James Cameron Buys 50 RED EPICs

[Jacques Mersereau]

http://technabob.com/blog/2011/04/25...pic-m-cameras/

[John Vincent]

Which means the guy on the street will have to wait a wee bit longer, no?

Come to think of it, can the guy on the street even buy one at all at this point?

[Chris Hurd]

Those are the machined versions, Epic-M, not Epic-X.

And yes, the guy on the street can buy one today for $58,000 -- although I think quantity orders get priority.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Those RED robotic mills are going to be working day and night for a while.
I wonder if Mr. Cameron got a discount? :-)

[Bob Hart]

Whyever would he possibly want 50. Is he going to donate them to filmschools?

My rabid imagining is that there must be some extraordinarily massive motion mapping thing he is doing, wall-to-wall paired 3D cameras, focus all locked off and converged onto specific marks in a large set? - Interactive 3D game at a whole new level as a tie in to his next big movie? Whatever. One thing guaranteed. It IS going to be interesting.

[Chris Hurd]

Cameron is fully committed to stereoscopic 3D production, so
it's safe to assume that he's going to be using them as 25 pairs,
on a somewhat larger scale than Peter Jackson is doing right
now with 30 RED Epic-M cameras (in 15 pairs) on The Hobbit.

Obviously his plan is to have multiple units shooting concurrently,
like Jackson. Perhaps more than one production, each with several
units. 25 pairs, each with backups, could be assigned pretty quickly
that way.

[Jacques Mersereau]

That would be my guess Chris.
Lots of time can money can be saved if you are able to get several shots and/or angles at once.
Probably especially true in high end 3D capture. One perfect performance means all angles cut seamlessly.
And no, to do so is NOT easy, sometimes impossible, but when it is possible for the big guys it is worth the investment.

I wish I could afford 1 Epic M rig - sigh!

[Chris Medico]

And think about how much all that glass is going to cost too. Could easily exceed the cost of the cameras.

[Zach Love]

From here on out, nearly everything will cost more than the camera.

Digital cameras are tiny computers. R&D of tiny computers is everywhere & the price just keeps dropping as quality keeps soaring.

Opposite of that, there probably will never be a gigantic surge of R&D & massive progressive evolution when it comes to lenses, tripods, etc. It won't be long until you can get a camera better than a Red for less than the price of an airline ticket, but a good tripod is still going to cost about the same as it did 10 years ago.

[Brian Drysdale]

I don't think the prices will drop much for high end cameras, just the specification will keep increasing. Although there does reach a point of diminishing returns, that point really depends if you can notice the difference and how important people feel that difference is.

Depending on the subject matter, top DPs may not want to shoot too many camera angles at once because it can compromise the lighting and camera placement. Good editing can be a temporal lie and the performances built up from different takes, which is the cool part.

I'd imagine Cameron will have several units working back to back with the main unit.

[Dom Stevenson]

Looks like the baby brother/sister might just be on its way:

MacVideo - Camera Technology - Features - RED Scarlet, working model on show

[Lawrence Bansbach]

Originally Posted by Dom Stevenson

Looks like the baby brother/sister might just be on its way:

MacVideo - Camera Technology - Features - RED Scarlet, working model on show

On the contrary, Jim Jannard recently posted that fixed-lens Scarlet is effectively on indefinite hold. Not only is it suffering the same electronic-component shortage as the Epics, there are also problems obtaining lens parts. The interchangeable-lens Scarlet Cinema model was scheduled to follow after the fixed; whether that will continue to be the case -- or the Cinema is to be moved ahead of the fixed -- is known only to Red. So Scarlet may be delayed until the fall or later.

[Brian Drysdale]

I gather it's Cameron-Pace that have bought 50 Epics. Vince Pace have been involved in 3d camera development together with James Cameron for many years. I expect the cameras are part of a rental fleet, rather than just for Cameron's own use.

[Allan Barnwell]

It seems that James is investing in the new ARRI's as well:

ARRI Group: News

I think he can afford to have a large collection of all the cameras on the market - he's even grabbing the ones not yet on the market.

Allan Barnwell
Omega Broadcast Group - Professional Video Sales, Rental & Services

[Jad Meouchy]

If we're speculating, I personally believe he's built a single 50-camera rig that's capable of resolving subatomic pixels beyond every known and unknown dimension. To detect light before it has even been emitted by the globes. It's really the only possible next step for him.