Matt Kieley

Last month I completed a short doc/promo for MMA fighter Drake Boen, directed by Edrei McCabe, shot and edited by me. The final version utilizes archival footage of past fights and doesn't have film grain, but I prefer this version, which I've dubbed "The Editor's Cut". It was shot mostly on the Canon EOS M with ML (H.264 with 3x Bitrate) with some Panasonic G7 (with focal reducer). Lenses used: Canon FD 50mm 1.4, 28mm 2.8, 35-105mm 3.5, and the Tokna 17mm 3.5. Edited with Premiere, graded with FilmConvert.
 

Last month I completed a short doc/promo for MMA fighter Drake Boen, directed by Edrei McCabe, shot and edited by me. The final version utilizes archival footage of past fights and doesn't have film grain, but I prefer this version, which I've dubbed "The Editor's Cut". It was shot mostly on the Canon EOS M with ML (H.264 with 3x Bitrate) with some Panasonic G7 (with focal reducer). Lenses used: Canon FD 50mm 1.4, 28mm 2.8, 35-105mm 3.5, and the Tokna 17mm 3.5. Edited with Premiere, graded with FilmConvert.
 

So all summer I've bene working on this short film, which is in the Sound Design/ADR/VFX/Scoring stage right now. It's the first really "serious" (as in made with the intention of submitting to festivals and not just dumped online) project I've done since my first feature film way back in 2009-2010.
Chicken is a horror comedy about a woman named Brenda, who has fallen on hard times financially, and is working as a mascot sign dancer for a chicken fast food restaurant, Wally's Chicken. But her boss, Steve, is a pill-popping abusive lunatic who bullies and pushes her to perform up to the standard of the former beloved mascot, who has recently passed away. As the stress of her job mounts, Brenda begins to believe she is being stalked by Chicken mascot.
Here are a few grabs:

From the fake crappy local commercial that opens the film. The signs of the restaurant we filmed at still need to be replaced.

Guinevere P.H. Dethlefson as Brenda

Brandon Nebitt as Steve.





Shot ont he Sony a6300 with mostly the Rokinon 16mm, and occasionally the Canon FD 35-105mm 3.5 zoom. It should be complete by the end of the year, and probably premiere next year. I may even share a private link here before it's premiere if there is any interest. Here's a little glimpse of some sign dancing:
 

Have you looked into the Panasonic FZ2500 or FZ300? The FZ2500 has a 1" sensor, built in zoom, built in NDs,  shoots DCI 4K at 100mbps and 1080 at 200mbps, and 120fps slow mo for $1k. And the FZ300 shoots UHD, 1080p/60, has a smaller sensor and no NDs, but a 24x zoom with a fixed 2.8 aperture for $500. They seem similar in specs and close in price to what you're looking for.

Have you looked into the Panasonic FZ2500 or FZ300? The FZ2500 has a 1" sensor, built in zoom, built in NDs,  shoots DCI 4K at 100mbps and 1080 at 200mbps, and 120fps slow mo for $1k. And the FZ300 shoots UHD, 1080p/60, has a smaller sensor and no NDs, but a 24x zoom with a fixed 2.8 aperture for $500. They seem similar in specs and close in price to what you're looking for.

So all summer I've bene working on this short film, which is in the Sound Design/ADR/VFX/Scoring stage right now. It's the first really "serious" (as in made with the intention of submitting to festivals and not just dumped online) project I've done since my first feature film way back in 2009-2010.
Chicken is a horror comedy about a woman named Brenda, who has fallen on hard times financially, and is working as a mascot sign dancer for a chicken fast food restaurant, Wally's Chicken. But her boss, Steve, is a pill-popping abusive lunatic who bullies and pushes her to perform up to the standard of the former beloved mascot, who has recently passed away. As the stress of her job mounts, Brenda begins to believe she is being stalked by Chicken mascot.
Here are a few grabs:

From the fake crappy local commercial that opens the film. The signs of the restaurant we filmed at still need to be replaced.

Guinevere P.H. Dethlefson as Brenda

Brandon Nebitt as Steve.





