
My Final Post - cwilson
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?104367-My-Final-Post&p=1245087#post1245087
======
devindotcom
I've followed the RED story from the beginning; I have a friend who bought one
of the first run and basically launched his career with it, so I've stayed
informed for personal and professional reasons.

They've taken a lot of flak because they make big promises and only sort of
keep them (or rather, they keep them with a few galling compromises, as I
understand it). But the fact is they kicked the cinema industry right in the
ass and made them work for it. RED leapfrogged them into the digital era and
because of the industry panic we now have amazing cameras like the Arri Alexa
and Sony F35.

I don't know what RED has for a future, but despite all the weirdness, hype,
and inside baseball, it has a pretty glorious past. Good work, Jim, and thanks
from all of us.

~~~
lcrs
I'm not sure the Alexa and F35 were panicked responses to the Red... the Arri
D20 and Panavision Genesis predated the Red, and are very clearly the
ancestors of the Alexa and F35 respectively - they use the same resolutions,
sensor layouts and colourspaces, if not the exact same chips and recording
formats. Not to mention the Dalsa Origin, a 4k camera out well before the
Reds.

~~~
stephen_g
It was a pretty incredible shift though - The more common cameras of the day,
such as the 1080p Sony F950, was going for over $180,000 a package, and
suddenly you could get a 4K camera package for $35,000. And it could record
Raw footage to compact flash cards! The F900 and F950 recorded MPEG2 to HDCAM
and HDCAM SR tape at that time.

And they were pretty unprecedented (for the cinema industry) in the way they
handled upgrades - dramatically improving many aspects in their cameras
through free firmware upgrades and then offering a major sensor upgrade for
the cameras, whereas their competitors would just release whole new camera
models.

------
KaiserPro
Well, thats a turn out for the books.

I've dealt with RED professionally on a few levels. Firstly I came across RED
footage shortly after the cameras were released to film makers. Back then to
transcode the output from the camera (jpeg2000 with some meta data) to
something useful required a beefy mac pro, some free software and lots and
lots of time (3-10FPS if you were lucky). Either way, it was expensive. (we
used to charge £500 every ten minutes of red footage transcoded)

This made me sad, especially as there was no SDK for linux to allow us to use
the render farm to transcode it. You could spend £5000 on an "accelerator
card" however, its £5k and prone to breaking. The annoying thing was the
despite the hype the camera really wasn't all that. Yes it was 4k, but it was
noisy, had rolling shutter and colours were duller than dish water. It took
the Foundry "reverse engineering" the codec to bring RED to linux natively

35mm film was still far better in terms of image quality(assuming decent DoP
and film lab). Yet the hype still built. (Early RED films were dark and broody
for a reason....)

The next generation of camera was alright, still expensive to hire/buy/use.
Yes the sensor unit is relatively cheap, but you still needed to buy lenses,
adapters, storage medium, handles(£250 for the cheapest handle), focus gears,
etc. You then have to factor in the cost of post production. It was at the
time expensive to shoot RED. On a par with film. It took at least two
generations of RED cameras, and a lots of third party dev hours to make RED
reasonable to use.

Nowadays RED decoding is fairly trivial to do, and the modern sensors are
fairly good, assuming you down res from the 5k to avoid sensor noise.

One thing to note is this, RED fans are utterly fanatical. They will swear
that anything RED is cheaper, better, faster, messianic compared to the
competition. They are also prone to pirating software.

In the annals of cinema, there will be many inches devoted to RED.
Evangilising its reforming power. However the camera that really stood out is
the canon 5Dmk2. It was cheaper (genuinely throwaway in cinema terms) good
enough quality to get by, and has cheap high quality lenses.

In short, RED camera, its alright for cinema, pain in the arse for post.
REDuser.net and the surrounding noise is worse than angry 4chan.

The people at RED however are lovely, its just some noisy users that are
obnoxious

~~~
jluxenberg
Regarding the transcoding; there must be other costs at play there. Because by
my calculation[1], time on your Mac Pro costs £0.67 per second...which seems
quite steep.

((3 frames / second) * (1 second / 24 frames) * (600 seconds / £500 ))^-1 =
£0.67 per second

~~~
modfodder
You also typically need someone watching over the footage, making sure
everything is transcoded correctly (especially in the early days as the
software would crap out halfway through). Most producers were under the
mistaken impression, at least early on, that shooting on the RED would save a
day of film transfer. It didn't, it just switched that day over to the edit
house, preferably to a dedicated machine with an assistant. It still took a
day or two to get footage ready for the editor.

