Tyler Purcell

Final Cut X is a toy, it's extremely limited in capability. However, if you haven't edited before, it's probably the easiest tool to learn. When working on a feature or something that requires lots of media management, I would highly suggest taking a course and learning Avid because the tool's inside, allow for much better clip finding and organization. I spend most of my time cutting blackmagic material, so I have a good workflow which seems to make sense. Buy a bunch of cheap USB3 2.5" portable drives. The max you can get today is 2tb. These drives are very robust and because they don't have firewire bridges or external/internal power supplies, they're almost impervious to the type of failures you get with other drives. Not fast enough for editing, but absolutely fast enough for storage of original media. Each one of those USB3 drives will contain your camera original. You can put as many complete "reels" as possible onto each drive. Each reel should be put in a folder and you should alter the clip name to reflect the camera reel. So if the clip name is BM_Date_clip name. It should just be reel name and clip number; A105_12345. Then you will duplicate them so you have two drive sets an A and a B which are identical camera originals. The A set will be stored in a safe locally and the B set should be stored at another location just incase. Before you store them, you will want to transcode the material from 4k down to something more usable like 192x1080, which is standard HD for broadcast. I'd use the standard Pro Res 422 codec, as it's not over-fat like the HQ codec and it's not missing data like the proxy or lite codec's. With Final Cut X you can use compressor to do this without over complicating things. You will transcode everything to an external plug in the wall 3.5" 7200 RPM thunderbolt drive. (since your laptop is new). Once transcoded, you will duplicate the transcoded media onto an identical drive. So before you start editing, you will have 4 copies of your media. 2 copies of the camera originals 2 copies of the editing/transcoded files I always store one of my transcoded drives in my safe until the job is finished. I also update that drive with any changes reflected on the first drive. It's important to use these two drives together as a backup method for your project sequences as well. This way if something went catastrophic with your edit bay, you'd have all your edits. A lot of people export EDL's daily, I generally duplicate my project's every few days. When you edit, you will be working with original media… I know it's not, but you can call it your original. The "CAMERA REELS" are never to be touched. From your seat in the edit bay, what your cutting will be your final unless for some reason you need to upres back to 4K for DCP/theatrical. You will color using the same media as well. I would absolutely color with DaVinci, but it's tricky to learn. I would try to take a course if you can because the ramp up can be time consuming. Great if you have nothing but time, however if you have a deadline, I'd study and learn before touching. I know FCPX has color tools, but they're garbage compared to DaVinci. Apple screwed the pooch after FCP7 and hasn't fixed it yet, though they're getting closer making FCPX work. I hope some of that resonates. :D

Just for the record, I spent a decade shooting ENG and another decade shooting film/digital cinema. I can make anything look good with any camera I've been handed, except for these new fangled still camera's that shoot video. I guess that's the key word here; "video", that's all they really are anyway. My expectations for spending nearly $3k on a camera are substantially higher then what these still camera's can produce. These cameras in my eye are just toy's and sure you can produce some fine video's for Vimeo or Youtube, but they are not cinematic looking. This is because these manufacturers have focused so much on pixel depth, they've forgotten about image smoothness. Sony and Panasonic have done this for years now, they get users to buy their cameras due to numbers and not due to how the final output looks. Yes, the blackmagic cameras are a "totally different kettle of fish" but in a good way, not a bad way. They're real cinema camera's, designed to shoot moving images, not video's. I've spent a year shooting projects with my blackmagic pocket cinema camera's and have also work with the 2.5k and 4k camera's. The results I've received have been outstanding, cinematic, smooth and something you'd be proud to put on the screen at your local multiplex. We've used still camera glass, we've used minimalistic lighting, we've used high ISO's, we can't seem to make the camera's behave anyway different then flawless. FYI; I have a director friend who's in the middle of shooting a documentary on the GH4. She hired a pretty good DP, someone I trust and knows how to shoot. I'm looking through the material this past weekend and I was shocked how bad it was. I thought it was perhaps her computer or something, so I took the drive home with me and shoved it into DaVinci on my color grading system. I was flabbergasted how bad the material looked. I invited the director over to do some A/B comparisons between my camera and the GH4 and there was no comparison. The GH4 had too crisp of an image, you could see the processor and MPEG encoder working overtime to make the image that sharp, looks like you turned up the sharpness on your television. Anyway, we're both very depressed it looks so bad because she can't stop now and I'm too busy shooting other things and editing to get involved in production with my cameras. This is why I dislike these new fangled video camera's. They're just toys and people get convinced they're something else due to the specs.

