Emanuel

Anyone geeking out over the gorgeous lens choices of Season 3 of White Lotus?
Season 3 shot on Sony Venice with DP Ben Kutchins. From what I can find out they used a lot of custom vintage Leica M glass from Zero Optik this season with maybe a handful of OMs as well. Last couple of seasons featured Zeiss Superspeeds, Cooke S4s, Baltars, Angénieux, Panavision Primos and Canon EF Zooms. Quite the buffet...
A lot of people complain about the overuse of shallow DOF but it's creatively used in my opinion and only extreme in a handful of shots. Plus those shots are justified as a narrative tool in those instances. Tons of other shots with deep focus and the series always does a great job of establishing the exotic locale.
I'm actually working a press event with HBO and the cast of season 3 next week here in Los Angeles and really looking forward to it. 
 

Blackmagic Design, an Australia-based digital cinematography camera company, was gearing up to start making products in the United States before the Trump administration blew a tariff-shaped hole in its plans. Now, not only is Blackmagic having to increase prices in the US to mitigate some of the levies on imported goods, but those same tariffs are also making it difficult to justify opening a US production line.
“We were planning to build a new factory in Dallas, Texas, to streamline our supply chain and allow us to work more directly with US semiconductor companies,” Blackmagic Design spokesperson Patrick Hussey told The Verge. The introduction and ever-shifting confusion around President Donald Trump’s blanket global tariffs have since complicated things according to Hussey, because while the semiconductor parts and PCBs used in Blackmagic’s cameras are sourced from US companies, those companies are importing them from overseas.
“If we proceed with the US factory, we’d incur tariffs on those parts, increasing costs and negating the savings we anticipated,” said Hussey.
It’s a no-win situation that many other businesses in and outside of the US are facing if they deal with global suppliers. While Trump has brazenly declared that tariffs will incentivize companies to bring manufacturing to the US to remain competitive, if these manufacturers use foreign equipment or materials in their supply chain, they may — directly or indirectly — still get hit with hefty import fees. (That’s leaving aside the cost of doing business when the fees change dramatically from day to day.)
A supply chain survey conducted by CNBC found that 61 percent of respondents from unspecified businesses would be financially better off moving from high-tariff countries to lower-tariffed countries instead of the US, and 81 percent said if they did relocate to the US, they would automate production instead of hiring human workers, failing to deliver the manufacturing jobs Trump promised. 61 percent of the companies also warned they would raise prices for products coming in under the new tariff rates.
Blackmagic Design customers have already noticed a price hike has been applied to all products sold in the US, with the new Pyxis 12K briefly listed at $6,600 after initially being marketed at $5,000. This has since fallen to $5,500 after Blackmagic announced it had moved Pyxis production to lessen the tariff impact, but prices in every country besides the US have remained completely unscathed.
“Due to new government tariffs, price increases in the US have been unavoidable,” said Hussey. “That said, we operate factories in several countries, so production of some product lines has been relocated to reduce the impact on our customers.” Hussey told The Verge that Blackmagic is now planning to “wait a few months” to see if the supply chain for the components it needs will move to the US. “If it does, we could still achieve the supply chain benefits we were aiming for.”
The Trump Administration added “smartphones, computers, and other electronics” to its list of tariff exemptions last week — a list with no clear carveout for cameras or camera-specific manufacturing equipment — but then swiftly warned that companies shouldn’t get comfy. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said these are not “a permanent sort of exemption,” and that these goods will be hit with the same unspecified tariff rules that Trump is expected to apply to the semiconductor industry in “a month or two.”
 
https://www.theverge.com/news/649225/blackmagic-design-trump-us-tariffs-price-hike