Also, early on, the camera dept. didn't want anything to do with onset media
management and transcoding (the job of the newly created DIT), but over time,
camera realized their mistake (in losing that control and revenue) and now
DITs are typically part of the camera dept and most transcoding is done on
set. Now post will get a drive of the raw footage and the transcodes.

------
joeblau
I keep getting a database Error; Here is the cached version.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?104367-My-
Final-Post&p=1245087#post1245087)

------
9999
I followed RED closely when they first started and it's sad to see Jannard bow
out like this. Their accomplishments as stated in his letter do sound
impressive, but I think they are more noteworthy as a catalyst of change
throughout the professional camera industry. Scarlet, when it was initially
announced, sounded like a dream camera, but they were never able to deliver on
that initial promise (at least not on the price and quality in the timeline
that they initially aimed for). With that announcement alone though the other
camera manufacturers suddenly had to compete at a completely new level. It's
unfortunate that RED took too long to actually get their product to the
market, because in many ways they defined the DSLR cinematography market
without ever even entering it. Had they actually entered the market as they
initially intended, we would have an even more impressive array of cameras to
choose from today. Instead, many of the same artificial limitations exist
(limited bitrate recording, lack of raw capability, smaller colorspace, etc.
etc.).

It's a pity that they didn't deliver there. It's also a pity that Jannard let
the hordes of basement dwelling internet trolls and self-entitled, quasi-pro
blog dorks get him down, and I wonder if he had paid less attention to these
toxic non-customers if they would have been able to execute their initial
vision for the Scarlet.

~~~
KaiserPro
The RED user is a very strange beast. I have witnessed both sides of the mania
(I attend a lot of tradeshows for media types) They swarm around Ted (from
RED, who is a nice, but odd chap) They literally eat rumors for breakfast, and
then troll other manufacturers.

Trying to make software for "casual" red users is a devil's own job. They
never really pay for anything, and are very, very moaney.

~~~
9999
I understand how the RED owners have a vested interest in promoting the
system. They benefit professionally from the regard that others have for the
cameras. e.g. they can rent out their cameras, command a higher rate as an
operator or DP if they have one in their kit, etc. What I don't understand is
the users of reduser.net that don't own or even rent the cameras, but seem to
be there to either froth at the mouth in either reverence or hatred for the
company. I stopped going there a long time ago because the signal to noise
ratio was just too low.

~~~
KaiserPro
It confuses me too, I genuinely don't understand the motivation of the hangers
on.

------
volaski
Maybe because I don't know the full story, but I'm having hard time
understanding why a guy who has built such great companies like Oakley and RED
so hurt by some guy who makes movies like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-
Li

~~~
lcrs
Geoff Boyle is probably more a commercials DoP than a feature film one, but in
this context he is notable for running the CML mailing list, which is a pretty
incredible resource for cinematographers. I think it's the most focussed,
knowledgeable online community I've ever known. It's so on-point that you can
buy a physical book of the discussions.

------
benaiah
HN has murdered the server, cache here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reduser.net%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3F104367-My-
Final-Post)

------
themodelplumber
If I understand this correctly, the guy who started Oakley (eyewear) went on
to start RED (the 4K digital movie camera). Now he is bowing out and handing
the reins over to a younger guy. And he is annoyed that people get annoyed
with him. Anything else I should know?

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Yes. Wikipedia: James "Jim" Jannard is an American designer and businessman,
and founder of eyewear and apparel company Oakley, Inc. and RED Digital
Cinema. [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jannard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jannard)

~~~
echohack
What all of this fails to mention is that Jannard was essentially forced to
sell Oakley to Luxottica
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica)).
Luxottica has a gigantic monopoly on the eyewear industry and one day refused
to sell Oakley brands in their stores unless they sold out. The high price tag
with the sale is to keep Jannard quiet.

I think Jannard has developed a kind of healthy-paranoia here, because the
work he's doing is flying in the face of titans. His persona makes him want to
stand up against the big boys and say, "Told you so!"

In my opinion, he's _right_ to be super paranoid and fall into the background.
He doesn't want RED to become another Oakley.

