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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 :)

Philosophy change...

Jannard said:
1st off... I'll still be here.

With so much coming fairly soon, you'll get a constant stream of "pay attention tonight" posts. Instead of hearing what we are going to do, you'll be getting a constant stream of what is ready now. I will still give general roadmap hints, but they will not be as detailed as before.

If we see that our customers will need to make a decision on some emerging product, we'll help. But there is a delicate dance here. If we give you (and our competitors) all the info too soon, we are likely to be late and have helped the industry keep up with us. I'm not going to do that anymore. If we give too little info, the speculation kills us because some post that they expect us to take them to the moon and back for $20.

The solution is to surprise you early with a constant stream of great things that are ready to go.

Jim
Click to expand...

This was all i needed to know!

We won't be left completely in the dark. Plain and simple.

Thats good enough for me, personally i want the camera thats going to be ahead of everything else.
If that means not telling the competition whats up, then i'm fine with that.
 
Thanks Jon for that great post.

And the new products will come when they are fully ready to ship.

Also for all of us at the forum should remain only rumors, speculation, wishes, etc… as a sort of daily food and expression...
 
Yes, Mark Toia's post was right on!

Personally speaking, this whole situation is why I generally tend to shift towards other options, what many consider often to be enterprises that are either deemed by the masses as underdogs or perhaps vapourware. I generally cannot stand to be affiliated with big business because more often than not, considering the budget I have to work with, innovation is lacking in the product line up that is available to my segment of the economic portion of society that I belong to. Video cameras have all been built for ENG use before RED showed up. Now it has become mainstream that it is the digital age and companies must conform, even in regards to motion pictures, so the likes of Arri, Aaton and others have been sort of forced by the situation of RED's innovation to conform with Hollywood's change in how much they want to pay for the editing process in regards to the making of its films. I am happy for RED that hollywood, which seemed skeptical at first, has fully embraced RED. But I don't think it is good for RED to forget its userbase, who made Jim's vision a reality to some respect. I know for a fact that Hollywood is uncomfortable that the common man may at some point have the same tools that have kept them the leaders in the industry for so long, and the fact that they are investing so heavily in RED hardware at the moment, makes me somewhat skeptical if there are not strings attached in such a relationship. I remember myself and Tom Lowe way back when in 2008 arguing on the reduser forums why we felt a interchangeable Scarlet would be essential vs. the fixed. It just blows my mind that it hasn't come out even yet and now were talking fixed, a long time before the interchangeable is brought out, which is sort of weird, since the reduser base clearly wants the design of the interchangeable more. I think it is quite likely that Hollywood might even have been saying, "Hey RED, we'll embrace you, but about that Scarlet, please delay and keep it as prosumer as possible! Thanks." This is why I am against businesses becoming too big. I am probably wrong about all this, but it is my gut feeling.
 
I personally think, it's a smart idea to keep the plans secret until they are ready or nearly ready to ship. There are enough people who can go under NDA and test products to get the right feel for improvements. (hint, I would love to be one of those people and know how to keep my mouth shut.:P ) Had RED not announce Epic, I'm sure Sony and Arri would still be pushing 1080P as the top of the line.

I want RED to push the industry, but I also want them to succeed in the marketplace.
 
Jannard said:
Up 'til now, we have said what we are "going to do".

As of now, that has changed (we promised that everything is subject to change... including our strategy).

We will only announce new things when they are done and ready to ship. That includes Scarlet and all other new products and accessories.

We used to go by "always late but worth the wait". That will no longer be the case because we won't telegraph what we are planning anymore. There will be no possibility of us being late. No more "we expect this to be done by..."

From now on it will only be "Here is is and we are ready to ship".

Jim
Click to expand...

I don't believe you.

I think maybe you're feeling the inevitable frustration of thousands of owners who want it NOW NOW NOW, when you just pulled off an amazing feat that is rocking the world- and you rightfully see that other manufacturers don't have to deal with all that.

But I think you are far too passionate about what you do to not feed your loyal friends and followers tidbits of information now and then.

