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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Confession:  I Don’t Get The RED.

What’s all the hubbub about?

OK, so here is where I shoot myself in the head, but I just don’t get the clamor around the RED cameras.  Yes, I can appreciate their fabulously advanced technology.  Yes, I admire their clever naming schema (whoever came up with the “Mysterium” sensor should get a big raise.) And the accountant that invented “$17K to start...$50k to actually shoot frame #1” is a genius as well.

But…

Am I missing something on the distribution end?  Does any indie film, save the breakthroughs (like “Little Miss Sunshine,” for example, which featured actual name-brand actors) *ever* make back their money?  Is there actually a career path here?

Someone will write about the RED and it’s ilk “lowering the bar to producing feature films,” but I don’t buy that.  There are only so many screens in the world, and it is the mass market that drives those.  And once you get past the hardware costs, filmmaking is still a very labor-intensive business - that is where most of the cost is anyway.  How long can you get people to work for free to subsidize your dream?

Of course, we all know that as a distribution medium TV is dead, except that it ain’t.  Yet, at a max rez of 1080i, I doubt many RED 28K shoots will get on the air, except as massive downconverts.  There are plenty of great tools out there that can make astoundingly good-looking TV, and they don’t have to start in the $50K range. 

Then there is the distribution mode that everyone claims is ascendant - the Web.  Yeah, I gotta have a RED to make my next YouTube opus.  Does 24K divide into 640x480 evenly?  Yes, Web distribution is going to get better and easier; but the mortgage has to be paid NOW.

As a photographer for >25 years, it is hard for me to say this, but it isn’t the hardware.  It is the IDEAS.  How many pixels you have means little if the script is crappy.

Just sayin’.  Reactions?

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