This camera IS a joke.

[Fredrik Callinggard]

K Berlin,

Switch to the other thread Yoni is there hahahaha

 

[rod bradley]

Kaya, I appreciate your frustration and regret that your frustration was met with rudeness by some. Perhaps the expression of your frustration was felt as anger by some otheres, but I have always found the meeting frustration with frustration/anger/rudeness only pulls everything into the mire. (I will not point out the obvious global example that the world is paying a price for.)

At any rate, I would like to apologize as one member of this community for the rudeness of a few. I hope you will be met with greater common decency and understanding in the future -- and I suspect the vast majority of the Red community would feel exactly the same. Those who deal in fear and anger (the real source of rudeness I believe) are still, thank god, in the minority.

It is also true as well, that the ever changing nuances of the Red camera benefit by having someone with up-to-date (the minute) experience on set.

All the best to you in the future -- on Red or not...

 

[Mike Prevette]

EDIT: Kaya was not the AC.

I just think you were on one of those "Cursed" jobs. I was an AC for a long time, and I know that no matter how prepared you are or how good the gear is, sometimes jobs just go to hell.

I don't want to make excuses for a camera that obviously has its kinks. However I think with something so new, and no one on set being experienced with it your asking for trouble.

All your comments were very valid though. If I were you I would feel very burnt. When the camera goes down everyone looks at the AC.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Kaya, I appreciate your frustration and regret that your frustration was met with rudeness by some. Perhaps the expression of your frustration was felt as anger by some otheres, but I have always found the meeting frustration with frustration/anger/rudeness only pulls everything into the mire. (I will not point out the obvious global example that the world is paying a price for.)

At any rate, I would like to apologize as one member of this community for the rudeness of a few. I hope you will be met with greater common decency and understanding in the future -- and I suspect the vast majority of the Red community would feel exactly the same. Those who deal in fear and anger (the real source of rudeness I believe) are still, thank god, in the minority.

It is also true as well, that the ever changing nuances of the Red camera benefit by having someone with up-to-date (the minute) experience on set.





All the best to you in the future -- on Red or not...

HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPP ITSSSSSSSSSS NOOOOT MEEEEEEEE......................I just didnt know how to quote from another thread......this AC IS NAMED YONI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
here is the link where the discussion is


http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=11665&page=12

 

[Brent J. Craig]

In the Past when renting CINEALTA I would have the owner of the company available for me 24/7 on his personal cellphone.

Wow. I didn't realize the chairman of Sony was doing that. That is pretty good service! :whistling: Jannard did that, but only for the first 100 purchasers.

If I was some kid who took on a job way way over his skill level and caused an entire shoot day of major f-ups, I don't think I would be posting about it like he has.

The entire situation is sad, and now that each of the three stooges has checked in with us, it only gets sadder.


PS - K Berlin - you should edit your post above to make it very clear you are cutting and pasting what someone else wrote. The first time I read your post I thought you were the AC and was shocked that all this happened to a respected, senior member of our community!

 

[J.R. Hud]

This is a great thread.

I had just had to say it.

These dudes got PWNED by Red. Maybe a handycam would suit them a bit better ? After all, a few settings and one push of the button and you get instant magic.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

PS - K Berlin - you should edit your post above to make it very clear you are cutting and pasting what someone else wrote. The first time I read your post I thought you were the AC and was shocked that all this happened to a respected, senior member of our community!

Man already did.....i was shocked myself when reading mikes post

I WAS NOT THE AC.....

 

[Ed Blythe]

J'ACCUSE K.BERLIN - HE IS TO BLAME - BLUDGEON HIM WITH THE FAULTY EQUIPMENT

Sorry you guys had a bad shoot. Sorry you didn't find a warmer welcome around these parts - pls do stick around, you'll find some of these lads pretty helpful (and threads similar to this one perhaps amusing when they're not aimed at you:gun: )

I wrote all sorts of stuff in this reply about the importance of the DIT (I think Red Technician better describes the job) but that shit's been done to death so I cut it out. Try and sort the wheat from the chaff (if you can - a lot of it's distasteful and indicative of people sitting around waiting for NAB to open it's doors)

Better luck next time.

 

[davidjakubovic]

Dear Sirs...

Dear Sirs...

