Next Steps for Scarlet Owners??

[Scot Yount]

Not sure I was as crystal clear as I could be here.

My advice to my fellow Scarlet users who wish to stay MX work flow (for really good reasons I totally get!) is to look into purchase of an additional MX sensor to replace your old one.

I have decided I'm leaving MX in the short term but may yet return as I have a working system for it! If I was to buy another Scarlet or Epic MX, I would make sure I had a back up sensor in case things go south!

This whole thing puzzles me if I am honest. "Workflow" is a consideration, but certainly isn't the deciding consideration when I choose a camera and image quality. Maybe it is because I have a fat 12 core new Mac Pro, or because I don't care for Premier, (they should have called it Final Cut Pro 8.0) but "Workflow" isn't part of the discussion when I speak with clients. They want image quality. That means lenses and cameras. (Lenses make pictures, cameras just record them the old saying goes.) Whatever workflow I need to get that quality is of no concern to them. Studios, or ops who are handing off their files for someone else to edit or grade are a different story, but still, if I choose MX or Dragon, or Alexa for that matter, it won't be because of using a particular NLE or computer.

 

[Mark T Workman]

Make a feature film yet Scott? Yes? Do this and get back to us!

You obviously have talent and spirit and will come to understand what it means to BOW TO DISTRIBUTION!!! as you read on about us bantering on computers, mother boards and post production etc.!

 

[Scot Yount]

Make a feature film yet Scott? Yes? Do this and get back to us! You obviously have talent and spirit and will come to understand what it means to BOW TO DISTRIBUTION!!! as you read on about us bantering on computers, mother boards and post production etc.!

This might be a shock to you Mark (or is it Marc? My name is Scot, not Scott, but you didn't notice that...) but not everyone wants to make feature films. And you know what, just because I don't make feature films doesn't mean the quality of my work isn't high. (I have been on the set of many feature films and that is not a place I want to be.) I have been directing or making moving images that get seen by millions and millions of people for 30 years. I have been editing since 3/4" and quad tape, and I have built many computers, written code and understand how they work just fine thanks. I certainly am not clinging to CS6 as you seem to be. I also perfectly understand distribution. And none of that decides what sensor I shoot my commercials, documentaries, or corporate videos on. All I said was it puzzled me. But you attack my credibility. Living up to the REDUser rep I guess....

 

[Mark T Workman]

Wow! Really? This thread is for Scarlet owners who are either holding on to what they've got, staying MX or moving on to Dragon. The point I was making was to play safe if you're sticking with what you've got. Since you do "perfectly understand distribution" you shouldn't be offended...

 

[Scot Yount]

Wow! Really? This thread is for Scarlet owners who are either holding on to what they've got, staying MX or moving on to Dragon. The point I was making was to play safe if you're sticking with what you've got. Since you do "perfectly understand distribution" you shouldn't be offended...

I am a Scarlet owner that is either hanging on to what I've got, staying with MX or moving on to Dragon. And as for offensive, you wrote pretty clearly above "Make a feature film yet Scott? Yes? Do this and get back to us!" spelling my name wrong in the process. How (regardless if you noticed how to spell my name or not) is that not offensive?

 

[Mark T Workman]

Actually it sounds like you are staying MX, Scot! Good for you! I'm still trying to figure out status on MX sensors and will be all ears! Glad to hear you are an owner!

 

[Eric Santiago]

Actually it sounds like you are staying MX, Scot! Good for you! I'm still trying to figure out status on MX sensors and will be all ears! Glad to hear you are an owner!

The status as in?

Great sensor works for me

 

[Phil Holland]

My particular path was from Scarlet-X MX to Epic MX to Epic Dragon, with my next step being Weapon CF Dragon 8K. This was only possible because of cash brought in from each individual camera along the way. Which didn't happen overnight.

If I was in the same situation today now that Scarlet Dragon exists I'd say the real question falls on going Epic MX or Scarlet Dragon next. For those that can make the next step Epic Dragon even. The jump for Scarlet MX owners to get to Weapon is a big one.

That said 5K is important for a 4K finish really and I really have enjoyed Dragon's color, Dynamic Range, and 5K being in that S35 3-perf format size. Though I shoot mostly at 5K, 5.5K, and 6K these days. For me Dragon has been great and I'd work to get there personally. And hopefully down the line if things go well you'll be able to go to Weapon or whatever is next.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

My particular path was from Scarlet-X MX to Epic MX to Epic Dragon, with my next step being Weapon CF Dragon 8K. This was only possible because of cash brought in from each individual camera along the way. Which didn't happen overnight.

If I was in the same situation today now that Scarlet Dragon exists I'd say the real question falls on going Epic MX or Scarlet Dragon next. For those that can make the next step Epic Dragon even. The jump for Scarlet MX owners to get to Weapon is a big one.