RED isn't SONY or Panasonic. RED is unique. And I'm not just talking the cameras, man. I'm talking the phenom, and your business model of openness is a big part of that. It's a pain in the ass, sometimes. But it also helps you immensely. You've somehow gotten thousands of dream tellers and magicians to come along for the ride. Nobody's as passionate about a camera brand as we are about RED, and if the flow of information stops you'll be cutting off an important part of what makes you unique and special.
 
Going back and reading all the way through this there are good arguments on both sides. I wonder if RED will be reading this to kind of see how people are feeling and use it to find middle ground? Seems like alot of people really aren't feeling this.
 
**Disclosure: The following is unsolicited pseudo-psychology and I declare that I received my degree from inside a cereal box. (Light, puffy, sugary things too, not muesli.)


Wasn't this announcement (or a similar one) made months ago? We're not going to tell you much anymore? It was, I'm sure it was. And yet here we are again.

Quite frankly it was always puzzling to me in many ways why RED did not adopt this policy from the beginning. (More of that in a moment.) The squeals of disapproval from the customers can appear to be rampant narcissism, dressed up in every way possible, the need for their specialised need and want to be the most important thing in the world.

Jim, interestingly, is also responsible in this symbiotic relationship.

Here I'll have a gentle dig at the founder too -- for a billionaire he's always seemed surprisingly insecure and in need of validation. Maybe that's exactly what drives high achievers, and he is no doubt a very high achiever... but in my opinion (only an opinion) this need for validation was a part of the issue which he is now addressing. It was dressed up as all matter of things. I don't know him but he comes across as someone who had someone dear in his life he just could not please, no matter what, nothing he did was good enough, and he's still fighting that and still learning that lesson... spilling the beans on here seemed part of that same cycle.

Jim tries so hard to please EVERYONE, and the customers are only thinking of themselves. They are the opposite sides of the same coin.

As you can see, the cereal box people have a lot to answer for.
 
Sound good.

My favorite upside to this is the dramatically reduced need to follow RedUser. When new products appear, they'll show up on Twitter (without fail).

I've always been nervous I'd miss some important announcement, buried on page 22 of some random thread. No more. :)
 
Without further details, to recap our roadmap... we have previously stated that we are working on Scarlet, REDray and a 4K projector. We also have the Dragon and Monstro sensors in development. That is all the forward thinking we can confirm and acknowledge.

The next time you will hear about any of these is when they are ready to ship.

Jim
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This is all very exciting. Keep up the great and hard work Jim and RED.
 
Solid plan, Wow 'em right out of the gate and capitalize on the excitement as it's happening not as it been waited for.

I know with already having my Epic-M and soon Epic-X(s) I have more than enough to think about and do and fully welcome the 'available now' posts as they come.

Jason
 
Jannard said:
1st off... I'll still be here.

With so much coming fairly soon, you'll get a constant stream of "pay attention tonight" posts. Instead of hearing what we are going to do, you'll be getting a constant stream of what is ready now. I will still give general roadmap hints, but they will not be as detailed as before.

If we see that our customers will need to make a decision on some emerging product, we'll help. But there is a delicate dance here. If we give you (and our competitors) all the info too soon, we are likely to be late and have helped the industry keep up with us. I'm not going to do that anymore. If we give too little info, the speculation kills us because some post that they expect us to take them to the moon and back for $20.

The solution is to surprise you early with a constant stream of great things that are ready to go.

Jim
Click to expand...


Completely agreed, and hence my Post #80... ;)
 
really good decision, i think that we will all benefit from less griping and worrying about things that are afar off. the strongest piece of this puzzle is the community sharing of information that is pertinent to making better products (both cameras and artwork). knowing every business detail and schedule has done nothing but detract from the best that reduser has to offer. this is good.
 
With a positive nod to Mark Toia's points, which I completely understand, I'd like to say that I wholeheartedly agree with what Jon Sagud (AKA "Big Jon) posted. Both me and Jon have known Jim Jannard for over 27 years now. We both were in the periphery (I've never worked for Jim) closely observing as Oakley sprouted wings and flew sky high in growth, products, and branding. We both understand Jim quite well...

