Grant Perkins

 

A simple process can be interchangeable with film or digital. If you get the lab to do a HD prores transfer of the 16mm - once the material is transferred you can treat it the same way in your edit as you would with digital originated footage.

 

Are you going to hire an editor or do you plan to cut yourself?

Well, I am still putting together my professional (ha!) editing suite; which is a project in of itself. Specwise, I'm told (translation: researched from countless youtube bloggers) that it competes with any pro setup. I previously worked with Premier Pro and got pretty comfortable with working on DSLR 1080p footage and was able to put together a couple student shorts on the Macs in the lab.

I was hoping(dreaming, wishing) to shoot on S16mm because I absolutely hate the image quality of the shorts that are shot on video However, shooting on the 70D, I could just take out my card, stick in the computer, and then I edit away.

Is there no painless way to shoot on film?

On my edit bay, the workflow is the same between digital and film.

 

- OCN Colored and transcoded to a proxy media in DaVinci (1080p Pro Res)

- Audio synched in Avid

- Project edited

- OCN re-linked in DaVinci to AAF out of Avid (XML out of Premiere/Final Cut)

- Grade and SFX work done

- OMF output for audio work and proxy 1080p cut exported for audio

- Mate audio with picture in DaVinci and export final output (Pro Res XQ, DNXHR, DCP)

 

 

Thank you for your reply. I put it though Google Translate just so I'd know what you're talking about. The response was what I guessed it would say: "Hire a professional." :wacko:

 

The point of going to film school (esp if your paying 100k fee's) is to get as much stuff out of them as possible.

 

 

Man oh man you couldn't be more correct -- definately worthy of another thread!

I wasted my time and money at film school not going with the attitude that I was basically buying a "gym membership" at a movie studio. What's worse, is that it was overseas, so I didn't have the connections with the school to get a gig out of there and my classmates were scattered worldwide so I couldn't hook up with them to put together out first projects, networking, etc.

For all the editors who are hiding out in this forum :ph34r: ....I was wondering if film is actually cheaper to once you got to post than video.

Specifically, can you outline the difference in workflow between a Super16mm workflow vs shooting in 4k(or even 2k) and finishing on the accepted digital projection format(or 35mm)?

My guess is that film would come out a bit cheaper and easier to manage for the beginner. Quite counter-intuitive I know, but digitial non-linear editing appears to be a black hole which swallows all of your budget.$10K!

I'm betting that a 10:1 shooting ratio on Super16, comes out cheaper than a shoot-it-'til-people-threaten-to-leave:1 shooting ratio on video.

Can anyone comment on this?

$98 an hour isn't too shabby! That's almost the day rate for actors! They'll easily be the highest paid people on most productions: videos, shorts, indies.

Low Budget, Tier One and Tier Zero rates are by negotiation for both DPs and Operators.

So IATSE will allow you accept any wage for a production to keep it "union"?

Any members of the Southern California guild know what the minimum rate is for Low Budget Theatrical for cinematographer or camera operator is?

Does this rate apply to "short films" as well?

I think more the question should be.. can the DoP sue the producer for making a crappy film out of their rushes.. !

Ha! Well my question was to them, "What the @#$%&! were you thinking?!"

(Actually they weren't bad they just didn't look great -- and in L.A. looks are everything. They had "nice personalities". :rolleyes: )

It being film fests, and indie films, you have no idea the budgetary levels they were working under--- nor the skill of the crews therein. And yes, if you are the producer, you take and assume all risk; you can mitigate that, of course, but you get all risk and all reward from the movie and if you're not looking at the footage nightly and bringing up the problems to the crew, and working with them (up to and including letting them go) well then that's the producer's own fault.

I once had a producer complain to me about a lens flare. He didn't want to pay me over it (personally I liked it) to which I said to him (in front of the person who I think really had the problem with the flare) that he was literally right there next to me at the monitor looking at it, take after take, and didn't mention a thing.

Right, and if a camera is damaged or lights or a generator, by anyone on the set, a claim is made against the producer's production insurance and (hopefully) the production continues. Producers carry insurance for such an event.

But what about when the film image is damaged? Whether it came out blurry or someone changed a reel incorrectly and exposed a reel(as happened on one of my student shoots!)?

Short films, indie films don't have the luxury of eating a days production, so I'm sure that why I saw so many mistakes in the final products -- it was either that or nothing.

But how does this play out with bigger ticket things like commercials and music videos that are typically shot in one day? If the next day the producer sees something wrong with the footage, how is that mitigaged? (With the particular scenario you described, was that on film or video? if film, would it even be possible to see that imperfection on the video monitor?)

Is it customary that at a cinematograher has insurance that covers such an event ? Or is this is a risk on any size or budget production that there is no such insurance for?

