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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 :)

Professional...

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A Different Drum

A Different Drum

A professional musician can play a cardboard box like a drum and it sound good (some songs you may have heard are known to do this). But a good professional drum kit will last for years, be upgradeable, and maintain its value.
The box, on the other hand, is disposable. I can think of several cameras that are like a box right now. RED, on the other hand, is like a good instrument.
 
Jannard said:
We profess to make professional cameras. I'd love to hear your take on what exactly professional means to you.

Jim
Click to expand...

I assume he is refering the the camera and not jobs, I would say a professinal camera has:

1. Lots of options, no handicaps for the sake of marketing or upsell.

2. Expandability

3. Reliability

4. Durable

5. Upgradable

Hummm that sounds like Red.
 
Professional camera - designed for critical tasks. It prioritizes image performance, control and reliability, trading off idiot-proofing and unnecessary features. Its human interface design exposes the complexity in the most intuitive and simple way possible WITHOUT dumbing things down - helping the skilled operator perform a complex task with greater ease. It should behave predictably and repeatably. It is designed to be used for prolonged periods of time without causing fatigue or health problems.

Consumer camera - designed for casual tasks. Its interface design hides complexity - making the user experience fun, manageable and simple - in addition to offering decent performance and reliability. A newbie should be able to pick it up and quickly produce decent results without ever being confused.

To me - performance in a camera is all about getting the image quality you need using a compact and light-weight tool that is also reasonably reliable and most importantly cheap enough to fit in the budget.

Durability, upgradability and modularity are nice, but not welcome if they push up the price, size or weight. Durability is most important in mature technologies - eg tripods. Not something that'll be technologically out of date soon.

Of course being a professional system, it should work well with the other tools being used - since most pros work within an ecosystem. But that goes for consumer devices too, methinks.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I think Red has come up against what it is and isn't as a camera company.

Put simply, the Red One is not really a professional camera. The F35 is.

And put simply, the F35 is not really a cutting edge camera. The Red One is.

This is the crux of the issue. To be cutting edge in a collaborative industry like TV and feature film production, you can't be too cutting edge, b/c all of the other players have to be in sync, upgrading in lock step.

Professional in Hollywood conjures HDCAM-SR tape. It's reliable and every professional post house knows exactly how to use it.

Truly professional professional products adhere to a widely accepted, understood and used standards. RedGamma, RedColor, HDRx, RedCine-X, RedRushes, RedAlert, RedRocket, R3D, etc. are not this.

So the question is really how pro versus how cutting edge does Red want to be? Being professional means fitting-in with professional norms. Being cutting edge means ?ing and many times ignoring accepted ways in favor of a vision of a better way.

The truth is that visionary and professional are not the same, and while they do overlap they also have a contentious relationship.

Steve Jobs said he thought it was a lot more fun to be a pirate than in the navy. Now we all know that the navy are the professionals. So are the folks at Red military officers or swashbucklers? Are they MPs or bounty hunters? Stormtroopers or Rebels?

I personally believe Red's heart is more visionary than it is professional.
 
Being professional is to be technically adept enough to artistically achieve anything.
 
James T Mather said:
I own three Red cameras - they are terrific and have usurped film to all intents and purposes and I was a 20 year Kodak man. I have some quibbles with the power system (poor) but love the images and new MX tech. The cameras are pro. No doubt.

However, one aspect of Red I find non-professional is the notion that simple repairs must be returned to Red. We have, we suspect, a faulty fan as the camera is shutting down periodically due to overheating (in winter here on a soundstage so pretty cool environmentwise). We opted to replace the fan. I asked to purchase a fan and was told that, even though the camera was out of warranty, that the camera must be returned to Red for repair. If we opened the camera that we would no longer be elegible for upgrade to Epic etc.

Replacing a fan must be a simple job. The notion that a simple malfunctioning fan would take a camera off a feature film for more than a week is ludicrous. "The show must go on" as one Billy Shakespeare once said. Panavision would always see to it that if a camera went down that a replacement would be provided instantly - allowing the shoot to continue.

This is the major difference between Pro companies and amateur ones - the backup. With SAG actors on strict contracts etc there isn't room for this kind of thing. I hope Red reconsider this aspect carefully.
Click to expand...

YES! A thousand times YES!

Someone else posted about backup camreas being required on set when you have a RED.

Its true... but it gets worse than that. For one... a lot of producers are asking for a Canon 7D or an ENG camcorder with a 35mm adapter as the backup camera. They don't want to pay for a full second body to be on hand. That means that there will be an abrupt shift of look.

Would be I should say... I've not yet had to go to my backup camera... but if I did, it would be a minor disaster in my opinion.
 
Peter Moretti said:
I think Red has come up against what it is and isn't as a camera company.

Put simply, the Red One is not really a professional camera. The F35 is.

And put simply, the F35 is not really a cutting edge camera. The Red One is.

This is the crux of the issue. To be cutting edge in a collaborative industry like TV and feature film production, you can't be too cutting edge, b/c all of the other players have to be in sync, upgrading in lock step.

Professional in Hollywood conjures HDCAM-SR tape. It's reliable and every professional post house knows exactly how to use it.

Truly professional professional products adhere to a widely accepted, understood and used standards. RedGamma, RedColor, HDRx™™, RedCine-X, RedRushes, RedAlert, RedRocket, R3D, etc. are not this.

