Neil Abeynayake
Well-known member
Word about RED Tech-Support Team.
We had a technical issue with our Epic-W. The camera would not turn on if not used or powered up for a couple of days. For us, it started when we firmware upgraded to the Beta version 6.4.17 (Epic_W_Build_v6.4.17). And the camera might have had 18 hours in total when this issue first came in to play. We had to remove all modules including the monitor (re-connect ONLY the V-Lock I/O module) in order to get it up and running. At that point, the internal clock had reset to January 2010 and all slate data and user settings are gone. Also, the monitor stated to get very hot. This was getting unbearable to say the least. Finally, we went back to the last stable firmware release build.
In the meantime, we got a call from an old friend of ours for a gig. A car/SUV commercial for a big automotive manufacturer. There were two well-known talents a professional male athlete and a female movie star. I told them to have two if not three cameras just to be on the safe side. They want to have two reliable cameras on set. One from us and the other an ARRI through a friend of the DP. We were asked to be on location at 7:00 a.m. and we were there at 5:30 a.m. The California State Park Services people came at 6:00 a.m. to open the gates to our site. We started to setup the camera and here comes an unusual early morning rain squall that lasted maybe 20 minutes or so. Anyways, got the camera ready and powered up, nothing. Same old problem. It was running the night before. The production guys are getting nervous. I quickly sent one our guys to get a rental camera. The rental house opens at 9:00 a.m. The first take is set up for the same time. The male talent is on site and he has to leave early to be at the bedside of a gravely ill family member. Somehow I got the camera running and everybody is ready for the action. Halfway through the first take the camera decide to quit for no apparent reason. Director is not happy but allows me to reboot the device. I get a call from the CHP. The guy I sent to get the rental camera had gotten in to an accident on 405's early morning traffic. Ad agency people are getting worried.
I get our camera back on line do the first take again. The director wants a second take. We do the second and third takes of the same scene.
Scene #2: 1st take bunch of seagulls flew right in to the scene. Big argument with one large seagull against a dozen or more smaller dudes. After cleaning gull poop off both vehicles and sweeping the set, we are ready for the second take. Went really well and at the end the male talent gets a call from the hospital. He is visibly upset and want's to leave right away. Producers and the Director somehow convinced him to do the 3rd scene. Half way into the 3rd scene our camera freezes. ARRI dude is happily rolling. Male talent looks at me as if to burn me alive and leaves the set. Ad agency wants to dump the RED. Our buddy the Producer calms them down and tells me one more of those and you are out. I did unleashed a few choice words at our camera.
The rest of the day we did not have problems but the damage was done. Every one of the Ad Agency, Director and his crew are admiring the ARRI and I'm in the gutters. At end of the day, we decided NOT to charge any money for our contribution. Ad Agency wants to use ARRI ALEXA SXT Plus material for the promo. That night I left an angry post on this forum about how the camera acted etc. We are under a strict NDA. Therefore, could not talk or show much of anything to do with that project.
We came home looked at the capture material and decided to throw in a LUT just to see how they'd look like. It looked pretty decent to me. So, I decided to invite Ad Agency people, Director and Producers to a screening of the 8K Epic-W material on a giant 8k LED wall at one of our client's studios. I told them to bring their ARRI RAW capture files too. We played the ARRI stuff first and our stuff right after that. Kid you not, Ad Agency guys and gals were on cloud nine when they saw our 8k stuff with one of Phil Hollands’s LUTs applied. Thanks Phil, I owe you a bunch of drinks buddy. Ad Agency wanted to pull a few stills from our captures to compare. Now the Ad Agency wants to use our material for the finish product and some stills for their brochure. They also, wants us to finish 3 more scenes with the male talent who agreed to come back in mid-October to complete his part. He is yet to see how good he looks in 8k!
Moral of the story is; even in our worst day, RED material outshines everything else (if exposed and handled properly). If given a chance we could save the day in most cases.
So, what has this got to do with the tech-support issue?
I received email from Chad of RED Tech-support soon after my post on RU. He wanted to know what led to the failure so they can replicate it in their lab. We told them our experiences with the camera. Eventually Christine | Product Support Manager got involved and issued Service Order numbers to get our camera in to their Irvine HQ. We hand delivered the camera there. After a week, I received email saying the Tech-Support guys were able to replicate what we experienced on that camera and they sent the device with all modules to Engineering for further evaluation. The icing of the cake is RED offered us a replacement unit until our camera gets fixed. All this happened without us asking for a camera. That is classy and beyond "Gold Standard Service" to me.
We have a 20 minute 8k end-to-end pilot to be "filmed" in mid-November. We need to capture higher frame-rates (on some scenes @ 8k) more than our Epic-W is churning out right now. Anyways, we are happy we have the Epic-W for now. We have been approached by 2 distributors, 2 major on-line streaming companies and a large studio for screenings. The Director/writer had written future length screenplay and is writing 54 episodic screenplays as we speak. She has past the half way mark with writing the episodic part of it. A few companies and talented folks who believes us had join this low budget pilot for now. Many of us are investing what little we have on this project. There are Arial, surface and underwater captures on the shot-log. I am the DP for surface work and and fellow RU Tom Hamilton is the U/W DP. If everything goes as planned, we should be in for a major production and the camera of choice is none other than our favorite Helium based cameras. Love to do VV but beggars cannot be chooses.