I'm still trying to figure out how a poor student came across 10 grand to blow on a short film....

That's nothing, we blow way more than 100 grand on film school alone! :unsure:

You'd struggle putting a decent 3 minute music video together for 10 grand, and that's to launch a single. Imagine trying to launch a career with a 15 minute narrative, and only 10 grand to pay for it?

I guess poor is relative. :rolleyes:

How could a producer sue a crew for an entire movie being out of focus? The first thing that would come up is dailies -- "what did you do as producer when you first noticed that dailies were consistently soft?"

 

It also doesn't make much sense for 75% of a final movie to be out of focus when considering the cut only represents a small percentage of the total footage shot, and you assume that the best footage made it into the movie.

This were "film festival" films, so you can extrapolate what the constraints may hay been that forced the producer to use whatever was shot to deliver a product.

But besides firing people, can the producer recoop a days filming costs from the Cinematographers, I dunno, E & O insurance? Say if....that DP insisted on being paid as a company? And.... he supplied his own camera crew as part of that deal?

Were these student films?

 

This was at a film festival. So there may have been a couple of student films slipped in but I don't think so -- based on the age of crew & cast and the apparant budgets.

(I should note that this problem was not evident on the foreign films! :o )

Wow...

I just sat through slew of films that had anywhere from 10 - 75(!) percent of the film that was out of focus :blink:.

A nightmare scenario for a low-budget producer (or any, I might add) would be to see that the dalies are unusable because they were just blurry.

It didn't stop those intrepid producers (God bless 'em!) but the question now arises:

What aspect, if any, of insurance would cover such a gaff(er)?

E & O?

General Liability?

The completion bond?

Or does the production just "eat it" and move on?

Anyone have any experience with dealing with such an issue?

 

You'll have to spend way more than 10k to get any tax benefits/credits ... anywhere.

Thank you for that Ed, you made this student do a bit of research on production credits.

I've found a link which does list state production incentives here:http://www.filmproductioncapital.com/taxincentive.html

After perusing that link, I followed up with the good people in New Mexico: http://nmfilm.com/Summary_1.aspx

I had a wonderful conversation with their Incentive Controller, to whom I detailed my no-budget production. She gave me examples of the incentives and detailed some of the expenses that would be eligible, including 25% for post-production, She assured me that there was "no minimum" for qualified productions, even giving me the example that if I spent $100 on a hard drive, I could be eligible to get $25 of that back if I only shot even for just a day. It was quite a sales pitch!

Ed, did you have some negative experience with New Mexico or some other state that I should be aware of? Because the information you've provided does not at all seem correct.

LLCs!

Thank you for that info Adrian, I did a search and found out that California has the HIGHEST annual LLC fee in the country -- YIKES!

For a poor 'lil student like me, that no longer seems like a practical option.

But this was an interesting bit of information:

https://www.llcuniversity.com/llc-annual-fees-by-state/

What is your opinion on simply forming the LLC in other states? Would this not make also make me eligible for that state's production incentives as a resident(company)?

I'm in L.A., but good to know if I branch out to London.

INSURANCE!

This is a dry run -- so to speak -- for a feature so I want to encounter(learn) as much as I can while risking as little as I can.

I can't beleive I let that one elude me, thanks Mr.Phillips I will definately be picking that up.

While we're on that subject, I was going to form a production company for the film, and put the insurance through that. The company wouldn't be just only for this film but for subsequent ones (but if the film doens't do anything, then I guess I"ll fold it),

Any insights on forming a company to make a film?

So for a 15 minute short I'm budgeting 10k for the whole project.

I will write,direct, and edit so that part is "free".

It's three characters, four locations, and an extra or two.

Based on your experience, where should this money be spent?

Any feedback is appreciated!

I just saw the new Mission Impossible film last night and I thought it was one of the WORST looking films with that high a budget.

A few minutes in I nearly called the usher to tell the projectionist that it was out of focus.

The first few scenes had these reflections all over the image, as if just prior they cleaned the lense with Windex and were getting all kinds of glare and rainbowy things.

Nearly every scene with a light or a window, had this wildly unnatural glow like a roman candle -- a firework -- a flare -- whatever you call it.

The scene in the underground tunnel where they set up Superman was sooo grainy and blured it looked like it was shot with a 90s era home video camera (and not to any sylish effect like "28 Days Later").

Other scenes were literally smudgy -- out-of-focus!

I honestly think they showed us the 3-D version and forgot to hand out the glasses. (This particular theater screens both versions) That would explain everything!

I"m going to call the theater later and ask if that is indeed what happened. But I don't know if I could sit through the whole thing again in 3-D... :wacko: