Landon D. Parks

If you only need editing, go with Lightworks. Premiere Pro, Final Cut, Avid, are all super-bloated programs - full of tons of useless features. I have never used Final Cut, but I have used Premiere and the entire Adobe suit a lot (still use it), and haven't found any real issues with it. It's just as capable as any other. With FCP, people either love it or hate it. Since X came out, it took on an iMovie vibe - and Apple stopped supporting their pro-grade accompanying programs. For this reason, most people have switched from Final Cut to other programs - at least in my research. And no, you really don't need to resolve unless you're coloring. Even then, Premiere has Lumetri, which can give just as good results. Biggest problem you're likely to find in Final Cut is color though... Even if you don't do a lot of coloring - I'm wonder to what extend FCP actually has any real useful coloring tools.

I'll repeat it again: The PC 'issues' that Mac people throw out there are mostly false or over-hyped. As someone who has been building and working on PC's since he was 12 (I'm 30 now), I can say that having owned around 18 different windows-based computers in that time - and having worked on countless more - I have never seen these issues that people claim. I have only ever had a PC crash on me when a hard drive was failing - and Apple doesn't use special drivers - they can fail just as easily as a PC-based hard drive. I was also a Network Admin for a short time for a company where I oversaw there call-center computers and servers... I have never had an issue server-side running Windows. I have never experienced a part malfunction in a PC (besides hard drives), I have only done re-installs when I felt the registry was becoming bloated (my own fault for installing tons of useless programs). Every windows PC I have worked on has been brought to me due to end-of-life issues like old hardware that has just worn out. We are talking 10+ year old computers here. As an A+ and CCNP, I have worked for several companies that troubleshooted network-based windows systems for companies, and I have never experienced any vast array of 'bluescreens of death' or virus attacks. I'm not saying Windows is perfect, but what I am saying is: take the word of someone who refuses to touch a Microsoft product with a grain of salt. Tyler has made it known that he hates Windows, Microsoft, etc. Which is fine, but you'll never get a fair perspective from someone like that. Apple's OSX is a fine operating system. It's stable, runs well, and thanks to Apples closed marketplace, it ensures the software that runs on it runs WELL on it. I would never turn one away from Apple computers from the gate - but I will tell you to do your own research on it. Apple computers are expensive for what they offer. You DO pay the 'Apple tax', which can range from bad to terrible. The mere fact that Apple hasn't built a good professional computer since the old Mac Pro towers is a telling sign to avoid them. Just like they screwed up Final Cut - they have very much turned into a consumer-only company. Yes, you CAN buy a used Mac like Tyler has, but the reality is - it's still going to be expensive, Apple will not service them most of the time (Apple has a replace-over-service policy), and the hardware WILL wear out eventually - or just get so behind that it won't work with the latest technology. SO, I'll stop by saying that you need to do your own independent research. Tyler has given you his opinion on Apple and OSX, I have given you mine on Windows. We both appear to be fairly well researched on our particular systems. However, just know that Windows is not the doom-and-gloom that Tyler always makes it out to be. You simply can't take the word of someone who claims to hate and never use the product to make a judgement about it. And as for the retina display: it's not a color-accurate display for color-critical work. At the very least you need a Flanders for that. I also have a PV270 from BenQ that claims P3 and 10-bit, but it's not.

My experience with Resolve and OpenFX has not been good. OpenFX in general is a very sketchy platform, and I really wish Black Magic had went with their own plugin format. OpenFX has to work with all openFX programs, which means there is almost always some issues with every implantation. As much as I like 'open'=type technology, you are always going to be making compromises when you have to program something for every type of application -- its why most 'open' license programs don't enjoy professional use. My experience with OpenFX in Resolve is with Film Convert, the Magic Bullet suite, and Hitfilm Ignite plugins. Film convert works, but is still slow and does crash every now and again - the only plugin from MB that will load is Looks. Meanwhile, the Hitfilm plugins seem to all work perfectly fine.

