Rent Rates - your opinions

[Jeff Coatney]

Ask a feature producer if he'd prefer to spend $500 or $1500 a day on his camera package and he'll immediately be suspicious of the $500 rate. He knows you get what you pay for.

Absolutely. The Producer wants to save money, but they want it to come from a less critical part of the budget. When the final print (or tape in this case) gets QC'd, they don't want to get dinged for technicals that put them out of business. If your business is making beautiful moving images, you don't want the bargain basement camera.

Producers want to rent the camera that they know is well maintained and will function properly and give them the best image. They don't want to rent a camera from some Schlub for a day rate they know is just barely enough to pay for the loan to buy it. They've been burned by those guys in the past. Everybody and their mother rents that cheap gear just because its cheap and its been beat to hell and it doesn't work half the time. You can't trust it.

When you're out $50,000 to $100,000 dollars for one day, you are not going to blink when someone tells you the camera and accessories runs $2,000. If they tell you the camera costs $500, you might ask "Why is it so cheap? What's wrong with it?" I've heard conversations like these. Producers think that way and they're right.

 

[Evin Grant]

There is a certain rental house here in LA that shall remain nameless. They have a few Red Ones. They tend to be cheaper than most on items like lenses and Accs. however about once a month I get a call form someone on this board asking if we can save their ass because something rented from this place didn't come right or complete or working at all. In fact I was just on a music video with a very green producer who rented one of our packages (Which are complete and prepped personally before every gig) and two other bodies from two other owner/ops. The other cameras didn't have as many Accs. so they rented from the aforementioned rental house and I swear every piece was either damaged or incomplete. The producer had to send a PA out no less than four times to get all the necessary pieces. Even for a simple item like a 15mm rod adapter which should come with the unit. Not to mention the totally nonexistent maintenance which meant the lenses all had totally different focusing drag.

The point is that at the beginning of the day that producer thought she had saved some cash this way and by the end of the day we were behind and she had to pay twice as much in overtime. This mistake usually doesn't happen twice, it's sorta Pavlovian.

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

If someone out there gives a $500 rate and has a mean sales pitch with a little knowledge to back it up, they're good as gold, that's the sad thing about the rental market. Producers will always cut corners. I guarantee that the guy that knows his RED in and out and charges a premium goes out half if not less than half as often as the guy offering a dirt cheap rate with a sly tongue.

I've heard soo many horror stories about a particular RED pacakge owner and yet his package goes out every weekend onto a new unsuspecting production......

One of the funniest bits of info I've heard on this particular guy was when he told the Director of Photography and AC that they couldn't go hand-held with the RED because the lens had no auto-focus, beautiful stuff, really.

He also completely ruined a potential all RED gig due to the fact that he continuosly remarked on how difficult it is to edit RED footage and how 35 would be soo much easier to cut, this guy's worth his weight in aluminum.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

If a $500 a day RED goes out 10 days a month...
And a $1000 a day RED goes out 5 days a month...
Both make the same money, only one gets twice the wear and tear.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I agree, $1,000 - $1,600 is perfectly fine for infrequent renters, but it might drive even more people to purchase if they shoot regularly.

If there end up being 10,000 REDs in circulation, pretty soon everyone will have a friend who owns one and there will be no rental market at all!

Just a thought.

I think there may end up many more than 10.000...

With RED you don't rent the gear anymore, but the competense to handle it. That's where the real value is and that's why there's gonna be an awfull lot of RED doorstops in a year. This is the way the music industri has worked since Cubase AV...

Everyone can buy it. Only a few can handle it.

Just my 2c

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Everyone can buy it. Only a few can handle it.

Just my 2c

well .... I wouldn't go as far as saying only a few can handle it.

I can teach pretty much any DP the Red inside and out, backwards and forwards in less than a day.

Cubase AV on the other hand ....

For the next year, it's NOT about the camera. It's about providing answers and solutions to all the mis-information and confusion. It's about making sure the client gets the very best of out the technology. It's about holding their hand as you lead them into the future. The smart producers are happy to pay for that. I like to work with smart producers.

 

[sparkhope]

....For the next year, it's NOT about the camera. It's about providing answers and solutions to all the mis-information and confusion...


.... I like to work with smart producers.

Yes but it seems both of those quantities are in limited supply. Time & "smart producers". Once the year is up and DP's & AC's can handle the answers to the misinformation and confusion, the value added by an owner/renter is driven down to the camera. And that value is further depressed by the shear numbers that RED sells. If we're talking 10,000 cameras the rental market for the body will disappear. Rental houses will give the body away to rent high end lenses and other accessories. Red's vision of democratizing high end cinema is diametrically opposed to the indie owner/renter charging 1-2k/day.

