when you have to shoot - shoot. dont talk. (was RED IS DEAD)

[Cail Young]

I'd swap them at lunchtime and wrap and back them up myself on my laptop to another RAID.

David, this is what I was going to post - lunch break (or the first meal break depending on when you start for the day) is when we've been swapping drives on non-CF shows; and it's usually when they've rolled about 20-30 minutes as well (with the exception of one which was rolling 6-7 minute takes!). YMMV, I suppose.

God-dam the camera is awkward to hand hold though.....

John, if we may sidetrack for a moment, which handheld system were you using? RED's baseplate and dovetail, or an ARRI shoulder dovetail, or something else?

 

[John Brawley]

David, this is what I was going to post - lunch break (or the first meal break depending on when you start for the day) is when we've been swapping drives on non-CF shows; and it's usually when they've rolled about 20-30 minutes as well (with the exception of one which was rolling 6-7 minute takes!). YMMV, I suppose.



John, if we may sidetrack for a moment, which handheld system were you using? RED's baseplate and dovetail, or an ARRI shoulder dovetail, or something else?

I had two backyard rigs. I don't like the RED system for the reasons that everyone else does. I tried to get an Arri slide plate with harley bar but I wasn't able to get one with the actual shoulder pad (just the bars)

The guys at Lemac took a shoulder pad off a video camera and bastardised a way to attach it to the ET slide plate on the bottom.

I then had bars fitted to the rails and a lovely wooden aaton handgrip on the offside. If only the roll button worked.

This felt ok, but the camera is still very awkward. It's so front heavy that you end up slinging the battery/drive back further to try and counterbalnce it, but the thing becomes as long as an F900 by the time you do that.

I did try an easyrig for a while, and it helps from an endurance POV, but i think that it's harder to operate with it on. It's fine, as long as you dont want to walk or take any steps. Once you start moving, the mass of the camera and rig creates a near bungy effect that becomes hard to counteract.

So I ditched that and suffered on just hand holding it naked and copping it. It's a PITA if you are shooting in a car or lift (as I was).

There's just no way to get the weight back far enough to balance it without the camera becoming extra impractically long.

I was using the fantastic and extra long plus 8 slide plate, but the ET base would stick when trying to slide on and off the head when switching between hand held and tripod mode. I like leaving the handles on so that the camera can slide off forwards and go straight onto the shoulder. The ET baseplate has a notch which is obviously meant to act as a stop from sliding forward to the arri style baseplate which are only designed to work with a rear entry

I like a front or rear entry and even some of the more recent arri slide plates also have this option (i think).

Bu the ET notch means it's almost impossible to depress the catch to allow it to slide forward.

Another minor gripe. Oh. And the ET lock off is very un-ergonomic too. It's small and has a hard enough edge that it's not very comfy to lock off. It needs to be larger or ruberised or something.

jb

 

[John Brawley]

John, if we may sidetrack for a moment, which handheld system were you using? RED's baseplate and dovetail, or an ARRI shoulder dovetail, or something else?

And here's a shot.


Sorry... probably should have started another thread now we're off the topic...

jb

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

LOL - again

Not the first time and definitely not the last.

 

[Cail Young]

And here's a shot.

You found the easyrig didn't dampen low-frequency moves enough? I've seen them used effectively on lighter EFP cameras but not with heavier rigs.

 

[conrad gaunt]

Why won`t it drink?

 

[Brian Reisdorf]

If you're shooting with multiple drives, we've found it pretty timely to swap drives and download when you replace batteries (if you're running a setup that requires battery swaps). With the drive, EVF, and LCD cranking away, it tends to cut battery life down to about 45 minutes, and a battery swap is a great forced break to sneak in and do what you need to do.

My biggest problem shooting to drives, and what I tell every producer/dp/director I work with, is that the more often we can swap drives, the safer and more secure their footage is. In fact in a studio environment or any shoot where there's easy access to the DIT station, I highly push using CF cards because they're generally more reliable, and (more importantly to me) literally force better, more secure data management. There's really no time saved by using the raid vs. CF cards with any half decent DIT, who should be able to swap cards in less than 10 seconds with their eyes closed. The raids are great if we're shooting super slow-mo or longer scenes, but otherwise they really are one of the weakest links in the data management workflow of the red. They also seem to encourage a lot of playback though the RED itself, which generally causes more problems than it's worth (especially when playing back from the drives, go figure). Also, without the drive you increase battery life by 10 minutes or so it seems, which is nice considering one of the most annoying thing most of our DP's/directors find with the Red is a forced 90 sec interrupt when everyone is in the groove and knocking out shots.

 

[David Wyatt]

lets admit the truth. its not ready. not yet.

LOL...tell that to Soderbergh...his Red-shot movie is about to open and he's already shooting another one.

I think you, and most people that post similar complaints, are really actually annoyed at yourselves for allowing yourselves to be put in a situation where a serious yet avoidable problem has arisen. Looking for something or someone to blame, other than yourself, is a natural human reaction - there's no other situation that's more annoying than only having just yourself to blame, it drives me mad.

A lot of inexperienced Red users seem to be seeing the Red Drive as the equivalent of a really long video tape that you can record to all day. Well unfortunately it's not, it's a hard-drive and hard drive's fail which is why, if you're going to use that instead of compact flash, you still have to back up as you go along (at least 2 Red Drives are the best solution for that). As many have already said Compact Flash is by far the more reliable...no moving parts etc...

Most of the people that have had similar, avoidable problems like yourself are first time users of the Red (most seem to be renters rather than owners) - they expect to pull it out of a case, turn it on and start shooting like a DV camera, but unfortunately it's a bit more complicated than that with the Red - it takes a bit more research, planning and safeguarding but the results can make it well worth the effort. There are literally hundreds of people in this community that have achieved fantastic results by doing the research and implementing the safeguards. But I bet you won't make the same mistake again, so in that sense you've learnt a very valuable yet harsh lesson.

Good luck with recovering your footage and with the rest of your film.