Uk Rental House - Red Camera

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

Good luck to you Patric

 

[Adam Levins]

Hi Adam,

The name Ben King doesn't ring a bell but I'm sure we've spoken before...about a year ago or so?

All the best,

David.

Hi David,

I remember now, I think I was looking to test a RED and called you to that regard. Via your website.

To add to this discussion concerning the different ways the camera will be rented out.

I think you are right about there being the two basic ways to do it:

- Owner/operator

- Rental house.

Rental houses will always have more kit and perhaps be better serviced.

The advantage of the owner/operator route is that they are ready to go at a moments notice on those last minute jobs, that normally come in right before the weekend :-(

 

[Eren Ozkural]

We all agree that RED is a distruptive force, but I don't think that it will affect the rental houses pricing by a great deal.

Yes the camera body and the assorted RED branded accessories are a bargain, but as mentioned before the good rental houses like ICE, VMI etc. offer so many ancillary services and products that the actual camera body, power supply, media etc. do not hold a monopoly over their rate cards.

The area where RED has the potential to be truly distruptive is the Owner/Operator market. I have a feeling that it will be oversaturated with these amazing cameras which will either lead to alot of failed investments or it will somewhat meritocratize the market and let talent be the leading factor for a D.P/operator's pricing.

Ive been on quite a few low budget shoots where the D.P was hired mainly due to the equipment they owned with little regards to their talent. Sad but true.

 

[Costelloe Michael]

The market will be redefined by this camera, the rental market, i.e. facilities houses, stand to lose much more than the owner/op. They have a huge amount invested in high end HD gear that has been drip fed to the users in order to retain future sales and profit margins. The film question is another can of worms.

Individual Owner/Ops can for the first time purchase high end gear on a budget.

The 'DP's who have been chosen for their ownership of gear rather than talent' ('sad but true') is an economic reality, forced on you by bad producers who do not see the reality of the end product. Who are we to condemn them, did they get the lighting budget and time they needed?

These low budget productions will contimue to fail despite Red. It takes much more than technology to produce a good product. The opportunity it does offer however is to give those with talent an avenue to avoid the pitfalls of Sony and Panasonic marketing strategy and a chance to produce good quality product without the pitfalls of limited shooting mediums. Say goodbye to 720P and 1080P!

Mike C

 

[Nova Invicta]

So much un-eductated rubbish

So much un-eductated rubbish

The only change to what ever is out their currently is the camera and its accessories (the Red ones). Economics are economics a Zeiss lens or a Arri Matte Box did not suddenly get cheaper because of Red, technicians (good ones) didnt get cheaper because of Red and rents and rates will not either. Wake up to facts and dont get clouded by the cost of one part of the equation in the market already you have owner operators who hire similar equipment to rental companies at lower rates but the large rental companies still exist. Similarly anyone who thinks large rental companies are making fortunes have never been on the receiving end of BBC or ITV tenders the likes of ICE, Media, PV, Hammerhead, Gearhouse, Visual Impact are not raking in huge profits and a look at results from companies house for many of them verify this. Will Red be successful? yes it will but mainly for a guy who is already a billionaire anyone else who thinks its their route to fame and fortune better get a reality check unless they are a director about to become the next Ron Howard.

 

[Costelloe Michael]

Quote 'So much un-eductated rubbish ' unquote!

That's absolutely priceless!

Oh, by the way, funny thing you saying that Red won't change the price of Zeiss lenses, I think you'll find that it already has. :w00t:

Cheers Dude you made my day!

Mike C

 

[Liam Hall]

The market will be redefined by this camera, the rental market, i.e. facilities houses, stand to lose much more than the owner/op. They have a huge amount invested in high end HD gear that has been drip fed to the users in order to retain future sales and profit margins. The film question is another can of worms.

Individual Owner/Ops can for the first time purchase high end gear on a budget.

The 'DP's who have been chosen for their ownership of gear rather than talent' ('sad but true') is an economic reality, forced on you by bad producers who do not see the reality of the end product. Who are we to condemn them, did they get the lighting budget and time they needed?
(snip)

Not sure I follow your argument there; you seem to contradict yourself. But, I probably misread

I can't see the rental market being 'redifined' by Red and I find the whole 'Red's going to blast the old guard out of the water' argument misleading, immature and disrespectful.

The good rental houses will adapt and survive. The good filmmakers will adapt and survive and some mediocre talent will filter through the net. Good luck to them all.

The truth is, the UK industry is riddled with mediocre talent across all departments and that won't change until we develop a culture of learning.

When Avid and Lightworks took a foothold in the post industry in the early nineties, the streets of Soho were filled with ex-salesman from Computer Warehouse and kids with IT degrees who claimed to be qualified editors. They got work; lots of it.

The same will happen with Red; jumped-up videographers will claim to be the next Roger Deakins and rental companies that yesterday supplied a corporate coms department with a projector will tomorrow rent out a dozen Reds to the BBC.

But the cream will always rise to the top, wont it? Mostly, I think.

