Is RED Overrated?

Ever since the RED camera was rumored to become available, filmmakers from all over - DIY to Hollywood have had a hard on for it. Even now, to hear some filmmakers talk about RED, you would think they were describing what its like to see Pamela Anderson naked for the first time (in her prime of course). The eyes glaze over and dart upward. The gushing subsides, then the wishing begins. "Dude, I cannot wait to shoot on RED."

However, there have been some rumblings from other industry insiders about RED, and not from filmmakers, but from actual technicians. You know, those people who actually have a technical skill who do the actual work to make you look like a genius while you take all the credit. Still not sure? The cinematographers, and the post team ring a bell? Yeah them. Those people who have to actually perform the work you filmmakers have wet dreams about? Yeah. Them.

Word is, in the post production phase, that RED's software is a little suspect. Thats something thats being put into question and immediately received the "overrated" label, even before the camera itself. A recent comment post from one working DP included this phrase: "Although I can't deny the image quality, we are having huge issues with Redcine and overall .r3d file support. I honestly hate the post side of Red now. " Mmmm. Sounds like fun!

Here is another interesting post from our new friend we are working with on an upcoming project, and DP of a film I really enjoyed recently at the Idaho International Film Festival called Drawing With Chalk. Michael LaVoie is a New York based Director of Photography, and a graduate of the film program at SUNY Purchase in 2000. You can check out his great camera work and package at his site HERE. Speaking on the worship of RED, here is a very informative post from his blog:

"The buzz on the RED camera has finally saturated the low/no budget film world and a lot of filmmakers are desperately seeking it. The sad thing is that most don’t have enough to even afford my camera, let alone a RED. They also seem to be putting the importance of the camera ahead of the person responsible for creating an image with it, the cinematographer. People are missing the point that camera alone will not give you a good image if the DP isn’t qualified to shoot your film.

I just got back from the 4 day long Idaho International film festival and there were a couple of films shot on the RED. They looked nice but they too suffered from the noise of low light situations. The only footage that was really “stunning” was the stuff shot in available light outdoors and I didn’t see much of a difference between that footage and what I saw in our daylight exteriors on Sneakers. The only difference I suppose was that in Idaho, the RED films were shown on Digibeta and my Sneakers premiere was HD CAM. So there you go, 1080p shown in 1080p can hold up nicely against the RED shown in Digibeta. 1080p however is certainly easier to post. This comparison however is from the top of the line screening experience at festivals today. Most of the time, people are watching indie films on a HD LCD tv or computer and that’s going to be extremely difficult to tell the difference between 2K and HD. When 2K TV’s and projectors are readily available, the obvious choice will be RED. For now, it’s overkill."

Read the full piece HERE.