Comments on: Changing the economics of feature production?

By: Indie4K: Independent digital cinema beyond HD. » Blog Archive » Red’s impact: starting small

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:27:58 +0000

[...] In general, the answer is simply that you get a lot more for your money. Not just better tech specs, but — and this is the interesting part — a lot more flexibility. I think what a lot of these small shops want to do, is turn themselves into, to use a phrase from a recent blog comment, “boutique” production companies, which might be doing a large range of things for a large range of clients, as well as developing their own in-house projects, up to and including indie features. [...]

By: Chris Kenny

Chris Kenny — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:41:13 +0000

Thanks for the support, Rich. I think you’re right on target about boutique shops. It’s a much more robust model than the traditional owner/operator arrangement.

By: Rich G.

Rich G. — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:18:16 +0000

Chris,

Found you at Reduser.net and was intrigued by your posts. I particularly like what you’ve said about storage for a “RED project” because I have been tasked with building a post workflow for an indie film company once their Red camera ships.

As for the above post, I think Red will change the economics of production for some people. It’s going to really depend how Red owners change the way they work once they get the system. I see Red having a potentially huge impact on the TV production market. TV executives are always looking for ways to cut costs and this could do it precisely WITHOUT changing much of the established workflow. Take a show like “24″ that has already experimented withy digital acquisition. They could still shoot at 4K and deliver a 1080p master on the same production schedule and the network saves the time and cost of sending all that 35mm to the lab.

Additionally, smaller companies that produce shows for Cable TV will be abandoning formats like HDV and XDCam for the higher quality and greater flexibility that a Red workflow offers. It is interesting (and perhaps fitting) that the Red Team is taking their cues from the computer industry more so than the camera industry and I think you will see a trend in acquisition that mirrors a trend in post the last several years. Small groups of individuals will band together to form “boutique shops” and will develop in-house projects in addition to being hired out for larger budget jobs. In fact, it seems you (based on your bio) and I are already doing that in our respective markets. We will be heading down the path forged by companies like The Orphanage and Digital Film Tree and with adoption of Red, that path could get very crowded. Guess we’d better get moving!

Anyway, great website. I’ll be checking back often.

By: zengze

zengze — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 21:54:31 +0000

Although I share your enthusiasm about Red (got it reserved), still camera is just one of the many parts to the production costs equation. Quality of the image depends on other variables to no lesser degree - lighting, support, etc. And that’s assuming we have the necessary level of knowledge to wield the tools. But it’s up to us to learn, isn’t it? Red is indeed a great step towards the affordability of moviemaking.

By: thinkbug

thinkbug — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:22:15 +0000

I tend to agree– I have about 40-50K for an indie production later this year, and I am facing the decision of how much to buy versus rent. I have a RED reservation and will likley buy one when it’s ready, but what about lenses, tripod, lights, post, sound mix, etc? And I would rather work with more experienced actors and will be seriously considering going the indieSAG route for ultra low budget features, and that adds $$. So even though I have more than the 3K you mentioned, a larger budget brings with it more risk and higher expectations. We always want to do as much as we can with what recources we have.