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GH2 Moon5´s at its best. Thriller movie preview.
  • Color is not final, noise is a glitch from magic bullet mojo.

    GH2 Moon trial 5 Rokinon Cine lenses 24mm T1.5 35mm T1.5 Premiere pro CS5.5

    Cinematography and direction by me

  • 29 Replies sorted by
  • I'm really sorry to say this and I assure you I don't mean it personally at all but this obsession with shallow d.o.f. is completely ridiculous, I mean half your footage is out of focus. Has no one else pointed this out? I don't care how 'cinematic' these f/.01 lenses are supposed to be, if the images are out of focus it looks like amateur home video not a serious attempt at filmmaking.

  • YOu right, but with no operator its kind of dificult make this stuff hand held, even thoug you are right. Im still learning this is my 3rth year making videos.

    Thanks.

  • From a quick glance I´d say those comments are a bit harsh. Yes, there is a bit of hunting; but it looks sort of like somebody shot it with s16 at home, handheld and not like someone with a full-frame camera going apeshit over short DOF. (much more pleasant IMO). There are some issues with the placement of the focal field every now and again, or maybe an issue with framing (depending on what you go for).. It´s not too far off though, there are some good intentions and fluid moments.

  • It's not my intention to be harsh and I don't mean in any way to discourage endotoxic. Completing a short (or any length film for that matter) is in itself worthy of admiration and respect. It just seems there is a wave of new filmmakers who have been conditioned to believe that shallow d.o.f. is not only desirable but also imparts a 'cinematic' quality to an image inversely proportional to the area in acceptable focus. It's my opinion that this paradigm is wrong-headed and needs addressing.

    @endotoxic I agree that it's hard and a lot more work without the assistance of an operator or cinematographer, especially when you're shooting long days and are directing. However, when those circumstances do arise think of it as the perfect opportunity to hone your craft and become more intimate with the cinematographic aspects of fimmaking and all it encompasses. Apart from the focus issue your camera work is fine and suits the content of your film well. The issue with focus can be addressed by stopping down your lens (selecting smaller aperture and yes, that means more light or higher ISO) to give your acceptable focus range more latitude. Your films won't suffer as a result. Do a search on hyperfocal distance for more info.

    Oh, and I have a deep appreciation for your casting skills ;)

  • @spacewig

    THank you very much for the comments, im in a learning prosess, and by having people like you putting hard truth is good for me. Im not a D.O.F fan though, you should look at my other work, i usually prefer T4 ir T5.6

    Since it was the first time i operate the camera with 3 rings at the same time (Variable ND, Focus, Aperture) and had no follow focus since "some one that owns this web page" have not give me back my bad part when i bough it. So it was hand held, first timer with 3 rings , iso 400, shutter 40 ( since ive found it has the best cadence for 24p of all ) rokinon 24 T1.5. I wanted to make it personal make it T2 or T2.8 for face, and T5.6 for wide steady shots. Since the light was set by me, and the actors where alone with me and the camera on hand. I must admit i should practised more on my skills, and YES you are right " is the perfect opportunity to hone your craft and become more intimate" but since im the cinematographer (in early stages yes) i cant become more intimate than this, so im really glad you made your opinion. :)

    Casting girl, wow one of the top midle age model in Perú my country. 38 years old. She is very pretty.

    Please feel free to se other work from me, i assure you its not that bad with the focusing ( exept for my heavy adiction to long shots and shoulder mounting camera wich makes it more dificult )

    @RRRR Thanks for the kind comment. My intentions posting this was for adquiring some more personal views. :)

    Here are some othe moon footage:

    This one was made on B&W in a slaughter house.

    This is moon and apocalipse, moon is better.

    Here the images of the model on the first video. Jessica Vasquez

    563815_10201057760750754_951355719_n.jpg
    847 x 960 - 108K
    64154_10201077120834744_175240512_n.jpg
    460 x 460 - 31K
  • I think it's pretty decent. I also think that Spacewig has very valid points here. Also I'll second that having fast lenses doesn't mean you should open them all the way up and not worry about lighting. I see that Endotoxic did some decent lighting but I also think maybe his lens irises were too open and that contributed to the overly soft look. In good cine lenses you can run wide open and not worry a whole lot about softness but SLR lenses are completely different in this regard. Add a little fill light and stop the lens down a stop or two.

