John E Clark

From your first post you mention a budget of $1500 for the 'body' of the camera. For that price, I would strongly suggest looking at the GH-4. It's price is around $1600 or so (Ok 100 more than your desired price...). I've had the GH-1 for as long as it has been out, and for what I paid, for what I do, short films, as well as 'happy shots', it is entirely adiquate for the purpose. I also am one to advocate testing the hell out of a camera to learn what it is capable (and what it is not...), and make lighting, and situations work for the camera. In that regard I tend to shoot on tripods, if I'm moving, very limited very 'slow', so certain motion artifacts are not an issue, as they maybe if I were shooting fast action, or major 'shaky cam' styles. I also am not a fan of 'shallow' DoF... so the smaller sensors relative to Still 35mm does not bother me in the least in this regard. I bought the Wife a Nikon D600 last year, and have not really tested it for 'filmmaking'... because that is her camera... but I have done some video and I find some of the video uses 'features' awkward. I don't know if the D5200 'fixes' or has better usability features. I have seen some people who are quite pleased with the camera. I've used Nikon for years, so I did buy a Nikon adapter for the GH-1, purely mechanical, no 'auto features', but again for 'narrative' work that's not a major impediment for me. I also bought the Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera while there was a recent fire sale (probably not available any more...), but due to the millions of people taking advantage of that offer, I'm on backorder with that, and can't comment on any tech features/non-features. I will say, that at NAB last spring, the 'tech' guy in the Black Magic booth was far and away a more informative person than any of the other booths, such as Canon, Panasonic, or Nikon for this level of camera. The major brand name camera booths seemed to be staffed with people who would read from a 'script' on features, but had really no deep knowledge of the tech specs of the various cameras.

Since you haven't mentioned previous experience, and what type of camera you 'now' use, it is difficult to make 'suggestions'. For me... Any camera which has an 'entry' price tag of over $5K, I would rent if I thought I would need it. In particular for the ARRI class I'd also think about hiring an operator along with the camera. Same for Reds of the 'big boy class'. There is the Red Scarlet, but it is still pretty pricy. Since I have no money, my budget is along the line of the Panasonic GH series, or Nikons. Why Nikon when everyone seems to only think of Canon... because I have a large number of Nikon lenses from my still life. Speaking of Canon. I did a shoot a few weeks ago with a C100. The owner was shooting and even though he had just got the camera, we did 'ok' on getting usuable footage. I'm sure with time the fellow could figure out many more features and capabilities that we could have used. However, while the C100 is 'under $5K'... that's just the body, and so one needs to add in a few lenses. I think the C100 would be good for the music video/commericals part. Don't know about 'reality show'... what does that mean... but probably would work as well. It is a bit heavy, but with a shoulder mount probably as usable as most other similar types of cameras in more 'active' shooting situations.

Dateline June 4, 2008 re: Fire on Universal Lot. --- In an e-mail sent to several dozen film exhibitors Monday, Universal said the "fire destroyed nearly 100% of the archive prints kept here on the lot. Due to this we will be unable to honor any film bookings of prints that were set to ship from here. Over the next few weeks and months, we will be able to try and piece together what material we do have and if any prints exist elsewhere." --- Elsewhere in the article Universal claimed that their negatives are archived in Philadelphia, but since the prints were what they have for circulation, those would be gone. And getting them to strike new prints from the archived negatives, may be 'problematic', as in, 'need money for such'. Less 'deep pockets' enterprises probably take far less in the way of archives after the project is done.