Shot ont he Sony a6300 with mostly the Rokinon 16mm, and occasionally the Canon FD 35-105mm 3.5 zoom. It should be complete by the end of the year, and probably premiere next year. I may even share a private link here before it's premiere if there is any interest. Here's a little glimpse of some sign dancing:
 

Who is this camera for then? Wedding videographers shooting in terrible dim/mixed lighting? Who would be able to afford the EVA1 + lenses, but not a few Lowel lights? I just recently picked up a second Lowel DP (1K) light, used, complete with barndoors, protective screen, and bulb for $60 from Adorama. The first one I bought used for a similar price. There are also good, bright LED lights that are portable and affordable, so "not having access to power" is no longer an excuse. Lighting should be something all filmmakers (not videographers, but filmmakers) use creatively, to express a feeling, not something that comes last, after camera, drones, gimbals, etc. 
If low light is a concern, why not buy an A7SII for a fraction of the cost of the EVA1?

And my point is, I wish they would design a camera that isn't ergonomically stupid, so we don't HAVE to rig it up just to make it work like a video camera. Of course there are rigs designed to add this type of functionality, but why should we have to buy $1k work of accessories just to make it functional? Or spend $5k+ on an UM4.6k? Yes, the Micro has a mount for a bigger battery on back, but they went with an LP-E6 instead of a camcorder battery, which I think is stupid, because you can get camcorder batteries in different capacities/sizes. If you want to use it as an action camera or on a gimbal/drone, just use one of the slimmer/lower capacity batteries, and if you want to shoot anything else, you can attach a larger battery that will last for more than 1-1.5 hours.

I have a set of FD lenses on my G7 and love them. kidzrevil has posted some gorgeous stuff shot with pre-Ai Nikon lenses + diffusion filters.

I think the motion interpolation is meant to make sports and video games smoother or something. I don't know how many times I've had the same experience of pointing the shitty motion out to people who don't notice it. I also had a friend who had a TV with adaptive aspect ratio. It would automatically crop anything shot in scope or 4:3 to 16:9, sometimes zooming in and warping during the shot. *shudders*

Another home movie/test video. These are becoming a fun way to bond with my daughter while exercising my craft. This time I shot with the Panasonic G7 and Tokina 17mm 3.5 (with focal reducer).

I might have to get one of those satin filters.

I rebought the 28mm 2.8 and I love how sharp it is on the G7 with focal reducer:

2.8

5.6
I'm loving this lens too. It's a little soft wide open (almost looks like you have a light pro mist or something) but not bad. This is a video I just shot on the G7 with the RMC Tokina 17mm 3.5 + focal reducer:
It's shot at mostly 5.6 until the slow motion shots. The rest is wide open.

So all summer I've bene working on this short film, which is in the Sound Design/ADR/VFX/Scoring stage right now. It's the first really "serious" (as in made with the intention of submitting to festivals and not just dumped online) project I've done since my first feature film way back in 2009-2010.
Chicken is a horror comedy about a woman named Brenda, who has fallen on hard times financially, and is working as a mascot sign dancer for a chicken fast food restaurant, Wally's Chicken. But her boss, Steve, is a pill-popping abusive lunatic who bullies and pushes her to perform up to the standard of the former beloved mascot, who has recently passed away. As the stress of her job mounts, Brenda begins to believe she is being stalked by Chicken mascot.
Here are a few grabs:

From the fake crappy local commercial that opens the film. The signs of the restaurant we filmed at still need to be replaced.

Guinevere P.H. Dethlefson as Brenda

Brandon Nebitt as Steve.





Shot ont he Sony a6300 with mostly the Rokinon 16mm, and occasionally the Canon FD 35-105mm 3.5 zoom. It should be complete by the end of the year, and probably premiere next year. I may even share a private link here before it's premiere if there is any interest. Here's a little glimpse of some sign dancing:
 

Only three legs??? Pass.

Thanks. No diffusion or filters. I bought these lenses back when I had the bmpcc  and I love the look they give, and i'm glad they work (for the most part) on the G7 (some extra cropping is needed for the 12.5mm). The Cosmicar 12.5mm is especially sharp. They're small, but not the smallest c-mount lenses I've owned. Both are made of metal and actually handle nicely. I definitely want to come up with a short film to shoot wit these lenses. I'm thinking maybe a love story, kind of like the s16 flashback sequences in Blue Valentine.

Only three legs??? Pass.

