Tyler Purcell

Yes, it happens to me all the time. It's the reason I stopped working as a cinematographer and moved into writing/directing. I was watching these horrible directors make stuff and I was like, this is ridiculous I can do 10x better. I'm frustrated because one feature I shot a few years ago, has never been released because the director was too embarrassed by the result. Poor acting, bad directing, shitty script, the point was to make a bad movie for quick money, but it was REALLY bad.

What else would you call a "mid range" camera? I call it prosumer especially due to all of the limitations. (more about that below) Who said anything about RAW? The camera does not record RAW!!! Why can't you get that through your head. We've talked about this dozens of times. If I walk into a store and buy a camera, that camera records iFrame and LONG GOP MPEG, nothing else! I understand that Sony has an external RAW recorder that hangs onto the back of the body that's nearly $7k. But it's NOT PART OF THE CAMERA!!!! So to say the camera records RAW is deceiving. Also... the Sony RAW recorder, have you actually tried to convert those files? Holy crap man, I did some testing recently and the files are basically incompatible with everything. I thought the SLog iFrame MPEG files from the F5 and F55 were difficult to process, they're easy compared to Sony RAW. Thank god DaVinci does it, but no other program would let them playback, everything needed to transcode before viewing. So how the F are you suppose to watch your files on set? The iFrame proxy files? Give me a break. At least Arri RAW, Cinema DNG and Pro Res files can be viewed in real time on set. I wouldn't and I did mention that it was only an example of a situation you can't correct for. So your comment about WB not being baked in, is completely false. But it's not. The iFrame MPEG file is 10 bit 4:2:2. Who cares if the camera head is 14 bit 4:4:4, if the file being laid down is lower quality? Again, the $5,999 USD Blackmagic Camera records camera LOG @ 12 bit 4:4:4 in Pro Res XQ or 14 bit 4:4:4 in Cinema DNG raw, which is a folder full of tiff files. Talk about easy decoding... So you can get home and playback the file right away, no decoding, no special software, no transcoding, nothing. So again... $29K + $2600 for the Pro Res board + $7500 for the RAW box = $40k camera. That's breaking RED Helium territory price wise and what do you get for it? Nothing, shitty ass 10 bit iFrame 4:2:2 capture. The lower-end Pro Res codec's and Sony RAW which is basically the most difficult RAW to decode today. Umm, if it's not lit right, it's not going to come out right. Also... I don't believe in making an image in grading. I make the image on set and the grading is only for fixing mistakes. Grading should not be used for creating your image, that's a HUGE fail and it's probably the biggest disconnect between what you do and what I do. For me, the most critical thing is the show looks good out of camera so that I can edit it right away without doing any serious grading. I make a base LUT for each show, which takes me 10 minutes and I apply that LUT to every shot and that's it, my base grade is done. Thus, the client can see the project quickly and the "base grade" will suffice. After the client has approved the show, I will go in and tweak each shot manually, but generally not much. Cowgirls I spent 3 weeks grading because it was shot C300MKII in Rec709 mode because the DP didn't want to shoot Clog, he wanted a baked in look. Too bad the B camera didn't look anything like the A camera. So had to create entirely different looks for each camera and then power windowed all the highlights to bring them down to match the scenes. It was a tricky grade, but I think it's came out OK, especially for a DVD bound movie. Well, the first two shows I shot with the Sony cameras, was DP'd by a pro, but they were all screwed up. Lots of whacked up WB issues that required heavy work in DaVinci. He even told me later, "you've gotta fix these issues in post" and I was like, thanks dude, thanks. So this most recent show I DP'd myself. I've been doing this for a while mate and I know how to light a scene ok? But I light with HMI's because we're always seeing windows and as you know, HMI's are cold. So what I always do is run the cameras at 7k to compensate for that coldness. This makes the image pop and in most cases, the skin tones aren't too disruptive. We used this trick on the FS7 show shot in Rec709, so I figured, why not use the same trick in SLog? FAIL! I didn't want to set the camera to Rec709 because I was scared there wouldn't be enough dynamic range to fix some of the stuff I knew I had to fix. So I shot Slog 5600 for the entire shoot and it was a huge mistake. I was forced into doing it by the camera, I had no choice. Mind you, I did put warm gels on frames and slammed them between the lamp housing and diffusion, but when you're lighting big rooms with 5 - 8 individual HMI units, with outdoor light coming in all over the place, there isn't much you can do. Ohh and again, you may think the show looks fine... but the client didn't feel the same way. To me, that's all that matters, if the clients happy then I'm happy. Otherwise, I did something really wrong and I need to learn from it for the future. What I learned is the Sony cameras are too limiting for my style of lighting, cinematography and post production workflow. How is changing WB adding again? No other CMOS camera I've ever shot with, does the stop change when you alter the Kelvin setting. So that's complete utter bullshit, they're just trying to cover their asses for a poor design in my opinion. I spend around 8 months of the year in the edit bay editing and grading. So where I wouldn't call myself a grader today, I'm getting there. They have been in the past, they aren't today.

