mercer

The fz1000 would get my vote over the lx100 for the simple reason of mic input with manual audio controls. The shure sounds great, I'll have to check that out. 

​Some of the best short films deal with an isolated incident without exposition, much in the 'man bites dog' manner, like the urban myths we tell another in the subway or the staff canteen.
Feature films are too much classical drama with predictable plot points. Everybody sees how the cookie crumbles, the characters can only be walking clichés, because their motivations must fit exactly to the structure - exceptions prove the rule, and they are risky, 
Series are the ultimate narrational form, they are epic. They combine isolated situations with slowly developing characters and fates. Audiences love long excurses in modern series, something they seldom accept in a feature (The Lonely Grave Of Paula Schultz, derisive chapter title that could also say And now for something completely different, and absurd). The stories are almost deconstructivistic, and the suspense can't be more addictive.
 

I agree, in the years and years which a person might spend to produce just one "high quality"​ film (it might even never happen...), another person could've in the same length of time produced half a dozen or more quick films that gradually escalated in complexity and budget. 

Who do you think at the end of this period has gained greater knowledge and more contacts, and is better prepared for his next film? I'd say obviously the latter person.
​You're making some huge assumptions here. Take another example: running. Does everybody who takes up jogging aims or even want to go to the Olympics? Nope!
Some runners just enjoy the process of running, and who cares about how far back they finish?? They don't. 
Others enjoy running for all the other benefits they reap from running (which is many many!), other than the elusive Olympus Gold Medal. 
Yet another group of runners are happy if simply their PB drops each year to be faster than the year before, even if they never ever get close to breaking 30 minutes for 10km (let alone a 26 minute something 10km for top Olympic standards!). 

Now, why should filmmaking have to be any different? 

There are a very very diverse range of reasons and motivations as to why people are filmmakers. 

Yes, the short vs. feature argument. I know it all to well. Back in the 70s and 80s directors made shorts to promote themselves, usually USC, or UCLA students who utilized their situation to develop a "calling card" short. In the 90s when I first became interested in filmmaking, it wasn't in fashion to make a short, or go to film school... You used that money to make a feature. Making any movie is hard work, akin to moving mountains... The thought process was why should I spend a crap load of money and time on a short, when I can spend a crap load of money and time on a feature. Remember El Mariachi was shot for 7000 bucks and that was shot on 16mm film. So, I think I am still in that mindset. But distribution channels have changed, so the short film has once again become a viable way to market yourself.

Yes, the short vs. feature argument. I know it all to well. Back in the 70s and 80s directors made shorts to promote themselves, usually USC, or UCLA students who utilized their situation to develop a "calling card" short. In the 90s when I first became interested in filmmaking, it wasn't in fashion to make a short, or go to film school... You used that money to make a feature. Making any movie is hard work, akin to moving mountains... The thought process was why should I spend a crap load of money and time on a short, when I can spend a crap load of money and time on a feature. Remember El Mariachi was shot for 7000 bucks and that was shot on 16mm film. So, I think I am still in that mindset. But distribution channels have changed, so the short film has once again become a viable way to market yourself.

Like Ed Wood said, you don't like this one, wait until you see my next film. Paraphrasing. 

First off, sorry about all the quotes, kind of new here and I have no idea how to quote specific parts of people's comments. 
Thank you Axel, this is very close to my original point. 
I'll use the BMPCC as my example. When that camera came out I was excited to see the feature films that were going to be made by low budget filmmakers. I am so low budget, I couldn't even afford it when it first came out, but I was very interested to hear filmmaker's experience with the camera. When I went over to the forums and read that people are rigging up this camera with rails, and matte boxes, and follow focus machines, and screens.
What? The camera is called a Pocket Camera, it is designed to look like a consumer camera.
Why in God's name would someone rig up that camera? Imagine the possibilities of taking a legitimate cinema camera into a restaurant, or a bar, or a hospital... And people think you are holding a point and shoot?
Your production value would rise incredibly. I don't own the camera but I now understand that it needs stability to function well, but do you really need a full, professional rig, for every scenario? 
We, as filmmakers, are in such an amazing time with this digital revolution. A cheap, consumer camera can be used to make a very good looking movie. I mean Blair Witch was partially shot on a Hi-8 video camera ... Surely a better film could be made with this new technology. But if you're going to hold stringently to how the pros do it, you probably will fail? So what do you do, if you have little money, little crew but a big desire to make a movie, with a good concept and a great script, or vice versa?
To Be Continued

​No worries, mercer, I take my words back too. Try not to worry what other filmmakers think, by the way, all that matters in the end is you, your film and the audience. If you can shoot a feature and finish it yourself, then distributors at film festivals will be even more willing to talk to you.
 
