barefoot_dp

16 minutes ago, mercer said:

Production designers on a no budget/micro budget film? I think that article was meant for someone else.

This isn’t directed entirely at your statement but I am surprised how the Hollywood establishment has usurped the digital revolution. For the first time since the beginning of Hollywood filmmaking and union crews, any person could truly go out and make a film with the bare minimum.

Companies like Zoom and Rode created sound solutions to give a filmmaker proper sound on a shoestring budget. Chinese companies made LED lighting affordable. There are even apps that will tell you where the sun is at any location in the world but instead of going out and making a movie with what they have cheaply available to them, they were told they needed a boom operator, an art director and a 2nd ac to pull focus.

Now I’m not saying that people shouldn’t strive for the best work they can do, I just find it amazing that there hasn’t been an influx of great indie films shot with next to nothing. Instead, I am finding an influx of bad films shot by people trying to make a movie like Hollywood would make one.

I can only imagine what Kubrick or Truffaut could have made if they had access to these tools. Hell, could you imagine if Hitchcock had a drone for North by Northwest?

On low/no budget everyone is doing multiple jobs. Maybe it's the director, or maybe it's the DP,  but SOMEBODY needs to be looking at the location and saying "lets move that table over there because it looks too modern" or "lets put a cheap rug on the floor to make it look more like grandmas dingy living room" or "he's the bad guy so he's going to wear the black hoodie". My point was more that people thinking creatively and doing there jobs well are going to have a lot more impact on the final product than whether you shoot on the newest iPhone or on my crappy Huawei or on an old DVX100 you borrowed from your school.

Oh and by the way, it's the 1st AC that pull focus.

27 minutes ago, kye said:

 

Exactly.  So why take money from those things and put it into the camera dept?

My comments were about the Noam Kroll article, which pertains specifically to the new iPhone. A new iPhone is not exactly cheap either. I just had a quick look, for a "cheap" plan here in AUS it's $70/month over 2 years (on top of the base plan) for the iPhone 11 Pro (for a total of $1680). I think if I had a look around I'd be able to find a DVX100 or similar for $70 (one months payment), or for the total cost of upgrading the phone, I could get a pretty decent camera setup, with a couple of lights too.

Of course, you can shoot on a phone already. You don't need the newest iphone. But if current/older phones have not yet revolutionised filmmaking, why do you think anything has changed?

3 minutes ago, kye said:

But they might revolutionise who gets to shoot films because they didn't previously have enough money for a "proper camera".

Those people can already shoot films without a proper camera (or without a proper recent camera). They've been able to do it for years on other phones and it hasn't revolutionised anything yet. And how much does a used DVX100 cost these days? Probably less than the monthly bill for a brand new iphone. And that camera has been used to shoot feature films. It's not hard to find a camera that shoots decent video for very little money (or even free).

However, if those people are shooting films without proper lighting, proper sound, proper actors, proper production designers, etc, then the camera is not going to be the limiting factor in the final quality.

There's a lot of contradictions in that blog post.

In one paragraph he mentions how guerilla filmmakers can steal shots by shooting minimally, and a few par's later he says that you'll need to light your scenes more carefully and will require more lighting. 

There's nothing wrong with having more tools and options but I don't think phones are going to revolutionize the way films are shot in any way.

9 hours ago, Django said:

The Ninja V with the SDI module should allow 10-bit recording from the FS5.

The SDI unit does not allow Raw input. It only takes video signals.

There's no 5" monitor that can record 10bit from the FS5. The FS5 only does 10bit via Raw/SDI; HDMI is limited to 8 bit.

We can all cross our fingers for the new BM Video Assist though - they do not support Sony Raw upon release but have said they want to expand compatibility, whatever that means.

2 minutes ago, Snowbro said:

 We honestly do not even know what companies are withholding, they do it all the time.

And do you know why they withhold it, in many circumstances? Marketing.

They release certain features at a time which will give them the best market advantage.

The camera megapixel wars slowed down once they realised people were more interested in other features (video being one of them), and their R & D dollars were better spent elsewhere. And similarly, I think the TV resolution wars will have less to do with technical limits and more to do with consumer disinterest - eventually everyone will just go "that's more than enough for me". That is when the companies will stop flogging higher resolution as their primary marketing tool and start on the next big thing which they might have been holding onto for some time - perhaps AI screens?

6 hours ago, kye said:

Moores Law says double every 1.5 years for the same cost, which means that in 3 years 8K will be as taxing as 4K is now, and in 6 years 16K will be as taxing as 4K is now.

Moore's Law is not a law of physics or science; it is nothing more than an observation of a trend.

That trend has already slowed significantly in the last few years, to the point where it cannot be used as an accurate predictor of future progress.

On 9/24/2019 at 9:56 AM, kye said:

Did this test to see how visible resolution differences are.

The method was I started with an 8K RAW clip from a RED Helium and exported it to Prores HQ at 4K, 3.2K, 2.5K, 2K, and 720p, then added the original and the exports back into a 4K timeline for comparison.

