Tyler Purcell

It's still poorly organized Phil. ;) Nice article BTW. :D

Yea, that's what I meant by 1080p shooting. It's "cropping" the sensor, meaning the processor can focus on a smaller group of pixels. If the camera was a tiny bit bigger, they could run a faster processor, but they're more interested in physical size and this is one of the limitations. I was a professional colorist for a few years, working with Symphony and DaVinci. We'd get sources from all over the world and the 8 bit stuff was absolutely horrible compared to the 10 bit. Eventually we wound up rejecting any source that was 8 bit 4:2:0 and most post production companies will do the same thing. I currently live with a QC specialist and his company rejects anything that is less than 10 bit 4:2:2 color space. Most of the shows you quote only use the 8 bit cameras as quick cutaways, like the quick "shaky" cam that looks nothing like the main cameras. "Act of Valor" is a great example of that. Go Pro's are 8 bit as well, but if you light well for them and cut away quickly, you'd never notice. Yes, but the pocket camera is 1920x1080, only 128 pixels away from 2k, but you don't see Blackmagic advertising it as a 2k camera. It's false advertising and it's a way for Sony to sell a substandard product to the consumer because people are so absorbed in "tech specs" they don't realize what they're actually getting. Sony color science is nothing like Alexa. I've tried to match the F55 and Alexa in DaVinci, what a mess. It required many passes, a few traveling mattes and worst of all, the F55 was 4k and the Alexa was 2k, so the F55 material needed an un-sharpen mask. After days worth of work, it was acceptable, but I could tell right away. I guess your point is that an average consumer can't tell. That's great and all, but we're talking two of the best cameras on the market and they're so far apart. The consumer grade cameras have no chance at competing. I have yet to see that. All the online tests I've seen, still have the same problem. Direct light into the sensor has no edge detail (hard white) and sometimes breaks up around the center and edges (changes color). You'll notice it's hard white with no gradient. You'll never see a nice smooth gradient. It's most noticeable when shooting at night with street lights or car's driving by. Heck mix that with the rolling shutter, it's very easy to spot a Sony shot. If you wish to send me a few samples that you've done, I'd love to see this problem fixed. I'm sure it's versatile for people who want to use Sony cameras forever. However, for people who want to make an investment in glass, being stuck with E mount in my view is silly. Far better to buy EOS or PL mount glass and use adaptors. So a lot of the benefits these cameras have with E mount Sony glass, don't exist the moment you put PL glass on it. It will happen very soon, now that XAVC-I has been adopted by Sony. The only reason they don't put it in the smaller cameras is processor speed. It needs a much faster processor and it's a huge problem for the DSLR market. Besides, true raw like CinemaDNG which all the blackmagic cameras have, gives you exactly what's coming off the imager. It doesn't really tax the processor, but it does tax the memory and costs money because there is licensing from Adobe. The Japanese brands don't think about this as an option, they want to do everything in-house, so they don't even contemplate using this format. Sure, the commercial cameras all record raw, but none of us are going to be buying one. All cameras have weaknesses, but the three things that are most important are: Lens selection, Imager/color science and recording format. If any one of those things is compromised, you've got a big problem. Blackmagic have nailed it on all three of those and even though they've had some hiccups with developing the right box, they sure did with the pocket and now URSA mini.

WHHAAA!!! Digital Bolex? - No usable Viewfinder. (costs around $400 bux to buy a monitor and eye piece) - Internal Storage ONLY - Internal Battery ONLY - Glass to cover the S16 sensor is expensive as most glass was made to cover a square sensor. - Not very sensitive (good luck shooting in ambient light indoors) - Huge issues with bright light hitting sensor. One of the reason nobody else uses CCD's - Hard to hold for long periods of time due to weight - No compression codec, stuck with RAW shooting only, which means you can't edit right away and huge file sizes. - Expensive! For a few more grand, you can buy a REAL cinema camera with a full-frame S35mm sensor. The only real positives, is one of the camera's biggest negatives; 12 bit RAW. It means the image looks really good. It has plenty of dynamic range to play with in post. However, it means post processing and HUGE files to store and work with during post production. I've met and talked with the owners of Digital Bolex and they've worked really hard to bring this camera to market. However, when they started developing it, cameras like the Blackmagic Pocket weren't around. The pocket is 1/3rd the price, is far better equipped (outside of audio), takes more standard/lower cost lenses and honestly is far better suited for the kind of filmmaking the Digital Bolex guys intended to achieve. I assume the next generation of Digital Bolex will solve many of the current issues, hopefully adding a viewfinder and maybe updating the sensor so it can deal with direct sunlight. But for the price, it really doesn't have a home outside of retro people who by the way, would rather shoot film anyway.

