Gregormannschaft

Well, RAW, because you have more information. But, it's also more difficult to grade. You can get decent results for all of those though.

 

Can your computer handle RAW?

Because mine can't and that could be another price consideration. Personally, I have a 5D Mk. III, and am looking at the A7S. 

Also mega impressed by this, kudos man. Some of those shots paired with the music are incredible. Good luck with hitting your target, I'd say it's much deserved.

edit: Pledged what I could. Wish it was after pay day and I could have done more.

Think your lighting is actually really good, but the editing and some of the framing could be worked on a little. Everything felt very far away, like you needed a few more close ups. The fade in and outs at the start we're also a little too slowly worked. But pretty good work for the EOS M.

 

Also, the sound file sounds a little low in quality, could that be possible?

Cheers for the review Andrew. Have decided to go in for the A7S and say goodbye to the Canon 5D for video. Used it as a B camera on a shoot in Berlin this weekend and for anything detail related it was awful. Using it exclusively for close ups is exhausting and limiting creatively. The sound of a super economic codec is a massive plus as RAW simply isn't an option for me cost wise at the moment.

Next up, any idea when it will land in Germany?

Nice to watch a video and not think about the camera. The lighting in this was lovely, looked up a few sets immediately afterwards to see how much they'd set me back.

Anyway, thats beside the point, really liked it. I loved the shot of the stone (?) with the fire in the middle. I'm curious what the creative process is like on this? How do you brainstorm an idea for a shoot like this? A lot of it is very ambiguous and much of it is all about the power/aesthetic of the visuals I'm guessing.

'Quite' there and I guess it depends on exactly how it's used. Probably not going to be seeing too much slo-mo landscape footage anywhere, but with a subject in the foreground I'm guessing that softness doesn't really matter so much.

Oh, and 5D Mk.III really is soft, I'd think it's more detailed than that.

Hey guys, I'm a newbie but I promise this won't be my first and only post. I am an avid member of indietalk and figured I'd join the forum here to experience this side of the DSLR forum world. I shot this entirely on a 550D with a Tamron 10-22mm f/3.5 lens and a 40mm f/2.8 lens. This is my first production (written, directed, shot and edited), so I'd love some feedback about the image quality and story (and anything else that might be relevant).

 

So without further adieu, here is: Solidarity

 

http:vimeo.com/95930200

 

Great stuff. If you hadn't have told me this was a 550D, I'd never have guessed. It's shot beautifully, although I have to say this is more like a music video than any sort of short. That said, the music is excellent and the story you've written and the way you have edited it work really well together. I love the short surges you've edited in time with the music.

Story wise, I saw what was coming as soon as the wine entered the scene. Another point to this being a great music video is that there isn't a lot of story here, but there's probably just the right amount for a music video. I liked the 2 men alive scenario as a finale, although the shot of the man's face as he's being strangled could be omitted in my opinion. It looks too much like'acting' and it breaks the tone a little.

Really nice work though, kudos to the design of the titles as well.

Surprisingly good! And only 'surprisingly' because shorts are so hard to do, especially watchable zombie ones. But this was really well shot.

 

I thought the colour palette you used was appropriate, nothing was out of place or looked off from one scene to another. Stylistically, I wouldnt have done the warm and fuzzy cut away to 'better times' because it seems a little cheesy. A brief cutaway to another photo may have been better. Your main non zombie actress was also pretty good, but the zombie didn't feel particularly dangerous.

But great work.

This is ridiculously good, very impressed. Did you get a lot of folks asking why you were filming her walking backwards through the city? I haven't ever seen the effect used this well.

And I've always thought RAW looked pretty good, but this is a whole other league.

Dude, really good job with the color. At first I thought your original post said you were using raw, and I was thinking "cool, I like the flat grading"...then I saw that it's just cinestyle and I was even more impressed.  This looks better than a lot of the "graded" raw footage I see out there that is way too flat and lifeless.

Thanks a lot man, much appreciated given how well your vids are graded. Was aiming for something close to a film aesthetic with this but love just how vibrant you can make everything using RAW, still one I've gotta give a go soon.

And after some experiments with CineStyle, I can't stress enough how important it is to expose the skies properly. I did a video in San Francisco exposing for the shadows and mids and without exception the skies were a banded mess in every shot.

Thanks, I loved Australia. You're lucky to be from there.

 

When I shot the footage in Australia, I did a lot of whip-pans in different directions at random intervals. So when I edited it together, I looked for shots where the whip pans (or jibs, if you will) fit together nicely.  For that particular shot, I added a brief dissolve to make the blend more seamless.

 

Thanks for the tip, it came off really well and I just might steal it for a future vid.

Really nice shots, makes me miss home!

One question, how did you do that cut at the minute mark from the little lake area to the inside of the car? Upwards movement at the lake > short cross dissolve > upwards movement inside car...?

I wanted to share a test video I shot with my new GH4 out at night on the streets of NYC. 
 
It was shot on the 60fps VFR mode with a Sigma 30mm 1.4 for Nikon + Metabones speed booster. 
 
I've heard lots of people saying this camera is awful for low-light shooting, but so far i'm pretty happy with it. 
 

>

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't mind the shake too much, tried adding a few more 'no movement' warp stabiliser masks and it worked really well for some scenes so updated the Vimeo file.

 

Will give the Prolost profile a try as well and see how that goes. Thanks for watching.

You are right. Some shots call for a tripod, particularly with this music. Others look good handheld (Inarritu style). Try stabilize in post. What software do you use? After Effects warp stabilizer is very good, for FCP X there is Coremelts Lock&Load (but the built-in tripod method actually works well). 

 

You have a raw beast slumbering in your modest 5D. GH4 (just for the 4k aspect) can't compete. One day you should try that.

Cheers for the feedback. I'd love to have shot this raw, but just won't be an option for a while unfortunately.

I used Premiere CC for the edit and the stabilisation. Sometimes the warp stabiliser works a treat, pan shots work particularly well (the first shot with the path through the woods and the last shot up towards the sky) but for others it's brutal. I tried a few different types (subspace warp + position, rotation, scale) and they all resulted in some really odd warping of footage. I might go back in though and see if there's any more I can do with the footage to get it that little bit more stable.

Getting to the point with the 5D where, as much as I really enjoy doing these montages, landscape footage just never looks as good as it should and it's frustrating. Kendy Ty's use of close up footage with the T2i is probably also the way to go with the 5D MkIII as well, which means short narrative films most of the time.

Shot this a couple of weeks ago at Teufelsberg in Berlin with the tried and trusted 5D MkIII - no RAW. Any thoughts welcome! 

 

I was running and gunning it, although in retrospect I wish I'd brought along a tripod. I've had problems with crushed skies with the CineStyle image profile before but this time I made sure to (mostly) expose for skies and they look much better.

And then there's detail. Videos like this make me wish for the GH4. RAW just isn't an option for me at the moment thanks to the cost of the cards, hard drives, and as I'm a Mac Air user, a new computer.