[UPDATE, 12 June 2008, 1am HK time: I've learned that Stewart Chong has been posting his comment below (with links back here to this post) in various places (e.g., HK Final Cut Pro Users Group and reduser.net). For the record, I have no formal affiliation with Red. I'm just a satisfied customer and friend/acquaintance of some of the Red staff. Stewart's entitled, of course, to his opinion about Red's marketing strategy. But I think Stewart's accusations against Red--that Red disrespected the Hong Kong film community--are off-base and offensive.
Red has been holding well-attended events throughout Asia this month. For whatever reason, Red didn't have any widely publicized events in Hong Kong this trip. In any case, these Red events are usually "by invitation only" to customers and serious potential customers. If Stewart didn't get invited to the Red event, it's probably because of his long and well-known history of causing trouble for Red (and Red is apparently not alone here). But Stewart's accusation that Red has "no respect to local organizations and talents (sic)" is baseless and untrue. Red has met with lots of local Hong Kong film professionals on past trips and, indeed, on this trip. It strikes me that Stewart is just trying to stir up trouble and has a case of "sour grapes".
BTW, If there are any serious film professionals or indie filmmakers in Hong Kong who wanted a demo of Red One (camera and post-production) and somehow missed out in the last couple weeks, feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to oblige, time permitting. Or do contact Red directly, and I'm sure they'll take care of you.]
———————————
Ted Schilowitz and the Red and Apple team were in Hong Kong this week. They’re on a 6-week road trip all over Asia, showing how Red works and what’s been shot on it–to current and prospective owners and users. Ted mentioned speaking to an audience of over a thousand in Beijing and being treated like a rock star (complete with groupies). So Red’s really starting to make waves in Asia.
There wasn’t any big public meetings in Hong Kong. But there was a small meeting of a few Red owners and prospective users at an Apple training center in Wanchai yesterday morning (see photo above). Ted gave a good 45-minute presentation (nothing new to me or most people following Red, just all the new info from NAB 2008). The only three things I took notes of (they’re not new info, but Ted’s explaining them caused a bulb to go off in my head):
- The Red 5K camera, Epic, will be utilizing a new Redcode RAW codec, which will record at up to 100 Mb/sec (as opposed to the current limit of 35 Mb/sec)–so that’s three times as much data, with a no doubt improved and optimized compression algorithm. For all those wanted to capture uncompressed out of Red, I imagine this will be “good enough”.
- If you want to run your Red for 16 hours from a single battery pack in a remote location, use an Anton Bauer pack (didn’t get the make or model).
- The target price for all 5 Red primes is US$20K. I guess I’ve heard that before, but wasn’t paying that much attention, because I didn’t think I’d be interested. But now that I’ve shot with tack sharp Arri Primes, this seems like a great deal.
- Ted himself (and apparently Jim and a lot of the Red staff) use RedAlert! (not RedCine, because it’s a little buggy; more on this topic in another post) to “develop” Red r3d files. Combined with QMaster or the Red “Log and Transfer” tool, RedAlert! can be very efficient and effective.
- All those PD Log settings in RedAlert!’s “Output LUT/Gamma” (e.g., PD Log 985, PD Log 685, PD Log Custom) are used to output DPX files that will be used in a da Vinci (or, I guess, Quantel Pablo) digital intermediate grading system. “PD” stands for “print density”. OK, now I get it (was wondering why anyone would want to apply these “looks” that make things look really washed out).
Then showed a punch of excellent clips: commercials, music videos and clips from movies. It all looked gorgeous, playing out as ProRes 422 files over DVI/HDMI into an excellent consumer home theater projector (Epson EMP-TW2000). Apple Hong Kong just bought 7 of these projectors for themselves, after testing a bunch, so it must be a good projector. By far the best home theater projector I’ve seen (super black blacks, true 1080p, excellent color).
Dear all HKG people,
Ted@RED is playing the wrong marketing again with APPLE in HK !!!
No people from Hong Kong Film Directors Guild / HKSC / SMPTE were invited from RED.
No respect to local organizations and talents.
Also Ryan has no responsibilty for all CHINESE after he sent out the ” CHINESE Email ” to me but no further information afterwards.
I am very disappointed what RED is doing so far in HKG !!!
Regards,
Stewart CHong
Founder
REDHKSC
http://REDHKSC.hi5.com
Stewart,
You should really try to be less provocative, less obnoxious and more professional.
You’d get invited to more events. Get more business. Have more friends.
It strikes me that you “burn a lot of bridges”.
Posting your rants on my blog is, for example, not very professional. I was going to delete this one. But I figured I’d leave it up.
