eleison

​And these guys are on a 2 year delay... I think 2015 marks the tolling of the bell.

​No, I'm sure it will be decent, or even quite good, but won't be close to the same level as A7s.

I much prefer shooting on a 5D body than an a7s, and a C100 over a 5D, it's just a better experience for most normal uses. Don t really get the shrinking down approach. I don't want my car to be tiny, my chair, my computer, my phone, my TV, my shoes, I want them to be ''adequate'' and designed for the normal human body applications (while offering smaller and larger for those who need it, just not all smaller for the sake of it)

Do we even need to speculate about the Canon 5Dmk4?

As it is sooo easy to predict:
1) they'll sell bucket loads of it. (thanks to their marketing machine, their size, and retail presence, and idiot friends giving recommendations to their mates while not having a clue....)
2) but tech spec gear heads like ourselves who actually know their sh*t will be very very disappointed in what a flop it is. 

So first, a couple forum members from another thread suggested or asked that I post this. As a filmmaker of course I am thrilled to talk about my movie making experience, what filmmaker isn’t. But I would understand if this isn’t your thing. This will be a long post. It’s way too long, so don’t hesitate to skip all the boring story stuff and just watch the videos instead.

 

As will become obvious, this is a great example of how not to make a movie. But like Tarantino, this was my film school.

 

The First Time

I actually wasn’t interested in making movies. I loved video production. But I figured, since I hadn’t made one before, I’d make a short film just to say I did. I had just a read a couple short stories that were very metaphorical (like ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’) and since that was in my head at the moment I ended up writing a short screenplay (12 pages) that was very metaphorical (somewhat similar to Pilgrim’s Progress, which I realize is not everyone’s cup of tea). I cast a good friend to play the protagonist and asked another recent acquaintance (Armando Sahagun) to be a producer, he has since become a very good friend and was the most important influence on the film by far. I decided that I wanted Morgan Freeman to play the role of the mentor. I had a friend who attended a mostly black church. He invited me to church that Sunday, and when I got there, up on stage was Morgan Freeman... or at least I like to think that. Larry Thompson was a natural. He had never acted before, and EVERYONE who sees the film is blown away by his performance.

 

I was all amped up to shoot the film on a Sony EX1, which I was saving up for. I had been drooling over this camera for a couple years. I owned a couple FX1’s and was planning to sell them to help pay for the EX1. Just before making the leap, I was introduced to some new footage from the Canon 5D m2 (we all know this story), and shortly after that I heard about the upcoming 7D. Needless to say, I made a change in my plans. The 7D, a couple Tamron lenses, a wobbly indieslider, a Zoom H4N, and a cheap boom mic was my setup. After several rehearsals and weeks of planning, my small cast and a few friends went out to the desert for a 3 day shoot. That was April 2010.

 

The trip wasn’t horrible, but we shot far less than I had hoped. Not to mentioned I realized at the very end of the shoot that my picture profile settings had defaulted back to factory, so what I had shot was not quite the look I wanted. There were also some problems with the story, and the performances. A couple weekends later I was back out in the desert to shoot some pick ups with my protagonist. When we stepped foot out of the truck we quickly realized that I had forgotten the pants to his wardrobe, and being that it was a formal suit and tie, that was a big deal. We traveled an hour and a half to the desert, only to turn right back around and go home. I didn’t say it out loud, but I decided right then and there to stop production on Luggage and start over.

 

The Second Time

I rewrote the script, which had now turned into an estimated 30-40 minute film, an odd length I know. I also decided to recast the protagonist, which was VERY difficult because I had to tell my good friend we were making that change. We are still good friends but it remains a sore spot to say the least.

 

In order to get actors and maybe some crew interested in participating with production (for free because I had no money) I decided to make a teaser to capture the tone of the project and maybe that would create interest. In June (2010) I was back out in the desert to make the teaser. This time with another friend who agreed to pull luggage around in the sand dunes. Below is the teaser that we created that day. What I am most proud of about this piece is that we only had about an hour at most to shoot this before the sun went down. So we shot it with no audio, and then when the sun had set I had him do everything again and I recorded the audio in the dark.

 

 

We also took some b-roll I had shot out in the desert and made another short teaser with our own personal Morgan Freeman doing some VO. Btw, the music (if you want to call it that) for both this one and the one above was created by me. Not saying it’s the best, but I think it worked somehow. The point being that a simple sound fx pad and few piano keys can actually work well sometimes.

 

 

After posting these videos and an ad on Craigslist, my inbox went berzerk. I had loads of actors who wanted to be a part of the project (even though it was a no pay). I narrowed the choices down to 3 talented dudes, and ended up going in the direction of one (Adam Brotman) that was the least like what we had originally imagined our protagonist to be like. Ironically, all three actors ended up in the film for other roles. I even had an Asian girl respond to my ad for a caucasian male, but she was so awesome (Ivana Brooks) she ended up in the movie too (she’s in the trailer). Brinton Ward was one of the other finalists. He ended up playing the role that you see in the beginning and hear throughout the main trailer.

