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Originally posted by johndfilm

John Here,

I'm Currently new to the Red Camera, but i have heard lots of good things about it and was thinking about shooting a independent commercial on it..i want all of your opinions if this is a good deal...i meet a guy out here in Los Angeles and he said he would rent me a FULL rig for $3,500 a week and $11,000 for the month. This is what the gear includes;

Red One Camera
Prime Lenses 25mm,35mm,50mm,85mm,100mm
Steadicam
Crane (Attach to Dolly)
Hydraulic Dolly
HD monitor
Slate
Sound Kit
Remote Follow Focus
all the dolly accessories like curved track and straight track

Sounds Like a good deal to me...LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK PLZ....

Sincerly,
John D.

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John D.

I suppose that's a great deal...for gear alone.

But who will you have who is qualified to maintain and operate the RED? Do you have someone qualified to manage the media on set? And is your post workflow being handled by someone very qualified in that you're dealing with digital RAW files?

You've also got a Steadicam listed there. Most qualified and skilled Steadicam Operators own their own rig, plus the accessories (focus) needed to make it work. I guess that's a good price (rolled into the package) but who will operate it and do you have a great Focus Puller/First AC who knows the RED inside and out?

Crane? More like Jib Arm likely. Same question as above. Do you have a qualified Dolly Grip who knows how to maintain and operate a dolly and a jib arm?

Same with the Sound Package. Most qualified Sound Mixers own their own gear and bring along their favorite Boom Operator. If you rent all these specialty things, will you be able to attract qualified skilled people to use them? Most freelancers (like Sound and Steadicam) have invested a lot of their own money into their gear and look forward to getting a return on that investment by renting to productions. If they can't get their own gear on the shoot, they'd just as soon not do it and find a production that they can rent their gear to. It's not greed, it's reasonable. They likely have payments to make still, so if their stuff is going to sit at home collecting dust, the bills are still coming in.

SO, it's a little odd that you can get ALL of that gear from just one person for so little money. It's likely just sitting in that guy's garage making no money.

Ultimately, depending on your script and direction, you may need all of those things to make your movie and the package deal may be the best thing. BUT, don't get caught in the trap of having to settle for less skilled people just so you can save a few bucks on gear. GREAT people will bring quality to your project and ultimately, your career will benefit. But skimp on people and no matter how great your gear is, less qualified people won't bring much to your project and your career may suffer.

The thing with the RED is that it suffers a bit from it's own marketing. It makes really great pictures, no argument there. But because it's a high-quality image-maker for relatively little money (in comparison to other similar quality cameras), a lot of aspiring filmmakers bought it without anything to do with it or any real way of getting a monetary return on their investment. So, there are a lot of lonely REDs out there that have shot a couple of projects, but which haven't made their money back.

It's great that you're considering RENTING the gear as you need it instead of falling into the trap of wanting to own everything thinking that you'll shoot a gazillion projects all the time thus making it worth it. But nobody shoots that much on their own. Guys who buy expensive cameras, Steadicams, Sound gear, etc generally have projects or enough clients lined up that they are fairly confident that they'll at least make a enough money to pay off the purchase price. I don't know who you're renting this extensive RED package from, but it's likely that he got caught in that trap. So renting it all out together will help him cover his payments, at least for that month. You MAY be able to get a better deal out of him if he's desperate enough to get some money as opposed to nothing.

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com
http://www.realfilmcareer.com