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Has anyone seen footage from a BMPCC on the big screen?


Samuel Berger

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I'm wondering if BMPCC footage looks embarrassing in a theatre or if it just looks like S16.

 

Why would it look embarrassing? It's 1080p material, so how it looks is going to come down to the cinematography + color grade, which has nothing to do with the camera. Resolution wise, it'll look like every other 1080p/2k originated material - and there is a literal TON of it in theaters. Most theaters still project at 2k...

 

And no, I don't think it will look like Super16 film... I think this is a detail of the pocket that many people can't get around --- just because it's a super16 sized sensor, does not mean its going to share any picture quality characteristics with super16 film. 16mm film is grainy, and even with a good scan, will look noticeable less sharp (and probably a lot more grainy) than 1080p material.

 

In my experience, the Pocket produces some amazing looking images. It's no Alexa, but honestly there is nothing 'wrong' with the image it produces, and Blackmagic is probably one of the closest film emulation sensors your going to get, next to Arri.

 

 

I'm guessing it's the Youtube compression but I'm seeing a lot of banding and artefacting in the darker shots.

 

Issues like that are not the camera. You are watching this on an 8-bit 4:2:0 h264 Youtube compression scheme... You can never judge a cameras look based on whats on Youtube or Vimeo or any of those platforms.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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Why would it look embarrassing?

 

Because I'm an idiot. I should just have made my feature film on my BMPCC. But I didn't because back in the day I'd seen projected 1080p footage from Canon 5D Mark II and Rebel T2i cameras and they looked awful so I just assumed the BMPCC would look equally as bad on the big screen. The 5D/T2i filmmakers looked embarrassed during the screenings, because the image quality was bad even if the films weren't.

 

But BONEYARD screened in NYC and no one is saying it looked bad, so now I feel stupid.

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All but one of the Prequel Star Wars was 1080p. But nothing to feel stupid about. Generally, always better to down-rez, but to be honest, I don't think most people would notice 1080p or 2k footage being any different than anything else out there-- especially if the story itself is engaging enough.

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A short film made in Nepal called "The Woodpeckers of Rotha" won the special jury award for cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. One of the filmmakers is a member here.

 

Amazingly, they shot it with a BMPCC in HD and scaled it up to 2K. It looks great!

 

here's the trailer: https://youtu.be/Ysrb0oW7_-o

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