This article irked me

[Steve Sherrick]

Read article here

I mean, I work with all kinds of cameras, not devoted to only shooting RED. I've loved a lot of things RED has done, and disagreed with plenty. This article just rings hollow to me.

Chuck has some fair points and I won't take any shots at him for his opinion. The "everyone wants to shoot on Arri" might be a bit overstated. No doubt that Arri has done very well on the high end cinema camera side but there are people who for one reason or another like the image from other cameras better. Or need the extra resolution for certain projects. But he's not that far off with this claim. Arri is very popular, no doubt about it and I do work with it quite a bit when I work on Hollywood productions.

Robbie, well, he admits he's a Blackmagic fanboy and I can't help but state that that was pretty obvious three paragraphs in. I have no problem with Blackmagic. I still own the little Pocket camera, still find it kind of fun to shoot every once in a while. But I can't help but see the irony in his statement about being burned by RED cameras on set for far too long, when the list of quality control issues and horrible late delivery schedules have plagued Blackmagic in the past. RED has had issues along the way too, so neither company is exempt here, but I wouldn't hang my hat on that being a win for BMD. If you want to debate IQ, well, that will lead into all kinds of subjective discussion. Personally, I think there are certain parts of the BMD IQ that hold up well and other parts that don't. I also think RED has some weaknesses in IQ as well, but still holds up as one of the more robust cinematic images in the industry. Ultimately, I'm okay with whatever people choose to film with, just seemed like someone wanted to get on stage and rip RED a new one.

Lewis is the one I probably have the biggest issue with. To me this one just smells of sour grapes for a failed business plan. Buying expensive cinema cameras requires a reasonably well thought out business plan that takes into account ROI, and it just seems like his purchase was haphazard and now he is using that to diss RED. Just seems like a cheap shot.

Anyway, figured some of you may come across this article and have your own feelings. Maybe you agree with some of the stuff in there, maybe you don't. I just feel without RED doing what they did, when they did it, the industry would have taken its time to push the boundaries, perhaps focusing a bit too much on incremental updates that kept profit margins high. And if people feel that regardless of RED doing what they did at the time, that Arri eventually won (or is winning) the IQ battle, well, so be it. But even then, probably have to give RED some credit for pushing them. I think the competition has been good for both companies. And, I think there's plenty of room for all of the other companies to supply quality cameras to the variety of markets out there. BMD, Panasonic, Sony, Fuji, Sigma, etc. are all doing cool things. Let's hope we get coronavirus behind us so we can enjoy all those cool things.

 

[Tom S]

1st Guy:
"They still produce high quality cinematic images, so I must commend them for that."

I can't take the other two seriously.

 

[Christopher S Johnson]

Hot Beats is a new editorial series where we get to dish out our takes on current trends and gear to help stoke an interactive conversation with you!

Self proclaimed clickbait. They wrote this so that Red fanboys would get salty and spread it.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Self proclaimed clickbait. They wrote this so that Red fanboys would get salty and spread it.

Well, guess I fell for it.

 

[Phil Holland]

I should write like a real long history of digital cinema reply. It's the rare time where I have time to do such things. There's a lot of "how did we get to here" and "where we are now" that needs citing.

Should I?

 

[John Brennick]

I should write like a real long history of digital cinema reply. It's the rare time where I have time to do such things. There's a lot of "how did we get to here" and "where we are now" that needs citing.

Should I?

+1..... A lot of people are going to have plenty of time to digest your thoughts. Have at it. I look forward to reading it! Stay safe Phil!

 

[Phil Holland]

*warning* big post incoming.

Okay. I'll jump in with some Grounded Beats and Grounded Thoughts. I mean that sounds cool I'll do my best to fanboy, but I'll super spice things up with a couple of critiques in there too! This article is a mixture of a click bait title, realistic POV, and and individual's takes mainly from the most recent camera perspective, all fine. If you're writing for outlets like this you do need to do something to attract readers. The author is actually pretty earnest in most other ways and and he does drop a mega high five for REDuser as a community being a useful forum for cinematographers, so I'll come at this really from a different angle of how we got here. Which I think is far more important of a topic for the industry, the future of RED, and hell I should sold this story.

I'm fine with him and others having their own opinion, that is of course their own personal experience and POV, but I am in the rare situation where I'm strangely close with nearly all current camera manufacturers and perhaps more importantly my professional career has spanned through the entirety of digital cinema as the transition to digital as the primary medium over film transpired.

First I just want to say, more or less at the moment the higher end through mid-range narrative world and commercial shoots are ruled by 3 brands. RED, Arri, and Sony. Canon is making a welcomed and triumphant comeback, which will be likely more notable once the world starts spinning after we squash out this virus. There's some interesting numbers when it comes to camera sales across these brands versus high profile work shot, and we moderately see yearly some sort of goad against brand X, Y, or Z because they didn't make the Academy Awards or did. I really want to square that thought off as there are numerous reasons people choose each system for a production over some of the lower price tier cameras. At the same time we've seen those lower tier cameras increase drastically in performance and really only across the last few years.

RED Stuff.