I'm betting, the cheaper end of the market will improve and offer the best chance to newcomers. There'll be a significant difference in quality that even some of the most blinkered and blind producers will be able to spot the difference and realise they need to adapt to survive and hopefully, that should lead to an increase in skills.

The top end of the market won't see any significant change as they've always been able to cherry pick the best talent and the best tool for the job and they'll need the full service back-up and support they currently get from the large rental houses.

Just my 25 pence worth

Now, if someone can tell me why I need to pay a technician to copy a file card to a back-up drive rather than simply give that responsibility to the DIT I'd be most grateful.

 

[Costelloe Michael]

Not sure I follow your argument there; you seem to contradict yourself. But, I probably misread

I can't see the rental market being 'redifined' by Red and I find the whole 'Red's going to blast the old guard out of the water' argument misleading, immature and disrespectful.

The good rental houses will adapt and survive. The good filmmakers will adapt and survive and some mediocre talent will filter through the net. Good luck to them all.

Yeah, I probably wasn't very clear about it either. :innocent: I was refering to my own disatisfaction at having to rent sub 35mm/16mm/Genesis/D20 equipment and being forced down a road that lead to the adoption of an ENG developed system. I started in the business soon after the first Sony Betacams came out and have watched the use of similar technology pervade the industry right up to and including commercials and TV Drama. The cameras have got much better but still have the legacy of an old design and it's problems and limitations. Don't get me wrong these camera have been great at doing what they are designed for but 2/3" Chip and in camera 3.1.1. processing have their limitations. Now we have a camera that offers the Cinematographer a full range of choices that was not previously possible on a digital camera, certainly not at this price point. The only thing that still remains is the non optical viewfinder.

I think that Red have developed a great product, not without it's own problems hmy: , that I will be able to use for most of the work I do. Not all of it, as I have a 35mm feature which we will still shoot on film even though I will have Red by this time! I meant no disrespect to the existing hire houses and see they will probably eventually adopt Red themselves, when the bugs are ironed out. Although with Visuals/24-7 it will be interesting to see how they handle the Red vs Sony situation.

I am no fanboy! But, probably along with anyone who grew up with Arri, Aaton, Movicam and Panaflex camera would be happy never to have to work with a 2/3" chip again! Now Mr Jannard, a word in your ear about this optical viewfinder design...

Mike C

 

[Liam Hall]

I see where you are coming from Mike.

I've already walked this path twice before - with post-production and with stills; I'm really looking forward to the new possibilities this technology offers and seeing how some of the Industry's big boys react.

 

[David Wyatt]

Now, if someone can tell me why I need to pay a technician to copy a file card to a back-up drive rather than simply give that responsibility to the DIT I'd be most grateful.

Not sure I follow you here. What you're describing here is the DITs job (at least it is on our jobs). Not sure if you've had any experience with the Red but in terms of technicians what most productions will require is a top notch focus puller because this camera is merciless for focus (especially in low-light, wide open scenarios). Rather more debatable is the roll of the clapper loader on Red shoots. You definitely need a 2nd assistant to be able to work efficiently as a camera team but s/he doesn't necessarily need to be as technically experienced as most film loaders are (who not only know how to load a variety of different magazines (no easy task with cameras like the Aaton 35!!) but also obviously hold the very safety of the entire day's production in their hands!)

 

[laguun]

guys,

it is really totally crazy how high the prices are in london.
Especially from a berlin basing perspective it seems everything is like 40-60% more expensive.

 

[David Wyatt]

guys,

it is really totally crazy how high the prices are in london.
Especially from a berlin basing perspective it seems everything is like 40-60% more expensive.

Everything's expensive in London...haven't you noticed?

 

[Liam Hall]

Not sure I follow you here. What you're describing here is the DITs job (at least it is on our jobs). Not sure if you've had any experience with the Red but in terms of technicians what most productions will require is a top notch focus puller because this camera is merciless for focus (especially in low-light, wide open scenarios). Rather more debatable is the roll of the clapper loader on Red shoots. You definitely need a 2nd assistant to be able to work efficiently as a camera team but s/he doesn't necessarily need to be as technically experienced as most film loaders are (who not only know how to load a variety of different magazines (no easy task with cameras like the Aaton 35!!) but also obviously hold the very safety of the entire day's production in their hands!)

Mmm, read the thread Dave. This is the second post;

We are a production company who also specialise in post production consultancy. We will be hiring out our red cameras with a Digital Imaging Technician and a Data Backup Technician.

You can PM me with any questions

If someone could explain why I need to employ a data back-up assistant I'd be grateful. It seems unnecessary to me, but I could be wrong. I've worked with DITS in the past and I honestly can't see why they wouldn't be able to handle a simple file transfer.

Also Dave, maybe I need to brush up on my optics but I think your claim about RED being merciless on focus is misleading; given this camera is rated at 500ASA that would give me 3&1/2 stops more DOF than if I was shooting 50ASA on that Aaton of yours.

 

[laguun]

Everything's expensive in London...haven't you noticed?

especially the coffee prices in soho do qualify as robbery.