It doesn't look identical, not even remotely close. The F65 has an entirely different imager, different electronics and can capture RAW stock.

Well, it's the age old question. Think of it a different way. Most movie theaters still project in 2k. This is for a myriad of reasons from theaters not upgrading their servers and/or projectors to 4k. Most of the time it's simply the filmmakers, not making a 4k DCP. So if theaters are not really 4k, then... what's the point right? There are pro's of shooting 4k. The biggest one is being able to re-frame in post without loosing much resolution. The other big one is using the complete imager, without scaling or cropping the image. The negatives of 4k are... well, data size. That's the only negative/detractor. So what does that really mean? Well, it's difficult for anything to playback 4k fluently, especially heavily compressed 4k like .h264 that comes out of most consumer cameras. It's a very difficult format to playback, I even struggle to playback 1080p versions on my edit bay in Premiere. Good 4k like Pro Res, DNX or XAVC-I, should playback much smoother because they're simply compressed less then the .h264. I shoot everything 1080p today, even though my GoPro is 4k, I've never used that mode. I do this because 9 times out of 10, what I shoot will be streamed online or on DVD/BluRay. Even the feature I shot a few years ago, which did a theatrical run, was still shot in 1080p. The final Pro Res HQ 23.98fps file was 119GB! We would have never been able to make the movie if it was 4k, the storage cost would have killed us. So I'm totally over 4k unless it's a necessity for distribution, which in some cases it really is. So how do you make 4k playback properly? Lots of CPU power and really good GPU. Laptops don't really have either one of those. The i7 mobile processors, motherboards and in a lot of cases, integrated graphics, aren't fast enough to cope with decoding .h264 in real time. Even the fastest MacBook Pro's struggle to play it back smoothly, one hiccup and it will start to stutter. My old edit bay (soon to be upgraded) can't do it, but thats my own fault, it's old... Yet I have no problem playing back Pro Res XQ in 4k... so go figure! In the end, it's about your project and where it's going. If a few people may see it on youtube or vimeo, shoot in 1080p. If the final product will be seen theatrically or at festivals, why not shoot 4k to put your best image forward?

Sorry David, you're right. The F65, does look really good. Every show I've seen with that camera has looked great. I did mention earlier that I was referencing Sony's prosumer cameras, rather then unobtainable ones. :) You're also right that I use to love Sony during the ENG days. The color science they used from the very beginning was excellent. I've owned Sony cameras until very recently. Even the HDV Sony equipment I owned in the early 2000's was very good and only the Canon beat it in terms of cinematic feel. However, I started to become unimpressed with them the moment they switched to CMOS.

