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Having been making super low budget shorts for something like eight years now, I finally decided I need to make a reel. I sat down last night and edited for a few hours, and while I plan to cut it down quite a bit, I wanted to get some feedback from you guys first. What shots work and what shots don't? It's mostly dramatic work with a few candid shots on the streets. It's mainly shot with a DVX-100a, with shots with the Sony EX-3 and two or three shots with a PD-150. Let me know what you think. http://www.vimeo.com/6282336
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Aug 26, 2009 23:54
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:18 |
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SquareDog posted:Where do you live in the world? I'm in Korea. I'm so busy with my regular job that all of the shorts I've been working on have fallen by the wayside. We're hopefully getting funding for a feature that we're going to shoot some time this winter. We're probably going to shoot on the EX-3 with a Letus Extreme. I'd like to try a GH-1 or a 5D Mark II, but am a bit skeptical about them. What kind of portions of scenes should I be showing in the supplementary video? I've edited acting reels and such, but this was my first cinematography reel. Most of the ones on Youtube are done like music videos (although maybe not quite so precisely edited), so I kind of went with that.
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Aug 27, 2009 00:51
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So we finally got some funding for our movie, and we'll be spending a bit more on the equipment this time. We'll likely be shooting on the EX-3 again this time, but I was wondering about options for lenses. One of the updates for the EX-3 over the EX-1 was the interchangeable lens, but after searching around, I'm not finding that many lenses or even adapters for this. I did find that Letus makes an adapter that lets you bypass the lens and use regular 35mm glass on it, but it costs $3500, which is way more than I'm willing to spend on an adapter for a rented camera. Is the interchangeable lens thing on the EX-3 not really worth it at the price point I'm looking at? Is it better just to save a bit of money and go for the EX-1 instead? I have a shoulder mount for my DVX100 so the shoulder mount thing on the EX-3 isn't really an advantage. Also, I'm much more comfortable using the DVX100 over the EX-3, so should I consider using the HVX-200A instead?
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Oct 2, 2009 16:22
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Haha, SxS workflow. Having a BITCH of a time getting it to work. I posted in the post production thread in SH/SC, but if butterypancakes or someone else can help me, I'd be super grateful. Long story short, I plugged in the rented EX-3 into my computer and it saw the device as a USB device so I tried playing the videos in VLC. They worked so I just copied and pasted them over (THIS IS A VERY VERY BAD IDEA). Stupidly, I didn't include the cue file or something and now Final Cut, Compressor, and Quicktime Pro cannot recognize them. I can stream the files using VLC and then convert them into QT from there, but I've been having sound issues and may have to export sound separately and then add them together in post, which will suck so much. Anyway, I don't blame the EX-3 or the workflow, just my misunderstanding of it. I didn't have a lot of time and it seemed like it would work, but it positively didn't. Flip4Mac has a codec for QT that supposedly reads .mxf files. Anybody have any experience with that? I am ready to tear my hair out with all these stupid little niggling files. I'm actually wishing I'd shot this all on my DVX instead. At least I can go back to tape with that. Anyway, back to cameras. I don't have experience with any adapters, having shot stock lens on everything I've done, but I've read a lot about them online. Renting it is kind of iffy here in Korea. There's only one place I found that rented it and a camera, and they're always out of stock. My regular rental house had never even heard of it, but maybe I'll try to get them to buy one. I've thought about going with the HVX because of how much I've used the DVX, but also wanted to max out resolution as much as possible and have as shallow depth of field as possible (if no adapter), and the 1080p mode on the EX-3 looks way sharper than the HVX footage I've seen. Edit: Or should I just say gently caress it and shoot it on a GH1? I can get one body only for like $800. No lens worries, no post production worries (except latitude on CC), and it's a new toy. Momonari kun fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Oct 3, 2009 |
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Oct 3, 2009 01:04
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butterypancakes posted:You sorta screwed yourself over by not just using log and transfer in FCP. Try and export them out of VLC with the "dummy" codec it should just put the same video in a new container. Quicktime's MPEG-2 playback component should be enough to decode the resulting files. The only way I can get any usable output out of VLC (other than straight playback, which is flawless) is doing a transcode to high bitrate H.264. The resulting file opens up in Quicktime, and plays perfectly, but when I transcode to anything else from there, the audio always cuts out halfway through the clip. It doesn't matter if it's a 30 second clip or a two minute clip, always at the halfway point. It's a maddening problem. Edit: Just tried transcoding to .mp4 in QTPro, but even with video passthrough and re-encoded audio, it still cuts out. There's something messed up with Quicktime's audio.
