Policar

7 hours ago, User said:

Policar:
It's a feature doc for theatrical and broadcast.
My plan was to to transcode the 1.25TB to a 4TB HGST drive., converting to ProRes (standard) it should just about fit.
Good to hear that one will not lose the super whites as I see that there is often detail hiding up there.

Don:
I remember seeing your post when it first appeared. Thanks for putting that together.
I don't use the Mercury Playback Engine GPU as it has been nothing but trouble since I switched from FCP7 to PPro in 2013. Maybe there is a fix but everything I've tried over time never worked so it's been OpenCL all the way.
In the project I'm building, I already have XDCam, H264 and Prores and I agree with you that I haven't see that big a difference working with that material except maybe in simple things like scrubbing. Thanks for the straight and narrow.

Glad it's a doc and not narrative. Otherwise you'd be in David Fincher territory.

That's a close fit for 4GB. Maybe 6TB would be better? Where's your scratch disk? I agree no need for 422 HQ. If you're concerned about super whites, definitely choose extended range to flatten the image and bring them back in legal range. That said, if 422 standard is 8 bit and you shot Canon Log you might be getting a bit too flat for an 8 bit finishing codec. Guessing it's not the end of the world, though.

Hope it goes well.

What are you cutting that is 120 hours of footage? How will you store all that.

ProRes cuts WAY faster than AVCHD. 

I use 422 (not HQ for that much footage)

rec709

full range (though FCP does broadcast range by default and both will work, but full range will look flatter and not lose super white detail in RGB conversion.

No post-processing or gamma correction (1.0 is fine).

1 hour ago, Raafi Rivero said:

With a client I make sure to specify in the contract how many rounds of notes there will be. Two is typical, some may ask for three. And for lower-budget projects we'll get it in writing that there will only be one round. It helps to make sure that when the client is giving you notes they actually have something to say, or that there's someone on the client side responsible for making sure that everyone who's supposed to weigh in does weigh in, and that person collates the notes more effectively. It is also good leverage to have it specified in a contract so that, for instance, each additional round of notes costs X, or each day of work on additional rounds costs X amount. Without having that break, some clients will go overboard asking for "little" changes again and again. You want to make sure that with notes they're really serious or their willing to pay to go over. It doesn't have to feel draconian. Sometimes a gentle reminder in the process can help prod the client to be focused, "we only have one more round of notes specified in the contract, so please make sure everyone has seen or weighed in." Specifying the number of rounds of notes also helps you bid, budget, and schedule jobs more effectively.

With feedback on creative projects it is crucial to cultivate a group of people and/or collaborators whose taste you trust. Online, you never know what some bozo is going to say, especially if they have no connection to you or the project. Online feedback tends to be more negative, and people rarely balance positive feedback with negative as people who know you will tend to do. That said, you also don't want to only share the work with friends who will only tell you good things. That kind of echo chamber can be equally limiting.

You should have specific points in the process where you're looking for feedback. After a polished first draft of a script, say, after a few more drafts. After a rough cut, etc. Sometimes, especially with personal projects, you're not always at a stage when feedback is necessary or useful. Be sure that you're confident that you're not wasting your (or the other person's) time when soliciting feedback. Like, you really just wanted someone to tell you that it's awesome and weren't really looking for notes. Sometime's it's even helpful to have a questionnaire: what did you think of this character? is the turkey joke working? what did you think of the end?, etc. so that you're targeting the feedback to areas of the project you're worried about or looking to improve.

Again, I think the key is to cultivate a group of people with differing viewpoints, whose taste (and work) you trust to give feedback. It might not always be the same group for each project. Or for whatever stage you are in the project. But getting the right kind of feedback, at the right points in the process is essential to honing your ideas.

Makes a lot of sense. The last part you wrote is totally true, figuring out how to achieve that, though, seems harder.

37 minutes ago, Zach Goodwin said:

However, you still can not beat the excellence of dramatic storytelling other than the new short film I formally directed... It won so many awards you would not believe it and it even made it to the news.

This sums up my feelings on your short:

http://www.shanesnow.com/blog/2014/9/6/why-its-hard-to-recognize-genius

1 hour ago, mkabi said:

Working for a client, I think that going through the idea building and script stage to be the hardest.