That said 5K is important for a 4K finish really and I really have enjoyed Dragon's color, Dynamic Range, and 5K being in that S35 3-perf format size. Though I shoot mostly at 5K, 5.5K, and 6K these days. For me Dragon has been great and I'd work to get there personally. And hopefully down the line if things go well you'll be able to go to Weapon or whatever is next.

Phil - I just ordered the RED book bundle with your Field Operations Guide. And, while I look forward to poring over that, I am hoping your next book is about your own personal experience; how you were so successful moving up the ladder as quickly as you did, and sharing something about your business model. You are obviously talented, ambitious, articulate, and a sharing individual and your success is well deserved. Would love to hear more from you regarding the business side!

 

[Eric Santiago]

Phil - I just ordered the RED book bundle with your Field Operations Guide. And, while I look forward to poring over that, I am hoping your next book is about your own personal experience; how you were so successful moving up the ladder as quickly as you did, and sharing something about your business model. You are obviously talented, ambitious, articulate, and a sharing individual and your success is well deserved. Would love to hear more from you regarding the business side!

Phil is a machine

 

[Tyson Benard]

Phil - I just ordered the RED book bundle with your Field Operations Guide. And, while I look forward to poring over that, I am hoping your next book is about your own personal experience; how you were so successful moving up the ladder as quickly as you did, and sharing something about your business model. You are obviously talented, ambitious, articulate, and a sharing individual and your success is well deserved. Would love to hear more from you regarding the business side!

+1
The book is a wonderful tool. Knowing the business side for owner/op and indie productions, as well as other parts of the industry, would be a great help as well.

 

[Scot Yount]

The status as in?

Great sensor works for me

It is a great sensor and works for me too. He is talking about finding MX Sensors, that is to say, stock up on them...so he will have a back up if his goes bad. I am pretty sure RED will have us covered, but if not, so be it?

 

[Brandon Dull]

I am extremely happy with my RED Scarlet and the quality it produces. My clients love it. I worked really hard to own a RED. I am staying with it. Everyone else can enjoy their upgrades! haha.

 

[Eric Santiago]

I am extremely happy with my RED Scarlet and the quality it produces. My clients love it. I worked really hard to own a RED. I am staying with it. Everyone else can enjoy their upgrades! haha.

Very happy with mine as well and will not be upgrading.

However I will eventually buy a new camera in maybe 2 years.

 

[Phil Holland]

Phil - I just ordered the RED book bundle with your Field Operations Guide. And, while I look forward to poring over that, I am hoping your next book is about your own personal experience; how you were so successful moving up the ladder as quickly as you did, and sharing something about your business model. You are obviously talented, ambitious, articulate, and a sharing individual and your success is well deserved. Would love to hear more from you regarding the business side!

Thank you Terry. Glad you enjoyed it. Hopefully we'll be able to put something equally as useful together for Weapon for next NAB.

My ladder isn't in my mind the "speediest" trip. I started working in features in 1999 with a couple of odd film jobs just before that as well. More or less I found an opportunity at some point that allowed me to expand my VFX and Studio career through busting my ass for pretty much every major studio. It was a different industry back then and the opportunities I found early on for Post Color, Cinematography, and Still Photography seemingly were all birthed out of creative problem solving and the need for a studio to get work done. Somehow I convinced a few folks I could be "the dude" to get that done for them time and time again. That eventually allowed for me to go out on my own in 2011 and pursue being a full time Director and Director of Photography.

That first year was a tough one as all of this was really insanely new to me without being attached to a specific studio, but the gigs came in from all of my previous studios and clients eventually. And they've been really odd ones at that! I once shot a featurette for the Academy one year about the studio I resigned from as I still had very warm feelings about the history/growth of the studio and was apparently a moderate part of that success. I'll tell you, that was a weird one with a lot of feels going on. Eventually through freelancing I grabbed up that Scarlet-X MX and got to work shooting every gig I could. Small budget through large budget. One a few cinematography awards which was nice, but I've been very fortunate to work on a few Academy Award winning films and know that's the big prize. Eventually my Scarlet allowed me to boost up to Epic and Epic Dragon as well as kitting up in various other ways. A big studio writing gig in there helped finance that a bit too as well as a few concept design jobs, mostly monsters. Certainly paid for some glass and few accessories.

At the moment I'm about 1/3 of the way through my largest commercial-style shoot as a DP. Huge multi-$mil budget, crazy logistics. All shot on Epic Dragon thus far and it's some of the damned prettiest footage I've ever shoot. Makes me feel like a kid just watching the shots really. This will be out this year and hopefully I'll be able to talk about it more. Wearing many hats on the job, just the way I like it.

I'll do a fancy personal book after I shoot a few films and have a few green lit of my own. Working hard on that stuff now. My first Hollywood pitched happened at the age of 20 and was oddly well received, but an impossible to fund film, especially at that time. These days luckily I can get into studios and in front of producers and executives. More or less I've been working up to that and we'll see where it can go from here.