The problem lies with recording formats, not the imager itself. When the current digital technology was developed over a decade ago, there were standards set so everything would be compatible with broadcast television. Since broadcast already used REC709 color space, it was a no-brainer to make digital formats follow the same protocol. All be it, with more dynamic range then the standard definition versions that came previous. They also needed to come up with a way to record high quality images using slow processors and not very much memory. So they came up with an 8 bit 4:2:0 interlaced MPEG format, which only samples blue information on half the lines and red information every fourth line. This format has been carried along by Panasonic, Sony and Canon for years, mostly because of cost. This "problem" is all about money and when you buy a still camera that shoots video, they have to compromise somewhere. The problem with 8 bit 4:2:0 is that it doesn't have very good dynamic range. The solution these companies came up with to make the format work is to compress the image's dynamic range. Like noise reduction on analog audio tapes, this encode/decode system will increase your perceivable dynamic range to allow more adjustment in post production. It really only works well with 12 bit YUV/RGB software like DaVinci Resolve. Higher end cameras have 12 bit, 4:4:4 color space, but even they are restricted in color space when they hit a standard recording format like MPEG, XAVC, Pro Res, etc. So this encode/decode system is very popular in the digital age and it allows standard REC709 formats, to accept higher dynamic range images. Those cameras also allow RAW capture which gives you full dynamic range without being stuck in a Rec709 codec. However, they too are an encode/decode system and in the case of .r3d (RED CODE), Cinema DNG and the like, they need to be decoded before editing, which can be very time consuming. When you use standard REC709 formats, they generally work OK in most modern software without the need for pre-editing transcoding. Why more cameras don't have S-Log is simply laziness. Why anyone still makes anything that records at best with 8 bit 4:2:0 color space, is beyond me. It's the companies reluctance to license XAVC or Pro Res, which would raise the cost of their products. They're more interested in meeting a price point, then making a camera with the best quality image possible.

Actually, they are the worst rolling shutter of them all. That's how they get such great low-light capability, the sensor is scanned very slowly. At 1920x1080 it's acceptable, but at 4k it's nowhere near acceptable. https://www.cinema5d.com/sony-a7rii-rolling-shutter/ Speed boosters are made for all the brands cameras. Doesn't matter when your recording to 8 bit 4:2:0 MPEG files. Plus, the external HDMI output is only 8 bit as well. So you can add as many outboard devices as you want, it's still 8 bit. This limits the corrective ability in post production substantially. In contrast, all of the Blackmagic, Arri and RED cameras are 10 to 14 bit, depending on the recording format. In the world of post production, minimal requirement for producing a good image is 10 bit 4:2:2 and for mastering it's 12 bit 4:4:4, same as HDCAM SR tape(1920x1080). - It's not 4k, it's UHD resolution. So it doesn't match the resolution of any other 4k cinema camera. - Sony's color science doesn't match Arri, RED or Blackmagic, which are the "A" cameras. - Sony has hard clipping issues, which are exacerbated by the 8 bit recording issues. - The rolling shutter prevents it from being used in moving/tracking shots without substantial correction in post. - Uses non-standard lenses (Micro 4/3rds, EOS and PL are standard) - It won't be worth anything once sony wakes up and produces a camera that shoots 10 bit 4:4:4 I-Frame internally for the same price, which is right around the corner. Yes, it's a great still camera… that's no doubt. I just don't see ANY lower-end consumer-grade camera being a good investment right now, especially with the constant technology flux we have today. If you need to buy a camera for some reason, it's far better to buy one that specializes in whatever your workflow is. Then sell it after a year and buy the next best thing.

