Chrad

The director wants to keep a lid on the production costs so as not to distract attention away from the film itself. He's doing the opposite of propagating a starving artist narrative. That said, I heard a rumour that the budget was around $50,000.
$300,000 in a month is very acceptable for a small scale, no studio independent release, but if the budget is correct, it's exceptional. Six times the production costs is a great return on investment, especially when he's spending so little on distribution or marketing.
Bare in mind that this is not the only number that counts. Carruth is also making money from every foreign distributor that picks up the film. It's just a little from each country, but it adds up.
 
Talk about negativity. This guy could go out and shoot an upbeat movie in the hopes of chasing success, or he could make what he wants to make, on his own terms, and retain total artistic control over the film and its release. He found a way to do the latter and remain profitable.
That is true success. 

Um, sorry but, no.  Those "hidden" costs are invariably related to distribution companies and their fees.  That's how the brothers at Miramax built up their company and gained power, by fucking over the filmmakers they distributed for.  If he's releasing this himself...is he roleplaying and giving himself a hard time?  Is that what you're suggesting?
 
The $300,000 for limited theatrical (less than 50 screens at its highest) with no real P+A budget or conventional marketing is rather outstanding (takes $30M to market a film conventionally, according to Soderberg's revelation).  You aren't even looking at the available information to form an educated guess about what's going on here so your statements are exactly the opposite of "educated".   
 
He's also self-releasing it on DVD and streaming, meaning very little overhead.  The limited theatrical and growing word-of-mouth will serve as a mini marketing campaign for the home video release which could easily bring him three to five times the small theatrical business.  How well it does then will ultimately come down to what he actually spent on it (or raised) and what, if any, deferrals are still owed.
 
You won't know the production cost unless he wants it to be known.  There is no authority to IMDB or boxofficemojo or any of these sorts of sites.  They get their information from voluntary sources with no oversight or fact checking or even a means to fact check that sort of information.  Someone sends a number and if their account or previous history is deemed trustworthy it gets posted as if it were fact without a single phone call or e-mail or any follow-up for first party confirmation.

About $75 million.

No studio. He released it on his own. Traveled to different cities presenting and doing Q&As. I'd say that is pretty successful.

Thoughts:
Of the Pocket we know only two videos today, one the vimeo upload of an ungraded ProRes-edit, looking way too flat to an unexperienced eye like mine. The second the graded version, with some shots of seemingly very good dynamic range, others that still look somewhat washed out. I never liked the colors of Brawley, but others did really cool things with the 2,5k BMCC. I am sure of one thing: The Pocket is the camera for the best colors, but you need to have 'an eye', experience with grading and preferably the free Resolve Lite. I learned it just now, with the aide of Ripple, which I recommend by the way. 
 
I believe that if someone not familiar with the niceties of grading can produce good colors with the Pocket, it is with this great software. But many will fail, because it really isn't painting by numbers.
 
In the video, we see another aspect of which I am unsure how to interpret it: Low resolution.
Grant Petty of BM stated, the Pocket wasn't as sharp as the BMCC.
On the other hand, we see handheld shots, which can cause the LFR-video to be smeared by motion blur.
I really would like to see some expert footage.
 
Other than that, I instantly fell in love with that little device. I WANT it. But I don't know how or if it fits to the Lumix's.
 
Because with them, you have to expose more accurately, you have to watch out for banding artifacts and find a proper white balance, regardless of your intention to color correct and grade extensively. The G6 can obviously complement the GH2 or the other way around. It adds 1080 @ 50/60p, the image apparently has as many advantages as it has disadvantages. For the image alone there would imho be no need to change the camera. 

BMPCC would become your primary camera if you bought one, both because the quality will destroy anything you've worked with before, and because it requires a lot more work in post and a lot more storage space.

G6.should most closely match the GH2, since it uses the same sensor. It has improved image processing over the GH2 and some nice new features. It's also the cheapest.

GH3 is a good camera if you want to shoot stills with your GH2 lens collection while having a nice video camera. It's better in low light and high iso. It's also the most expensive of the three camera bodies.

