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I bought a Ninja Assassin specifically for V-Log, and despite my initial reservations it's been absolutely worthwhile. Small and light is great, but having that 7in screen means I just got it right more often, and that alone was worth it. And V-log looks AMAZING in 10bit -- skin tones in particular just looks so good. I did go back and forth over whether spending double what I paid for the camera (once you factor in SSDs and batteries) is a worthwhile investment, but while I could have sold all the m43 gear and bought a Sony, I'd then have to spend a ton of time learning a new camera system, find the pitfalls and ways to get around it, develop new workflows... and that just isn't worth it to me. I know the GH4 well enough now that it won't surprise me when I'm under pressure, having a big screen means I can see what I'm doing, and importantly when we're working fast my client can see as well, so there's no surprises at the end of the day.
Did I mention how good V-Log looks in 10 bit? Because it's GLORIOUS!

I bought a Ninja Assassin specifically for V-Log, and despite my initial reservations it's been absolutely worthwhile. Small and light is great, but having that 7in screen means I just got it right more often, and that alone was worth it. And V-log looks AMAZING in 10bit -- skin tones in particular just looks so good. I did go back and forth over whether spending double what I paid for the camera (once you factor in SSDs and batteries) is a worthwhile investment, but while I could have sold all the m43 gear and bought a Sony, I'd then have to spend a ton of time learning a new camera system, find the pitfalls and ways to get around it, develop new workflows... and that just isn't worth it to me. I know the GH4 well enough now that it won't surprise me when I'm under pressure, having a big screen means I can see what I'm doing, and importantly when we're working fast my client can see as well, so there's no surprises at the end of the day.
Did I mention how good V-Log looks in 10 bit? Because it's GLORIOUS!

I bought a Ninja Assassin specifically for V-Log, and despite my initial reservations it's been absolutely worthwhile. Small and light is great, but having that 7in screen means I just got it right more often, and that alone was worth it. And V-log looks AMAZING in 10bit -- skin tones in particular just looks so good. I did go back and forth over whether spending double what I paid for the camera (once you factor in SSDs and batteries) is a worthwhile investment, but while I could have sold all the m43 gear and bought a Sony, I'd then have to spend a ton of time learning a new camera system, find the pitfalls and ways to get around it, develop new workflows... and that just isn't worth it to me. I know the GH4 well enough now that it won't surprise me when I'm under pressure, having a big screen means I can see what I'm doing, and importantly when we're working fast my client can see as well, so there's no surprises at the end of the day.
Did I mention how good V-Log looks in 10 bit? Because it's GLORIOUS!

I just wanted to throw in my two cents of experience with Andrew's Log Converter.
I've shot a couple of little jobs with it and it's been absolutely great for me. I transcode my footage to Prores with the LUT applied, and in the latest version of Premiere I use Premiere's 1DC input LUT in the Basic panel (made by the SpeedLooks guys), and choose one of the built in LUTs (I like the Clean Punch HDR) in the Creative panel. That gets me rich, punchy colours, and great skin tones -- really, cleaning up skin tones is by far the best bit about the Log Converter. 
The other thing I like about the Log Converter is that I can shoot a pretty contrasty look in camera (using Andrew's in camera settings), so I get a good sense of what I'm looking at. I find it difficult to get the mojo going looking a flat flat images, and I love that I can see a punchy image on camera and know that I have a reasonable amount of flexibility in post. 
Below is a screenshot from a job where I used those settings (her skin is a bit red because she had red brick walls on both sides of her).

Of course, Your Mileage May Vary, but for me it's a total winner. Thanks Andrew!
 

Just out of curiosity, would you not consider getting another Nikon D7200, since that's the camera you've used and the camera you know? I only ask because if it's a job, you want to remove as much of the unknowns as possible, and if you're getting steady work with the gear that you had, then you don't have to worry about having to learn all the new gear and work out a new workflow and all that stuff.
For what it's worth I shoot a GH4, and I think that's the best value all-rounder package on the market right now. The 4K footage looks great, and being able to shoot 4K without the humungous file sizes is a revelation. It has really useful functions for video like peaking and zebras, the LCD works well in daylight and the EVF is really nice as well so you can operate without a monitor, the battery life is astonishing (I've shot whole days on just 3 batteries). For everything else it does ok compared with the other cameras it competes with.  So it's not as good as an A7s in low light, but it's perfectly usable (assuming you expose correctly). The colour isn't as nice as a Canon, especially anything that shoots C-Log, but with the right settings on the camera and the right post-production process, you can get good colour from it. I've been using Andrew's GH4 Log Converter, and it's made getting great colour out of the GH4 a snap. Here's something I shot recently with the log converter:

https://vimeo.com/137681905

V-Log is going to improve things dramatically on this front -- I had a look at the V-Log footage Nick Driftwood released and put Panasonic's V-Log to Rec709 LUT on it and it looks brilliant! If you expose well when you're shooting your post-production is going to be super-simple once V-Log is available.