2007. Yep. RED set the world on fire with the RED One and at that time the industry was probably about. At a time where really only high budget films got to treat themselves to a true film scanning/recording pipeline or *gasp* a pure optical workflow, the early digital cinema cameras were expensive and "not wonderful" in a variety of ways. R1 was aggressively priced when some of the other options really were in the $200,000-$400,000 arena. It was $17,500 at launch and plus accessories you could get up and running for sub $50K and have better image quality than damn near everything on the market at the time. All add the caveat that Arri was coming too with the D-20 (2005), D-21 (2008, and especially when ARRIRAW was implemented), and the eventual D-22/D-23 Alexa (2010) that we are all familiar with. Interestingly Arri was real clear that that lineup was designed for a great 2K finish btw. That was one of the key marketing things and they did publicly state that a 4K Alexa was on the map for 2011, which never came to be for reasons occasionally discussed as well. Other fun options of the time were the Panavision Genesis (2005), which you couldn't buy. The Thomson Viper, SI-2K, Phantom, and others were all in there as well as more "video-minded" options. All representing different costs of ownership, accessibility, and image quality levels. RED's big innovations were an affordable camera designed for cinema, compressed RAW (solving a huge problem at the time), interchangeable mounts, and a few other things that they continued to build on. They clearly sold a good bunch of cameras. A very interesting thing happened in the era of R1. The lens market and cinema accessory business grew. An eventually grew a lot.

Interlude - I think we need to think about the DV era of the XL-1 and 2 as well as the DVX100 looking far back at how things were. Remember interlaced? Some younger filmmakers have never had to deal with that. Truthfully though, the Panasonic HVX200 really was setting up the industry for some trends that would stick until this day. And no, I don't miss our 35mm adapters with ground glass. I still have my Brevis35 baby!

2009. With DSMC RED solved a lot of criticisms, complaints, and general workflow related stuff in a much more nimble and industry changing modular body. Some of this was interestingly in relationship to 3D productions which goes in and out of fashion like striped stockings. I know this because my first ever in person interaction with Jim was chatting with him about features we needed/desired for a studio film to be shot in 3D in 2008/2009 and the studio decided on another system over the RED One. DSMC launches with Epic and it became the go to 3D cinema package, I mean that was clear. With DSMC Epic we had a smaller, more sophisticated camera, at a higher price. Objectively it was also one of the two highest quality digital cinema cameras available at the time.

Interlude II - In 2008 both Canon and Nikon jumped in with DSLRs that shot video. Both were doing it, Nikon launched about a week earlier, but Canon's 5D MK II took the industry by storm. And I mean it. That single camera outsold the entire video camera lineup at Canon, which led to the eventual hard push to get Canon to release Cinema Cameras. I would say it would be an understatement how much the motion picture accessory and product market grew in the subsequent years as the market grew. These cameras also changed the face of the industry while barely resolving 700 lines. People wanted more and more from these cameras and rather quickly they got it.

Keypoint I - The Rise of the Owner/Op. That term did not exist before RED. That career path honestly didn't really exist except for very few individuals before the RED One hit the market.

2011. DSMC was popular and received well across the industry, but RED was still expanding it's market. Though there was a Scarlet 2/3"s planned (good old 3K for $3K), the body was rad, but with the way the industry was trending, it would have been a massive mistake for RED to release such a camera. Especially with competition heating up. I stated as much back then rather publicly and we all know that Scarlet-X landed as RED's next more affordable Digital Cinema Camera on the very same day that Canon Cinema EOS was announced. While there were cost differences, the base bodies were around the same price. However, RED was focused on 4K and 4K+ and Canon didn't start there, but man if they did the industry might look a smidge different.

Interlude III - Lots of DSLRs, eventually Mirrorless, and an expanding range of more affordable cameras started to flow in and noticeably rise in sales.

2015-2020. DSMC bodies were on the market for agbout 5/6 years now. And DSMC2 was looking to stay modular, get smaller, and become a far more robust and rounded digital cinema camera with dual REDCODE RAW and Mezzanine Codec recording onto a mag. RED went hardcore by expanding the lineup to various sensor technologies as well as format sizes, which was one of the major lacking areas that separated film from digital still. Especially on cameras you could physically buy. RED Raven was the most affordable camera RED released with a Dragon 4.5K sensor. But more notable was the dual format focus on not just 5K and 6K, but the push to 8K in Super 35mm and VistaVision formats. I don't need to be the one who underlines it, but RED big innovations outside of workflow related stuff really comes in the form of modularity, format size, and that focus on 4K. This is much more obvious currently as now every manufacturer now offers a 4K digital cinema cameras as well as different format sizes. This wasn't the case even when DSMC2 was initially launched and honestly not until recently. One thing I still like about DSMC2 is the "cableless" approach. That's innovation that has saved time and money on set, of course at the cost of accessories to drive that. Or whatever module(s) you needed for your desired camera package.