I guess my first piece of advice is to forget about equipment, that's really the least of your concern. I know this is the "gaffing" part of the forum, but I'll post something long winded cuz I'm bored. ;) The first step would be to come up with a great screenplay, something that people really enjoy reading. That is actually the most difficult part because it's very time consuming to do right and requires skills a lot of people don't have. So maybe picking up a book on screenplay writing first, will get you started on that path. Write something you can make locally without much cost. Obviously, you could have someone else write the story, or make a documentary which doesn't require the same intensity of writing. Still, anything you see on screen, is generally pre-planned on paper. An understanding how that works, is probably the best first step. Once you've got something tangible that you can show people, the next step is to prove you can make it, which is the first step of raising money. Obviously people who have a long resume of work, don't need to do this. However, as a first time filmmaker, it's a smart idea to take your iPhone or a friends camcorder and start shooting micro projects. It's at this point I'd get a book on cinematography and lighting, this will help you understand the language of cinema. You need to experiment with this language before you can even think about making anything serious. This includes not just shooting pictures, but also understanding how audio works because that's also very important. You will also need to learn an editing software, because that's really a HUGE part of making something work well. These little micro projects show people; "Hey I can frame a shot and make something look pretty as well". That, plus your fantastic script, will get people excited and that's where money comes from. I actually shot a prequel to a feature film in order to develop the history behind my lead character. The next step is to find some money. Crowd funding doesn't cost any money, but also doesn't make much money for projects like this. I've seen random features that looked interesting, only make a few hundred dollars on crowd funding. The projects that succeed at making a lot of money, usually have big backers already attached and they use that money to help boost their crowd funding chances. It's a commonly used trick and it works well. So unless you have a long lost aunt or uncle who are willing to back your film with a few hundred grand, you can probably forget about making enough money to properly fund a serious project with crowd funding. So your money is going to come from friends and family, $20 here, $50 there and you'll probably have a budget of a few grand when it's all said and done. Between me you and the wall, the only thing you really need money for is expendables (tape/gels/hard drives to store your media, etc) and of course food. If there is one thing that makes people happy, it's food. You're job as a filmmaker isn't to make a movie, it's to make sure your crew is well fed. On films that actually have a budget, you would budget things like art/props, lighting/gaffing and camera/sound equipment rental. However, with something small like this, your "budget" is whatever you can acquire, which maybe a lot or maybe nothing. So what equipment you use, is really dependent on how much money you make, not the other way around. Guerrilla filmmaking is kind of what you'll be doing and part of that is being very clever, as you said earlier, with building/making your own bits and pieces to achieve certain shots. Lights would be the first thing I'd focus on and those old style aluminum work lights with the reflector behind the bulb, they work great. Just need some filtration and a bright-ass bulb and you're in business. Pretty much everything you need for production will be available to you at yard sales or goodwill stores. Now comes the shooting equipment, camera/lenses and sound. Most people shoot digital today and I would suggest doing just that. Yes, it would be awesome to shoot everything on film, but once you learn about the expenses involved; (raw stock, processing, transfer) you'll find it to be cost prohibitive, even with small-gauge formats like Super 8 and 16mm. Now, that's not to say it's impossible, I've made micro budget 16mm films for years, but we had our own camera, sound and lighting equipment. We were donated film stock through a Kodak program that's long gone and I found 50 rolls of film at a garage sale that was still good. We got killer lab deals and one light telecine, which gave us something watchable. Now I see your a student, so perhaps borrowing equipment from school is your ticket to success. If you can't and you need to find cheap stuff locally, I'd put an add on craigslist to see if you can find a cinematographer locally to supply you with equipment. You can also try www.sharegrid.com, which is a great place to hook people up with equipment. As much as I love film and am an advocate for using it, you need to analyze your financial situation before contemplating. Digital is practically free to shoot (once you have equipment) and as a new filmmaker, you will see instant results to insure you've got the shot before moving on. On no-budget films, this is awesome because you can prove to yourself, you've got it in the can. With film, you could make a huge error and not know about it until that 12 minute roll is processed and digitized at an expense of around $500 (stock, processing, telecine, storage). We have these great digital tools today and for your first big short film, I'd use them. Ohh and don't ever forget about audio. You need at least a 4 channel recorder, wireless mic's on each person and at least one boom mic, with an operator. Just remember, one wireless and one boom per person in the scene. Record only in silence and make sure it sounds good before you move on to the next shot. Assume you will never get the actors back for ADR (automated dialog replacement) because you won't and if your audio sucks, you will not have a viable product. I always wear a set of wireless headphones on set, listening to the audio on my digital shoots because I can't afford to re-record anything. Cutting picture can be pretty easy, you can read about how to cut properly in books and watch lots of movies. Audio is the difficult part and it's hard because it's A LOT OF WORK. There are great online resources for things like effects and music, you will need everything you can get for free and make sure you jot down where you go it from so if your film does make it somewhere, you can pay the royalties. I suggest www.freeplaymusic.com and www.royaltyfreemusic.com to start with. Effects can be purchased on CD, but libraries are online as well, so I'd just do some google searching OR if your lucky, your school may have something as well. Ohh and one more thing… When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was make movies. So I saved up and bought a super 8 film camera, back when consumer video cameras were very expensive. I spent years learning my craft, experimenting with the medium, cutting it by hand, projecting final products, even if they were complete crap. I do think there is a lot of learning that can be had through just experimenting. Buying a Bolex 16mm camera, projector, splicer and viewer. You'd learn quite a bit about film and you may make some great products. However, that's an expensive first step and it will take a while to make an acceptable product. I wish the digital cameras we have today, existed back then because I could have afforded them and shot a lot of great stuff without the expense of film. I do love celluloid, but digital is the great enabler, so you should embrace it and make your film.