Gentlemen,

The unpopularity of our posts is kind of out of control... let's try and maybe look at the issues at hand and at the fact that there are problems that require solving.

First of all, I am not "not responding". I think I am allowed at least 24-48 hours before comments about me ignoring the responses become legitimate.

Second, citing inexperience of the crew as the cause of our problems is silly and kind of ignores the fact that there is a problem. Why take it personally? Obviously the camera has some issues.

The fact that a camera is out in the market that hyped itself so much but has so many problems is frustrating when you get to a set and are constantly stopped by it. The camera should be advertised with the word PROTOTYPE all over it, because it is obviously not totally and entirely ready to be used. Is this not correct? I understand that these "build" things are improvements and stuff, and that's fine, but correcting BUGS?? When Final Cut Pro came out it was HORRIBLE next to Avid, but they kept correcting it and now it's pretty much a great program, but you were never dealing with set pressure because it's post production, so it's a totally different thing. But on a set you want to know that your camera works. These personal remarks make this forum a little silly and high schoolish, please avoid them.

I am a bit less adamant than my DP about never using the thing again. The picture is obviously amazing and I would love to use it again if it works properly.

All the very best,
David Jakubovic

www.davidjaku.com
davidjaku@aol.com

 

[Shawn Nelson]

its your timing. When was this shoot? I own #27 and have used it consistently for over 7 months, I have not seen problems even remotely like yours for months. The fact that you pop out of nowhere to shit all over Red on the day of nab is too much. Can you address this?

 

[davidjakubovic]

I have never been to NAB and none of these posts have anything to do with it at all. I want to use this camera and want it to work properly. Nobody is "shitting" on your camera. Read the posts by the DP and AC, I believe these have been very legitimate concerns. I am even saying I would love to use this camera again if it works properly.

This forum has shown itself to be somewhat unhelpful and filled with strange personal comments. Seems like people who spent a lot of money on this camera have trouble hearing about its possible problems. I wish you all the very best and hope to have a more positive experience with it one day. Good Day.

David Jakubovic

davidjaku@aol.com
www.davidjaku.com

 

[Steven-Marc C.]

David, I think it all started with the tone of that first post by your DP and that whole thing about the camera being a joke. As Shawn and others have stated, this camera is being used professionally all over the world and has been for many months now. While it may have some idiosyncrasies that your rental company / camera crew ought to be responsible for knowing and telling you about, it is far from being a joke. Believe me, we are all for hearing about issues with the camera in order to avoid the kind of experience you've had. It helps when it is done in a professionnal and courteous way. I wish you all the very best and hope you will have a more positive experience with it one day. Good Day.

 

[Ed Watkins]

David,

I have two RED cameras. When I first got them I had a number of codec problems, but I was using an unstable build of the firmware, and hadn't read enough of the literature on the correct setup.
Since then I have had no problems using stable software builds.

I spent a couple of weeks testing these cameras in a tropical jungle (90 degrees, 80% humidity), running them down zip lines, doing canopy drop shots, shooting from a helicopter, all on hard drives, and I had none of the problems you mention. This leads me to think that:

a) you got a bad camera setup (either a cable or drive wasn't working properly, or the camera was running an old beta build)
OR
b) the settings were mismatched on the camera and recording media

Either way, calling it crap camera with out trying to establish what caused the issues helps no one. I apologize if this forum is hostile, but it is annoying to have a perfectly good piece of kit dumped on without trying to establish what was wrong with it.

 

[Lewis-M Soucy]

citing inexperience of the crew as the cause of our problems is silly and kind of ignores the fact that there is a problem.

Shooting on Red a commercial job with NO knowledge of the camera first is plain dumb. Goes for ANY camera BTW...

The camera should be advertised with the word PROTOTYPE all over it, because it is obviously not totally and entirely ready to be used.

It IS advertised so (hence this forum...). Everyone that is involved or simply curious closely or remotely in Red technology knows that.

You should just tell the right person on your team, no matter how talented or long is resume is that he went ahead with gear he had no clue about and that was wrong. Not the camera. The very decision to use it without proper expertise.

I wouldn't touch a F900 without solid knowledge. I wouldn't work as an AC or DP for anyone on a 35mm Arri shoot if I never loaded a mag. And I would certainly NEVER say "oh well it's just a camera, right? I've used Aaton before, should be the same, no?"...