I honestly don't consider anything recording in MPEG to be anywhere near the top of any list. Doesn't matter how good your sensor and processor are, if you can't get that quality into your color bay for finishing. Sure, you can add an external recorder to the A7S and capture 4K, but now you're adding external gear making the entire package more bulky. Plus, the color space on the HDMI port is limited to 8 bit 4:2:2, which in my mind is totally worthless. The whole expression "nobody will notice" is a joke, I notice it every time I watch a BluRay disk. The best part is, you can't physically edit MPEG files. So you're either transcoding them to another file type, making them 2nd generation before you even edit or you're using an editor that unwraps and re-encodes behind the scenes like Final Cut X or Vegas. MPEG editors unwrap and re-transcode constantly during the editing process, so before you know it, the output can be upwards of 4th generation. Then you drop the sequence into a coloring tool, theoretically adding yet another generation. So you add an external recorder to capture uncompressed, now what do you do? Huge file sizes and incompatibility with every single editor out there. You transcode and prey you can re-link in your coloring tool. Now I understand the size vs cost vs performance factor but KILLING the low budget market they are not. Maybe for people messing around, but for serious filmmakers, there are better options for less money.

Ohh we shot the film in 2011 and the same filmmaker is still using them today for modern/new stuff. I was embarrassed when watching the material on the DCP at a local theater. The aliasing, digital noise and focus issues were an ever-apparent issue during the screenings. I'm a stickler for focus and clean, grainless images. I got neither with the Canon MKII's. I have since shot with a 5DMKIII and the experience was no different.

Thanks Bill! I love the BMPCC and it disturbs me so many people put out bad publicity about it. I just wanted to turn that frown upside down and explain some of the technology behind it. I'm very excited about a potential rev2 in the works for maybe later this year. Maybe we'll see something at NAB, but I know for sure they've been working on it. I would gladly pay another grand to get 2k Pro Res 4444 capture and perhaps 60FPS, but that's asking a lot! :)

WOW, ya learn something new every day! :) However, the only reason why it could be considered a trend is due to ease of shooting and projection. Filmmakers are no longer bound to the constraints of anamorphic lenses to generate a widescreen image. In this way, one could consider digital cinema a trend as well, as most of these non-anamorphic films are shot digitally. Though I agree with Doug's point about wider aspect ratio's looking more cinematic and a way to separate our native 1.75:1 television's from feature film land. I for one love widescreen format's, 2:1 being perfect in my eyes. It's just the right amount of height to width. That begs the question, what aspect ratio is 6 perf vertical 65mm? Isn't it around 1.85:1?

I personally don't think it's a trend… just pick a random date in history and look at those films. How about the top 10 films from 1978, year of my birth (yea I'm a kid) Grease: Anamorphic 2.35:1 Deer Hunter: Anamorphic 2.35:1 Animal House: Spherical 1.85:1 Superman: Anamorphic 2.35:1 Halloween: Anamorphic 2.35:1 Jaws 2: Anamorphic 2.35:1 The Wiz: Spherical 1.85:1 Dawn of the Dead: Spherical 1.85:1 Days of Heaven: Spherical 1.85:1 Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Spherical 1.85:1 I see the top films being anamorphic and the smaller/lower budget films being 1.85:1 Use of this format has only increased due to technology advances like 3 perf, 2 perf and of course digital when you can just matte. No longer do you need special anamorphic lenses to create a wider aspect ratio. So people can shoot how they want, without restrictions.

Dang! Well… I guess my budget will need to be increased then! HAHAH :D

Being a film buff, I do think it's a great idea. The only down side is that 10M films are becoming more and more rare. Most funded films are either a much higher budget OR substantially less, under 5M. You can very easily shoot a standard narrative feature on film for 5M, but most filmmakers will choose to save the money and shoot digitally if they have that low of a budget. I'd love to see if their program incorporates 65mm stock… :D

Yea GoPro would be the way to go for every reason mentioned above. There really isn't another action camera which has decent battery life and is acceptable quality output. The GoPro wifi app, allows you to run multiple cameras on one device. I've used it many times and it works flawlessly. Better on an iPad for sure, still very nice. It's slow however, about 1 second behind the action. For sure something to think about. The A7 or BMPCC have battery and storage issues. Neither one can do the multiple hour captures you're looking for. Plus the files are a lot bigger. The GoPro files are pretty small in 35Mbps 1080p mode. Hope that helps…

Yea no kidding eh? Probably 80% of that budget went towards post production.

Yep! The funny part is, the more media becomes digital, the less and less people are willing pay for it. So technology is not just a death sentence for theaters, it's a death sentence for media in general.

