NX1user

If I'm procrastinating on an edit I done of two things:
1. I don't think about the whole project and just edit the part I know is good. You have to have at least a couple shots in mind where you thought "Wow this is a great shot."  Find those and start building around those clips. That's usually enough to keep me going on a project.
2. Alternatively, I start with the part I know will be most problematic. Once I have that done and see that it took me less time than I thought, it's easier to keep going on the parts that don't have problems.

If I'm procrastinating on an edit I done of two things:
1. I don't think about the whole project and just edit the part I know is good. You have to have at least a couple shots in mind where you thought "Wow this is a great shot."  Find those and start building around those clips. That's usually enough to keep me going on a project.
2. Alternatively, I start with the part I know will be most problematic. Once I have that done and see that it took me less time than I thought, it's easier to keep going on the parts that don't have problems.

I see a lot of you have been taken in by this guy.
It's sad.
Thread closed.

I got an email from Mr April Fools himself...
"As promised, I will send you (download link) the footage of my Proof of Concept on time (01. April 2018) for evaluation. It would be very nice, if you could share your opinion honestly with me - after testing the maleability and behaviour, even when you do heavy grading. Please consider, that I will be not online from 01.04. at about 14:00 European time up to 04.04. in the morning, so I can NOT answer YOUR questions. I will try to write down most settings and as you are a very experienced technician, you will not have any problems with handling, for sure."
Since it is pretty clear what's going on here, Arikhan has been banned from further participation in this forum, because he's a time waster.

I used the settings that Andrew recommended at that time. Gamma DR.
The doc was played on Oregon's PBS channel. They didn't complain about the DR.
Except for a couple drone shots, this is all NX1:
 

I used the settings that Andrew recommended at that time. Gamma DR.
The doc was played on Oregon's PBS channel. They didn't complain about the DR.
Except for a couple drone shots, this is all NX1:
 

I used the settings that Andrew recommended at that time. Gamma DR.
The doc was played on Oregon's PBS channel. They didn't complain about the DR.
Except for a couple drone shots, this is all NX1:
 

I used the settings that Andrew recommended at that time. Gamma DR.
The doc was played on Oregon's PBS channel. They didn't complain about the DR.
Except for a couple drone shots, this is all NX1:
 

I used the settings that Andrew recommended at that time. Gamma DR.
The doc was played on Oregon's PBS channel. They didn't complain about the DR.
Except for a couple drone shots, this is all NX1:
 

I used the settings that Andrew recommended at that time. Gamma DR.
The doc was played on Oregon's PBS channel. They didn't complain about the DR.
Except for a couple drone shots, this is all NX1:
 

If you zoom in 500% you’ll see its not a real horse, but tiny dots.