So the question is really how pro versus how cutting edge does Red want to be? Being professional means fitting-in with professional norms. Being cutting edge means ?ing and many times ignoring accepted ways in favor of a vision of a better way.

The truth is that visionary and professional are not the same, and while they do overlap they also have a contentious relationship.

Steve Jobs said he thought it was a lot more fun to be a pirate than in the navy. Now we all know that the navy are the professionals. So are the folks at Red military officers or swashbucklers? Are they MPs or bounty hunters? Stormtroopers or Rebels?

I personally believe Red's heart is more visionary than it is professional.
Click to expand...

I agree with the points you make, but not the conclusion.

I think you are confusing professional with industry standard.

Over at this little shop called NASA they used to do things no one had ever done before, and that no one else could do.

Would you argue that the Apollo program was unprofessional?

Red is advancing the state of the art, and I think they have learned a lot along the way. Their next camera is set to be a piece of art suited for the rigors of professional film use, and with luck they'll start to deliver world class service... or develop a network of third parties who can do so for them.
 
Professional camera
Simply it has to be fit for purpose
Reliable
Minimum level of industry specification and performance
Durable
interoperable with other tools of the trade

Professional cameraman DP
Makes a living from camera operation or Directing Photography.

Professional behavior of cameraman or DP
Has a significant level of knowledge in his chosen field.
Strives to bring core elements of operating good corporate governance onto location
Manages Human resources in accordance with local custom and best business practice
Creates and manages a sound Health and Safety policy.
Honors contractual obligations
Maintains acceptable etiquette on set according to local custom.
Treats crew and public humanly
Keeps personal and business confidences



Mike Brennan
 
Alexander,

The Apollo program was absolutely not professional. It was bleeding edge, Nazi scientists were members, astronauts were dying, no one knew if it would work and it was all started by the edict of a single man: JFK.

A commercial airline is professional, NASA is not. Did Chuck Yeager fly for TWA? Astronauts were test pilots not commercial aviators. If you want to be NASA you have to accept that shit will blow up pretty often. That is not an option in a professional environment.

Professional for an existing industry requires working within an established infrastructure. The Apollo program did not do this because there was no existing aerospace industry at the time of Mercury and Apollo. NASA and its Russian counterpart were the only players, and they obviously weren't trying to adhere to each others protocols.

The technology from the moon missions trickled down to professional industries for decades. But in the 1960's it fit into no one's paradigm b/c NASA was making up the paradigm as they went along.

Genius is not necessarily synonymous with professional.
 
Professional means to know what are you doing and what are the pros and cons of the gear you use to take the maximum out of them, whatever gear it is.

In one word: adaptability ('cause a lot of times you can't choose your gear, it comes imposed by the production company you are working for).

Postproduction facilities that can't deal with RED generated images (after almost 3 years since the camera release) in their pipeline can't be called "professional". "Investment protective" maybe, but not professional.
 
Peter Moretti said:
This is the crux of the issue. To be cutting edge in a collaborative industry like TV and feature film production, you can't be too cutting edge, b/c all of the other players have to be in sync, upgrading in lock step.

Professional in Hollywood conjures HDCAM-SR tape. It's reliable and every professional post house knows exactly how to use it.

Truly professional professional products adhere to a widely accepted, understood and used standards. RedGamma, RedColor, HDRx™, RedCine-X, RedRushes, RedAlert, RedRocket, R3D, etc. are not this.
Click to expand...

While an interesting conceptualization, this argument pretty much dispenses with the past 100 years of imaging history, which is a history of constant and rapid technological evolution and experimentation. It has always been characterized by a push-pull energy between standardization and innovation. Industries are inherently conservative - while artists, technologists, and creatives tend to embrace what is new, fun, intriguing.

HDCAM isn't even 20 years old yet, as a technology. Standards change every generation. Every industry standard began with a vision. Same as it ever was.
 
Peter Moretti said:
Alexander,

The Apollo program was absolutely not professional. It was bleeding edge, Nazi scientists were members, astronauts were dying, no one knew if it would work and it was all started by the edict of a single man: JFK.

A commercial airline is professional, NASA is not. Did Chuck Yeager fly for TWA? Astronauts were test pilots not commercial aviators. If you want to be NASA you have to accept that shit will blow up pretty often. That is not an option in a professional environment.

Professional for an existing industry requires working within an established infrastructure. The Apollo program did not do this because there was no existing aerospace industry at the time of Mercury and Apollo. NASA and its Russian counterpart were the only players, and they obviously weren't trying to adhere to each others protocols.

The technology from the moon missions trickled down to professional industries for decades. But in the 1960's it fit into no one's paradigm b/c NASA was making up the paradigm as they went along.

Genius is not necessarily synonymous with professional.
Click to expand...


Sorry, but NASA are professionals as you can get in the space industry.

Would you call profesional formula one racing unprofessional because their cars break down all the time? Because they don't meet national emmissions or standards (tail lights, headlights, etc)?

Professional writers... what published standards do they have to meet?
 
In terms of equipment professionals will use anything that suits the needs of the work in mind, from Pixelvison to Imax.

Professional to me means attitude to the work. A professional film maker's first loyalty is to the audience, an amateur's first loyalty is to themselves.
 
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