Tom Lowe

Hahaha. So basically, it's about the same percentage as Hollywood films....

How is this any different from people calling themselves "photographers"? Millions do. Who exactly believes this? I have seen this strawman assertion hundreds of times, but I have never seen anyone post anything here -- or on any other film-related forum -- stating that a new camera was going to make their actors or script or blocking or location or rehearsal or soundtrack or dialog better. Can you point us to one single post on cinematography.com or any other forum on the entire internet where even one human bring actually believes this? Actually, the resolution of Bluray exceeds the standard resolution of typical cineplex projection (somewhere between 700 and 1000 horizontal lines), so you could argue that a Bluray-bound project actually requires better image quality than a multiplex chemical print. A Sony EX1 might be "perfectly adequate" for you, but maybe not good enough for others. I would not shoot on one, because the quality simply is not there to make a cinematic project, beginning with the lack of dynamic range and recording quality.

Exactly. Part of the "democracy" perhaps of Red cameras, for example, is an ability to make a $200,000 movie and then have it look good. 200K is a lot of money, but it's not like trying to raise 5 million. It's actually doable for most Americans with motivation and some talent and a couple years to beg their relatives. In a $150K budget, for example, film cameras, film stock, and film processing and editing could actually chew up a large amount of that budget rather quickly. But who really wants to be spend years of their life rounding up $150K, and then have to make the movie on a sub-standard HVX200 720p camera that is not up to cinema/film standards? That is where Red comes in and democratizes the image quality. In fact, I could make a strong argument that digital cameras actually exceed chemical film now in some areas.

The actual number of films released DROPPED significantly in 2009 and 2010 (http://www.mpaa.org/Resources/091af5d6-faf7-4f58-9a8e-405466c1c5e5.pdf). Saul, it doesn't matter if 500 movies a year get made, or 250,000 movies a year get made. It doesn't matter if 20 million films get made every year. Only a couple hundred films get distributed in cineplexes each year. There are roughly 100,000 novels written every year, but only about 250 novels are printed by the major publishing houses every year. It doesn't matter if 300 novels are written every year, or 300 million novels... still, only 250 a year will be published by the majors. So you cannot blame indie filmmakers for the absolute garbage films Hollywood has been spitting out. Those are 50 million + films, with A-list actors, unlimited film and gear, etc. It's their own fault that their movies suck. Some kid with a Canon 7D is not causing Hollywood to put out crappy major films. How exactly was there a "democratization of the multi-million budget movies"?? You still need tens of millions of dollars to make them. How is that democratic???? Can the average person pick up an ARRI 435 and go shoot a 5 million-dollar film?

I would suggest that the horrendous piece of crap movies being cranked out with massive budgets by major studios and shot almost entirely on film up until this point are what is truly hurting the movie industry. I don't think you can blame this on Red cameras or Canon 5D2s!

Saul, I hope you are not arguing or speculating that perhaps good cameras should be kept out of the hands of people without a lot of money? It seems like maybe you are implying that if everyone has a nice camera, somehow this will lead to an overall negative impact on movies at the cinema?? I would argue quite the opposite. When I go to the cinema, I am appalled by what I see. I would say that over 90% of movies in cineplexes are total garbage. Do you think the quality of novel writing went down when everyone could afford an ink pen and sheets of paper? Hardly.

:)

Digital cameras, especially the Red, have democratized filmmaking to a large extent. It has made it possible for people like myself, for example, to shoot high-quality films on very low budgets. Do you think most people can afford to buy an Arri 435?? Do you think that most people can afford to shoot and process entire chemical 35mm feature film? No way! But digital is affordable and now can essentially match the image quality of film. That is huge. Huge.

You mean like Redcode RAW? It's more clear than ever now that Epic X will spell the end for chemical film. As David mentioned, once digital can match and then EXCEED the capabilities of film, plus retaining all the advantages of digital, then it's game over. And that's what's about to happen. In a few years, only a handful of films will be shot chemically, and those will be done by a small handful of directors mainly for nostalgic reasons. This HDR will probably take a little while to fine tune, but it does seem as if it's going to work, and that will be huge, for all of us.

I'm gonna reserve judgement for now.

Sleeping under the stars during Perseids meteor shower. MX framegrab. Shooting MX on Mono Lake. I just posted a huge new blog update here: http://timescapes.org/blog

Never. I think the values jump too much. That's why an external bulb ramper that can operate on fractions of a second spread out over hundreds of shots seems to make more sense to me. Luckily, the hardware is starting to emerge to finally do this.

Day-to-night is still tricky. There is a new product called the Bramper (http://www.timescapes.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1893) that can ramp blub exposures on a DLSR. So, for example, you could start your shot out at 1/4 of a second, and have it ramp up to 30 seconds for night. It will take some finesse to master bulb ramping, because every environment is different. You need to account for the terrain, for example -- mountains, clouds, etc. And the ramps are not linear, of course. Also, camBLOCK will be introducing bulb ramping as an additional key-framed "axis" in the coming weeks, which I am very excited about! As of right now, for sunsets, for example, I just wait for the optimum timing (clouds about to flare up orange), and I start my exposure 2 stops over, and end it 2 stops under, then I extract the "sweet spot" for the final shot.

David, for that Bristlecone shot above, I was using a Canon 5D Mark II with an EF 14mm II at f/2.8. ISO 3200 with a 34 second exposure.

