I guess few filmmakers, or rather, videomakers at this site, JW.
Can you give a breakdown of the costs of the soup to nuts production equipment and costs sometime? This new camera, the editing suite and computer, the sound equipment, lighting tools and stands and gels, tracking and boom needs, and whatever else you care to throw in there for comparisons and line the costs up next to the traditional basic 35MM emulsion based set of toys.
Now, the unexpected consequences of this big economic change ought to be examined also. There will be massive amounts of material out there now that will be fighting for any attention at all, a situation similar to the literary and music realm.
Any thoughts about where this may be going?
For the record, I made films from 1964 until 1974, so my tech experience is very obsolete, but the language of the medium I am certain has changed little and the two most important aspects I am willing to bet have not changed either. I say they are either a good script or being at the right place for making a good documentary. The next two items would be proper direction and proper editing.
Bringing the cost of entry way down will be a very interesting factor.
rc --
It's too much work for me to do quickly.
Short version is, I can put together a full production suite including top level editing and a complete camera with lighting and sound, for 100k.
Beat that with a stick.
Sure, in the final stages of post production, I'll likely need to bring in a colorest and rent a full suite for some high-end stuff, but if I've done my work right, I've got my edit list lined up properly so my time in the expensive edit suite is very minimal.
The documentary I'm going to shoot will probably spend several years in production and then another couple in post before we finally go into an on-line suite. The tools are that good.
Hi Jesse,
I'm a longtime video maker, 20+ years. I shoot standard DV, with a Panasonic DVC-80, the sibling of the DVX-100 which has been a favorite of indie filmmakers for many years.
I'm wondering, how come you chose RED (an amazing camera, no doubt) over an HDV Camera like the Sony FX-1 or V!-U? The price differential $20K v. $3-5 is pretty huge.
Cheers,
Best regards,
Greg Hales
ex-Seattle resident, now living in Flagstaff, AZ
Re: iTunes
The thing about it is you can download nbc programs. You just have to bittorrent them and convert them for your iPod, or iPhone. It's not as convienent but the upside is its free.
My choice for viewing tv shows is, in order:
iTunes, to watch what I want when I want withno DVDs scratching. Its convienent. At my neighborhood grocery there is a coinstar that converts 100% of the change to iTunes credit. Nice and convienent.
Download from pirate bay. Not convienent. Have to convert video. But free.
Netflix. Not on demand. Have to decide what to watch ahead of time.
Borrowing friends DVDs.
Not watching it.
Buying DVDs.
Setting aside the time to watch it, with commercials, at whatever time some asshole cokehead executive decides is best for the show.
These companies need to realize tv is obsolete. The only reason we had TV schedules was because technically that was all thats possible. Now, we don't gain anything from that scheduling. We can get content whenever we want it on whatever medium we want.
I happily pay 9.99$ for 16 daily show or colberts, no commercials can watch it when I want, works seemless with my macbook pro (which replaces an entire entertainment center) and my iPhone.
Fuck NBC if they don't want to sell me heroes for the same price. I'll download it from bittorrent and save my money for the next thing I see on iTunes I want.
I dont know about film, but I set up a decent music studio for under 20k by getting it all digital. Not quite as good as a 150k one but the difference is marginal at a much greater value.
Greg -
I'm going to be shooting a documentary --
What’s Your Pattern?
LOGLINE: Why do people date
the same types over and over again?
-- a large part of which will be interwoven interviews of people talking about their dating & intimate relationship history.
The interview itself takes roughly three hours, sometimes more. As I'm intending an Academy documentary branch release, obviously the quality needs to be high and the quality of the cameras you mentioned simply doesn't produce the look I want. Equally important, I can't shoot with those cameras non-stop for three hours. If I should run longer than the three hours my digital magazines currently hold (and I expect future digital mags to hold 6 hours of shooting or more), a mag swap on RED literally takes only 15 seconds, and I can start editing footage from the master mag right then and there on a laptop in Final Cut. Not that I would -- you copy it off to your editing system, plus a backup. But you could in an emergency, which is nice.
The documentary is going to take the next 4-5 years of my life, minimum. I like the work I do to earn a living but I've been doing it a long time. Now that two of my kids are out of high school and Kyle has only one year left, I've been planning this transition to a different career path for a while. Doesn't mean I'm leaving my job anytime soon. But it does mean I'm going to make quality movies and keep writing screenplays, while working with my colleagues to make GNB one of the best political blogs around.
I'm moving my career into media, thus it makes sense for me to put my personal resources into what I consider the best camera, especially one for which there is an commitment from RED to upgrading it over the years to come. Long before a new version comes out which obsoletes this camera, I'll have earned more than my money back. Not to mention this literally is like owning one of the original Macs. It will only ever go up in value. *smiles*
yayy, Creative Tech! thank you Jesse: in return, here's the story of Joe Haldeman and his wife Gay 'Biking Across America on a Water Bottle and a Credit Card': http://home.earthlink.net/~halde...n/
bikeride.html
In re: NBC and other producers of little sight: I think iTunes kinda remembers (not perfectly) and companies like NBC willfully forget the key people in a creative transaction: the artist and the audience.
Also, need I mention Pressplay? And the other producer attempts to run their distribution their way? How'd that work out for them? And they keep doing it again and again, which made wiser heads than me wonder if the same consultant is selling the same busted plan under different names to desperate and greedy production conglomerates...
Being a bit ahead of various curves, I want to be able to get the content I love (or am curious about) in the simplest, cheapest, highest-quality way possible. I'm already pretty much over YouTube because the quality isn't good - nice for whistling puppies (damn you T-Bogg), and easy for distribution, but I'm looking for the next thing already. Joost has a nice interface. But give me Stage6 for quality and community...and I bet the distribution is going to soar when they're out of Beta...the more independent and good stuff there is that's simple-cheap-high quality for millions of people to access, the less power the conglomerates are going to have. might be a dream, but it's a happy one!
Hey, another Redvolutionary. 
We've only just ordered our Red, so we won't see it until March or so. The Red One isn't just about film-making - as a small video production company looking to step up to HD, the Red One makes a hell of a lot more sense than the alternatives from Sony & Panasonic.
The secret to being a film maker? Make movies.
That advice comes straight from Stanley Kubrick himself. I recall that when asked by a young student how to go about becoming a film maker, he said, "Get a camera and some film stock. Make a film. Then make another one."
And this was from the era of Super 8!
No shit? It just makes sense to me.
Cool.
See, they want you to pay $16.00 for the content, but still have the advertising. And to throttle prices to have control over the content ecosystem. And to ultimately retake the distribution mechanism like in the early days. There is no technical reason why we cannot at this point have a la carte programming -- on regular televisions -- via cable or some other avenue.
Hey Jesse, congrats on the Red. Consider me a drooling envious Canuck. I simply can't afford that quality at this time. I looked at a lot of options for my own little production company and I opted for a Canon XHA1. At this time my output is destined for the web and it is a compact and well thought out camera. Being compressed HD, it also allowed me to set up a Mac Pro with Final Cut Studio 2 so I can take care of 95% of post here in house.
Having spent a decade in front of the camera, I'm really looking forward to applying what I've learned behind the lens. I'm writing and doing pre-production for a serial, with the intention of starting to shoot this winter. Please keep us posted about your project so we can share the vicarious thrill of really superb gear.
Cheers.
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