Also in here it should be noted that RED developed Ranger, which eventually became a product attainable to all. They also made the custom large Xenomorphs for Fincher (as well as the carbon fiber RED Ones prior for Social Network if I recall correctly). And perhaps the biggest impact for Panavision, the DXL and DXL2. Which allowed for an in house and collaboratively developed camera, solving the glaring absence of what large format NASA White Camera was supposed to be. These are more ideal for general day to day studio shoots as they are larger, and less flexible then the "however you want to rig it" DSMC2 counterparts. It should also be noted that RED's made a few other custom cameras for special applications and clients that we've seen here and there.

 

[Phil Holland]

Interlude IV - Blackmagic Design enters the game (2013-2020). Through a combination of really good supporting hardware sales, the Australian government, and the growing desire for highly affordable digital cinema cameras, BMD came onto the scene. Some interesting innovation in form factor early on with the CC, but they got more attention from the market with the PCCs and Ursa. Not particularly attracting the needs and desires of higher end professional productions, but certainly attracting and inspiring filmmakers looking for affordable options. Which at this point was/is a much larger audience.

Sidebar - Sony checking in. Rather publicly in the 2000s, Sony stated they didn't want to come to the 4K party until about 2015. But they had cameras that people enjoyed using like the F35 and F900 was certainly popular. I personally enjoyed the F65, but it was far from a popular camera and there was some rather weird marketing behind it. They came back with a stronger impact with the F55 which had a big "moment" industry-wide briefly, then fell off rapidly. Venice arrived most recently and certainly has inspired peeps to get back into the Sony ecosystem again. Panasonic's Varicam had a similar industry presence in my mind to the F55, but truthfully I haven't seen them much on set at all. It's been the big 3 mainly still. I do think Canon with the C500 MK II in particular and likely their next Cinema EOS offering is going to come back strong, but the C700 didn't latch on hardcore for narrative and commercial work.

Key Point II, Market and Industry Growth - I can't stress how small the industry was in the 90s through the 2000s. Once media began to really expand across a bazillion cable channels and the noticeably large explosion of streaming services and now streaming studios the professional motion picture market is the largest it's ever been in history. Equally as apparent the industry has become insanely dynamic in terms of types of productions shot as well as insane variety across budget ranges.

Interlude V - Lots to mention, but some things that are hard to understand in today's faster moving times. DSMC2 came out literally 5 years ago. In that time both 4K and 8K SDI standards were finalized as well as Single Cable HDMI for 4K and 8K (very recent!). Many manufacturers started producing knock-off products internationally for better or worse at sometimes ruthlessly cheap prices. RED had a growing journey and combination of sourcing parts internationally as well as manufacturing, assembling, and QC locally in *gasp* the USA and even crazier California, which is not done by anybody else. They also put a hardcore focus on quality components. Considering their market was not only the highest end filmmakers, but also the Military, NASA, etc. So connectors like much more expensive and rugged LEMO were explored. RED's made a clear focus on creating professional tools for professionals while trying to expand into various pricing tiers. I can only hope this trend continues because the industry still needs well built, durable, and robust machines to do the job. Good enough is nice, but it's not good when it's not enough. And that's one sure fire way to not get your cameras on big jobs, which we've unfortunately seen for a couple manufacturers.

Special Interlude VI - Media! I don't dare to bring up the fact that flash based media has evolved over the last 5 years. Ranging from non-existant for professional cameras, to widely used in entry level bodies with a few higher end bodies tapping into things like CFast 2.0 and CFexpress. Shockingly this all happened after DSMC2 was even developed. And while the new mass market speedier media is very empowering and affordable, many ignore the actual tested performance and over provisioning needed to record larger motion files to these newer standard versus the sticker speeds and get the needed performance. But everybody is learning that now with CFast 2.0 being on the market for a while now and the hard limitations of CFexpress currently. Much faster than before certainly, but not as wonderful as you may think. RED, like Arri(Codex) and others, focused on developing their proprietary media, but it's important to identify that in 2014/2015 that there wasn't really anything else that could support 300MB/s even. I don't want to go too much deeper, but likely literally down to the evolution of batteries technology has been moving forward and changing the face of what's possible in higher end cameras as well as more mass market minded tools.

Those two 'ludes leads me to the somewhat shocker likely to all of us. RED Komodo.

The Baby Dragon has been baking in the RED Womb for a while now (weird visual there, sorry). At this moment Scarlet-X and Raven have been the most affordable cameras to date, but that also required you to rig up around the DSMC or DSMC2 ecosystem with the mentioned costly componets, which is a notable difference between lower end systems. But RED is now going for the mass-ier market with a sub $10K that not only doesn't necessary require expensive first party modules, but is now fully inclusive using off the shelf 3rd party components and media. Meaning it has a built in monitor, controls, battery mount, and lens mount as well as using CFast 2.0 media. You just add a lens, battery, CFast 2.0 card, and an optional display of some sort - then you're up and rolling. It's clearly being made a bit differently to come in at it's price point, but it is being built on RED sensor tech, REDCODE RAW, and adhering to the general rugged mindset RED has put forward with all of their cameras to date. (And yes it's possible to break anything and chaos does occasionally happen, but I will say I've never had a RED camera melt or set fire, which I can't say about some others.) But as somebody who's seen the little beast prior to release, I can say it's an absurdly small and powerful little camera that will likely surprise a few people in ways they didn't expect once they get their hands on them. I do hope sincerely RED keeps making cameras that stretch across pricing tiers, focused on quality, and continue to push the industry forward. They seem to have desires to service all aspects of the motion picture industry with these tools. And Komodo perhaps signals a way to grow a new line to compliment current and future cameras. Though the article references a hints at a negative connotation, the shear growing success and likely lessons learned from all of the previous cameras are what allows for something like Komodo to even happen. It's insane that a newer company can develop something as unique as this within this price point and not simply be boxing up a bunch of existing bits which has become common fair as of late.