I mean, at first they will smile and nod at the ideas you are passing to them, then you get an okay to write a script, but after some thought, and you have written the short... they hate it.

I've been through a couple of them, where not only did I write up a script... some of those scripts are still stored away to be used later.

During the filming and editing stage, normally the client is more than happy with how the vision is playing out. Usually I get anyone involved to participate in my filming and editing phase... so they are happy with the end result.

Normally, from product development point of view... any project.... not just video, but software, home renovation, prototype creation, etc.

If you get the client deeply involved from the start, they will love the end result no matter what.... because they have invested so much time and effort in it.... its their baby.

The only problem with personal projects, and in the end, many projects end up being personal projects.... is that you take a lot longer to complete it, because you have no deadline...

So, unlimited feedback, until you get annoyed??? lol.

 

I don't produce my own videos, although I might some day. Keeping your client on board throughout is a really smart tactic, and I hadn't considered how it works that way. What I'd always figured was never reveal your hand too early, but that makes sense as the flip side, in terms of managing expectations and keeping the vision consistent.

For personal projects do you screen them for friends? If it's a spec ad or something I would, but what about a family video or short film you wanted to show to other people at work or something? I wouldn't dare post a rough cut on YouTube, I figure the comments would be negative for something that's not meant for that audience. But I also figure if I'm going to show it to people outside those who worked on it, I should consider what they have in mind.

When you’re working for a client, how many rounds of feedback do you allow them? Or unlimited within reason?

Before you send an edit to a client, how many people review your edit (either internally or colleagues)? Your grade? Your comp? Your sound mix? Do you review with an audience?

Whose notes do you find most useful? Friends? More distant acquaintances? Experts? Online notes? Anonymous people online? Colleagues? Competitors?

When working on a short film (personal project), do you ask for notes? From whom? Has anyone tried posting a rough cut on YouTube to shape a project's development? I feel like that would turn out too impersonal and generic, there is an interesting Weezer songwriting experiment that turns out this way but not badly. Very interesting. 

I think a big advantage of working for an agency and/or going to film school is the feedback you get, the normalizing influence. Ideally not diluting your vision, but making sure it comes across to others. The internet seems like a great place for feedback in concept, but I suppose ultimately it's more your audience, not your creative group, online.

How much feedback do you get on work before sending it to its audience? How many rounds of notes do you tolerate/expect from clients?

What about on personal projects?

13 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

It depends a lot on how it is "worse". If it has higher self noise, or worse handling noise, or etc etc then all of that is bad news. But if it has a slightly wider pick up pattern, then that is not necessarily "bad" news, but could be "good" news for some people (not me though). 

Exactly. A wider pick up pattern and better behavior off axis would be a nicer mic for me because when I'm chasing "good enough" I also don't have the budget to bring on a dedicated recorder/mixer. But it wouldn't be better for the high end–not at all. And yet it would still be good enough for most purposes in good hands, and even better for those whose budget is $289. Sounds cool. A good back up for the high end and an even better mic for the low end if it's something like that.

(Btw, I own a 416. And love it. Really beautiful sound. But unforgiving.)

44 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

hahaha, well that is obvious!
But would have been funny if their "A7" monitor was a small 5 inch one to match the use of it for the A7 cameras ;-) :-P 

So it is like a slider/jib? Nifty! But damn does that look ultra WEIRD!!

http://www.came-tv.com/cameaccordion-p-820.html

How do you know it is "VERY comparable" to the Senn 416? That is a BIG ask! Could you find out its name?
Doing a search for their current products did nothing:
http://www.adorama.com/l/Video-Equipment/Audio-for-Video/Aputure~Video-and-Shotgun-Microphones

It's new so I wouldn't expect it to be listed. But definitely a tall order. Even the NTG-3 isn't 416 quality. The 416 is the benchmark. 

Even if it's close enough it's cool to have good quality that anyone can afford, although it takes a more skilled operator to use a 416 than an NTG-3 etc. "Better" often also means "harder to use well." So something a bit worse but more forgiving at $289 would possible even be a bigger hit. 

7 minutes ago, Zach Goodwin said:

Okay. My bad.

It's not, but just don't take things too personally. I do, and look at what trouble it gets me in.