Eep, I’m not sure exactly what to write. A lot of this is on a case-by-case basis.
A few things I’ve found useful for corporate work are:
When shooting talking heads, light primarily with an offside 3/4 book light close to camera that serves as both eye light and key and then put some negative fill on the other side of the face just off-camera. That way you can get both soft light and contrast and dial in any skin correction in post or with a promist filter. If you do choose to use a fill light (a hair light, diffused of course, could also help) keep it very soft and from camera direction, not 180º away from the key, to maintain shape. Keep both lights approximately at camera height to avoid raccoon eyes.
Overlighting is fine... if you're then removing light–doing the HMI through every window thing or Kino Flo in every corner and then turning off or dimming anything that’s behind the camera so you’re always working with a backlit scene or an offside key. I spoke extensively with Phil Abraham about how he lit the Sopranos and the approach to many interiors was rather DIY. On sets they had huge banks of dozens if not hundreds of 60w incandescent lights above the stage (facing 40º down toward the talent) that functioned as soft backlights and offside keys. Each corner of the room had one pointed toward the middle of the room. Only the lights in front of the camera were turned on. Anything behind the camera was turned off. Of course, there were also practicals and bounce cards for fill. When they turned around, they’d just flip which lights were on and which were off so it was always backlit/side-lit. At least that was the basic approach that was fined tuned with smaller units. That's for the interior sets but you can use the same techniques on locations with high ceilings.
You can do the same thing even in a corporate setting even for b roll even when you see the ceilings. Cameras are so sensitive these days and color correction so powerful that lighting with practicals is fine. Say you have a room being lit with overhead fluorescent lights. If you want some shape to the room, just use the switches in the room or flags or trash bags or whatever to turn off or flag off all the lights behind the camera. Then you’ll get the natural light working as a soft offside key. If you want to light talent standing in front of that so that their faces aren't dim, just use the same principles as the book light/negative fill combo (maybe a lone LED heavily diffused and as close to the talent as you can bring it, dimmed down a lot, and then negative fill on the other side just off camera). Bring CTO/CTB and plus and minus green to match the LED to the practical lights. 
Remember, the softness of the light correlates with its perceived size by the subject. A 4’x4’ light at 4 feet will be as soft as a 1’x1’ light at one foot (though the falloff will be quite different). One good trick to get a DIY book light for interviews is to first take a 1x1 LED panel and diffuse it with a piece of 216. And then gel it to match the color temperature of the space. Set is aside. Then take a c-stand and hang a 4’x4’ piece of diffusion (I like 216 or half grid cloth) and bring that wherever you’d want your book light to be. This will be the front of your “DIY” book light. You can easily hang 4’x4’ diffusion that functions just like a 4’x4’ frame just by keeping cuts of it around rolled up in a trash can or box and then extending the c stand's gobo arm so it's parallel with the floor and raising it up and then hanging the cut of diff from number 2 clamps at the top corners. You’ll have to weigh down the bottom corners with a clamp at each corner, too (number 2 clamps). Then position the LED behind the DIY frame and use barn doors to reduce spill (a true book light would have a tent of flags around it, but that’s slow) and turn it on. Move the light until the LED is just far enough to evenly illuminate the 4’x4’ frame. Then dim the LED to adjust brightness. Quick and easy book light and you can store that all in a small car.
Don’t be afraid to use flags and nets. If you’re using soft light, just bring flags. You can dim soft light with solid flags and it won't change the shape too much. 
Buy lights and play with them. Learn on set, but just shoot stuff for fun whenever you want to try a new technique. 
For narrative, if not storyboarding then at least defining the axis of action clearly can help. As far in advance as possible. Because this will let you place your key light for most of the scene (in theory). My friend who worked with Deakins described his approach as being too time-intensive to replicate on an indie scale, so I won’t bother describing it. One approach he really liked that can be replicated on a small scale is Elswit’s. He would often have a hard key light or back light 3/4 to camera then carry that with a much softer source that blended into it in terms of color temperature and direction, maybe 45º or less rotated toward camera. So he could get a lot of contrast in a scene and always get an exposure on the face by sort of modifying the Ridley Scott Blade Runner look of using a single source, but then sort of softening that source by using it to motived the fill. Filling from key direction, not from the opposite side. (But still tweaking with bounce boards etc. for the close ups).
That also lets you do fewer light changes between set ups if you basically only have one direction where the lights are visible and you can’t point the camera. Then you can use a common technique for exteriors and cheat your close ups by rotating the actors rather than moving the lights. This technique is of course great for day exteriors. Shoot with the sun behind you. Rotate actors a bit so the backlight then becomes an offside key for their CUs. You can use bounce cards etc. too. If there’s not too much wind and you’re shooting really close like CU or XCU or something, you can do the c stand trick to hang a weaker diffusion (251 or something) between the subject and the sun to soften the sun light a bit. 
Or for overcast days, bounce light using a 4x4 bead board silver side (or silver reflector) to create a subtle offside key and use negative fill camera side, for instance, to shape the key further. Or bring a battery-powered LED with you.
Scout. Mirror boards are brighter than 18k HMIs. They’re fairly expensive to buy and heavy as hell, but on an indie budget they’re very affordable. Bounce one of those through a window and move it. Maybe put some diffusion against the window. Easy way to get a cheap big gun in day interiors. But you need to time things up so the sun is in the right approximate place.
So always scout the sun path for day exteriors and even interiors if you have time. There are apps like Helios that help. That can save you money. But of course if you’re not set on shooting in one direction or the other you can follow the same principles on the fly.
I dunno, that’s about it. Also, when in doubt, diffuse your light. Especially lights behind the camera. I like hard light but if I see more than one hard shadow on a wall I know someone screwed up. One hard light is usually enough, but since so few people use hard light these days it can be cool.
Oh, and look for darker walls to shoot against. White walls make lighting so much harder.