Article Gripe - Generally the article is anti-RED, which is fine, but that note about "No HDMI Port" and literally not mentioning the extremely wanted 4K SDI out alludes to the author's unique use case and lack of requirement or knowledge of why professional sets mostly use SDI rather than HDMI. I don't want to come off as too sour as even he, though through title of the article doesn't appear to be interested, still seems potentially investing in RED if "the company starts to change its course, that could definitely change. They still produce high quality cinematic images, so I must commend them for that." And to the latter is really the reason we're likely all here.

Sensory Overload - I think with Komodo's announcement of a global shutter 6K sensor in such a small form factor body and Jim's famous quote about the importance of pixel design for the future of digital cinema cameras, I think we're seeing what RED has done well. I certainly had my criticisms over the original M and Mysterium-X sensors, which can be found if you search far enough back here. But Dragon, Dragon's improvements stepping up to DSMC2, Helium, Gemini, and the freaky good Monstro sensor tech showcase some major improvements in color, dynamic range, as well as resolution. We haven't seen another company explore and produce such a wide variety of sensors across a single line and in my mind I see them like different film stocks. Which does get back to that tagline of a "film alternative". The general RED workflow, color pipeline, and honestly everything has matured for the better. That puts them in a good place moving forward. There's literally RED cameras all over the world shooting every from $200+ million blockbusters to low-budge web ads as well as being thrown into space and deep into the sea. Although very new by the industry standards, they have overall become a trusted brand at studios, on sets, and for DPs. Which is an accomplishment in itself.

Keypoint III - One last one. So much has changed really in the last 5 years that it really makes my mind go wild to think about what's next for RED. We know Komodo is coming in the face of this global virus storm and that camera is a surprise to many. But DSMC3 might be very different looking due to many of the advancements in motion picture technology as well as the industry as a whole. I'm looking forward to whatever that ends up being.

 

[Phil Holland]

Quicky Article Response - I don't know the author, but many of the key points he makes sort of ignore what the camera industry was 3-6 years ago as well as overlook why things might be the way they are. Most answers are simple like "this is what was needed to make the camera do this when it was designed". But the note about expensive modules and things ignores the biggest strengths of such a solution. Literally one repair that spans every manufacturer is when somebody stands or snags a cable and then you lose monitor out to video village and then have a dead camera on set, which really sucks if you have a $$,$$$ camera on any budget production. With the modular approach even if you have that level of chaos, you swap modules and not your $15,000-$85,000 camera out. There's a hell of a lot of value to that when you have 10-300 people floating around your camera on set. It's also shocking because I know it's something BMD deals with when that big butt built in monitor snaps off when a camera drop occurs or whatever. That's a dead camera. But there's a place for both ecosystems, it just always worries me when people don't see that other side to the coin.

I will say to younger and newer filmmakers, you do need to work up to big boy toys and you know it. I've seen a lot of people jump before they can walk financially in regards to camera gear. If you are going the path of ownership of high end gear make sure you are ready for that commitment. Lewis's journey certainly alludes to the bitter and the sweet side of that coming in real late to the R1 game after entirely new lines were available and on the market (sort of like buying a C100 in 2020 really). I've seen more bitter and I've certainly seen more sweet journeys. But if you ever find yourself spending "car money" or "house money" on camera equipment you need to be prepared.

Everybody's path will be different there as well as everybody's unique financial circumstance and career momentum. Everybody has a unique story of how and when they moved up to the bigger stuff. We see a lot of success stories here on REDuser too, but equally on other forums and social media groups. When I saved up for my Scarlet-MX back in the day I worked insanely hard to be able to do that. I was very much in a similar state of mind that Lewis was in, but my situation was much more different as I left a $100mil studio and suddenly didn't have the resources or tools I needed for my studio clients when I went out on my own. That first year was a dizzying storm of "how the hell am I going to do this and do it the way I want". I didn't need a RED One or Epic originally because I worked in an ecosystem where I had any gear I need at my disposal.