People make it out to be harder than it really is to collect a judgement, considering the person has the money or property in place to satisfy it. You don't need a collections company, either. Step 1 is to win the judgement against them. If you do, a payment plan will be setup by the court. The defendant will pay the court, and the court will pay you. Step 2, if they don't actually pay the court what they agreed upon, is to file a motion to show cause - in which case you'd come back to court, and they'd have to give information about their job and assets to the court. At that point, you could file a request for wage garnishment with the court - which would likely be granted. If they don't have a job but have assets, you can file additional paperwork to cease those assets to sell, and use that money to satisfy the judgement. Not saying its easy or anything, but if they money or assets are there, actually getting them isn't that difficult. You don't always have to rely on the willful participation of the defendant. If he has the means to pay but refuses, the court will force him to pay it through wage or property garnishment. However, this seems like a lot of work for what will ultimately amount to $1,000 judgement. In my opinion, small claims cases aren't worth it unless your pursuing a large sum of money that makes it worth your while. For $1,000 - I would probably file the case, get the judgement, and then hope they guy pays the court. If he doesn't, it probably isn't worth pursuing beyond that. In many cases, the mere fact that court is now involved with the payment plan is enough to scar the defendant into paying it, unless you're dealing with a company with crafty lawyers. When I ran a commercial cleaning company, I won around 15 judgments from clients, and only 2 were never paid out (both times because the business filed bankruptcy with no assets). So don't let people tell you it can't happen. It can. That is why the smalls claims system is there in the first place, for disputes like this.

I can't offer you any legal advice, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I'm not a lawyer or licensed to practice law. What are your odds of winning? Really, rather to take something to small claims depends a lot of instinct. Does the guy have the money to pay it? If not, small claims cannot get money from where it doesn't exist. If he doesn't have the money to pay it, it'll just be postponed until he does. Do you have a written agreement with him? If not, what proof do you have that you performed the services for him? How much is the invoice? If it's for a tiny amount, it might be more trouble than its worth. If it's for more than usually around $5,000 (state dependent), then you can't sue in small claims court. Basically, the larger the amount and the better the odds of collecting, the more likely I'd be to sue someone for it. If I know he has money or assets and is simply not paying me, you bet your butt I'd be taking him to court. If the guy is broke and living with his mom, I'd probably not bother - as more than likely I'd just be wasting my money to file the case.

While it is true that AMD cards perform better with Resolve and Fusion, I included nVidia cards in this build because the performance difference isn't massive (maybe around 10% on the high end), but the benefits to running an nVidia card are still there. For me, I use Blender Cycles which relies on CUDA, and iRay rendering in Daz3D for 3D pre-visualization. Both CUDA and iRay are nVidia-only technologies, while OpenCL works on both platforms. So it's basically a trade off. IF you don't plan to use any programs that rely on CUDA or iRay, then you could certainly go with the AMD Vega 64 GPU, which is as powerful or even a little more powerful compute-wise than the 1080 from nVidia. It's also about $100 cheaper. Blender will soon be transitioning to Eevee render engine, which uses OpenCL. However, at this point, unless I can find an alternative GPU-renderer for Daz, I'm stuck with nVidia.

Resolve Panels is the program used to install and manage the Blackmagic control panels for the software - If you have a physical control panel from Blackmagic, then you'll need it. If not, you won't. I use the Tangent Element panel system, so I don't use it. The issue you're experiencing is exactly what I experienced, and mine happened anytime I attached an OpenFX plugin to a clip. I can't say for sure what fixed it, but the steps I took in order was to: Install latest graphics drive, fully un-install resolve and all OpenFX plugins, then reinstall them again, with resolve installed first. I used the latest build from backmagic site for the re-install. If all else fails, sometimes the best course of action is to completely re-install the OS. As long as you keep a backup of files, the only down side is the time to reinstall the programs and move your files back.

Resolve stopped crashing on me when I updated to the latest version. Which version are you running? Before the update, I couldn't get it to render anything when using OpenFX plugins - it would either start the render and crash randomly or just sit there at 0% and not budge. If you have the latest version, re-install Resolve and then Film Convert (in that order) and try again. Also, are you using a AMD or nVidia graphics card? Resolve plays much better with AMD graphics cards when using OpenCL, since AMD has a better OpenCL implementation. nVidia has been stuck on CUDA so long that they have neglected OpenCL from a driver standpoint. As a last ditch effort, try re-installing your graphics card driver.

Are you working on a Mac or PC?