I'd make the screening room pitch black. I once worked in a very big cinema, it had black seats, black walls and a black velvet mask around the screen. It also had a steep, amphitheater-like audtitorium. When the lights went down, it was almost like 'I count to ten, you open your eyes and you are in ... '- wherever the film took you.

I'd leave the main forum black on white. Why? I'm not sure why. I just think about it now. I had a DVX 100 once, but seldom visited the DVX user forum then.

Amen Chrad. I find myself sometimes becoming a shopping bitch and worrying more about which glass to buy or what gear to get next instead of what i shoot next. Gear is only there to support the content. If there is no good content, all gear is useless.
 
if you got good content, need a certain gear to make a certain shot possible and you can afford it, go for it by all means. Always use the best gear you can get and then forget about it and just see it as a tool.
 
the gh2 is the best in its priceclass but also has its of limitations (banding, DR, rolling shutter like all dslrs, and i dont like the dark objects on it in lower (but not dark light) although its possible to denoise it well), still i dont see why a good filmmaker should not make a good movie on it.
 
For my purposes it has always been more than enough. When i was making things for television i always had professionals working the camera (non dslr stuff) and editing the footage with me while i focused on the content and how i wanted things to look. Sometimes i brought it with me as a static-cam to film stuff from weird perspectives and angles. the material could always be intercut with the stuff that cameras did which cost 20 times as much.
 
Regarding your questions: so far there is no hack for the gh3. as far as i have heard, some people are not too happy about the options (all-i has a too small bitrate etc). so i would wait and see if it ever gets hacked. i would also wait for blackmagic before i get the mkiii.
 
One thing that just popped in my mind: you said you just film stuff around you, which means you will also carry the stuff. when i do the same thing, i always carry around 6 lenses etc etc. the 5d and EF glass is most of the time heavier than a gh2, plus the gh2 has a decent stealth factor, people dont expect you to film with that tiny beast.
 
As mentioned before, if you dont film for the big screen the sharpened 5d footage is all fine. if you really blow it up though, it looses its appeal in my opinion. I use plenty of old legacy glass on the gh2 and a hack which focuses on gradations (intravenus or valkyrie) and i would not call sharpness an issue, the old glass is way smoother than most lumix lenses.
 
regarding whether its clever to invest in EF or m43 or nikon glass: only time will tell :)

Well said.
 
On the previous page I brought up Upstream Color. The important thing regarding that film is not whether it looks plastic or camcorder-y, it's that it was taken seriously at Sundance, was well reviewed and received international distribution deals. The director didn't publicise the use of the GH2 and didn't want it overly publicised so as not to distract attention from the qualities of the film. The write-ups I read didn't go out of their way to criticise the cinematography, and in fact several of them praised it. All of this from a film shot with a consumer stills camera. It makes the excuses a lot of people create that they're waiting for the right equipment to match their vision look very weak.
 
I'm not saying that equipment doesn't matter. I think the aesthetic qualities of a work are very important. I don't believe you should force a  video medium onto a filmmaker that is unhappy with it any more than I think you should force an oil painter to use watercolours. But all that said, the effect you can have on an audience with less desirable equipment can't be denied. Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE is another film shot on fuzzy, low res digital video. The 480p image looked soft and blurry on a 35mm blow up, and the dynamic range there is nothing to write home about. But even so, in its way, it's aesthetically gorgeous, and it's a beautiful, haunting work as a whole. Just recently I watched a great Chilean film, No. Shot on VHS! In 4X3 glory! And yet still more engaging and interesting than most films I've watched in cinemas over the past year.
 
As great as it is to have unrestricted freedom, there is also value in working within limitations. A resilient artist can make the most of what is available to them and thrive even with obstacles in their way. Von Trier's The Five Obstructions is a good film on this subject. Had the Taxi Driver themed sequel not fallen apart in the wake of the Cannes Nazi comment controversy, I imagine one of the challenges would be for Scorsese to remake a scene from the film on an iPhone or some similarly limited video device, and I'm sure Scorsese would knock it out of the park.
 