A comment on RED's menu system being complicated. That's been a glorious complaint for far too long, so long that people don't complain about it much anymore. I will absolutely commend BMD on the job they've done with the PCC6K's menu and they too have been disruptive in pricing in particular, but if you look at cameras like the C500 MKII or FX9 and don't state they are um... deep wells of layered mystery with those menus, I don't know what people are thinking. Even that has become less of an argument from the Arri camp. It's 2020 and I don't mind being a little less friendly about the subject of menus and general camera operation. No matter your camera, get to know the tools. You're getting paid to know them. I understand it's harder if you don't work with systems often, but take and make notes. I literally test and dissect nearly every camera released because there's a weird day when somebody is going to hire me to use it and I won't fall victim to not knowing how or deeply understanding how to get the best out of the camera or medium. We're not exactly in the era where you need to swap sprockets in a movement or pull a gate anymore and it shows. That's moderately why I've been focused on doing workshops and you guys know my datasheets over the years because I learned often on set how to do all that. I don't think I ever had a moment where I was put in front of a camera and said it was too hard or confusing. I only see a tool to be curious about and learn. Then you can have your quibbles for sure. Everything is a finger touch away, but you'll always need to know where no matter what you use, and I imagine Komodo will be even easier. We already see some GUI stuff that hints at that.

One last thought. I think it's apparent we're in a generational gap among filmmakers spanning age and experience (which is actually really cool), I'm not exactly a boomer, but I did start weirdly young on films and a lot of people I learned from were 30 years deep into it. We also have access to some of our favorite DPs and have been able to track their amazing journeys often through interviews. If you've been following me on the gram recently I've been writing a bit about working with the Genesis, Viper, and film as well as touching on the impact of digital industry-wide. Did a couple of good podcasts last year too on the subject. They'll be a time soon when people won't even know were were using auxiliary lenses on cell phones to get wide and long shots, hell I imagine some of the people who even used them didn't know they were called that before. The Motion Picture Industry is indeed all about Art and Science, as such it's always had ties to technology advancing. It's literally always been that way and is part of advancing the craft. We're now at a stage where technology is moving extremely quickly and you can see that reflected on the frequency of products released, product road maps, and yearly and even quarterly leaps in what is possible. How we got here is actually a delightful drama, comedy, tragedy, and action/suspence/thriller of Kodak, Fujifilm, companies we don't much talk about anymore, RED, and really everybody who's around now, and yes! BMD is in there too. Soon you'll see a couple new names on the street contributing to discomfort and disruption, which will once again cause a stir in the pot. Even when film was the only medium, things were always changing. Just not as quickly and actually sometimes about as quickly too.

I want to end on an emphasis of one of Robbie's quotes, "RED has done basically nothing to keep up with current camera trends." I like this one as we sit on moment where we are not only getting new camera in a new form factor with a wild sensor that apparently solves one of the larger issues of CMOS sensors (not the rolling shutter/global shutter, but rather the possibility of sensor smear), but likely also getting a whiff of DSMC3 hopefully later this year. I won't say RED has created the entire market or influenced all the current camera trends, but you'd be a fool to not recognize the impact on the cameras, the sensors, the workflow, and the accessories that RED helped build. You'd be in a far different place if RED didn't innovate and jump into the game when they did. I'm certain at some point somebody would have come to the party in a moderately similar way, but certainly not this exact way and even more certainly not from a company that existed back then. I'm a big fan of BMD gear with an army of their products surrounding me. RED is now jumping into the entry level professional price point for the very first time and has built their brand off of innovation, disruption, quality, and outside of the box thinking. Most of us who are long time owners/shooters of RED has also seen that the company is generally one that "figures stuff out". I don't need to sort of highlight the humor behind 6K or large format being "a current camera trend" and RED doing that in 2013 and most everybody else coming to that party last year, meanwhile RED got criticized for "nobody needing 6K" and "it's too much data" for seven years. Alarmingly similar to the journey of 4K from HD, or 5K, or most recently 4 years ago, 8K.

Woof. Tried not to be too sharp edged there. But it seems some of the community only tuned in 2017 and onward or they have short memories.

I mean all of this in jest really. I do think the tools we have today at all price points are incredibly empowering for filmmakers at all levels. I have cameras from all of these companies at nearly ever price point because I use them. Image quality is my first and foremost concern with any camera I use, don't even care about ergonomics or menu if it makes images I'm happy with. But I use others for many of them because they fit a bit more squarely into a certain hole. But I do have my bar set high when it comes to image quality as do most discerning professionals. It starts there.

*forgive any typos, my copy editor is me

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I have a simple input on the article, it's the same opinions I hear all over the place outside of Red communities. I still like to work with Red cameras, but observations made by many people in Sweden is that no one chooses Red anymore. It's Arri all over the place and when it's not Arri, it's Sony Venice.

We can defend and point out errors in reasoning but it doesn't matter, Red is loosing hype and I would agree with some in the article pointing out that Komodo is the biggest thing Red has at the moment. I personally don't care about DSMC3 anymore, I'm quitting the main line of cameras since I have nothing to gain over what a camera like Komodo would theoretically be able to do. Other times I will rent gear when needed and it's not certain I would even rent a Red at those times. What they are talking about in the article is the same thing I've vented at other sections of this forum; about the camera market reaching a diminishing return in what cameras can achieve and that means prices are falling. The ones keeping their cameras at an insane price-tag will not survive.

Komodo is the most critical thing to get right at the moment, that I agree with.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

3 years after MYSTERIUM-X, RED DRAGON busts open the high-resolution, high-dynamic range game with 40% more resolution and a claim of 14dB more dynamic range.