Having been around Red since long before the company was officially announced, I've now observed the cathartic sign posts, growing pains, and the highs and lows of Red's growth curve.

Jim obviously has a sterling track record for conceptualizing an industry's needs, developing a battle plan, building a team, overcoming the inevitable obstacles, brainstorming the marketing strategy, and emerging very successful in the venture. He sees signposts along the way that most of us simply wouldn't.

All relationships, personal and in business, are built upon a foundation of trust. Over all these years of knowing him I've developed a tremendous amount of respect and trust for Jim. It was that trust which prompted me to jump on what became the Red bandwagon clear back in early 2005. With that in view, I completely trust the decisions Jim's has announced in this thread. Does that mean I've always agreed with Jim on everything? Heck no - people sometimes see issues differently, and that's entirely natural. But I do always trust his personal insight and business judgment.

It benefits all of us here, and anyone in the industry who uses Red products, if Red continues to stay fiscally healthy, develop these killer products, and bring them to market at the incredibly affordable levels they have. We all need that, because it greatly benefits our own individual businesses, whether we're a company of one, a boutique studio, or a giant media production conglomerate.

Change is inevitable in life - including business life. Nothing is static, everything is dynamic. Change doesn't have to split us into factions - so lets not let that happen.

Let's trust Jim on this. He has the "big picture" on the safest and most productive course to steer for Red. We're in very good hands on this...
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
The "APPLE" strategy of not announcing products in development and planned feature specs until shipping - or immediately before shipping - seems to be working okay for them ....
Click to expand...

Yeah, when I think "thriving professional tools" I think Apple. /sarcasm

This is part of what killed Apple IMO. Made them a great consumer electronics company though!

---

I would say this is frustrating personally just because I know exactly what camera I want and need (and have the cash in hand to buy) and that's the FF35 6k+ Scarlet. Which may or may not exist anymore and may or may not re-emerge at a different price point as a Epic-S Monstro which would be fine as well. But eventually I'm just going to do something else with that money if I stop believing it's going to be released. And there would be no sense in waiting if it's going to be 4 more years--I should just pick up a couple Epic-Ses now.

P.S. Last month we started our late-2012/Early-2013 hardware upgrade planning. I don't think we're very unique in that.
 
Jim,
You wont be able to stop yourself from posting here on REDUSER if RED does comes up with something new.....Its unbelievable...

1st off... I'll still be here.

With so much coming fairly soon, you'll get a constant stream of "pay attention tonight" posts. Instead of hearing what we are going to do, you'll be getting a constant stream of what is ready now. I will still give general roadmap hints, but they will not be as detailed as before.

If we see that our customers will need to make a decision on some emerging product, we'll help. But there is a delicate dance here. If we give you (and our competitors) all the info too soon, we are likely to be late and have helped the industry keep up with us. I'm not going to do that anymore. If we give too little info, the speculation kills us because some post that they expect us to take them to the moon and back for $20.

The solution is to surprise you early with a constant stream of great things that are ready to go.

Jim
Click to expand...

Let the surprises come everyday....

Harcharan
 
Not trying to be off base here either but alot of the support for this is from those who have cameras coming or already have them, as well as those who get to work with them frequently. It is alot different on the other side of the fence. Those in waiting probably sympathize with Toia's post, as do some future epic owners, but most seem alot more understanding if they have there hands on cameras, or will soon. It's easier to agree with the Idea if you already have something or have something coming soon. The ones in waiting (epic s/Scarlet) are often forgotten by the majority that don't have to wait as long.
 
Jannard said:
The solution is to surprise you early with a constant stream of great things that are ready to go.

Jim
Click to expand...

... and THAT is what makes Red a great company.
 
I think this is a great move. We have had the privilege in the past of knowing what was going on behind scenes to a certain extent, but now this move will not cause certain people to say"RED never delivers on time". Instead they will say, "WOW I didn't have a clue this was even being developed, this is awesome, I am buying one today!"
 
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