IronFilm

https://stephenfollows.com/big-changes-in-uk-film-production/

This sounds like the beginnings of a movie script. Unless you're going into one of the less "sexy" areas, such as soundie or gaffer ;-) Yup, video is greater complexity, and also takes sustained effort vs getting lucky (on the low end) with a few snaps that turn out "right". So video is a little bit more immune to it than the stills world (plus it is happening later the tech development), but the general principle will still hold true.

Yes, all those accessory/media costs will be key as to how low down in the market RED is reaching. This is one area where I really like Kinefinity, not only are their brains much cheaper, but so is everything else! (you can even use normal off the shelf SSDs) Yes and no. Especially if you wait a few years for them to have price drops and enter the secondhand market. (one of the reasons why I disagree with my friend as to how quickly I reckon this will have an impact, as it takes time for new things to filter through.... few items change an industry overnight) But I know plenty of amateurs with C100/C300/F3/URSA, I even know someone who just finished first year film school and purchased an EVA1! Heck, even with their current high prices, here is this High Schooler who purchased a Scarlet-W (although yes, we can't call him an amateur, as he worked hard for it!): LOL! Stealing this

It won't "force" Arri to do the same. What Arri would do is 5yrs later bring out an 8K camera at twice the cost. (just look at their 4K cameras and their costs and release dates, my prediction is not unrealistic at all, if anything it is optimistic!) Yes, producers don't want to just "waste" money. No one does! But I can also see his point, about producers wanting "prestige" (or "Industry Standard" or "quality" or "proven workflow" or whatever the hell you want to call it), and if RED makes $3K cameras that could possibly potentially harm that. However I disagree with him about the scale of impact of this announcement, and how quickly it will happen. I feel the impact will be smaller than he thinks, and might take years and years to be felt. So he doesn't need to change decisions made this year (such as buying a Panasonic EVA1 or not) based on this news (then again, he does have 2x RED ONEs, so maybe at his lower end he would feel it faster and worse than someone with say a Dragon). Agreed! Bugs me out no end when people say "but I need that high ISO so I must buy Sony!" as if it is some kind of trump card to the discussion. Perhaps these poor people are just coming from a Canon T3i with a kit lens, and feel their biggest problem is poor lowlight and thus must go to the other extreme! Completely missing the point that even a Panasonic G80 with a Panasonic 25mm f1.7 would be a massive massive leap forward for lowlight over their current set up. And yeah, tonnes of shit films get shot on Arri/RED/etc (even worked on a few myself....) but at least the cream can still rise to the top and those brands get judged by the quality well shot films instead. But if thousands and thousands of crap films get made with $3K cameras then the crowd of crap could swallow up the exceptions. Tricky to say exactly which camera is going to get slashed in cost (and size!) by a third, will it be their top of the line camera, a mid level one... or the likes of a RED Raven? As if if they made a camera kinda similar to the Raven but massively cheaper, then you're looking not at a $10K camera kit but a $3K ish one.

Sony's wireless (Sony UWP-D11) can also work with the smart shoe of a Sony camera. Been there.... done that! :-( Luckily all I lost was a Panasonic GX1 + a 14mm pancake lens Broken a couple of Fujifilm XQ1 / XF1 point and shoot cameras as well while out drinking :-(

If you want to predict how the video industry will go, just look at the trajectory of the stills industry. As there is a lot of similarities there, except they're a few years ahead of us. Because stills cameras got dirt cheap and "good enough" a lot earlier than they did for video cameras. (and I think in general stills is easier to get the hang of at the entry level, than video is, because there are less moving parts to take into consideration: audio for instance! And camera movement, etc) The high end photographers still survive and thrive, but almost all of the low end photographers have disappeared as a viable full time career (for instance who the hell sees mall photographers now?? They're as rare as hens teeth, and likely have minimum wage casual people. Yet twenty years ago a person could have made an almost ok income from that), and the middle ground is severely gutted out as well.