Your rental company is also to blame if they didn't provide you with a tested working camera.

I said everything else in the much funnier previous thread...

Let's address the right issues and stop lying to ourselves.

And don't put everything on Jim's shoulders all the time!!! The guy was making sunglasses before for christ's sake!!!
:biggrin:

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

David,

We've been posting some possibilities with Yoni your AC on the job. It's hard to tell, but some problems seem to be known ones that got corrected by you during the shoot.

Other problems like frame dropping etc on the HD seems to have something to do with the HD being faulty. You should address it and look into it, if not only for you also for the rental guy.

It's of course not clear since you guys are not 100% sure of what version in the builds etc you've been using and what settings you actually shot on.

But as a general Codec Error is generally an occurrence of trying to force the camera to shot on settings that's not possible for it.

Frame dropping is another thing and as said seems to be something that's faulty. As I understand it stopped when you switched to 2:1 4K on CF cards with redcode 28?

I also want to apologize for my rude comments, but the way you guys posted and then never answered back only seemed like two whining guys with no constructive criticism.

Kind regards,

Fredrik

 

[P Andersson]

! The guy was making sunglasses before for christ's sake!!!

too funny

 

[Lewis-M Soucy]

In response to the post and responses:
I am amazed to meet (for the first time that is..) a community with such terrible manners.

And that are still trying to solve your issues...

I was the 1stAC on this shoot so it's clear.

It's clear you went ahead with a cam you've never seen ever, and yet blame it!!!

I am being asked by various RED enthusiast "did you do hand held ?" well if that is a problem then we can continue testing in shooting flower vases in mum's living room. No hand held. No Jib / crane work.

It's a hard drive fact. They don't like being shaken. You shoot BOURNE, you use CF. That's just common sense. In that regard, other HD cams use tape as a media, and that's another story. Tape is more stable than hard drive. Yet, under heavy shaking conditions, even a F900 will drop frames... That's where Red is clever. It offers a drop free solution, making it the most heavy duty cam ever: a CF module! (works great with steady flower pots shots too...)

Yes we were a small indie music video shoot. No we didn't have the world at our feet. The rental house messed up with several simple things we needed.

Hence the haste. Hence the lack of pre. Hence the frustration.

I downloaded the 13 build manual from their website and learned it by heart. It is very simple.

I did the same with the Arri 535 ten years ago. That doesn't make me a Arri 535 specialist, even though I know my craft. Field experience or advice from others with field experience is bare minimum before using any gear on a paid job.

But it has no mentioning of simple things that they must highlight rather then ask me to read into thousands of forum threads that unfortunately are filled with personal issues like here.

A- They don't bother because Red community points issues faster than one can type a users manual. That's the Red idea. And at the speed news spreads here, we all know the cam before we even need to read the manual.

B- Most of OUR professionnal or technical issues ARE personnal issues when you OWN a camera. And you posted your personnal issues in the first place here as well. With a nasty attitude to it on top. So shut up.

They need to take responsibility's and add the warnings to their own site and to change their "Sexy-innocent" appearance to an honest professional one.

Jim is neither sexy (well my wife thinks he's pretty cute) nor innocent. And they're very professionnal. Judging by the extensive amount of business relationship you have with Red, I'm even appaled you dare commenting on their attitude! Especially when appreciating yours!

I am a punkrocker and I got plenty of that in rehersal space. I don't bring it to film set. (one more personal remark and I'll find you and stick my Gretch up y'r Arss Mr. Kelly)

What build is your Gretch? What size? 2K? 4K?

In the Past when renting CINEALTA I would have the owner of the company available for me 24/7 on his personal cellphone.

Was it Mr. Morita or Mr. Nobuyuki?

Some of us just cant afford to do that as we believe in filmmaking as an art form. Composition. Beat. Workflow. it's an orchestra not a tech lab.

Welcome to Red.

We also need to make living and don't have time to spend mummy's credit card for experiments. Welcome to NYC filmmaking.

Wow! You film guys from NY are so like, wow! like EXTREEEME man! How's that for personnal issues in a forum? That's isulting about 3500 people, give or take a few... Can your arse take 3500 Gretches?

I will wait patiently for the RED to stabilize

That's the most wise thing you've said on this forum.

I can't understand why people react with such bad manners. Shame!

That's so gay. RE-READ YOUR INITIAL POSTS!!!