In sort of a total coincidence, the Wife asked me to find out when the song "Happy Days Are Here Again" was first performed, which lead me to the following wiki entry... note mention of an MGM Vault fire... the problem with negatives, even if they are silver based, is... there's only one copy. --- "Happy Days Are Here Again" is a song copyrighted in 1929 by Milton Ager (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics) and published by EMI Robbins Catalog, Inc./Advanced Music Corp.[1] The song was recorded by Leo Reisman and His Orchestra, with Lou Levin, vocal (November 1929),[citation needed] and was featured in the 1930 film Chasing Rainbows.[2] The song concluded the picture, in what film historian Edwin Bradley described as a "pull-out-all-the-stops Technicolor finale, against a Great War Armistice show-within-a-show backdrop."[3] This early example of 2-strip Technicolor footage was, along with another Technicolor sequence, later cut from the 1931 re-edited release of the otherwise black-and-white film, and is believed to have been lost in the 1967 MGM Vault 7 fire. --- In some cases the original film showing was not such that the studio may have seen it as a classic, and take all due care to preserve it, but later generations did see the film as a classic. So, unless happy accident ocurred, the negatives would have been lost anyway. This is what happened to many early silent films, in that people were not conscious of preservation early on, and didn't bother.

I think things have improved for digital archiving, and so the ease one can make multiple copies, which of course is used by 'pirates', can also be used for storing multiple copies in multiple places and more likely result in the data being recovered.

Well, 'color' film is not all that good, since what is left after processing is a dye and can fade, as demonstrated by many family albums. Of course a big time studio may pay for better storage conditions... unless they fall on hard times, then who knows what may happen. But in terms of long term archival photographic processes, color separation negatives are the 'best', and I don't know that any films get that sort of treatment ever. (3-stripe Technicolor was a BW negative process, so it 'naturally' was an archival color separation process.) Here's a note on the Technicolor wiki --- Very few of the original camera negatives of movies made in Technicolor Process 2 or 3 survive. In the late 1940s, most were discarded from storage at Technicolor in a space-clearing move, after the studios declined to reclaim the materials. Original Technicolor prints that survived into the 1950s were often used to make black-and-white prints for television and simply discarded thereafter. This explains why so many early color films exist today solely in black and white. --- (So, these film didn't survive more than 20-30 years after their being made...) Most of the 'restored' films coming out have had a lot of DSP work done to recover the negs, if the negs are available. For some the negs, or some shots are 'lost', and have to be replaced with whatever is available. In the case of "Metropolis"(1929), a 'most likely illegal 16mm copy' was found in Argentina, and along with other prings in such places as New Zealand, the current restoration is believed to be 90-95% of the original 'cut' that was shown at its premiere.

My epiphany on Film film came on 2 events... the Hunt brothers attempt to corner the Silver market, driving up 'film' prices, and working in image processing, and even at 640x480 resolutions, realizing that by 4x, 8x, resolution, most 'film' projects could be satisfied. It took about 30 years for the resolutions to be up, the price of equipment down, but it eventually came to pass.

Because you are panning relatively 'fast', you will see more motion blur. I didn't notice any 'extrordinary' bluring, other than one rule of thumb is that an object should take 5 seconds to traverse the horizontal width of the frame. There are exceptions, etc. The other thing is that for most DSLRs, the read out of the sensor is not 'in one entire glump', but in rectangular regions, and this will induce odd artifacts for things in motion.

I would say that Leni Reifenstahl is 'good' for political/sports spectacle. But would probably not bet 'good' for small productions, unless one is shooting local sports. As for 'Once Upon a Time in the West'(1968), better for 'general story telling', but still has some types of shots that are good for big story, and often the pace of the shot is more suited to 'full lenght feature' rather than 'short film'. I don't know that there is any 'one or two' films that would comprise some criteria that is sufficient. I'd say, watch as many movies as one can, and with Beta/VHS/DVD/HDDVD/BD media... everyone can have copies of significant films, and less than significant films, to review in detail.

