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Damphousse

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  1. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Aussie Ash in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    A very good article by Frank Glencairn on the new camera
    https://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2018/04/19/why-the-new-pocket-cinema-camera-2-0-isnt-actually-a-successor-of-the-original-pocket-and-why-it-doesnt-mater/
  2. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Snowfun in Lars von Trier returns to Cannes and people seem to have taken personal offence to his fictional serial killer   
    “What I do support is the freedom of the filmmaker to make a film of his choosing without censorship.”
    The danger here is that this statement is difficult to distinguish from:
    ”...is the freedom of the person to behave in a way of his choosing without censorship.”  That is anarchy. In a JCSesque happy psycho-utopia it might work but in practice there is no evidence that it can or does or has.
    In a civilised society there are - and must be - certain moral standards and rules which govern the behaviour and actions of individuals. Those who break those rules are liable to sanctions. And that, in my opinion, has to apply to “filmmakers” just as much as a school teacher or any other occupation or label. Yes, “creative types” push, bend and test the rules - but that is an entirely different statement than to suggest that a filmmaker should be allowed to operate entirely out-with any moral boundary. No one individual or category of individuals deserves to be exempt from the moral control which “society” - broadly understood and interpreted and not even necessarily universal -  deems appropriate. Remember Zach? I’m sure he described himself as a “filmmaker”.  He wasn’t allowed to express his creativity in the way he thought appropriate because he “breached” the “rules” of a “community”.
    Note that, as far as I am aware, no one proposed that he should have been stopped before making the film. He had the “freedom” to make it - society retains an assumed  moral authority and freedom to respond in whatever way it seems appropriate.
    Freedom - the key word here possibly - is never unrestrained or unqualified or independent of a given framework.
    ”He is here to trouble us and to prod, to get us out of our comfort zone and possibly even to give a few of us nightmares.”
    Would that justification also apply to a terrorist? 
    Once the statement is qualified then it inevitably acquires an unresolved ambiguity and “dies the death of a thousand qualifications”. 
    An interesting and thought-provoking article. 
  3. Like
    Damphousse reacted to no_connection in Need advice for future proofing my pc for later upgrades for editing   
    While 2x16GB is indeed a great start, RAM price is not the nicest nowdays. But I guess that is what happens with a planned shortage to drive price up. Going to be interesting to see what happens with that lawsuit, if it even change anything since it's not the first time it happened.
    This is why I like ECC in a workstation, granted I have not heard of anyone having RAM problem in years unless you count lightning strike or other causes.
  4. Like
    Damphousse reacted to anonim in Lars von Trier returns to Cannes and people seem to have taken personal offence to his fictional serial killer   
    Yes, but moreover,  LvTr with film as this last one doesn't provoke anything, doesn't reveal nor explore anything, it is legitimate and welcome part of brain-and-feel-washing industry.
    Seen inside of global direction of modeling human mind - It just well serves in plan of step-by-step habituation to projected goal as described, say, in Huxley's dystopias.
    With its intention and articulation, today it is simply cheap commercial movie for so-called or so-self-esteem upper western public.
    There's no elaboration as inside, say, Clockwork orange, there's no intrinsic form-call to dilemma or critic dialogue, it is just big movie-spot.
    For me, fundamental conception of article is wrong - problem of this movie is not at all that it deserve censorship, which is senseless. Problem is, not that it is just irrelevant by its cheap-cliche idea, but that it is deeply opportunistic and easy-understandable commercial - although impudently promoted as rebellion.
    Deprived from subtlety, it is not achievement of rebel, but of well-established screw in industry.
  5. Thanks
    Damphousse reacted to Richard Bugg in Lars von Trier returns to Cannes and people seem to have taken personal offence to his fictional serial killer   
    You pose that as a rhetorical question, as though the answer is self-evident. But it is a very relevant question. How do you define violence? Is it aways physical? What is the impact of witnessing extreme violence, real or depicted? Can showing a violent film be a form of violence itself?
    You have already alluded to how films might provoke a physiological and psychological response (nightmares), and have suggested that films like this should be kept from children and "idiots". Why do you suggest these films be censored for some people and not others? Aside from the fact that you have qualified your own argument about censorship in this way, I presume it's because you recognise that exposure to screen violence might have some deleterious effect on at least some people? A cursory examination of the published literature suggest that this is indeed likely to be the case.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29093050
    This film has been made. You have linked the trailer, which itself depicts graphic and extreme violence. You suggest that this is for an "art house" audience, but here it is on the internet.  It will be downloaded into people's homes, not confined to carefully chosen audiences that have weeded out the vulnerable. So children, youths, "idiots" and all manner of people will watch this trailer, and will watch this film, because in this day and age it is easily available, and because parents don't always take proper care or don't always understand the effects of such films on their children's and their own development. And who knows what effect these films have on the psyche of the general community over time. We are running that experiment now. People used to think smoking and asbestos were harmless.
    The real question is this: Is curtailing individual freedoms in some instances justified due to probable harmful effects on the community?
    I think in most rational and civic minded communities the answer would be yes. People who call themselves "Artists" are no exception. This is not sinister big government at play. This is about building civil and healthy societies. Where that line is drawn is a matter of debate. But to argue against any form of restriction is to neither accept nor care that some forms of expression might be harmful and might have harmful impacts on others.
    This NYT article on the current controversy provides some interesting insights. Based on the final chilling paragraphs LvT may well be sociopathic. I certainly wouldn't want him as my banner boy for freedom of expression, but then again if you argue against censorship in any form then you are arguing not only for LvT's work, but also for far worse. Good luck with that.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/movies/lars-von-trier-the-house-that-jack-built-cannes-film-festival.html
     
