Low/No Pay projects

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

.....conversely....

Can you reassure me, without using google, what that means. Good to have one's p^qs in order. Not that I doubt you. Just wondered if algebraic terms, or terms of logic, had become fodder for current metaphore.

[John E Clark]

Hey, do any of them want to invest in film?

 

R,

Here's a reference...

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2013/06/05/larry-ellisons-trust-fund-babies/

 

While the subjects of this article are not 'directors', or more technical workers on a credit roll, they appear to be producers.

 

Just walk in an introduce yourself... well... if you a known person in Hollywood now...

Edited July 6, 2015 by John E Clark

[Satsuki Murashige]

I was thinking more this:

 

 

*OH NO, GIF FAIL! *Hangs head in shame*

[Carl Looper]

[Tyler Purcell]

Must have more lens flair!!!! :D

[Mark Dunn]

Phil, I like to think of you as the Severus Snape of our forum. :)

Surely you know about Marvin the Paranoid Android.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Surely you know about Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Nope. Sadly my exposure to pre-21st century British television was limited to reruns of Danger Mouse and Monty Python...

[David Peterson]

 

Who the heck has a 4k cinema camera graduating from college anyway?

Trust fund kids.

 

BMPC4K is very affordable (and so will the URSA Mini 4K), the Panasonic GH4 / Samsung NX1 are even more affordable if you're counting them.

 

I know plenty of recently graduated people (or folks who are at a similar position in their early career) with 4K cameras, and are not trust funds.

Edited July 7, 2015 by David Peterson

[Phil Rhodes]

I suspect that comes down to your definition of what a "cinema" camera is.

 

P

[Rakesh Malik]

Nope. Sadly my exposure to pre-21st century British television was limited to reruns of Danger Mouse and Monty Python...

 

You should read more... Marvin is from Douglas Adams' 4-book trilogy called, "The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy."

 

:)

[Mark Dunn]

Nope. Sadly my exposure to pre-21st century British television was limited to reruns of Danger Mouse and Monty Python...

Not a bad start, but Marvin started out on BBC Radio 4.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_%28character%29

will bring you 'up to speed', I believe is the modern expression.

On being left alone for 576,000,003,579 years: "The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."

 

Now the world has gone to bed ,

Darkness won't engulf my head,

I can see by infra-red

How I hate the night.

 

Now I lay me down to sleep,

Try to count electric sheep,

Sweet dream wishes you can keep

How I hate the night.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Mark Dunn

[John E Clark]

BMPC4K is very affordable (and so will the URSA Mini 4K), the Panasonic GH4 / Samsung NX1 are even more affordable if you're counting them.

 

I know plenty of recently graduated people (or folks who are at a similar position in their early career) with 4K cameras, and are not trust funds.

 

I consider Blackmagic to be a disruptive tech company. It may not have the legs to maintain for 'years to come', but at the moment, it is getting more technology to a lower price point, than what was available from the more traditional camera makers.

 

I'm sure the more traditional camera companies will be coming out with 4k on the cheap. (Just saw that NHK will be shooting 8K a Yankees/Mariners game and have a special 'journalist' viewing area for UHD display...).

 

Personally I'd prefer RAW 2K and 444 sampling... Of course then I'd have to upgrade my computer system to be up to editing such media... where's that trust fund when you need it..

Edited July 7, 2015 by John E Clark

[Rakesh Malik]

Disruptive is a good way to describe BMD. And it's not just the cameras, it's also now visual effects (Fusion) and already included color (Resolve), and will soon include editorial (Resolve 12). I don't see how BMD's business model can be sustainable, unless they're planning on either continuing to move up-market, or convincing current owners to upgrade every 2-3 years. Or possibly just by having a huge product portfolio. :)

 

Sony already is doing like you're predicting, and odds are others will as well.

 

The cameras that NHK was showing at NAB captured in raw at 120fps... the data rates must be astronomical.

[Tyler Purcell]

Blackmagic Designs is doing the right thing in my eyes. They're building industry standard tools for not just acquisition but also finishing, stuff that nobody else has seen for that price. They've enabled people like myself to shoot and deliver cinema-grade products, without relying on other people or their equipment. Plus, Blackmagic have thought about their workflow and they've developed something that works great.

 

Unlike the Japanese brands who constantly compete against one another via specs, blackmagic does their own thing and ignores everyone else. This has created some wonderful cameras like the Pocket and URSA mini. Two cameras which have really nothing to do with anything else on the market. Where I'm not a fan of the original Blackmagic cinema cameras, I think they've figured out their issues and in the next few years, will make more and more low to mid range cameras.

 

Blackmagic has no interest in taking over the Alexa/F65/RED market, that's not their business model. They are focused on the low to mid market, complete camera packages for sub $10k. If Blackmagic wasn't around, there really wouldn't anything I could afford that shoots in a format compatible with Avid, FCP and Premiere natively.

[Rakesh Malik]

I agree with you Tyler, I just hope that their business model is sustainable. It's generous and it's enabled a lot of people to move up to producing professional quality footage by not being limited to the heavy compression of dSLRs, but it's hard to see where their margins are.

 

I'm not complaining about what BMD's done and is doing, rather I'm hoping that they'll be able to keep it up.

[Satsuki Murashige]

You should read more... Marvin is from Douglas Adams' 4-book trilogy called, "The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy."

:)

Ah. Tried to get through 'Hitchhiker' a few times and never made it more than a few pages. Kinda like 'Dune.' Something about them just makes my brain go 'nope.' Love Terry Pratchett though...

[JD Hartman]

 

You should read more... Marvin is from Douglas Adams' 4-book trilogy called, "The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy."

 

:)

 

The film adaptation (like most) was terrible.

[Rakesh Malik]

Agreed. Not much of the satirical humor made it into the film.