I had a full crew on all of the Sony shoots I did recently, really good Gaffer on the FS7 shoot, like top notch union guy who came in to do us a favor. The stuff looks fine for a corporate video, which is what it was, yet the client still complained about noise in the blacks, even though we shot the entire show at 800iso. The F5 and F55 shows were also gaffed by a really good guy, I helped quite a bit though because we were shooting in large open rooms and had a super tight schedule, 18 pages a day! EEK! Ohh and my codec comment was only to highlight how much clients want to correct these days. It's a real nightmare in the coloring suite. But the white balance is baked in. If you shoot out doors in broad daylight with the camera set to 3200 Kelvin, you can't bring back the missing saturation. This is the same with any camera, it's not a Sony or even digital specific issue, it's just the lay of the land and I'm only mentioning it because you made this comment. I agree with Adrian's comment above that each camera has a different look and henceforth as a cinematographer you make adjustments. However, when I'm looking through the viewfinder or on a color calibrated monitor and aren't seeing what I want, there isn't much I can do about it. Normally I'd simply adjust the Kelvin setting to match what I, the cinematographer want it to look like. This is a normal thing to do on ANY OTHER professional camera, but not Sony. Why should I have to filter the lens, introducing loss of light getting to the imager and in most cases, having to deal with a mattebox, in order to fix something that every other camera is a push button away from achieving? I don't see this special feature as a benefit and as a shooter, I want the most dynamic range, so of course I'm using Slog. I use log on every camera I work with to insure these issues don't come up, how wrong was I. I personally like warm saturated images because it's far easier to detune them in post to get the "look" you want, vs brining up something that's cold. These particular Sony cameras are cold looking in SLog no matter what you do. This may work great for some people, but for me I just dislike the look entirely. Shooting with Rec709 mode proves to be the opposite issue... now you can't control the image at all, so if it doesn't look good in the viewfinder, you're screwed. So either way, your dealing with an issue which shouldn't even exist.

Inflation and the quality of product are the two reasons things have changed in the last 20 + years. So inflation because today things are more expensive, so people ask for more money to work and henceforth movies cost more to make. Actors specifically ask for exorbitant amounts of money because there is a prescience set that allows to get whatever they want. Quality of product has also gone up, things today have to be perfect where 20 years ago, there was a lot more sloppy filmmaking being done and the audience just didn't know better. There are really great indies being made today, stuff that would blow your mind away, but most of them don't get any distribution what so ever, so they're only available on itunes or some VOD services.

As a filmmaker, not a hired gun... I record sound to my camera almost 90% of the time. It's rare I have the budget to bring in a sound guy. I have wireless mic's, I have great headphones, I even have external audio recorders incase I need more dynamic range. Yet, I always run the composited inputs into my camera so there is a good reference track for editing. I can't stand people who send me stuff with camera mic ref tracks, it takes way too long to sync it to the master files. The blackmagic advertising is funny... but I understand their products. I've been shooting with the pocket cameras for three years now, it's a perfect camera for me. Almost all of my content is made specifically for web, so the little "issues" the camera has, don't bother me. I don't spend enough time in post to make things perfect anyway. Sure, if you're a cinematographer, who works on shows with a rental budget, why would you even own gear? The point of the Blackmagic product line is for people who are filmmakers, to own the equipment they need to make product and most of us are one man bands.

Can't set the color temperature to anything you want, you're stuck to three settings. The files must be processed by a 3rd party application in order to view, you can't edit with them raw. Not the case with Pro Res out of any of the BMD cameras. Umm... Cinema DNG raw (14 bit 444) has far more data then anything the F55 produces stock. Heck the Pro Res XQ (12 bit 444) codec has far more data then the iFrame MPEG codec that's native to the Sony as well. Sure, one could argue that iFrame MPEG is in fact more "efficient" but I don't see the efficiency being a positive thing outside of drive space. Plus, test after test, the Ursa 4.6k imager shows far greater highlight detail then the Sony or even Red Dragon. The dynamic range, especially on XQ mode, is nearly identical to the Alexa. Even my pocket cameras have excellent dynamic range, far greater then any other $1000 camera. As someone who has to work with the files I shoot... (I shoot, edit and color) I have to be mindful of the post workflow, over pretty much anything else. Remember, shooting is maybe a month? But post can be 3 - 6 months easily. So if I'm in a complete headache for the entire post production process thanks to a codec that's uncooperative, it's going to cost the client more money and they're not going to hire me on the next job. I have pushed the pro res codec to it's destruction, where it starts to literally fall apart in post. I've done the same with 410Mbps iFrame MPEG and even many variations of Red Code. Pro Res holds together better then any of the other formats, especially XQ. I don't know why, because it's an antique outdated codec, but because XQ separates the channels, it seems to have more room for pushing it in DaVinci. I haven't tried pushing the Cinema DNG codec to destruction because frankly, the camera imager falls apart first. When I do my big camera test, I'll make sure to show the post production workflow in better detail. This way cinematographers who spend their time shooting, can understand the frustration of a one man band. :)

