kye

4 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

I think you are right about smaller organizations. If I make the switch, I'm more more interested in less pay for an organization that is actually trying to do good in the world than more pay for a company exists to increase wealth for the shareholders.

Glad to hear that your sister is doing well in her new line of work. Do you know what her reasons for leaving were? And out of curiosity (and without knowing her role in the film world) have you ever collaborated on a film together?

I think that having something to show for your efforts is a pretty significant motivator, and if you can see that what you did actually helped someone then that's even better.  

My sisters story is long and complicated, but it boiled down to two factors.  The first was that after not being able to 'make it' as a director, she retrained in another role, but in her location there wasn't enough work for her year round and she would have had to have found a second career for the off-season.  The second factor was that the work-life-balance was non-existent, and through the combination of her working essentially 18-hour days when she was working (working on-set all day and doing prep work all evening) plus the fact that she couldn't make plans in case she got offered a gig, she had just become separated from the rest of the world.  I'd say the horrific misogyny and directors / producers with emotional / mental problems was also in the mix, and it was, but the other two factors were easily enough.  She would call me and we'd Skype for 5 hours and she'd describe the situations on-set and I can tell you, however bad most corporate environments were, the directors and producers she routinely described would fit into the bottom 30% of management in corporate offices.  It's amazing to me how incredibly incompetent much of the workforce is, and yet, they still manage to find enough money to remain fed/clothed/housed.  I tell this to people who I mentor - if they can navigate the workforce then we, as people who are trying to accomplish something, can thrive.

6 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

If your budget is decent, the Canon R5 is really not much larger to begin with when compared with the Sigma fp, does decent 12-bit raw internally, and has a decent flippy screen.  By the time the fp is rigged to do 12-bit raw (and you add a small grip so you can actually hold the thing!), it’s already about the same size as the R5 (and still has a fixed screen).  It’s one of the reasons I sold my fp and fp-l and kept my R5.  Sometimes I thought about shoving the fp into a small space without a screen to get something, but then I remembered there’s no built-in wifi and by the time you add even the smallest cineeye/hollyland transmitter to it, it’s… about the same size as the R5.  😛

If the new BMMCC 4K can do monitoring over wifi to a phone and can do 12-bit raw to a really small external SSD (like a Sabrent Nano or something), it could work well for that kind of thing.  If not, by the time you add an external screen (even the VL35) and small SSD, you have a kit about the size of an R5 (with worse ergonomics).

(With that said, your computer’s likely to be able to edit raw from the BMMCC a lot more smoothly than from the R5 - my M2 Max is just barely tolerable with R5 stuff in Resolve)

Also, I’d add in (though I haven’t used) a hacked EOS M as an option for a teeny tiny camera that can record raw internally.  From what I remember, it can do some sort of 2.5k, though that might only be in a 2.35 mode or similar.

It really depends on the situation you're in.  For me, the choice between the M4K and the FP and the R5 gets solved with lenses.  Specifically that I have them for MFT and don't for the others.

So the above comparison wasn't to say "here are many options to explore", it was really saying "the M4K isn't perfect, but everything else is far from it".

The M2K is a very unique camera in terms of its size/performance/features (especially the fact it can do 3:1 compressed 60p RAW internally) and the M4K is better in some ways, despite also being compromised in some other ways, but for some situations it might be a step forwards.

8 hours ago, IronFilm said:

It's been rumored I've been clean shaven once or twice before in my life. 

I think back when was born, but I'd have to ask mum to confirm this. 

Maybe not....

9 hours ago, QuickHitRecord said:

I'm not saying that I'm going to make the jump, but it seems like a good thought exercise after fifteen years in this field. Personally, I'm just getting tired of cranking out so many dull, formulaic videos. I still do try to inject some interest or personality into most of my client work, but too often it gets stripped out during the review process. Whether I am being paid or not, I will always make films. However, the idea of only making the films that I want to make is pretty appealing.

To clarify, I'm not necessarily trying to get personalized advice here, just some general discussion. And if you've made the transition, I think that it would be especially insightful to hear about your experience.

