RED's battle against Sony -- Jim response succeeding the new Sony's Armada* move

[Chris Gustafson]

Jim made himself a multi-billionaire, well I don't really know any of the details but he created a company from the ground up and sold it for 2.1 Billion... I have a little faith on the guy. Just a little...

Roberto ! you are more right to have faith than you know !

As a Midwest sales rep. for him for almost 10 yrs. in the very early days of of that company, I observed but a few the "details" ...

-Number 1 beyond anything else... Be an artist, and a visionary, and have a very clear (albeit "illusive" to some) view of his artistic futuristic, ergonomic vision of a future "measurably better" than whatever the current status quo might have been at that given alignment of the moons planets and stars...!
-Have an inherent passion for your art, vision and dreams that is simply relentless, and no matter how the so called competition tried... "unstoppable".
-Surround yourself with equally as insane tireless human resource talent that share your art, vision, and dreams as you do !

-Start very small with a single "bullet proof" product "the EyeShade" that was revolutionary, immediately "controversial" AND, not "arguably", but "Measurably" better than any other sports eyewear lens on the market...
-Get it in the hands, and "on the eyes" of the worlds top athletes, i.e. the people that needed the "best of the best" performance in their "equipment" to be competitive.
-Listen, Listen, Listen, and then listen some more, to the needs and desires and "complaints" of those athletes on how to improve and "perfect" those improvements so that those people
at the top of the top, at the top of their game, could tailor the product to their specific needs...
-Use that feedback from those professional users of that product, to make each "new" product, and product platform incrementally and "measurably better" than the previous product, or products in their class...
-Back up those products with a customer service, communication, and support program that literally changed an industry...
-In expansion of the line... "always have the incrementally measurably improving core technology" at the root...
-Relentlessly "educate" at the grass roots level, and prove beyond question his technological superiority in the core invention of that product line... his "lens".
-Venomously "protect" the intellectual property and integrity that he and his company invented/created.
-Offer the culmination of that vision to the end user at price that was "reasonable", "justifiable", and most of all "obtainable". (starting from scratch, the trouble was always keeping up with demand) Oh Darn !
-Never sleep
-Oh yeah peoples.... "Build it in the good old USA"...

That eyewear line, originally designed for athletes gave them performance and the ability to "COMPETE" and view their sports with ansi z87.1 saftey glass Optical Clarity and ergonomic modular design never previously available....Much less even thought of by the so called competition... The trickle down effects of that company are now very very "CLEAR" in history of that industry...
Red is yet another company he is starting from "ground zero"... Can "I"/we see a "clear" correlation here

Yes Roberto.... be very comfortable having "a little faith in the guy" ..
Personally I believe it simple... and am confident history will show. Jim's gift/curse, is his tireless dream and vision to have all humans see the world more "clearly"....

Motion has never been my artistic vent, I shoot stills. However that said, I am soooooo looking forward to DSMC ! Started a piggy bank for it last week when I read about it !

Cheers
Chris Gus...

 

[John Caballero]

Great post Chris. Very inspiring!

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

We are here because we are on your side. We are you. We tell you what we are doing because it is healthy. We are not the typical company that has a strategy to become a money making machine at the expense of our customers. We are a company who's sole purpose is to make the best stuff. The stuff the other guys can't afford to make because it is counter-productive to the "business model". I really believe we are different. We LOVE doing this stuff. I just spent the weekend working with Jarred and Matt on the program. We don't do this for "overtime". That is a hard combination to compete with.

Jim

Now THAT's a quote right there.
Cheers, Jim. High five.

 

[A. Bastaki]

i dont think canon, sony, or panny really give a shit about some wannabe filmmakers. There was a hole in the market. Red filled it. There were images being made that are very filmic by canon's dslr's.. the video market was and still is TV content based. Red came along because of us. We wanted to shoot video because its cheaper but we wanted film quality and film aesthetics.. film lenses.. basically filmmaking on video. Why would sony give a major damn about that. go to any film market and see how many films are made... and what percentage of them suck ass and what percentage of them were low budget. sony.. and canon.. make big bucks catering eng type of shooting.. tv based stuff.. documentary style shooting.. there's safe money in that. Corporate videos.. weddings.. sports.. wildlife.. That's all sony right there.

