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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 :)

NO RENTALS!!!

I would invest in a wider selection of lenses, get a PL mount, monitor for video village, and better camera support (ditch the manfrotto). If I was gonna rent from you for a shoot, these are things that would make me rent somewhere else that had a complete package and a camera support I'm used to. But that's my 2 cents from someone who used to rent a lot from people.
 
Alex, I think you are in the most ruthlessly competitive market in our country, and the issue is not entirely in the tools.
Right now there is less paying work and fewer rental dollars being spent, than in a long time.
You probably need clients who want ANY of your skill sets right now, and that's pretty tough to come by.
Where I live, it has been a career long effort to find clients, get work, get paid for work, and grow in my craft along the way.
The main thing you have to market is not a Scarlet, but yourself.
When you acheive marketing that, then put your camera on the job as part of your tool kit.
Nobody with a single camera body and a short set of lenses should expect rentals alone to make them a living. That goes for the owner of one Alexa, One Epic, One Scarlet, one C300, one F3, etc.
I have owned many types of camera (and sound packages and lighting kits) over the last 2 decades, and the value has always been in having equipment that I could use myself on small projects, or as a component of a larger project. Secondary and significant value has been obtained by using those tools to develop my skills as their operator, in turn leading to better paying work in several crafts.
The highest return on investment camera wise? a used Sony f900/3 (because I had a series of clients who were already hiring me and posted in that format).
Next highest cash wise? tie.. A set of 5 focal length pro grade cine lenses which I maintain to this day, and an ENG sound kit (this has repaid me 10fold, and still works all the time)
Other suggestion? Swap your way back into DIT world, with a Red Rocket equipped setup. Transcoding pays around $100 an hour, and is in pretty high demand in the USA. and you can do it at home. A good DIT is harder to find than a young camera operator.
 
Transcoding for 100 an hour! hell i'd show up with a full mobile dit kit and a spare scarlet in case yours bricks!
 
Brian Merlen said:
Transcoding for 100 an hour! hell i'd show up with a full mobile dit kit and a spare scarlet in case yours bricks!
Click to expand...
That's what it costs in my market.
not a field service, an after the shoot service.
DIT rate in field is sadly lower., like $40-$60/hour plus cart rental.. and cart rentals are all over the place.
 
There's not as much production these days as there used to be. The economy has cut that down quite a bit and a lot of indies are getting by using HDSLRs which they can get from any major big name store, thus cutting down a lot of equipment/quality hassle. I'm in Las Vegas right now and if I wanted to film something with a RED camera, I already know a few good DP friends who work for companies here. Even if a RED owner lived next door to me I'd still go to my DP buddies because I've not only seen their work but I know that they've been working consistently on projects and can pick up and go into production right away. I've wanted to own a RED camera since day one but I always thought of shooting my own projects first before even considering renting the camera out. Even if I got one today it'd be mostly for my stock media stuff and maybe a short here and there or even to use as B cam to the hired out RED production. If all you wanted to do was rent the camera out then that's not going to pay off unless you spend a whole lot more money to offer different choices. That's why the focus has to be on you before the camera.

All in all you need to:

1. Have a reel, even keep it on your phone.
2. Use pictures in your ads. Have pics of the equipment and rig, especially any BTS shots with it in use.
3. Sell whatever you can offer. Good at DIT? Got a Mobile Rocket setup? Steadicam at all? Have your own equipment truck? Know how to do sound or script supervising? Etc. etc.
4. Use more social media. Make more DP test videos on YouTube and Vimeo, post your availability on more camera forums, sign up for Stage32, DVXUser, Cinema5D, anyplace that has a jobs or equipment for hire forums or people that can lead you to work. Heck, even join LinkedIn, there's a REDUser group on there too as well as a bunch of filmmaker groups. This is the hardest one, even I have trouble finding things sometimes but this is the bet way to go if nothing else is working (especially the schools, I'm surprised there isn't more happening for you that way).

