Liam

7 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

the old way was to put your grain on a video layer above the clip and set its blend or composite mode to "overlay" and then to use a contrast filter on the grain layer to dial in the intensity. 

6 hours ago, bamigoreng said:

Film Grain in Premiere Pro CC. Overlay, % and contrast. 

 

Right, that's the way I'm doing it now, which I'm unsure about. The milky haze is there unless I boost the contrast all the way and make it not at all subtle

Firstly, I think my NLE, Hitfilm, might apply it weirdly. Like making it not as harsh just means there's a milky haze through the filter over the entire image. Or maybe a film grain video applied as an overlay just isn't the best way to create a subtle grain effect? Just a texture, that seems to add more detail to a portrait, make the image dance a little, and only be visible as a grain on like a flat wall. I tested another NLE briefly and it did seem to lay differently. Sorry, I should have gotten some examples. Just curious what others' processes are

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Has anyone mentioned the Canon 1DC yet? That is around £4k new now.

I know you want 10 bit, but we are talking about compromises here.... I found it to be not as huge a compromise I always imagined, due to the 4:2:2 colour space and the very high bitrate.

The motion is really nice, due to the mjpeg codec and the look and colour is still very unique.

I mentioned it (not to be like "I already mentioned it, Jimmy! "), but yeah, same reasoning

12 minutes ago, Cary Knoop said:

Agreed, although the GX80/85 is currently discounted heavily and has in my opinion a better color than the G7 and has no time limitations (in the NTSC region) so that may be a good alternative.

Or get both! Aaaaaand we arrived at the opposite of the point of the thread

Yeah, I'm blessed to not have enough money to upgrade ever. Also reminded myself the other day that my interest in gear is just a side effect, was never the point. Now I know how to use a camera, so I'll be a lot more prepared when I have a film ready, and my camera has done great things in good hands, so I'm done seeing any point in upgrading to a way more expensive, barely more capable camera with a new learning curve.

A monthly film challenge would be really cool, but I don't think my mind works that way

As long as you're looking at making compromises, a 1dc could be pretty cool

Damn, I knew you'd decide to keep it and crush my dreams :'(

For real though, I hate all other cameras now.

1 hour ago, tupp said:

Send the XL-1 to Liam.

Yesplease!

5 hours ago, Cinegain said:

So... I'm in The Netherlands visiting my parents... they've got a new Samsung UHD HDR tv. The screen was absolutely awful to look at. Factory settings of course. Full brightness. Full contrast. Samsung colors... way too vivid, Chernobyl Barbie skintones, things blown out and crushed down... So, I went into the settings, changed it from Dynamic or whatevs to HDR, just curious what it would do, went to expert settings, changed things around so that it would actually look good, natural and not as eye straining as it had been before. My dad: 'ah, ok, sure, I guess... whatever'. Mom comes in after work 'what the hell happened to the tv?', I'm expecting her to be struck by the newfound beauty and quality of the screen... 'it's like I'm looking through a frosted milkbottle, it's horrible'. Wow... they're completely ruined by watching crap (bright, vivid, blown, crushed) all the time (same people that don't dim their phones at night). Not only don't they know any better, they do not even want any better. I'm baffled and ashamed to be quite honest.

I was really proud of my family for appreciating when I fixed the motion settings on their new tv. They're no experts, but they knew that was a bunch of bullshit <3 

1 minute ago, Zak Forsman said:

This is why I love Avid. Proxy mode is just a selection in a drop down menu. No extra media created, instantaneous. When you're ready to export, just turn off proxy mode and export.

That's how Blender proxies work too, very nice

somehow missed this thread, but also super curious to hear more good options. +1 for freemusicarchive.org

Would it be possible to make a profile or set of profiles that sacrifices some DR in the highlghts in order to improve the rolloff?

This was shot on a gh2, so I would think it's still capable

If you want internal NDs, good rolling shutter, or more than 8 bit, the a7sii can't be your choice. Not sure how much good a shogun would do on it either.

Ls300? Fs5? C100ii? The blackmagic pocket camera is less user friendly, but the best out of all of these for image quality. a lot of options, hard to say which is best. Do you have more requirements to list? 4k? Raw? Log? high frame rates? 

3 hours ago, kaylee said:

PUT IT IN MY VENIS

Lol, any more of a typo, and we would have had a problem..

