Rant on The Death of Indie Film as a Business Model

Went to dinner with an indie filmmaker last night. Here’s a rant based on that.

Synopsis: I think indie movie making as a business model is deader than fried chicken.

Hoping to make your little movie and make a living off of it, until you can get the next one going? Very unlikely, unfortunately.

As somebody mentioned in an email to me about this, moviemaking digital tools came along to help reduce (some) costs of moviemaking, but other digital tools came along that stripped away the marketability of those films even faster (bootleg downloads, too much content, competition for time from internet/cable/DVDs/games/etc.) and the math isn’t working out favorably right now.

Supporting evidence below:

Red updates Scarlet/Epic specs - “Mo Bettah”

Updated with exclusive charts and analysis Wednesday 1pm PST)
Red always talks about all specs, timetables, prices, etc. are subject to drastic change. So, they’ve already changed (read: “increased") the specs for the planned Scarlet and Epic cameras, and given a big wet kiss to existing Red One owners. Read on for the details after the jump.

TRULY native Red support in Final Cut Studio…finally!

Apple and Red have teamed up to support native (OK, rewrapped QTs, akin to how P2 is handled) .R3D support in Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 and Color 1.0.3. Red has a plugin to work with those new versions, including access to the 12 bit RGB data within Color...even letting you manipulate exposure, white balance, etc. on the native R3Ds in a 32 bit floating point space. Keep reading for either:

a.) to understand WTH all that means, or

b.) all the gory details if you do

....after the jump.

Red’s new approach - modular digital stills and motion cameras - 8 new models

Today Red announced 8 (yes, EIGHT) new cameras. Sensors range from 2/3” to 186x56mm (yep, that’s 7 1/3 by 2 1/5 INCHES), with resolutions from 3K to 28K, with prices from $2500 to $55,000 for the “brains” of the units (more on that below). Incredibly modular to a Legos or Erector Set degree. There’s a HUGE amount of information up on Red’s website here, but after the jump I’ve organized/summarized, have some analysis, and answers to questions not found on their site. Continues after the jump.... 

New workflow options for Red announced from Apple, Adobe, & Avid

I spent much of today on the Fox lot, watching Ted Schilowitz talk about what’s up with Red. I’ll have another article up shortly about their new hardware, but in terms of workflow, some interesting things were discussed today for upcoming changes coming this year from Apple, Adobe, and Avid for native (or more native) Red workflows. Details after the jump.

Red Drops the (Specs) Bomb

It is 5am.

And I still haven’t gone to sleep. Then Pliny from Offhollywood drops me an link to Reduser’s page on all the specs for Epic, Scarlet, and the whole DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) thread that Jim has been posting to tonight. Read on....

“The Conversation” Conference starts today in SF

Starting this morning, The Conversation begins in Berkeley, California. The Schedule is here. Speakers will include John Gaeta (VFX super on The Matrix trilogy & Speed Racer), John Knoll (of ILM, also created Photoshop), Phil Tippett, and a slew of new media folks. I’m crushed that I’m missing the first day - I’ll be talking about what’s new in post & production tomorrow at 1:30, and my Red One camera wasn’t ready to drive up to San Francisco until this morning. In any case, if you can, dart on over to Berkeley and check it out - if you’re curious about where content is going and how it’ll be created, this should be fascinating. On site registration is about $150 for the two day event.

-mike

QuVis Wraptor to export your own DCI DCP (that’s theatrical digital file package)

QuVis has announced a new product - QuVis Wraptor - a $699 Compressor plug-in for Final Cut Studio that allows independent content producers to create their own DCI DCP. That is a Digital Cinema Initiative’s Digital Cinema Package, which is the digital file format and wrapper used for digital projection, a standard that only came about in the last few years. Why is this such a big deal? Because I’ve heard encoding of even just TRAILERS was about $6K a pop, and features were about $20K. Now you can “roll your own” for about $700. So that’s BIG.

Read on for more about it…

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