I'm dead serious about the best thing I ever shot being on a t2i btw. I was lucky enough to shoot an ad for NBC on an Alexa and MK-V after that (based on showing the t2i video to a client) and it wasn't nearly as good because I didn't have enough time to control. Maybe next time it will be better. But anyone who judges you on your camera has nothing better to be judged by than theirs. And a camera costs money, not talent.

I still try to recommend certain things to people based on their needs. Unfortunately, money is usually the main one for most people. I remember going to a ramen restaurant where everyone had to speak their dreams, it was a cute place with that theme–and 9/10 they were to get a full time job. Which is to say, to have someone else's approval, financially and in terms of self-worth. But these people lacked the money and approval not to need it, and that's most of us. If you can be true to yourself, and not your client or the internet, more power to you. But at the same time, that's a luxury, and so I feel the only answer is see everyone's point of view.

As storytellers, the goal we should all have is to worry about hiring the best DP instead of buying the best camera. Or being the DP who can choose any camera. People are always worth more than gear.

But we have time to get there and until then, our needs are our own.

7 minutes ago, Zach Goodwin said:

My problem is that at times you act like you want to sell things to people. As if you work for the company. The Run and Gun thing has also been a prevalent excuse here. Want to know real Run and Gun? Try visiting a distant foreign country where hardly anybody can even afford an expensive camcorder like the ones you offer so they have to deal with handy cams, MiniDv camcorders, DSLRs, and mirrorless cameras to affors. Or why not here in the U.S. where in certain areas crime rate is extremely high and as a result working poor levels rise.

I live and work in video production in the city (within the US, to be fair) with the most visible gap between the rich and poor. Where the highest percentage of non-family non-married adults live in group housing because the ratio of income to cost of living is the highest in the country. You may or may not live in a lower income area, but you don't live in an area where it's harder to support yourself. Neither of us lives in a "distant foreign country," and we should be happy for that and keep it in mind.

Not everything I post is targeted toward you. I shot my best work on a t2i, but I made more money once I bought a more expensive camera. If I were to recommend the best creative tool that would be different from the best financial one. Any post here is an implicit recommendation, I just try to get to the point.

My only recommendation for you is to take things online less personally (that post wasn't targeted toward you), and spend more time on filmmaking. It's the same thing I wish I could do myself and am trying to do. Apologies for offending you or making any sleazy companies more profit. I'm just trying to help.

1 hour ago, Zach Goodwin said:

Sure of course, KUBRICK DID YOU CATCH THAT?!

 

Kubrick: "No... I'm still using 400 ASA on this 35mm camera..."

He was using less far less than that!

(Up until Eyes Wide Shut, my second favorite Kubrick movie, which was pushed a ton.)

Zach, you're the smartest guy on the forum so you should understand this: not every low end pro has 100+ takes and an effectively unlimited budget like Kubick had at his best. Even he didn't have them early in his career. And we low end pros need our training wheels because we need to pay rent and we don't get our measly day rate when they fall off and we pull the light meter out in from of the groom and knock him off his feet on his first dance on our wedding video. To be fair, yeah, we aspire to be better some day, but reality gets in the way when you need to pay bills. And to reject that need to get by is frankly classist: it's favoring a silver spoon over inventing a new method for mining silver.

I apologize for offending you. I honestly think you're the smartest and most insightful person on the forum and you have the potential to be the next Kubrick yourself, but that you shouldn't be caught up in basic stuff like this either! Nor should you be offended. 

And my personal advice to you: Kubrick had training wheels at first, too. You're young and you're clearly precocious, undeniably the smartest person here and with the most potential to be a great filmmaker. But I doubt you're faced with some of the reality people shooting wedding videos are. In competitive markets, $40k is the bare minimum to survive your first year and $100k is a living wage your second or third and thereafter (and that's in profit, not sales). I know you're a brilliant film theorist and potentially an all-time great director. But can you do that while paying the bills? Matthew Weiner was broke every year before Mad Men; his wife was supporting him completely.

So forgive other people for compromising when they have to. Forgive us for being dumber than you. All I want is to help anyone find what they need at the moment. So their next moment can be better. And while I'm not as smart as you, I feel like I can help other people getting into the low end market to pay bills, and in my experience certain tools are more reliable than others in that quest. 

