Jesse Frank

I do agree with you on many of those points. Something that I thought was odd is how much I related to the cinematography in this film. What I mean by that is if I had been asked to be the cinematographer, I would have shot it very similarly. Now if I had been the director, I do not believe the film would be any better, I actually believe it would be worse. The reason I say that is because I am stuck in this mentality of cool shots equals great movie. The few short films I've made in the past have lacked in any kind of a decent script. Normally when I watch movies I get caught up in the framing and exposure instead of the story. I cut studios way too much slack in the script area, simply because I am terrible at writing and its not my expertise. We are in the age of pointless sequels and prequels. Jack Reacher 2 was just another cash grab. Since we are talking about this, I'd like to hear your say on Jason Bourne. It's probably the worst film I've seen since Transformers. (Thank you for replying to my post, because frankly I need to hear other peoples opinions)

I saw the second Jack Reacher a couple weeks ago, and I've been hearing a lot of negative feedback about the film since then. Personally I enjoyed the film very much, but I would very much like to hear the opinions of others. I'm not here to judge anyone about why they didn't enjoy the movie, but I am here to understand what modern audiences and filmmakers are looking for in a big budget film. I saw To Kill A Mocking Bird just last night, and LOVED it! Truly a masterpiece, both in cinematography and in performances. Jack Reacher doesn't hold a candle to it obviously.

LED 4k LG. Great picture, and you can disable frame smoothing so it looks normal.

Have you heard of media zilla?

So, I've been in the wedding videography business for about 8 years now. We for the most part have always delivered on DVD. For a brief time we delivered in bluray, but the discs never worked in our customers players. I want to deliver in a bluray format, and I'm convinced that DVD architect Pro 6 is at this point obsolete for burning bluray discs, as they have never worked. I've talked to Magix support as well as Adobe for help on this issue, but there is no direct support line for Magix, and Adobe has disowned Encore calling it obsolete. So my question is are bluray discs obsolete? If they are, then what is the alternative? Because as much as I've looked I have yet to find any piece of software that is designed for professional bluray disc authoring. Which leads me to believe that people are delivering on USB. However I have yet to find ANY software that allows me to put chapter markers on a Mp4 files, much less any kind of menu system. Note: I rent bluray discs from Redbox weekly. It's not like I'm talking about some ancient vinyl record set that's super rare. I shoot in 4k, at 24p. The only difference between me and Hollywood is they have Raw video and I don't.

I think it was me who posted about the RED user. I was getting googly eyed about the RED raven, but still out of my budget.

I'm not sure that anyone has realized this yet, but there is the potential for someone to have their feelings hurt. Not that there is anything wrong with that, however I believe that we might have strayed away from the original question. We can go on about who or what is the most important part of filmmaking, but at the end of the day we have to ask ourselves who is going to watch our film? Recently I was fired from my position as a cinematographer on a project that was and still is very dear to my heart. I could go into a lot of detail as to how this happened, but all you need to know is that I will be doing all I can to support this project. Mind you that I wasn't fired because of my lack of expertise or ignorance in the field of cinematography. I was fired because I didn't understand who was in charge. I was there only to shoot the film, not to direct it. In this instance the writers had control over what occurred with this project, not me. With that said I have seen many student films that have delivered beautiful cinematography and sound to the big screen, however despite the advanced technical abilities of these individuals I have many a times stopped watching these films not because of bad sound, or lighting, or cinematography, but story. A $40,000 ALEXA is worthless if there is no story to be told. Another reason why I was fired was due to my OCD kicking in during very simple tasks. Over obsessing over miniscule details that neither benefited the project, nor took away from it, but rather created a very stressful working atmosphere. All of these details were technical, neither creative or story driven, and it cost me. But as I said in the beginning of this post that it is all for naught if nobody will watch the film. There has to be some element that keeps the audience involved in what is occurring other than a nice visual. Films like Transformers or Fast And Furious use visual beauty to keep the audience. Beautiful cars, beautiful women, beautiful destruction and visual effects are the only things these movies have going for them. Now despite the various reasons why people get involved in this line of work, everyone wants their work to be appreciated. We all want to make our Mona Lisa that will be talked about for generations to come. That's one of the reasons why I'm on this forum; to learn how to make my films better. Here is the facebook page at facebook.com/theoffenderfilm

Most of the time, overhead lighting results in dark shadows under the eyes. Which in some cases may be the look you are going for. For instance let's say I'm making a romantic film about a young couple living in New York City. The husband has a great job, while the wife stays at home and runs a wedding videography business. The overall tone of this film is happiness and fulfillment, so the cinematography and lighting should reflect that as much as possible. Warm tones and no hard or dark shadows. However, let's say the husband gets involved in an affair with a woman who works for the chinese mafia. The husband then is taken to a dark interrogation room deep in the heart of the chinese...you get the idea. Overhead lighting here would be perfect. Then, the wife has to go back to her old way of life as a hitwoman. So throughout all the gunshots and ass kicking, very dramatic lighting and cinematography would be used. Now I make wedding films, and overhead lighting is a killer for a romantic mood. Why churches use harsh overhead incandescents is beyond me. Here is an example of one: So it is all dependant on what mood you want. I use as much natural lighting as possible, as long as it caters to the film I'm making.