4 years after DRAGON, Helium offers 82% more pixels with technically no more dynamic range. But clearly more clean dynamic range after it gets settled into DSMC2 (post Weapon) skins. A long year after that (Dragon VV never made it to commercial scale), Monstro offers no increase in pixel count, but clearly an improvement in pixel quality. In-camera proxies further demonstrate the power of ever-advancing silicon technology. It is, five years after DRAGON, a true and worthy successor that reset the bar in RED's space.

Now, 3-4 years later (depending on how you count), what is really new? Not more pixels, not higher dynamic range, and not higher frame rates. We *still* can't focus an 8K image in 4K. And don't get me started on the cost of media.

Komodo offers a new camera, but one aimed at an entirely different market than the "A" camera market. For those of us who were eagerly following the mantra "obsolete obsolescence", there's not much to write home about in the "A" camera space. As good as Monstro is today (and it is good), it is 3 year old technology in an industry that simply does not stand still. Komodo will re-set the price-performance equation, but it's a disruption more to the RED ecosystem than the rest of the world, which now has 8K cellphones and smaller RAW-recording cameras. It's very much a jump-ball.

Meanwhile, Monstro continues to be a great camera, as measured by a 2017 yardstick. It's good that RED can sell battle-tested Monstros for $35K off the website, but whether priced as new or as used, the market is behaving the way the market does when it sees a flagship motoring along on autopilot. It's looking for who has the juice leading into 2021. RED has delivered before, which is why we are still watching this space. But the longer it takes for that next delivery, the more eyes will be captured by others who have sexier things to sell in the mean time.

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

As the article is about opinions, there's not much point to argue about them. Although I shot a lot of wildlife stuff alone with Red One and carried the camera, accessories, tripod, mics etc. in a rucksack for miles to get to the scenes, never felt it was a difficult camera to use. Sure, Red One was bit heavy, but definitely it was a manageable camera in cold, rain, and dirt. Ironically, in fact it was the best camera I've ever had in extreme cold; even it was -35C (i.e., -31F), did not need gloves to operate the camera.

What comes to the future, there is a point that cameras are developing along the same path as what sound equipment have done in the past. The difference between high end and low end equipment is getting narrower, and in this respect, camera markets are in a significant change. Especially, when it becomes possible to shoot (compressed) raw motion images with low end cameras possibly supported with in-camera AI processing –say, for example, to fake with resolution and dynamics– this will reshape the markets.

 

[M Harvey]

Thanks for the perspective, Phil-- your synthesis of these discrete moments into a timeline really fills in a lot that the Premium Beat guys missed.

Question about this:

Keypoint I - The Rise of the Owner/Op. That term did not exist before RED. That career path honestly didn't really exist except for very few individuals before the RED One hit the market.

I think of RED as maybe the first instance where the person who makes commercials for the auto dealership in Phoenix might own the same camera as the person making music videos in L.A., which is the same camera used for LORD OF THE RINGS. But back in the day, the first maybe owned the DVX100 or similar, the second maybe owned a 16mm camera (or more likely borrowed it from the college where she was the equipment room manager), and the production probably rented a package in the traditional manner. So there were owner/ops, they just were more limited in what market they served with their equipment?

Also would be curious to hear your perspective on some of the early low-budget digital video efforts-- remember InDigEnt, movies like PIECES OF APRIL and TADPOLE?

Anyway, for me the most irritating thing about that article was that the writers don't seem to recognize where their point of view is coming from. This history fills in a piece of it-- but I also have to wonder what it is that they're shooting, with what kind of crews? I'd agree that Sony and Blackmagic and Canon can all make great images-- and I've owned cameras from all three--, but there are reasons I spend the money to rent RED that have more to do with enabling a certain mode of professional production. In my world, I've never heard a complaint about having the attach an external monitor!

 

[Phil Holland]

Also would be curious to hear your perspective on some of the early low-budget digital video efforts-- remember InDigEnt, movies like PIECES OF APRIL and TADPOLE?

It was an interesting ecosystem early on. My career started in the 90s mainly on the film side, though the first film I shot was actually *gasp* VHS, but what was digital video and how it encroached into cinema was a developing trend. Specifically in the late 90s and early 2000s. And that was also where those renegade low budget films spawned from. I'm talking productions in the $50,000-$300,000 range.

Larger budget-wise, I turned down working on Star Wars Episode II (which was an extremely hard career decision at the time). Panavision's Sony HDWF900 (F900F) really put digital in the forefront as a consideration for larger budget VFX films. No matter your thoughts on the film itself, it was a very bold decision to go that route for the project. That was filming in 2000 before the 2002 release, a lot of post work obviously and a lot of real bleeding edge stuff going on.