~~~
Zoepfli
Apple created their own brand stores, so why didn't Oakley? This would have
prevented them from being so dependent on a third party...

~~~
prawn
Monstrous costs to do it in more than a handful of locations. Also, when you
start a fashion sunglass brand, I don't know that you're all about changing
the world to the point that you have to hold out for some ideal. Wouldn't have
been a bad result to sell up and move on to something new.

------
protomyth
Red jumpstarted the new age of digital cameras with 4K RAW at an amazing
price. They have had missteps (witness Scarlet and the late / but in the field
Dragon).

It is a shame Canon really hasn't learned the RAW lesson and has been dragged
by people (e.g. Magic Lantern). It is a crime for any camera to deliver less
than its best because of crap codecs / software. Red had software upgrades
that improved already shipping products without charging an upgrade fee. Canon
barely learned with the 24p for the 5Dmk2.

Their back and forth with people making movies is pretty refreshing when you
think about some other camera companies.

------
lambada
As someone who knows nothing about cameras, that was a fascinating read.

~~~
mistercow
I was really surprised to find out (because this post piqued my curiosity)
that the Star Wars prequels were shot in only 1080p. I'm really surprised that
that didn't look atrocious on the big screen. Hell, that's like half a
centimeter per pixel.

~~~
mavhc
Attack of the Clones was shot in less than 1080p, at that point the camera
(HDW-F900 camera) only did 1440x1080, and it was cropped from 16:9, as they
didn't have an anamorphic lens, so that's 1440x817. Revenge of the Sith used
anamorphic, so was 1920x817

~~~
mistercow
Am I the only one who finds that anamorphic lenses create really distracting
bokeh? The lens flares are always squished, and whenever the camera changes
focus, there's this strange vertical stretching effect.

Since they were switching to new hardware anyway, why didn't they just make
the CCD the shape they actually wanted, rather than relying on this weird
archaic workaround?

------
Gravityloss
There have been dramatic happenings around RED for some time.
[http://philipbloom.net/2011/12/10/nomoreepic/](http://philipbloom.net/2011/12/10/nomoreepic/)

~~~
devindotcom
Understatement of the year! RED produces almost as much drama as it does
cameras and accessories.

~~~
samstave
But why?

~~~
devindotcom
RED got into the cinema industry the way you or I might cannonball into a
pool. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to make waves. From
then on, they were constantly very vocal in criticising other camera and
production companies, and it has ended up being a very polarising company.

------
WestCoastJustin
Of possible interest, RED and Jim Jannard were covered by Wired back in 2008 @
[http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/...](http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-09/ff_redcamera?currentPage=all)

~~~
nawitus
Can someone explain this:

>Typical 2K and HD digital movie cameras keep everything in focus. The 4K Red
One is more like an analog camera, allowing depth of field control, which
blurs the foreground or background.

~~~
beat
Well, that's not a very clear statement of how it works. "Depth of field" is a
technical term in photography, describing the amount of an image that is in
focus, relative to the out-of-focus areas in front of or behind. This is a
function of the aperture (F-stop) of the lens, and the ratio of focal length
to sensor size (which also controls perspective, or how wide the angle of view
is).

The reason this is important is because out-of-focus areas are a very
important visual cue. It isolates the subject of a shot from its surroundings.
It is even more important in motion pictures than still photography, where
changes in focus are used to move the subject from one person to another in a
single shot (watch a conversation in a movie that's shot from one camera for
an example). There's even a job, "focus puller", that you'll see in movie
credits for the person who adjusts the focus on very large cameras.

Depth of field is strongly correlated to the size of the sensor in digital
cameras (and also to lenses). Other inexpensive HD cameras use small sensors,
which solve a lot of expensive and difficult technical problems, but at a cost
of not being able to do a shallow depth of field (you see the same problem in
cell phones and cheap small digital cameras). The big win of Red was to use a
full-sized sensor, allowing DoF behavior on par with consumer DSLR cameras.
Moreover, the Red cameras had interchangeable lens mounts that could use
superb, widely available Canon and Nikon DSLR lenses. This greatly reduced the
end user cost.

So basically, unlike cheaper cameras, a Red camera could shoot things that
looked like real movies, due to shallow DoF and manual focus control. And it
could do so inexpensively. Very disruptive.