  6. Like
    Damphousse reacted to TwoScoops in Lars von Trier returns to Cannes and people seem to have taken personal offence to his fictional serial killer   
    The Shining, Scarface and Terminator got mild reviews when released too. haha
  7. Like
    Damphousse reacted to SleepyWill in Lars von Trier returns to Cannes and people seem to have taken personal offence to his fictional serial killer   
    "so many people can’t interpret the correct target of a film or even a joke, because they are too thick."
    A joke, or a film that has to explain itself to the audience is a failure. If the audience don't get it, then you as an artist have failed, you've either marketed it in such a way that the wrong people are going to see it, or you're not a very good artist. Now if you're trying to show something to an audience that they wouldn't usually see, and are trying to show them why your work is good, then you both need to expect the discussion about it, along with the criticism and for only the very pinicle of your genre to have any chance of success. If you are not at the pinnacle, you're likely to fail.
    " I remember reading just recently about a top scientist who was in a large elevator with a lot of members from the audience of a conference, and he joked he wanted someone to press the button for him to get out at the women’s lingerie department. The target for this joke was of course himself, a decaying old man finding humour in a desperate fictionalised version of himself, seeking sexual satisfaction by exploring the women’s lingerie department, "
    With you completely...
    "but he ended up losing his job because people in the elevator took offence"
    He didn't lose his job. He didn't lose anything. If he does, it won't be about the joke, it was about how he responded to the complaint. See below.
    "saw the target as their gender, thought it misogynistic and wanted him fired. And the community in which he worked was so politically correct that they actually went ahead and did so. A life’s work ruined in a blink of an eye, a career smashed in the time it takes to make a wise crack in a lift.
    Actually, the complaint about the joke was, quite rightly about to be dismissed. The big problem wasn't the joke, it was that he tried to intimidate the person who complained. Ex Partie communication is a very bad thing and should never be defended.
    "but trivially empty family friendly content has kick started a mental health epidemic"
    No it hasn't
    "In the lead up to this year’s Cannes, Kate Muir of the Guardian newspaper in the UK lambasted Von Trier’s presence in the festival purely for being male"
    It's interesting you think she lambasted him, given that all she did was print his own words, in context. What she was saying was, when there are all these great female directors, why is space being given to this guy. Here's things he has said. She was lambasting Cannes, yes, but him, no - his own words were enough - she even printed his follow up's to complaints about his words. 
    "At the screening of the new film, over 100 critics walked out mid-way through, probably because .."
    Probably? Hmmm..... anyone can make up stories about why someone did domething that supports their narrative, look:
    You probably wrote this article because you have been kidnapped by aliens.
    "The Ghostbusters remake and Black Panther were both terrible films "
    Black Panther was terrible? Really? Most people disagree with you.
    "and were practically immune to criticism"
    Not being criticised doesn't mean they were immune to criticism. For starters Ghostbusters was heavily criticised. I've only seen one even slightly positive bit of press about it that they didn't pay for and it was as faint praise as you can get, basically saying that it's for kids, and this is what kids find funny (They don't, as you can see by kid's criticisms of the film). Black Panther meanwhile was not heavily criticised because most people thought it was OK.