Here's the export on YT:

Here is the h.264 export download link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6462598

and here is the Prores LT export download link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6462579

I'm not convinced there is much difference until you're approaching 2K or 2.5K.

I haven't downloaded the video to watch it at full res but, based on your comments, I think this video actually goes against your initial argument. All this video does is show that a higher quality source (eg 8K or 6K raw) can have benefits even when delivering at much smaller resolutions. That is why you're not seeing much difference - the source files allow down-scaling which creates better 4K or 2K than what we are used to seeing from 4K or 2K/1080p cameras.
 

8 hours ago, mercer said:

I’m sorry but those are ingredients in a recipe much like a Big Mac’s special sauce is an ingredient in a recipe.

Again, a recipe is a lot more than just ingredients - it's also the exact measurements and steps taken to reach the end result. Changes to those steps can result in a very different recipe (ie a burger vs a doner).

And the Big Mac special sauce is not just another ingredient. It is a product in it's own right. It has it's own ingredients and recipe - one that McDonalds either came up with on their own or bought the rights to from someone else. I don't know whether McDonalds own a patent over the Big Mac (I know they lost some rights to the Big Mac trademark though) but if they do, it would be based very heavily on the inclusion of their own proprietary special sauce.

That "special sauce" is exactly what seems to be missing from Red's patent - ie the specific algorithms that they are using in their compression. That is the "how" that turns Red's dubious patent from a list of ingredients into a recipe. Without that, it is the equivalent of McDonalds saying "nobody else can make a product that includes more then 50g of beef, some onion, lettuce, flour, sugar, yeast, water and sesame seeds, and is made in a kitchen".  

And none of this is to say that Red's patent is invalid - I don't know enough about patent law to judge that. This is just my reply to your rebuttal about my comment that your analogy is not really a comparable situation. ? 

2 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

Unless as someone suggested, that the lawsuit is to test the strength of the patent. If it's strong it could be the first stop of Apple acquiring RED.

I personally don't think that's the case, but you never know.

I think they just want to develop ProRes Raw even further, get it into more cameras and recorders. They've hit a road block they need to bash out the way first, opening the road for other manufacturers as they do it.

Yes, that is why I specified that it can't be an outcome to the "LEGAL BATTLE." Any acquisition would be a separate event, and one that could theoretically happen at any time regardless of the legal proceedings at hand.

I agree with you that Apple most likely want to make further use or Prores Raw, either in their own products, or by licensing it to other companies. And seeing as they've already done that with Atomos at no additional cost to the end user, it does not appear as though Apple would be charging extortionate amounts for the license.

Time will tell!

4 hours ago, thephoenix said:

so even if they had raw patent be sure you would have to pay big bucks for it.

apple is certainly not going into this battle for you consumers ?

I'm under no impression that Apple are doing this for the greater good of the consumer! But nor is this a case of a legal challenge over "who owns the patent?". There is no outcome (to this legal battle) where Apple ends up with the patent and we have to pay big bucks for it.
 

8 hours ago, mercer said:

 should McDonalds or Coca Cola not be able to patent or protect their recipes because the ingredients are already available for other people to figure out?

A recipe includes a lot more than just ingredients. And those ingredients can make a lot more than just that single recipe.

Your analogy is like saying that McDonalds should be allowed to patent the Big Mac in such a way that would prevent a Kebab shop from selling a beef doner that has lettuce, onion, cheese & tahini (sesame seed). It's the same ingredients and the end result is comparable in the sense that they are both fast food items, but they got there in a completely different way.

When compared to what Red have done, your analogy is like asking if anobody else should be allowed to make cola, or burgers. But there's a lot of people making burgers and cola, because to patent those ideas would be totally insane.

 

Yes I agree, there's definitely different markets - that is why almost all the replies in this thread have been so varied!

On 9/20/2019 at 5:21 PM, MrSMW said:

I spent many years prior to being a 'hybrid' photographer/videographer watching vidiots at work with their huge tripods, sliders etc taking sometimes 10+ minutes to set up a single shot.

I've spent many years watching hybrid "vidiots" at work trying to re-balance their tiny gimbals, running back and forth to check if their Zoom/Tascam is still recording, trying to get their tiny toy tripods to stay upright in the wind, explaining to the client why they're shooting video with a stills camera etc, and missing valuable shots in the process.

All of these problems could've been avoided with a bigger, shoulder-mounted cam with XLR & ND's which just lets them shoot without thinking about anything else.

I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, but just because somebody doesn't do things the same way as you, doesn't mean you need to call them an idiot.

10 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Ha, the PD170 is lucky to be worth even twenty bucks!
 

It has a niche market among skate fillm-makers, though. Up until a few years ago even it's predecessor the VX1000 (from 1995!) was popular with skaters. I think it was a combination of skate films having a punk/grunge style where IQ was not terribly important, and 4:3 still being popular because it could allow better framing and coverage with a fisheye lens. And the built it top-handle allowed them to hold it low to the ground while riding. This market meant that for a long time the prices on for a VX1000/VX2000/VX2100/PD150/PD170 were generally higher than other cams from that era.