I think your disconnect comes from money. Umm... it cost a lot of money to make a movie, with or without cast. If you're shooting a feature length movie about a car that drives itself, with no actors involved, it still costs a lot of money. So the question is, how does one get the money to finance their movies. This is where "the star" comes into play. The industry knows how much any given star will draw to the box office. They actually put an exact figure on it based on previous history. So people attach stars to movies, simply as a way to make return on investment. It attracts an audience, which henceforth reimburses the investors. So in a way you're right about the industry wanting to promote stars, because they know how invaluable they are as a money making tool. You'd have to change the mind set of the viewers to make any difference and frankly, most viewers are interested in the safest bet, rather then the faces they don't recognize. With ticket prices so high these days, most people aren't willing to risk the little movie with the no-names vs the big blockbuster with bla bla bla in it. Where on the small screen, the financial burden is less, so that's why a lot of TV shows don't have big stars, they don't need them. Mind you, the trend of putting big stars into shows has been growing for sure.

Depends on the look your after. If you want a flat, desaturated look and have complete control over every ounce of light, then the F55 may cut it for you. I personally find it hard to get decent filmic saturation with modern digital cinema cameras. It's why I love the blackmagic products so much, their color science is right up my alley. I'll take GOBS of saturation and tone it down, then very little and have to bring it up. I'd post stills of all the shows, but they're too different content wise (doc vs corporate vs narrative). However, I do have access to all these cameras in the same building, so I do plan on doing a camera test day with them and show you what I'm talking about. Sure, I'll admit straight up as a cinematographer it's my job to know my equipment before shooting and I did spend a day with the F55 shooting bullshit to make sure it worked. Yet I didn't spend a second with the Red Dragon, Epic or URSA 4.6k before shooting, and they worked great. So is that the fault of the cinematographer, or the fault of the camera being a complete piece of poop? Technique is technique... if the same technique works for me on all the other cameras I've shot with, including film... then why would it be the cinematographers fault? Just sayin'

Sony cameras are the Swiss Army knives.... they do everything and nothing well. Just good enough for owners to be excited.

We were talking about the new Ursa Mini PRO 4.6k and Robin posted this: This is my response... I just wrapped my 3rd Sony shoot... so now I've used ALL of the cameras you love, on professional/commercial shoots. The FS7, the F5 and F55. They're insufferable garbage from the limitations they put on what the user can access in what modes, to the amount of work in post production necessary to make a good image out of "less then perfect" lighting situations that you come up with all the time during ENG style shooting. This last F55 show I just wrapped on, I even had a DIT on set to make sure the stuff would look right because on the last two Sony shows, the stuff came out like crap. But alas, this F55 show... it's just insufferable garbage. We had scopes, we had a full DaVinci bay right on set, we checked every single frame of footage as we shot, but in the color grading bay, we can't bring back what we lost on set. The images are noisy, even though we shot at 800 ISO, the highlights were right below clipping on the scopes on set, but no matter what I do, the black level noise is throughout the whole show. I pickup a Blackmagic Ursa Mini 4.6k. I turn on the power switch. I set it to 180 degree shutter, I set the kelvin to 7k (for daylight), I set it to 800 ISO, throw an ND in front of the lens and hit the record button. Everything I get is stellar, absolutely flat out stellar. I wrapped on a little show shot with an antique Red Epic MX few months ago, same deal man. In 10 minutes, I had the camera set for the entire shoot and it came out great. Both the URSA and Red in DaVinci looked amazing. I'd apply a LUT and BAM perfect. In fact, I did no other corrections to either show for the temp color output for my editing system and the clients haven't asked for any further color work, then a base LUT. This is my experience with my pocket cameras and pretty much ANY OTHER camera BUT SONY. Even the Canon C300MKII we shot Cowgirls with, looked fine compared to the Sony's I've shot with and let me tell you something, the whole movie of Cowgirls was shot Rec709. I was the 2nd unit cinematographer as well, I shot the rodeo stuff and even though I hate the ergo's of the C300MKII, I'm always impressed by the beautiful rich colors of the camera. I wanted to shoot on the F55 because frankly, I wanted to end this whole Sony vs the world debate once and for all. What I've learned is that the Sony cameras offer no benefits over the competition. The Sony color pallet is muted. The dynamic range is very limited, the menu's and limited user control in certain modes (SLOG) are mind blowing and should be a deal killer for anyone. The only mid grade digital cinema camera I did not use in 2016 was the Alexa and AJA Cion. I used the Red Dragon, Red Epic MX, Ursa Mini 4.6k, C100, C300MKII, FS7, F5, F55, do I dare mention my pocket cameras that I've shot over a dozen shows with in 2016? Now all of these shows I've edited and graded on my own and I use the same lighting style/techniques on all of them. So don't give me bullshit about something I did wrong. Sorry, I've been doing this for 25 years man, I know how to shoot. If you want muted colors, horrible dynamic range, menu's that don't work and format limitations that make post production a nightmare... buy a Sony. If you want a camera system that flat-out works, buy anything else. I can't see ANY value in anything Sony makes anymore. I'm done with them. I've pissed off enough clients with poor results using Sony cameras, even though what was in the viewfinder and on the external monitors looked fine on set, yet the files didn't reflect the look on ANY of the shows, Rec709 or Slog mode. The URSA Mini Pro will END Sony's ENG reign. Nobody wants iframe MPEG compression. Nobody wants the proprietary RAW recording. Everyone who buys these mid grade cameras is using DaVinci and/or Speed grade today, both are NATIVE with Pro Res, DNX and Cinema DNG. We all use Avid or Premiere to edit, again 100% Pro Res and DNX compatibility with no transcoding, no waiting around for media to be converted, throw the raw in there and just edit. Heck, my bay will edit r3d native!!! That's the hardest codec to work with, yet the stupid MPEG crap that comes out of the Sony doesn't work. Plugin's, updates, special drives, even different computers, the poop doesn't work. Real time playback with one LUT in DaVinci on a $10,000 Mac Pro? 12fps... TWELVE FPS! How the F are you suppose to work with that? Huh? Really? Ok done with my rant... don't even bother responding because my ass is hurting from my boss kicking it for using Sony crap, so I don't have any more patience left for anything Sony.

