All Activity

There are a lot of asterisks and "it depends" in any answer to that, but overall, I'd say that if you're spending $4k on a MBP (which updating from the base RAM and SSD would do), if you plan to edit 12k, it might be worth the extra $300 to jump to the bigger chip. It partly depends on how many effects/how much noise reduction, etc. I'd also say that if you're like most people, if you're gonna spend $4k on a laptop, you're going to want it to last for a while. You might factor that in too. Speaking for myself, I bought the lower of the M2 Max chips in my MBP and it's just barely enough to handle 8k Canon raw in Resolve and once I add noise reduction to the clips that need it, export times get pretty slow (like 40 minutes for a 15 minute short). Would having the system be 30% faster help a lot? Not really. 30 minutes to export the clips wouldn't be life changing. You might also consider whether M4 is coming soon - M2 was released in June 2022 and M3 in October 2023. If the M4 is coming, it'll probably have about a 10-15% speed boost over M3 - that or you might be able to get a nice deal on an M3 at that time. Depends on when you're planning to start shooting 12k, I suppose. 😁

I love the way Blaine constructs his videos. Zero fluff. Just tips and tricks the whole time.

M3 Max with 14 vs 16 CPU cores too, but I wonder if that GPU difference will make any of a big gap for 12k footage?

Further to this, I watched a few past videos from Blaine yesterday and this video (while quite chaotic) gives a bunch of pretty interesting examples of how using a Film Emulation of some kind combined with some of the basic Resolve tools can give quick but very effective results: Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is the way he treats Resolve.. he shows that if you know a few techniques then you can get in, make some good adjustments, get a great result, and get out, and move on with your day. It's sort of a rare counter-example of the impression that Resolve is finicky and takes hours and hours, which almost all other colour grading videos give, but isn't true. At it's most basic, you can just apply a LUT to every clip and then make basic adjustments in a node prior to the LUT on each clip and can get great results in a really quick way. This is the way that film-makers grade when they want a result, rather than the way that colour grading YouTubers grade when they're making a YT video about some nuance or other. The section from 5:00 on with the test shots shows that even if the shots weren't filmed well at all, you can get great results quickly with just a few quick techniques.

Cullen Kelly says that the grain and the halation are nicer than the previous separate OFX plugins, so that's promising if you're a connoisseur / picky 🙂

From the videos I've seen on Film Look Creator, I think subtractive saturation and split toning are the things that stuck at to me as most interesting - that and I'm going to need to spend a bit of time with their grain generator to see if I like the output.

I recommend FilmConvert or Dehancer if people like the overall film look but don't want to learn to colour grade - it's a quick and effective solution. Resolve 19 has a new plugin called Film Look Creator included in the paid version that is like FilmConvert / Dehancer except it doesn't model specific film stocks but is designed to give a flexible overall film look. For most people it would be better than FilmConvert or Dehancer just for creating a nice look and not having to learn colour management etc.

Uhhh I know! Maybe this summer when I have more time! The advent of internal LUTs I think will help me on that journey. Seeing what folks have done with Dehancer has been motivating as well.

Yep! Hey - you should look into colour grading! 🙂

Ive seen him make fx3 and c70 look like Arri

Blaine Westropp is also killing it recently.

Well, I dislike HFR as much as the next guy, but the reason he's abandoning it is because of the ecosystemic/economic context within the movie industry which doesn't want to take visual risks with their production investment, not because Ang personally doesn't like HFR. Aside from that, never been sure why he's enamored with the look. I've read his rationale, but it still doesn't jibe. HFR pulls movies way too close to visual "reality" and narrative film are stories. Make 'em ups. Pretend. The nature of 24p's look is a huge asset.

Slight digression from the topic, but unless you really need the flippy screen, you might consider the RX100 V over the ZV-1. The V is even smaller, but weighs just a hair more (probably due to having more metal and less plastic in the body) (and I think the V is cheaper on the used market). The flippy screen was just about the only difference between the two cameras.

I think it's just creators responding to the searches people make. I suspect there are far more searches on "A7S3" than there are on "three point lighting" because if there weren't then why is everyone making equipment videos? It makes sense too. I've just gone down a rabbit hole of searching about the ZV-1, despite it only being idle dreaming about having a slightly smaller camera. Obviously I have searched for many things associated with skills, I've done far more searches that were equipment focused, and despite the fact I'm not in the market for a new camera, for those people who made those videos, a watch / subscribe on a video still counts.

Hey HFR nerds, your two time Oscar winning director pinup boy changed his mind and now says HFR sucks. "You cannot blame audiences for not liking it because it's bad" - Ang Lee https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/ang-lee-bruce-lee-biopic-wont-be-3d-1234969304/

Right. I find it odd when the camera is in the subject line. Unless it's specifically a camera test, then it should be in the description along with the other information about the shoot.

Happy May Earthlings! I had another very busy month, but here's a brand new track for you on my Fantasy 13 page: "TROUBLE IN DREAMLAND" https://soundimage.org/fantasy-13/ As always, it's 100% free to use with attribution, like my thousands of other tracks. Enjoy! 🙂

Spenser Sakurai Tenfold Productions Robert Machado - also deserve a mention.

Not an option for me. I mostly shoot real estate or low budget stuff in rural australia. It's generally not possible to rent, or it makes no financial sense to. But yeah of course if I was doing long form anything, or anything with any sort of budget I'd be renting. I used to live in london. Lee lighting would let you try things, they were fantastic with students. (despite loaning out some dodgy AF gear now and then. Cigarrette foil and the fuse - that kind of stuff 😆

they are pretty cheap too. Since writing I've been poking around and the cheapest I can find are a the nicefoto 600w for A$1400 or the smallrig 450 for $1600. Both a bit more than I was hoping to spend but is anything ever under budget lol

thats great!

My rule of thumb is that if I use an item on 5 or more shoots, buying (and reselling at the end) is cheaper than renting. That's probably fairly conservative too: I usually buy used, so when I sell I get 60-80% of the cost back. I've even sold cameras at a profit after 1-2 years.

Absolutely. Another consideration for some is availability. When I was hanging around reduser.com it became pretty apparent that a common thing was to own a RED (obviously!) and also a set of vintage primes, but to rent modern lenses. The rationale was that often these cinematographers were doing personal projects and having the vintage primes made it so that they had a set on hand for whenever the personal project was able to be scheduled. Quite a few were filming one (or more!) documentaries too, and are essentially on-call so that if something suddenly happens they can grab the camera and go. It was common for these guys to store the camera in a go-bag, often rigged up and sitting next to the front door. Good luck shooting that if you got the call and then had to rent equipment in the middle of the night!! Film-making varies much more person-to-person than most people expect, and logistical factors or aesthetic preferences can easily flip a decision between two different people and their circumstances.

Brady Bessette WanderingDP Crimson Engine Jeven Dovey D4Darious Andyax Lewis Potts Clever Ghost Chili Beyond the game Singularity Film Neal Howland Jimmy on Film Scott Jeschke

@John Matthews While I'm sure you could just put a bit of gaff tape over the contacts and manually program in the focal length you want for IBIS have the camera treat it like a manual lens and get the high stabilization mode, it probably wouldn't be ideal because then you'd also lose aperture control, AF, and most likely the ability to even focus, as I'm assuming it's an electronic/focus-by-wire lens and would need the contacts active to be able to function.