So let me clear something up real quick. I'm not a cinematographer, but that is what I would like to be after I get my associates degree. Technically I'm just a kid who loves to make movies. Thank you all for your feedback.

I could care less about the weight. The pre-order option is available on B&H, but I will wait until some more reviews come out for the camera. There are crap tons of people online that have the URSA mini 4.6k. From what I can tell it looks like a good camera, I just am sick of rolling shutter. The idea of owning a RED is amazing. But I don't feel that the modularity of RED is worth the price. I have seen tests with the Scarlett and BM Production camera, and BM does a phenomenal job of capturing so much detail without it looking sharpened. Thanks again for all of you guys chiming in. I have to save money to buy some lights, so the URSA will have to wait...for now

Thanks to all of you for giving me your advice. I have been turning a blind eye to Blackmagic for some time now, but I guess my question now is how does everyone like the Blackmagic URSA 4.6k (Not the mini mind you, the big boy)? It doesn't look like it comes with a viewfinder, but can you attach one?

So I've been looking at RED cameras. But I don't plan on getting one anytime soon as I'm a little low on the financial side of things. As far as RED cameras go, I'm specifically looking at the RED Raven. 4K at 120 fps RAW! What more could I ask for? Despite all the wonderful features of the RED Raven, I still have some doubts. First of all, the dragon sensor has rolling shutter. Not a lot of rolling shutter, but enough to be very noticeable in fast pans. Granted nobody would ever pan too quickly, but getting handheld shots like Paul Greengrass is tricky without seeing the wobble. After getting my Gh4 I never shoot handheld in 4K. This may not be an issue for most of you, but I love to shoot handheld. Second issue is hard drive space. I've spoken with a representative at RED about this, and was told about the relatively small RAW files that RED outputs. I have no problem buying new hard drives, I just would like some kind of bench mark for how big a feature film could get shooting 5:1 RAW on a RED? So far I've looked at Blackmagic as an alternative, but it doesn't seem like all the issues have been fixed with their cameras. I've heard about the black sun spot and patterned noise, and it scares me a little. I love my Gh4. But I feel like that if I'm going to spend any money on equipment, its going to go towards a camera that I can shoot with for years to come...or until 4K becomes obsolete. Any thoughts and advice would be much appreciated.

I went through all the recommended settings by pilotfly with no luck. When you do get it in, PM me if it works. I've already sent it back to B&H. When I first got the gimbal, everything seemed pretty normal other than a distinct wobble on the pitch axis. Any movement that I made was seen in the pitch axis, no matter how slow I walked. All the other axis were fine. So I went online and found a particular user that had put his PID settings online. I immediately went in to apply these settings, since the smoothness of the image he was getting was better than a steadicam. However, this worsened the problem. Now all axis were acting weird. I could feel a very strong vibration in the handle. So then I turned to pilotfly. While they were very diligent to respond to my questions during the weekend, their suggestions made my H2 perform like a handheld footage simulator. Pilotfly put me through the paces as far as numbers go. I saw your suggestion for the filters and the LPF value, but it seems that everything that I did with those numbers caused my gimbal to perform even worse. I put a lot of research into this product before purchase, and have been very disappointed. Despite all that, Pilotfly has the best customer service that I have ever seen. Their support team is based out of Germany, so many a time they were getting off work as I was waking up in the morning. They were very prompt about responding to my emails, so if you have any issues do contact them. I'd like to say that after this bad experience I know more about gimbals. But I don't. In fact I'm more confused than ever. Thanks for the reply.

Hey guys, Just got in a Pilotfly H2 for my GH4, and I'm having trouble. There is excessive wiggle and vibration on the camera, but I am under the weight limit. There is hardly any information on these things right now because they are so new, but I figured I would see if anybody here owns one. Thanks, Jesse

Hey, what do ya'll think of this? This is one of my recent experiments that I did to test the limits of my Panasonic GH4. Please provide me with as much critiquing as possible, as this was a learning experience.