Though most of the HR bots that are going to screen out your application might not see it, I think that this job requires a lot of different skills that would translate into other roles such as storytelling, project management, communication, flexibility/adaptability, technical proficiency, problem-solving, attention to detail, client relations, collaboration, marketing knowledge, time management, and continuous learning. And if you're freelance, you've got to be a real self-starter.

I've seen video people leave and go on to make a lot more money in the IT field (there's been some recent discussion here about this). Communications also seems like a natural fit, though I wonder about the viability of that career path given the proliferation of AI. Speaking of which, here are the roles that ChatGPT recommends looking into:

And of these roles, here are the ones that it deems the most future proof in this AI age:

So, what are your thoughts on this? Have you made the transition? Would you like to? Or if you haven't/won't, how are you planning to adapt?

The TL;DR is that you're incredibly valuable to any office environment, but the challenge is that compared to the average (borderline useless) office worker you're so different that the entire system won't be able to see your value, so the challenge is how to get in the door and then get your bearings.

I've spent my whole career in offices - starting with IT background and working through project management to program management to various consulting and transformation engagements.  I am an independent consultant not under the umbrella of any consulting firm, so I'm on my own for networking and finding new contracts etc, so have navigated this territory for a while now.

The most significant things I have observed are these:

• Almost no-one understands the concept of transferrable skills.  There is no understanding of this in the recruitment process or HR department at all - zero.
• Offices and corporate environments are designed to treat staff as pre-programmed robots.  If your entire career history isn't the same job title over and over again then they don't know what to do with you.
• Offices and corporate environments are places where the rules of the game do not include things like productivity or practicality (or probably anything you'd recognise), they are about perceptions and processes and culture and not rocking the boat.
• The only people that appreciate people who can take ownership of an outcome and actually get things done are a select group of middle/senior managers who are being suffocated by red tape and actually trying to move the needle on some outcome.

There are two types of people, those who change things and those who run things and maintain the status quo.  You are the former, not the latter.

As you are someone who knows how to actually get things done, I'd suggest the following:

• Any kind of role with a focus on making changes or solving problems and hitting deadlines should be a good fit - this is likely a management role but don't confuse the management roles that are just managing a team of people that do repetitive tasks
• Smaller organisations are likely to be a better fit, as they'll be more comprehendible for someone not familiar with the corporate world (think of it as a parallel universe completely separated from reality with different rules)
• As much as you can, bypass any recruitment process, and try and establish contact with the people inside the business who make decisions and can see your worth (and if necessary can ensure you're not filtered out in any recruitment process that is required)
• Try and meet these managers directly - many people have needs to hire good people but don't have advertised positions because the job market is pretty devoid of sensible people - so if you get in contact with these people they might make a new position for you
• What you want to do is get talking to the managers who have money and decision-making authority and have them decide to hire you.  This is the whole purpose of networking.

The other challenge is once you're in the door, how do you work out how to fit in and get people to work with you.  Things like running meetings, getting people who don't work for you to do work, how to explain things to management types so that they understand you (including how to tell them things they don't want to hear without making them want to fire you), etc.  

My sister made the transition from film to 'normal' work.  She retrained in Business Analysis (basically analysing a problem and designing solutions) and Project Management.  She got hired into a large corporate firm into the call centre, but very quickly started doing things on top of the normal work (which she absolutely hated) and was internally promoted, and has now been internally promoted several times as they gradually see her potential, and as she gradually learns the new culture and ways of doing things.

It's a long learning curve, but it can be done.

Good luck!

11 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

But the smallest braw or any kind of recorder-monitor is a 5inch biggie lumbing on that tiny cam. @kye With internal recording of braw and prores i would have been interested in it. With a top monteable 2.5 to 3 inch tilt screen designed for this camera, even moreso. Do that for a Bmmcc 4K and call it M4K, Blackmagic! Great naming btw. @mercer 🙂

Yeah, it's hardly the ideal package size if you want a tiny setup.  If I went this direction I would fit it with an external SSD and small monitor like the Ikan VL35 3.5" 4K monitor I have with my M2K and a battery plate.

