What we need to convince more DPs on Dragon

[Adam Howden]

Well said Peter. I get the same vibe over here in Sydney. Everyone want's Alexa, it's workflow and image are very much in demand across all spectrums of film making.

 

[Savva Svet]

I tell producers not to hate on that which they don't understand and if asked by my DP brothers and sisters I tell them why I love the look....

Peter

Hey Nick, I think this might be the best post ever!

 

[shashbugu]

Maybe it's time for Red and Redusers to pay attention to DPs and directors. Red is the most sort after camera for futuristic films and productions. Seminar after seminar, DP after DP all you'll hear is how they all want to soften or diffuse the digital image to make it more cinematic. If the Red Olpf was modular whereby you could double it more DPs would go for it. It's not the sensor in the Alexa that's a marvel it's the processing and firmware that creates the magic. The ArriRaw image's sharpness is just perfect. You can dial in about 40 percent more sharpness with a reliance system to match 4k. The softness of the Arriraw is akin to 35mm grain softning.

 

[Max M.]

There are a couple of issues here. First the comfort factor of many DPs with Arri and Alexa. This will sort itself out. Also the original perception of Red as a rogue, renegade company run by mad men. ( my friends)

Exactly this. Red has some pro's that are also been used as cons.

- If i rent an alexa, i will always know that it will fit on my shoulder, have a nice viewfinder, and what cables i can out into it. If i rent a red package, the package could totally suck with all kinds of shit accessories or it could be nice, but it can't know for sure, that's a hassle
It's really nice it's small and can be configured in a lot of ways, but it's also the weakest point.
- The alexa has everything you need just build in the body, power outs, multiple hd-sdi ports, audio inputs. With red you need modules, module adapters, all kinds of stuff to get that working, confusing for people.
- The viewfinder is also a big point for DP's. Alexa viewfinder is ways better than the (oled) bomb evf.
- Arri is the real professional big boys brand, you need money to use it, so that's "cool". Red is rebellion, skulls and tattoos, and cheaper to buy, so probably a worse camera. (this is pure perception, but is the general perception of people with not enough knowledge)

I think Red would really help itself by bringing out a totally new body design with the dragon (or next gen sensor) that is maybe twice the size, same weight, and solves all these problems. Has an included great viewfinder, and great viewfinder mount, shoulderpad in the design, built in 3x ND, multiple HD-SDI outputs, xlr inputs, nearly no fan noise, included tophandle, v-mount or ab mount included on the back.

Look at the Amira and the F5/F55. Much beter body designs, the next big step for red is bringing out a new much better designed body. They can make beautiful images, now a really nice and useable body design to finish it off.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

Exactly this. Red has some pro's that are also been used as cons.

- If i rent an alexa, i will always know that it will fit on my shoulder, have a nice viewfinder, and what cables i can out into it. If i rent a red package, the package could totally suck with all kinds of shit accessories or it could be nice, but it can't know for sure, that's a hassle
It's really nice it's small and can be configured in a lot of ways, but it's also the weakest point.
- The alexa has everything you need just build in the body, power outs, multiple hd-sdi ports, audio inputs. With red you need modules, module adapters, all kinds of stuff to get that working, confusing for people.
- The viewfinder is also a big point for DP's. Alexa viewfinder is ways better than the (oled) bomb evf.
- Arri is the real professional big boys brand, you need money to use it, so that's "cool". Red is rebellion, skulls and tattoos, and cheaper to buy, so probably a worse camera. (this is pure perception, but is the general perception of people with not enough knowledge)

I think Red would really help itself by bringing out a totally new body design with the dragon (or next gen sensor) that is maybe twice the size, same weight, and solves all these problems. Has an included great viewfinder, and great viewfinder mount, shoulderpad in the design, built in 3x ND, multiple HD-SDI outputs, xlr inputs, nearly no fan noise, included tophandle, v-mount or ab mount included on the back.

Look at the Amira and the F5/F55. Much beter body designs, the next big step for red is bringing out a new much better designed body. They can make beautiful images, now a really nice and useable body design to finish it off.

I think if that were an option, a Full Body Epic, many people would choose it over existing Epic, especially as a rental.

