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Liking the Epic, I must confess


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What I love is when they are shooting some promo pieces that are going to run in a 640x480 window on a flash website and they insist on shooting on an EPIC in 5K. Talk about overkill. The fans come on because of the Ultra Hi Res and Long takes. They could be shooting with a standard Def betacam video camera with zero problems and much faster post and you probably couldn't tell the difference in the final web based image.

You're right, but remember that my client's clients see the video on the on-set monitors and in the edit suite, and my clients are selling themselves on how great everything looks and that by using this camera (like what Peter Jackson uses!) they separate themselves from all the one-man-prod-co 5D drivers.

phil p

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Courtney and Phil both right.

Sometimes putting on a show it a good thing. For most of these computer gigs, it could be done with a betacam and $400 mic plugged straight in to the camera. After all the compression, who could tell the difference. But then a lot of us would struggle to make a living (even more than we already do).

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What I love is when they are shooting some promo pieces that are going to run in a 640x480 window on a flash website and they insist on shooting on an EPIC in 5K. Talk about overkill.

Overkill out the wazoo.....

I remember the first time I worked with a RED - it was their first time, too, apparently.

Shooting a mere 4k for a spot on Animal Planet - a promotion lasting two weeks only and tied to a contest with an end date!

I think their "mags" were lasting 4 minutes max - made for an interesting day.

PLUS - adding to the overkill - god forbid you touch the lensnow to pull focus - now you simply must have a Bartech attached to the camera and competing with us for audio / TC mounting space ..... and BUDGET as well @ 300 / day.... no shit - 300 / DAY.

Think about that next time they try to beat you up over a "new media" thingy....

MF

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RED Scarlet shoot yesterday and today. Similar to Epic so I thought I'd post. LOUD LOUD LOUD. The camera team can't seem to keep the fan quiet during shooting so all the scenes have a very obvious fan in the background. Plus, the director is being adamant that during a scene involving seduction the female lead whispers the entire time, and will not concede to any request for volume increase.

On the plus side, no media issues. I'm not feeding sound to cam, but the camera has thus far been stable. Not even a single reboot required. That's good.

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You're right, but remember that my client's clients see the video on the on-set monitors and in the edit suite, and my clients are selling themselves on how great everything looks and that by using this camera (like what Peter Jackson uses!) they separate themselves from all the one-man-prod-co 5D drivers.

phil p

This is often the case for projects I'm on.

On the flip side, I did one shoot for which my production company also furnished the video monitors and my client specifically requested that I DON'T use hi-def monitors as he didn't want his clients to expect that same look with the final product which was going to be fairly low-res.

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I don't know who said it in this forum, but "RED is the most clueless Camera Company around" or something to that effect. I think all their products are woeful and make my job harder on a daily basis. I think the Epic is another badly designed camera and I hope it has a short on set life. I want to make the point that what if the situations were reversed? What if my audio recorder behaved the way that most of the RED products did, and broke down on set on a semi regular basis in the middle of shooting? What if after carefully lighting a set, we started shooting and light started emitting from my recorder so strong that the continuity of the lighting was destroyed? I think I would be ejected from the studio along with my equipment fairly quickly. I think the Epic or the 'Crapic' as I like to refer to it is proof that The RED Company has learnt nothing from the RED ONE and lowered the bar even further by incorporating more non standard connectors like the four pin T/C and 3.5mm input jacks. Yet, RED products are tolerated and even celebrated by some, but I'm no fan.

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I don't know who said it in this forum, but "RED is the most clueless Camera Company around" or something to that effect. I think all their products are woeful and make my job harder on a daily basis. I think the Epic is another badly designed camera and I hope it has a short on set life. I want to make the point that what if the situations were reversed? What if my audio recorder behaved the way that most of the RED products did, and broke down on set on a semi regular basis in the middle of shooting? What if after carefully lighting a set, we started shooting and light started emitting from my recorder so strong that the continuity of the lighting was destroyed? I think I would be ejected from the studio along with my equipment fairly quickly. I think the Epic or the 'Crapic' as I like to refer to it is proof that The RED Company has learnt nothing from the RED ONE and lowered the bar even further by incorporating more non standard connectors like the four pin T/C and 3.5mm input jacks. Yet, RED products are tolerated and even celebrated by some, but I'm no fan.

These are very good points. They are also the points I am going to steal immediately, and begin using when the time is appropriate. I don't make a habit of commenting on cameras while on set, since very few people want to know what the soundie thinks of their lover, but these are points that are difficult to defend. Nice thinking.

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Sometimes putting on a show it a good thing. For most of these computer gigs, it could be done with a betacam and $400 mic plugged straight in to the camera. After all the compression, who could tell the difference. But then a lot of us would struggle to make a living (even more than we already do).

WWMPS?

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RED Scarlet shoot yesterday and today. Similar to Epic so I thought I'd post. LOUD LOUD LOUD. The camera team can't seem to keep the fan quiet during shooting so all the scenes have a very obvious fan in the background. Plus, the director is being adamant that during a scene involving seduction the female lead whispers the entire time, and will not concede to any request for volume increase.

As far as I know, the Epic/Scarlet fan can't be set to lower than 35%. There is "allegedly" a mod where the Red Company can swap out the internal fan for a somewhat quieter one.