Yes indeed, but mainstream politicians also have their dosis to blame. When they don't do their job, opportunists or radical ones easily pop up... Ideology can be dangerous but no less, ineptitude or lack of competence. André Ventura is very talented as I had the chance to change ideas with Francisco Louçã a week ago... This left-wing politician even agreed with me. We who love a free society we are in big trouble to say the least TBH.
Here is his opinion aired on national TV on XIX century Trump's tariffs next day of our long conversation me and him in person of about one hour or so the day before... Louçã is also a reputable economics professor at the university, he explains how these nonsense tariffs have no logic at all... in Portuguese though to those who know the language, you can follow his interesting criticism, pity that White House economists are dumb or too subservient, to not call it 'moron' and 'dumber than a sack of bricks' as even Musk did. Louçã refers how USD is falling despite what could be expected from:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1032490332104272
Former London-based and City University London graduate Catarina Castro (and talented right-wing economist no less) is there too and tries to contradict him but ends to fail the argument that Trump's plan is the dollar down because of the debt. 
It's just pure markets' fear, folks! 
And that's actually scaring... When inflation and uncertainty enter the things cannot end well for no one. 
The orange man is placing that on hold for 90 days for some reason and Musk has called Peter Navarro of those significant gross names definitely not for no reason...

It's more than half, just not by enough.  Minority rule.  As all totalitarian states are.  Plus, there's a lot of the sane ones that like to claim they "don't do politics" Well, politics is about to "do" you.
And, you know, this fascist playbook we're seeing here in the USA is a book that is wide open.  It's easy to read because it's simple. 
The ones that are attracted to that are insatiable. And the book has been used numerous times by bad people because it works.  What's happening here is neither new or abnormal.  These folks and their followers are ridiculous people that are gross, small, mentally horrible, and should be shamed for their terrible attitudes, but they've built political momentum and they're very close to reaching their orbit.  The journey leads no where good.  
Not even for them.
Finally, I like shooting f8 on an M43rd sensor.  It's "Spielbergean cinema"! (gotta stay relevant to the website after that rant; cleanse the mental palette)

Impressive @kye no idea what this forum would be without you, really. Food for thought. You're such an asset and a few people here, if no more or/and elsewhere, miss you when you're absent : )
You've summed up the whole thing : ) it's all about that, no more no less, one of the reasons why people love (and use) anamorphics :- )

5 years ago I'd have agreed with you, but honestly today, right now, I don't think it's possible to predict how Republicans will react. I mean, this is the same party that rallied around a convicted felon who has spent the last decade trying to destroy people's trust in government and its institutions, and whom from all accounts was happy when his supporters stormed the capitol. They are so entrenched in the Trump cult, it's hard to imagine them going against him.
I really do think it's about time people stop giving the Republican party the benefit of the doubt. 

Nope.  Are you an American?  I feel anyone with a grasp of the culture here wouldn't be quite so obtuse.  Then again, weird times.

Well, the 90-day pause is good - should reduce a lot of suffering for a lot of people, but there really doesn't seem to be an endgame in the tariffs on China.  We need their goods a lot more than they need ours - and they know it.

The other part of this is that if the goal is to increase manufacturing, there should be a stated date for the tariffs to go into effect which is far enough away that companies can build/buy factories and train workers.  And the tariffs also shouldn't be on things like the raw materials needed to build the factories in the first place and/or that the factory will need to operate.  Or the food that the workers need to eat.
You don't, but several red states have passed laws in recent years (or have them currently in debate) to make it much easier for children to have jobs.  Even now, the legislature in Florida is in the midst of pasing HB 1225 which would make it legal for 13-year olds to get jobs and remove restrictions on the number of hours that 16 and 17-year olds can work.  It would also eliminate mandatory 30-minute meal breaks for 16 and 17-year olds during shifts of more than 4 hours.
Also, it would allow kids who are 14/15 who are home schooled or in virtual school to work unlimited hours 7 days/week, also without any mandated meal breaks.  And it would say that they could start at the beginning of summer break during the calendar year when they'll turn 14 (which is how it allows 13-year olds to get jobs).  So, soon enough, we could be making america child sweatshop-friendly again!