We had a technical issue with our Epic-W. The camera would not turn on if not used or powered up for a couple of days. For us, it started when we firmware upgraded to the Beta version 6.4.17 (Epic_W_Build_v6.4.17). And the camera might have had 18 hours in total when this issue first came in to play. We had to remove all modules including the monitor (re-connect ONLY the V-Lock I/O module) in order to get it up and running. At that point, the internal clock had reset to January 2010 and all slate data and user settings are gone. Also, the monitor stated to get very hot. This was getting unbearable to say the least. Finally, we went back to the last stable firmware release build.
In the meantime, we got a call from an old friend of ours for a gig. A car/SUV commercial for a big automotive manufacturer. There were two well-known talents a professional male athlete and a female movie star. I told them to have two if not three cameras just to be on the safe side. They want to have two reliable cameras on set. One from us and the other an ARRI through a friend of the DP. We were asked to be on location at 7:00 a.m. and we were there at 5:30 a.m. The California State Park Services people came at 6:00 a.m. to open the gates to our site. We started to setup the camera and here comes an unusual early morning rain squall that lasted maybe 20 minutes or so. Anyways, got the camera ready and powered up, nothing. Same old problem. It was running the night before. The production guys are getting nervous. I quickly sent one our guys to get a rental camera. The rental house opens at 9:00 a.m. The first take is set up for the same time. The male talent is on site and he has to leave early to be at the bedside of a gravely ill family member. Somehow I got the camera running and everybody is ready for the action. Halfway through the first take the camera decide to quit for no apparent reason. Director is not happy but allows me to reboot the device. I get a call from the CHP. The guy I sent to get the rental camera had gotten in to an accident on 405's early morning traffic. Ad agency people are getting worried.
I get our camera back on line do the first take again. The director wants a second take. We do the second and third takes of the same scene.
Scene #2: 1st take bunch of seagulls flew right in to the scene. Big argument with one large seagull against a dozen or more smaller dudes. After cleaning gull poop off both vehicles and sweeping the set, we are ready for the second take. Went really well and at the end the male talent gets a call from the hospital. He is visibly upset and want's to leave right away. Producers and the Director somehow convinced him to do the 3rd scene. Half way into the 3rd scene our camera freezes. ARRI dude is happily rolling. Male talent looks at me as if to burn me alive and leaves the set. Ad agency wants to dump the RED. Our buddy the Producer calms them down and tells me one more of those and you are out. I did unleashed a few choice words at our camera.
The rest of the day we did not have problems but the damage was done. Every one of the Ad Agency, Director and his crew are admiring the ARRI and I'm in the gutters. At end of the day, we decided NOT to charge any money for our contribution. Ad Agency wants to use ARRI ALEXA SXT Plus material for the promo. That night I left an angry post on this forum about how the camera acted etc. We are under a strict NDA. Therefore, could not talk or show much of anything to do with that project.
We came home looked at the capture material and decided to throw in a LUT just to see how they'd look like. It looked pretty decent to me. So, I decided to invite Ad Agency people, Director and Producers to a screening of the 8K Epic-W material on a giant 8k LED wall at one of our client's studios. I told them to bring their ARRI RAW capture files too. We played the ARRI stuff first and our stuff right after that. Kid you not, Ad Agency guys and gals were on cloud nine when they saw our 8k stuff with one of Phil Hollands’s LUTs applied. Thanks Phil, I owe you a bunch of drinks buddy. Ad Agency wanted to pull a few stills from our captures to compare. Now the Ad Agency wants to use our material for the finish product and some stills for their brochure. They also, wants us to finish 3 more scenes with the male talent who agreed to come back in mid-October to complete his part. He is yet to see how good he looks in 8k!
Moral of the story is; even in our worst day, RED material outshines everything else (if exposed and handled properly). If given a chance we could save the day in most cases.
So, what has this got to do with the tech-support issue?
I received email from Chad of RED Tech-support soon after my post on RU. He wanted to know what led to the failure so they can replicate it in their lab. We told them our experiences with the camera. Eventually Christine | Product Support Manager got involved and issued Service Order numbers to get our camera in to their Irvine HQ. We hand delivered the camera there. After a week, I received email saying the Tech-Support guys were able to replicate what we experienced on that camera and they sent the device with all modules to Engineering for further evaluation. The icing of the cake is RED offered us a replacement unit until our camera gets fixed. All this happened without us asking for a camera. That is classy and beyond "Gold Standard Service" to me.
We have a 20 minute 8k end-to-end pilot to be "filmed" in mid-November. We need to capture higher frame-rates (on some scenes @ 8k) more than our Epic-W is churning out right now. Anyways, we are happy we have the Epic-W for now. We have been approached by 2 distributors, 2 major on-line streaming companies and a large studio for screenings. The Director/writer had written future length screenplay and is writing 54 episodic screenplays as we speak. She has past the half way mark with writing the episodic part of it. A few companies and talented folks who believes us had join this low budget pilot for now. Many of us are investing what little we have on this project. There are Arial, surface and underwater captures on the shot-log. I am the DP for surface work and and fellow RU Tom Hamilton is the U/W DP. If everything goes as planned, we should be in for a major production and the camera of choice is none other than our favorite Helium based cameras. Love to do VV but beggars cannot be chooses.
Last edited:
That makes me happy.