Still, the other options for a RAW setup also have pretty significant compromises:

• OG BMPCC - small all-in-one package and internal RAW/Prores but only 1080p and screen is fixed and not bright and tiny batteries and no 60p and no dual-ISO
• OG BMMCC - same size as this plus internal RAW/Prores but only 1080p and no dual-ISO
• P4K / P6K etc - internal RAW/Prores but ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS
• Sigma FP - small with internal RAW (in limited resolutions/bit-depths) but fixed screen and RAW not compressed so file sizes are large and some modes require external SSD
• Various mirrorless cameras - much larger to begin with but also require 5"+ external recorder to record RAW

The ideal package would be this sensor in an updated P2K chassis, but I doubt this will ever eventuate.

In terms of this only recording BRAW and not Prores, I do wonder what the computational differences would be between BRAW and Prores - they might be similar in practice.

5 hours ago, zlfan said:

i figure out the best way to do 60p. 

for 60p, do shutter speed of 1/60sec.

there are two advantages:

1. lighting requirement is easier to meet. 

2. motion blur is closer to 24p, if 24p is what you want, because it is actually the shutter speed that determines the motion blur, not the fps. 

3. at the same time, 60p helps tremendously on motion for weak codecs. 

 

no quarrel no politics all are happy. 

 

cheers, 

 

60p at 360deg shutter looks like poop.

60p at 180deg shutter looks like poop.

60p at 45deg shutter looks like poop.

60p at 1deg shutter looks like poop.

4 hours ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

Everyone over their 40s will be using Olympus but not in the ways that first they thought.

But when using a Olympus colonoscope probably one will think very hard about wide aperture. 😆

What do you mean "will be"....

16 hours ago, MrSMW said:

I don’t know…

Have we ever been seen in the same room at the same time?

I am questioning my very existence now…

It's easy to tell...

When you look in the mirror do you see a long majestic flowing magnificent beard?

If so, then you might be Ironfilm, or potentially a member of ZZ Top, but if not then it's ruled out definitively.

More M4K footage....

Cat video was apparently shot on the Voigtlander NOKTON25mm 0.95, but details are sparse.  The second video has no details at all, and the first simply had "#cat" as the description, but someone asked about the lens in the comments!

43 minutes ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

I am thinking about an NVME which is hard-wired to the camera's internal board. The write speeds would - as far as I understand - be potentially higher than an external SSD.

The one downside would probably be expense though, because faster speeds would mean bigger files, which would mean a bigger drive, which would mean more expensive (I guess, but I ain't no engineer).

The latest Samsung USB SSDs get 2000MB/s, which is 16,000Mbps. The BM 6K FF camera does 6144 x 3456 (6K) with Blackmagic RAW 3:1 at 323 MB/s for 30p, so 2000MB/s would be able to do 10810 x 6080 at 60p.  

Of course, that's BRAW, but I don't think it being a removable drive would be the bottleneck.  Also, if it was removable, not only could you swap them out in the field, but over time when the SSDs got larger / cheaper you'd be able to benefit from that progress.

On 12/19/2023 at 3:49 AM, Jim Russell said:

I realize I am the odd duck here, but I would love it if the S1H II gave us Adobe Cinema DNG at 6K via the USB cable to an external SSD. I doubt they will, but I remain hopeful. Panasonic seems to have shifted focus to the under 30 users, as evidenced with S5IIx sales results. But there are still a number of us old war horses who still love their cameras.

Not an odd request at all!

These days it does seem that the preference is to go with ProresRAW or BRAW in order to get file sizes under control though, and after looking at the Sigma FP I can understand this trend because WOW, those data rates are just stratospheric!

One thing I'd dearly love for the manufacturers to offer is downsampled Cinema DNGs.  So, if you had a 6K sensor then you could choose 4K, 3K, 2.5K 2K, 1080p resolutions that were still the full sensor width.  This gives much of the benefits of both worlds.

6 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

It would be nice to get Cinema DNG natively, however, at least one can get ProRes RAW and then convert it to Cinema DNG on the computer. 

Hopefully soem sort of licensing deal will be worked out to allow the native recording in Cinema DNG, if that is even possible. Better yet would be a large amount of INTERNAL storage that would allow people to capture at a much higher bitrate.