Thanx to THEMUSIC and SYCOPHANT for being normal..

Poor you... If only you really knew them...

 

[CJ Roy]

Why are you guys treating this troll like a legitimate poster? Look at the timing of this post, the nature of it, and that it comes from a first time poster. Both this thread and the sister thread are pure BS due to the timing alone. Shame on you sir, have you no decency??

Jesus Shawn. This the exact kind of fanboy attitude that makes my job on sets all that more difficult. Instead of attempting to help or sway someone who had a horrible experience with the Red, you slam him? Call him a troll? Accuse him of having no decency? Are you f*cking kidding me?

The camera has problems. To deny that is to shut the eye of reason. Your response helps no one and conveys that Red owners are too sensitive to have a sensible discussion on problems with said camera. Ignoring the problems solves nothing. Berating directors/DP's/crew who had a bad experience is insane, and reflects more on you than them.

What you're failing to understand is that the good majority of working entertainment industry people, do not live here/read every post and are not up to date on the intricacies of the camera. To problem solve the camera, you almost HAVE TO live here or hire an expert. The RED DIT/Techs have to be the liaisons from the camera to the filmmakers, regardless of how uninformed the filmmakers are. Camera owners ARE the experts on the camera. The clients are not. That should be looked at as an opportunity, instead of inflaming the legitimacy argument about this camera's usefulness in the real working, world.

As mistaken as the director is in regards to "a camera is a camera", "just push a button", we cannot simply jump down a Red customer's throat for not knowing the camera. We have to help them to understand that this is a different beast, and like a 35mm camera, you would not, or should not, send an unfamiliar dp/crew with a new camera without someone who KNOWS the camera. A lot of customers see the upfront cost and don't understand the benefits of it. We have to fix that. Inflammatory responses simply do not benefit the RED community and solve nothing.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Im sorry you had a terrible time with the camera but honestly.. use a hvx next time. This camera is not a toy or a push one button wonder. Having a onsite tech who knows the camera is worth its weight in Gold, and im not just saying that. Its foolish to think that you can just pick up this camera with ZERO experience and make it happen. The least you could do is hire a tech for A DAY to teach the ac or dp the basics. OR instead of paying for a 2nd, hire a tech/2nd who knows the camera.

 

[Visceral_IvaN]

This past weekend I directed a music video shoot. The DP and camera crew are a very experienced and extremely competent crew that I have worked with many times before. The DP who posted the thread called "is this camera a joke?" knows his work very well. THE CAMERA WAS A NIGHTMARE. The picture is gorgeous but at what price?????

My DP and I were both extremely excited to use the Red, but I was absolutely mortified at how much time was spent on dealing with it throughout the day. I am told "it's a very technical camera and you need to have a tech on set". Oh please. A camera is a camera. You turn it on, push some settings, click record and it is supposed to record. Then you click record again and it stops. That's it! This camera doesn't seem to know this workflow. Honestly, it is quite wrong for a camera to be out on the market that is so unreliable. I understand it is still being worked on but honestly, if that is the case, it should be very well stated that it is not perfectly ready for a real production. Why on earth do i have to spend extra money on a camera TECH when I have a DP, two AC's and a $15,000 budget that I need to use on making the video look good?

To all those saying that the previous post was over exaggerated, it was not. I WANT to work with this camera again, but only if it works. The picture is so great obviously that it is a huge advantage, but if we were shooting an actual scene with actors and emotions and had to break for 10 minutes between EVERY TAKE, then it would be much much worse.

One moment...

I am currently typing this whilst on the final legs of an EIGHTEEN HOUR SHOOT with our Red One at 4:15am here in Tokyo. Red has been running nearly NON STOP for that entire time. We have recorded well over THREE HUNDRED TAKES.

And not one codec error.

In fact the entire crew had started to completely lose their minds far before Red even looked like losing its. It just keeps running. It honestly puts that creepy anthropomorphic Duracell Bunny to shame.

Not only are we getting gorgeous pictures (doubly so given the hotness of the models on our shoot) but we are getting these gorgeous pictures of gorgeous women without any problems for almost 18 hours straight...

Now, it MAY BE that Red performs better under the influence of jaw dropping french models. I know I do.

But realistically todays successful outcome was most probably due to the fact that we know what we are doing.