    Otherwise, I like it. It's well edited and flows a lot nicer than a lot of amateur vids where folks are whipping a handheld camera around.

  • Thank you @svart :) there the shoot was mainly T2-2.8 maybe i should stayed with T3.5 iso 500 and a propper 4x4 ND. I decided to used the variable ND since when i was walking the light was on the floor and the luminosity from meter to meter changer very much. GH2 is no Dinamic range winner, and keeping the footage in proper exposure is some times hard when hard light is used. I must practice my shots well before making them happe. Thanks for the advises.

  • @spacewig

    When you elaborate like that, it seems like we are in perfect agreement. :) It might have sounded harsher than your intention.. Or it might have been my reading.

    @endotoxic I like the look of your other video a lot, but I think you could edit it down a lot, too without loosing any of the artistry / story (maybe the other way around). Kill a few darlings. ;)

  • @endotoxic Yes, keeping the DR in check is hard, but don't forget that the movie industry does it everyday. Lighting is probably the most important part of a good looking shot. The production design is probably second and the camera 3rd. Movies are lighted a lot brighter in real life than you see on the screen and they stop the lens down a bit, centered around F5.6(sweet spot for most lenses). This gives sharper frames but also increases contrast a little bit too.

    As far as your hard light, you can use "frost" gels instead of diffusion. Frosts and/or opals will soften the light slightly but leave the beam mostly intact. You might try them if you want to soften the light slightly but still keep a hard looking light. Also, don't be afraid to raise your base exposure with fill light. Even a small amount of heavily diffused light will help drastically.

  • I thought the shallow DOF actually worked. It put me in a more dream-like surreal state, it was totally justifies in a film like this.

    I don't care how 'cinematic' these f/.01 lenses are supposed to be, if the images are out of focus it looks like amateur home video not a serious attempt at filmmaking.

    I think this goes in the category of "things people are just saying now". For MOST PEOPLE and audiences, shallow DOF is STILL more related to 'cinema' than deep focus. It's really stupid that people are trying to flip the tables now that shallow DOF is commonly available. It's honestly just a bunch of bullshit elitism. When all cameras were 1/3" chip... deep-DOF was amateur. Not that everything has a large sensor... shallow DOF is amateur. Does anybody see the obvious psychology here? Whatever is widely available to people (or is a new trend), is discredited as "amateur", in an desperate attempt to separate them from the "pros" and "elites".

    I'm not saying this video is beyond criticism... but the idea that "shallow DOF" is now "amateur" is really freaking dumb. Deep DOF, TO MOST PEOPLE, is much more amateur and TV-show-like than cinema... no matter how much the threatened elitists clamor otherwise.

  • Elite? You've misread or misunderstood what I was trying to communicate. I never said that a film had to have deep focus, what I said was when the image is out of focus it looks bad and seems like the camera is in the hands of an amateur, kind of like cropping the chin of an actor of having him part way out of the frame. And the number of videos being made with this problem has been compounded due to gratuitous d.o.f. porn that is a corollary to filming with a DSLR.

  • @spacewig, it seem that we are mixing up things here. @bwhitz, its not "elite" proper focusing, either proper focusing is 5.6 dear spacewig, the focusing is for centering the atention. It another tool, just like iso, frames, shutter, it adds up for the sensation.

    I must admit i would like to be more on focus with my last footage, but i must agree also with @svart. This footage flows good, and it gives the intended emotion i wrote on the script. Even though i dindt have an operator, i think was pretty well done for 30 min, with no more than 3000Watts on light, and complete darkness.

    Also spacewig you cant judge just cos of framing and focus, if that was the intention and cinema is an art form, how can you say what is right or wrong? This are tools, and i agree with you about focusing properly, but there is no rule about proper focus for creating a sensation, it all ads up. So i think you have here an issue with DOF and othe people that really THINk is the right way.