For web, it doesn't matter. If you haven't noticed, most people use copyrighted music and effects on a regular basis without any issues. As long as you're not monetizing the video, you'll be fine.

Technocrane's are big/heavy and you need a specialist to operate. I try to use more standard lightweight jib's and arm's which don't require specialists. I use to put the smaller/simpler jibs on a flat doorway dolly, which worked really well, kinda like the Fisher jib. Honestly, the fisher jib is probably your best option because it's a very versatile and complete package. It's something you can use for standard dolly shots, something you can use for cranes. For long moves, the jib works a lot better because then you won't see the track in wide shots. I do love the Fisher 10, I've used it on many shoots, but I'd much rather have a jib then just a dolly.

The display isn't touch screen. The menu and function buttons are to the right of the display. So you'd look through the viewfinder adaptor and make the changes with the buttons. The viewfinder adaptor spaces the camera away from your face so you can do these adjustments without any issues. It actually works really well and the arrow keys have pre-programmed functions. I assume they'll have programmable keys over time. My favorite camera shape would be an Arri SR or something of that nature. The new URSA Mini would be a good example, but it's a bit heavy. Something with a nice big viewfinder, keeps your hands close to the lens for pulling and of course shoulder mount. The whole concept of holding a camera in front of you, it really sucks. However, since the camera weighs ounces instead of pounds, it's A LOT easier to hand hold without support by pressing the body/viewfinder adaptor against your head. I've got some amazingly stable (better then shoulder) shots using this trick AND of course a monopod. DSLR's weigh so much more, it's almost impossible to hold them steady even with the viewfinder adaptor. I was shooting stills with a D5MKIII few weeks ago without any support and it reminded me of how heavy these cameras really are. It's not a camera designed for studio shooting or for bigger productions, that's not its purpose. It's designed for the cinematographer who wants a great looking image to play around with on smaller personal projects. In fact, the camera is worthless in a studio environment where it's on all day long. It over-heats, it has a flimsy worthless power adaptor AND it magnifies the glass too much, so getting medium-wide shots in a small location, can be challenging. Again, it's a $998 dollar camera, you'd have to spend almost double to get a bigger imager and then you'd loose the Pro Res/RAW 10 bit capture. Besides, the camera has zero automatic function, so you're always using it as a cinema camera, setting up the ASA, Shutter Angle, F stop and focus manually. This allows you to stay within the "cinematographers" world and not have automatic functionality spoiling your imagery like most of the counterparts on the market. Yes, I personally love the guerrilla aspects of this camera. Again, since the camera wasn't made for bigger shows, being small is an asset. If it was a bigger camera, even if it was the same price, I probably wouldn't have bought it. The form factor was #2 on my list, next to raw color space/pro res capture. I shoot ALL of my productions guerrilla and it really works well. You capture moments you couldn't capture otherwise because the camera doesn't stand out. When you strip it down to a lens and viewfinder adaptor, it's only a few inches long and no wider then an iPhone 5. In all the shoots I've done with the camera, not a single person has thought it was a video camera. Whenever the lens goes onto them, they freeze for a second thinking I'm taking a still picture. I literally have to tell people