    "This privileged puritan mindset implies that women and black people are so downtrodden, they need some lightweight popcorn hit to empower them into doing something with their lives. "
    Hmmm... No. This "privileged" "puritan" mindset implies that not all successful movies need to be made for straight white guys in their early teens through late 40's.
    "it demonstrates to us that Von Trier and artists like him are right not to care, because logically the audience have no right to be offended."
    You there, stop feeling the things your feeling and saying the things you are saying! You don't have the right too feel those things and say those things. Von Trier would wholeheartedly disagree with this statement of yours:
    “Rebelling is part of my family. If you come to a family gathering, the family says something, you have to say something else. Then my family met my wife’s family, who said yes to everything, but my family often said no. If I see a form or a concept, I’d naturally challenge it, to see if there’s any possibility to gain more from it.”
    If everyone loved his film, if no-one was offended, if no-one criticised it, then he's failed, in his own eyes.
    "It is the filmmaker who is offering something to the audience."
    In exchange for money. Never forget that bit, you can rightly rail against criticism if you are offering it with no expectation of recompense, but as soon as you earn a living from your trade, expect to be compared against others doing the same, and criticised for where you fall short.
    "To feel personally insulted afterwards tells me that these critics are grandstanding a superior moral position over a work of FICTION, whereas the job of Von Trier the director is to create art, not a piece of ethical code for society."
    Logically then, you are grandstanding a superior moral position over a film writeup, whereas the job of a critic is to guide consumers to work they may enjoy, not a piece of ethical code for society.
    "In the puritan society"
    Let's talk about this. Can you really call a society puritan when bikinis are acceptable wear, when pornhub exists, when comedians routinely get naked on stage. Society isn't puritan, especially when you understand puritans dislike violence too, but society doesn't want to see tits in nearly every film (It would be nice if violence was in nearly every film too), not because they don't like seeing tits, but because it's so fucking boring seeing the same story points over and over and over again. If every schlocky horror film had gratuitous closeups of amputees limb endings, it would be that which society would be bored of.
    " really, it amounts to cultural censorship"
    Spoken like someone who has never experienced the horrors of actual censorship. No-one is putting him in prison for his movie, they are just not going to give him as much money as you would like for it. That's not censorship, cultural or otherwise.
    "If the industrial pioneers whose technology led to the creation of the camera all sat around raising awareness about empowerment of science, rather than making experiments in a lab"
    They did both, actually, because, you know, people aren't one dimensional cardboard cutouts.
    "and the way things are going  we’ll be without the future films of one of the world’s most interesting directors because no studio will accept his material."
    The irony, on a piece decrying pearl clutching, you scoop up the mightiest pearls you can find and clutch them so hard it's making me think this whole piece is your attempt at comedy.
     