This situation is a shame, this orange man is writing a black page in the history of the humankind and people who have voted him no less.
Ronald Reagan should be as much embarrassed with Republicans as John McCain when refused to even figure this guy "to visit" his dead body... tariffs and paranoid policies are proper of communist regimes, not the free world of a bygone age nowadays.

This AI stuff is great, it saves so much time, creating subs, remixing music, mixing the audio, soon it prolly will match log footage from different camera's perfectly. And then you can creatively focus on the overall grade.

How to make someone addicted to drugs: first I will gift you drugs and then when you can't do without them I will ask you for money.
Another clear example of enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
 
 
 

Great value in every country in the world except the US where it will cost 17,000 US dollars.

Impressive @kye no idea what this forum would be without you, really. Food for thought. You're such an asset and a few people here, if no more or/and elsewhere, miss you when you're absent : )
You've summed up the whole thing : ) it's all about that, no more no less, one of the reasons why people love (and use) anamorphics :- )

Impressive @kye no idea what this forum would be without you, really. Food for thought. You're such an asset and a few people here, if no more or/and elsewhere, miss you when you're absent : )
You've summed up the whole thing : ) it's all about that, no more no less, one of the reasons why people love (and use) anamorphics :- )

Not to mention that Museum Of Modern Moiré building.
 

That's a good feeling. Nice to see you posting again as I always like to hear what you have to say. The shots look really good! So, did you get the Arri LUT add-on?

HA!  I didn't notice that until you pointed it out, as I hadn't hit play on that shot yet.
I guess nothing is immune to moire, although this was worse than I would have thought.
The GH7 has no crop in its full resolution modes, and none in the 1080p modes, but the 4K modes do have slight crops - with the C4K having slightly less crop which is why I chose it, so I wonder why that is and what tom-foolery might be going on with that.  The bitrates for the native resolutions are pretty brutal without Prores LT, so I'll likely stick to the C4K mode unless it starts being an issue.
Thanks!
I didn't get the LogC upgrade.  I haven't seen any tests that were done properly so am assuming that it's not worth the cost unless proven otherwise.  I also figure that even if there is some magic in there, I'm taking a hammer to the image with the FLC anyway, so it's not like I'm precious about it.  The only thing I am precious about is getting images that have the right aesthetic to support the subject matter and get out of the way rather than being distracting.
When I saw Goodfellas and a bunch of film trailers projected on 35mm film, the two most stunning things about the images were:
1) how fundamentally flawed they were from a technical perspective
2) how quickly and completely those incredible flaws evaporated and you saw effortlessly through and into the scene
I'm still at the beginning of my FLC journey, but I'm convinced this pipeline is capable of removing the digital distractions from the image that bug me so much.