Another note: everyone seems to be longing for a device that looks as much like film as possible. I think Blackmagic has the most conventionally pleasing look of any consumer or prosumer camera on the market. I adore the look. It's closer to the characteristics of film than other consumer cameras, mostly because of the lack of digital artefacts and the very wide dynamic range, but it has its own visual signature. It looks like Blackmagic footage. Only film truly looks like film. 
I think film(video?)makers can free themselves with this philosophy. You are not shooting with film, so it's okay to make something that looks like video. We all aspire to recreate the gorgeous looking films we were brought up on, but there's nothing wrong with loosening up and going for a less 'perfect' look sometimes. In the case of 'No', VHS was the right aesthetic. it's a good fit for a story about television in the 80s, and it does not end up detracting from the warmth and power of the 'film'.
 
1. Well, it depends how good you are. You can make the footage much flatter than the GH2, and it's pretty nice to grade. 
2. Better than anything else in the price range, bar the 5D3 or Blackmagic Cinema Camera. It's no FS100 or C300, but it gets the job done.
3. I don't have one, but the answer seems to be 'no'.
 
 
To an extent, but when you see footage out of the original Blackmagic Cinema Camera you understand. It's like IMAX compared to DSLR video. The test Andrew did a few months ago really proves the point.
https://vimeo.com/63131168
I'm not too worried about this because of the imminent BMD M43 cameras. I think the Pocket Cam and BMD M43 are going to be competitive for many years to come. I'm not too worried about 4K right now, given that nearly all cinema releases are 2K and all TV broadcasts are 720P.

I did read your post, my point was just that some of the GH2 footage that Panasonic uploaded looked quite soft, which points to the fault being on their end. Granted, the GH2 with 12-35 f/2.8 video I posted is a bit sharper than the G6 demo, but barely.  
I shouldn't have been such a smartass about it, sorry about that.

If you dont intend to do a lot of photography, i would not go for a 8bit camera anymore. i would rather go for one of the blackmagic ones. true, extra storage costs and you need a decent pc, still, it appeals a lot more to my eye.
 
if you want to go the 8bit route, i think the gh2 is still a fine camera for the price, it has its limitations, but if you dont need it for paid jobs, its absolutely a decent camera. there is a tendency these days to just live the postcard-syndrome, as Robert Bresson put it. People should think less of their gear and more about their ideas and concepts and what they got to do with themselves. I have seen wonderful things shot on average cameras. The dslr canon super shallow depth of field-thingy is terrible in my opinion. i would not even call it cinematic. result is most amateurs shoot 70% of the shit out of focus, even in interviews.People like Sven Nyqvist would have spanked the shit out of most of the people out there with an iphone. These days i watched agnes vardas glaneur et glaneuses (excuse my poor french) shot in terrible digital camera video look. and what a wonderful and poetic movie it was, rightly awarded many prices.
 
Only reason for me to pick the 5d over the gh2/3 would be the option to take superb stills and a better DR than gh2. 

I'd like to point out that the GH3 has MUCH better low light handling and dynamic range than the GH2. It's more in line with the Canon crop-sensor cameras, even a bit better.
It's also lightyears better as a stills camera than the GH2. There's a much bigger difference in stills quality than video, in fact.

Panasonic apparently pixel binds 2x2 pixels to reduce the sensor's full resolution to 1/4 before reading the sensor (approximately 12Mp to 3Mp for the GH3), then further reduces that when processing to "FullHD" (about 2Mp).
- http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2012/09/28/qa-with-panasonic-the-story-behind-the-new-gh3-and-compact-system-tech
 
Also Panasonic claimed disabling the multi-aspect feature of the sensor helps them improve their sensor reads, enabling 1080p60 as well as a cleaner image.  This makes sense since the GH2 had to down res approximately 3.5Mp to 2Mp with an older processor while the G6 will be converting 3Mp to 2Mp with a newly developed processor designed to further increase signal to noise, preserve details in noise reductions and widen dynamic range.  Checkout the G5 since it also used the GH2 sensor with supposedly better results, and it did it without this new processor. (I'm still trying to track down where I read all this so take it with a grain of salt)
 
Can't help to think this could be Panasonic trying to show off what they can do with their own hardware technology, vs the Sony sensor in the GH3, justing on the specs and price Panasonic seems to be ok "cannibalizing" some of the GH3 sales to make this point. 

