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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 :)

Red Support Equipment savings

I think what RED is doing is really bucking the trend for high end cinematography equipment. Most of the time a piece of equipment like the Red One would be a rental item, and as such most of the equipment you use with the camera would be a rental item. My thoughts are that the camera is the driving factor in the costs of the industry, do you think people are going to continue to pay outrageous prices when the camera is less than the support equipment? RED is basically 1/5th of what it could have cost and I would think that the support equipment should have the same ratio and quality. I would venture a guess that a number of companies will fall in line with the "make it up in volume" philosophy and get on board with RED really soon, the market is there and its only going to grow as the fence sitters adopt the technology.
 
Curt

you are one of the people I have been waiting for to give their 2cents on this. Being in the support production field yourself I thought you or some new companys you know may fit the bill on this one. Do you think you may have some items ready for when RED begins to ship? I think a lot of people would be willing to give new companys a chance as the outfit their RED but if new companys products are not ready to ship at around the same time as RED they may miss the boat on some big opportunities.
 
I think it would be great if any vendors want to embrace Red's philosophy on pricing, value and openness, they should step forward and make themselves known--I just don't think it is anything Red has to do or loose focus over.

If a non competing accessory company "got religion" and announced to the Red community that they are creating a Red bundle that gives deep discounts to Red owners in the name of the rebellion and their products are of suffient quality and value--I would think Jim might come along and endorse them--opening up a flood of orders.

But I don't think it is anything the Red team needs to be diverted on--let the vendors realise the gold mine for themselves.
 
Motion picture equipment has always been costly. There are many justifiable reasons for this. I think the two main ones are the longevity of the equipment its self and the volume sold. A couple of thousand units to a manufacturer is nothing. The development costs, (conception, engineering and manufacturing) on the small scale of sales that is inherent in this business do not allow for the pricing that one would wish for. In order for a small company to attract talented people they have to pay them a decent salary. These designers,engineers and machinists are people who have decided that their line of work is their choosen path in life. They are due the same respect that anybody doing anything and doing it well deserves.
Then there is the eveyday costs of running a business, sales secretarial, shipping and some very pricey machine shop equipment not to mention a building to hold all this. And finally there is the person who owns the company. The guy/gal putting his life into it trying to make a better one for him/herself and their families. There is no harder line of work in the business world then that of the small business owner. Not all companys are Oakleys who can afford to do the wonderful thing that they are doing.

Chuck
 
I agree with all you said Chuck. I just feel if there are some new companys looking at trying to gain or even start to build some market share this would be a great time to give some deals and pair up with RED.
 
Finner said:
I agree with all you said Chuck. I just feel if there are some new companys looking at trying to gain or even start to build some market share this would be a great time to give some deals and pair up with RED.
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Hello Finner,

And I agree with you. The motion picture equipment business has always been a close knit one. The strengths of one company with another will lead to better and sooner arrived at solutions. I mean come on Panavision is sleeping with Arriflex! (Don't tell their wives) LOL

Chuck
 
I just hope that red will offer a decent discount for their own made accessories first and foremost. How they will do that i dont know but perhaps a good deal for the reservation holders based on the value of your accessories so long as you purchase them with the camera.

Lets say you have ordered the red zoom lens and the 300mm prime lens. A wee discount for ordering both if you are a reservation holder would be greatly appreciated. Obviously you would only get the discount when you fully pay for the red zoom as that is due later. Alternatively you pay for both up front and get a discount! Other accessories achieve a stepped up discount based on whether you purchased any red lenses. The more accessories you purchase the more discount :) If you purchased both red lenses your discount for accessories starts off at a higher level than if you purchased just the one red lens or if you just want the accessories.

Since i will be looking at well....everything i will seek discounts wherever i can find them. Obviously it would be nice if red could oblige by achieving third party discounts but you might have got that same discount anyway if you barter.