[David Peterson]

BMD is a private company, thus it is a bit of a mystery as to their real financial status.

Look at RED, Jim Jannard founded it with the intention of shaking up the movie industry. I believe he still wants to make a profit (but I bet they didn't in the early years), but he places a higher personal premium on pushing forward with innovation than maximising profit. Thus he is willing to accept a bit lower profit, in exchange (as an example) for bringing raw 8K to the mainstream.

 

Perhaps BMD is being driven by similar motivation? (though likely to a smaller extent, as they don't have the Oakley fortune backing them up)

They want profits yes, but happy to accept lower numbers if they accomplish their goals of bring low low priced innovation to the industry.

 

Maybe Grant Petty wants to leave a long lasting legacy on the filmmaking industry vs just making another 10 million dollars? Perhaps now he has already made a bundle and is very wealth, he now wants to take on new challenges (such as what they've been doing in the last few years, which I'm glad to see!).

Edited July 8, 2015 by David Peterson

[Michael LaVoie]

Since we're talking disruptive, how about Kinefinity? Haha. They rarely get a nod on this board. I spoke with one high end camera dealer who had never heard of them. I sent them a link to the site cause I was curious and doing homework on their cameras. The vendor said after reviewing their product that they'd never sell it. Mostly cause it would anger their existing clients. Hahaha.

 

Nothing about the actual product raised a flag necessarily. Only the price point. Cause it's alone as the only 6K competitor to Red but for less than half the cost.

 

Rather than going with a 6K Raw camera, I opted for the FS7 as it's way more reliable and can be used for narrative or documentary work. If the Kinemax had a global shutter however, I'd have been sold on it. The rolling shutter on those cameras is pretty bad compare to the FS7. But a matter of time till they solve that and the other firmware bugs that pop up on occasion.

[Tyler Purcell]

I don't think Sony will ever move away from rolling shutter on their low/mid cameras because in doing so, they loose a lot of light sensitivity and perceived dynamic range. The Japanese brands are all about specs, so building a camera that has less spec with global shutter, just doesn't appear to be their strategy. Plus, with a big imager, you need an even faster processor to deal with global shutter. This adds cost and most importantly space inside the camera for a heat sync. Because Sony is so focused on building cameras with crazy amount of functionality, they literally don't have enough space to fit a big enough heat sync. By the way, Red Cinema cameras don't have a global shutter either, they use adaptors to "fake" the global shutter look at an additional cost. Honestly, the RED solution is pretty magical and it does work well.

 

I've been researching Kinefinity cameras for a while and haven't been too impressed. The color science is a bit whack, what comes out of the camera requires a lot of correcting. Plus, the HARSH highlight clipping issues you see on pretty much all the Sony camera's, seems to be front and center on the Kinifinity cameras. I can't stand harsh clipping, it spoils the shot and makes it look like video. There are some demos where people shot with grey sky's that look good, but the moment you see anything shot with bright sun and there is any chance at reflection in the shot, the highlights are harsh. In contrast, the Blackmagic and Arri cameras, don't have harsh highlights, they have a very nice highlight curve. You still have detail in over-exposed areas, even though there is a slight color shift, you can work with it in DaVinci and get something out of it. I've had harsh clipping cameras before and would rather have a 4k camera that didn't have harsh clipping and had global shutter option vs a 6k camera that had harsh clipping and no global shutter.

[Michael LaVoie]

HARSH highlight clipping issues you see on pretty much all the Sony camera's, seems to be front and center on the Kinifinity cameras.

Don't have that problem but then, it all depends on how you expose the image. If you have a waveform monitor and you take readings you shouldn't see a lot of highlight clipping on any camera. Especially if you're shooting Raw or LOG. It's kind of difficult to clip out highlights nowadays. But then, you have to know how to read a waveform and expose for LOG or RAW gamma curves and that is a learning curve for some. Not always obvious either when you have ISO settings that contrast native sensor readings etc. This I think accounts for a lot of miscalculated exposure on Sony cameras in particular. It's not a camera problem. It's operator error.

[Tyler Purcell]

This I think accounts for a lot of miscalculated exposure on Sony cameras in particular. It's not a camera problem. It's operator error.

If you have control over you lighting, it's never a problem. However, I rarely shoot in controlled situations, that requires money and if I had that kind of money to make stuff, I'd be shooting on film anyway. So in my eyes, if you can't control the lighting and you're shooting in a more natural setting, it's important to have a camera which has a soft clipping. Sony camera's don't clip softly, they clip harshly and even with SLog/RAW capture, there is very little you can do. Just watch anything shot with a Sony low/mid grade camera outdoors and look for hot spots. They look like old school NTSC cameras, really bad.

 

There are boatloads of articles and videos about the problems.

 

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/archive/index.php/t-332373.html

[Michael LaVoie]

 

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/archive/index.php/t-332373.html

That's a crazy thread there on DVXuser. Haha. Looks like everyone is trying to find some secret sauce to make the camera idiot proof. In S-log I usually keep the highlights no greater than the 50's and I'm fine. It's skin tones that are the main factor that will make something look overdone. Allistair Chapman's blog XD-cam user has very good tips on how to avoid getting "flat" skin tones. Which is the main complaint most people have.

 

I see the same issues on Red and Arri cameras but not for the more famous large movies cause they tend to have better DP's. But the ultra low budget festival projects that shoot with these cameras are loaded with awful over and underexposed footage. Really isn't the cameras.

[Phil Rhodes]

Sometimes it isn't the cinematographers either. I've shot loads of stuff in the past that would have been fine if we'd just had some sort of small overhead diffusion, or another stop's overall light. Often it isn't so much a case of not knowing what's going wrong, it's not being able to do anything about it.

 

Which is why I've sort of stopped shooting stuff.

 

P