I totally agree with everything you say.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Lots of things I want to address, too many to even bother quoting so I will just try and ramble something coherent that hopefully can address it all:

Cameras at major name rental houses go out with all kinds of third party pieces when you think about the totality of accessories that make an image. I doubt any camera house is sending out entirely Red branded packages, in fact I bet a lot of cameras go out with lots of Arri parts on them. So third party recording is not a big deal at all, besides the off speed shooting workflow, which frankly is less then ideal whether your doing playback dumping on Red or Phantom. It takes real time of playback, not real time of in camera overcranking for us to dump off and that slows production with that workflow. That just sucks, which is why offspeed is better on mags, but then we run into the fools who dont know anything about how to use it in post it ruins it, plus the fact the in camera presets on Arri seem to be one of the hypothetical reasons we are making up on why its winning (again maybe its just branding of Arri, there are much more reasons then simply colors on Arris success I am sure, its over simplifying to reduce it to that, when your talking about a trusted older brand vs "relative" new kids on the block).

Now I haven't shot anything with Dragon so I cannot attest to color accuracy now vs MX, vs Alexa, any of that, but the point is people seem to like shooting pro res despite apples bungling the past two years (and eventual success and turn around of their product, to even now working quite well for OUR r3d needs.)

I hope that Dragon with Red Color Gamma 4 and new OLPF looks great, I am sure it will. But I think Apple and Red kind of did the same thing, they launched the product sooner with issues to work on in order to satisfy us. Some of us are happy despite the OLPF issue and new color science, some of us are not. But it did get us something in our hands sooner, even if its a work in progress, and I have faith in Red to blow people away with the new color science and OLPF (assuming one isn't already blown away from what tests and images we already have).

I'd volunteer my Epic and time to do the test, assuming I can locate a NY Dragon and convince the rental house to play ball and let me use their display for my purposes briefly in exchange for presenting the information on both red and the house sites. do we need real people or can we use fake mannequins plus charts in background to validate color accuracy plus image range? plus if we start talking about skin tones we should probably shoot a larger variety I would guess? but that might really complicate things also on a production stand point...

The one thing I am not sure about is allowing a one light, if it truly is the Alexa in camera pro res image on why people choose it, then we should use Red color and gamma presets against it. I think until the new OLPF and color science is released we may not like, or like the answer depending on our current reactions to Dragon. I think all the samples are great and playing with them is lots of fun and thank all those who have been so kind enough to show samples to me.

Personally I for one, like that I can throw coin down on the camera earlier, and have faith that the image will be good. i think back to how Red started and it seems poetically right that we should be signing up sight unseen as far as final images on final color science goes. i might be alone in that thought pattern tho...

and lastly, 4k isn't a Red only thing any more. Arri will want to have a 4k model too, seeing as every other brand is now on board. it will obviously be coming out despite their screen viewing distance pixel peeping propaganda. in fact i am told that the new models are even promised to be 4k upgradable. so clearly Arri will be on the 4k bus sooner then later. and in the long run of things, we no longer will be able to even brag about Red 4k (and probably cant now) since so many high (and lower) end systems are now doing it. it hardly is a red only thing now. if anything raw is one of reds current selling points more so then 4k. or 4k overcranks, 5k and 6k...but 4k itself is hardly a red only thing now and i think the OP labeling 4k that way is hardly fair when literally every single brand besides Arri had a model now i believe either out or very soon to be out. if anything we should be talking about how developed the red workflow is compared to other 4k solutions, and highlighting features it has that other 4k models do not.

 

[Mark T Workman]

Sometimes I imagine that I am driving an old steam train. It is fun, but I still love my little black box.

Well said, LOL! This is exactly how I feel now about using CS6 with my Scarlet0123 and a super computer! Time marches on but can you guys show Geoff's tests if he's banned from reduser? Has the ban been lifted or is there a work around?

I sure hope this "skin tone issue" doesn't hurt my burgeoning career in the porn industry anyway. Damn those Arri guys!
Oh crap! It's happy hour

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

I think if that were an option, a Full Body Epic, many people would choose it over existing Epic, especially as a rental.

I totally agree with everything you say.

Sounds like an F65!

