Fool Controll App for Red Review | VidMuze

In this video, Mike with VidMuze discusses his unbiased opinion of the app that controls Red cinema cameras.  Here is the Fool Control app review, covering the three main reasons why he believes all Red Users should use the Fool Control App.

***Disclaimer:  We wanted to mention we were not paid for this review.  We had to purchase the app just like everyone else.***

As a Red user for several years, our ability for remote access to the Red camera has always been limited to none.  Whether you’re making camera setting changes, formatting media or even playing back footage, it all had to be done on the Red camera itself.  Old technology, right?

Since Red has come out with their Weapon Fleet of cameras, they were kind enough to include WiFi built in.  This allowed the chains to be broken!  Now a smart app developer from France named Mickael was genius enough to develop an App for our iPhones, iPads and Macs to control our Reds wirelessly. This means if your Red has Wifi, you have full access control to the camera.

This excites us for many reasons… here are our main three reasons.

1. No more finger prints.  As a camera operator, I want my monitor to be clean and free of any fingerprints.  As you know, Red made their monitor a "touch screen"  meaning every time someone touches the monitor, more finger prints are left behind!  Come on people, don’t touch the monitor… clean monitor good… fingerprints bad.  Now with Fool control, you don't have to touch the monitor anymore.  Huge feature!
2. No more slow menu systems.  I’ve always heard DPs and Camera operators complain about the laggy and clunky menu system on Red cameras.  It’s true… we live in an age when using our phones we’re used to smooth and fluid menus.  Red makes a great camera… but the latency and slow frame rate of their menu systems makes it challenging to use.  Fool control gives you the quick and fluid access to Reds menu system on a familiar platform that we use everyday, our iPhones.
3. No more hard mounted monitors when needing playback.  As many of you know, I am a camera movement specialist, which means I get to move cinema cameras… in special ways. "Smirk"  As a gimbal operator and a drone pilot, I don’t always have the luxury of having a red touch monitor when needing to playback footage for the director after a shot.  Well thanks to Fool control, those big time wasting messes are no more!  Activating playback is simple.  When running gimbal and completing a shot, the gimbal can stay engaged and I can easily activate playback with my iPhone.  Since we always have a wireless HD downlink feed sent to video village from Red, the director can see playback wirelessly.  When we’re flying drones, same thing.  After we land, my iPhone will re-connect to Red and I can activate playback, again giving playback wirelessly to the director.  Good times!

So the bottom line is whether I’m shooting Red on sticks, on a gimbal in the sky, Fool Control is the solution for all Red users.

So all of these positives are great… so what are the negatives?  I didn’t find anything negative about the app as of yet, however you will have those rare occasions when WiFi wants to make life difficult and connecting to the Red may be an issue.

So what about the range of WiFi… how far away can you be from Red and still be in control.  Again, that depends on what devices you’re using, how good are those devices WiFi reception, and are you using any third party camera wifi boosters?  With an iPhone 7 Plus and just the stock internal wifi with Red, I can get about 25 ft of range.

There are a ton of other features included in this app which I’m not going to go over in this review for the sake of time.  There are other resources out there that cover the app in more depth.  If enough of you want me to provide my own in depth overview of Fool Control, leave a comment below.

So all of this wireless goodness boils down to the price.  How much does this app cost?  Well to be able to control one Red at a time, the iPhone/iPad app is $150.  This is a great price for what the app provides.  It’s well worth the time savings and convenience!.

Here is a link to Fool Control in the app store.  Fool Control

If you want to learn more about Fool Control you can head on over to Mickael’s website at Fool Color.

If you want to learn more about VidMuze Aerial Cinema, LLC, head on over to our website.  If you want to check out our store products, you can do so here.