Here is a link to my rebuttal, I thought it would be better to put it somewhere else then here. http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=73965

Pretty exciting press conference today about the new Ursa Mini Pro 4.6k. Blackmagic have listened and have done almost everything their customers have wanted. Highlights: -Interchangeable lens mouts -Broadcast style filter wheel -Broadcast style direct function controls on side of camera (white balance, gain, shutter, audio, etc) -Mechanical power button (who woulda thunk) -Display on side of camera for pertinent info -4 channels of analog built in audio recording (internal + external XLR + multi-track AES) -Switcher return feeds and tally light -C fast, SD card AND SSD recording capability -Better timecode controls -Metadata control for PL and EF mount lenses Unfortunately no mention of the optical low pass filter.. :( https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicursaminipro Price $5999 and the mounts are a few hundred bux each.

Alan Gordon has a few cameras right now. There is a phenomenal XTR package on ebay as well.

Honestly, I haven't seen anything but tests from the Logmar's. I complained about this last year and someone said there were some projects in the works. I'm like guys... I got my LTR last year and it's arguably more expensive to shoot with, yet I've shot 4 short films and dozens of other smaller projects with it. Camera hasn't been sitting around much at all.. So there is no excuse. I would like to see the camera being used for some good instead of "ohh I've got a fun toy" camera tests. :P

When did I say Batman v Superman looked bad? I just said the movie was bad, that has nothing to do with the "technical" aspects. I'm sorry if my comment was disparaging, it was not suppose to.

Even though I'm not a fan of Moonlight in any way, I think due to "Oscars so White" being a real issue and Moonlight somehow being a stand out performer... there was a lot of pressure to vote for ANYTHING but another almost all-white movie as best picture. So I knew Moonlight was going to win the moment I saw it.

Well few things... First off, Arri-B is usually pretty easy to find. I know ebay doesn't have much on it right now, but I've never had an issue in the past finding good deals. I think people who post ad's for older glass, simply forget to put in the mount type, so the search engine doesn't pick it up properly. Second, converting the SR is a nightmare because it was never designed for super 16. So it's not only cost prohibitively expensive, but I've seen a few conversions that don't even address the gate's friction surface which is a real problem in my eyes. So if you wish to shoot S16, I'd invest in a different camera. Remember PL mount lenses are upwards of twice the cost of B mount, for the same piece of glass. So if you go PL mount, expect to pay A LOT for glass. Even though there is MORE glass out there for PL, it's not necessarily better glass. I purposely bought a Arri B mount camera due to this reason and had zero problems finding good super 16 Arri B glass.