I looooved Whiplash. I had doubts when i heard about La La Land, but this could be crazy good

Something about that first scene especially, immediately told me it was film. Vibrant but "ungraded", with true blacks, that you'd at least struggle to get with the DR powerhouses of today

26 minutes ago, jonpais said:

I'm pretty sure it's a 1.17 crop, not 1.7x...

1.17x crop of an already 1.5x sensor. Or whatever the numbers are. It's smaller than apsc

59 minutes ago, HelsinkiZim said:

 thanks again for your input. But I have to disagree that storytelling in the film universe is subjective. There are clearly defined rules when writing for the screen. These rules need to be mastered before they are broken.

Finding out that there are actually rules is more important than knowing the rules themselves.

Most people only feel liberated once they feel confined.

Once they know what chains need to be broken then they can get to work.

I feel that unfortunately filmmaking still lends itself to mystification unlike for example painting whereby it was demystified centuries ago. A painter has no illusions that they must master formal technique before they can experiment.

Edit: yes you could point to the British movement led by Damien hirst or similar, but they were all formally trained in theory at the least.

Most filmmakers with great ideas never pick up a camera because they feel that's some divine inspiration is what makes a film connect with an audience.

However it seems this conversation gearing towards who has a right to tell someone what and how. With that argument i refer back to hertzog. If you feel you have something  creative you want to share with someone else and something unique to say, you do not need permission to do so. 

The act of falling on your ass will teach you more about where your knowledge is lacking. Sitting at home and waiting until you feel you are a master of The Craft before you go out and communicate your knowledge will Ensure that you never actually leave your bedroom.

Even Tom antos started somewhere...

I'm shocked this is getting so much disagreement. I can see your side, sort of. I'm baffled you can't see mine

For one thing, story isn't as difficult as the people teaching story structure want to believe. really? it'll start on an image? rising action BEFORE the climax?? brilliant, why didn't I think of that? So a lot of stuff will happen in the film, and then.. people will watch it.

The film they made in Laforet's class was terrible

El Mariachi was made by someone who gives the advice not to know the rules of story structure, and it plays like a film. It almost falls into cliches by accident. Because it's not complicated.

Slacker's structure is very simple, yet compelling. A series of conversations. I would be amazed if that film started as a three act structure and then Richard Linklater altered it until it got to where it is.. There's not one way, and then variations. There are infinite ways.

So maybe these guys aren't the best filmmakers ever, and maybe you can say they still knew the actual rules before they arrived at the style they wanted. I mean it's not like the best filmmaker ever has actually CREDITED their success to ignorance (except for Orson Welles, who made the best film ever and then credited his success to his ignorance)

but like I said, I'm a broken record and don't want to die on this hill. Yeah, some great filmmakers know the rules. I'll be very comfortable letting my scripts speak for themselves

@Cinegain Sssssssort of. Sounds to me more like someone has a serious passion for running and they may be interested in help.. you did cross country in high school. Would it help them at all for you to tell them how to run? Can you train the next usain bolt on that? Are you also even ignoring that their shoelaces are tied wrong?

I learned what I needed to be comfortable with a camera (admittedly more than some people need to know) through google in the course of like 4 years, and there are concrete things I wish I was handed right away. Everything about story is subjective at best

I'm lost. There are displays that actually show up to 15 stops of dr now? Or still just an image with 15 stops compressed, but not as much? What does 10 bit have to do with hdr? Just another advancement that's buddying up with hdr in youtube and better screens? They definitely don't have to go hand in hand, right? A good hdr display still uses all of its dr with a video not made for hdr, right? Not just essentially lifting the blacks and everything to match a bad display? A video made IN hdr, when played on a normal screen, will clip the boundaries? Or compess it, giving it that flatter look? Will old content be poorly converted in order to appear to be hdr?

Sorry.. last I heard on this topic was like "Wow, there's a display what has EIGHT stops of Dr!! The futuuuuuure!" so I'm pretty behind. I should try to figure it out on my own really, but if I'm missing something important, please share. Also are pretty much all 4k tvs these days that say hdr liars?

I don't want to repeat myself too much, but I rarely enjoy people telling me how to tell a story.. they would have to be amazing at storytelling for that advice to matter. And the ones who know how to tell a story often say to figure it out for yourself or they make up advice that they don't even personally follow (and it ends up being a million different, opposing methods). "Story is important" is a fine lesson I suppose, or "This is what I do", but generally for people who want to make films I think the technical basics are actually where you should start. They're already authors, they just don't know how to use their pens. Either that or just flood them with filmmakers they should watch the films of and interviews etc. Or not even that. One of my favorite filmmakers mainly just reads a bunch of non fiction about space apparently. That's why it's so hard to give advice. Everyone is and should be different. Teach them the concrete stuff, and for everything else, just keep them interested/excited/exploring

Also, I forgot to list sound in my original topics. Sound.