Is such a small difference between 2K and 1080, wish BMPCC had 2K for instance yeah the 2.5K just happened probably because that was the particular sensor they could get which matched all the other specs they wanted, and didn't care so much if the resolution was a little odd ball

Am I correct to think the latest firmware update for the BMPCC is v2.1 from waaaaay back March the 5th 2015?

Nah, I have a Sanken CS3e for a mythical future Sonosax ;-) An Aputure Deity is just there as an emergency back up. I'm sure I could afford a 633/664/etc if I really wanted to. Like I said, I otherwise live like Scrooge McDuck himself!

Haha, I don't have tea! I have coffee. And yeah, am posting on a few other forums at the same time. I have a scary number of tabs open right now: Well, not scary for me, if anything, that is on the low side for the number of tabs I have open! Is however late over here in New Zealand, should go to sleep. But I had tomorrow's shoot cancelled a few hours ago, no need for me to get up early tomorrow now. Oh damn, wish Sony promoted that more in more markets! Ironically the C300mk2 has the best Autofocus out of all the higher end cinema cameras! Am always jealous of how much history Europeans have on their doorsteps. Unlike us in comparison, we think a hundred or so year old house is "old".

To go a little off topic to the Zaxcom vs Lectrosonics court case (they haven't even decided yet where to hear the case! That decision on the location is still months away. What a waste), I read an amusing comment on jwsoundgroup:

Do you know exactly which Lectrosonics they might have been? While it is true that most of the country is sheep (although that is changing.... the sheep are getting replaced by cows!), I do however spend 99% of my time in a "big city": Auckland with a million people. They don't come with receivers or lavs. So it is extra cost on top of what you'd already spend to buy two wireless kits. If only Sony offered a kit with one dual receiver and two transmitter then it would change substantially the maths! I'm more frugal than Scrooge McDuck himself.

Indeed, it will be MUCH more expensive! And there are a lot of unknown variables. But let's say hypothetically a few numbers to pin down this example: Perhaps this future Tascam/Roland/Marantz product has "50% more than a F4/F8", and thus the company feels justifies also a price which is a 100% higher! (remember, neither the Tascam HS-P82 or the Roland R4 Pro was as cheap as an F8 when they first launched) This would still be a *LOT* cheaper than a future Sound Devices 600 series product. And I could quite reasonably think this is a worth upgrade that also "saves" me a lot of money. Alternatively, perhaps this never happens? (again, also very likely) When the future Sound Devices 600 series product comes out I might feel there is no other worth upgrade path for me from the F4. Well, it is either that or a similar large leap in cost to a Zaxcom/Aaton/Sonosax, or do a semi sideways slide into a F8 / MixPre6 / MixPre10T which is overall neither here or there. And the cost while steep, should hopefully be justifiable by that point in my career (especially when you consider the per year cost spread out over 5yrs+). So overall at the end of the analysis, it is easy to see myself go either way. Blade your MPs/governments! They're the ones who put in place very high taxes and regulations which lead to the higher costs. Yeah, we have a dealer in NZ for Zaxcom, but I'm not even sure if we can go into anywhere in the country to see demo models (although I think so? But my point is, I'm not even sure!). Sonosax for instance only last year got a dealer in NZ, and they don't have a single SX-R4+ in stock! (the one and only in the country is owned by a friend of mine who got the local sound tech company to set themselves up as a dealer, just so that he would have somewhere local to buy it from! :-o )

I dunno, the Tascam DR60Dmk2 is only a teeny bit more expensive and gives you the benefits of being a recorder as well. I guess you believe also professionals shouldn't use Lectrosonics SR series? Hmmm Think there is a flaw there in how it works in practice? I'd have three! If only it wasn't so darn expensive, and the fact I NEVER see them discounted for sale secondhand :-( Oh there are a few little other details as well as to why I prefer Sony wireless over Sennheiser as the low budget option.

