Luke Haywood

Not specifically Reduser, but they all eat at the same cafeteria:

Scene 4 take 1 a-n-n-n-nd... Action!

So does this mean? Jannard didn't write it? WTF did?!!

Jumper used the RED for 2nd Unit and VFX shots. Same with Wanted.

 

Luke, I didn't get the impression Jim was doing anything other responding. He has no need to "calm down".

Putting quotes around a phrase (eg "calm down") normally implies that you are quoting the other persons exact words. So, where did I use that phrase?

I actually said "take it easy". Not an unwarranted response, since all I was asking was, what parts of Wanted were shot with the Red. I don't know how Jannard got from there to the subject of "discrediting" the thing. If you can't ask a simple question without getting accused of being "disrespectful", it just makes him sound evasive.

Well I've just been back there.

Take 1... aaaannnnd... Action!

Take 2... aaaannnnd... Action!

There you are folks, he just feels like it :blink:

Gary, I think you should do some research into the RED. It doesn't seem like you have done any at all.

I think some of the posters here should do some real-world research that doesn't involve the Internet :rolleyes:

Well there was a nearly identical thread on the exact same topic, so perhaps it was merged? Geez, a lot conspiracy theories around here. :)

Not "nearly identical" and it was not merged! The surviving thread had far less information. (But there is now quite a lot a lot of discussion in it about the missing thread!).

Conspiracy theories are typically unsupportable because they would require an impossible level of co-operation in keeping something secret, by people who have no vested interest in doing so.

This is clearly not the case here, since

A. The thread definitely did exist (I saw it, Google saw it, and one of the posters on Reduser has kept a copy of it)

B. Since Reduser is basically run by one person, it is entirely possible for them to eliminate threads if they feel like it, with no explanation.

Well, whoever is responsible, it just makes Reduser.net look more amatuerish than it already is, if that's possible. This sort of thing is like resisting arrest when there's no possibility of escape. The cops are still going to arrrest you, and you'll just get extra charges on the rap sheet for your trouble.

Back to REDuser ethics:

This thread seems to have disappeared. It's nowhere to be found on the REDuser site, although it was there until quite recently, and it still can be found with a google search. If you click on the link you get strange messages to the effect that you need to subscribe or log in, even if you are! (Not the link shown below, that's just a "picture" of the link! Click here if you want to try it.)

I just wonder why. It was far from being the most inflammatory thread there. They chose the Dalsa over the RED for one apparently extremely tricky multi camera shot. So what?

I second the motion...

 

Jim

Yeah, but unfortunately for you this is not Reduser.com

You're going to be allowed to post here whether you like it or not ! :P

I love RED and everything about it. I think it is a ground breaking product and the RED team and management deserves endless applause. But I am beginning to think that Jim Jannard isn't the one who is writing this.

 

I would assume that an owner and CEO of a fortune 500 company would be more busy than surf discussion forums.

Not any more he isn't :lol:

If we assume Jim has a 50 year life span, he could theoretically spend just under a million dollars a week for the rest of his life without going broke. I really don't understand what the big attraction is with this project.

DOWNSIDES:

+ IT'S A COMPUTER that takes around 2 minutes to boot. This has to happen with any battery change of course. Really unacceptable IMO.

I've been using PCs for well over 20 years and I've never once had the RAM fail on boot up. The few times where a memory fault has developed it's always been after the thing has been running for a while, which the RAM check won't find anyway.

But computer designers still seemed locked in the 1960s, where RAM failure was common and could have serious consequences because large numbers of users often had terminals running off the same computer.

Basically, I think RAM and other system checks should be at the discretion of the operator. I really think that if it passes the first thing in the morning, the chances of it failing later in the day (or week:-) are pretty remote.

You get the same problem with domestic DVD recorders, some of THEM can take two minutes to boot up as well, and then take even more time to initialize a blank DVD. With a VCR you turn it on, slam in a tape and press "record"!

Like an Arri3 really :lol:

> The idea behind RED was to put a professional tool in the hands of many. To empower the indie shooter

> and next generation film maker.