Overall, you're bound to find something as long as you keep at it, don't give up.
 
Thanks for all your suggestions and comments everyone! I took each into account to better myself out there...except the porn comment. CAN'T do that.
 
its not a bad kit btw... have you considered working out a deal with a rental house to cosign your gear out? i was hoping to do that with my kit on the side. i keep landing gigs that have their own cameras in place so mine often sits on the shelf unless im doing my own projects for reel material...
 
Jon,

What sticks and head would make you happy?

Jon Carr said:
I would invest in a wider selection of lenses, get a PL mount, monitor for video village, and better camera support (ditch the manfrotto). If I was gonna rent from you for a shoot, these are things that would make me rent somewhere else that had a complete package and a camera support I'm used to. But that's my 2 cents from someone who used to rent a lot from people.
Click to expand...
 
Anyone got some numbers?
Would be nice to know how many 35mm film cameras existed on the rental market back in 2008 or such... And how many scarlets, epic 's, alexas, Canon, sony's, Phantom and other "cinematic cameras" that are out on the market today? I think even without any exact numbers it's easy to say that the market is more than flooded. Here in stockholm you get an epic package included if you rent lights and a scarlet body cost less than 2 led lights per day.
People will pay some for the top shelf cameras, but the rest are pretty much only possible to rent out from bigger rental places that has it all, camera, grip, lights etc.
 
Will Keir said:
Christopher,

Maybe you could give further inside into what makes a good DIT.
Click to expand...

A good DIT is (IMHO) the one that can help the cinematographer get what he she wants.
He/she must know the signalchain and how to achieve the right exposure for the right image by heart and be able to do test-runthrough all the way to delivery, be confident that the advices he/she gives are right and give the results you want.

datamanagement and menu-tweaking is not neccesarily part of the job.

Managing the signal and taking care of that throughout a productions life, is.

You must rigidly test for all kind of scenarios, + relevant scenarios for the relevant production.

You must be able to advice lights, DoP. VFX and grading, when asked, and your answers must be trustable.

Kinda.
 
Rental for the small guys is a business model which was blown already two/three years ago, you should have made your research.

Sell the gear before it's worth something otherwise you'll find yourself with a very expensive paperweight on your table in less than one year.

This is an advice from someone who has been there but was lucky enough to sell out before red gear prices where slashed by half. Had I waited a couple of months more I would have been in serious financial problems.

The lesson I learned: leave gear to the big players and invest in expertise, invest in yourself.
 
Bob Minervini said:
Rental for the small guys is a business model which was blown already two/three years ago, you should have made your research.

Sell the gear before it's worth something otherwise you'll find yourself with a very expensive paperweight on your table in less than one year.
This is an advice from someone who has been there but was lucky enough to sell out before red gear prices where slashed by half. Had I waited a couple of months more I would have been in serious financial problems.

The lesson I learned: leave gear to the big players and invest in expertise, invest in yourself.
Click to expand...

Bob speaks the truth.

If you didn't know where the rental work was going to come from before you bought the gear (buy it and they will come)... then you will likely have a hard time. Its a flooded rental market, and clients that do rent already have established paths for needs. for a producer the risk is high to try somewhere new to save a few dollars specially if you don't have the gear choices they are used to (lenses, tripods, etc). Throwing in the kitchen sink can look desperate to a producer (ie nobody else is using the service, maybe for a reason) and nobody wants to risk a production.

Concentrate on the services YOU can provide, the rental aspect might pan out... might not.
 
Said it a couple of times before...

The fun part of "democratisation" of kit, is that after a while, we are full circle.
People rent competence and trust. Not kit.
If you rent a product, make sure that product is YOU.
YOU won't devaluate. "Any" piece of equipment you have, is as valuable as you make it.
 