 

[Nick Gardner]

I'll be completely honest here. I much prefer the epic to the Alexa for a multitude of reasons. But, the general perception of red in the professional world is colored by the legions of amateurs, fan boys and wanna be film makers that have endorsed red. It's a shame that Red's low price has made it the camera of hacks. It is not helped by the fact that there is a pile of cameras put together on a shoe string budget that are not up to professional standards that get rented and fuck up or fail due to user error, bad aks, and ignorance. I had a meeting about shooting a film today and all they new about red was that it is "unreliable". That's complete bullshit. I have never had a single lost hour to reds despite using them non stop since the red one came out. Another issue is reds reluctance for whatever reason to industry professionals as far as ergonomics, and functionality. I think there is a lot to be said for thinking outside the box, and red wouldn't exist without that, but there is also something to be said for listening to guys who work with cameras all day long. Listening to DPs is great, but they need to listen to operators, AC's, steadicam ops etc. as well. Granted, red has gotten much better at this recently, but the guys that are designing things need to be guys who have been working with cameras in professional environments for 20 years. They can work with young cutting edge designers on it, but we are talking about a biz where most DPs don't hit their stride till they are 20+ years in.

I'm not busting anybody's balls, I think red cameras have freed me creatively more than any other tool in my career. I'm just calling it like it looks from my seats. And I take this moment to offer my thanks to the red team for doing what they do and have done. I recognize that it's incredibly hard to do what they are doing. I state all this as constructive criticism.

Nick

 

[shashbugu]

I'll be completely honest here. I much prefer the epic to the Alexa for a multitude of reasons. But, the general perception of red in the professional world is colored by the legions of amateurs, fan boys and wanna be film makers that have endorsed red. It's a shame that Red's low price has made it the camera of hacks. It is not helped by the fact that there is a pile of cameras put together on a shoe string budget that are not up to professional standards that get rented and fuck up or fail due to user error, bad aks, and ignorance. I had a meeting about shooting a film today and all they new about red was that it is "unreliable". That's complete bullshit. I have never had a single lost hour to reds despite using them non stop since the red one came out. Another issue is reds reluctance for whatever reason to industry professionals as far as ergonomics, and functionality. I think there is a lot to be said for thinking outside the box, and red wouldn't exist without that, but there is also something to be said for listening to guys who work with cameras all day long. Listening to DPs is great, but they need to listen to operators, AC's, steadicam ops etc. as well. Granted, red has gotten much better at this recently, but the guys that are designing things need to be guys who have been working with cameras in professional environments for 20 years. They can work with young cutting edge designers on it, but we are talking about a biz where most DPs don't hit their stride till they are 20+ years in.

I'm not busting anybody's balls, I think red cameras have freed me creatively more than any other tool in my career. I'm just calling it like it looks from my seats. And I take this moment to offer my thanks to the red team for doing what they do and have done. I recognize that it's incredibly hard to do what they are doing. I state all this as constructive criticism.

Nick

Most sane people do a camera test before each project, mostly because camera firmware and color science changes as well as the fact that there are always new models popping up. Don't bunch everybody into one.

 

[Paul Provost]

I think the owner of Red Digital Cinema wants to build a camera that blows his mind, not a camera that producers want to rent. For a guy living on his own island paradise it's way cooler to hang out with Ridley Scott who's using his camera to make an iconic film, than to hang out with whichever director is on this weeks episode of NCIS. There already is an Alexa, why build another? there's not really another Dragon out there. If you were a 70 year old billionaire, would you care if somebody was having trouble renting out what is essentially his pet project? I mean he supposedly owns an Apollo flown / moon surface hassleblad. How do you top that? "Ow wow, episodic producers want to rent my camera this season"! Whoopdy do....

 

[shashbugu]

I think the owner of Red Digital Cinema wants to build a camera that blows his mind, not a camera that producers want to rent. For a guy living on his own island paradise it's way cooler to hang out with Ridley Scott who's using his camera to make an iconic film, than to hang out with whichever director is on this weeks episode of NCIS. There already is an Alexa, why build another? there's not really another Dragon out there. If you were a 70 year old billionaire, would you care if somebody was having trouble renting out what is essentially his pet project? I mean he supposedly owns an Apollo flown / moon surface hassleblad. How do you top that? "Ow wow, episodic producers want to rent my camera this season"! Whoopdy do....