-Dan
50,000 copies selling magazine reports ” Wrong Info ” about RED
——————————————————————————–
Today, I bought a less than 2 USD ( for three books ) magazine in the 7-Eleven store and RED one was in the two book cover story.
There were lot of wrong information provided may be from someone or somebody ? Myself as a professional RED owner and user in HKG and I need to clarify the followings points here in this Z/HD Zone edition 513 dated 12 June 2008 in HKG.
The HD zone magazine said in CHINESE that :
1) RED is 4520 x 2540 ( RED 4K is less than that pixel format ) 2) RED is selling around HKD 100,000.00 ( Less than USD 13,000.00 !!! ) ( Starts less than HKD 160,000.00 to be used if you have other DIY accessories )
3) RED one camera has self generate Test Signals !!! ( Color Test Chart is not generated it was a Chart to test the RED ) 4) RED HDMI and HDSDI are the image quality to be captured onto the external computer. ( They are for preview only for on Set monitoring )
There are more than 50,000.00 copies ( http://www.e-zone.com.hk ) to cheat all the chinese people to know about the RED one camera from http://www.RED.com
IT IS BAD FOR RED to tell ALL CHINESE who can ONLY READ CHINESE to know about the RED. SO BAD THAT THEY ALL GOT THE WRONG INFORMATION from that Non-Professional ” CHEAP Selling ” Street level based A/V magazine in HKG and for CHINA.
I am just telling the turth as a normal reader.
STEWART
FOUNDER
REDHKSC
HKG – CHINA
Dear Dan,
CC: Jim & StU. and Brent
Hong Kong Final Cut Pro has banned me !!!!
If telling the truth is WRONG , I don’t want to be RIGHT……,
Stewart
HKG
When will the 2K or 4K wrapped in Quicktime reference files be available ?
Buiild 16 or leave it to APPLE to fix the GAME.
Cheers,
Stewart Chong
Senior Member
http://WWW.REDUSER.NET
Thanks Dan to spent quite some words to introduce myself in HKG.
May I ask something here Dan ?
1) Who paid the booth to show RED @ HKFilmart 2008 that all asian Film makers to ask my advices to use REDs!!!
2) Do you mean you know more local org.s or you said Professionals or Talents than me ? If so I am not a Local CHINESE to know the West in my 22+ years post and production market in ASIA.
3) Sour Grapes !!! I have been invited to Big boys Camera vendors in HKG.
Like Panavision and ARRI but i did not see you there and may be you have not yet able to report those events in HK though!!!
To me I just treat RED is a TOY and I am eating APPLE to play with this Toy. I am Happy to see many kids to play with this TOY after they saw it in the Z-Zone magazine like another DSLRs Camera but More Heavy and record more frames.
Cheers,
Stewart
Founder / TOP / DOP
Music Arts
REDHKC
Stewart,
If you slander someone or some organization on MY blog (in this case Ted and Red), and then publish links back to it, I WILL respond.
I find your arrogance and divisiveness (professionals vs. “kids”, Chinese vs. non-Chinese, East vs. West, etc.) ugly and offensive. You have a history of this on reduser.net.
You also are a king of “logic chopping”: good for you if you have a longer email list of film equipment vendors in HK. I’m not in competition with you. BTW, the (Chinese) film pros I am starting to meet in HK either a)don’t know you, or b)roll their eyeballs when I mention your name.
Perhaps you should spend more time making movies or commercials (where’s your filmography or reel or homepage? btw) and less time attacking others in cyberspace with your cryptic and bullying comments.
You know very well I gave you every chance to co-exist well with me in this very small community of filmmakers in Hong Kong. But you’ve “burnt your bridge” with me.
I think we’ve wasted about enough time on this topic. If you want to post interesting and constructive comments on my blog related to Red, indie filmmaking or Web 2.0, you are welcome. All other comments will be deleted.
-Dan
Thanks for offering this ground for RED owners and fans alike. I am a curent SMPTE Hong Kong section manager, and a RED owner/1647, 1648. We alos have 2 set of Arri standard primes and accessaories to support filming work. Building a special rig for 3D stereoscopic work. 2K RED stereoscopic vision under Dolby Digital cinema mastering is available. Now we serve Asian Red filmmaker/users’ on their RED movie pojects to come.
I hope Build 16 will work out well, and we then could have a party. An Alternative RED user meeting..
Percy Fung
Film Magic/ Digital Magic, Hong Kong
RED camera rental, DIT/ operator
RED Post service
RED film service
http://www.digitalmagic.com.hk, Post service.
http://www.filmmagic.com.hk, Camera and productionservice
http://www.heavyoptical.com.hk, 35mm film wok
http://www.i-magic.cm.hk, Digital Cinema/ E-Cinema