And, yes, if you still haven’t managed to get anywhere by the time you’re making your fourth film or whatever, maybe it’s time to start thinking about selling your gear and going into the real estate business or something.

RED won’t let people who haven’t got any talent keep making bad movies forever. Well… maybe it will sometimes, but that’s not really the interesting aspect. The interesting aspect is that it lets people with talent go and make movies with less risk. And since the camera package can actually become a profit center (through rental, work-for-hire non-feature shooting jobs, etc.), rather than a cost, there’s more money to spend on other things, including potentially on talent, better locations, etc. Plus, this income could allow some filmmakers to spend more time on their feature work, which could lead to a better product.

the only completely unavoidable per-feature cost becomes a couple thousand
bucks worth of hard drives

And a couple tens of thousands of bucks’ worth of people’s time… are you planning to do all of the work yourself? You can’t constantly use people for free… unless you plan on going through friends rather quickly.

I don’t think planning to continually get stuff for free, pleading poverty while simultaneously carrying around a $40,000 camera kit, is a business model. At some point, your rich uncle will get sick of you using his yacht. And the makeup person will want their damn kit fee. And people will get tired of the free-but-monotonous food.

Yes, you can get stuff for free on your first or second film… no, you can’t get them for free for 10 movies in a row unless you are a scoundrel.

I think that I could make a whole movie on s16, with a HD telecine, for the price of a full Red package. I’d be financially crushed either way, but with the one, I’d have a film, with the other, just a camera.

Just my 2c - the idea of putting everything into one good film is not a “business model”. It’s a way to show what you can do. If the first three films you make don’t get much interest, maybe it’s because they suck. That’s life’s subtle way of nudging you to alter your career path.

That said, I am sure you have tons of talent and hope you get noticed and given lots of opportunities after making film #1!

Bruce

I do think you miss the point with regard to making films. Sure now we can avoid to purchase the camera and edit system but what about the cast and crew not to mention the lighting and location.

These elements by far out weigh the cost of the camera and edit.

Regards
Rory