Are you talking about internal storage like a small internal SSD inside the camera?  I have definitely noticed that many cameras record externally to SSD at much higher data rates than their card slots are able to muster.

Perhaps, and I know I'm being optimistic now, an open standard might emerge where NVME shaped SSDs in a slimline hard-case could be used as removable media via a slot.  Any camera that supported it would have the benefit of not requiring a fragile lump+cable to be attached, but the user would get the benefit of a fast drive.

5 hours ago, MrSMW said:

OK, I’m going to revise my figure to somewhere between 1/4-1/2 

Yeah, it's deceptively deep!

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

The thing is there is thing called ‘progress’ so it has to be more than it’s predecessor

There's also the concept of Enshittification, so actually there is no rule it has to be better at all.

14 minutes ago, sanveer said:

What was sad, was that he got away with it. 

The idea that justice is even common, let alone the norm, is a fantasy.  The world is a place where people can get away with almost anything, provided they were lucky, or smart, or had help, or were in a situation that condoned it.  

My approach to staying sane is to try and view injustices as reality, and try and focus on what happens next.  If you got robbed one day and you spent the rest of your life being angry and sour about it, your attitude would cost you a lot more than what you lost.  

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

If I could have my time over again and be a 20something, or a 30something, or even at a push, a 40something, this is something I could and would want to get into.

As a 50something, even a fairly youthful one, I cannot be arsed so remain ‘happily’ a 2/10 one. Possibly a 1/10.

Too little time left in the industry for it to have any real affect professionally now and time-wise, yes really do not want to get into 80 hour weeks as my ‘in season’ (Apr-Sep) weeks are already 80 hour weeks.

But then again if I could have my time over again, I would not choose the industry I am in 🤪

I wouldn't suggest beginning things as a colourist now to anyone - the impacts of tech evolution have barely even begun and they're practically incomprehensible already.  I'm in the Resolve Professional Users invite-only group on FB, I understand only about half the questions being asked, let alone know the answers, and the group recently decided there were too many basic questions being asked and has created another invite-only group with a higher standard.

In terms of who is where on the scale, one comment I've heard from quite a number of colourists is that anyone can make great looking images, it's the skills beyond that that separate the amateur from the good from the great.  Considering I can't even reliably make great looking images, I shudder to think of how deep the knowledge goes of the folks at the top, who can reliably make great looking images from footage shot on random cameras in random ways with a random number of mentally unstable people giving them creative direction in sentence fragments and gesticulation that would scare most mental health professionals...  and make enough profit doing so to prevent themselves from becoming homeless.

I'd suggest that the list of criteria to get even 2/10 would probably contain a number of phrases that most camera YT folks wouldn't even be able to pronounce, let alone define, let alone work with, let alone troubleshoot.  There are people out there shooting with mirrorless cameras, getting impressive looking results, who don't even get to 1/10 on this scale.

7 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Hmmm... didn't think of it that way.

I just naturally ASSUMED that supersizing the least amount possible would be best... as opposed to supersizing it larger than needed, then cropping in. 

I guess now that BMD knew what they were doing when they limited the supersizing to fixed values...

We all know that professional colourists are more skilled than the rest of us, but one thing I've started to become aware of more recently is that there is a huge gap in the middle ground between us and them.  Sort of like we're down the bottom in the 0-2 range, and the serious pros are up in the 6-10 range.  Of course, there are professional colourists who are in that middle 2-6 range, but the thing is that because they're working on images 20-80 hours a week (20 at first, but very quickly building up to 80 hours a week - they work crazy crazy hard) they very very quickly progress from that 2-6 range of skill up to the 6-10 range.  

I say all this because I've had very unpredictable interactions with them - sometimes I ask a question or request a feature and they all turn around and answer and discuss it, and other times I get zero reaction at all.  Every so often I learn something and realise the questions / comments that got no reaction were actually just enormously ill-informed or don't make sense when you start thinking about things the way they do (which is very very different to how its described on forums / YT).