    Its like you telling me how to eat or not, there is so many food, and so many ways to eat it, that the only thing they share is they enter your mouth. The flavor, well, thats another story.

  • its not "elite" proper focusing, either proper focusing is 5.6 dear spacewig, the focusing is for centering the atention.

    No, I just meant that the trend of simply calling shallow-DOF "amateur" and "home-video-ish", because it's now available to a lot of people, is elitist. Home video cameras have NEVER had shallow-DOF before 3 years ago. Saying that shallow-DOF is a "home-video-look" is just objectively false. It makes no sense at all.

    I do actually like deeper focus myself... but shallow-DOF is not instantly amateur. To MOST PEOPLE (aka. your audience) shallow DOF will still be perceived as more cinematic.

  • I liked the look, good job.

  • There's nothing wrong with using shallow DOF, liberally even. It's questionable when it's used simply because it can be and not for a specific reason, whether that reason is to direct the viewer's eye or to convey some emotional component through the overall aesthetic of movement, sound and focus. Ask yourself why you're shooting it in this way in the greater question of why are you showing the viewer this shot at all. Arriving at this takes practice though so the haters should check themselves or offer up their own footage for inspection and pointed critique.

    Rather than turn into another DOF hater thread (that being the easy critique, like reducing anamorphic photography to horizontal flares and oval bokeh) this thread could have been more meaningful if it would have been a discussion on the economy of shots/cuts. "Why am I looking at this/Why am I showing the audience this?" is more important than whether or not the focus was shallow or deep.

  • The complete shot (9am to 7pm cost me a grand totl of $1300. Make up artist, stylist, hair makeup, 1 camera man, 1 asistant director 1 producer and lost of balls and hard work. I hope i can make even beter looking fotage in the future, im begining to feel the 8 bit limit when trying to give more DR and more color. Alway noise comes along, eve though moon 5 holds quiet well on each shot for post.

    Thanks @Vitaliy_Kiselev for your hard work, now this webpage is paying of !!! hard work pays off, in diferent levels. Not just Cinema or hack, there are other people beting for you an to you. Also thanks to @driftwood for your hard work!!! i wouldnt by an GH2 if it wasnt for your patches. They really have something special on them.

    Cheers

    Jonas.

  • Thanks @Hallvalla you are the only one to like it for what it is. Thanks, also if you have comments please feel free to make them

  • @endotoxic Seems to me you achieved what you set out to do. I thought it looked damn good, and the shallow depth of field seemed to give it a feeling that we were in another zone/place where crazy things happen between people that we never really see in regular life. This out of focus background stops the viewer from being able to logically identify where the location is...and that works to place us in that zone/place. Soon the viewer simply is in this new place...and waiting to see what happens. Well done. I'd say keep following your instincts - you're onto something good here.

  • "Saying that shallow-DOF is a "home-video-look" is just objectively false. It makes no sense at all."

    It makes even less sense to repeatedly counter an assertion no one has made in this thread.

  • I really liked the look of this. I especially liked the way focus hunted and seemed very appropriate to the mood and the characters. Nicely done!

  • thank you very much @mshires. I put lots of effort on it, you kind comments put me in happy moods.

  • @endotoxic I loved it! it seems like you got inspiration from Franck Leclerc :)

    For you who dont know DOP Franck Leclerc:

  • @endotoxic Keep doing your thing great work, all you can do is go up from there.

  • @fix , i didn't knew who Franck Leclerc was , but men, it make me understood more now with its reel, and how much you can push DOF angles and aberrations to take advantage of composition and feeling. thank you very much, as im typing this i must admit this reel has added a plugin in my arsenal. Also bring me new ideas since glass finally is the medium where light is given its final flavor.

    @TrackZillas , i must do better from now on, i have good people here making critics and telling truths. i can only go up from there. Thanks!!!

  • @endotoxic I tottaly agree. It's about feelings and motion. Playing with technics to get those moments. It's really silly to tie up our hands and say "you can't do that"... Because you can! And that's the genius about it :) keep experiment and reach out for new ideas. Only way to become a master IMHO. I agree with @TrackZillas, you can get up there. Don't stop showing us stuff! :)