I guess it's my misunderstanding then. What I mean is that I've noticed a trend toward over-lighting and using power windows to cut the image rather than flags and negative fill. I blame it more on fast schedules and recent trends toward soft light (and an over-reliance on power windows) than on bad DPs... after all, often it's the gaffer, not the DP, designing the set up, and everyone seems to light like this these days so of course they're gonna approach things this way. And to be fair to DPs, if that's the look clients want, it's what they're going to try to get. But I do agree that setting yourself apart from that is a great idea.
IMO, if you have an M18 out every window or a soft M90 or Mach Tech on every corner of the room, which is what most people seem to do these days, everything will look pretty good and you can make minimal adjustments, but it will always look a little "flat"and indecisive. Not that it looks bad, just that it looks a little "safe." But to me that's over-lit, not underlit, even if there's a lack of contrast. IMO it's a trend toward "lighting the space" rather than "lighting the frame."
I agree with you to the extent that I prefer the 1980s hard light look, artificial as it was. But it was a lot slower and required vastly more preparation.
For certain scenarios, though, it's unavoidable. As much as I criticize the approach, sometimes it's easier to blast a space with light than it is to gel every window and approach it more "artistically" and selectively.
I have a few techniques I've learned that I think are helpful to avoid this tendency but it's not worth getting into them here.
One area I do agree that there's too little lighting is in day exteriors. Contrast the look of Jurassic Park's exteriors to anything today. But I can't say I really miss this style as much. It looks a little cheesy and that was a product of older film stocks lacking shadow detail. I do agree that day exteriors are if anything, often underlit, today. But imo unless your budget is pushing you to move like crazy, it's easier to just schedule around the best light and use negative fill and bounce rather than setting up an 18K HMI or something, plus who can afford that on a small budget? 
I did work with one DP who just surrounded dialogue scenes during the day with huge diffused HMIs. There was one tucked in every corner, including a 12k. I'm not sure he placed them very carefully but I have to admit it looked great. Sure, it was over-lit, but it worked, and made the faces sort of pop and shine and you got nice catch lights, too.

Hey! Someone created a new channel with those vids. They call it cinematography database fan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtTjh6GOn218KbjhF8mtFLA/videos 

It's very confusing to me that some people think low light performance = no need for lights.  As if the only thing lights do is provide exposure levels?
Honestly, light is pretty much everything. Way more important than any camera.

Couple weeks back I read a blog post by Alister Chapman about how the term DP has become meaningless now that anyone with a $1000 or even less can buy a camera and advertise as being one. (http://www.xdcam-user.com/2017/08/when-is-a-dp-not-a-dp/) and it got me thinking. I started paying attention to the people I'm seeing on social media in a different way, and noticed that damn near three quarters of the work I see involves no lighting. I see productions with UMPs, matte boxes, cinema glass, huge monitors, etc., but not a light to be found!
I mean, hell, I had one client not too long ago who was surprised I had any lights at all, which says a lot.
In fact, I think it's reasonable to say that the huge dynamic range and great low light ability we can get on cameras these days is killing the "need" to learn any kind of lighting. In many ways, I find this frustrating, simply because I've been trying to learn as much as I can about lighting for narratives and there's very little to be found on youtube and the like, at least compared to the billion videos entitled "how to make your videos look cinematic - Use these camera settings." The videos I do find are limited mostly to "3 point interview lighting."
But here's the good thing - Because there are so many people who know NOTHING about lighting, it's not hard at all to stand out! I'm sharing this post because for the past couple month I've been doing all kinds of tests with lighting setups while I've been learning from Shane Hurlbut's Inner Circle site and it's already made me stand out to one of my clients and gotten me in with a group of filmmakers I've been wanting to team up with for a while.
I hope that anyone on this forum that is looking to make money with video buys some lights and learns and experiments as much as they can. It's really the best way to stay ahead of the curve in this super-low-barrier-to-entry world.
(ALSO, I'd love if we could have a lighting section of the forum. Or at least a thread in the shooting section. Would that be acceptable?)