before I shoot that it's a video camera and most people don't believe me. To me, there is nothing like it on the market in that price bracket. The Japanese (canon, sony, panasonic) have all focused on 8 bit MPEG capture. Plus, as the Japanese focus on "specs" (resolution/sensor size/lux) to sell their cameras, Blackmagic has focused on making a good image. Things like color science, white clipping and noise in the blacks, these are critical for me as a filmmaker and Blackmagic has nailed them. The Japanese cameras in a similar price bracket, they aren't even close in those areas and to me, that's what makes the pocket camera stick out. The pocket is getting long in the tooth today, that I will admit. It doesn't over crank, Pro Res HQ is the best codec, it's 1920x1080 and they could have a better display. However, the pocket is still their best seller the way it sits right now. I personally can't imagine them updating the camera the way it sits right now. They do have a new 4k sensor that's being used on the "Micro Studio" which could easily be used in a small-form factor camera like the pocket. So my guess is, their next big camera (Maybe IBC this year or NAB next year) will be all-new small form factor camera to replace the older studio camera which is long in the tooth, but have a much smaller form factor like the pocket. My guess is, the price will be sub $2k and it will feature a 12 bit RAW 4k capture or Pro Res 4444 with 60FPS @ 1920x1080, but most likely no global shutter. If that happens in a similar form factor to the pocket with interchangeable batteries and such, it will be another win for Blackmagic and I would absolutely step on that ship. In the meanwhile, the pockets work great and since I use standard Canon mount glass, I can always sell my bodies and by others.

The camera is designed to be small, light weight and not draw attention to itself. They're proving you don't need a big box to make a cinema camera and they're spot on. Yes, it requires aftermarket accessories to make work, but what camera doesn't? RED cameras require thousands of dollars of accessories to do anything. So I'm totally OK with spending a few extra hundred dollars on a viewfinder adaptor so I can see the display in the sun. It's not an afterthought what so ever, it's the only way they could have made it. Imagine it having a little hole you push your eye into, your nose would be crushed the whole time you shot and there would be no viewfinder adaptor options. You could put a big production monitor on the top, it has an HDMI output.

That's what I thought, it's part of the "registration" function. It just amazes me how much it moves. There is A LOT of correction going on. On the machines I'm use to using, the gate never moves. BTW… I was playing with the Blackmagic scanner few days ago and it's going to be out next month. It's a toy right now, but I think it has real potential in the future. It actually uses a large pixel depth imager, unlike the cameras. So right now it's setup for 4k, but they're saying in the future that may change depending on software update. They haven't quite figured out how to make it work with 16mm, but I've been told they'll have a gate sometime in the next few months. I'm trying to use that machine to transfer some stuff from a library I maintain because it would be cheap/free. So hopefully I can get some samples of 16mm eventually. The 35mm samples I scanned during the show, didn't blow my doors away in terms of registration. They can only do sprocket registration, which is weak. You can adjust where the registration is taken from, but it can only be in the area of the sprocket. So yea, for $30k it's a great solution, but I don't think it really competes against the higher end units. But it's early days and I'm certain they will do more updates over the years.