That little film was shot with the GH4 and the Lumix 12-35 f2.8, which is a nice combo that would work for lots of different circumstances. I also have a Voightlander 17.5mm f0.95 which is my go to lens for night time shooting, and a Metabones Speedbooster which lets me use all my Nikon lenses when I need to.

Most of what I do is hand held, or I need to be fast and lightweight, so the GH4 is perfect for me. I think if I did a lot more video work (I'm primarily a stills photographer) I would look more seriously at something like a C300. But then again, maybe not -- you can buy a whole lot of lighting with the difference in cost between a C300 and a GH4. 

I just wanted to throw in my two cents of experience with Andrew's Log Converter.
I've shot a couple of little jobs with it and it's been absolutely great for me. I transcode my footage to Prores with the LUT applied, and in the latest version of Premiere I use Premiere's 1DC input LUT in the Basic panel (made by the SpeedLooks guys), and choose one of the built in LUTs (I like the Clean Punch HDR) in the Creative panel. That gets me rich, punchy colours, and great skin tones -- really, cleaning up skin tones is by far the best bit about the Log Converter. 
The other thing I like about the Log Converter is that I can shoot a pretty contrasty look in camera (using Andrew's in camera settings), so I get a good sense of what I'm looking at. I find it difficult to get the mojo going looking a flat flat images, and I love that I can see a punchy image on camera and know that I have a reasonable amount of flexibility in post. 
Below is a screenshot from a job where I used those settings (her skin is a bit red because she had red brick walls on both sides of her).

Of course, Your Mileage May Vary, but for me it's a total winner. Thanks Andrew!
 

Assuming you're not under crazy deadlines, transcoding is your friend! I ttranscode my GH4 4K footage to Prores and I can edit on a late 2012 Mac Mini, it works great. 

Last time I built a computer from scratch I used an i7 4770 with a Gigabyte board and 16gb of RAM, with a GTX770, and that allowed me to edit my GH4 4K natively in Premiere. No such luck in Resolve, I'd peak out at 22 fps -- I read deep in the Blackmagic forums that to edit h.264 natively in Resolve you need to throw a ton of CPU cores, so I'd have to look at 6 core or 8 core CPUs for that to work.
Personally I'd go the transcoding route, and use your $1000 budget on new hard drives (you'd need them!) 

I just wanted to throw in my two cents of experience with Andrew's Log Converter.
I've shot a couple of little jobs with it and it's been absolutely great for me. I transcode my footage to Prores with the LUT applied, and in the latest version of Premiere I use Premiere's 1DC input LUT in the Basic panel (made by the SpeedLooks guys), and choose one of the built in LUTs (I like the Clean Punch HDR) in the Creative panel. That gets me rich, punchy colours, and great skin tones -- really, cleaning up skin tones is by far the best bit about the Log Converter. 
The other thing I like about the Log Converter is that I can shoot a pretty contrasty look in camera (using Andrew's in camera settings), so I get a good sense of what I'm looking at. I find it difficult to get the mojo going looking a flat flat images, and I love that I can see a punchy image on camera and know that I have a reasonable amount of flexibility in post. 
Below is a screenshot from a job where I used those settings (her skin is a bit red because she had red brick walls on both sides of her).

Of course, Your Mileage May Vary, but for me it's a total winner. Thanks Andrew!
 

Assuming you're not under crazy deadlines, transcoding is your friend! I ttranscode my GH4 4K footage to Prores and I can edit on a late 2012 Mac Mini, it works great. 

Last time I built a computer from scratch I used an i7 4770 with a Gigabyte board and 16gb of RAM, with a GTX770, and that allowed me to edit my GH4 4K natively in Premiere. No such luck in Resolve, I'd peak out at 22 fps -- I read deep in the Blackmagic forums that to edit h.264 natively in Resolve you need to throw a ton of CPU cores, so I'd have to look at 6 core or 8 core CPUs for that to work.
Personally I'd go the transcoding route, and use your $1000 budget on new hard drives (you'd need them!) 

Let me quote those last words:

[quote name='Coppola']

[font=Helvetica][size=3]... for once the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever and it will become an art form.[/size][/font]
[/quote]

He is not talking about any technical issue. What he predicted became reality at once. With Super 8 cameras and later home video. There were artists, driven by the need to express themselves, who took these simple, so called 'unprofessional' means without glancing at what 'the industry' did with their millions.

To an artist, the comparison of consumer cameras to professional cameras is of little interest. [i]Ars gratia artis[/i] (pompous MGM phrase). A real indie doesn't need comparison. If I have to say something, I don't care about if it meets technical specs. If all I want to do is identify myself with the achievements of others, I am pretentious:


[quote name='Coppola']

[font=Helvetica][size=3]Nothing is so terrible as a pretentious movie[/size][/font]
[/quote]

BTW: Great film, I prefer the original cut. One good argument for the use of true anamorphic lenses:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/technical

You see the typical lens flares and the funny looking focus transitions very often. What you also see in the specs: Shot in 35 mm, but published in 70 mm. Nobody ever complained about inappropriately low resolution ...

https://vimeo.com/45985040

Not sure if you guys have seen this, but it's pretty awesome. The last quote from Coppola was especially relevant!