Skill

Ethics for Documentary Film Makers

Walker — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:15:06 +0000

The relationship between [Documentary] filmmaker and subject can be similar to that between a benevolent, or perhaps not so benevolent, dictator and his subjects. What limits should be voluntarily adopted to safeguard the dignity and rights of the subject?

from Bill Nichols, "What to Do About Documentary Distortion? Toward a Code of Ethics" http://www.documentary.org/content/what-do-about-documentary-distortion-toward-code-ethics-0

Easiest way to match GH2 & GH3 footage (in camera)?

theconformist — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:32:23 +0000

Using GH3 and GH2 as B-cam. Clips rarely match well and the editor where I work never bothers to even try post-correction, I'm not even sure he notices (but that's a whole other story). Anyone have any tips on what in camera settings I can use to make the output look fairly similar? Just assume all things are equal when it comes to lenses.

Video "Tutorials" aimed at beginners (primarily) by an ASC DP

rockroadpix — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:18:24 +0000

A friend of mine has recently (and in tardy fashion) come to the DSLR party. He is making videos that are sort of tutorials for people interested in cinematography. I say that this is more for beginners as the subjects are pretty basic. This is also a learning experience for him as he has pretty much always worked with a full on crew utilizing the highest end of cameras. I used to work with him a lot back in the 90's. He's a little bit gruff, but he is very talented. And, he is pretty damn funny, but he does ramble a bit...

Canon new picture styles

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:36:51 +0000

Canon today announces the release of a new in-camera Picture Style pre-set for its range of EOS DSLRs. Created following direct feedback from video enthusiasts, the new Picture Style, called Video Camera X–series-look, enables users to capture EOS Movie footage with lower contrast levels, allowing for easier colour grading during post production processes.

Similar to that available in Canon’s range of X-series camcorders, the new Picture Style works by lowering colour saturation levels and contrast during filming. This makes it ideal for videographers during post production grading processes, especially if complementing with pre-existing footage shot with Canon’s X-series models, or alternatively for those who instantly want to add atmosphere to Full HD movies. In addition, the new Picture Style can also be applied to still images captured in RAW or JPEG formats.

The new Picture Style can be downloaded now from: http://software.canon-europe.com/

ND filters vs high shutter in ext. shots

AlbertZ — Sat, 11 May 2013 10:53:46 +0000

I' m fond of mid-60's film with B/N , close shot and shallow DOF...every time I want to shoot something referring to this style, I generally use ND filter in ext. shots. However, yesterday I have left my ND and I was forced to shoot with my GH1 using HIGH SHUTTER and WIDE Aperture (50mm 1.7/ 2.8) with sunlight -about 5 PM, Italy is a very sunny land;)..I was struck by the results: they were closer to the 60's aesthetic than my shots with ND filter...I was wandering if high shutter was employed in cinema in the 60's...or shutter HAS ALWAYS EVER BEEN 50?

GH2 workflow recommendations

alegomaster — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 11:50:35 +0000

Hello everybody! I bought myself a GH2 to use in a school club which is dedicated to making a movie each year. Before we had people who just took a Canon DSLR, shot with it and edited it as it was. This year I am planning on using a hacked GH2 to shoot the video and then transcode it to another format to edit. Now there is only two issues:

I am planning to use the GH2 for very long shoots (weddings, school events) at 30p where I don't need a high bitrate (I need to have very long recording times with a 64 GB card). I am wondering what patch will allow me to do that. Also I am wondering what bit-rate to shoot at; Is there any huge advantage to shoot at 80 mbits compared to around 40 mbits.
We are using both Windows and Macs to edit this so I am wondering what I should transcode the avchd footage too. I was thinking about pro-res 4:2:2 but I don't know if that will work nicely. What other format do you recommend to use. I was thinking maybe one of Avids formats can work.

Thanks for your time

First Time Wedding Videographer Advice

sanzadez — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:33:22 +0000

So up until now, my friends and I have only shot videos for fun, more of a hobby than anything else. Recently my cousin asked if we'd do her wedding as she didn't budget for a videographer but thought since we have experience filming, we could give it a try. I'd like to do the best possible job for her, not only because shes my cousin, but also becaus it could pen up a lot of doors for us. I was wondering if any of you who have experience with wedding videography wouldn't mind giving any tips/advice you have. We have two GH2s which we will be using. Any advice is apprciated

Anybody can give me some advise about Video archives/sources, payable or not?

gameb — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:40:11 +0000

I would like to know if there is any central search site, to look for any kind of video footage. I can imagine most stuff will be to pay for, depends on the use or whatever you want it for.

Is there any free stuff also, like free sound libraries?

My other question is, if you find video footage from TV or from the net, how are the rules, is it free to use for example in a documentary up to certain amount of seconds?

Free source of high quality documentary footage

ahbleza — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:42:11 +0000

Here's a nice free resource from Russia of documentary and news footage that is free for use in projects.

http://freevideo.rt.com/

"Jobs" Audio Podcast on What High-Budget Film-makers do on a Low-ish Budget.

Walker — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:26:04 +0000

Jobs was shot on an $8 500 000 (estimated) budget

see IMDB "Jobs" Page

*(from IMDB): The story of Steve Jobs' ascension from college dropout into one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century.

Hear American Cinematographer's Podcast (45 min, 84 MB) interview with cinematographer Russell Carpenter, and director Joshua Michael Stern about the Alexa, decisions to abandon anamorphic, to go ProRes, how to get that "gauzy, filmlike look", the importance of location - and so on..

from ASC:

American Cinematographer's Jim Hemphill talks with cinematographer Russell Carpenter, ASC and director Joshua Michael Stern about the film, Jobs, which explores the life and career of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Working with the budget of an independent film, they created three unique looks to capture the feel of different eras in Job's life, but were careful never to go 'over the top.'