Part 2...  how did I get here?
I've written about this previously, but the summary is that I went through a sequence of trial and error, continually bumping up against the limits of the hardware, the software, my skill, and mindset.
Setup: GH5, fast manual-focus primes
I shot a bunch with the GH5 and a set of very fast MF primes.  I chose this setup as it had 10-bit LOG, IBIS, and the fast primes gave good low-light and some background blur.  I knowingly sacrificed AF, essentially swapping a fast / accurate / robotic AF for a slow / human / aesthetically-appropriate focusing mechanism.
The MF worked, but not always (especially for my kids, who wait for no-one), and took time and effort to operate the camera away from the things that literally every other crew member does on set.
The 10-bit LOG worked, but wasn't a properly supported LOG profile so didn't colour grade flawlessly in post.
The primes provided the low-light and shallow-DoF but the shots I missed because I couldn't change lenses fast enough were more valuable in the edit than having shallow-DoF.
The DR was lacking.
Setup: GX85 with 12-35/2.8
I owned the GX85 and 12-35mm zoom, so I did some testing.  
I loved the speed of AF-S, and the deeper DoF meant that the number of shots unusable due to missed focus dropped to almost zero.
I tested it with low-light and for well-lit night-time areas, like outdoor shopping malls, it was sufficient.  
The Dual IS (IBIS + lens OIS) was absolutely spectacular and a welcome addition, and having a zoom made me realise why doco and ENG shooters have them as standard issue.
The DR and 709 profile was a real limitation though, and I really felt it in the grade.
It was around this time I figured out proper colour management, and the Film Look Creator was released.  These made a huge boost to grading the GX85, despite its 709 profile.
The mindset shift
The fundamental pivot was in mindset.  As social media became faster and more showy, I noticed the gulf between it and 'real' film-making more and more.  I went minimalist, thinking more and more about the days before digital where the process was to shoot as best you could, cut it, do sound-design, and that was it.  The focus was on what was in-front of the camera, how the cuts made you feel, and sound design that supported that vision.  Even those shooting docs on 16mm film could make magic.
Without throwing away the baby with the bathwater, I decided to re-focus.  To shoot what I could shoot, to learn to cut with feeling, and to simulate a film-like colour grading process where the look was applied and only very basic adjustments were made.
Setup: OG BMMCC with 12-35/2.8
I owned these already, and on my last trip to South Korea I took these as well as the GX85.  My shooting moved from shooting people I knew to shooting more general scenes, giving me more time and taking the time pressure off.
The setup was large (comparatively!) and very slow to work with, but it validated my mindset shift.
The images were organic and rich, but in a way that drew you into their contents, rather than towards the medium.
The DR was finally sufficient, and the colours were delightful.
But the monitor wasn't bright enough, the lack of IBIS meant that the OIS stabilised tilt and pan but not roll, so the images all needed to be stabilised in post, but had roll motion blur due to the 180 shutter.
The low-light wasn't ideal either, even with fast lenses.
The moire from the 1080p sensor was real and ruined shots.
I also got a lot more comfortable shooting in public with a more visible camera setup.
New Setup: GH7 with 14-140 and 12-35.....
So what I wanted was the best of all worlds.  
Dynamic range.  
I knew the OG BMMCC and OG BMPCC were the same/similar sensor, and I knew the GH7 had more.  
What I didn't expect was how much more that would be in real life.  Here's a high DR scene from Monday.

Here it is without the FLC, which I set to add contrast.

Now with the shot raised by 3 stops.  Notice the detail in the railings and under the eves on the right.

Now with the shot lowered by 3 stops.  Notice that the roof, and even the body of the car are still not clipped, with the only clipping being the sun reflecting off the car window.

In grading, there is more DR than you can fit in the DR of the final shot - assuming you haven't developed Stockholm Syndrome for your LOG footage that is.
Low light.  
I had previously established that the GX85 and 12-35mm F2.8 were good enough for well-lit night locations.  I also knew that the BMMCC at ISO800 and the 12-35mm F2.8 set to a 360 shutter was good enough for semi-well-lit night locations.  I also knew that the BMMCC with my 50mm F1.2 lens was passable at the darkest scenes I shot in Korea - which were from the hotel window at night.
I've compared the GH7 vs the GX85 and BMMCC and the noise profiles are all very different, but I concluded that the GH7 had probably 2-4 stops of advantage over those.  This means that I might be able to shoot well-lit night locations with the 14-140mm lens, and might be able to shoot from the hotel window at night with the 12-35mm lens.  
I'm still contemplating if I should take my F1.2-1.4 primes on my up-coming trip, but if I don't I'll still be able to shoot 99% of what I want to with the zooms.
Camera size.
Perhaps the only drawback when compared to my previous setups.  
I'll be taking the GX85 and 14mm F2.5 pancake lens as the pocketable tiny camera.  This combo is no slouch by itself, so although it lacks some of the specs from more serious cameras, it is easily in the capable category, especially when helped by Resolve+FLC and from a shoot-cut-sound-publish mindset.
Absolute speed.
When it comes to absolute speed, nothing beats a smartphone, which is always in your pocket, can be pulled out and rolling in seconds.  This is also a serious tool when combined with Resolve+FLC and a shoot-cut-sound-publish mindset.

