Big Data and A Changing Industry
Great rental house aren't just interested in getting equipment out the door. They want the interaction, the Big Data of getting that information and passing it on to multiple filmmakers so that their process could improve. That’s where you get innovations, and that’s where you get leaps.
We feel the collaboration between what we used to call the “rental house” [is now] more as technology partners to filmmakers that can help them leap and get their own Big Data. As soon as a filmmaker comes back from their shoot, the first thing we ask is, “How’d it go? What were the problems? How could you fix it?” We gather all that information to power the next filmmaker that comes in and apply that as a metric.
No matter what great rental house, they weren’t just interested in getting equipment out the door. They wanted to get the interaction. You were more interested in the Big Data of getting that information and passing it on to multiple filmmakers so that their process could improve. That’s where you get innovations, and that’s where you get leaps.
A lot of times [filmmakers] tell us what their vision is, and sometimes it’s a struggle. They will try to push it and then realize, “We don’t have the budget,” or, “We can’t do this,” and start compromising their vision. They’ll go from a night shoot to an indoor shoot. We tell them that you don’t have to compromise that quickly. Forget about the rules you’ve heard. Forget about the restrictions you think there are. Maybe we don’t know how to solve it yet, but there’s always a solution.
Radiant could have done the easiest, most economical, most enriching business models, where we measure 10 cents, and 10 cents gets paid back within [a certain] amount of time. And we did for a while until we got to a point where we realized that we did not want to be part of just providing a piece of equipment. I’m not about just giving a piece of equipment and then recycling, like every single camera manufacturer does every two years. Their business models are not sustainable. No industry on the planet can go through these levels of innovations at this pace. Film cameras changed every 20 to 30 years. Digital cameras had 10- to 12-year lifespans. Now with what’s happening, [cameras change] every two years. Auto manufacturers don’t do that. Even computer manufacturers don’t do that. It’s unsustainable.