I do hope red will soon announce the price of the accessories such as red rail, EVF etc. I suppose some things like the red drive and red flash could change downwards each month with technology advancing so fast.

Michael
 
Of course you are right, Chuck; motion picture equipment has traditionally gone with a premium.
But RED's business model goes beyond that - they are trying to broaden the high-end camera market to include everybody from wedding videographers, to actors making their own reel, to industrials, et cetera.
I think most people are here because they feel it's high time to knock down the walls of overpriced equipment that have protected some (let's be honest) occasionally shoddy filmmaking practices. By god, if they can be shoddy, so can we, right? :)
Or do you honestly consider it reasonable for a prospective consumer to go out and drop 17.5k on a camera and then 10k on a TRIPOD to put it on? How about 5k for a matte box? No. These models need to be rethought, or people will just work around them. Look at how many people are going with Nikon glass over the more expensive cine glass. It's not the breathing, it's the economics, silly. If I can make my content for 1/10 the cost and drop it on the web/compress the bejeezus out of it/put it on TV for someone to glance at while strolling by, who's going to notice if my lens breathes or not?
So yeah. A matte box is a fantastic convenience. But if it means a third of the cost of a camera, I'll use C-47s and Duvatene to hold my ND filter, thank you very much.
 
In all fairness to the Red folks, they have said everything is subject to change. That could mean a bump in the price tag for the camera, excluding reservation holders. I don't foresee a huge jump but they could make an adjustment based on the feature set they decide to include with the final design. So I think the early adopters might benefit from a great price point, and everyone else will still get a lot of bang for the buck. I don't think the camera will jump up to 50K, but when you consider that other cameras of equal or less quality are far more expensive, it does make you wonder where the shift will happen. I'm speculating of course, as for all I know 17.5 might be the price they will stick to.

Steve
 
penfever said:
So yeah. A matte box is a fantastic convenience. But if it means a third of the cost of a camera, I'll use C-47s and Duvatene to hold my ND filter, thank you very much.
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This is exactly why I started this thread. The mechanics and production costs of a swing out 4 stage 6x6 matte box does not have to equal $5,000 and up. I understand everyone in bussiness needs to "pay the mortgage" but the price point of typical film equipment is ridiculous. I would love to be in some of the big film company's board rooms when they set prices "Well Jack how much can we rape our consumers on this one". Sure there is R&D and other things to take into consideration but give me a break. Really how much R&D goes into a Matte BOX, Follow Focus or fluid head. None of these items have really changed at all for over 20 years.

Well thats just my thoughts and if RED can sell great products that other companys build at a fair price through the RED web page I will be happy to buy them.
 
Finner (re: two pages back): Got it, no worries. :)
 
Finner said:
I understand everyone in bussiness needs to "pay the mortgage" but the price point of typical film equipment is ridiculous.
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Amen to that.

I'd definitely like to see RED partnering with various accessory suppliers, it could be very helpful. And if they do, it would seem to also make sense for them to bring a dealer/distributor or two into the mix so that the customer is getting a true deal vs. every day pricing. Rather than just being able to order from the manufacturer only to receive the same 5% off MSRP that everyday dealers already offer.
 
penfever said:
Of course you are right, Chuck; motion picture equipment has traditionally gone with a premium.
But RED's business model goes beyond that - they are trying to broaden the high-end camera market to include everybody from wedding videographers, to actors making their own reel, to industrials, et cetera.
I think most people are here because they feel it's high time to knock down the walls of overpriced equipment that have protected some (let's be honest) occasionally shoddy filmmaking practices. By god, if they can be shoddy, so can we, right? :)
Or do you honestly consider it reasonable for a prospective consumer to go out and drop 17.5k on a camera and then 10k on a TRIPOD to put it on? How about 5k for a matte box? No. These models need to be rethought, or people will just work around them. Look at how many people are going with Nikon glass over the more expensive cine glass. It's not the breathing, it's the economics, silly. If I can make my content for 1/10 the cost and drop it on the web/compress the bejeezus out of it/put it on TV for someone to glance at while strolling by, who's going to notice if my lens breathes or not?
So yeah. A matte box is a fantastic convenience. But if it means a third of the cost of a camera, I'll use C-47s and Duvatene to hold my ND filter, thank you very much.
Click to expand...