    ----
     
    I do agree with the thrust of your argument - that films like this are important and should be given publicity - I just think you went about it in quite the stupidest way possible. Now excuse me while I write an email to my local arts cinema explaining why they should show this film. Please stop assuming I'm so dumb (and the silent majority) that I swallow critics self serving ramblings hook line and sinker. And try to not say things that are factually wrong.
  8. Like
    Damphousse reacted to SleepyWill in Lars von Trier returns to Cannes and people seem to have taken personal offence to his fictional serial killer   
    Art in which the supposed audience are not supposed to get it, generally work because the people who believe they are the audience are not. Some artists are their own intended audience, taking amusement at the bewilderment, or for others to take amusement at the same thing.
    When you make a work intended for (insert group here) and that group of people see it and say it's rubbish, then it's rubbish. Art is a lot of things but one thing it can never be is audienceless. Art by definition is supposed to be seen or otherwise experienced. Sadly artists are just normal people and come with the full range of weasel like behaviour that we can all exhibit when our feelings are hurt, and that includes lying about the intention of art if it fails the honest intention.
     
    As for "commercial art", everyone's got to make a living, and if you can monetise the thing you love, why shouldn't you, why should you get sneered at for making the decision about your life that made you happy? Who are you to say that if I make something and someone is prepared to pay to experience it, that it's worth less than something made that no-one is prepared to pay to experience? Or that if I choose to take that money, suddenly my art is less worthy.
  9. Like
    Damphousse reacted to kye in GoPro stock plummets 90% in less than a 1.5 years   
    That's an interesting point.  Many of the reasons it's not suitable for me (as a specialist camera) make it more suitable for the average consumer.
    Phones still have huge screens and are already in your pocket, but the 19mm lens does help somewhat.
  10. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Django in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    No one is going to argue about DR superiority of the UM4.6K with 15 stops advertised instead of 12 for the 4K. It's also got a wider ISO range.
    All i'm saying is if you're allergic to rolling shutter and again want a 4K Super 35mm Sensor with Global Shutter then the UM4K/BMPC4K are a good deal.
    The F55 is literally 10 times retail of the UM4K and 20 times a used BMPC4K. Just sayin'
  11. Like
    Damphousse reacted to webrunner5 in GoPro stock plummets 90% in less than a 1.5 years   
    My Hero Session 5 is just crazy good for how cheap they are. They are a no brainer for the money.
  12. Thanks
    Damphousse reacted to Luke Mason in Higher quality action camera? (GoPro replacement)   
    There are modified Go Pro 6 available with 19mm all glass, low distortion lens. Better sharpness with almost no glare. 
  13. Like
    Damphousse reacted to webrunner5 in Now mirrorless is a raging success. Samsung will be back   
    I am sure they Could do it, but with this new 4K BMPCC and the Sony A7 mk III at the prices they are it would be even more risky now. We don't know if the next GH6 will come out cheaper because of it than the GH5. Will it force Canon, Nikon to really change the price now of their new Mirrorless stuff. I think both of these recent announcements have to effect the market pricing pretty big time going forward.
    I think even Sony has put themselves in a tight box with the A7 mk III pricing. Is a better EVF and better LCD worth 1000 bucks more? Is the A9 worth 4 grand now new? They now have 4 FF cameras fighting for the same market in a sense now. Is the A9 worth twice the price of the A7 mk III now. Doubt it. To a Pro it is, but how many are they going to sell to them?
    And now with Fuji picking up the pace in video with the X-H1, which I am sure Samsung could beat specs wise, but still the market is not as forgiving as it was a few years ago. I don't see how you can sell a APSC camera now for even 2 grand, let alone m4/3 cameras at that price. I just don't see an opening for Samsung in any market, APSC, FF or less. The mirrorless camera market soon is going to be packed with all kind and brands of bodies. It is going to get really ugly soon.
    And it appears Blackmagic and Sony are willing to just about give their stuff away to grab and keep market share. And it also shows how little money is needed to make one of these cameras and still make money doing it. Unless Samsung has some total groundbreaking camera like the 4K BMPCC in a APSC size I think it would be suicide.
     