Panny is just.. lol.. i don't know where they belong. I feel that they are lost in between.

It's all about taking a percentage of an emerging market. or capturing an emerging market. Honestly, i wouldn't do a soap with a bunch of red's hooked up hd-sdi or sd-sdi. i'd rather go with sony.. reliable technology.. its been there and it works best. And the world is still SD. RED is overkill. TV stations want everything done in an hour.. not even an hour.. they want it LIVE.. no time for raw and hiss and piss.

Calling them asleep towards this small market gap of high-end indy filmmakers is just like calling RED to be asleep towards the BIG ASS market called TV.

Each company has a goal, they have a market they cater. Therefore.. RED listens to us. Sony broadcast listens to broadcast ceo's and techs. Red found a market gap and is catering it, and it has done an amazing job so far.

 

[spitfire44]

software controlled focus pulling? I think not, at least in any project that is narrative driven. How is software going to decide when to pull focus when a actor hits a mark but delivers a line that motivates a pull? my point being that having a human being with a follow focus in one hand and a functioning brain that can interpret subtle nuances of dialogue or other creative impulses beats a machine everyday.....Anyone can put a mark on a lens at two points and spin the barrel, but the job of a focus puller on i.e, Dramatic Film or Episodics is nothing short of magic, not mechanical. As far as, telling a piece of software to pull focus during blocking then repeat during a take, that would be amazing, but again why would you want to eliminate the position of the focus puller? Who would I ask to get me a double espresso? The clapper/loader? oh.....he doesn't exist anymore and the DIT guy.....he has enough gear already that asking him to put a Cappuccino machine in his kit would be rude.
Eric

And don't get concerned about how stills lenses don't adapt well to follow focus and iris racking. That's old technology - a guy stands by with a tape measure and a whiteboard marker? P-lease.

All Canon or Nikon (or RED) need to do (aside from banishing the skew) is offer up control over auto focus points to, say, a laptop where software could co-opt the face detection paradigm to virtually rotoscope shots. Just set the focus points during the blocking and then tell it to focus at keyframe 1, keyframe 2 etc. The camera would then dynamically maintain focus despite actors and grips missing marks. Use bezier curves for nice smooth transitions and slow pulls. The technology is all there it just needs to be put together.

Add in the super-high ISO ratings Canon are now using and you could be ramping ISO for varispeed shots rather than iris. Hold that DoF while you change frame rates and do it all from a laptop at pre-programmed settings. Just hit <return> for the next keyframe.

My question over RED is can they compete in the autofocus field against the incumbent DSLR players and can they make 24x36mm sensors? OK, that was two questions:biggrin:

 

[A. Bastaki]

software controlled focus pulling? I think not, at least in any project that is narrative driven. How is software going to decide when to pull focus when a actor hits a mark but delivers a line that motivates a pull? my point being that having a human being with a follow focus in one hand and a functioning brain that can interpret subtle nuances of dialogue or other creative impulses beats a machine everyday.....Anyone can put a mark on a lens at two points and spin the barrel, but the job of a focus puller on i.e, Dramatic Film or Episodics is nothing short of magic, not mechanical. As far as, telling a piece of software to pull focus during blocking then repeat during a take, that would be amazing, but again why would you want to eliminate the position of the focus puller? Who would I ask to get me a double espresso? The clapper/loader? oh.....he doesn't exist anymore and the DIT guy.....he has enough gear already that asking him to put a Cappuccino machine in his kit would be rude.
Eric

I'm with spitfire. I gotta say i really hate the idea of controlling focus with a laptop.. i guess the focus puller is going to be there. sitting on his ass.

I'm not a fan of focus points.. im a fan of focus that and follow. but then.. even that is tough.. because say ure doing a closeup of a dog's tail.. it's all white... software can't follow that for you you need a focus puller.