~~~
nawitus
Thanks, but I'm fully aware what dof means :). I don't understand why typical
2K/HD video cameras couldn't do small depth of field. Nikon D90 could do small
depth of focus with a price tag of $900 in 2008 (only 1 year after Red's first
camera), and D90 is not a full frame sensor.

The latest generation iPhone can do f/2.0, and it has a pretty small sensor.

~~~
beat
It's more than just aperture, though. F/2 on a wide-angle lens like the iPhone
won't give you the same impact as F/2 on a telephoto.

Most low-cost HD video cameras have severely compromised lenses, and
professional cameras tend to have extremely expensive lenses. Red solved the
problem by tapping into the Canon/Nikon lens base.

~~~
randyrand
It's not about field of view (a f/2.0 wide angle and telephoto shot both have
the same DOF in terms of actual length - telephoto just _appears_ to have a
shallower DOF since the image is cropped.) DOF is actually a physical property
of sensor size and aperture size.

[http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-
se...](http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-
size.htm)

------
beachstartup
i would highly recommend a documentary called 'side by side' about the history
of digital video cameras and analog film cameras in cinema/film. goes into the
back story behind red, arri, panavision, sony, etc.

it's on netflix.

~~~
protomyth
I second this and would add that some outtakes (called side swipes) are
available on youtube[1] and a podcast. The Steven Soderbergh one is great[2].
Side by Side is a little dated, but it is an amazing and accessible show.

Red is an amazing camera, but they also had good ideas in how to deal with
film makers.

1) [http://bit.ly/19EQjie](http://bit.ly/19EQjie)

2)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00AEDLLzu4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00AEDLLzu4)

------
lbarrett
I have great respect for people who make things like the RED camera, which
advances technology and allows people to make amazing films without requiring
huge amounts of money.

I have very little respect for people who make things like Oakleys, which
allow people to spend a lot of money for a small piece of plastic so they can
wear a high-status brand.

I'm not sure how I feel about this guy.

~~~
sfx
>a lot of money for a small piece of plastic

Oakley lenses are practically bulletproof. They're well worth the cost if you
need protective eyewear, just ask the US military. Being a fashion statement
is just a byproduct of that. Some would venture to say Oakley has advanced
technology more than RED.

------
baby
so is he the guy behind 48 fps movies? If so this guy has nothing to prove.
It's the future of the cinema.

~~~
wmf
James Cameron has also been talking about 48 FPS for a while.

~~~
baby
I think James Cameron is talking about 60 FPS.

~~~
atsaloli
James Cameron said in November 2012, on his possible usage of 48 FPS:

“If there is acceptance of 48 [FPS], then that will pave the way for Avatar
(sequels) to take advantage of it.”

[http://latino-review.com/2012/11/james-cameron-talks-
avatar-...](http://latino-review.com/2012/11/james-cameron-talks-
avatar-2-3-48-fps-high-frame-rate/)

There are going to be 3 Avatar sequels:

[http://variety.com/2013/film/news/avatar-to-get-three-
sequel...](http://variety.com/2013/film/news/avatar-to-get-three-sequels-
foxcameron-hire-screenwriters-1200570515/)

Time enough to iron out any issues with HFR (high frame rate). 48 OR 60.

~~~
baby
> Some of the word behind the scenes in the SMPTE world this summer is that
> 60fps could be too much of a gamble and Avatar will go out in 48fps. No one
> will say this publicly, and Cameron and team are still hyping 60fps in
> general while not committing to anything. But there are fears that if shot
> at 60fps, there’s no clean way to play the movie at 24fps in some theaters–
> an easier transition for 48fps but even untested in 48 given that that issue
> helped derail the move to SMPTE DCP for The Hobbit release. And fear that
> current playback gear can’t do 450Mb/s at 60fps. Gear manufacturers say they
> can do 500Mb/s, but the studios in reality have to settle for less, due to
> the bit-rate bottlenecks in various systems.”