9 hours ago, kye said:

 I recall John Brawley commenting that the network he was shooting for still only broadcast in 720p, and that's in the US which is pretty tech-forwards in comparison to many other countries on earth.

A lot of the networks here in AUS actually went BACK to SD broadcast from HD for some of their channels. I think they realised that using the same amount of allocated bandwidth, they could broadcast multiple SD channels and therefore charge for more ad time than having a single HD channel.

I think we're a very, very long way off 6K or even 4K being the main distribution format, and Sony know that too. That is why they have left 6K recording out for now. It's nerds on forums that care about 6K & 8K, and anyone actually working in broadcast production knows that (really good) 4K is all they will need for the next camera upgrade cycle.

11 hours ago, kye said:

  My (very vague) memories of working with a PD150 was that you put in a tape and rewound it

Blasphemy! Never re-use a miniDV tape!

Unless you're talking about pre-striping for TC, but in that case you should've rewound it immediately after you finished the first pass (And done this in a separate deck so that you don't put unnecessary hours on your cameras tape heads and drive mechanism)!

I only just recently got rid of all my old mini-dv tapes - a collection of thousands., because I never re-used them.

19 minutes ago, Mako Sports said:

Its a $40,000 piece of glass. We cant be too greedy lol

If you can only pick one, why not something a bit less wide?

2x stretch means it'll be as wide as a 20mm, and even on s35 that'll seem pretty wide as an only lens. (pretty sure the Master Anamorphics only do s35 coverage)

The 60mm or 75mm might be a better choice. Shooting the Cooke 2x's on Arri Alexa/Mini, I've found the 75mm is my go-to and the one I'd pick if I could only choose one, but that is shooting in open-gate mode. I might lean towards the 60mm if I had a little less sensor area to work with, as with the FX9 in s35 mode.
 

Just noticed the original Rokinon Xeens are on sale as a set at B & H.

6 lens set for $8550 (that's less than $1500 per lens!) for the 14, 24, 35, 50, 85 & 135.

For the cost of 1 or 2 cine prime lenses from another manufacturer, you can have a full set of 6. It is probably cheaper than buying a full set of Canon L-series primes, let alone cine lenses. That is insane! Of course, they are not the world's greatest cine lenses but for people shooting on cameras under ~$10K (FS7, EVA1, UMP, any mirrorless) these will be more than good enough 95% of the time.

For the work I currently do:

Ursa Mini Pro G2 w/vf & shoulder kit

Sigma 18-35 Cine

Sigma 50-100 Cine

For primes I guess I'd get a set of the Sigma's so that everything kind of matches.

Ziess 70-200 CZ.2

Canon 400 f/2.8 & 600 f/4

Miller Arrow 30 (already have)

A couple of Litepanel Gemini 2x1's plus some 1x1's for when I need to run on battery.

Inovativ Voyager EVO 30 Cart (because of it's light weight)

I shoot an outdoor adventure TV show, some commercial work, some local brands/fashion and a bit of surfing. A big variety and generally fast-paced micro-crew stuff. Prores is more important to me that raw because I do most of the post work myself too. Raw isn't very appealing when you have to edit & store everything yourself, as opposed to just handing the cards over at the end of the day.

The UMP appeals to me because it's one of the few cameras that allows you to shoulder rig it well without becoming insanely heavy or complex. If most of my work was on fully crewed productions, I'd say Alexa LF no doubt. Why go for anything less that the best, if you've got all the support around you?

I don't see what's interesting about it? I mean, good on him for chasing his dreams but It's just the same as any of the countless independent studios in every city.

From an indie film-making perspective, I think what Jakob Owens is doing with his Film Ranch looks much more interesting - a couple of pre-designed thematic sets housed on single a large property.

I'm sure I'll cop flak for this, but pretty much every Leica camera would win this in their respective price categories.

9 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

I think focus pullers are crapping their pants.

A few more generations and we will have advanced tracking of multiple subjects with focus pulls and continuous AF all with a touch of a button. 

(focus puller here)

I originally only saw a snippet of this video and it was the part with the dancing girl. Can't remember where it was posted but I didn't realize it was AF and my first thought was "they missed critical focus most of the time, and that's terrible PR for a full frame camera because plenty of people will say it's just too hard to focus".

Knowing it was actually AF is pretty cool and definitely shows the tech is capable in some scenarios. However - they need lenses that can perform in pro scenarios too. The focus breathing on a lot of those samples was horrendous, it's like watching a music video where they're doing punch-ins in post. A manual focus puller would've been more selective in their movements and avoided a lot of that background wiggling due to constantly hunting AF. Part of good focus pulling is understanding when it is acceptable to let focus slip a little for the greater benefit (eg on subjects in motion you can let them go out of focus a bit because motion blur is making them soft anyway, as long as you hit focus on the next mark when they stop).

So yes, the tech is pretty awesome and will come in handy, but no, focus pullers are not crapping their pants.