 

And that's the point you're missing - because putting a professional tool in their hands does not particularly empower them.

"Empower", no.

"Impoverish" yes! ;)

He's a priveliedged nearly 7 foot kid who comes from a Canadian family that owns a convenience store chain in Canada. He became a snowboarder in Jasper when he got old enough to move where he worked cleaning rooms in a hotel. He then moved to Vancover where he became a bike messenger and started a bike messenger company. In 1997 he had a small part in a CBC show that was a poor mans Real World. That convinced him that he too could be a filmmaker. Bought a DVX to make a 'doc' on bike messengers. Never did. Someone hired him to shoot a mid budget feature a few months later, even though he had no experience or knowledge of film making. After the movie, he realized that he should actually learn something about film making, and that it would be easier to learn film making than attending film school by making a website, so he started DVXuser.com as an attempt to get people in the industry to share some of their knowledge to new people in the industry. Today it's one of the busiest prosumer/hobbyist websites on the web. And while he was making film a hobby, he designed websites under the name zoommedia.com and hence creating RED..

Well he's done a nice job on their website, anyway :lol:

As for IMDB, I wouldn't look at that as a judge of a persons qualifications. I know lots of folks who have more credits than God who have none or few on IMDB. I for one have worked on over 500 national programs over the years that could be on IMDB and mostly asked for my name not to be in the programs credits. And sometimes when it was, I asked IMDB to remove my credit.

Oh I understand that perfectly well. But in general, the DVX user crowd tend to think being listed on the IMDB is just one step below winning an Oscar. Most of them simply cannot get their heads around the idea that someone would actually want to opt out of being listed :lol:

How exactly is this relevant? Last time I checked, Jarred wasn't claiming he was John Toll. Jarred barely posts about anything. He never weighs in on 99% of the subject matter on the forum. He rarely weighs in on anything at all, nor does he interfere with the general running of the forum. Mostly he's just a host for the rest of us, and sometimes kicks down some first-hand information about the Red when it's relevant. No offense, but your post smacks haterism.

So, you'd be OK if REDuser was run by Oprah Winfrey or Dr Phil :P

"smacks haterism"?

What do you mean "smacks"? You mean as in "clobbers"? I don't understand.

The idea behind RED was to put a professional tool in the hands of many. To empower the indie shooter and next generation film maker.

Yes, but you've given far too many people the idea that making a movie starts and ends with the camera and recording medium. There was a time when the term "Indie" Producer meant somebody who made real movies, but outside the studio system. Now it seems anybody with even the vaguest notion of shooting anything on any format, feels entitled to refer to him/her self as an "Indie" producer. I don't where that leaves Indies who have real budgets and shoot on 35mm film.

As much as Phil and a few others would like to discredit RED as "grotesquely incompetent", that message doesn't seem to be sticking, no matter how hard a few try.

 

Jim

Who are the "few others"?

I don't recall anybody else making any such claim.

It's true some people have been somewhat vociferous in their opinion that the RED's real-world performance is really nothing out of the ordinary, but most of them readly admit that for the price it's still outstanding value for money.

Me, I am not going to say anything until I see an actual All-RED movie on the big screen.

You should feel honored, "Wanted" is probably the only movie I will be going to see this year!

Well, no, actually I probably will be going to see "Iron Man" as well , since I've only been waiting for that one for about 40 years :lol:

Well Obviously a lot of money has been invested in the RED camera and in my opinion it gives the best footage I have seen from a video/ Digital camera Personally I prefer the look of film. But if I wanted to make a film then then the RED may even be my choice for a film script I have written because of the sheer amount of SFX it would need and because the RED has the quality and a look that I wouldnt say competes with film but is a viable alternative. The RED is another tool for film makers and a very good one at that.

It sounds like you want to voice a contrary opinion, but I can't find anything in your post that particularly disagrees with what has been said do far.

So, what point are you trying to make, that fits into the scope of this thread?

Most people here aren't particularly critical of the camera itself, it is what it is. They are however highly critical of how it was and is being marketed.

By the way, have you got anything other than a script? If not, trust me, the shooting format you use is a very long way down a very long list of obstacles you will have to overcome before you see your project on any sort of screen, large or small.