Never thought about that but yes it makes sense that the conversion from 48fps
to 24fps is easy whereas the one from 60fps to 24fps seems impossible or
cumbersome. If this is delaying the 60fps age, then I'm really sad about it :(

~~~
RyJones
My guess is it would be something like the well-worn 3-2 pull down; you could
get there, but the loss in quality is annoying.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
two_pull_down](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down)

------
s9ix
Cached link via HNPremii for anyone else who is getting the site down.

[http://hn.premii.com/#/article/6239342](http://hn.premii.com/#/article/6239342)

------
marcbarros
Congrats Jim. The world needs more creators like you to inspire the rest of
us. There are few people willing to commit themselves at the level you did.
For that I give you a standing ovation.

------
markdown
Jim owns a beautiful island here in Fiji. He could retire and build an evil
lair on Vatuvara Island

[http://vatuvara.com](http://vatuvara.com)

------
marincounty
This film (The Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout) cured my photographic
buying problem.

~~~
mrlinx
how so?

------
rdl
Jim is basically the Elon of the video industry.

------
rfnslyr
Can't get the stupid comments and hate get to you.

I remember reading/watching somewhere where someone said (sorry for the
vagueness) that you always need a solid little black box in your head you can
retreat your conscience to. Where nothing can touch you. Where everything is
constant.

Ever since I read that I have never gotten an ounce of hate get to me. I can
honestly say I'm living a 100% stress-free happy life. In fact, the more hate
I get, the happier I am, I _feed_ off it, it's my fucking _life line_. It
meant I was doing something right.

If I ever let it get to me, I'd retreat to that little black box, and it would
tell me everything I accomplished in my life, the things I've been through,
where my roots are from. Things nobody will ever take away from me unless they
murder me, and that reassurance has helped me get through incredibly tough
times.

To cope with hate even further, always look at what's coming your way from
their angle. Why are they spouting hate? Do they genuinely feel you have a
scammy product? Why would they think that? More often than not it boils down
to two things: ignorance and a result, spouting bullshit, and/or personal
issues being projected. I know that myself, when I'm in a rage state of mind,
I'd spout terrible things at people that I'd instantly regret after.
Especially on the internet, typing terrible comments that help to vent your
anger temporarily.

I've _always_ been an outsider. I've had so much time to observe people. This
is what I found out.

Core human values -> projected mask (either bully, asshole, something else
that is fake) -> external projection. You need to see through the mask. I've
dealt with huge egos before that after awhile, cried on my shoulder and
spilled their guts, all just by being understanding, not getting angry at
them, and truly understanding where their emotion comes from and why. By being
a source of support.

> _Somehow... I read on CML and other idiotic forums, that I an a hypester, a
> scam artist. I just have to wonder what these guys are smoking. But I have
> to say... they have gotten to me. I don 't need this. I don't deserve this.
> Life is short and I am tired._

Revolutionized the film industry, yet lets internet comments get to him. Fuck
the haters. You changed the world.

Sorry if I went off topic, it's just something I wanted to get off my chest
and hopefully this perspective can help others.

~~~
wmf
In Red's case I don't think it's quite that simple. One of the foundations of
Red has always been that the founders interact with the customers continuously
through social media; that's how Red built their fanboy army. But that kind of
aggressive social media presence always creates an equal and opposite
backlash, and it's pretty much impossible to expose yourself only to one side.

~~~
mapgrep
That sounds like a fascinating model. Is there any explication of this online
that you know of? Tricky to Google due to generic name of company.

~~~
wmf
It really is fascinating. Professional equipment combined with consumer luxury
marketing to sell a dream of overnight success to aspiring filmmakers. A
super-secretive company whose marketing is founded on "transparency". Over-
promising and under-delivering seen as a feature. Industrial espionage. Patent
lawsuits. You can't make this stuff up; it's better than fiction.

------
dsugarman
I thought RED was an alright movie at best. To be quite honest, I am surprised
they made a sequel.

~~~
yesplorer
seriously, are you high?

~~~
randyrand
After spending the last 15 minutes slowly readying and scrolling down these
comments, I'll admit, I laughed.