More details thanks to an article from Indywire : http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/how-quentin-tarantino-resurrected-ultra-panavision-70-for-the-hateful-eight-roadshow-20150828

Yep… I don't quite understand either. I'm very much into motivated light.

I was referring to the white edges around the outside of the quicktime movie, which would be the gate in this case. It's moving all over the place and I assume that's to compensate for something.

They're actually made for NASA and building space vehicles. They're very soft and NASA prohibits them from leaving anything behind. So I assume DuPont made them for the space program. I've never seen these gloves anywhere outside of camera shops that are long out of business. I learned about film cameras from a professional Arriflex certified technician, so I just used his techniques and they work great.

Why does the outside white edge of the scan move at all?

I think they're referring to the portable video recorder/monitor, which opens up like a clamshell with a Hi-8/DV deck inside. Back in the day, video taps off the film camera would run directly to one of these units and a lot of times, it was the only way of monitoring a shot outside of looking through the viewfinder of the camera. It would allow instant replay as well, which was awesome.

I spent about that much on my blackmagic pocket cameras (2 of them) including lenses. So that's why I saw your budget and was like, why spend that on a DSLR when you can buy 2 cameras for coverage on a doc/interview shoot (which is what I do). The cameras look great, they're small and have native Pro Res files. With the right (cheap) accessories, the camera is very powerful and even the sound isn't that bad. I'm personally not a fan of the DSLR's because they really are lacking in the video department. Even with magic lantern, they still have some pretty major issues like monitoring audio, size, weight, record time (limited to buffer speed) and cost. Here is an example of the pocket and a little video I made about it.

Yes, I always pull focus. I came from the ENG world and I like to be up next to the lens using the standard viewfinder. So my left hand is always available to turn knobs. If I have to pull more then one thing (zoom/focus/iris) then my AC will step in and help. However, I tend to use primes and light for a single stop. The gloves I use are not made of cotton, they're made of a soft polymer. They are designed for this application and a camera service guy gave me a pair 20 years ago. I honestly don't even now where they are today! I don't shoot much film anymore. :(

Have you thought about an actual cinema camera or is there a reason you need/want a still camera as well?

The 50D stuff looks great! ;)

I believe there is a huge difference between purposely styling the format and being stuck with a character trait of that format. I don't like grain because it's completely unnecessary to creating a good image and telling a story. Crisp, super-fine grain film is just amazing and it's rarely seen in today's films. Everyone lights and shoots as if they're shooting digital, but for a few more minutes of setup, they can light for 200T and have way less grain. Yet, they just don't take that next step because they simply don't care enough. That's why I call them lazy filmmakers, because that decision is wrong, especially today when most films are blown up to IMAX size. This is why on small-format, it's probably smart to shoot as fine of a grain stock as you can. This way, it will lead to a better transfer and stand out amongst the crowd.

Again, on big shows when you've got big pay crew, you'd expect perfection. I don't even think about big shows because I will never be apart of one as a cinematographer, so it doesn't phase me. I only mention it because the OP is probably not making a big movie. I just care a bit more for the medium then most and expect the best results. I see people touching original camera negative without gloves and I get pissed.

Yep, cuz nobody cares.

and when you do experimental non-commercial products you watch at home on the original files, then it doesn't matter. However, most people try to make commercial product and in that case, film grain is a nuisance for both theatrical and home video distribution due to compression and how it deals with noise/grain. I personally can't stand grain, as I've been stuck with it for decades of shooting on film. I'd rather over-light something and reduce that grain to an almost infinitesimal level, then have a film fill of noise. I don't give any credit for people with noisy films. It takes a real talent to produce a grain-free image in-camera.