 

​One of the hardest things in scriptwriting is to write a good low budget film. 
 
http://www.scriptmag.com/features/alt-script-five-good-reasons-to-write-a-no-low-budget-script
 
http://www.scriptmag.com/features/alt-script-four-ways-to-control-your-scripts-budget-without-compromising-the-film

​You nailed down an important point: production value. An army of robots, attacking a small group of superheroes in a russian town which is drifting off into stratosphere - you can't do that 'on the cheap' (second title of Stu Maschwitz' DV REBEL). You must forgo such stories. No problem.
Yes, The Hobbit was unbelievably bad, compared to the LOTR trilogy. But there, I admit, Jacksons vision made his 'army of orks' succeed, I was blown away by that. But let's stop listing the real big budget movies.
​No. You are right, you can't do it alone. You are handicapped already in too many ways. But it has to be possible with a small crew.
Let me tell you one of my ideas for a short film (abandoned), just to flesh out things a bit:
A big fairground in my town, which has a big japanese community. I saw young parents and their cute little daughter, about five years old. It was in the night, and the girl almost slept. The father tried to impress her by showing off his skills at the shooting gallery. He won her a giant pink teddy bear. But she just took it and showed no enthusiasm. This is how I continued the story from there: The father takes his family to the tunnel of horror, with spectacular ghouls and zombies, the white-water-ride with a giant 3D-shark snapping at them. His childlike enthusiasm (in japanese) borders on ecstasy, but the girl yawns. Then, on top of the Ferris wheel, the child falls off the cabin, and the father can only grip her hand in the last second. Both parents are in panic. The father holds the girl, the girl holds the teddy bear, below them the millions of colored lights and the abyss. In the sleeping girl's dream, she plays with the living pink teddy bear on a meadow. Then she releases the bear and it falls, falls ... into the hands of a young boy on the ground.
If the story is worth the effort is only my concern - unfortunately, because I couldn't convince my closest friend- whom I wanted to operate the camera. He didn't see the point (obviously I lack persuasive skill or storytelling skills). That's where the troubles start: If you can't pay your team.
The question is, how can you plan sth. like that on a small budget, with a small crew and still with very high production value? Does anybody care later if it was done with AE, Hitfilm or Fusion? 
Good, cheap, fast - pick any two.
 

@Jonstaf
 
Your EOSM is a great camera, and you can significantly extend its capabilities by loading Tragic Lantern onto it.
 
I use TL on my EOSM to boost the bit rate and to shoot all "I" frames with H264.  Here is an extreme test I did with the EOSM, TL and, mostly, the quirky Fujian 35mm f1.7 CCTV lens.  Although I pushed the EOSM past it's DR limits (obvious FPN and just plain old noise), note that there is significantly reduced compression artifacting.
 
Also, the strange focal plane of that c-mount Fujian 35mm really "pops" with an APS-C camera, such as the EOSM.  Here is a better example of the Fujian's wonkiness on an EOSM (shot by maxotics).
 
Other great things about the EOSM line, is that there is a focal reducer for it that gives almost a 1:1 crop factor (in addition to extra brightness) and that there are tilt and tilt-shift adapters for it, if one desires interesting focus effects or if one merely wants to Scheimpflug.  Of course, with the shallow flange-focal distance of the EF-M mount, there are zillions of lenses that can be adapted to the EOSM.
 
To me, it is sometimes more valuable than 4K and high dynamic range to have the TL build combined with the ability to use these special attachments and a huge variety of lenses.
 