That's also assuming you consider the Red forums to be "thriving". Personally I consider them to be a toxic wasteground of sycophantism and disinformation.

 

P

What you appear to be saying is: "Get a room, Reduser" :P

Fortunately most of the toxicity is well diluted. If this forum was like Reduser your post would have elicited a large amount of single phrase post "roughage" eg

Right on Phil!

You said a mouthful baby!

Great Post Phil!

I hear ya Phil!

You da man Phil!

:lol:

:P

What Phil said!

I wanna have your baby Phil!

Fantastic post Phil! ;) etc etc etc

To be fair, there have been some good, informative posts on Reduser.

One thing I'd be interested in knowing is what percentage of purchasers actually post on Reduser. I'm sure a large percentage of RED buyers would be professionals with no more time for poseur prat-chat than the trest of us.

Now there's an idea, a forum where the only people allowed to post are those who have actually paid for and received a RED camera!

Jarred does believe in fairly heavy moderation in general, but he's built two thriving communities in Reduser and DVXuser, so he must be doing something right.

If it's not a rude question exactly who IS Jarred Land? Apart from his as you said "built two thriving communities in Reduser and DVXuser", what exactly has he done in the film/TV world? His listings on IMDB are minor to virtually non-existent. OK IMDB doesn't cover the huge number of top dollar people who work exclusively on commercials, but I somehow don't get the impression he's done much of that either.

So, can I take that to mean that "Wanted" another Steven Sodebergh film, starring Angelina Jolie, is NOT shot all-RED?

Erk. My bad, it's actually a Timur Bekmambetov film. :rolleyes: Well same difference.

I'm not really a fan of either dude, so the RED's performance is the only thing that interests me.

Only some of Jumper was shot on RED... but then again, RED was only a prototype when Jumper was filmed.

 

You can find reasons to use RED or to discredit it. But you will have a hard time going forward denying that RED is being used more and more on feature films. "The Informant", a Steven Sodergergh film starring Matt Damon, will be shot "all RED". As was "Game". RED is being used on "G.I. Joe" and exclusively on a Dean Devlin made for TV movie. The list is growing rapidly.

 

Jim

Take it easy Jim. Before I credit OR discredit the RED, I'd kinda like an opportunity to actually SEE some of its work.

I'm confused.

I plan to see "Wanted" when it comes out. I had assumed that was all-RED.

But now you're saying: "The Informant", a Steven Sodergergh film starring Matt Damon, **will** be shot "all RED".

So, can I take that to mean that "Wanted" another Steven Sodebergh film, starring Angelina Jolie, is NOT shot all-RED?

Look, plenty of other movies have been shot with digital cameras and they came out on the big screen reasonably OK, so I'm not expecting the RED to be a big disaster, but I don't want to wind up saying WOW! That's easily as good as film, and then find out that that's because it IS film!

I've just noticed that on the www.red.com website they've now included "Jumper" in their "Shot on RED" section.

From what I've heard, only a few seconds of RED-derived footage actually appear on the screen, apparently some surf-based action, which sounds suspiciousy like a "crash-cam" scenario!

Can anybody clarify this?

While we may not all agree with all other users here, thanks to the moderators, the discussion remains open and spirited. Information gets exchanged. Thank you for the honesty. Having my posts literally rewritten by moderators is not only completely amoral but terrifying.

If it was done by one of the moderators there, then that's really sad. Pathetic really.

I've had one of my posts "edited" on Reduser. Admittedly I had misunderstood something one one of the "officials" said, but he should have simply quoted my mistake, and explained what I had gotten wrong, not simply deleted the sentence from my post. However I think that might have been the result of youthful inexperience.

With a project like the RED there are still going to be hecklers no matter how successful the product is. Trying to suppress the publication of undesirable information or viewpoints like that, simply gives them ammunition.

If the product never goes anywhere (and please be realistic, the RED still has a long way to go before it's taken seriously by anybody outside its immediate "family"), most people would say "Well, nice try lads, shame things didn't quite go your way" and so on.