@HelsinkiZim stumbled on this pseudo masterclass from sorkin for free if it helps. maybe an alternative, or maybe to inform your decision on taking the class. interesting so far. good luck with your workshop! https://www.indiefilmhustle.com/masterclass-aaron-sorkin-screenwriting/

52 minutes ago, HelsinkiZim said:

Hi, last xmas I watched all of Werner Herzogs youtube content (having been watching his films for the last 10 years), so I know his methodology pretty well. I love how he suggests that you should get a job as a bouncer at a strip-club rather than go to film school and how you don't need to ask permission to film anything these days - I am going to quote him of both of these comments...

Thanks!

I think I am going to take that course, and Aaron Sorkins - have you taken that one Liam?

I have not, but that could be cool

57 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

I can't begin to explain how utterly lame and disrespectful many film festivals are these days.  

Sometimes they're nothing more than vanity projects or a cash grab.  The better ones are at least run by earnest people that make an effort within their means, (like ours) but may still come up short.  I've happily endured these types of fests --as long as they have a good heart, but when they're run by people that really don't care about film, it's pretty obvious and it's frustrating.

Ultimately, if I want "nice," I can talk to my mom.

Were they able to screen anything of actual merit?  Something, besides your film, that you were happy you watched?  If so, what was it?

yeah, one festival didn't get back to me that I wasn't accepted until the festival ended. and then they wouldn't respond to my emails.. I can only assume they didn't watch my film.

these guys seemed mostly genuine and enthusiastic about the films (I felt some phoniness when it was directed at me though)

they flat out said they chose the "best of fest" based entirely on budget.. which is always nice to hear -_-

a couple good films though! (or at least something in there to like) Sometimes the filmmakers weren't even there, which I feel was a waste, since it was such a small festival already. I'll go ahead and share a couple, since they deserve some views.

15 minutes ago, Dan Wake said:

sorry for my bad english if I understand it (maybe I didn't) you are stuck at first task (read the pilgrim). if so I'd encourage you to go on with the tasks, maybe you can leave the book at half, or skip some chapters. maybe the most important seed/root of this task is not to read it 100%. It is understand how Baker describes the peregrine point of view.

I have great trust in this masterclass looks the best I have found but I can not tell until I complete it. I'm working for that, doing "homeworks" is exciting in this case (but I didn't like when I was at high school).

 

 

sorry, yes I did finish the course, but I skipped most of the homework. I did a writing assignment - something like write a script for an hour without stopping to think, if possible, just let it flow (but I didn't listen to classical music during, like he said to). I had to let go of the idea that he was the authority instead of just a guy who has definitely made some good films, because that was stressing me out, and I would never have gotten past lesson two.

7 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Also, I'd like to open the thread to included the following question:  What's the best and worst film festival experience you've had and why?

For me, the worst experience was walking into a 200 square foot conference room and thinking, "this space is where my film is going to be screened!?"  Then, on top of that, watching the screening get screwed up because a kid couldn't operate a DVD player or the audio system.  And then realizing none of it matter because I was the only person that was going to be there.  

I hope I don't have to explain why that sucked.

I just went to my first film festival which.. the first night there were maybe five audience members. Overall they weren't able to screen several films because of technical issues. The people running the program tried to do improv a few times, accepted their own film into the festival (screened it twice), and gave themselves a couple awards. I ended up with like a "thanks for coming by" award. Everyone was nice, buuut.. yeah.

11 minutes ago, Dan Wake said:

I'm soory for that, did you made also all the masterclass assigments? I'm reading the peregrine then I will need to write 20 pages inpired from it (it's my first assigment).

This masterclass is looking really cool to me.

I got that assignment before I was letting myself take it all with a grain of salt. He said in that lesson that if you don't read read read read, you'll never be a great filmmaker. I have ADD that makes finishing any book kind of an impossible task. Though I want to try some more, and it sounds like an interesting book, at the time that was only discouraging. I also don't know if Herzog himself would have done any of his own assignments. He's a little too eager maybe to say that he's the pro here and give us baby steps to go through. Don't think he was giving terrible advice, just specific and a little closed minded. I really did enjoy it overall once I let go a little.