So, below I'm going to include parts for the system I'd suggest building right now after learning from my own build. This is not exactly my own build, but rather a build I would do again if I was going for a second shot at it, after learning from my own build. I'm only including 32GB of ram in this build. When I built mine, I was able to get 64GB for about $75 more than what a 32GB kit costs now. Ram prices will come back down here soon. See note on Ram below. CPU | Ryzen Threadripper 1920x | $750.00 Motherboard | ASRock X399 Taichi sTR4 | $330.00 GPU | nVidia GTX 1080 (any brand) | $550.00 RAM | G.SKILL Flare X Series 32GB | $360.00 RAM Note: I'm including 32GB here. Unless you are doing some major After Effects work or such, 32GB is plenty of RAM. If you need the 64GB, you can just purchase 2 of these kits (what I did) - but I'd suggest buying 1 kit first, and then seeing if you need the other. Power Supply | Corsair RM-series 850 Watt | $110.00 Case | Coolermaster HAF-XB-EVO | $90.00 OS Drives SSD | Crucial MX500 1TB SSD | $230.00 Media Drives | Barrcuda 4TB Hard Disk Drives x 3 | $300.00 My media drives are running in a RAID 5 setup through Windows. Operating System | Windows 10 64-bit | $20.00 Purchased key from Kinguine. Disc Media | Generic DVD-RW Drive | $20.00 10-bit Monitor Support | Blackmagic Mini-Monitor 4K card | $200.00 TOTAL COST IS $2,960.00, and takes all of about 30 minutes to assemble. If you have any questions about this build, or want more advice – hit me up. I'm an A+ certified PC Tech, as well as CCNP certified, and have been building computers for around 15 years now. I'd be happy to help anyone with build-issues or questions. If you're willing to toss in shipping and a small build fee, I'd be happy to build it for you even – if you don't want to hastle of wasting 30 minutes.

Your shooting ratio is very much a personal thing, but often dictated by budget. In the realm of digital acquisition its less important. In the days of film, a single minute of film could eat up a lot of money, so shooting rations were often required to be kept in check. That of course didn't stop some filmmakers, mostly those with the clout to make their own rules, from shooting 100:1 ratios. In the world of digital though, ratios you shoot are directly related to the amount of time you have - not budget. Though, time is budget, so maybe it does still relate to budget... Anyway, bottom line is that your ratio should be kept to a minimum, no matter your format. Having 600 hours of footage to sort through for post is not going to do you or your editor any favors, and will eat up set time. This is where a good shot list (and a good AD who will enforce it) come in handy.

Okay, but then would you presume to suggest that film is a perfect storage medium? How so? Just because a single copy of the film can last a long time (100 years or so), how does that make it a perfect storage format? It's still subject to the availability of equipment to play it back (does anyone even make film projectors any longer?), it still suffers from what all organic things suffer from: decay and degradation. It's still an analog format, meaning that once that film print expires (only an idiot will assume a film print will last forever) - you need to find a way to transfer it to something else, which WILL result in a degradation of quality, which is going to happen with any analog format. A lot of the film prints we have archived from the early days of film are gone now - they either degraded, where burned up in fires, or etc. How many 'original' films from the early 1900's are still around to be watched? I'm not saying digital is better - I'm saying film isn't perfect for storage. Many on the pro-film side would have you believe that a film print will last a million years, and will always be right there - ready to be played back. It's a false hope. Film is subject to the same issues digital is, just on a longer time scale. Feel free to disagree, but that doesn't change fact - film is far from a perfect archival format. Just because something lasts 100 years vs 10 years, does not make it perfect - it just makes it a little better. Film prints STILL have to face the reality of what is going to happen when they fall apart from organic decay, or rely on the availability of a film projector to play it back. We need to develop a NEW way for long-term storage. Film is not a long-term storage option, its simply a 'longer' term option. And given the way digital technology has increased, I would suggest it'll probably come in the form of digital technology. And using Domesday Project is a bad example: It's old technology. I'm not arguing that 25 year old video technology was any good for preservation. As technology increases, these incompatibility issues will disappear. I think digital storage is at a point now where a lot of it is software based - which is good. Back in the days of old video technology - it was mostly all hardware based - which caused problems. Now, as long as you can keep the 1's and 0's intact, software should be able to playback any format.