I don't want to bore everyone with a wall of text, but it's hard for me not to write in detail on this subject.
Bjorn is right. In New York there were probably less than 200 35mm camera bodies of all types (Arricam, 535, 435, 235, Arri 3, Panaflex Millenium, Platinum, G2, etc.) prior to the Red One's introduction. In LA, that number was probably 5 times as big, but still small, less than 1,000 cameras for sure. Now there are easily 10 times that number of Red Ones, Epics, Scarlets, F65s, F3s, etc. etc.
This conversation has come up from time to time on this forum. The market is beyond saturated. Soon every PA on the set will have a little BlackMagic 2K kit. Every second- and third- tier DP I personally know has already purchased a Scarlet or an F3. That's bad for my established rental business, but I think worse for those trying to break in. There is an outfit in NY that a couple of years ago was basically giving away cameras to get transcoding business, or giving away transcoding to rent cameras... it was a little unclear to me which.
When I was a younger man, I carefully started buying 16mm gear. As a working camera assistant, in the union and and working steadily on TV commercials, I had a natural outlet for the gear and could convince producers of lower-budget spots to rent from me. I had, at first, a 16SR1 with one zoom lens and worked my way up to an SR3, Aaton A-Minima, plus a nice collection of lenses. I saw the Pro-35 adapter demoed right around the same time the Panasonic SDX-900 came out, and bought both, plus a nice set of Mark 3 Superspeeds, thinking that there may be a niche for electronic cameras that yield film-like results. I was right. Many of my fellow camera assistants told me I was crazy, I would lose my shirt, why are you risking $25,000 on gear? Now many of those same guys are TRIPPING OVER EACH OTHER to buy gear that costs two or three times as much. My AC and I were being driven back to my shop with my gear the other night. The PA driving the cube truck said that his friends were all fixing up and flipping small homes on Long Island but he wanted to get into a better "investment". He asked us what set of lenses we thought he should buy and rent out. If that isn't the proverbial "shoeshine boy passing a stock tip to the stock broker" I don't know what is.
I predict that, in hindsight, we will conclude that we have lived through the great Motion Picture Imaging Bubble of the early 2000's.
It's sad to say, but "renting" film equipment, and "professional" cameras, may become a much smaller business, much like in the music industry where using "professional" recording studios is no longer the absolute standard and many records are made wholly in home or project studios.
I wish I had some answers for you, man. It's just that we are in a business that used to be largely hidden from public view, with a long apprenticeship being a path to success, with much valuable learning, failure, and high hurdles. Owning and renting some gear was just the icing on the cake. Now, being on the film crew is the 2000's equivalent of "I wanna be a rock star" in the minds of millions of kids. They see behind the scenes footage everywhere, it looks like a fun life, hanging out with Peter Jackson etc. Many look at that choice versus sitting in a putty-colored office for the next 35 years and choose fun (I get it, that part I can appreciate) But the fact is that we have not even seen the crest of the wave in terms of people entering this "business", and each will have a shiny new camera. I can only hope that at some point, they exit and join the next bubble (making apps???) but I am probably too old to change at this point so I will continue to plod along. At least I have my little niche, and can probably bob and weave my way through this kooky career choice.
Alex, that's a nice starter kit. Similar in many ways to my original SR1 package in 1989. I just think you put the cart before the horse, buying the package before YOU were established. Stick with it and you will find your niche.
Cheers,
Harry
 
Bob Minervini said:
The lesson I learned: leave gear to the big players and invest in expertise, invest in yourself.
Click to expand...

Bob speaks the truth. A lot of the RED gear owners are no longer making money renting with so many owners and undercutters running around and renting is a dangerous game these days with camera and gear theft becoming a normal thing. If you want to keep your camera, by all means do so, but do not expect to make any money off of it at this point. I've been on this forum for several years and I saw the RED rental market go from "Why isn't anyone renting my new-fangled RED camera?!" to "Shit I haven't seen my camera in my own two hands for months!" to "I'm thinking about selling my gear since I don't really get any interest in it anymore and I'd like to move on to other things."
 