I certainly agree. Have come across more than a few myself. As someone said earlier, makes you question whether you even like doing this or not. I've had clients who have asked me to "match" or "requote" a hundred or two higher than some months-old newbies (I have coming to six years' experience in this field) who were quoting half my price. I don't need clients like that.

That's too bad... for them. Seriously. I've found, through experience, that clients that lowball like that are also the biggest headaches. They likely would have piled on extra requests, wanted infinite revisions to your edits, etc. that would use up more of your time. If they can't come up with 650 for three days of work, they aren't valuing their own business very highly. I have no doubt they will find someone cheaper, but the end product will look exactly like what they paid for it.

In other words, don't feel bad and DON'T feel like you should ask for less for you talents!
 

That's too bad... for them. Seriously. I've found, through experience, that clients that lowball like that are also the biggest headaches. They likely would have piled on extra requests, wanted infinite revisions to your edits, etc. that would use up more of your time. If they can't come up with 650 for three days of work, they aren't valuing their own business very highly. I have no doubt they will find someone cheaper, but the end product will look exactly like what they paid for it.

In other words, don't feel bad and DON'T feel like you should ask for less for you talents!
 

That's too bad... for them. Seriously. I've found, through experience, that clients that lowball like that are also the biggest headaches. They likely would have piled on extra requests, wanted infinite revisions to your edits, etc. that would use up more of your time. If they can't come up with 650 for three days of work, they aren't valuing their own business very highly. I have no doubt they will find someone cheaper, but the end product will look exactly like what they paid for it.

In other words, don't feel bad and DON'T feel like you should ask for less for you talents!
 

That's too bad... for them. Seriously. I've found, through experience, that clients that lowball like that are also the biggest headaches. They likely would have piled on extra requests, wanted infinite revisions to your edits, etc. that would use up more of your time. If they can't come up with 650 for three days of work, they aren't valuing their own business very highly. I have no doubt they will find someone cheaper, but the end product will look exactly like what they paid for it.

In other words, don't feel bad and DON'T feel like you should ask for less for you talents!
 

We filmed Sammy the dog touring around Asheville, NC. Filming a dog is a crazy man's work. So difficult, but working with the cutest actor makes up for it haha... Let me know if you have any comments or questions!
 
 

Logarist now supports Premiere Pro and Premiere Elements with a free color correction plugin.  Logarist applies the principles of raw image processing to video color spaces, to make color correction easier and more accurate.
Supported Video Applications:
Premiere Pro Premiere Elements DaVinci Resolve Vegas Pro Final Cut Pro X Supported Camera Color Spaces:
BT.709 (standard HD video) Arri Alexa Log C Canon EOS Neutral Canon Log 1–3 Fujifilm F-Log GoPro Protune JVC J-Log1 Panasonic GH2 Standard Panasonic GH4 Cinelike D Panasonic GH4 V-Log L Panasonic GH5 Cinelike D Panasonic VariCam V-Log Sony Cine1–2 Sony HyperGamma 2, 4, 7, and 8 Sony S-Log1–3
logarist.com

I was realy struggling with this issue. fixed accidentally by upgrading to 1.41 then downgrading to 1.40.  (make sure you are in AUTO mode when flashing)

I tried the updated app on my iphone 6. It works fine for viewing or downloading photos. As a remote control for the camera though, it's useless. You can see what the camera is seeing and touch focus. That's it, nothing else works. There's no onscreen button for taking a photo!