No, it won't. Trust me. Every piece of mechanical engineering breaks down over time. There is no such things as an eternal machine. and everyone talks about how great film preservation is: While I agree it will last longer than digital files, the reality is - even celluloid film has an expiration date. Last I heard, the shelf-life of film, when kept in a secure facility that is climate controlled - is around 100 years. But just like every other piece of organic material, it WILL break down, become brittle, colors fade, yellow, etc. So what happens then? You are stuck doing the same thing as digital files: finding a way to keep preserving the content. The biggest issue here is that since the content is already mastered on an analog format, any attempt at future preservation WILL degrade quality. You could always scan to another film print, but that will degrade quality as well. With any analog source, there is only so many copies you can make. And so while digital does have to be more carefully managed in terms of storage, its often stored as a lossless digital format - you can keep making copies as long as you want - 1,000 years from now it'll look as good as it did day 1. In 1,000 years, that film print will either be dust, or have gone through at least 3 or 4 transfers - taking a marked reduction in quality. Which brings me to everyone griping about digital preservation: It's not as dire as many want to paint it. Yes, you will have to keep several backup copies of digital files, and you will have to transfer them to newer technologies as they become available. The reality is though, by the time you take into account the storage requirements to keep film prints good for as long as possible, the work required to transfer digital files seems rather small to me. Film prints require massive warehouses, where climate control is prime - and you better hope nothing happens to that film print, like a fire or some other form of vandalism or natural disaster - which has happened in the past. The bottom line is: People give WAY more stock to film preservation than they should. We haven't yet fully seen just how long film can last. I can tell you that film prints from 100 years ago, even if they are capable of being played back without breaking - will show marked signs of organic decay. So film is not the eternal storage format many want to make it out to be. There is no such thing. I'm not saying that film is worse than digital for storage, I'm just saying that it is FAR from perfect, and will also face its own set of challenges.

I never open the recycle bin. I just right click on the icon, click 'delete files' and it does it without ever needing to open the folder. I don't know how long that feature has been in Windows, but it's at least been since XP.

I'd also look into PC market as well. Price to performance with Mac is much less. Apple has become a consumer company, and I have not seen any of their products - even the ones they label as 'pro' - to be anything close to pro level. Yes, they are reliable (but so is PC), and their OS does have some neat features, but nothing that Windows can't do. All I'm saying is, do your homework. Talk to people on both sides of the game. The iMac Pro's are expensive - I have been building computers since I was 12 - and in my opinion, the hardware side of the new Macs is severely limited. Another thing to consider: The new IMAC's use Vega GPU's from AMD. I started with one, but returned it for an nVidia GTX 1080ti, which performs at least twice as fast as the 64 did - and given the modern editors use GPU more than the do CPU, I'd put your focus away from raw core-CPU power and toward the GPU. I'd be happy to share my 32-core, 64GB, 12TB Storage system part list with you. It all cost me less than $3,000. A 10-core iMacPro is around $10,000. 1/3 the CPU cores for 3x the price.

When working with footage like DNx, you really need a some kind of Raid. That is my opinion, anyway.

The 4K original body is going for around $1,800 used - it's no longer in production. The URSA with the 4K sensor is going for around $3,000 - the original 'new' price-point of the original 4k. So in a sense, you could say the URSA with the 4K sensor has 'replaced' the 4k production company. Just know that the original 4K sensor has some major issues with fixed noise patterns that was never truly fixed by Blackmagic. Yes, it can be avoided by avoiding high ISO and avoiding dark areas, and even some post work, but that is still a glaring issue that would prevent me from purchasing. Honestly, if you can still find one, the original 'blackmagic cinema camera 2.5k' is still a gem - with some of the best color re-production of any of the black magics - and it is enough resolution to get a real 2K image from rather than 1080p.

Are you referring to the original 4K or the URSA 4K, Phil? I think the original is now pretty cheap - under $3,000 - if you can deal with the form factor.

1. 16mm glass is glass designed for use on Super16mm cameras. Those lenses are usually cinema-quality, meaning they are built like a tank, and have all the proper t-marking, focus rings, and aperture ring - full manual. They work great with the pocket, since the pocket has the same size sensor as Super16 film. It also eliminates the need to fuss over crop factors, since its a native lens to the sensor size. Downside is that while you can get some cheap c-mount super16 lenses, the really good high quality lenses are going to be the PL mount zooms from such angenieux and such, which will run you at least 2x the cost of the camera used. 2. Purchase a Metabones Speedbooster 0.58x version for the pocket camera, and then purchase some Rokinon Cine DS lenses (make sure and get the DS and not the regular Cine model). They are currently the cheapest cine-styles lenses available, but perform flawlessly. You can start with 1 or 2 of the lenses, and then build up a kit as you go along. I'd probably start with the 16mm and the 35mm for the pocket when using a speedbooster - maybe the 16 and the 50 if you need a wider option, or all three if you could afford them. If you hope to get any wide angle at all on the pocket camera, the Speedbooster is going to be essential to that. The camera itsself has around a 3x crop factor, meaning that placing a full-frame lens on it without an adapter will net you 3x the focal length. A 24mm lens will actually be a 72mm or some such.