Harry Clark said:
I don't want to bore everyone with a wall of text, but it's hard for me not to write in detail on this subject.
Bjorn is right. In New York there were probably less than 200 35mm camera bodies of all types (Arricam, 535, 435, 235, Arri 3, Panaflex Millenium, Platinum, G2, etc.) prior to the Red One's introduction. In LA, that number was probably 5 times as big, but still small, less than 1,000 cameras for sure. Now there are easily 10 times that number of Red Ones, Epics, Scarlets, F65s, F3s, etc. etc.
This conversation has come up from time to time on this forum. The market is beyond saturated. Soon every PA on the set will have a little BlackMagic 2K kit. Every second- and third- tier DP I personally know has already purchased a Scarlet or an F3. That's bad for my established rental business, but I think worse for those trying to break in. There is an outfit in NY that a couple of years ago was basically giving away cameras to get transcoding business, or giving away transcoding to rent cameras... it was a little unclear to me which.
When I was a younger man, I carefully started buying 16mm gear. As a working camera assistant, in the union and and working steadily on TV commercials, I had a natural outlet for the gear and could convince producers of lower-budget spots to rent from me. I had, at first, a 16SR1 with one zoom lens and worked my way up to an SR3, Aaton A-Minima, plus a nice collection of lenses. I saw the Pro-35 adapter demoed right around the same time the Panasonic SDX-900 came out, and bought both, plus a nice set of Mark 3 Superspeeds, thinking that there may be a niche for electronic cameras that yield film-like results. I was right. Many of my fellow camera assistants told me I was crazy, I would lose my shirt, why are you risking $25,000 on gear? Now many of those same guys are TRIPPING OVER EACH OTHER to buy gear that costs two or three times as much. My AC and I were being driven back to my shop with my gear the other night. The PA driving the cube truck said that his friends were all fixing up and flipping small homes on Long Island but he wanted to get into a better "investment". He asked us what set of lenses we thought he should buy and rent out. If that isn't the proverbial "shoeshine boy passing a stock tip to the stock broker" I don't know what is.
I predict that, in hindsight, we will conclude that we have lived through the great Motion Picture Imaging Bubble of the early 2000's.
It's sad to say, but "renting" film equipment, and "professional" cameras, may become a much smaller business, much like in the music industry where using "professional" recording studios is no longer the absolute standard and many records are made wholly in home or project studios.
I wish I had some answers for you, man. It's just that we are in a business that used to be largely hidden from public view, with a long apprenticeship being a path to success, with much valuable learning, failure, and high hurdles. Owning and renting some gear was just the icing on the cake. Now, being on the film crew is the 2000's equivalent of "I wanna be a rock star" in the minds of millions of kids. They see behind the scenes footage everywhere, it looks like a fun life, hanging out with Peter Jackson etc. Many look at that choice versus sitting in a putty-colored office for the next 35 years and choose fun (I get it, that part I can appreciate) But the fact is that we have not even seen the crest of the wave in terms of people entering this "business", and each will have a shiny new camera. I can only hope that at some point, they exit and join the next bubble (making apps???) but I am probably too old to change at this point so I will continue to plod along. At least I have my little niche, and can probably bob and weave my way through this kooky career choice.
Alex, that's a nice starter kit. Similar in many ways to my original SR1 package in 1989. I just think you put the cart before the horse, buying the package before YOU were established. Stick with it and you will find your niche.
Cheers,
Harry
Click to expand...

Harry this is a wonderful, and charming look not just at a carrear, but where the business is now. Thanks for sharing. Well written, too. Your insight into the minds of young film makars, death staring at the choice of a cubicle...or the rock n roll lifestyle of film-making (or so they think)...is also incredibly apt.
 
Will Keir said:
Jon,

What sticks and head would make you happy?
Click to expand...

For my scarlet package, I own the O'Connor 1030 with 35L sticks, which is perfect for the DSMC cameras until you use a lenses like the 24-290mm. Then the 2060/2065/2575 heads come into play. A good camera is only as good as its support.
 
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