Aapo Lettinen

I think no monitor can be used for ANY color work without calibrating it first with a probe. calibrating with eye is not accurate enough because the eye cheats color and contrast and has "auto exposure" and edge enhancement etc. If you can't afford even a very basic calibrating tool, then just borrow one from a friend. one can grade even with a reasonably priced computer monitor (I have done lots of indie grading with iMac displays for example and they are totally fine if properly calibrated but totally useless if not calibrated properly like any other monitor out there) . I think the gamma and brightness is more of a problem with uncalibrated monitors... the colors you can get somewhat right with gut feeling if having enough time but the gamma , contrast is very difficult to nail without tools

nothing computer based can be trusted, let's be honest and say that they are all bad designs one way or another :lol: by my experience, mac based systems CAN be a bit more reliable if you only use couple of extremely well made programs and never have to update anything or connect it to LAN or internet. otherwise, it is just the same old driver/hardware/software nightmare than with Windows or Linux or any other operating system. Some tasks may be a bit easier with Mac, like connecting to a network, but they are absolutely not machines which you can blindly trust on. I mainly use Mac systems at work because everyone else is using hfs+ based drives for raw material and deliveries and I need fcpx and fcp7 every now and then and almost all the material goes in and out in Prores. copying 10 or 20 or 100TB of material through something like hfs+explorer is absolutely insane and totally unpractical so the best solution is to just have a mac or two on hand, even if some tasks are made on windows computers

I haven't used more recent Vegas versions but the previous ones had serious problems with memory leaks during playback which limited realtime capabilities. maybe they have fixed that in current versions. It was really nice to be able to add video effects to VIDEO TRACKS in addition with the clip based effecting and it handled multi-resolution material easily. was a bit unstable at times but was quite usable for small projects. I'm a fan of Premiere CC and FCP7, sometimes use Resolve for very small editing but it is really not that good for other than very simple projects or when you need to have good color grading capabilities integrated in the edit program. as others said the Resolve is all about GPU processing. its sound capabilities lack quite a bit so it would be wise to do the audio finishing with separate programs

Maybe you misunderstood my post, I was directly comparing the loader and dit positions so that the dit would not be required to do more on set than a film loader would normally do. Tyler's comparison would mean that the film loader would have a Alpha Lab or other mobile film lab on set all the time to be able to do direct graded dailies on set from film negative which is not the reality in most productions. My example was using onset offloading and backups and the dailies were finished during the night so that they would compare to working with a separate film lab. It is true that removing a 1000' film roll from the mag and reloading the mag takes less time than offloading and backing up a 256gb memory card (assuming a comparison between 35mm film and arriraw shoot) but depending on the production the amount of work may be about the same. In some productions the offloading is done by the 2nd ac and no separate dit is used... Here it is normal to use the laptop based pelicase dit kits on smaller jobs and heavier kits are mainly used when multiple cameras and onset grading is needed. The laptop kits are actually totally fine for dailies if shooting prores with 1 camera and applying the lut without extensive grading needed. The laptop systems limit render speeds (especially if using mac based systems with obsolete graphics cards) but don't affect transfer speeds that much depending on which kind of verification is used for the data

I don't see how a film loader would cost much less than a DIT on set, especially when one does not need super expensive gear nowadays for the dit if you don't need on set fully graded dailies, live grading and multi camera arriraw transfer capacity (like hundreds of terabytes of very very fast raid storage etc depending on how much one shoots per day and how it is stored for post). You would not get these with film either so a fair comparison would be a laptop, two of about 10tb raids, necessary amount of sata drives for storage and a silverstack license + ups's . can be couple of thousand bucks depending on what you buy but nothing fancy really...

just look at that press photo for example. recording the sound straight to the camera in a "high end shoot" :blink: never ever seen that done on a pro set, one of the most unpractical things I have seen in those photos so far :lol: and no one would do the lighting like that on a commercial shoot I think, maybe they should consult someone experienced before making these ads though they may be great for attracting indie shooters :lol:

I don't think BMD has ever even targeted the higher end professional field. every aspect of their cameras tells me that they are more interested in low budget and prosume customers and maybe selling a camera or two to high end productions for C unit or D camera or crash cam use. the whole point of their cameras is to have low enough price for indie filmmakers and prosume/low end professional customers who can balance their quirks and live with them if the price point is right. If one has more money to purchase or rent then there is not many reasons to choose a BMD camera instead of, say, Alexa Mini. I haven't seen the Samyang "cine" lenses in professional use either, pro cinematographers tend to use higher end glass because they have the possibility to choose. I personally haven't bought a Ursa Mini because of the missing OLPF and other reasons. the "pro" update does not change this though it is very nice to be able to change lens mounts without changing the whole sensor package with it (who had that idea in the first place huh, way to sell more sensors maybe :wacko: )

here in Finland the exception are situations where the information has came from a source who is a public servant making a transgression by giving out the information. in case of drug dealers etc. normal persons they can protect their sources. with the current US situation+development I would not be surprised even if the journalistic freedom would be suppressed there in the future to make some kind of Erdogan-style state (really hope not :o ) , freedom of speech as long as you have the same opinions with us... and a big wall preventing people from getting out ;)

* I am using a 300mm/180mm lathe with 600w motor, the unimat style micro lathe stuff does not work for any real stuff

I think one can get much higher quality parts faster by machining with manual lathe and milling machine than by using cheap ass 3d printing. Of course if low quality and relatively weak parts are good enough then the 3d printing will probably do. I myself prefer just using a chinese entry level mini lathe for making camera parts, much quicker and I can make them out of metal and most plastics with much tighter tolerances. I don't have proper milling machine yet but will purchase one later. Making lens caps with 3d printing sounds quite uneconomic unless something very special is needed, the chinese stuff is so cheap that it is much easier to just buy better product from ebay. Or if higher quality is needed, machine one out of higher quality materials

Pretty careless dealers huh :rolleyes: Journalists can protect their sources in most western countries if the sources don't commit/have not committed/are not planning to commit serious crimes (here in Finland the limit is the crimes where the penalty is at least 6 years of prison, the limits and conditions vary from country to country) . this may change though in the US I think, it seems that they are planning to limit journalistic freedom quite much in the near future so the limits might lower to smaller crimes

- first fix the most important things and only after that, if there is still time and money left, you can make the other parts of the product better -

someone will always notice... but the trick is to determine which things are more important to be finessed in greater detail than others and to direct your resources to those parts. We are always working on limited resources so a perfectionist will never be happy in movie business :mellow: it may, for example, be easier to perfect the edit and vfx part of a indie movie compared to a commercial product because the indie movie can have years of post time and dozens of trial/error cycles to get everything right. that is also why one needs much higher level of skills to make movies for living: everything has to be done right the first time, there is no time or money for trying out things or finesse anything which does not specifically need to be finessed to great level. (it's like Russian movie cameras, they didn't grind and polish anything which didn't need to be finessed. the camera body roughly machined and left as is but the film gate and pressure plate polished and finessed. Compared to an Arri film camera or a Bolex where everything is made perfect if in any way possible, even the parts that don't necessarily need it :lol: ) there is a huge difference between focusing on most important things and directing the necessary resources there (time, money, etc.) VS trying to get away with a roughly made product even when there would have been resources available to make it better. Often it is a good approach to finish some parts to a greater detail than needed so that one can get away with the more sloppy material in between the great shots if there is no possibility to perfect them all B)

I don't have any personal retirement funds yet, just the basic crappy (mandatory) national retirement fund which all working Finnish people have. With today's political climate and future political development, climate change etc. I don't personally think that most of the human race will survive the next about 35 years or so after which I will retire... And with the constant worsening of the healthcare system etc. it is quite unlikely that I will live past about 70 or so... I think the best retirement plan for me would be to purchase some good apartments and rent them out, then live with the rental income. and my children would have those apartments after I die so that the money would not go to waste if I die prematurely which is highly likely with the current political development I think :unsure:

I sell some leftover documentary footage on Shutterstock, mainly nature shots like landscapes and such. I also tried to register to istockphoto couple of years ago but they had a very awkward registration process which required samples of the types of clips I would like to sell via them, and the service rejected literally all my sample clips saying that "we already have this type of material" ("not interested about your stuff") which was very frustrating because the idea of the samples was to just evaluate the technical quality of my footage, not the content/subject matter :ph34r: Shutterstock had better royalties percentage at the time so I just started to use their service and did not bother with the istockphoto <_< they may have changed their service though because this was couple of years ago so you may see if they have made it easier. I think the Business Practices -forum is about right for this type of thread. Shutterstock has been very good for my needs and it was very easy to start and to add large amounts of clips per batch. If you want to create material specifically for stock footage use then you need to investigate more about which type of footage sell best ( high quality aerial and slow mo shots for example) , you need to sell a clip multiple times if you want to specifically create stock footage from the start and not to just dump the leftover material from various completed projects to the stock ;)