But if the company gets a reputation for using "bully boy" tactics to try to cover up their setbacks and then fails, that will simply set them up for ridicule.

Don't get me wrong, I think the RED is still in with a chance, but if word gets round that they are trying to "edit" reality, that will make only their job so much harder.

> But it only has 12 bit analog-to-digital converters on the chip.

 

Y...yes, that's why it's fatally flawed.

 

Apart from nothing else, excepting everything, overlooking the huge compression, the low effective resolution, the unfinishedness... apart from all that, it quite simply doesn't produce very nice pictures. I've avoided saying it like that because it's inherently a matter of opinion, but I think it's well enough supported by the obviously fairly low dynamic range. Even if they are capable of really finishing it, I don't think it'll ever be a truly good camera.

 

P

Well all current model video cameras has got that limitation. Only the Dalsa Origin has 16 bit conversion, but the first four bits appear to be quantitized noise! Poor, but honest I guess!

As far as noise goes, we don't never get the chance to see what the true noise performance of the RED is, because the digital data goes straight off the chip into Wavelet, so the RED RAW books are always going to be at least slightly cooked.

RED say they don't use noise reduction, but is that the same as just not recording the noise, since recording noise with wavelets requires extra effort.

I have to say though, I have seen some very nice pictures taken with the RED. I wish my cellphone camera was that good!

But I guess they aren't going to post any awful ones, are they? :lol:

Hi,

 

I suspect that with quite a bit of underexposure it could be made to look OK, but I don't think that many of the people who are currently using it are really capable of figuring that out.

 

Phil

But it only has 12 bit analog-to-digital converters on the chip. Unless there is some sort of analog gamma compression before the digitization process (which I don't believe there is), if you stop the iris down to preserve the highlights, every stop knocks another bit off the ADC output for the bulk of the signal. To get four more stops of overhead would effectively turn it into an 8-bit ADC. You'd then be trying to capture an 11 stop dynamic range with an 8-bit ADC!

This particular technological brick wall has been around for many years.

One of the main reasons the film/telecine system is still popular is that film capture pre-compresses the dynamic range down to something that an electronic imager can cope with.

OK I don't think much of the pissy little mini-BNC connectors and other bits that are sure to snap off at the most undesirable time, and some of the other ergonomic features appear to have been designed by people with limited experience of both professional film and video cameras, but given time, I'm sure this camera will mature into a worthwhile tool.

In short it's a very cheap, very nasty cellphone type CMOS camera that happens to go at 24fps.

 

 

Phil

Oh come on Phil, it's not THAT bad!

OK the RED lenses are somewhat of Handycam quality, and most of the RED fan base clearly have no experience of anything bUT Handycams, and RED need to learn some lessons about the ruggedness requirements for on-set equipment and so on, but it's still a damned good body for the price.

To me the RED's biggest flaw is not making any provision for live 1920 x 1080 output. There should be a connector of some sort where the raw (as in direct off-chip) data could be taken off and processsed by **third-party** software and hardware, and recorded on industry standard formats. This Redcode nonsense smacks far too much of the software house "tail" trying to wag the industry "dog". There are plenty of other JPEG2000 re-jigs out there waiting int he wings.

I also think the strain might be starting to show on Jim Jannard as the realities of mass production start to sink in.

It can't have been a very easy year for him. First he lost control of the corporate empire he founded with his bare hands all those ago, and then watched as it was immediately sold out from under him to their biggest competitor.

Luke,

 

Thanks for the link to the Lemac video. Apparently they have more coming out over the next couple of weeks to show different stages of the process... will be interesting to watch!

I just Googled { "Red One" Sydney Rental } and it found LEMAC and this Outfit called Red Cam, who don't actually have a camera yet!

It was good to hear from some non-RedHeads who are still interested to see how the camera pans out.

Did you download Josh's Footage? It's amazingly clean and smooth. As people say, it's like a high end DSLR that moves! Do you know what sort of bird that is?

I see that LEMAC rentals in Sydney are offering the RED One for hire. I don't know if that's the same company.

Somebody is already shooting a feature with them, and they have some interesting downloads of video of the prepping.