I did do a Red Epic shoot about 10 days ago, and it went OK. The fan noise was tolerable -- but only because the outside generator drowned it out. :( No camera crashes. We did send wireless audio to camera, but the headphone output was not working, and the crew was unable or unwilling to do a test record to see how it sounded. I shrugged and said, "well, meters are moving -- I'm not responsible." The audio on our recorder was fine, so the camera was just for scratch.

Red has announced that the "Pro I/O" box with the XLRs will be out in a month or so for somewhere around $3K. My fear is that very few DPs or owner/operators will buy it, and fewer will rent it with the package. The balanced/unbalanced 1/8" inputs it has now are wacky and weird, and I'm not happy with the 4-pin Lemo TC ins, either. Gripe, gripe, gripe...

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Hey Marc, To adjust the headphone output you have to go into the menu and make sure the audio out is turned up all the way. To do this you go into the secondary menu and tap on "Settings" then tap on "Audio/Video" and then tap on "Audio Out". You will see a sliding vertical bar to adjust the output level. Even when it's set it to max it is still a very weak output. One thing to be aware of is if the Camera Op has saved his camera settings while the "Audio Out" was set to mute or really low then every time he recalls his settings the "Audio Out" will be recalled to what ever the Audio Settings were set to when he originally did the save. So make sure that your audio settings are where you want them before the Camera Op does a save.

Andy

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Just wrapped a show with the Epic. Once the producers informed the camera dept the sync boxes would ride the camera all was well. The biggest issue we had was when the scene jumped from 2 to 1 camera, they would sometimes forget to turn it off and blow a take because the fans at full speed are loud. This happened quite a few times. Otherwise a few "Red" moments here and there but a much nicer experience than with the original.. The Arri is still my fav.. Strange though that the Sound Dept knows more about the workings of the camera than the camera dept. Quote from first AC. "Dude, I pull focus, it could be a bread box for all I care!.."

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Hey Marc, To adjust the headphone output you have to go into the menu and make sure the audio out is turned up all the way. To do this you go into the secondary menu and tap on "Settings" then tap on "Audio/Video" and then tap on "Audio Out".

Ah, thanks for that, Andy. You know the standard AC's have no clue what happens in the audio menus of their cameras -- regardless of the level of the crew, I always get a "deer in the headlights" response when I start talking about levels or headphone outs. I just encountered a second Alexa shoot in a row, but on this one, we could at least get sound from the HDMI output and could hear it at the monitor.

I'll save your step-by-step for the permanent archives!

I like Mark's comment above -- we should make red T-shirts that say, "Having a Red Moment"!

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Epic fan can be set at 25% with current firmware. I gave this a shot last week, but anything longer than a 5 minute take, the fan kicked on and cut even when set to manual. I got a feature coming up shooting with a Scarlet and Epic... that I have to run sound and TC to by request. I'm going to try keeping an accurate report of how it goes.

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Personally, do we really WANT them to put a workable audio section in it? Not me... I like my double system autonomy, which is

essential in our evolving multi-track world. It's pretty easy to feed it a scratch track. Though the dinky connector is in the entirely wrong place, Arri sort of put theirs in the same general spot as well. Who was first?

(who authorized this?? :))

On my last little movie, the A-CAM died on Day One, take 5 !! B-CAM became A-CAM for the rest of the 20 days.

The fan setting was atrocious, and the AC couldn't manage to change this or wouldn't bother.

I had NO IDEA of the sound of the rooms / environment we were in until we were rolling - at least the director was well aware and accommodating for the next take... take one was always a rehearsal, and then a chance to clean up the ambiences when possible.

While in standby, it sounded like a jet in idle..... I mean ridiculously loud. Hard to have a conversation too close to it.

MF

Man this sounds familiar. Yeah, the damn thing makes the whole set sound like you're in a jet cabin at 30k'... how we're supposed to search out and eliminate other unwanted noises like ballasts and compressors is beyond me.

The shoot I did last weekend wound up being on a Scarlet -- can't f'in stand the the things.

~tt

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Man this sounds familiar. Yeah, the damn thing makes the whole set sound like you're in a jet cabin at 30k'... how we're supposed to search out and eliminate other unwanted noises like ballasts and compressors is beyond me.

~tt

Good point T.

The world gets noisier all the time and our sets are nutz with put puts and all sorts of self produced noise and now on top of that, on the immediate set, fans blowing all the time from the camera. WTF? I just did 7 days on a commercial w the Alexa. Zero problems and no sound issues. The best part was the DIT wanted no scratch track. He synced the picture and sound w a time code centric software for post. He didn't want the sound files on the camera cards because he had to then delete them. Very smooth way to work IMO and I know they used my files and not the camera feed. Not a fan of Red Cams thus far but for better or worse, they did change the game. Onward to more change I'm sure.

CrewC

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I've had 2 interviews blown by the Epic fans now. 35% fan, air-conditioned room: not warm at all. 14 min in--here comes the "hair-dryer"! Even in that air conditioned space we found that we could not reliably do long takes with the fan any lower than 50% (which is audible in a quietish room for sure). For short take (commercials etc) you could probably get away with a lower speed.

phil p

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