In berlin mitte, we have several restaurants called "weinerei", you only pay what you want to pay...

 

[Athalys]

Hi Adam,

not in UK, but we are based in Brussels, so just couple of hours by Eurostar.
We have 2 RED's available, plus 2 other expected for summer. If interested, contact me: rental@eye-lite.com

Cheers

Philip Mahieu

 

[David Wyatt]

Mmm, read the thread Dave. This is the second post;



If someone could explain why I need to employ a data back-up assistant I'd be grateful. It seems unnecessary to me, but I could be wrong. I've worked with DITS in the past and I honestly can't see why they wouldn't be able to handle a simple file transfer.

Also Dave, maybe I need to brush up on my optics but I think your claim about RED being merciless on focus is misleading; given this camera is rated at 500ASA that would give me 3&1/2 stops more DOF than if I was shooting 50ASA on that Aaton of yours.

Ahh now it makes sense...indeed a "data back-up assistant" does seem to be over-kill if you've already got a DIT.

In terms of the shallowness - seeing is believing!! It's not actually rated as a 500ASA camera (more like 320ASA) but you can of course rate it that way if you need to without too many problems. It's true if it's a bright, sunny day (a typical 50ASA day) you'll have loads of DOF on the Red (in fact you'll need a load of ND to get it down to a workable stop - i.e. one that has a pleasing shallowness and no diffraction). But what if you're filming at night or with available light/low light, or any other filming environment we constantly find ourselves in when we have to shoot wide open. This is when you'll find the focus on the Red to be merciless, particularly on long lenses and/or close subjects. If you compare like with like you'll notice the Red's noticeably shallower (don't take our word for it though, it's been noted by various post production facilities we've dealt with in the process of transferring some Red material to a 35mm print). It's just obvious when you see it on a big screen (we even shot some of our tests with Master Primes at T1.3 - now that's scary for focus pullers!). No-one appears to have hazarded a guess on the boards as to what the Red's CoC is but I'd completely guess at it being somewhere between 1/2000th - 1/4000th of an inch (which is merciless in certain situations).

 

[Liam Hall]

In terms of the shallowness - seeing is believing!!(snip)

Now I'm really confused. Can this camera change the laws of physics?

Red sensor 24.4 mm x 13.7 mm
Super 35mm 24.89 mm by 18.67

There should be minimal change in DOF between formats - in fact RED will have slightly more DOF.

Are the people who claim RED to have less DOF used to looking at 35mm images or do they have a background in video? I can see that it's quite a learning curve for some people trained in video especially if you normally use cameras with 1/2 inch or 1/3 inch chip but it shouldn't vex any focus puller worth their salt.

 

[David Wyatt]

Now I'm really confused. Can this camera change the laws of physics?

Red sensor 24.4 mm x 13.7 mm
Super 35mm 24.89 mm by 18.67

There should be minimal change in DOF between formats - in fact RED will have slightly more DOF.

Are the people who claim RED to have less DOF used to looking at 35mm images or do they have a background in video? I can see that it's quite a learning curve for some people trained in video especially if you normally use cameras with 1/2 inch or 1/3 inch chip but it shouldn't vex any focus puller worth their salt.

Don't worry...there's no laws of physics changing. DoF isn't just determined purely by the size of the capturing format - there are other things like the sharpness of the lenses and the resolution of the capturing format (that's why if you look at the Samcine Mk.II DOF calculator they show various CoCs like 1/500th of an inch for 35mm with older, softer lenses but suggest 1/700th for newer lenses and modern film stocks. I haven't got the Mk.III but being newer it probably suggests even smaller CoCs (up to 1/2000th of an inch) for the newer sharper generation of lenses. Similarly the resolution of the sensor has an impact. If you simply compared it to an equally sized 35mm gate that used an old-style, softer, less-sharp stock you'd see a perceivable difference in the DoF: size isn't everything! Ultimately at the end of the day I'm afraid it's not actually about looking at graphs and equations but using your eyes and comparing it to the 35mm images you're used to shooting and viewing projected. For post houses (who are probably more used to seeing 35mm projected images than any of us) to remark on it instantly was the decider for me. One of the post houses we're dealing with wants us to do some side by sides with 35mm so maybe that will be an interesting way of demonstrating the perceived difference?

 

[Liam Hall]

Don't worry...(snip)

Interesting stuff Dave. I'm a director and I shoot both film and video - I can talk tech up to a point but when the conversation moves on to circles of confusion I tend to hear white noise in my head However, I still need convincing that there's less DOF on RED. Sharper, yes I can see that - my D300 is sharper than my RZ67 - but shallower? I'll have to see that to believe it...

Are you going to let the riff-raff come and see your 35mm test - who do I have to bribe?

Liam.

 

[David Wyatt]

Are you going to let the riff-raff come and see your 35mm test - who do I have to bribe?

Liam.

Absolutely - all RedUsers welcome of course (we were going to post an announcement when we had a firm date - will probably be in the next couple of weeks somewhere in Soho). PM me your email and I'll make sure it gets added to our mailing list for the announcement.

Cheers,