I don't like sachtler at all. The dial system and switches to add and subtract weight, is a really bad system. O'Connor's system is far better and it actually works properly. Sachtler's system isn't nearly as accurate. You shouldn't need a tripod with specialized counterbalance for a 16mm camera. My tripod doesn't have it and honestly, when I use tripods with it, I never think it's something I need. With much heavier cameras, yea it's very nice.

Well, your point is a subject we've absolutely talked about before. LOL :) AND for better or worse, we don't quite see eye to eye on the topic of great dialog vs great movie. I think there are a lot of bad movies with great dialog. I also feel there are movies that could have been great, that were hindered by their lack of decent dialog. When watching Hacksaw, I felt like I was reading the script. A lot of the stuff you may like that kept you interested, was stuff that made me cringe whilst watching. Hurt Locker was a great movie though. It, like Saving Private Ryan is long-lasting, something to this day we go back and watch because it's so damn good. It's the character that makes it good though. You first need a compelling character, once you have that, it's easy to write dialog for them. When you try to make a character compelling through dialog, you're going to loose. This is the difference between a great script and a poor one. Hacksaw tried to make characters via what they said, instead of the actions they performed. Saving Private Ryan makes characters out of the action they performed, highlighted by the dialog. Remember, this is a visual medium, so the most important thing isn't TELLING the audience via dialog what the character is, the most important thing is SHOWING THEM what they do.. even if it's just a glimpse, that's the critical element in my opinion, that separates great filmmakers from "entertainers" just looking too make a buck.

Kodak does make film (and other products) in China and has for many years. Most of this product is used for other industries outside of motion picture however. I'm pretty sure all motion picture products are made in the USA, as it says so on the can's of film you buy. It's a very small market compared to other products Kodak makes.

I agree with you, there is absolutely a difference, but I don't think this test really exemplifies that difference. Again, if you digitally degrade an image to prove a point, you aren't proving the point scientifically, you are manipulating the image to prove the point you wish to make and nothing else. Also remember that "scanning" and "telecine" are two completely different processes and a scanner will generally deliver a better over-all image in both color accuracy and crispness due to it stopping for every frame in a pin registered method. My point above is simply about resolution, no more, no less. Film can resolve greater crispness/sharpness using a higher resolution scanner, but is the added information beneficial or detrimental? I personally think it's detrimental because all you're getting is noise and grain, which is something you can't just process out and make look good. The noise and grain makes encoding and viewing very complicated. It's far better to scan at the max resolution (based on the line chart) your format can handle in my opinion, then have all that noise to deal with. Since we know that vision 3 50ISO 35mm 4 perf negative resolves a little bit north of 5k, it's very easy to do the math on the narrow gauge formats based on that data. Super 16 is around 2k, though over-scanning at 2.5k is smart for cropping to 1.85:1 reasons. Which makes super 8... half of that? The only way to actually test this is to take still pictures of a resultion chart with super 8 film (so you take out the registration and gate issues the cameras have), then scan those still images to see where the resolution stops. On the above sample, the test was bogus because it was old stock... I've seen tests with modern stock, but not on super 8, just 4 perf 35mm.

Ahh, you don't like the "pause before the storm" atmosphere that makes movies like SPR so great. Where you can spend "down time" with characters in scenes that don't necessarily move the plot forward, but move the character arc forward. The church scene or the record playing scene near the end. Truly well-written scenes that are so critical to the characters development and pacing of the movie. Hacksaw was literally wall to wall dialog or action. This writing technique only works because modern audiences don't have any ability to sit back and enjoy what's on screen. They need to be force fed information constantly or they find whatever they're watching to be boring. True cinema doesn't force feed anything to the audience, it allows the audience to think about it, digest and put their own spin on the events depicted. Again, this is what separates really good cinema from really not great cinema. Saving Private Ryan was made in 1997, it's 20 years old and to this day, we're still talking about it. Hacksaw Ridge will be long forgotten after this awards season is over. It won't have another theatrical run, it won't have a huge cult following like SPR. It will disappear like almost all modern movies do and that in of itself is why the two aren't even in the same galaxy together.