If a cell phone video camera is all you can do now... learn to use it more effectively. The 'fight scene' was 1) low light, 2) sideways to standard horizontal presentation of moving pictures. T This means you have to 'back up' to get the actors with head and feet in the frame, for a given focal lenght of lens. The shot could have been done in the daytime and most likely would not have impacted the 'story'. There are apps for the iPhone and presumably for the Android phones that allow one more control over 'focus point' and 'exposure value' which are better for simple film making projects than the typical as delivered app from the phone manufacturer. As mentioned in the post above, moving pictures are... moving pictures. So an essentially static shot of one person talking on the phone, is not 'moving pictures', at best it is Illustrated Radio, and even then, old time radio shows would put interesting in sound effects combined with snappy dialog, to create the show. Few film script writers can do sustained 'dialog' for any period of time. Many try to emulate such writers as Tarantino, as an example of a modern writer who does have some talent for long winded dialog, without success. The experiment for you then would be to watch your film in 'silent' mode... if it still makes sense, I think the results would be far better received by viewers.

There is a poster here, Guy Holt, who has a number of posts on the topic of general electrical, generators and lighting. I would strongly advise, not doing anything with a type of power you are unfamiliar with. Since most people don't know what 3-phase, is, or how to wire it, the strongest advice would be to hire a certified electrician to direct any 'wiring' for lights using such. At 4K Watts, my guess would be you need at least a 7K Watt generator. That 'excess' power is often required for start up transients where the equipment draws more power than it's 'average operational' power just to start up. In the US the typical house current supplies either 15 Amps giving 1800 W max, or 20 Amps giving 2400 W max so, I would not use a light that takes more than 1K on a 15 Amp circuit, or 1500 W lights on a 20 Amp circuit. Europe uses 220/240 V at 10 Amps (I think... don't live in Europe, that's what I recall). But in any case, unless you are 'just plugging something into a standard socket... get a certified electrician... And while we are at it... buy liability insurance for your production... and if you are not the producer, get the producer to show proof of insurance coverage.

It's been quite a while since I've watched the film... so it would be helpful if you had a frame grab of the scene you have in mind. In the interest of being helpful... and to me it looks like sunlight and possibly bounce.

Something that has been in the back of my mind in thinking about 'anamorphic lenses', and since I don't have one, nor really have any plans to use one... just for my own edification... In the olden days, one would shoot film with an anamorphic lens. The resulting image on the negative, and subsequent prints would be 'distorted', but during projection an anamorphic lens would be used, and the projected image displayed with out distortion. How does that work in the digital age, since I thought I read that digital projectors are not expected to have anamorphic lenses. Is there some sort of resampling that corrects for the anamorphic lenses such that when projected via an ordinary projection system, the distortion has been dealt with? Or do digital projection systems correct with some anamorphic DSP 'processing' if the media is so marked.

Chalk it up to experience. Next time, think about the 'croping' to the ratio you want, and make a template to cover your monitor/LCD to indicate where the resulting crop lines are. In the NLE then you would crop to the required aspect ratio.

Well... there is no one solution... For fluorescent lighting I'd use white balancing from a 'white' target, which should adjust to the actual light falling on the target. One assumption in all this is the light type is not 'mixed'. If one has a mix of tungsten, daylight, fluorescents, then the only thing one can do is filter lights to a common, or as close as possible, color temperature. On the other hand there may be 'story' reasons to not correct the color temperature, but to give the scene some sort of color cast. For example, a parking lot at night. These days usually illuminated with Sodium vapor lights, which, depending may have a single or a very narrow spectrum of light, centering on 'yellow/orange'. But the existing light is not enough to get a good exposure, so, perhaps one uses tungsten lights to improve the illumination levels. In order to maintain that 'parking lot look', using tungsten lights, one would have to filter the tungsten to a more 'yellow' color temperature to maintain the illusion. This takes some experimentation.

I've had my Minolta Spot meter for about 20 years, and before that I used the Pentax Spot meter. Since I've gotten in to 'moving pictures', I bought the Sekonic L-308DC meter, which has a 'footcandle/lux' read out. Since most pro 'light' data is given in terms of footcandle/lux it makes it easier for analyzing and adjusting lights. I find using a light meter on location scouting to be of benefit as well.

