[Jeremy Garchow] "I thought we were beyond flaming people for having ambition"
I'm not flaming anyone by any stretch... and even if I
were it certainly would not be because they have ambition.
In fact I DO
indeed applaud their ambition and back when I was a pup would have loved to have had the opportunities that apparently they do. More power to them.
Ambition is not the issue.
They didn't ask my opinion, and I'm not giving it to
them, just mentioning it in
this group.... I just find it a bit misguided that some of these newbis (of course not all, but I have seen some definite examples) are jumping into the deep end when their work (again, just based on
some examples I have seen) show no grasp of direction, blocking,
lighting, composition, or sound aquisition. Would you suggest that a beginner
start learning the craft of filmmaking on a Panavision PFX? This is pretty much the electronic equivalent of that.
I exchanged a couple of emails with one of these young guys, who is proud to be anxiously awaiting the soon delivery (I think next month?) of his new RED (and rightly so). Just as an example, in our brief conversation I learned that he had never heard the term "dutch angle," didn't know what a T-stop was, and thought PL mount was the same as Nikkor. The RED is probably going to offer him some challenges, and I doubt it will be the most positive of learning experiences.
I'm not holding myself up as any standards by any means, and I myself am not what I would call an
excellent cinematographer by any shakes (no one is comparing me to Tak Fujimoto these days) but I do have a couple of decades of experience and can shoot 35mm with my eyes closed (not exactly recommended to do that, btw), but even then if I knew I had to start a RED project tomorrow it would not be without some trepidation. You must learn to walk before you can run.
To stretch the bad analogies further, you
can learn to drive from scratch behind the wheel of a Ferrari, but it's not generally recommended.
If I have offended anyone in
here (which I think would be the generally-accepted definition of flaming) for suggesting that the RED is for those who already at least know the basics of cinematography and is best suited for at least somewhat experienced cinematographers or higher-end videographers, then I must scratch my head and offer my apologies.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