And read my post, I wrote "production ready for low end pros." And that artists and high end pros would either be using Alexas or spending the time to get the best out of what they have because they can. You're the smartest guy here, you must have caught that. You're also not a "low end pro." You're better than that. And I'm hurt that you'd insult me for just trying to advise someone who's not you. Someone who's needs are lower, but no less important to him as yours.

You've proved you're brilliant in your insight on filmmaking. Now prove it in your behavior. I'm hurt and disappointed. 

On April 16, 2016 at 9:24 PM, Zach Goodwin said:

 

16 minutes ago, squig said:

Well if you think booting an extra app is complicated then it's complicated. In actual fact it couldn't be any easier; no need to transcode like the bad old H.264 days.

Where's your waveform monitor? Playback? Reliable focus peaking? Timecode sync?

It's getting easier to use, but isn't production-ready in the way low end pros need. The image is great, though. It's just still an artist and high end pro thing using 5D RAW. When the producers clamor around video village and demand playback, what do you do? An Alexa is trivially more per day and it plays back (even applies LUTs for playback) just fine.

Also, I'm pretty sure you do need to transcode. Neither blu ray nor DCP read back .dng and and it's not a native finishing format obviously, if 5D raw even goes straight to .dng yet. (But what is native–everything h264 or prores even–goes through Resolve or Nucoda–before delivery–or Lustre, but I am still on the low end so it's usually Resolve or Nucoda.)

24 minutes ago, Ebrahim Saadawi said:

Believe it or not It's the same 4096x2160 s35 sensor in all these cameras.

So when shooting in RAW they all give the same output, but are differentiated in their image quality by their internal codecs (24mbps AVCHD on the FS700, 8bit 4:2:0 XAVC-L on FS5, 10bit 4:2:2 XAVC-I on the FS7, and the F5 kind of internal raw as it integrates with the recorder. However the F5 and F55 have a 16bit colour depth output to the Sony R5 recorder while the FS700/FS5/FS7 are 12bit to note. 

Seems like this puts the FS5 back into the "hell of a deal if you're chasing image quality" category and out of the "somewhat broken" category. Plus, good ergonomics and a good enough image for some corporate videos anyway.

I recently worked on spot shot on C500 with the Q7 and a GH4. The GH4 was actually more pleasing out of the box because it handled saturation over luma better than the RAW to prores profile on the Q7/C500 (normally one of Canon's strengths when it uses a baked in profile correctly avoiding chroma clipping).

There's a post on reduser about this... about the Alexa's mathematically perfect grasp on saturation to luminosity... which only matters if you're chasing film, which is worse than the eye anyway, and isn't that the stated goal? (I'm a hack, so I love this about the Alexa, but the poster there, a true artist, did not.) Using a better profile on the Q7 to prores... you're going to get a lot of bang for the next to no money. Sony's biggest problem is their saturation to luma curve, because it's the hardest to correct in post (I've talked with only one person here who could correct for it, I bet most people can't because even Company 3 can't); if the Q7 can be set to fix that–a different setting from the C500 setting that ended up being used–it will offer something "close enough to great" even as prores to be graded into "freaking great"–and with more flexibility than those with a better starting point at a lower bit depth (Canon... maybe even Arri, but again, my preferences are for Alexa over everything because I just like what's easy).

This is great news for people like those on this forum... those who are less concerned with awkward workflows and more adherent to the best for the least. Could be cool.

3 hours ago, Zach Goodwin said:

In terms of noise properties The RED can be just as bad as any canon camera. In fact here is a scene from Dredd which used a RED camera: 

 The Beginning part with the security camera was shot with it.

So true.

The rest, which is really clean, was also shot with Red Mx, though, and it just proves that lighting and post matter 10000X more for grain than what camera you're using. In my experience, the Red MX is noisier at given settings than Canon and with worse color (but better resolution and more bit depth).

But yeah, the 5D Mark III has a strong enough OLFP that you don't need another one! Good image there. Complicated workflow.

5 hours ago, Zach Goodwin said:

Okay now I am beginning to sound like a conspiracy theorist... GOING BACK TO REALITY. What I meant to say is simply this. A panavision is sharp at T/1 just as much as a Canon Cine Lens at T/5.6 so that gives cinematographers leg room in lighting. Now why expensive cameras? Same reason, more leg room with dynamic range and a lot of others.