Yeah, it's my "big" and "serious" project this year and will actually be submitted to film festivals. I like to shoot an actual short to test a camera so I can actually get a realistic idea of how footage will look when actually lit and shot the way I do. It's a good way to put it through it's paces in a real shooting situation, when you don't have time to overthink the lighting and camera placement/movement as you might when shooting test footage.
Of all the cameras, I think the G7 is the one I love the most. I can get great footage out of it, and I can use it without rigging it up (the monitor is the best built-in monitor I've used on a DSLR/Mirrorless camera--I can always nail focus with it) and it feels good in my hand (not too chunky for me as it is to others). The a6300 Slog2 footage was a joy to grade, with a nice amount of DR, but you can get ugly chroma noise in underexposed areas and the monitor sucks (I almost never shoot without an external monitor with it). I rebought the Canon EOS M again recently because the Canon color always tricks me into buying their cameras, but the nasty aliasing and chroma noise makes me regret it. It's weird because I love the look of the two videos I've shot with it, but those were shot all hand-held and for some reasons when I shoot static close-up shots, I get aliasing in eyebrows and facial hair. At the very least, it'll be useful in trying to find the best settings on the G7 to match the Canon colors (well, to get as close as possible) and also matching a friend's 7D when we shoot multi-cam stuff together. What I love about Panasonic cameras in general is that I never even have to think about moire or chroma noise (Panasonic just has nice, fine luma noise that looks sort of film grain-ish) and I don't have to switch to a c-mount lens and crop mode to avoid aliasing. Nikon was fine, but wasn't very inspiring to me. I think the BMPCC still shoots somewhat better footage than the Panasonic cameras I've owned, but I hate NEEDING a cage and NEEDING rails and NEEDING a huge external battery and NEEDING an external monitor every time I want to shoot just about anything.
I say be ruthless in editing, but allow the film to be whatever length it needs to be. I can't wait to see it.

Only three legs??? Pass.

I shot a 25 minute short this summer (Sony a6300). It's in the ADR/VFX/Scoring stage right now, so that's been taking up most of my attention, aside from my editing/filming work that pays the bills. But I definitely want to shoot at least a little 5 minute narrative short on the G7 soon.

Kern-Paillard Yvar AR 26mm f/1.9 c-mount Bolex lens on the Panasonic G7 (shot wide open):


Lovely little lens.

I wanted to see which Picture Profile on my G7 give the best skin tones, as well as the general differences of each one. All profiles are set to -5 Contrast, -5 Sharpness, -5 NR, -1 Saturation (except Vivid which is -2). The only grading is a contrast curve (I also added grain). Lens: Canon FD 28mm 2.8 w/ Focal Reducer (shot wide open). Shot in 4K, 500iso, 3200k color temp.
CinelikeD seems to yield the flattest image and maybe the most dynamic range, and it's the profile I've used the most for that reason, until now. I kinda think CinelikeV might have better skin tones. Aside from Vivid and Monochrome, most of the others barely look any different from each other. All of this is subjective of course, but I thought other G7 uses might be interested.

I wanted to see which Picture Profile on my G7 give the best skin tones, as well as the general differences of each one. All profiles are set to -5 Contrast, -5 Sharpness, -5 NR, -1 Saturation (except Vivid which is -2). The only grading is a contrast curve (I also added grain). Lens: Canon FD 28mm 2.8 w/ Focal Reducer (shot wide open). Shot in 4K, 500iso, 3200k color temp.
CinelikeD seems to yield the flattest image and maybe the most dynamic range, and it's the profile I've used the most for that reason, until now. I kinda think CinelikeV might have better skin tones. Aside from Vivid and Monochrome, most of the others barely look any different from each other. All of this is subjective of course, but I thought other G7 uses might be interested.

Another home movie/test video. These are becoming a fun way to bond with my daughter while exercising my craft. This time I shot with the Panasonic G7 and Tokina 17mm 3.5 (with focal reducer).

When I was 17 I was making a short film, but left the camera rolling after a take, and forgot I didn't actually hit the record button again to stop recording. So naturally I hit that record button at the beginning of the next shot. I ended up with a bunch of behind the scenes footage instead of actual movie footage. Luckily this was just a slapped together teenage movie and not something serious.