I have a new setup and pipeline and I'm really happy with it.
GH7 shooting V-Log in C4K Prores 422 internally, at around 500Mbps 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 lens for daytime, 12-35mm F2.8 for night-time K&F True Colour 1-5 stop vND Pipeline in Resolve: CST to DWG as working colour space Plugin for basic shot adjustments Film Look Creator for overall look (and for taking the digititis out of the image) ARRI709 LUT to get to 709 output I went on a walk on Monday to test the full setup, and it was a crazy hot day (37C/99F) and direct midday sun, so seriously challenging conditions.  Here are a few grabs (be sure to click-through rather than viewing the preview files embedded in the post).










My notes and impressions - while shooting:
Setup was GH7, 14-140mm lens, vND, and a wrist-strap and that's it I used the integrated screen, showing histogram, zebras, and focus-peaking to monitor I used back-button focus to AF before hitting record, so no AF-C going on while shooting (and randomly changing its mind about what to focus on) All shots were 14-140mm at F5.6 for constant exposure The K&F 1-5 stop vND had enough range, when combined with the DR of the GH7, so I never needed to change settings, despite going in and out of shadow (and even inside, which isn't included in the above images) The vND had a much more consistent sky and colour render than my old (crappy) vND, so I'm really happy with it I did ETTR and bring images down in post, but my tests indicated that V-LOG is very linear so there are a good few stops of latitude there The "tripod mode" of IBIS, which locks the frame completely, was very effective (despite me being hot and not having eaten for hours) and I could hand-hold past 70mm without it needing to drift, and even at 140mm (280mm FF equivalent) the shots will be fine with a bit of stabilisation in post (C4K on 1080p timeline) I shot about 18mins of footage in about 1.5 hours, camera was on most of the time with screen at full brightness, and didn't get any notifications about the battery, and didn't look to see how much was left since I have a spare My notes and impressions - in post:
I chose a Film Look Creator preset and then just messed with it for maybe 10 mins, while scrolling back and forth through the footage, and I deliberately pushed the contrast to create a really strong sense of the contrast between the beating sun and the deep shadows Shots had exposure adjusted (obviously, due to ETTR) and some had contrast lowered and a few had slight WB tweaks, but that's it I never felt like I was fighting with the footage, and it didn't feel like work when creating the look..  I've shot with a lot of cheap cameras with tiny sensors and you always feel like you're trying to make gold out of lead, but playing in the FLC was more like choosing between a large range of high-quality options I used another copy of the FLC to adjust exposure etc per shot, with it set to not impart and 'look'.  The advantage of that is that in Resolve there is a mode (Shift-F) that maximises the preview image and gets rid of the GUI except for the vertical toolbar on the right-hand-side where the DCTL and OFX plugins are, so it's a way of getting almost a full-screen view but keeping the controls visible..  very useful if you don't have a control surface or a second monitor handy. I'll talk more about my thought process and how I got to this setup in a later post, and also go into some of the technical stuff (DR, high-ISO, etc) but more importantly than that, I finally feel like the tech has come of age.
What I mean by that is that I now have a setup where:
I can shoot with a conveniently sized setup that doesn't need a rig and is ergonomic to use It has the right usability features, such as histograms, zebras, focus-peaking etc internally The monitor is bright enough The GH7 plus lenses (14-140mm F3.5-5.6 and 12-35mm F2.8) are long enough and fast enough to shoot what I see, without being too large, heavy, or prohibitively expensive It has enough spec that it can deal with almost all the situations that I actually shoot in, with enough DR for the sun, enough ISO for night-time, and fans so it doesn't overheat before I do, etc It shoots internally using a colour space and codec that don't look cheap/amateurish and make me think about upgrading It doesn't fight with me in the colour grade Resolve and the Film Look Creator are able to easily give me the flexibility in post to match images and correct any weaknesses from shooting (e.g. if there's a bit of movement when shooting hand-held at 140mm) Resolve and the Film Look Creator are able to remove the 'digital/video' look and instead give me a range of options that don't look artificial and most importantly, contribute a feeling to the footage without distracting from the content of the images (this is, after all, the entire purpose of what we're doing here.....) For the first time it feels like I'm getting the results I want because of the equipment I have, rather than in spite of it.