When you 'manually' set the Color Temperature to X Kelvin, there is the assumption that the light is 'tungsten/sun like'. that is has a continuous spectrum from deep reds to near ultraviolet. Flourescent lights do not have a continuous spectrum and may have 'spikes' or even 'holes' in the spectrum. This may affect the resulting color rendition that the camera records given the sensor's sensitivities to R,G,B. Most cameras have the ability to 'white balance' from a target of known 'equal' reflectivities for 'white/grey'. On the other hand using a 'tinted' target can introduce certain casts to the resulting image rather than using an optical filter, or post processing twiddling of color controls. Human vision somewhat quickly adapts to the ambient color cast, and so, while one may notice the redishness of tungsten when coming in from daylight, within a few minutes 'white' looks 'white'...

I was under the impression that a 'director's viewfinder' was intended to be less than setting up an actual camera... with rails and a tripod, that sort of thing seems to fly in the face of the mobility of the director's view finders that I have seen, and at a few K bux for camera+rails+tripod... well why not buy the official director's view finder? On the other hand, having an app on the iPhone like Artemis app, allows one to see approximate angle of views, which pretty closely match the DSLRs that I've had access to, and so, does allow for a light mobile viewing of the location in terms of what the capture camera will actually 'see', as well as record location shots while scouting, with time of day and GPS location info included 'for free'.

In a fit of nostalgia I looked into the DIY processing for 8mm Film. It seems to be a hassle... and one method for removing the black backing was 'through the fingers' (buckets of chemicals were also part of the procedure...). For still film use, with the film cut to 2-3 foot lenghths, probably the 'finger' method would work. But one of the comments was, that 'scratches' and remaning black backing could happen to degrade the negative... In a pro lab I think there's a high pressure water jet that removes the backing as the film is carried through the various tanks for processing. One lab that was mentioned for 'still film' processing of movie film was: http://www.fotokem.com/ Don't know if they still do this sort of thing any more, or if one has to send them a 'bundle' of negative segments for them to fit the still film into their process.

From my experience in still photography, I always like to visit the location, take location shots, and while there, determine the logistics of transporting equipment, power, etc. As for moving pictures, which I tend to only do 'short films', I do make overhead drawings, especially if the location is 'tight', like a house/apartment. As for drawing... hey that's why I took up photography... I've not found a 'cheap' as in 'free' storyboarding piece of software that works well... ok, there was one about 5-6 years ago, which had a 'free' version and a 'pay' version, and a set of models for sale... but the company that produced was bought out, and entire product was taken off the market... but I digress... and needless to say I don't have the bux to spend on something like Frame Forge, which does have some simple animatics capability... Camera tests come into play when there is a location that has some 'issue' such as 'low light', or big sun no shade... Since I own my camera, I can test most of the time, so it is only when some unusual situation, or someone has a camera that I don't have any experience with, like recently someone in the group I'm a member of, bought a Canon C100.

Watch "Mr. Accident"(2000) for ideas...

dupped post...

Masking is tedious, vignetting probably will leave a 'halo'. Sure, you may be able to cut out some large area with a garbage matte, if 'grey' if the area around the subject can be 'crushed' to black. You need about 3-4 stops between the talent and the 'background', and an uncluttered back ground would be 'good', to allow you to adjust the low end of the curve to drop out any residual 'dark objects'. If 'money' is a problem for expensive photo backdrops, black sheets from Target/Walmart or similar department stores will work if doubled up (if one is shooting in the ordinary apartment/house that has light/white walls.). As mentioned, controlling the light so it is only on the subject, and there is no 'bounce' will also add to the 'in camera contrast'.

Is the 'report' function new? Some how I missed it when a bunch of posts on 'poker playing' came up a month or so ago.

Unless someone is given a home work assignment as a school exercise, most likely few people really worry about getting a focal length with any great accuracy... 'that was shot with a wide/normal/telephoto' is usually good enough to under stand what the cinematographer was doing for the shot. These days, at least for stills, a photographer can shoot with a zoom lens, and have the focal length used recorded. The exercise then would be to shoot a bunch of shots at different focal lengths of a subject or series of subjects, then review the images with a mind for the focal length. For self-home work, I find trying to figure out lighting, quality and position, to be more useful.