As far as the camera is concerned, I do believe that it's overbought. For the independent filmmaker, the data management & post issues brought up so far make it suitable for longform fiction and not much else. I'm not trying to offend anyone here but I really don't think there's a 4k market for docs and weddings (and yes someone on these boards mentioned he wanted to get his own red to shoot weddings).


IMO, it's all about the workflow. With all those cameras out there (hopefully shooting). Think of all the R3D's that need to be processed, graded, transcoded, archived. That's where the goldmine lies. The company that becomes the defacto post solution is the company that get's rich in the next 5 years. That is of course assuming Apple doesn't develop a 4k solution within that time (judging from their work on quicktime, I doubt they will).

 

[Mark Allen]

What good is a $600 day rate if it only guarantees that at some point your RED gets shipped back to Lake Forest for a tune up.

This is precisely why I did not upgrade my camera (yet) from the original version (89) which will some day be preplaced by the X version (X89). Until that time I am taking the reduced liability and passing that onto my customers as a lower rate. $1750 /wk with a basic package ($5000 / month). And I do negotiate based on circumstance. I also don't feel I'm bringing down the rental community because the camera isn't the same version as most people have - but it works splendidly.

 

[Jonas Nyström]

Everyone can buy it. Only a few can handle it.

Well spoken. Couldn't say it better myself. (why did I start this thread ;-)

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Red's vision of democratizing high end cinema is diametrically opposed to the indie owner/renter charging 1-2k/day.

Exactly.

The owner/operator business model is a fleeting proposition.

Fleeting FAST.

if you are building a business on that - you better better have a PLAN B.

You don't hire an editor because they own Final Cut Pro. Everybody owns Final Cut Pro. Sooner than you think .... everybody owns a RED.

One thing I am hearing "on the street" is some production companies trying to decide if they should buy Red's because all their favorite DPs are getting them - but they know the numbers - and they are thinking - we shoot xxx days per month - at XXX per day - let's just buy the camera.

 

[Jonas Nyström]

One thing I am hearing "on the street" is some production companies trying to decide if they should buy Red's because all their favorite DPs are getting them - but they know the numbers - and they are thinking - we shoot xxx days per month - at XXX per day - let's just buy the camera.

As for me myself!

So the RED revolution is, as well, the end of the renting business (greatly exaggerated)?

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Exactly.

The owner/operator business model is a fleeting proposition.

Fleeting FAST.

if you are building a business on that - you better better have a PLAN B.

You don't hire an editor because they own Final Cut Pro. Everybody owns Final Cut Pro. Sooner than you think .... everybody owns a RED.

One thing I am hearing "on the street" is some production companies trying to decide if they should buy Red's because all their favorite DPs are getting them - but they know the numbers - and they are thinking - we shoot xxx days per month - at XXX per day - let's just buy the camera.

agree on that....on the other hand there exists a hvx200 rental market

 

[sparkhope]

agree on that....on the other hand there exists a hvx200 rental market

I wondered about that as well. How has that market evolved and how much life blood does it still have? That market seems to belong to the pro rental houses that keep the camera in stock but not rely on it to pay their overhead. In many ways I feel the same about the RED one. Once the "overbought" camera are sold or consigned to the rental houses - they'll use the body to push high end accessories. Granted I don't know when we can expect that to happen but if RED really sells 10,000 cameras who knows...it might be sooner than later.

Sorry maybe off topic: has the pace of camera orders slowed down? Based on serial number it seems like they've been getting 100 orders per month since the beginning of the year. It makes me doubt they could really get to that 10,000 number anytime soon...at least before another company introduces another whizzbang product that renders obsolescence obsolete

 

[LIONSDEN_DOMINICK]

i think industry standard is more like 5% of cost.. Or at least thats what our rental house rents out equipment at, plus a low price guarantee doesn't hurt! what needs to be realized is that all the mounting gear that RED has to offer cost money so those prices need to be accounted for.

Dominick Estarella

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i think industry standard is more like 5% of cost.. Or at least thats what our rental house rents out equipment at, plus a low price guarantee doesn't hurt! what needs to be realized is that all the mounting gear that RED has to offer cost money so those prices need to be accounted for.

Dominick Estarella

wow if someone rents 20 days he could buy the stuff...really expensive

 

[sparkhope]

i think industry standard is more like 5% of cost.. Or at least thats what our rental house rents out equipment at, plus a low price guarantee doesn't hurt! what needs to be realized is that all the mounting gear that RED has to offer cost money so those prices need to be accounted for.