I worked on a B-Horror film with a budget of about $315,000 called Devil Girl in 2006 (DVX-100). The same year I worked on the first Night at the Museum Film ($60m) and Even Almighty ($200m). Had a wild. It was common for me to work on big stuff throwout the year and then dip off for some lower budget productions once or twice a year in the 2000s, but it certainly gave me some perspective. In 2005 I worked on another horror film the year prior called Sam Hell (DVX-100) that was well under $100,000 the same year I was working on Superman Returns ($220m) shot on the Panavision Genesis, the first real big project shot with that cam. That film was riddled with post workflow challenges early on, but once we were in stride it was smoother sailing. After I worked on Superman Returns in particular I knew big films and studios would be exploring digital much more frequently. In this era there were only a few decent digital cinema options around, but at that point the industry had the taste in it's mouth to want to explore digital for another bite. More or less laying the groundwork for companies like RED and Arri in particular to focus on their cameras.

Side note, I did indeed work at the studio with the OG 4K film scanner and we were initially in a 4K for 2K workflow or 4K pure pushing out to either Solitaire CRT based recorders or our two LUX 4K Laser Recorders. We eventually went to the 4K Arrilaser and switched over to the 6K Northlight Scanner. Interestingly we often upscaled and sharpned through a nice kernel to our recorders 2K going to 4K, but the 4K workflow pure looked very good and that occurred a few times. Some of the initial 6K shows also were 2K deliveries, but there were times where we worked in 6K. From there we did lots of experiments with film scanning, specifically larger format. Imagica had the 8K S35 scanner at the time, which I wasn't personally in love with because the Northlight was far sexier to work with. But through custom scanners we explored at various other places scanning at very high resolution, above 18K, but really that wasn't needed. These days 70mm 15-perf is mostly an 11K workflow scan-wise. The potential for 70mm to hold a lot of resolution is there, but due to how much the film wiggles and the cameras vibrate it starts encroaching on potential resolution a smidge. Depends on the stock of course. The numbers on my site are accurate to the potential resolution film can have when shot well and brought through a feature film level post workflow because, well that's what it was/is.

Back to early digital success. The ones that really hit home for me we things like Fincher's Zodiac which was shot on the Viper between 2005-2006 with about a $65m budget. I was truly impressed with what they were able to get look-wise. The Viper was somewhere between a cursed camera and blessing in my world. One of the harder films I worked on with that camera on set was eventually called Chasing Happiness (I wasn't the DP) and though released in 2012, we worked on it in 2007 and that Viper camera was not inspiring a lot of love.

But I think most relevant to our current "situation" is indeed 28 Days Later. That was a less than $10m budget and shot on the Canon XL1 if I recall correctly in 2001 when we were working on Sum of All Fears (shot on film). The look Boyle and Mantle created to revive the zombie horror genre was really fitting as it felt somewhere between a film, a documentary, and news. It just had a nice touch to it's look. Interestingly the success of that film really got I Am Legend off the ground. That script with various versions was sitting on the shelf for a decade and Hollywood really didn't have any interest in zombie films at the time. 28 Days Later not only changed that, but created a pool of potential and interest for even comics like The Walking Dead to eventually find their way into production as a series. Shaun of the Dead also played a small role, but it was certainly after the 28 Days Later revival.

To the point your referencing though, that span of time in the 2000s was a wild time for productions to get explored at a whole lot of different budget levels. I can't tell you the dynamic insanity of being shipped across the globe to work on a $200+m film who's built alien worlds inside of sound stages and then within the same year camping in Amboy trying to get get shots in an abandoned church for a $100K-$300K production. One thing is for sure, it has become much more difficult to film a film cost-wise in the following decade. You can still make a feature for super low budget, but it's very hard to do so in our modern ecosystem. Permits and Location Fees have skyrocketed in comparison to those days even with the scale of inflation taken into account.

We've seen films made for $5,000-$100,000 throughout last decade (2010s), but truthfully I have never found a way to shoot a $5,000 feature and have it make sense for everybody involved. The smallest budget feature length production I ever shot was on the HVX200 of all things and came in at about $30K. It basically took place in a home, an alleyway, and a car. I literally did everything myself, gaffed, gripped, DP'd, even Steadicam and dolly operated. Hell I still use that dolly I built back then occasionally. Mind boggling that we wrapped on time everyday. It was a director I enjoyed working with, but his next film never really got off the ground (action/suspense film) and never made sense to shoot, though we did a series of tests on a few cameras ranging from the 5D MKII to the RED One. Actually come to think of it, if that project did get greenlit, 95% sure that would have been my first film shot on the RED One. Instead my familiarity with it came through Peter Collister, ASC during one of the Alvin and the Chipmunks films and a few other productions who were either using it to explore what it could do, or testing it out for a potential film. When I was at Rhythm and Hues Studios during that time I was one of the very, very few people who had a dedicated system in their office to ingest and process RED footage specifically generating 16-bit TIFs, EXR, or DPX. We put them into our Studio's proprietary 32-bit float format known as an RLL which we used no matter what the image acquisition source was.