So, all that is to say that I genuinely have no idea what the rationale is behind various decisions in Resolve.  It might be that it's a tech company introducing a random feature because someone worked it out and it actually sucks, or there's some technical limitation, or there's some special reason it's like that but we'll never know because it's designed to work in a way that fits into a particular workflow that solves a problem that you and I will never have.

The more I learn about the world, the more I realise what I don't know, and the more I realise there are many things that I cannot know.  Most of my progression these days is unlearning things I've learned in the past that are just flat-out wrong, useless, misleading, or all of the above.

7 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Thanks for the suggestion. It is something I can try out. I know that Resolve Studio version (which I have) has a super scaling feature as well. I think the implementation is a bit clunky because, IIRC, you can only up-res in certain pre-defined increments (like double and quadruple the size, or something like that... don't have it open right now). 

In most cases where I punch in during post, I am only punching in by 40% or less.

Actually, that's an interesting idea - you could take the 4K image and Super Scale it to 8K, then when you crop into it on the timeline you'd be cropping into (let's say) a 6K area of the image, which was originally a 3K area.

It's definitely worth trying along side dialling in the sharpness yourself.

9 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

My only real gripes are why they don't have 6K resolution? I don't need to DELIVER in 6K, but kind of need it to cover up jump cuts (the kind of talent I work with struggles even with a teleprompter, so being able to cut to a tighter shot can cover up a jump cut... of course, I have a second camera too).

If you haven't done it already, I suggest you do a test to see how much you can zoom in post before it becomes visible.  I did this test and was able to zoom to 150% without degradation.  

Here's what I recommend (and I did):

1. Get your sharpest lens
2. Find a subject with sharp edges / textures
3. Put high contrast lighting on the subject, so the edges have maximum contrast
4. Setup up the shot, be sure to stop the lens aperture down 2-3 stops from wide open so you're in the sharpest part of the lens
5. Take one shot from this perspective
6. Move the camera a bit closer, refocus, take another shot
7. Repeat 6 a few times
8. In post, take the first shot and crop it to roughly match each subsequent shot
9. For each crop, go back and forth between the cropped and normal shots, and add sharpening to the cropped shot until the overall level of perceptual sharpness is even
10. Apply a colour grade across all the shots
11. Export / upload the footage how you would normally deliver
12. Compare each pair of FOVs and see if that level of crop is acceptable

I've done this test, and I've seen others do this test too, and the results are surprising.  I've also seen a bunch of morons do this test but without applying sharpening, then when the sharpness didn't match they declared that they needed the extra resolution - talk about embarrassing yourself in public!

Of course, this test is grossly unfair, as in real shooting it takes a much greater difference to notice, and what is visible on the timeline is often not visible in the export (and is obliterated in the stream...)

1 hour ago, Walter H said:

Fundamentally, there is no difference in output between the S1 and the S1H with the S1's updated firmware, right? (I mean, I know that the answer is yes to that question.) There are some video-centric ergos that the S1H has which, sure, I'd prefer but they aren't worth a ton of coin. Texting with one guy who has had this done, this retro OLPF is seemingly more effective than that within the S1H. Link here.

The before and after shots in the video sure are pretty convincing.

I had to laugh a couple of times though.  What he should have said was:
1) It does a great job of removing moire, but on the other hand it also reduces the sharpness which improves the image more than the removal of the moire, and,
2) It introduces a slight colour shift, but here, I've radically overcompensated in post and made the WB much worse but in the other direction!

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

 

@kyeDo I need to worry? Got the Rawlite Oplf and IRcut filter on my Bmmcc. Aka M2K 🙂

My vague recollection is that the Rawlite ones seem to be the ones that go bad, but here's how I see it.  Either your filter is about to go bad, in which case you have enough problems and the last thing you need is to make your life worse by worrying about it, or your filter will be fine for a long time, in which case worrying will stop you from simply enjoying yourself.

🙂 

So, either way....

5 hours ago, Walter H said:

Any thoughts/opinions on adding an OLPF to our beloved Panny's? Seriously looking at this option from Kolari for my S1.

Context: I'm a hybrid shooter doing almost as much stills work as video professionally. Currently with an S1 and an S5. I've been repeatedly hit with troublesome moiré particularly when doing portrait work and have considered selling off my S1 to pick up an S1h to compliment and diversify explicitly for this image-making issue. 