Still on doubt actually, if just mere another non-sense ('movies looked better before "color grading" was invented' : D I've only paid attention to the talking marks... LOL ; ) or makes us to think better about that... 
Not a simple equation as much as film isn't either -- post in the previous century or after, is surely part of it (from the keyboard of someone with editing/post as his primary film background* exactly in the late 90s/turn of the century ; ) while digital is doubtlessly also this:
 
No matter how many LUTs, TikTokers & suchlike with their bloody vertical aspect ratio pop up... 
Lang protested against snakes & funerals as their proper format to shoot them when 2.35:1 cinemascope arrived despite MOONFLEET had been shot by him, go figure! : P 
While we can only dream in 2.39:1 ratio but on screen and in B&W or Colour out of there too, one doesn't exclude the other ;- )

The director playing himself on JLG's masterpiece LE MÉPRIS... : D 
 
[*] Moreover, currently in charge of a large 16mm/8mm inventory in EU, UK and U.S., as well their variations aka Super 16/Super 8 to be digitally transferred with the resource/use of the most advanced colour grading technology and techniques of today... just for the sake of memories preservation shot on film.

I don't understand whether this is a provocative post or a serious one.
Now, I am also somewhat ignorant of the topic but some of the statements seem 'exaggerated' to me to be good.
In general, digital has greatly democratised cinema and its art. But every art has its era and its crafts and this constant 'it was better before' is largely pissing me off. It describes good old times that never existed. There were horse carriages and the farrier lobby, then came the railway and goodbye farriers. 
The truth is that today any artist can produce a film with cinematic quality at home and at a negligible cost. Unless you regret the old Super 8 home movies.
Anyway, back to the data. It's hard to talk about resolution as we understand it today in the digital world, but I have my doubts that a good film will not solve 8K, quite the contrary.
Here a document for nerds: http://www.tmax100.com/photo/pdf/film.pdf
But here there's a video that explains it more simply.
 
 
Regarding the immediacy of film.... are we talking cinema or home-made Super 8s? Because if you mention Clint Eastwood and Kodak Vision (Vision is cited also in the YT video above) then it's much more complex with intermediate and print stocks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_stock
Ah and color grading existed on film stock too. It was called color timing:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_grading
Finally, am I saying that digital is better than film stock? NO, they are two different medium.

Hi Emanuel, nice to meet you and sorry for being so late, I posted this and then just closed everything, only now I'm coming back to this forum.
Thank you, yeah I was just looking for work in film industry, I know that many of you here are doing films or documentaries and I hope to meet someone who need my old music or new original music to write.
Plus I did some piano covers on youtube (with very bad camera and lights) and I'm passionate about video production even if I understand very little about that.  I like video editing and color correction (I used Davinci Resolve for a while), and of course I always loved films...
By the way music is my first thing.
I'm in Abruzzo, center of Italy, on the opposite side of Rome 🙂

A most enjoyable watch.  
Much more engaging that the overly repetitive swill that many US cable outlets are pumping out these days.  Distribution should be well within reach, and they should be lucky if you don't charge them too much for the privilege.
There is definitely a market beyond your immediate community.  
I think the key to unlocking it is about perspective.  Which of the following is true?
- it's a community film about this Hawk Watch
- it's a science communication film about conservation told through this Hawk Watch
- it's a human interest film about the main guy
- it's a social commentary film about volunteer work and the challenges to maintain efforts across generational divides
- it's a motivational film about community during a time when loneliness is an epidemic
Answer: it's all of these and more.  I'm sure you have sound bites that would tell each of these stories directly.  Weaving these threads together into a more nuanced view could be a way to get a tighter edit by putting more layers into it rather than cutting run-time out of it.
I definitely agree with @mercer that a YT channel could easily be built around this, by providing snippets of the doc, behind the scenes instalments, equipment talk, bird talk, etc etc.