I made a small video how to load the Konvas magazines ("Every Loader's Nightmare") the easy way. The shutter alignment trick is especially handy with my cameras :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s8-wCGC3eg&t=0s

yes, LTO drives are normally SAS only and you will need a PCIe card like ATTO for that. keep in mind that LTO systems have TONS of possible hardware compatibility pitfalls, you really need to check that your software is compatible with the SAS card, the card has right type of SAS connectors and is compatible with the tape drive and motherboard and right PCIe version etc etc. there is some Thunderbolt LTO7 drives coming soon I think, at least one model. will have to wait for a while for them to become a viable option and if you want to use multiple drives it would be more practical and affordable to use a SAS card instead I think. If you need to use these drives with a computer which does not have PCIe you can purchase a external Thunderbolt to PCIe box. same thorough compatibility checks are needed with them also. especially the SAS cards are very picky, you need to know the exact model which you will use. I don't know if there is any existing boxes for USB3. and even then there might be compatibility issues which would prevent to use them for LTO work depending on your hardware and software. the problem with LTO is that the system needs to be absolutely reliable and dependable which requires that it is built ground up and thoroughly tested regularly. And doing anything else with the computer at the same time may disturb the LTO transfers so it's a great idea to reserve completely separate computer for LTO use which is not used for anything else and any software updates etc. are restricted so that one knows that the system configuration has not been changed accidentally which would lead to testing the whole system again for reliability and compatibility which takes a lot of time and effort. I would not, for example, use my edit for LTO transfers... it would be highly unpractical and would increase the risk of data loss because the system changes all the time and has lots of additional software and plugins etc. which may be updated every now and then... it would also mess up with the hdd transfer speeds when editing and using the system for editing and LTO at the same time would reduce read/write speeds and increase tape usage when writing by creating more writing+sync errors to the tape. ----> I suggest just building a completely separate system for your LTO needs, it should have fast RAID storage and ethernet/fiber connections with as little extra software and stuff as possible and the most reliable components and software you can find. Also remember to use UPS backup with it ^_^

It's true that art and entertainment is somewhat needed to maintain mental health, especially if person's job is very repetative+boring+unsatisfying. But piracy is not a good solution for that... the more there is affordable easy-to-use legal platforms for watching content, the more piracy decreases when "normal people" choose to use the easier and safer legal channels for content viewing. here in Finland they started a campaign last year where a private law firm tries to catch torrent users and charges them a "standard compensation fee" of about 600€ so that they can avoid prosecution. A person can take the case to the court but the legal expenses can easily be 10 - 20 000 € so most people just get scared and pay for company to avoid personal bankruptcy, it seems to be that the content producers count on that actually to got easy money from them. I think a similar approach is used in some other countries also, including the US? this kind of "Stasi approach" is very bad publicity for the content producers I think and should only be used as a last resort if nothing else works. easy to use and affordable online platforms could reduce piracy in the western countries to almost zero I think but instead they choose to scare people to silent like some kind of mafia :blink: weird times :o

If someone steals food or medicine because can't live otherwise, that is an reasonable excuse I think. But one does not need movies to live and the persons who pirate them usually COULD afford Netflix or even purchase a physical copy, it is just the attitude that some entertainment should be free for them even if it costs huge amount of money to make that content. If the movie would have been easy to purchase/rent the legal way then there is no excuse to not to do so. It may be a bit different with films which are not distributed at all in the region one lives, if there is no legal copy available at all then one may need to watch the pirated version because there is nothing else... I never upload anything to youtube which I know I don't want to be stolen immediately. it is part of that community to steal other person's work and make compilations/"new content" out of it, then get some cash from the ad revenues. Google does little to stop this... it would be much easier if there would be no ads in the videos so there would be no financial benefits to keep the stolen content online. A very big and ugly watermark helps a lot, it may also help if you use very short images like 1 or 1.5 seconds which cannot easily be used in compilations or as a background image in lyrics videos etc <_< Vimeo is easier this way, it mostly lacks the "video mix" culture and the videos are more respected in their original form without the eager Movie Maker users immediately making their own stupid versions out of them :blink:

one of the biggest problems of indie filmmakers is that they want to do all by themselves which causes troubles in both learning the craft and also when trying to advance in the pro movie circles. the general impression from the outside is that these people are doing everything by themselves because they are either: - not able to work with other creative people to make collaborative art; either too introvert to communicate with creative personnel or do not have strong enough vision to express it clearly - are afraid to collaborate with other people because they fear that someone wants to change their perfect movie to conformist crap, thus wanting to do everything by themselves to protect their "perfect ideas" - only want to do non-compromise art stuff by their own rules and don't want anybody to interfere with their creative processes, especially someone from the selling POV (producers, sales agents, etc) or audience side (distributors, friend and family, collagues etc.) - are probably not interested in making movies which would be distributed widely and would likely be commercial successes (because they are only interested in making perfect movies by their own terms and not necessarily making a movie someone else would like to see) - may be egoists who think their ideas are best in the whole world and won't listen to any comments or critique not would change anything even a bit because their original idea is the best there is I'm not meaning to be harsh, but from a producer's POV you may look like a really bad choice for a director position if your CV is full of projects you have mostly made by yourself. It gives an impression that you are only used to making your own art stuff by your own rules and you may have lots of problems to adapt to a different environment where you need to work with a separate producer, editor, DP, colorist, line producers and whatnot. It may seem like a good idea to do a project all by yourself but if you want to get more work with it, it's extremely risky and it would be much better to let more people in to help you with the production and to build a somewhat similar environment than a commercial feature production would be. And it does not hurt your art a bit but can add lots of value to it actually because other people's creative ideas may sometimes be much better than your own. It may be hard at first if one is used to doing everything by himself but it will benefit A LOT in the long run. And one will never hear the other people's possibly better ideas if not working with them in the first place. that is what I meant when saying it is not a good way for a indie filmmaker to learn to do only one man band projects and own artsy stuff. I think R. Rodriguez would maybe be much better director if he would let someone else to produce and shoot and edit his movies and concentrate on the directing and writing part

I think a feature film needs to be already sold to some extent beforehand for it to be worth making. The less one thinks one needs dedicated producers the more one actually should have them I think. Especially in very low budget genre where there isn't necessarily any full time line producers and production managers in the production. First time directors are quite normally melting and having nervous breakdowns if they also need to wear the producer's hat. It is of course possible to learn to do both at the same time but one should have lots of experience from one of the fields FIRST before trying to combine the positions

I don't do camera lists but I am restoring and modifying my old Soviet 35mm Soyuz US3N camera at the moment, it is working with a pwm controlled battery drill at the moment while I'm waiting a Chinese dc motor to arrive which I will modify to work with it later by machining a custom axle and using angle gears to get the motor to the side for more practical form factor ^_^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77lahNpFzOE

when adapting lenses, one of the biggest issues in addition with the ffd is the diameter of the mount. For example, the Canon EF mount is so physically large that you can't adapt it to PL, the mount just doesn't fit there (because of the shorter ffd the EF lens should go inside the 54mm PL mount but that is just not possible. some Nikon F or M42 lenses can be adapted but the physical sizes of the lens barrels usually limit the choices to only couple of low end models. Some Nikon AI-S lenses could for example be adapted to PL if the barrel near the iris ring would be a bit smaller (and the iris ring also smaller) . With longer FFD lenses like T2 mount lenses you can just use a screw on adapter and they will work just like that with a PL camera (though most T2 lenses are old low-end garbage not worth using with a PL camera...) . I got myself a small metal lathe and I have some spare AI-S lenses, I may try to adapt them to PL later this year. If it goes well I will share experiences with them but have to test it first... one needs to rebuild about half of the lens to adapt it so it might be actually easier to machine completely new barrels with focus mechanics and just use the iris and optical groups from the original design <_<

if the screw is loose from the beginning you can first try to tighten it. if that resolves the problem you don't have to go any further

here's a picture what is under the 2hole screw: the whole procedure should take only couple of minutes ^_^