 

What I am trying to tell people is that they don't need to worry about that leg room, because I am like them with my DSLR still.

Also guys if you have a way sharper than normal lens than most people, you do know you have more flexibility at F/1.4 or F/1 than most other lenses would. Hence why people use terms like "wide open." However where gear matters is the amount of flexibility you get with the depth of field at F/1.4 in comparison to others.

The one person with any sense on this forum (even if Primos are actually t1.9). 

Everyone else should bow down to this wisdom, even if it's bereft of detailed accurate tech specs. What matters is the wisdom and thoughtfulness, which we lose in the fast-paced digital era in favor of looking at resolution lines on a brick wall. (Citizen Brick Wall and Brickwalsablanca and Wizard of Resolution Chart never got far in the box office or among critics.)

Exactly. 100%. 

5 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

That large, boring market, like entry-level DSLRs for stills, drives the market. Best not to write it off, because it affects all of us.

I'm not writing it off. It's a huge market. I even personally traded up from entry-level DLRs to a C100 first chance I had, which I paid off quickly and now use for occasional paychecks and mostly for fun and promotional work for myself. I love that camera, and I even was really happy with my old Canon dSLRs. The ergonomics are fantastic, image seems great to me, too, all that i need 90% of the time, but it rents poorly tbh. And I meanwhile watched friends with C300s pull a constant $600-$1000/day and do some work that looked great to me–and that's still vastly less than high end shooters making $10k dry per day and using a rented Amira someone else paid for.

But low end pros represent a boring market despite their prevalence. The epitome of "good enough." Shooters with lower aspirations and vastly less skill than most here have. Canon pros are just journeyman shooters who are content to pay rent and for whom $10-$20k/month shooting branded content is worth more than artistic integrity. Meanwhile, the shooters here aspire to beat Oscar-winners at their own game with a thousandth the budget, and many here own production companies billing seven figures in revenue and hundreds of thousands in profit a year but who still aren't content with the banal images they're getting it seems from lenses like this. To me, this lens seems like a great product for the price and one I'd love to use could I afford it, but it undeniably caters to low end pros–pragmatists and hacks. This forum is for high end amateurs, that is to say artists–not small-minded paycheck hacks.

I'm broke, so I'm more of a hack. I wasn't born into money and I have serious expenses I need to pay off in a city where $80k presents a yearly living wage and I just don't care that much about art if it lets me save bills for a mortgage down payment or PS4. If I had a better eye I'd think otherwise, maybe. I don't know. To me this represents a good investment, not an artistic shortcoming. Pathetic, I know. :/ 

So as regards market, let's not forget how smart this kind of product is. I know first hand. And it seems myopic for better shooters to dismiss it just because their better content is pulling them enough money to forget the little guys, or they're just artists for whom money is immaterial. This lens is from a company. It's about money and market research. For those who purchase it, it's about, money, too. Let's not dismiss that. Like for like.

But as regards aesthetics, let's dismiss it readily. I don't have the luxury to do so, but I commend those of better taste who do; their art is our hope for a better future. Look at the garbage in cinemas today. When you reject a product like this you demand better from everyone. Don't forget your taste or talent; it exceeds the hacks that seek to bring you down. Demand more. Create better. Create art that demands more from others, that offers them better but also asks for better in return. A lot of what I read here confuses me, but I know recognize that that's good–great art confuses at first. It transcends the explicable. 

Don't be so small-minded.

18 minutes ago, WyattMaurer said:

Some people at EOSHD seem to act like if it doesn't appeal to the Blackmagic, GH4 crowd then there is going to be no demand for it, but there is a whole market of video professionals that are probably psyched about this.

A much larger and more boring market of low end pros, yes. Sort of like the market for the C100 and C300.

$3k isn't much to spend for a pro sound kit. I know people dropping $15-20k for a basic set up, that's to start a career specifically as a mixer though and also really cheap compared with a camera. The F8 looks nice, great preamps apparently and nice design.

Your sound won't suffer appreciably with the Sennheiser (the ME is a nice mic, you pay in the need to sync, not in sound quality even vs the quite high end), but it sounds like that's not an option. I would save up for the lectros when you can–but getting something cheap until then make sense. Sounds like there's a lot of good stuff out there, I haven't tried it.