Yea, but you can fix all those things. Arclight cinema's has done a great job building a business model that I feel is the future of cinema with assigned seating, excellent theaters designed properly and most importantly, every time you go it's a good experience. I honestly don't mind going to the movies at all… I use to go 3 times a week back in the film days because it's something I couldn't see at home. Now with digital projection, it's the same thing I can see at home, so what's the point? I have a digital cinema projector, I have an excellent home theater, high definition sources, the whole 9 yards. When cinema gives me an experience unique enough for me to stand up and leave the house, I will go… Interstellar and Inherent Vice I saw multiple times in 70mm, mostly due to the experience. I have a feeling The Hateful Eight I will probably see more then once as well. ;)

Amen! The only reason they exist today is because they've got lucrative deals with satellite/cable providers and live event holders. Once those companies go belly up (which will happen soon) the broadcasters will slowly disappear. The other key is a successful VOD distribution model. Hulu and Netflix are just scratching the surface. It will take a powerhouse like Google or Apple to finally crack through that barrier and produce a service that makes sense. Right now, nobody has a good service, I'm still downloading most of my content off torrents because I can't stand the horrible interfaces and commercials of current VOD systems. I don't mind paying, but I'm not going to pay to watch commercials. Apple's solution is monopolistic, but it may be the smartest. Using their iTunes as a distribution method, people can pay a monthly subscription for first-run content and stream it ONLY through their devices. So if you have an Apple TV, it uses DMR through the HDMI to prevent copying and right into the television. We do some of this already, but the studio's are more scared of security then anything else. Once someone comes up with a foolproof system of making money without distributing to theaters, the game is over. Multiplexes will be history and cinema will turn back into a special, once a year experience where people go, pay "theater" prices and enjoy an experience that is very unforgettable.

Did you ever think about the hundreds of thousands who were put out on the street during the move from film to digital distribution, which was instigated by the studio's to save money. Yet, these are the same studio's who are willing to put millions behind films which will barely break even. Do you ever think about those families? People who like yourself, mentored and trained for years before getting their jobs, worked their way up the ladders doing a trade they loved. Then the rug was pulled out from underneath them. Everyone from visual effects artists through lab employees and projectionists. Jobs that disappeared or moved over seas. One thing to think about… Imagine if the studio's produced sub 50M films? They could make more films per year, putting more people to work. Sure, nobody would make boat loads of money, but everyone would be working. Right now, it's the salaries which are the biggest hindrance to the budgets. So no… I really don't have any sympathy. A myopic few get the spoils and everyone else gets to watch the studio system literally destroy itself from the inside out. Wishing someday they'd wake up!

I keep on preying every year the studio's loose their shirts on these big films so they'll stop making them. When you sit down and do a realistic budget for a common every day film, you realize very quickly pretty much every script could be made for sub $50M if they didn't go crazy with computer effects. What I love the most is Tarantino's new film has a budget of 44M, yet it's being entirely shot AND distributed in 70mm, something everyone on the planet has said is too damn expensive. Here's hoping Tarantino's film will show everyone that cinema is still alive and ticking! :)

ROFL!!!! So true, so true! :D

It is a visual medium is it not? LOL :)

Yep… production design is pretty much everything. All cinematography does is capture what exists. Still some of the tips the guys in the video above talk about, are very valid. I think it's funny they steer potential filmmakers towards "dialog" driven films instead of "action" driven films. People want to see something happen, not see someone who can't act, talking in an echoey room about nothing. It's the wonderful thing about shooting on 16mm with a Bolex… good luck capturing decent sound. It kinda forces you to develop a story around action instead of dialog.

I've been doing shooting for two decades and haven't yet been successful enough as a DP to make a career out of it. Today, you need to be a jack of all trades to really make a living, so when you aren't a DP, you can do other work. I know a lot of Cinematographers who have learned DaVinci and spend most day's coloring. A bunch of my DP buddies also shoot still's on the side, anything that keep's money flowing. It's very difficult to go backwards once you've worked your way up the food chain. I completely agree that it's more like a hobby, rather then a career as very few DP's actually have enough work to pay the bills year round. Those who do, are the same few who keep getting work. In my mind, it's far easier to become a successful director then DP in today's world. It appears anyone can direct, but the same small group of DP's shoot all those films! So… I kinda gave up being JUST a DP years ago. Now I wanna be a Steven Soderbergh… write, shoot, edit and direct my own stuff. I personally believe that is the future for filmmaking because if you can do all four things proficiently, nothing stops you from being paid to do each of those things independently. Best part is, with modern digital cinema, you can own decent equipment and produce excellent products without a huge influx of cash.

Can I ask a stupid question? It's awesome my camera records so much great data…why the heck does any editing program I use, reduce the perceived bit rate to 8 bit, showing systemic banding. Check out the black and white transitions in this video I posted on youtube. Output came right from DaVinci in 12 bit rendering mode, the final Pro Res HQ file looked just like this: I'm really struggling to get what comes out of the camera through post production and have it retain the same dynamics.