Interestingly I saw a few productions early on really not go with RED or even the Alexa in the era of Film, saw the Genesis have difficulty too. It was an uphill climb until workflow became slightly easier. Then once it passed that sweet spot and was really only showing signs of improving in image quality and workflow as well as various levels of cost and time savings, well here we are. Also, I think it should be mentioned the general education on a digital workflow increased a lot during that time. Early on for most experienced DPs digital was mysterious void because so few had hands on or in depth usage of any of the systems. There were a handful of peeps, but largely it was an unknown world to filmmakers in paritcular. That lasted pretty much until about 2013-2015 when the momentum was pretty obvious and accessibility was much easier. Now there's just a lot more high end cameras out there on the market due to the growth of the industry itself.

 

[Sergio Perez]

I haven’t updated my Vimeo, YouTube or Flickr accounts for years but I will soon. I think people are so misinformed on the difference of red cameras and the others that I really feel it’s time to showcase what they can do. I don’t have big budgets for my work, but people just don’t understand what the extra resolution, color bit depth, dynamic range, R3D workflow can do for a production, and how much it actually saves money.

Having said this, I’m very much more interested in DSMC3 than the Komodo. I want Phase detect autofocus, Weather sealing, even lighter weight, better battery management, 4k monitoring, next generation connectivity built in, and obviously, the versatility of changing mounts, pl, Ef, RF, M . I want in body camera stabilization, ND filters. You know what I don’t need? A new sensor. I would love to put my monstro sensor in that body. Yeah, that sounds a bit strange, but the monstro sensor is just absolutely stunning and groundbreaking. If it could dial ina bit less compression and a few more frame rates that would also be great- I know this requires faster media and computing but the Red Team can pull those off!

 

[Phil Holland]

Ibut the monstro sensor is just absolutely stunning and groundbreaking. If it could dial ina bit less compression and a few more frame rates that would also be great- I know this requires faster media and computing but the Red Team can pull those off!

It will never be truly talked about because it will set the world on fire, but in aggressive testing, for digital cinema Monstro has "the most color" in a variety of directions. Comes from the DR, sensor tech, and some other stuff for sure. Whatever RED does I hope they build on that. We all want better color, DR, etc. I'm certainly all for less compression. I sort of wish I could shoot 8K 3:1 like I did on my moco shoots last year (shots were sped up in post).

I do personally feel we'll see some of Komodo's impact on DSMC3 for sure. Whatever that means. Maybe a smaller camera. Maybe something more like Ranger, yet smaller? Hoping for some sort of fan chute or similar sound diffusion. With 3D printing a lot is possible now. Whatever the case if we have an all inclusive body or module based system, we will 100% need XLR Phantom Power Audio at launch in some form, it was pretty much one of the early jaw punches at launch with DSMC2 and scared a few people away. That got worked out with the various XLR Modules eventually, but in camera or external audio should have some focus. Perahps even wireless timecode support internally (maybe GPS based?). Though I pissed off the sound community a fair deal by working with 32-bit audio early on (I own Zaxcom gear too, but they were/are the most upset), I personally would love to see RED to support this new sound format. It's supported now in major NLEs. It's already being used on productions too. Hoping SoundDevices goes further with it on their professional recorders too.

There's so many filmmakers that need that support for audio. RED knows my wish list when it comes to "the future".

I also need to twist their arm to redesign or remake their quick release plates. I absolutely really love having a plate that lives on a camera that doesn't need the full rod support and all that at all times, then just pops onto your rod or kit build out. I have some ideas on that front if they don't make something, but that would be a tough one for little old me to actually manufacture. Maybe easier in a year though.

 

[Lewis McGregor]

Read article here


Lewis is the one I probably have the biggest issue with. To me this one just smells of sour grapes for a failed business plan. Buying expensive cinema cameras requires a reasonably well thought out business plan that takes into account ROI, and it just seems like his purchase was haphazard and now he is using that to diss RED. Just seems like a cheap shot.
.

Hey Steve

My quotes in that article were taken from a 2016-piece :smile5: .

The pulled quotes, by themselves, don’t really reflect the full nature of my original 2016 article, which was me coming from the 5D world into the cinema camera world was not well thought out and buying a cinema camera is not like buying a DSLR. As stated in my piece, it was ‘To avoid making the same mistakes that I once made, let us look at three principles you need to take into account when acquiring a camera like this.’ Likewise, in the 2016 piece I also state that "I must also say this is in no way a jab at the RED ONE or RED itself. I very much loved the camera and the company."

 

[Sean Solowiej]

that would be a tough one for little old me to actually manufacture. Maybe easier in a year though.

What can we look forward to from Philville 2021? Hopefully investing in infrastructure?

 

[Tom Kraemer]

Hey Steve

My quotes in that article were taken from a 2016-piece :smile5: . They aren’t my current thoughts nor did I contribute to this article.

The pulled quotes, by themselves, don’t really reflect the full nature of my original 2016 article, which was me coming from the 5D world into the cinema camera world was not well thought out and buying a cinema camera is not like buying a DSLR; learn from my mistake. Likewise, in the 2016 piece I also state that "I must also say this is in no way a jab at the RED ONE or RED itself. I very much loved the camera and the company."

Sorry to hear about this. Opinions change over time and the entire article seems pretty irresponsible. Id contact them directly and share your thoughts.

 

[Jens Jakob Thorsen]

RED surely lost the battle to ARRi here in the developed world.