The OPF

Had an interesting conversation today with a friend who owns 2x RED cameras, he is debating if perhaps instead of say a secondhand RED Epic that his purchase should be a Panasonic EVA1 (or something else?). Because his worry is that if RED moves down market to the consumer level that will harm RED's perception in the marketplace (by producers/directors/clients/etc), so thus maybe he should just go somewhere else.

A fully loaded Zaxcom Nomad is just over six thousand USD: https://www.trewaudio.com/product/zaxcom-nomad-audio-mixerrecorder/ I reckon it would be cheaper than 10K euro Ways around exist ;-)

Probably! But it is hard to compare two different products when neither have been even announced yet! (they might not even have started development yet on them! ha)

Ditto drones. This is another point I should have made. The set of skills and expertise to manufacture and market high volume products is very different to the process of making and selling niche premium products. It would be a big risk trying to switch over from one area to another. (or you could just do a Hasselblad and simply stick your name onto an existing product) Partnering with another company does substantially reduce that risk, but Foxconn makes parts and not complete products (I think? I could be wrong), and they have no marketing/distribution experience in this area. But hey, maybe that is where RED's closer alignment with Apple might come from? (using Apple to sell Ravens) hahaha! oh my, so true, on both counts

I am holding out hope that Tascam/Roland/Marantz will bring out a response to the Zoom F8/F4, as if they at is successful and a notch above then perhaps that might be my next recorder? But I'm so happy with my F4, that I'm in no rush, can wait :-)

Imagine how much a premium brand's image would be harmed if a bunch of low budget idiots would start using them? I can just imagine the complaints already: "It has shit battery life! I had to buy these expensive V mount batteries, which didn't come with it in the box. Dodgy RED trying to upsell you on hidden costs!" "It sucks at low light when I'm shooting outdoors at night in the forest with my Canon 18-55mm kit lens!" "It broke my PC when I loaded these 8K files into my editor and it crashed!" "This dumb camera doesn't have a portrait selfie mode!" "The autofocus is hopeless, I wish had never ever brought this camera! I'm sending it back and buying a Canon Rebel" And so on and so on and so on the reviewers, commentators, social media, and forum posts would go on and on. Then of course would come the avalanche of dreadful awful looking footage shot with this new "premium" but affordable camera. Because their talent/knowledge/budget/experience isn't even 1% of what the camera is capable of. If this is allowed to carry on unchecked for too long, it would end up harming sales of their high end budget cameras as well! So while I wish Arri would make a $3K camera, I also totally understand the reasons why they wouldn't want to do that.

Fingers crossed my next recorder will be a next generation Sound Devices 600 series recorder. Significant premium? I think Zaxcom prices are quite comparable to other recorders or wireless at their level.

Yup it is a mixed bag of pro / con. Pros: low cost (or at least I assume this is a factor for manufacturers) and no worries about if it is legal or not. Cons: operates in potentially very congest air! I wouldn't want to exclusively rely upon these, but if they're otherwise good, I could see a place for a few of them in my kit for flexibility. (for instance if going on a short notice overseas trip?) Yeah after I posted this, I saw the video of them, and realised how chunky they look :-( Perhaps nearly as big as the RodeLinks? And what I hate about Rodelinks is their size! Sony URX-P03D is heaps cheaper than 2000 euros! Still a little on the pricey side though :-/ Otherwise I'd have already got one! Am very keen to get a couple. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1259501-REG/sony_urx_p03d_30_urx_po3d_30.html

Agreed! Tascam was ruling the low budget sound world for years, with almost no one else coming close (that exception being Roland). But Zoom are crushing it with their new F8/F4! Tascam DR-100mkIII seems a little pricey for a two channel XLR recorder, is it worth it? I have been thinking of the Tascam DR44WL for a little small handheld one (if one pops up on eBay dirt cheap, say low hundred bucks), although I just noticed now to my surprised it has been discontinued! :-o I wonder why, it only came out in 2015 :-o I see also the Tascam DR22WL is gone too! (which is one I own myself) Wonder if it is because they both have WiFi and Zaxcom interfered there too??

This interests me even more than the 8K