This is a behind-the-scenes image taken by my friend Shawn Reeder (http://www.shawnreeder.com) at the Ancient Bristlecone Forest two nights ago, showing my camBLOCK moco dolly setup. Here is one of the resulting frames:

Last night I did a field test of the add-hoc "Timelapse Crane" kit Kessler put together. Check out the video here: Next step is tossing a timelapse pan-tilt head onto this sucker! :ihih: Here is a short video tour of our 30ft toy hauler trailer, aka the "Mobile Production Studio":

We spent the morning today on Mono Lake, searching for locations and birds. This afternoon, we worked on gear. I have become a field tester for KATA bags. They sent me this freekin awesome Kata Grizzly-4 pre-production bag, which is absolutely EPIC. The entire Red MX fits inside the Grizzly-4, completely built and ready to go with all cables, the Red cradle with Red RAM drive, a 150Wh battery, a Red 7" LCD, ET slider, filters, etc, plus the Duclos 80-200mm PL lens. This backpack bag is going to save a ton of wear and tear on my back.

Why stop at teachers? Surely school bus drivers should be making $1,500 a day. After all, they are hauling our most precious commodity -- children. They deserve to make $1,500 a day. Nevermind that the average citizen, who is paying for all of this, doesn't even earn $1,500 a week.

Fran, it seems like your friend confirmed the $800 full day up to $1,500 max, although obviously not back to back. Why they are encouraging 20 hr days for drivers with massive pay bonuses is beyond me! Sounds like a recipe for disaster, not added safety. :huh: To me, if these drivers were worth 1,500 big ones per day, more power to them. But unfortunately, it seems like the unions are sort of colluding with other unions to FORCE these productions to pay these astronomical rates for van drivers. The auto worker unions had a large role in bankrupting GM and Chrysler. It's all well and good to pay someone $75 an hour to turn a wrench if you live in a walled city where no other cars can be imported and no other competition can start up an auto company. But we live in a global economy. It's simply impossible to pay auto workers 75 bucks an hour to turn a wrench when someone in China will turn it for 75 bucks a month. Same thing with van drivers. Legally, the unions can do as they please, but in the end, they are killing their own jobs (just like the suicidal autoworker unions killed theirs), plus the jobs of many other people in the entertainment industry around LA who are non-union. Now, you might think it sucks for the autoworker in Detroit to have to earn a little less, but it's wonderful for the dirt-poor peasant in China who can see his or her standard of living increase tenfold from virtual starvation to a decent living over the course of only a few years. The world is leveling out. Richer countries will have to work harder and save more, but poorer countries are going to see a massive increase in their standard of living. Hundreds of millions of people will be lifted out of poverty.

Hey Fran, when I worked on a big Audi TVC in LA last summer, the Teamsters were making $800 a day to drive those white vans, up to between $1,200 and $1,500 a day, depending on how much overtime they could rack up. The best thing to do is to actually ask the drivers themselves the next time any of you guys are on set being driven around by them. The funny thing is, there was a kid on the shoot who had just graduated from USC film school. He had initially been planning to become a producer, but once he found out how much he could make driving those vans, he switched his goals and was trying to get into the Teamsters union! :lol:

I agree completely. Well wait a minute. You just admitted that we don't have anything even remotely resembling a free market. How do you know whether it will work or not? Our entire nation was built on free-market principles. It worked incredibly well! Excellent. In that case, start voting libertarian. :lol:

Hey guys, that is the camBLOCK motion-control system. It's available for purchase now: http://www.camblock.com camBLOCK is extremely advanced for its size, price and weight. I highly recommend camBLOCK. We had another awesome day out at Mono Lake today. Thankfully, we had hauled the Cinevate Atlas down to the shore with us, so when this rainbow popped off, we were ready. Frame grab from Red MX #352, shot at 50 frames per second:

They should find the talent they need for the best rate they can get. That's the way business works. And making $200 a day beats making $0 a day when the production flees to Australia or Spain. The free market will determine the value of what someone contributes to a company or project. Either you believe in the free market or you don't. It's the free market that is causing productions to flee Los Angeles and the United States.

My point was, to illustrate how ludicrous it is to force productions to pay $1,500 for van drivers. I mentioned Starbucks as an example of how paying van drivers $1,500 a day relates to our current labor market. So I was definitely staying on topic in terms of that. I wasn't the person who brought up how state employee unions have completely bankrupted California, robbed our citizens blind, and corrupted our politicians. I brought that up in response to claims that unions should not be held responsible for budget problems in California, which they clearly should. "Public servants" should not be making 10 times the salary of the average citizen. No reasonable person could support that, IMO. We have state government pencil pushers making more money than President Obama. It's absurd. Anyway, again, back to the point. If you were a producer thinking about filming a BMW commercial in a city, for example, and you were trying to reduce costs, would you be happy about paying van drivers $1,500 a day when you could easily hire them for $200 a day? You might say $200 a day is "taking advantage" of people, but there are millions upon millions of Americans who be glad to collect 200 bucks a day to drive actors and crew around Hollywood. It beats flipping burgers for $7.50 an hour, wouldn't you agree?

You guys are waaay off topic. The question is about unions for United States film and TV productions, specifically the "Teamsters" and whether their demands for $1,500 a day for van drivers, for example, are causing damage to the local film industry.