The Panasonic line of mirrorless cameras don't have issues with overheating in normal circumstances. Stay away from the compact Sony's though if you are in fear of overheating. I have worked with my GH4 for several hours straight and never had it come close to overheating.

In my humble opinion, on a professional film set - if you're shooting above 800 ISO, you should have a very good reason to do so. I understand it can't always be avoided, but very few cameras actually look good good at such an ISO. Ultimately, a lot of low-light performance is from smaller pixels on a larger sensor - and there are very few cameras that do that well. Even BMPCC suffers, probably more than most - given they tried to stuff so many pixels on such a small sensor. ISO 1600 can look good on many cameras, but anything above that and its going to start displaying all kinds of digital noise, fixed-pattern noise, and become more muddled.

I wouldn't go that far. Most cinematographers would be happy with a Super35-sized chip, the same type that films have been shot on for over a hundred years. The only people vying for Full-frame sensors as the standard are these modern kids-turned-filmmakers who were raised during the DSLR age, when the full-frame canons where the 'go to' for low-budget cinema work. They assume shallow depth of field means cinematic - and therefore everything they shoot is out of focus, because they think it looks 'filmic'. I think it looks like trash in most cases. Shallow depth of field is used a story element, not for the purpose of film look. And lets not kid ourselves, motion pictures have never been shot (at least in real number) on a full frame format, so those thinking that they need a full-frame camera to get the classic film look clearly don't understand the whole situation.

Looks the same as regular GH5 footage to me. Nothing that looks super-amazing, but then again its not an Arri. I'd have to see some higher quality tests before I make an assumption, but I doubt Panasonic is going to launch a camera that looks worse than their current flagship, and charge $500 more for it at the same time. I have seen several other test videos that show the GH5S looking perfectly fine - much like the regular GH5. Of course, shooting anything at such high ISO is going to look 'videoish'. Personally, I'd say the dual native ISO is handy at its 2500 on the high end, which is about right - given the sensor is about 1/2 the number of pixels as the GH5, and the GH5 was good to about 1600 ISO. Just because you can shoot 52,000 ISO, doesn't mean you should. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=72&v=klNb2Zewa0s

I own a GH4 with VLOG update, and I can say the camera is great - but as Tyler says, the internal codec leaves a lot to be desired. However, I think that is the case on most cameras under $5,000 - they pretty much all require an external recorder to get really good results. Mine uses an Atomos Shogun Inferno recorder, which combined with the Speedbooster and such, the whole setup cost me around $3,000.But do keep in mind your intended audience. Most people starting out are making things that will go directly to video or streaming, in which case the viewing mediaum is going to be 4:2:0 8-bit H465 level compression anyway. You can certainly purchase a GH4 though - and used they can be head for well under $1,000 right now. In terms of DSLR's, its the most feature-rich 'DSLR' for video shooting - offering 4K up to Cinema4K resolutions, and many other features like the optional Vlog, and the ability to get clean 10-bit 4:2:2 from the HDMI port. The GH4 is a great 'starter' camera in my opinion - because you can build on it over time, as you need more features. If you can swing $2,000 (and you already have some lenses that can fit or be adapted to a m43), you can get a GH5. These camera record 400mbps interal C4k 4:2:2 10-bit at up to 60 fps. That is basically the best you can get in any camera under the URSA. Even more interesting though is the new GH5S that was recently announced. It's probably going to be more than the GH5 base is, but the camera is suppose to support more cinema-related features, like a 10 megapixel sensor, dual native ISO, probably best in class low light performance, timecode, built-in VLOG, etc. That's one I'm watching. the GH5 already produces great images, and the less-megapixel sensor should only help.

Good luck! But personally, I love Washington and Oregon. There is nothing like the majestic old growth forests, huge waterfalls, and some of the greenest greenery I have ever seen. It's just stunningly beautiful.