Hi Tupp
That's a beautiful video. The only thing that interests me is the beauty of the footage I can get. I think the Panasonic is truly impressive, but the EOS M is a fantastic tool in its own way. From what I've seen the Fujian lens is also great when you play to its strengths.
I don't regard 4K as particularly important in my own work at this stage, but flexibility is a different matter. In order to be able to use old C-Mount lenses that will only cover a tiny sensor, I bought a GoPro 4 with the intention of doing the Backbone mod, so 4K might be a factor then, as it can be turned into lovely 1080p footage -the trade-off is the the ProTune settings are still pretty inflexible.
Another great thing about the Canon is that I can shoot long scenes without it overheating, which is very important for the type of filming that interests me.

The best skill is learning how to learn ;).
In first time testing, Hitfilm was much easier to figure out vs. AE and more importantly, much faster. Because AE is so slow and archaic, I only use it as a last resort. AE is long overdue for a rewrite and GPU update. PPro can already use many AE plugins- hopefully Adobe will roll AE functionality into PPro soon.

Firstly, I think its your writing that's jumbled and unclear. Start with a central point first, then add sentences as supporting arguments. 
Secondly, my comment was not elitist. It's just that you are insecure about your skills and felt attacked personally when I explained the difference between putting a LUT and color grading. Using a LUT is like choosing a film stock...DOPs have been doing it for decades, it gives a specific look to the whole film....color grading is a further shot-by-shot adjustment of color and tone..its about deciding the look of each shot individually, guiding the eye within each shot, and colorists have been doing it for decades too.
These two processes are complementary to each other and are optional to every filmmaker. You do not NEED to color grade. You do not NEED to have a LUT either. You don't even NEED lights in your film if you can shoot in natural light, how you distribute your time and budget across a production is always your choice and really what filmmaking is all about.
In your case I'd also allocate some budget for emotional therapy before you step on the set though...

​I don't know what tempted you to react in such a condescending way to a forum member - as a moderator -, but it could be worth the effort to find out. Must have to do with our self-perception as filmmakers (in the broadest sense), and that's the point of this thread as I see it. 

​Yes, I don't doubt this. But if someone is a brilliant 'surgeon', and this is his only calling, would he then grade in the CC embedded *Speed*grade anyway? He then will have one of those hardware suites with elitist software, the names of which are seldom uttered, because they cost $100.000 and much more (hardware calibrated reference monitors, a full cinema projector if he grades for the big screen, control panels that even Mr. Chekov ate his heart out). The protocol by which the colorist gets access to the footage from old AVID could as well be carved in stone, compared to this 'workflow' Adobes dynamic link really is already an all-in-one-solution.
​Here is the riddle: Apple could have made FCP X the consumer's (or no/low-budget filmer's) definite NLE. They had the crew from Color, they had the crew from Shake, from Logic, they had Soundtrack Pro, they developed Motion. They put every effort into making the most advanced editing software in the world, but then they miraculously stopped. Take for instance the new mask paint tool. What is that supposed to be? The roto tools in Motion had been better since 11 years. The plugin-combo SliceX and TrackX had been much better (Mocha tracker). Why? If you think hard, you'll know the answer.
​When cows fly. But is it technically impossible? Surely not. Then why don't they?
​You say that because you're doing literally all the work. A one-man-band. 

 
Professionalism has a nimbus. You pay the CC fee because you consider it a pro app. And why did Apple not call their flagship 'iMovie X'? They savagely cut off anything resembling the 'Adobe Production Suite' (as it was called then), but they insist on being pro. A professional NLE, see AVID, doesn't have to be smart or make things easy. It doesn't have to swallow a hundred proprietary codecs, perform multicam edits, allow to apply funky looks, what have you. 
My posting wasn't meant to discuss the complexity of color grading nor to demand a better workflow integration, I just started to wonder why we all accept to be lied to so readily. 
 

If you do not consider yourself a pro, noone is expecting anything from you. A pro can work in an indie or corporate environment, and will get the job done no matter what tools he/she works with. And if you can't scale up your skills then get someone to help you. Noone owes you anything, man, seriously.

That does look nice. I am about 2-3 months away from getting a new camera. I have been eyeballing the fz1000 for run and gun reasons, but after seeing this footage, maybe the gh4 is the way to go. I have a couple vintage cosmicar c mounts that may go perfectly in anamorphic mode. 

