I bet no two RED cameras are equipped and configured exactly the same). And of course the Post workflow is completely different...not hard to learn...just very different. REDucation will take you through the whole process...from sensor and compression theory, to building the camera, to shooting in different situations and then working with the footage in Post and delivery. Like I said...well worth it!
 
Marcello Altieri said:
Where are you located? If in Los Angeles I can give you a one hour class ;-)
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I'm in Florida :sad: To be honest, with what I'm looking to film, I need to be in LA for sure. All the opportunities seem to always be in LA or NY :mad2:
 
Frankie Fiore said:
I'm in Florida :sad: To be honest, with what I'm looking to film, I need to be in LA for sure. All the opportunities seem to always be in LA or NY :mad2:
Click to expand...

Turn that into a positive, and take advantage of your location! You can say that the market is saturated over here, but do the best with what you have and where you are. I'll tell you if that piece of advice works in a couple years ;)
 
Reducation is great, I've taught at two of them, as well as taught RED 101 for Abel Cine Tech in NYC. It may be worth it to invest a few hundred bucks in a class in NY or LA. Getting a jump start on the technique will make sure you get better results right away, and make you more money on your jobs, and keep your clients coming back.
 
E.N.J.O.Y..

　

Experiment.

Nut it out.

Jump around in exaltation on beholding that first playback.

Obsequiesly prostrate yourself before the genius of Master James and his team.

YES. ( Expressed loudly and dramatically as in the movies and TV commercials, preferable on one knee with bent right elbow and fist raised )

　

There you go, - my puerile effort at T.T.P. out of fanboy propaganda and blind ideology. But seriously - Enjoy. Once you have had a taste of dynamic range and high resolution, you will find it hard, painful even to go back.

I second the comments about the resources available in these forum posts and the Reducation offerings. Read up on the things which might damage any camera, not pulling things off when it is powered up, wrong batteries, power, not disturbing operating recorder SSDs, correct methods of swapping and all that. Hopefully those who post in response will appraise you of the cautions without scaring the pants off you.

Set it up initially in its most basic simple form to get the feel of it so that as you add other tools to it, you have an instinctual sense of when something is not happy.

From what I have seen of the system in real-world conditions, appropriate care and respect should see you right as with other types. You should not feel compelled to wrap it in cotton wool but don't kick it around the yard either.

Finally, - please afford my comments a degree of disdain. I am a SI2K owner-operator who hangs around here as a sort of dissident fifth columnist whilst harbouring a certain level of envy but hopefully does little harm.
 
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