Do you want to be banned? That's a very condescending and disrespectful post. Please stick with Creative, business and technical aesthetics as opposed to character judgement posts.

 

[Paul Provost]

It's not disrectful to say that this camera was built for the owner of the company. It's privately held, and not beholden to anyone. And also I think a valid point that the red camera does not need to be an Alexa, nor is it designed to support rental companies. And if I get banned... From what, an online forum? Oh nooooooooo

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

Paul, No you are not to be banned and we should respect all opinions... But I must tell you that you are so innocently wrong ....

Jim started the Red Digital Company because he is in love with camera and with cinema.... Do you know that he shot all the Oakley photo print ads from its inception? Do you know that he has religiously collected all the still and cinema cameras for the past 20 years....
He loves cinema. He was able with Oakley to "hobnob" with the rich and famous for decades...

No my friend, he started the company for reasons that I respect....

We can find fault in many things here but not what Jim started the company.

When we started shooting Spiderman with prototype Epics and Jim would be there every week he was there to hang with Schwartzman and me and not Marc Webb and Andrew garfield.

I am sorry you feel differently

Peter

 

[Paul Provost]

Wow am I writing in Chinese or something? Does it not say in my post that he wanted to build a camera that blew his mind, and that he owned probably the rarest of all cameras? And yes of course I know he shot the print ads, everyone knows that right?
Again, why does the red need to become Alexa, and why does it need to cater to the rental market?

 

[Marc Wielage]

Again, why does the red need to become Alexa, and why does it need to cater to the rental market?

I think the question can be stated better: what can Red do to capture the market that is currently dominated by Alexa? In the case of TV production, I think it centers around having the ability to shoot 444 Log C and having a very fast, efficient post path. The feature production case is more complex, and I think there's a lot of factors there.

No doubt a lot can and will change at NAB in April.

Sounds like an F65!

Or an F55, which is smaller, more affordable, and makes more-compact files. They're shooting 4K every day for The Blacklist on NBC and doing very well with it.

 

[Shane Kelly]

Again, why does the red need to become Alexa, and why does it need to cater to the rental market?

I get what you are saying but red are still in this business to make money. Making a better camera will make them more money. Being more open to the opinions of working dp's, operators and assistants will help them sell more cameras.
It's not that they need to become Alexa, it's just that they need to become less arrogant.

 

[M Most]

Or an F55, which is smaller, more affordable, and makes more-compact files. They're shooting 4K every day for The Blacklist on NBC and doing very well with it.

It's also being posted at a studio owned facility that was designed to handle very large scale 4K DIs for features, and thus has multiple petabytes of storage and a very well tested pipeline.

 

[Paul Provost]

I get what you are saying but red are still in this business to make money. Making a better camera will make them more money. Being more open to the opinions of working dp's, operators and assistants will help them sell more cameras.
It's not that they need to become Alexa, it's just that they need to become less arrogant.

Well I think they are making money. Isn't there a big waiting list to get dragon, can't make them fast enough, just like when epic came out? I mean red camera can't do what Alexa can (don't start) and vice versa. When you try and make something that can do everything really really well, you end up with some huge over engineered monstrosity like a Maybach or Rolls Royce. That costs a mint. And still doesn't do certain things as well as purpose built items. You'll end up with someing like a Sony F95 full frame 8k raw (I know that doesn't exist) and $250k price for a body. Back to that again? I'm just saying maybe you can't shoehorn the red into a space it's not meant for. It does what it does, and not what it doesn't.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Well I think they are making money. Isn't there a big waiting list to get dragon, can't make them fast enough, just like when epic came out? I mean red camera can't do what Alexa can (don't start) and vice versa. When you try and make something that can do everything really really well, you end up with some huge over engineered monstrosity like a Maybach or Rolls Royce. That costs a mint. And still doesn't do certain things as well as purpose built items. You'll end up with someing like a Sony F95 full frame 8k raw (I know that doesn't exist) and $250k price for a body. Back to that again? I'm just saying maybe you can't shoehorn the red into a space it's not meant for. It does what it does, and not what it doesn't.

I see your argument, but I do not really see the point.