Cameras are to indie film makers as laptops are to web startups: important to have but not their biggest concern. Pro cameras can always be borrowed or rented if need be. The bigger concerns for an indie film are paying for a lighting crew, a sound crew, line production, then months of editing and post production, and then trying to get anyone at all to distribute the finished product. Nice camera? Yes. Game changing? No.
I think for a lot of indie films it's a bunch of guys in a profit sharing scheme living on ramen noodles. Back when I was applying to college I looked into film school, the 35mm film costed $600/minute, and since they're photo films you can't overwrite them. If you screw up you throw them away. So in effect the medium is the weakest link for a lot of indie people, especially ones on the low end of the spectrum.
I think the reality is somewhere in between the excitable article and the downbeat comment; being able to shoot more cheaply is nice and all, but still does not mean indie filmmakers will be any more welcomed into theaters (many of which still require prints anyway).
Much more interesting than the improvements in price/quality of digital filmmaking is the possibilites of film distribution on the net. It isn't happening as quickly as I'd hoped, but as bandwidth gets cheaper and faster, and televisions get more connected to the net, I'm expecting the film industry to change quite dramatically. The emergence of cheap digital filmmaking and web-based distribution networks will be similar to the recent change in dynamic of web startups. And the longer the big studios avoid exploiting this model, the more chances it has to be seized by independent filmmakers (and startups ;).
It depends on the market, locally, the owner of a major theater chain has adopted digital projection on something like 35+ screens in the greater metro area and has really been open to some of the smaller indie films. Many times it takes a lot of vision on the part of the theatre owner/manager because indies can really depend on the "long tail" when it comes to theatre audiences. They don't have the money to advertise so you run the film for a week and hope those people tell their friends and they tell there friends and pretty soon you start to see some steady returns as the word gets out, but this takes some guts and patience from the owners.
Net distribution will be a great avenue as well, given how reticent the studios have been to band together and provide "one" place where people can go to rent/buy films online.
What are you shooting with that specs comparably against the RED Scarlet that can be had for under $1.5K (Scarlet < $3K)? The Scarlet technical specs seem to far beyond anything currently within the $1500-$3000 price range. Unlike others here, I think this is pretty impressive.
I am not slagging the author of the blog cited in this thread but some details about the price point and features would have helped emphasize how "game-changing" this camera really is. Once again, I can agree with that.
Just the body I would assume. Lenses are usually a whole new can 'o worms. THOSE suckers cost an arm and a leg no matter r what camera you are shooting on if you want good ones.
Those can be rented... in fact where this will really change things is when the local grip rental houses start renting these things out by the day/week.
Even if the rates are more expensive than the equivalent 35mm kit, the cost of film stock far outweighs the rental costs.
So now for the cost of a day rental, an indie filmmaker can shoot at 3k quality, and only be limited by hard drive space (which is way cheaper than film, and is renewable) rather than the $600/min cited above for 35mm film stock.