  14. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Yurolov in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    I think the thing that astounds me is that for a standalone 5 inch daylight viewable external monitor from a company like SmallHD you are looking at a price not too dissimilar from the price of the entire camera! But along with including LUT previews, you also get the added benefit of baking in LUTS.
    The OS of the blackmagics is second to none. The touchscreens are like what you would find on a smartphone.  The same cannot be said of Sony's or Fuji's top-end cameras which leave a lot to be desired. Canon and Panasonic get it right, though.
    That's some kind of value. Really makes you think about what the profit margins are for companies like SmallHD and the bigger players in the industry.  
  15. Like
    Damphousse reacted to mercer in The M43 Cinema - 3 Way Battle   
    Good to know thanks. I had the 12-35mm with the OG Pocket and it seemed okay. Most likely I’ll use c-mounts or maybe I’ll get a Voigt. 
    I saw a few videos and the Panny 14mm f/2.5 looked pretty good on the original Pocket as well.
  16. Haha
    Damphousse reacted to mercer in The Canon C200 is here and its a bomb!   
    I can agree with your first point. I am the hobbyist market that would love to shoot with one but can not afford it. But I also think Canon is segmenting their line up so much, that there is a camera for everybody’s needs. The C200, in my opinion, is solely for micro budget narrative, documentary and music video work.
    This is a camera to use when you have a small budget and a tight schedule... When you’ve scheduled for a 3:1 shot ratio and you’re trying to compete with short films or features that are shot on Alexas. Obviously, it’s not as good as an Alexa, but it will get you nearly halfway there.
    That was obviously a lost in translation title. We all knew what he meant.
    On a side note... 
    A few years ago I was driving through an urban area and there was a billboard with a McDonalds ad. The ad showed a huge Big Mac  and Ronald McDonald eyeballing it with crazy eyes.
    The caption read... “I’d hit that.” Hahahahaha.
    Obviously, nobody in the McDonald’s ad approval department realized that “I’d hit that” was a sexual slang phrase.
    So instead of proclaiming how much Ronald wanted to eat that Big Mac, in actuality their advertisement proclaimed that Ronald McDonald wanted to have sex with the Big Mac.
  17. Like
    Damphousse reacted to mercer in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    Never thought of that... thanks for the head's up.
  18. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Logan in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    lol, Jesus. How is this even comparable to cable? I'm willing to bet a large portion of people buying this camera don't own a studio license for Resolve. I'm blown away that people are complaining about a company throwing in $300 software with a camera that will likely compete with cameras costing 3-4 times as much.
     
  19. Thanks
    Damphousse reacted to Aussie Ash in Final Cut ProRes RAW   
    Grant Petty talks about Prores raw at 6.4 
     
     
  20. Haha
    Damphousse reacted to Trek of Joy in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    -1 for my reading comprehension. Oops.
  21. Haha
    Damphousse reacted to TwoScoops in Firmware Update To Output RAW over HDMI? Is that even remotely possible???   
    I can see Panasonic giving it the ole college try with the gh5s in light of recent events. 
  22. Like
    Damphousse reacted to IronFilm in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    I agree with him, in the photography still world the technical performance has plateaued out, with only incremental improvements now. 
    When will we reach this in the video world?

    I reckon the BMPCC4K could be the beginning of the end. 
     
     
  23. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Oliver Daniel in Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K   
    Well, I pre-ordered one. 
    You have to love Blackmagic for what they have done. 
  24. Haha
    Damphousse reacted to kaylee in NX1 RAW VIDEO???   
    uh oh

  25. Like
    Damphousse reacted to Andrew Reid in NX1 RAW VIDEO???   
    Stop teasing us and show us the money.
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