Purportedly, their OLPF is more effective than what is in the S1h. I could do this and still be well below the kit cost vs what I could get for my S1 vs. the cost of a lightly used S1h would be. My S1 is now out of warrantee - not worried about voiding anything. I talked with one of their engineers today and the white balance shift is lens specific and quite slight but they felt they had to put a strong/conservative disclaimer on the website. One-year warrantee. I could ditch my 1/8 black mist when filming with the 24-105. Etc. 

Struggling to find a downside here. 

One downside I can think of is how long the OLPF might last?

The ones that people put into their OG BMPCCs have some sort of problem - IIRC they go foggy?  Anyway, people are always talking online about replacing them.  It might just be isolated to that time-period or manufacturer, but something to look into.  Otherwise, yeah, why not.

3 minutes ago, Chrille said:

Hey,

check out this little music video i shot on the Sony a74 with the helios 44 and sigma 18-35. Helios for Run&Gun - not sure i can recommend. Also did not manage to create the swirley bokeh so far. On the other hand it takes the digital edge of the sony footage which helped tremendously.

In the night scenes we also used the Tiffen Black Promist Filter 1/8.

I realized  i definetely need to learn more about lighting. If you can recommend any youtube channels i would be very happy. Of course i would also be happy about general feedback - and the artist would be happy if you would like or comment on youtube...

 

Cool video, and nice use of a projector as light-source.

In terms of more normal narrative lighting, I highly recommend the WanderingDP YT channel for cinematography breakdowns, mostly from advertising but also some features.  He talks about the whole topic of cinematography, but mostly concentrates on camera placement in the environment, location design, lighting, blocking, etc all together because they interact, but the focus is on the light, which is why I mention it in response to your question.

Moving into more interesting lighting for things like music videos, I don't have a specific recommendation, but a couple of thoughts that did occur to me are:

1. Try to create more contrast
   Music videos are where you can push things, and you can push the colour grade as well as the production design.  In the situations like the outside shots where production design is pretty limited, you can still push the contrast in post, you can push the saturation too (perhaps pushing only select hue ranges, and perhaps darkening them to fit the grittier vibe), and you can also do a split-toning effect (like having cooler shadows).  All these will create more contrast in post.
2. Try to create more variation in the frame
   This relies a bit more on equipment, but try having more sources of coloured light and really push the hues.  Maybe grab a second projector and shine one on the talent and one on the background but having different colours.  Try shining one on the talent from the left and one from the right.

Another more general thought is to create a bit more variation in shots.  This involves shooting more angles, so would take more time, so maybe it wasn't in the budget, but getting more angles would really help in the edit.  Even if you could get the artist to do an additional run-through in each location and you just film it getting as many different angles as possible - high-angle, low angle, close-up, shot of their hands, focus on the background with them blurred in profile etc.  Then you can find any interesting little moments in that one and put them over the top in the edit.

In terms of inspiration, do a bunch of google image searches for inspiration, and save any images you like.  This is the images for the search "great music videos":

Lots of cool ideas in there.  Remember good artists copy, great artists steal!

Why don't you like the Helios for run-n-gun work?

4 hours ago, MrSMW said:

And don’t ask me what has a hazelnut in every bite…

A hazelnut?

26 minutes ago, ac6000cw said:

That was my take on it too (apart from fitting bigger memory chips to increase the internal buffer size). No video changes mentioned yet. All feels a bit lukewarm really.

But as an OM-1 owner I am of course hoping some of the improvements turn up in a future firmware update for it... 😀

It's also nice to see signs of life from the brand and for the system overall, considering that lots of MFT users would best be described as..... skittish.

43rumours reports that on Jan 30th, OM SYSTEMS will announce:

• OM-1II
• 9-18mm II
• 150-600mm f/5.0-6.3

The article has more details, and also linked to this video.

Anyone interested in these things?

1 hour ago, MrSMW said:

Same way as how in the hell does someone juggle 10 balls or 3 chainsaws… 😉

Very very carefully?