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Oct 3, 2009 04:10
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Frost posted:EDIT: I might have misunderstood, if you don't have the cue files any more, you are screwed? No tool to rebuild them? Each of the "clips" comes in a folder. I have the folder for each clip (it includes a .smi, .xml, and two others I can't remember, I'm at work now), but I seem to recall there being another file that lived in the parent folder. I can't remember if there was or not, and I don't have easy access to the camera to test the theory. I did try Sony's XDCAM viewer or whatever, but that also wouldn't recognize the files. In hindsight, I probably should have used that viewer to import the footage, but at this point, I can't do anything about it.
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Oct 5, 2009 01:00
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Frost posted:Yeah, I tried moving them with the Mac file browser at first and noticed that as well, that's when I switched to the other prog. Too bad man. Ugggh... not what I wanted to hear. The funding we got was partially based on having this on our reel. The director is really good at sweet talking about things he doesn't have done yet... I have a few more ideas on how to fix this mess. The video is fine, it's just the audio at this point.
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Oct 6, 2009 01:01
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Well, if shallow depth of field is the most important, then you have no choice but to shoot on the Red. What's the aperture like on the 18-50? Edit: Just checked and compared with the Panasonic. You'll definitely get shallower depth of field even using zooms on the RED. Momonari kun fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Oct 7, 2009 |
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Oct 7, 2009 00:48
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Christopher Doyle rocks. I watched that lovely Hero movie like five times just because he shot it.
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Oct 8, 2009 23:39
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Ok, I know this isn't a cinematography problem, but I really need some help with that video file I've had issues with. Would someone be willing to receive a video file from me and take a look at it and try to convert my EX-3 footage to Quicktime ProRes/AIFF? I'm running out of ideas, patience, and time. Nothing is working for me, and I'm just getting frustrated.
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Oct 18, 2009 13:42
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butterypancakes posted:Senduit it to me and I'll see what I can do. I found a possible solution on another website, but if it doesn't work, I'll send you a file.
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Oct 18, 2009 22:25
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Yeah, I've pretty much decided to shoot my next film on a GH-1 for a number of reasons. The biggest is low light and low visibility, as in, so we don't get caught shooting where we aren't supposed to. We need the shallow depth of field, but doing this in low light is quite difficult with other HD camcorders in my price range as well. I've scoured over problems with the GH-1 and while the camera won't do any magic, it will help us achieve the look we're looking for. We have a scene at a club where we're going to rent the HVX for a day, because strobes and fast movement kill CMOS sensors. It's all about the content. We've been working on this script for a long time, and we've got some great talent, so I hope everything comes together.
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Nov 23, 2009 12:45
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NeuroticErotica posted:If you have other options, I'd look into them. I shot a couple of quick projects on it and while it's nice for avoiding permits and stuff, I'm just not a big fan. Plus if you're looking to rack or pull focus, most DSLR lenses are just going to be way to slow or stiff to do a decent job. Well, the options we have are as follow: GH-1 with SLR lenses, 7D/5D with SLR lenses, EX-3 with or without a Letus, HVX with or without a Letus, or a Red. The Red is probably impossible on our budget, and the EX-3 is pushing it. I've shot with the EX-3 quite a bit and like it a lot, but there are things that I wish were better. For the next shoot, I want shallower depth of field, better low light, and (lowest on the list) more straight forward post production.
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Nov 29, 2009 13:46
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No, no, my favorite is the one where the guy is late for class so he darts out of bed, throws on his clothes, runs through the hallway, almost knocks over someone, and then, when he finally reaches the classroom door, he finds that class has been cancelled.
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Dec 27, 2009 01:56
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The kids were surprisingly decent, but it seems like a tough thing to try. First scene, I really wanted a wider shot showing the kids being yelled out. I know it's tough to do with kids, but it really felt needed. The second scene was solid, except for the reverse on the old man. It looked like he was indoors instead of outside. Even if it was what that location looked like, it could have been solved with a wider shot or by putting him somewhere better looking. Third scene was good, except for the acting on the other guy, but I did want a wider shot of him approaching. The last shot was a little dark too. Fourth scene, felt like unnecessary handheld stuff, but that's just my preference. Others mentioned the darkness. Even darkness needs little cuts of light here and there to define the space better. I like some of the work you did on the sound design, but some of it was a bit repetitive and most of it was far too loud. It's far better than most student films, which are usually just dead silence. Be careful of pops in sound between cuts, though. I noticed it most in the third scene.
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Dec 27, 2009 07:37
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Panasonic just announced their Micro 4/3 sensor camcorder with interchangeable lenses: http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wc...082010101919040 Basically a GH-1 put into a real camcorder body, with improved specs. No 1080/60p, but I'd rarely shoot that anyway. If it's anything like the GH-1, almost any lens mount under the sun can be adapted to it. They haven't announced a price yet.
