Matthew W. Phillips

I find it interesting that #3 is legitimate when many people in the Olympics are amateurs yet the best in the world at their craft.

I know I am alone in this, but I have never found a Fincher film that I "got." I mean, I keep hearing how great he is so I assume that I am missing something or just do not have that classic "film school" appreciation. His movies grab me with the premise but then they move in a direction that makes me question why I kept watching in the first place. But what do I know? I still don't see the big deal in Citizen Kane either which I know is the golden goose of film school (Great technically though!)

Agreed. But on many low-end productions, the Director/Writer/Producer are all one and the same.

Justin, you obviously did not read what I wrote in any sort of context whatsoever.

David, on a side note, but still indirectly related because of his early adoption...would it be too provocative to ask you what your opinion of Robert Rodriguez is? I mean this in the context of both his role in digital filmmaking and also as a Director who DPs. Do you feel he is technically competent as a DP? Do you personally like his work? If you do not feel comfortable answering such a question in public then I am sorry for asking it. Feel free to disregard it.

What in the world makes you say that? :D I am teasing. At least I didn't go absolutely off the rails like that fellow on the bad cinematography thread. Even i was cringing.

There is value in history. But the problem with discussions like this is because there is no way to objectively conclude something like this. I mean, facts can be spewed out but it is largely a qualitative study. How does one gauge, objectively, who or what had the most impact? How does one even measure impact? I post because it is fun to give my own personal account but it seems that everyone has to start second guessing each other's subjective experience and trying to prove their point. Yes, i do that too but I am not the only one. I swear, I dont know why, but when I get on this site I turn into a crank. It might amaze you to realize that I am actually a nice guy in "real life."

Having never worked with the RED, I can take your word for it. But I happen to know that many on this forum (and DVXUser) back in the day did not share your optimism for that workflow and did not find it as cheap of an overall solution. But I suppose I have derailed this enough since the OP made it clear that he was satisfied with what David and Tyler told him. The truth is...what company or camera makes digital special these days is largely based on who you ask. Someone who has the opportunity to make great images now because they can afford to when they couldnt in the past will probability have a different take on things than someone who is established, studio backed, and can name whatever gadget they desire. For me personally, digital became viable for me thanks to Blackmagic and Sony. I am sure others have different views. I am not even sure why this topic is relevant anyway. People can shoot on whatever the hell they want to regardless of who did it first.

I guarantee that, after the housing crash, you could buy a house with that outside of major metro areas. Even now, there are places in the USA where that will get you a house mortgage free.

I never said that you were wrong on the matter of proper terminology. Only that it is not nearly the case of what is typical in smaller markets. I live in California (granted Northern) and people are lucky if they can even get paid gas money to be part of a film. Theater work is no different as it is almost entirely voluntary. Canon MKII is considered a "premium" camera around these parts and most "DPs" have some variant of the Canon Txi. I suppose I need to work on the set in an area where people actually have money to spend on making a film so I can get some perspective.

Interesting that these "indies" (who are not backed by studios; hence being independent) can afford to fund films that cost enough to pay off a single family residence without a mortgage and there are so many out there that can! I guess I am just very poor indeed.

So can you answer my query of how long it took to render a feature length export at 4k on an indie system?

Saul, I can tell you that a "fast drive array" (which I assume you mean some protocol of RAID) is not enough to render massive amounts of data because your Processor or memory can become a bottleneck. 2008 was a long time ago in computing terms. I would think a good system for that sort of thing back then would be some server type setup like Intel Xeon with dual Processors....$$$ not cheap.

I see. So there was still a Post house in the pipeline. I still stand by BM being a turning point for indies to achieve superb results with the maximum control and minimum of cash outflow. Most indies I know locally do all of their own post work and we dont even have a Post House in these parts (Northern California.) unless you go to SF.

I would be curious to know what the export time of a feature film in 4k would be on one of those machines? Can you enlighten me?

Depends on the Mac desktop...MacPro? Looking at a few grand plus FCP X...

Oh, I am sorry. I did misread. But what a ridiculous point to make that an indie can "transcode" footage but not edit it?

lol. As a Computer Science Grad Student, I find this hard to believe. I have an i7-4790 with 16 GB of RAM and an SSD and it still takes a decent chunk of time to render out full HD footage (1080p @ 24p) Laptops in 2008 would not edit 4k footage easily...especially on the out render. Edit: What laptop has 4k display? Pray tell?

I do recall seeing cheap rates on owner-ops once people realized that owning a RED One wasnt the ticket to early retirement. But it still didnt negate the need to pay for the workflow to get it deliverable.

Perhaps you got a deal or someone you know. But rewind back then and recall that the largest cost of dealing with the RED One was the stability issue (most productions wanted 2 bodies just in case) and then the workflow issue. It was incredibly burdensome to deal with that footage and expensive to shoot native 4k to delivery.

If I would have preordered at 17.5 and then it was on sale for 12.5, I would have been real pissed off. :D Not that it mattered because the price nose-dived once people realized that RED did not make obsolescence obsolete.

Are you sure? I could have sworn that the actual pre-order price was 17,500. It was all over DVXUser when Jarred Land still reigned over there before he started REDUSer.

I feel this site has a disconnect from the real world outside of Hollywood about the budget size spectrum. In Hollywood, sure, 5 million is "low budget." What you call micro-budget would probably be considered low-budget in smaller film markets and what you would call "no-budget" would be called micro-budget. Is anyone aware of just how poverty it is in smaller markets? Features are made for less than $10k in many markets. RED One in its prime was looking at no less than $500/day for the body if you rented unless you "knew a guy."

I suppose RED is significant..to you. But over in low-budget indie land, it might as well been Gold perf 35mm. This whole thread is pointless because he never specified in the OP whether this is indeed the Hollywood industry he is talking about or if he means filmmaking as a whole (which includes low-budget indie.)

Of course you are correct, David. It is just irritating discussing these sorts of things when many of these terms do not mean much in the real world.