 

I also decided to change my equipment set up. I sold the Tamrons and got a Sigma 50 1.4 (not Art) and 20 1.8 (I don’t even think they make these anymore). Those two lenses represent 95% of the movie. The others being a Canon 85 and Tokina 11-16. I also ditched the slider. To begin with, that one sucked, and the time I spent, even just a few minutes, to set it up was time I figured I wouldn’t have. I oversimplified the shooting plan and decided to eliminate basically all camera movement. And aside from 2 tilts and one rack focus, I basically just set up the camera and hit record. I’m not saying thats a good thing, but interestingly, when people watch the movie not only do they not complain about it, but the first thing they always say is how much they love the cinematography. I probably wouldn’t do that again, but at least I know you can get away with more static shots than you’d think.

 

I upgraded my audio setup too. I scrapped the cheap stuff and went with a Marantz recorder, Sound Devices mixpre, and an ME67 with a blimpie. I think my audio package was more expensive than my camera package. I thoroughly believe this was one of the smartest decisions I made.

 

We started production again in October (2010). I had a lot people who said they wanted to help crew the film, but I almost always had to scramble last minute to find help. Sometimes it was just my wife. Sometimes no one. We nickel and dimed production on weekends when we could for about 9 months. Even though I always checked the weather report, one of the days it was unexpectedly so windy that we couldn’t even keep our eyes open in the blowing sand. I tried to get a few shots but because of the wind, it looked so different from everything else we had shot I knew it wouldn’t match up with the rest of our movie. A half a dozen shots in I called it a day. When I got home I looked at the footage and was blown away (sorry about the pun). It was our coolest stuff yet. The sand blowing in the wind with our protagonist traveling through it was awesome. Much later in production I went out to the dunes alone to pick up some b roll. Another sand storm came out of no where. This time I stuck it out, and got some more tremendous footage. That coupled with the first sand storm and we were able to create a believable sequence that introduced that harsh element of the desert.

 

Something that most people don’t think about when they see Luggage is that, because it takes place in the sand dunes, there was the potential for a bunch of unwanted footprints in the sand. This was important to me. The first thing I did when we rolled into the desert each morning was map out exactly where the scene would be shot and how everyone would walk to and from. Sometimes we’d even have to rake or sweep the sand to cover tracks after a take. In the whole movie there are only 2 or 3 places when prints can be seen, and even those are inconspicuous.

 

Where we shot was sometimes very close to the US/Mexican border. One time the border patrol swooped in during one of our night shoots with a helicopter and hovered right over us for a while. One time a helicopter followed my truck around right overhead for a few minutes through the desert. Some mornings in the desert are very very cold. Days can obviously be very hot, especially for our poor protagonist pulling around luggage with a suit on.

 

We wrapped in June 2011 and I began to piece the story together. Even though we had some awesome content, I just didn’t like the story. It was too abstract and artsy fartsy. I knew that going into the movie but I was disappointed to see how strange it was as it played before my eyes. So I decided to add more to the story, stuff that wasn’t metaphorical, and tie it all in with the metaphorical stuff. I rewrote the script again (adding another 20-30 pages), cut a new teaser with the stuff we already had at that point and then used that to inspire the cast to shoot the new scenes. Below is the teaser that I showed them.

 

http://vimeo.com/27671087

 

The Last Time

We started production once again in November 2011 and slowly drudged through our reshoots and the new scenes for several more months. One of the new scenes took place in a restaurant/bar (this is in the most recent trailer). I had only 1 night to shoot these scenes and I spent most of the time shooting the wides and masters, and with 10 minutes left we were missing the close up, which was the most important angle (poor planning I know). Brinton said let’s just do it in one take and he nailed it, like.... utterly crushed it… in 1 take. That was the most productive 10 minutes of production of the whole movie.

 

Another new scene took place in an old church, at night. My lighting kit was a 500w softbox and 2 totas (please don’t laugh). I was thinking, how am I going to light this church? So we started playing with my lights and the house lights. It looked horrible. Then I had the idea to just start cutting all of the lights 1 at a time, and it turned out the church had 1 random par light pointed oddly down at the first row of pews. So I killed basically all the other lights and had my actors do their thing in the first row and it looked great. Here’s a screengrab from that scene.

Post Production

We wrapped final production in May 2012, and yes, it took me another 2 years to finish post production. The reason for that is probably due to a combination of several things, but probably boils down to the fact that I was tired and burned out. Production had felt like a long lonely journey, and post production turned out to be even lonelier. I don’t mean to be melancholy, but maybe you can relate.