Hi everybody, my first comment on this forum, very nice to meet you.
I like Andrew's review for EOS M3, and I find it to the point and I find very useful the videos "Japanese Garden" and the "Studio Test Scene".
Well I am from the first who bought EOS M3 body from Amazon Japan at under $500 with free EVF included.
I already have a Nikon D800 and when I compared it with EOS M3 in movie mode side by side, I was impressed to see that the EOS M3 video is much more clear and full of details than this of D800.
After I liked the freedom that M3 gives me: small size, tilting screen, standard external microphone port, focus peaking that make manual focus quick, and a variety of lenses to choose from Canon, or Nikon, or legacy Pentax, Tamron etc.
You cannot find all these at this price.  Not even an external microphone port unless you go more over $1.000.
I also want to inform other M3 users that if you search the settings in "Picture Style" you will get a movie output much more rich in details: not only remove sharpness but remove contrast as well.
But I was really surprised to see that magnification assist for MF doesn’t work in movie mode, while it offers focus peaking, which is related and has to work together with MF assist. I hope that they fix this, it is crazy: every time i want to fine focus or to check the accuracy of the focus peaking, I have to: rotate the selector from movie to photo mode> fine focus>rotate again the selector to movie mode.
In general am happy with this camera and for this I made a short "Low Light High ISO Movie Test" which i can share with you:
 
 
Chipped and unchipped lenses were used for shooting the samples of this movie, which are:
1. Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 non-Ai (adapter used).
2. Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 60-300mm f/3.8-5.4 (23A).
3. Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X 124AF Pro DX II for Nikon (adapter used).
4. Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD IF for Canon.
And here is a picture of EOS M3 with the lens: Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 60-300mm f/3.8-5.4 (23A).  With this long lens, the first clips of the movie test were shot:

Best Regards!

Hello everyone!
With the new ability to shoot a 4K 1.33:1 image with the GH4, I immediately remembered of my film days (as an AC of course) where you had head and floor room on the viewfinder to shoot... and thought that I could use 16mm lenses on the GH4 with a decent crop...  meaning, that one would be able to shoot with 16mm and s16mm lenses, crop out the heavy vignette and still get nice 3K sized footage.
Here's a little proof test I shot:
 
 
 

Hi mercer, I am using resolve 11 lite too, on a 2009 macbook:). So i know the trouble with the small screen. Basic color grading is possible, but masking becomes really too difficult with such a small screen. As it is a grading program, i think you should not actually use an auto color mode here;) ...that could be done in a program like imovie 11 just as easy.
-First you should make yourself familiar with the nodes in the upper right corner. Just create a new serial node....and in that one you can go crazy with all the sliders and learn what will happen when you push what slider. ⌘-D will disable your note and you can check back and forth with your original footage.
-Histogram scope is you best friend, never work without it if you dont have a perfectly calibrated screen.
-And last you should get some LUTs. There are free ones online. They can be really useful to achieve certain looks.
 

For now, you should read the manual to understand the basics. Leave out what is obviously not your business. For chapters 10&11 (COLOR!), you should reserve 90 minutes a day.  Read about it, see an online tutorial dealing with the specific subject and try it with your own stuff.
You can be much faster if you use keyboard shortcuts. Print out those 'cheat sheets' (google) or buy removable stickers.
Leave out the 'EDIT'-chapters for now. Resolve 12 (announced for June) will probably be a full grown NLE (multicam, audio synchronization, nesting, audio mixer), it can then substitute your beginner's NLEs.
BTW: Never grade in iMovie (don't know for PE, but could be the same). It computes in 8-bit (that's why it feels so fast). That means you can only make one change without quickly losing quality ...

Awesome, thanks for that.  Although, I must admit, I've seen DSLR's rigged up bigger than that film gear!

I have the M1 and absolutely love it... Of course I am poor so this is my main camera for the time being. I found the M1 to be a no budget filmmakers wet dream, especially if run and gun is your style. With that said, it is missing some key things that I wish it had... First and foremost... Focus peaking so I am happy to hear it is integrated into the new model but the problem is... If I upgrade, I am not going to upgrade to M3... Why would I?
But Andrew, I would like a little clarification. When you say that it goes to auto exposure mode... Are you saying from still mode? Or is there no manual exposure in any movie mode?

I gotcha, yeah that must be annoying not to be able to see the changes on the screen as your changing it... Didn't think of that.