Hiya Penfever,

I know the prices of cine gear hurt in a dry penetration sort of way. But as you say there are alternative choices such as still camera lenses etc. And if you poke around there are matte boxes out there in the $500 to 1k range.
C-47s? Does that mean you are going to mount your filters with a military version of the DC-3? lol

Chuck
 
I am interested/intrigued by the idea of Red partnering up with other companies to offer complete kits.
As for computers I am indeferent since I own and can handle both of the leading types (windows - mac)

I intend to use Nikkor lenses which I am going to buy from scratch. Though I'd love to use my precious Canon glass :(

I must admit I am fairly concerned about what else I might need for "on the go" shooting (ie, battery packs, storage, etc.) so a few kits to chose from (or use as a suggestion) would be nicea dn handy for people like me.
 
When I read threads like this I can't keep from wondering what Jim and the RED team thinks. They offer us a really amazing camera system for almost no money. Still everyone want's more. Could you give us this? - How about selling me that with a 25% price reduction?. I can't speak for anyone but myself and I'm really thankful for the oppertunity Jim and his team is about to "give" me.

The following is pure speculation but I some how get the feel that RED is planning on offering most of the accessories discussed above. I for one will wait to see what their plan is.
 
Andreas

I think most of the discussion on this thread is not about trying to get something for nothing from red. More what it is about is just letting Red know that if they offer quality support equipment on their website for a good price a lot of people will be interested in buying some. As far as Red offering most accessories I think they will also but I think that could be a very long time from when your 528 ships out and Red has also mentioned they are happy to have other companys offer support equipment. A lot of us will be looking for a lot of equipment and I would be happy to buy mine from the Red site if they offer some other companys equipment and recomend the quality of it. Thus Red makes more money so we are not asking for more in fact we are trying to give more to red.
 
As far as AKS goes, I don't plan on getting the cheapest options. Don't get me wrong. I don't have the money. I'll be taking out a loan. But I didn't reserve the camera because it's so cheap, even though that's the only reason I could afford it. I got it because of it's quality. I'm not trying to stick it to the fat-cats, which is something I've seen yelled around this forum. There's a lot more to production value than a nice camera.

That being said, I'm hooked because of the quality of the RED rather than bare-bones thriftiness and the same will be true for my AKS. No tiny bogen heads, no red rock follow focuses, and no coken filter holders. If I can't afford it then it will have to be rented and I'm OK with that.
 
Some one mentioned above the longivety of cine-gear. Imagine you run a rental house. Imagine you've got a lot of 35mm and S16 gear, cameras as well as lenses, mattboxes, etc. Now there's a new camera, let's say Arri 235. You buy the the camera but not necessarily new lenses and all the stuff; you've got it already. The big investment for a rental-house is not the camera-body. An Arri 235 body is about 30k, but an Angenieux Optimo zoom 57k. The same with RED. Consider RED as a digital 35mm camera-body. This is what rental-houses think about RED. Some book one or two already, some are more conservative and wait until the market tells them to buy one. RED is going to replace 35mm/S16/HDCAM-cameras but not the gear. So, the market for highend cinegear, especially lenses will not increase that much. A RED ONE with A RED zoom, mattbox, follow-focus, computer for converting etc. is not a cheap camera-system. RED is not going to replace the DV/HDV video-cameras and will conquer this considerably big market. Some of us will take the opportunity (how fantastic) and jump on an entirely new level (hopefully with good scripts). But in the end a great lens costs a lot to manufacture and RED deserves great lenses. If you don't have the budget now rent them, get addicted, save money and buy the one you like most. Good gear is costly and always will be.

My 1.0 cent,

Hans
 
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