 

One of the other issues was the fact that I didn’t know exactly how most of the visual fx would look. I had some ideas, but a lot of trial and error went into them. The Temptress reveal (the black particles in the trailer) was done in After Effects with Particular 2. I tried a bunch of stuff but eventually just searched Youtube for some tutorials and just played with those settings until I came up with something that looked cool. Creating the mountain summit stuff was tricky too (for me at least, a real fx guy would do these easily and quickly). I came up with a set extension version pretty quickly, but it just wasn’t quite right. Finally I discovered Vue and one of their paid add ons and was able to create the basic mountain, then I textured it in Photoshop and composited in After Effects. The Temptress transform was done in After Effects too. I originally had intended to do something similar to Andrew Kramer’s demon face tutorial, but again it wasn’t quite right and I eventually landed on the lizard skin thing which came from lots of trial and error. The mountain reveal was actually more time consuming than those. For some reason that set extension just wouldn’t look right. I eventually got pretty close, but I’m still not sure it’s quite right.

 

The single most difficult post production element though was the creature sound fx. You hear them a little bit in the trailer, but there is a lot more in the film. This was difficult for several reasons. First, these were not supposed to be totally real life natural creatures. Maybe a little dinosaurish or demonic, but they couldn’t be too big or scary because when we shot the scene, the protagonist reactions were scared, but not crap your pants scared. So the noises had to be a bit unnatural, but not too big or scary so that they would match the performance in the scene. Trust me, this was harder than it sounds. In the end I used a combination of sounds like my hand rubbing on a wet glass or a balloon, or just my voice warped and distorted in Audition. It’s no Godzilla, but I’m still proud of them.

 

The soundtrack was a lengthy process too. I found Eric Cappello with another Craigslist ad and he was amazing. I mean, words can't express. It wasn't easy for either of us, only because of the time it took to do that, while balancing the rest of our lives. But his music (heard in the official trailer) is top notch.

 

The color grade is something that I tend to get compliments on, but honestly I spent little time with this. At this point I was just ready to be done. Film Convert, with one of their presets with it dialed down a bit, is basically what I used. I think I used some curves in some areas to match colors or fix problems. My theory for why people are so attracted to the grade is that it is actually the art direction….. the colors of the desert, that they are attracted to. When you have no money, as most of us don’t, construct a story around locations that have the art direction built in. I’m not saying trade story for art direction, but find both. A good story and art direction (and you also have to have good audio) will overcome deficiencies in a lack of camera equipment. And your footage may ultimately grade itself.  

 

To be honest though, even though I get a lot of compliments for shooting this on a crappy 7D, the 8 bit footage left little room to stretch it when necessary. Banding sucks. I just can’t shoot 8 bit again. I won’t do it. Please God, no more 8 bit.

 

Here’s the official trailer if you haven’t seen it.

 

http://vimeo.com/103010031

 

All in all, I spent 4-5 years of my life, and about $7500 (not including equipment) making Luggage, an 80 minute film. Of course that wasn’t full time. I did other little freelance projects during that time. Had some kids. Bought a house. Built an addition. Found a dead body. Pretty much the normal stuff. I don’t know how this story ends either. The distribution stuff is slow, but not over. That’ll probably be another post, I’m assuming 4-5 years from now.

 

But what I can tell you, is that I love filmmaking. Greatest experience of my life. And I can’t wait to make my next film. Where will I find the time or the money? I have no idea. But for reasons I can’t explain, I believe I am going to do it.

 

Oh dear, if they did that, Sony's lens division will fold in a week.

​Given that it IS the most widely sold and is still selling well, and since it is newer than the A7R, why would the S get replaced first?

If the S was up for replacement I would have thought NAB would have been the time to announce it rather than planned well in advance to release it shortly after.

I am fairly sure there will be a new version of the S (or similar) but just  not next and maybe not for a while yet.       A7R makes more sense for Sony.

A7s is still the best high ISO camera I think.      A7R is not necessarily the best high resolution stills camera and the coming 50mp Canons and rumours of similar Nikon and Sony high resolution cameras also indicate to me that the new A7 will be an R replacement especially since we already have the middle A7 in mk ii version,

My earlier essay on this topic.

We live in strange age. We are being overloaded by images of different kinds every minute or even seconds. We live in a world which is being mediated or put in Baudrillard term - the world is being simulated. The capitalist' democracy made all gear (cameras, recorders, cellphones with cameras) available to the great number of people. It might sound like a dream for all those artist they struggled to get their gear only a dacade ago. Thus, it is not suprising at all that so many people try their hand at film-making these days. But this great number of people engaging in moving images can be in some ways counter-productive as well.