I've been insanely fortunate to have a unique career that has allowed me to do so much on pretty large productions. Just grateful to learn from so many I have been inspired by actually in person and usually on the job. Hope that continues for a long time to come. There's a few Directors I still very much want to work for in some capacity.

RED's played a huge part in this progress. With my film background RED just made sense from the get go. If I was smarter I would have bought that bloody RED One back in the day, but it wasn't time for me just yet. Epic was a big step financially when it was announced as well because I was starting from scratch with everything once I was not attached to that studio. Scarlet however was the gateway drug. Dragon's been the best thing really as it does have that Film Format Size to Resolution Relevance, which is actually incredibly important to discerning filmmakers. And better yet, Weapon 8K Dragon is a VistaVision+ format, which happens to be one of my favorite motion picture formats to shoot. Heh. Which is why I've gone real glass crazy lately.

Phil is a machine

Hello Dave. You're looking well today

+1
The book is a wonderful tool. Knowing the business side for owner/op and indie productions, as well as other parts of the industry, would be a great help as well.

I'm still learning much about being an Owner/Operator. The biggest thing I do is I work a lot. I rent my gear with myself and don't really rent it out to others, though I should likely reconsider that as time moves on. My next big step would be to get a nice van for the gear. Get some more lighting gear and maybe another camera body in there somewhere. We've rented up to 5 Epic Dragons on one gig this year and that is sometimes seductive having that extra body for additional revenue.

I'll likely have a lot to say once I'm regularly shooting features in some capacity. I'm focused hard on making these things happen within the next calendar year, so we'll see how it goes. In between this commercial shoot I've been dabbling with a couple short film ideas, which I really enjoy shooting. Just was out on a light location scout today which is fun to do at this stage in creating a story.

 

[Mike P.]

I think the next step is gonna be 4.5k/24fps for Scarlet-X... amiright or what?

Seriously though, I still think the upgrade was a bit of a wash for Scarlet-X owners. It literally cost more than the camera did (with brain, mount, and SSD)... substantially more if you got a BT. That's not an "upgrade" price that's "entirely new and shootable camera" territory. I think a lot of people in this segment -- Scarlet-X owners that are holding on to their Scarlets as MXs -- are waiting for the prices of used Epic-Xs/Scarlet-Dragons/Epic-Dragons to bottom out (depending on their cashflow until Weapon drops) that way they can use all of their existing accessories/media. At that time, they'll re-assess what's available from the competition and how it compares to those used RED prices.

For example, while I'd consider myself fluent in RED workflow (with accessories and media for days), and while it'd be really easy (but more expensive) to stay within it, a 4.6k/15stops/60fps/GlobalShutter in a 5lbs *shootable* camera (not just brain) trumps MX entirely... Which means I'll be looking for used Scarlet-Dragons brains for $5k-ish... probably not gonna happen before NAB2016 (at which point there'll be a whole new crop of even better sensors, at even cheaper prices). It's just the nature of the beast; I'm perfectly content with a MBPretina - no need for a trashcan nMP - so I'm not going to pay 4x the price of the retina for a nMP (and carrot-on-a-stick campaigns usually fail to entice me).

 

[Ryan Hamblin]

I think the next step is gonna be 4.5k/24fps... amiright or what?

Seriously though, I still think the upgrade was a bit of a wash for Scarlet-X owners. It literally cost more than the camera did (with brain, mount, and SSD)... substantially more if you got a BT. That's not an "upgrade" price that's "entirely new and shootable camera" territory. I think a lot of people in this segment -- Scarlet-X owners that are holding on to their Scarlets as MXs -- are waiting for the prices of used Epic-Xs/Scarlet-Dragons/Epic-Dragons to bottom out (depending on their cashflow until Weapon drops) that way they can use all of their existing accessories/media. At that time, they'll re-assess what's available from the competition and how it compares to those used RED prices.

For example, while I'd consider myself fluent in RED workflow (with accessories and media for days), and while it'd be really easy (but more expensive) to stay within it, a 4.6k/15stops/60fps/GlobalShutter in a 5lbs *shootable* camera (not just brain) trumps MX entirely... Which means I'll be looking for used Scarlet-Dragons brains for $5k-ish... probably not gonna happen before NAB2016 (at which point there'll be a whole new crop of even better sensors, at even cheaper prices). It's just the nature of the beast; I'm perfectly content with a MBPretina - no need for a trashcan nMP - so I'm not going to pay 4x the price of the retina for a nMP (and carrot-on-a-stick campaigns usually fail to entice me).

I def agree... and went the black magic route. BM are really doing a lot of things right with their new cameras... the footage from them has always been pretty solid as well. I have no doubt that it will ever trump arri or red, but for my own personal projects I think that I will be able to squeeze out equal or better footage from it. That is if all that is on paper lives up to even 90 percent of that.