You should be working with an array if you're 4K (or serious 2K or 1080P).  Individual drive sizes aren't really an issue as much as throughput (the real elephant in the room is back up and archival).  Individual drives aren't going to support much more than compressed formats.  This isn't something you're going to effectively build internally and never has been.  Internal arrays of a couple drives aren't really meant for, or ideal, for this.
 
So this begs the question, should you even be going 4K?  Odds are the realistic answer is "no" and so you're creating problems for yourself that already have solutions for those that actually need it, which is almost nobody except big event, commercial, theatrical.  Regardless of what the churn in consumerism tells you you need.
 
 
hint: maybe one in ten, if that, blockbusters you've ever seen has been finished at anything but 2K.  Sony and the rest are lying to you.

One positive of this camera vs the GH2 that the video illustrates: big blue skies everywhere, no banding in sight.

I'm currently using Portrait but without turning contrast down. I leave that in the middle. Saturation too. Sharpness I dial right down to -5 and add in post. Noise reduction I also dial right down. I use 1080/25p IPB 50Mbit rather than ALL-I. Saves card space and looks a bit better.

Took me a while to notice the front of the bike...

the pocket camera is at a price point where they will have to have subcontracted another manufacturer to undertake the work in the far east. i seriously doubt the pocket will be assembled by the same stretched plant who were assembling the original bmcc. At the price point no where other than the far east could handle manufacture of this camera within budget (I assume if retail is $999, wholesale is $499, and manufacturing is probably $50-100. Since the profit margin for bm is low, they will need to sell lots to recover development costs and start to see a profit. Hence they cannot allow it to get to a point where orders are cancelled. Only the far east could deliver the quantities required for an item of this price point IMO. The chinese plants deliver. and BM will have contracted a trustworthy plant and probably have australian techs in there full time

ah ok i thought they were taking the existing sensor and cropping. I still am incredibly sceptical about this July date based on past experience. They will now have 4 lines to manufacture, and although they are slightly more experienced with camera building it's still a small frame of time to get everything going. From what i've read (and again correct me if i'm wrong) they're still working on the 4K version so a final product isn't even ready to manufacture as of now.  

Took me a while to notice the front of the bike...

1. Shoots slow mo
2. Bigger sensor
3. Takes photos
 
If you want to take photos with the M43 lenses you use with your BMPCC, and get the bonus of a decent B cam that can be used for slow motion work, then yes. 
But it needs a price drop yesterday.
 
Although, let's not forget that if you're so inclined, you can go to a store and take home a GH3 today. BMD have a lot to prove.

Yes and no.  From a practical standpoint, the tough magnesium body is a welcome addition.  The battery is amazing at over 3 hours for such a tiny thing.  The LCD panel swings out and has very accurate color, good for low/high shots for run-n-gun situations.  And although not RAW, the codec is very stable and delivers good quality.  I see the GH3 dropping in price dramatically, but don't count it out.  It could easily work together with the Pocket Cinema Camera.

For the low-budget film maker, the Pocket Cinema Camera is a "game changer."
 
If you're a GH2 user looking for much more DR and detail in the shadows, I can't see the GH3 bringing much new to the table in terms of image quality.  By comparison, the GH3 is looking like Panasonic's 5D mk III: an expensive incremental update that, while competent in its own right, fails to fundamentally change the industry to the same degree as its predecessor.

1. Shoots slow mo
2. Bigger sensor
3. Takes photos
 
If you want to take photos with the M43 lenses you use with your BMPCC, and get the bonus of a decent B cam that can be used for slow motion work, then yes. 
But it needs a price drop yesterday.
 
Although, let's not forget that if you're so inclined, you can go to a store and take home a GH3 today. BMD have a lot to prove.