Every camera needs post processing in one way or another; REDCODE, MPEG 2, AVCHD, RAW… these are the formats MOST cameras shoot in and editors don't like any of them. Most people consider MPEG to be "Friendly" but it has the same problems as all the other formats. What separates the blackmagic camera's is their ability to shoot Pro Res WITH Cinema DNG color space. This means you can edit immediately after capture by AMA linking in AVID or simply dropping them into any other Quicktime compatible editor. Once edited, you can easily export an EDL to be used with DaVinci for applying a lookup table and then doing the final color. I never shoot in RAW because what's the point? This "film" mode of Pro Res works fantastic and saves a great deal of time in post production. Sure, if I were going to shoot a narrative feature, I'd probably shoot in RAW… but for most all other projects, it's not worth it. Heck, I've even turned the cameras down to standard Pro Res capture, you get a bit more then an hour off a 64gb card and it doesn't look any worse then Pro Res HQ. Shameless plug about the Blackmagic Pocket camera… :)

Ohh one more thing to Alexanders point… The future is already here. One of my favorite filmmakers Steven Soderbergh is literally writing it as we speak. Future content will be subscription based and if everyone pay's $7.99 per month, there is plenty of money to make great content. It won't matter how much money is thrown at blockbusters in theaters, everyone will be too busy watching House of Cards or The Knick to care about those movies existing. The only thing keeping theaters a live are the teenyboppers and that will change as content moves towards subscription based. The future is multi-episode series which keep the user engaged over many weeks/months/years, one series after the other. The success of this new content will move even more filmmakers into the world of subscription based media. Now, you don't even need to advertise anywhere physically. Ad's will simply be on social media and on the subscription sites, cluing you into the next big release, with teasers, trailers and all the other hyping content to keep you on the edge of your seat. So technology really doesn't matter to the end user. They simply want to stuff their mouths with as much content as they can fit.

Absolutely! Plus, in our disposable "instant" world, everyone takes thousands of pictures each year and nobody looks at them. We spend so much time trying to "capture" a moment in time, we forget about LIVING that moment. And most importantly, to share media required physical interaction with one another. Slide shows, movie shows, photo book's, all lost to the wonders of technology. As a consequence, our culture today is more separate then ever. Texting, E-mail, ichat, Skype, Facebook, Twitter… we no longer physically interact with one another. The moment someone figures out how to monetize first-run movies outside of theaters, people will have no reason to interact with anyone outside of their workplace.

Why film? Because it takes true talent to shoot film and make it look good. With Digital cinema, you have a histogram monitor in your "digital village", plus a 4K monitor, and the ability to adjust LUT's on the fly on the camera output, allowing everyone around you to see exactly what the image is going to look like before you hit the record button… isn't that cheating? With Digital, you can mess up the shoot entirely and fix it in post. With Digital, you can shoot all day and all night without any extra cost, meaning you don't need great directors OR actors. Keep rolling and get bits of one performance, mix it with bits of another performance and magically the whole thing looks and sounds pretty. With Digital, still photographers are taking over the world of cinematography because they can shoot "masterpieces" with their MPEG2 still camera's. With Digital, there is nothing "special" about going to the cinema, it's a slightly higher quality version of the same movie you can watch 6 months later at home with your 2k/4k TV on BluRay. With Digital, we have put tens of thousands of people out of work, (cinema/labs/manufacturing), super talented people, most of which will be forced to change professions. With Digital, anyone can buy a camera and shoot anything they want, making "filmmaking" a common-man's activity, which has completely destroyed mid/low budget independent features forever. With Digital, filmmakers are flocking away from the big screen and into television and what they don't realize is, the tools which make cinema "easier" are the same ones which will eventually kill it. The sad part is, those of us who would rather shoot film (myself included) are forced to shoot digital because someone else thought digital was the answer to cheaper and better cinema. I'll say this much, I think MOST digital cinema looks like crap and because filmmakers today have no restrictions, they can do anything they want. This makes for horrible movies and so much MORE competition for small independents, most of them never see the light of day. Truly brilliant filmmakers aren't being recognized all because everyone can make movies today! Yipee isn't this new world so much fun! :sigh: Worst part is, nobody see's the end of theaters coming, but it's coming. The contracts are being written, the studio's are in negotiation, the deals are being done. I give us maybe 5 years before it starts and another 5 before most of them are gone. We are literally seeing technology destroy one of the greatest entertainment industries that's ever existed. What people don't get is; Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan are not trying to save FILM, they are trying to save CINEMA and that's why both are shooting LARGE format, something you absolutely will never be able to get at home.