BUT what would really be interesting is if a guy.. not necessarily a focus puller but of course prefferably a focus puller can basically point his focus with a mouse, the mouse moves and the focus is electronically pulled to have that point in focus. like a pda kind of a thing that gets a videofeed and basically the guy puts the focus on one point and drags his stylo or pen around to have the point touching the surface of the pda in focus. That kind of auto-focussing makes sense. also the distance of the focus should be anotated on the screen along with aperture..etc.

 

[Kholi Hicks]

i dont think canon, sony, or panny really give a shit about some wannabe filmmakers. There was a hole in the market. Red filled it. There were images being made that are very filmic by canon's dslr's.. the video market was and still is TV content based. Red came along because of us. We wanted to shoot video because its cheaper but we wanted film quality and film aesthetics.. film lenses.. basically filmmaking on video. Why would sony give a major damn about that. go to any film market and see how many films are made... and what percentage of them suck ass and what percentage of them were low budget. sony.. and canon.. make big bucks catering eng type of shooting.. tv based stuff.. documentary style shooting.. there's safe money in that. Corporate videos.. weddings.. sports.. wildlife.. That's all sony right there.

Panny is just.. lol.. i don't know where they belong. I feel that they are lost in between.

It's all about taking a percentage of an emerging market. or capturing an emerging market. Honestly, i wouldn't do a soap with a bunch of red's hooked up hd-sdi or sd-sdi. i'd rather go with sony.. reliable technology.. its been there and it works best. And the world is still SD. RED is overkill. TV stations want everything done in an hour.. not even an hour.. they want it LIVE.. no time for raw and hiss and piss.

Calling them asleep towards this small market gap of high-end indy filmmakers is just like calling RED to be asleep towards the BIG ASS market called TV.

Each company has a goal, they have a market they cater. Therefore.. RED listens to us. Sony broadcast listens to broadcast ceo's and techs. Red found a market gap and is catering it, and it has done an amazing job so far.

It sucks that Panasonic doesn't care about the small filmmaker... I can't fathom why they put a flip function on the HPX170 like they knew what a 35mm Adapterwas... It's like Jan Critterdan was on DVXuser, looked at this long list of wishes for the next "HVX200" and passed them along for no reason at all...

Can't understand why Jan is even over at DVXuser relaying our words to Panasonic, they don't even care about the low budget filmmaker!

... moving on.

So who's waiting until the end of 2009/early 2010 for this new camera instead of buying one now and getting on with it? Me me me me!

 

[Nova Invicta]

Panny

Panny

Panasonic has sold over 80,000 P2 cameras worldwide so someone must have purchased them and they certainly got Sony attention to solid state recording.

 

[David Birdy]

We are here because we are on your side. We are you. We tell you what we are doing because it is healthy. We are not the typical company that has a strategy to become a money making machine at the expense of our customers. We are a company who's sole purpose is to make the best stuff. The stuff the other guys can't afford to make because it is counter-productive to the "business model". I really believe we are different. We LOVE doing this stuff. I just spent the weekend working with Jarred and Matt on the program. We don't do this for "overtime". That is a hard combination to compete with.

Jim

Quote of the Year Jim !!



Good ideas with good people making Great products!

Dave

 

[Nova Invicta]

The Human Factor

The Human Factor

The day we loose the 1st AC in professional filmaking at the highest level filmmaking is dead it just becomes point and shoot at that point so anyone who thinks stills style autofocus is for the professional market honestly doesnt understand things like splits, tracking actors to marks etc

 

[spitfire44]

Nova, don't fret....it'll never happen while there is live action to shoot.
Spitfire aka Eric

The day we loose the 1st AC in professional filmaking at the highest level filmmaking is dead it just becomes point and shoot at that point so anyone who thinks stills style autofocus is for the professional market honestly doesnt understand things like splits, tracking actors to marks etc

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Just thought it would be a good thread to link this to:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=311703&postcount=183

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

The problem is: Canon is now awake.

It sounds like somebody should start to shiver.
So far, Canon's idea of cinema is HDV.
Canon's current line of cinema cameras is 3 (good, for small budget and compact size) HDV cameras with 1/3" sensors and MiniDV cassette. Of the 3, only one has interchangeable lenses. Which is a pity, since canon glass is not bad at all.