The recent digital revolution changed the film industry on all levels. You do not need to buy a filmstock and pay for its developement anymore! You just buy a memorycard and you can record as long as your memorycard is capable of. You do not have to be worried about unaccurate exposition and unprecise framing. You can easily fix it during editing or simply reshoot the scene again and again until you are satisfied with it. You can change the sensitivity of your "film" by pressing a button. You have immediate preview of your footage. And so on. It is clear that all these new improvements help film-makers to cut down a budget of their film. The same regards the distribution circles. That means film-makers today do not have to fight for their place on silver screen at cinema. In the age of internet we can easily distribute our films on-line and share them with friends and new audiencies. We can say that since digital revolution to produce and distribute a movie has never been easier and cheaper. And one would expect that these new conditions will have wholesome influence on young amateur cinema. But unfortunately instead of more progression on the field of moving images we can encounter doldrums and seal off form of young cinema.

These problems are not new and unknown to filmmakers' community. In 1959 Jonas Mekas complained about young cinema of his age. He argued that those films are made with money, cameras and splicers instead of with enthusiasm, passion, and imagination. Even though film cameras and splicers are not being used anymore as they have been replaced by digital cameras and computing video editors, the lack of creativity and enthusiasm is still(!) striking. As in 1959 we can encounter that young aspiring film-makers are only preoccupied with gear instead of with a creativity and search for new ways of expression. I do not dismiss the importance of technique and its aesthetical influence and importance on film’s image. But the shorts of today’s young film-makers could be described as over-technical and over-professionalized. One of the cause of this problem is wrong inspiration. All these young film-makers try to imitate the “big” cinema. This imitation of hollywoodian aesthetic is wrong because it blends two absolutely different approaches to cinema. The most powerful weapon which amateur film-maker posses is its freedom because he is outside of traditional circles of production and distribution. Unfortunately most of them do not realize this fact and try to break in or imitate these circles. And so they are raping theirs own film roots and independency. This whole approach is not only wrong but idiotic as well. In a case of “big” cinema the following words of Guy Debord are relevant more than for any other human activity: "The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.” Put it in another words the capital is the main source of hollywood aesthetic and intersection of the whole process of making a movie. Money is primary concern of Hollywood, not the creativity and search for new ways of expression. It is well known that Hollywood has traditionally been mediocre in its form. While so-called Off-Hollywood cinema, avant-gard, independent and amateur film-makers were experimenting with film forms. One of the reason is "because we can” and they do not give in the dictate of capital and public acceptance. Freedom and need to create must be the primary motivation of independent film-makers. But all the camera panning, over-stable shots, sliding, flawlessly pure image and seamless editing which are being used so often by young film-makers create polish and slick films and this aesthetics has nothing to do with freedom. It is based on false and artificial aesthetic of Hollywood cinema. Such a form adopted by young independent filmmaker is imprisioning him in corrupt world. It is smoothing the edges of his very unique way of seeing a life. From a free and independent film-maker he has become just a worker of cinema who is not fulfilling his true inner vision but the expectation. One does not have to be Stan Brakhage or be in pursuit of destruction of every possible convention to call himself an author. This approach would not be good either. The most important attribute of film-maker is to be aware and genuine. Thus it is crucial to avoid “making”. The only right way is to film.

Jonas Mekas was calling for new generation of film-makers, and I’m calling the new generation to stop “making" and begin to film. To pursue their inner and sublet feelings and visions.

It'll probably be a beta/incomplete/frustrating/geek-tinkering scientific camera head. Won't believe it's usable nor will I pay any money until your initial review. I've become very skeptical if specs and kickstarters lately, maybe it's the age 

 

The thing is, almost none of the 5D Mk 3 shooters I've come across ever use the video funcunality of their camera. Couldn't care less about video. I'm sure Canon are aware of this as well.

​Buy an adapter for a GH4 then.

I like the XC10.  I don't always want to fumble around with a large camera and tote a bag full of lenses around with me.  This could hold me over until the 5D MK4 arrives.  

So it's official now, as the Canon XC10. 305Mbps bit rate in All-I, it seems. 4K only with expensive CFast cards. Somewhat underwhelming on the specsheet, and at US$2.5k!

I think it'd be too early to get a new nx1 model, but everything is possible with samsung. I'm just happy that I found a nice price on nx1 two months ago, similar to the present one. Otherwise I'd be so upset, now.

I highly doubt this is true, as I doubt a big consumer company like Samsung which is only a new entrant to the semi pro market would consider such an extreme niche camera model (it was a bold and brave move by Sony to make the A7s! But maybe Sony going first might make it easier for Samsung to follow? As they can clearly see what a success the A7s was. But on the flip side, is the market big enough for "two A7s" models?).

Doubtful, power requirements too high / too much heat generated.  Panasonic can do 4K because they use smaller chips and a different sensor technology optimized for video, not photography.