Do you need wireless audio because you're delivering straight to the editor or can you sync in house using a guide track?

This may be your best option:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1136079-REG/sennheiser_clip_mic_clip_mic_digital.html

The ME 2 is a very good quality mic. It should sound just like the G3 system, which is a good system except that its range is poor. In terms of sound quality and reliability this will compete with the best options, however it will present annoyances in post. The preamp should be better than a dSLR, hopefully better than a cheap recorder, too.

22 hours ago, hmcindie said:

It's more about the tool actually. Some color correcting tools are not-so-good for white balance issues (Premiere) and some are nice (Colorista) and some are high-end and great.

My only experience with grading is with Resolve and Color but I have heard Premiere's tools have gotten really good. I used to grade tv movies (for tier one cable, never broadcast, though) with both before switching fields. Neither can deal with hard chroma clipping from what I can see, at least I can't figure it out.  Which is why gamuts with hard chroma clipping still scare me. But both are good for normal stuff, I actually preferred Color for its simpler interface.

17 hours ago, Jimmy said:

I guess you are the first person in colour grade history that can completely CC bad white balance from a baked image... High five

Don't be so snide, there are people who do just this all the time. It's just that most of them don't post about it because their clients are paying millions of dollars so no one knows what the footage used to look like before the grade.

My friend had some AF100 footage he cut for a promo graded by Stefan Sonnenfeld and it started rough but looked brilliant once he was done. I wouldn't be so hubristic as to assume it can't be done, just humble enough to admit you can't do. I can't do it, but I have a Canon so I'm not worried. 

I still can't fathom how people deal with hard chroma clipping, though. Apparently even CO3 gets stumped when it came to baked in hard chroma clipping, but where there's a will (and a lot of money) there's a way. Maybe they have it figured out by now. Or if they don't maybe someone else does.

But in theory, I agree. I don't have the skill to fix that kind of stuff, nor the patience. 

21 minutes ago, Tony Anastasi said:

oh they know what aliasing is - we drum it into them before every interview on what to wear ie: no checks or stripped shirts or fine lines etc.. they all know.. :P

Good point! Then I guess they also know to expect it, at least. 

9 minutes ago, mkabi said:

Really? That bad? How is it compared to the video IQ of the t2i? Anyone can answer that, cause I'm really interested in the 70D.

It's about the same, which is to say good enough for almost anything that's going on web or tv, but very unsatisfying as a hobbyist or technophile because it's still really mushy.

1 hour ago, squig said:

Who said anything about AWB? Always Kelvin.

Eeepp... that bad?

Granted most cameras these days look best around daylight.

25 minutes ago, squig said:

I concur.

And yeah the A7s white balance in video mode is shithouse. Anything but 5600k usually turns to shit. I use it in place of the 5D for photography, not because it takes better photos, but because its more compact and I like the EVF.

I still don't get why anyone is using auto white balance. I see 3200K 5600K and rarely 4300K and that's it. 

17 minutes ago, hmcindie said:

I'm gonna go on a limb and say that the 5d shooting RAW has the same RS as the C100 once you adjust the timers (You can get it to 16.9ms).

 

Only if you shoot cinestyle. But if people stick to neutral then there's usually no problems with banding.

Usually... but not when you expose a stop and half over and pull down on a flat subject like the sky, which isn't even that unusual. I owned the 5D 3 since it arrived three days after release day. It's a bit of an issue in real world conditions, even shooting neutral. "Usually" not a problem, but more of one than you'd like. Whereas with C Log on the C-line, you're not supposed to ETTR for the same reason... but you can without much consequence. 

Both are better than any true log on 8 bit, however, like Sony, Panasonic, or Arri without switching to 16 bit space in After Effects even.

I'm not saying you can't get good results with the 5D, though. Really nice image in all respects but not impressive as regards resolution in wides, old news though. Neutral has a good look. Cinestyle is indeed bad and overrated. 

I'm just saying if you have the choice... why make the worse one for the proejct. If you don't have a choice, either will be more than fine. Back in my day we shot dvx or 16mm reversal! I'd take a 5D around then.