 

[Alberto Caprioglio]

TV stations want everything done in an hour.. not even an hour.. they want it LIVE.. no time for raw and hiss and piss.

I agree.
In facts, I have never seen in my life a worse embarassing shit than this thing called TV.
And I'm sure millions of people agree with this.
Tv images also look ugly in fictions and in any program that hasn't an Oscars-like scenography and glamorous lights. Have TV-cameras with ridicule tiny sensors and fastfood workflow anything to do with this?

TV fictions shot on film look good. No surprise. Things shot on Red look equally good.
Things shoot with broadcast cameras look bad. You can't avoid having too much shit in focus with tiny sensors lenses, and this is awful for reality things (unless the reality is any good, like for example landscape of nature, sofisticated traditional dandicraft
and architecture, beautiful colors in clothes, sunsets, water, animals, beautiful faces... but usually all this excludes our familiar landscape in western countries, such elegance is so difficult to find when you look around. I don't know if the corrupted landscape makes TV look so ugly or if it is TV that has made transofrmed reality into an even more vulgar and ugly place. There are exceptions of course, where TV is not so dominant in life, like looks, and is much better. And is more pleasant - and makes much more sense - to use cinema cameras in such places that do not look like TV. Real, beautiful places, where you can capture all those colors... basically, shooting like if you where shooting film, even if it's not a film but an episode for TV.
A battle against sony may sound like a battle against TV, the cheap and kitch aesthethic of TV, the contents that TV asks for that demand broadcast-type tools, all that shit.
But I'm sure I may not necessarily be so. It depends on Sony if it wants to be associated with TV or cinema. And what TV and what cinema. To art or ta-ta-taaaa the News. Literature or quitz. Potentially and possibly good, or necessarily(?) bad.
Not that cinema is art at all, cinema nowadays seems to be reduced to a loud burp, not as loud as TV, but bad enough. Cinema is business just like TV. But at least, sometimes, when professionals are tired and forget for 1 minute that cinema is business and a sort way to grab some million from the people's pockets convincing them to pay a ticket with the promise of a wonder... and what a wonder they are... - just the same as what a circus does - I don't know how I caould call it differently... well, sometimes some one forget this and thinks wrongly that cinema is also art, so something that can remotely look like art may come up suddenly. It's not art, because businessmen are quite reluctant to produce a marsterwork (they are afraid that people won't appreciate a good work of art, yeah great excuse, as if museums all over the globe were not visited by paying people at a rate of millions every day, far more than those fantastic abortions they call films.)
Cameras are linked to imaging, aesthetics, and everything that keeps this hell alive.
Details are important, implications are big. It's all linked in many ways. Economy, ideology, aesthetics, tools, professions, till the fucking black metal sheet that costs 3000 dollars and is called matte box and is not of small importance.
Since sensors and workflow - linked one to the other too - are more important, they could be the center of the dynamics of all this dance. And of course nothing can be what is seems to us at a first, second and third sight, because all is - being TV and cinema what they are in their very nature and even more so at their current hysterical state - above everything, fake.
We can guess things forever but apart from the ones who are into the center of gravity,
we can't understant deeply why this and that.
I don't think this time I went completely out the topic. If I'm wrong and I said stupid things, I'm sorry.

 

[CinemaSpy]

I think I missed the bit where it says the DSMC offers autofocus...or did I?

 

[Jason Ing]

yeah, you missed it. Red electronic lenses have AF.. autofocus.

 

[kay madsen]

*This explains the shortage of Zeiss cine lenses. ARRI placed the orders based on how many 35mm cameras they expected to sell, plus a few lens upgrades. Now there are 10x as many "hungry PL mounts" out there...

Zeiss cine lenses will be back... ARRI and Zeiss are watching the market and they will try to make use of the great lens designs they have in their drawers to make money with them. And they know if they don´t do it somebody else will serve the market. Wait a year and we will see a brand new vintage Zeiss HS prime lens set reappearing. That´s for shure.