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Apr 12, 2010 07:27
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If I'm using my own equipment on a shoot, how much should I charge for rental? I've heard anywhere between 2% to 10% of the price of the item per day. Should I just see what a rental house puts it out for and just match that?
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Dec 9, 2010 10:47
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1st AD posted:Can someone with some technical expertise explain to me why 2 different camcorders with 1/4 CMOS chips would record video with drastically different quality? I'm looking at nightclub footage shot with a Canon HF20 and HMC40, 1080i in the former and 1080p in the latter - the HF20 image is incredibly noisy, even the blacks are noisy as poo poo whereas the HMC40 has very clean blacks and the image only starts to break up in the highlights. Do the cine gammas really make that much of a difference? Sensor variations and gamma variations exist between models from the same company, so those from two companies can drastically differ. There's also quality of compression as well.
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Dec 10, 2010 02:37
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What's a decent source for relatively inexpensive rigs (under $500, not including matte box or follow focus) for an AF100? I'm looking at indisystem (https://www.indisystem.com) at their Areeba or DSLRsm or indiRAILSpro XV sm, but the few reviews I've found say that the parts are relatively heavy. Jag35 stuff is also supposed to be good for the price, but looks much more geared towards DSLRs. I want something I can put a decent sized lens, matte box, and follow focus on. Conversion to shoulder mounted is wanted, but not necessary. I'd save up for a Zacuto or something more expensive, but because I'm going to the US in a few weeks, I can pick up some cheaper rails now, have them for three or so years, and then when I go back, get something more expensive. If I don't buy now, once I come back to Korea, the import fees on such products would basically double its cost, making a Zacuto rig insanely expensive, so I can't wait a few months either. Someone also mentioned Gini Rigs, because he's in Korea, but I looked on eBay, won an auction, but he didn't respond to four e-mails, so I've given up. All the other forums are filled with gearheads who don't answer my question and just tell me I should spend triple what I want to. Are there any good rigs out there for around $500?
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Jun 20, 2011 02:26
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I have a follow focus and matte box already, so the $500 was for the shoulder/rod support. I'm already spending way too drat much money on the camera and lenses.
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Jun 20, 2011 07:58
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Haha, it's all right. I just want something to last me for a few years and not be complete crap. I may forgo the shoulder mount, as I already have a cheapo Spiderbrace which I can use in a pinch. That'll lower my costs. I also looked up local Zacuto rig prices. About double of what they are in the US, and I have about half of that now. I still need to get a wide angle lens too. Widest I have now is 25 mm, which is a normal on the AF100. This poo poo's expensive.
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Jun 20, 2011 08:59
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I was going to get the 9-18 as a compromise until I can afford the 7-14, but focus by wire isn't that great. I've decided on the 14-54 Olympus as a stop gap. I still need the 14-25 range, it's a good deal faster than the 9-18, and it won't overlap the 7-14 when I do get it.
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Jun 21, 2011 02:04
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The crop is only an issue if you are trying to use the same lenses on different cameras. If you use the right lens, it's a non-starter. As for the other problems, the compression is as good or better than the EX-1 and EX-3 (which is the same codec as the F3), and you can always use an external recorder for better compression. The highlights going green seems to be a problem others have had but have solved by changing settings in camera. Previous Panasonics didnt really shine either until you played with the settings a bit. I haven't used my AF100 yet, so I don't know if this issue can be fixed. Color space is an issue, but many have done good chroma keying on the AF100. The F3 also has color space issues compared to Red unless you're recording SDI out, which adds to the cost of a camera already three times more than the AF100. The new Sony looks pretty good for the price, especially compared to the interchangable lens camcorder that only shot 60i that they weee going to release (did they release that?). However fiddly preview videos, the lack of SDI and ND filters, plus less control over settings made me decide against it. Low light would be better on the new Sony, but the AF100 is way better than the EX-1, which is fine if lit properly. If someone is buying or renting on their own budget, there are plenty of reasons to choose an AF100. If I had $15000 to spend on a camera, I might do an F3, but I don't, so I'll settle for a paperweight instead.
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Jun 30, 2011 10:31
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1st AD posted:The NEX-VG10 has been out for a while, I've seen people running around with those since February or March. Also it's a $2,000 camera, not in the same price bracket at the AF100 or FS100. Oh yeah? That's not a bad price, but it's still a confusing product. Not really sure who they're trying to market to. Maybe NEX camera owners who want a video camera?
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Jun 30, 2011 17:57
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:18 |
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Gotta think about a wide angle too. 35 isn't very wide on a GH2. If I were trying to do low light and deep focus, I'd just use a Sony EX-1 instead.
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Aug 9, 2012 05:44
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