Dominick Estarella

Wow 5%? That sounds like airport or club med prices...

 

[Mark Allen]

wow if someone rents 20 days he could buy the stuff...really expensive

Except most rentals have 3 day weeks or 10 day months.

So, it would be like 2 months before purchasing would make sense. Of course, that's based on 5% and if someone was renting for 2 months, the rental house might get agressive with their discounts, maybe even 2.5% making it 4 months = a purchase... and then, you figure... yeah if you're renting something for 4 months, the renter should definitely be considering a purchase.

 

[Jason Sinclair]

These discussions are for guides but at the end of the day, the market will decide it's value. Basic economics really. The guy renting at $500 a day through his web site is not going to satisfy everyone if his cam is out all the time and so will raise his price or leave other producers to find other methods. People who have the right accessories and more options will be sweet as no producer wants to run around all over the place getting accessories unless of course the project is low budget and that's what needs to be done. Whoever says red is not suitable for weddings or ENG kind of work had better check out this thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=11082
There is also the corporate market and the DOP/quality will be just too irresistible to the corporate market because it looks so much better than most video. Then there's internet advertising which producers will be looking for cheaper solutions but getting a nice look. Red on the web still looks 100 times better than hvx on the web.
In my personal experience when i recently produced a Television commercial I chose a red owner over rental house. At that time the red owner had the camera for 3 months and i knew he was a regular here and knows his stuff. I rented an assistant of his to be on camera and data wrangle (we left all other camera operations to the camera dept.) and this workflow was perfect. So the cam owner had bought all the right computer equipment for his cam and own personal situation and of course the workflow was tested, so i didn't need to go through all the trouble of sourcing that (card readers, external hard drives etc...) The $600 a day i payed for the assistant paid for itself in industry advice and knowledge of a complete system as well as training dop and camera crew with the new cam.
Having worked with computer systems you quickly realize that there are a lot of bugs between devices. Having said that i payed the $600 for tech (macbook pro and all accessories) because i shot the TVC in Dec and as far as i know was the first one shot in australia on red. I would have done some checking around if there were more cams. The total package came to $1600 or so and i think we got everything for production.
I didn't balk at this because i have a cam coming and i wanted to make sure how it went in the real world. I must say, suitably impressed on many angles. In the future i would defiantly pay $4oo for a wrangler/tech but would prefer a good DOP who owned his/her own equipment.At the end of the day they are at home working on it and making it go right and the get so use to the camera they set it up quicker etc
So at the end of the day, the market will dictate. A lot of entry level producers and directors will go red because the only thing they can offer is cheaper prices in order to get their clients. There's always higher level clients who don't worry about throwing money at anything for their marketing expenses and obviously everyone wants these clients but the reality is that 90% of the clients have their own costing structure problems (i imagine in the US at this moment, due to the economic market. this consideration will even be more compelling) Everyone with a budget will cut it first where they can see getting similar results for less money. That is the law of economics. We heard the arguments with photographers when dslr's first arrived. How many had to change their opinions over night or lose their jobs! Especially middle level ops. The top guys will always get work. So if your cv reads well, and i'm talking top level, then you have little problems. You'll probably be looking into emerging technologies any way.
The main cool thing about a rental shop is the range of accessories and i'm sure every major city will get specialists working in the hire shop and also have a list of techs. This will be desirable especially with having a one shop shop that can supply a full gamut for the various different productions. I mean that's what happens in audio visual production, each new project has different criteria and budgets. There's a number of projects i have that look very appealing with slr lenses for example and not just on a price point either.
Most early red adopters should get their cameras paid for in the first few years and have food on the table and mortgages being payed.
The only real way i can see red owners taking advantage of this sweet spot in time is to band together and create collectives where they have full production bundles available, group buy/share, and also be self relegating to weed out incompetent peoples. I am amazed more people haven't done this but there seems to be a couple of groups on this site that have been very successful from doing so.

 

[James T Mather]

Everyone can buy it. Only a few can handle it.

Just my 2c

I think this is grandiose nonsense- the Red - apart from some teething headaches (IR contamination etc) - is one of the simplest cameras to work. Try lacing up a Millennium XL or a Mitchell.

Within six months of it being widely available all AC's will have a thorough working knowledge of the camera.

 

[Jonas Nyström]

Everyone can buy a hammer. It's easy to use. It wont make you into a carpenter though.