Read about other films being made and listen to more ASC podcasts at http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/podcasts.php

The Career of Paul Thomas Anderson in Five Shots

PixCanFly — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:54:50 +0000

Stylistic approach with Steadicam. Amazingly WOW!

Possible to correct the fisheye distortion in a video?

gameb — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:45:57 +0000

Its quite easy to correct the distortion on a photo in photoshop etc. But I couldn't find anything about correction in a video. In order to get an old school wideangle lens, I was wondering if the Minolta MD 16mm 2.8 was a good choice - having a lot of distortion.. anybody has experiences with this issue?

Stabilizer balancing and shooting advice

peternap — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:15:59 +0000

I just got the Wondlan Magic Steadycam. My steadycam experience to date is with a Smoothee for my GoPro's which isn't even in the same ball park.

Setup and balancing on the Wondlan was easy and fast but I have a problem and I can't find online instructions to correct it. It rotates when I move. The Smoothee does too but very light pressure with my thumb cures that.

I can't figure out how to stop the rotation without causing it to pendulum on the Wondlan. Sorry for the stupid question.

I'm using this with the two lighter weights for the GH2"s and XA10 and the heavier two weights with the AC 160, and setting the handle for a slow drop.

Problems viewing Full HD

Nic — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:02:48 +0000

Hi,

I am having problems viewing Full HD on my Macbook pro 2.4Ghz 4GB ram, 17 inch (1920 x 1200 ) and have installed OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

I use a hacked Gh1, and the story of how the problems occurred is as follows:

6 months ago everything worked fine, I was able to view the AVCHD (.mts files) with VLC player, and the conversion in FINAL CUT PRO 7 to Proress LT worked fine, and I was also able to see the exported Proress in QT player smoothly.

A day my the charger for the laptop stopped working, probably because of an unequal flow of electricity, and simultaneously the battery died.

After that event I have not been able to view Full HD anymore… The .MTS files opened but remained blocked after 2 seconds, and only the sound was heard. The Proress LT files could be seen in QT player but not smoothly. Very annoying.

I bought another charger so that I could use the laptop again, and now a big detective work started:

I made a Apple hardware test on the computer to cheek if it could be the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT that caused the problem, but according the test everything was working well.
I made a ram test, all in order
I tested the harddisk at western digital service center, and it is working fine
I reinstalled Snow Leopard with the same settings and programs as before the accident, and no change, still problems. I tried Lion and still the same.
I went to a mac repair shop that booted from an external harddisk and still the same problem with the files as on the osx installed on my own computer.
I made a trash preferences with preference manager and no change
And I will mention that I have tried with many different files, so it is not one corrupt file that is the problem.
I also experience problems in viewing the files that I have compressed via MPEG Streamclip or in Cmpressor, they often also docent run smoothly, problems that did not occur before.

Any suggestions?

How to Create Awe-Inspiring Underwater Videos

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:44:30 +0000

Author site - http://dive.rothschilddesign.com/video/index.html

Shooting 24p in 50Hz electricity system countries

LucasAdamson — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:56:27 +0000

So, I have a GH2 and I live in the UK, a country with a 50Hz electrical system, and hence a 25p standard for shooting video and film. I am told that this can cause real problems with some lights, but having NEVER shot 24p before, I'm not sure whether the warnings not to shoot 24p here for serious work are important or not.

Does anybody have any video examples of GH2 24p footage (or any 24p footage) going horribly wrong in PAL countries with 50Hz lights?

Cinema Unleashed - seminar

shian — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:58:28 +0000

I'll be a panelist this Saturday at Cinema Unleashed - an online filmmaking seminar. If you have time it may be worth checking out.

http://www.cinevationmedia.com/dcunleashedsummit

A Behind The Scenes Description Of An Interview Shot On A GH2

DanPV — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:19:50 +0000

The link below takes you to a behind the scenes look at an interview shot with the GH2. Discussed are lenses used, why certain lighting choices were made, microphones used etc.

http://cikproductions.com/nonprofitland-youtube-campaign/

Here is a link to the completed video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DNySBkwVeaI

Is there any benefit of doing a "mock" trailer for a future feature film?

azza_act — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:10:57 +0000

Hi guys, one of my shorts film just got accepted into cannes short film corner. We are going to go for sure, I heard its a great place to learn marketing and a great networking opportunity. I don't think our short film is going to sell but we thought since we are in cannes we might as well try and shop around our feature film ideas around. We are currently work on the script and we were thinking of doing a mock trailer, since we won't be shooting the actual film till the end of year. So, making a mock trailer, like the ones I see of crowd funding websites, worth it? Would it be better to have a mock trailer, than to have a one line pitch and a script to show possible producers? Or is a a waste of time because the cast will likely be different and we haven't even written the script so whole characters and plot lines could be different. So as a result, the mock trailer could be seen as false advertisement. Love to know everyone thoughs. (Plus any tips on cannes would be great too :)

BTS shot from Wolverine showing steadicam dolly movement

ahbleza — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:16:10 +0000

This is an instructive image from a movie shoot showing how a steadicam has been mounted onto a dolly. Also interesting is the use of flags to block daylight.

http://i.imgur.com/ng1HbAB.jpg

Producing stable handheld video while traveling

Drybread — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:45:52 +0000

I've recently picked up a GH2 with the Voigtlander 25mm. I've been slowly learning to operate it, and have mainly been sticking to stills for the practice I've been doing (nature stuff, and indoor sport events), because I really don't feel confident in producing video. The main reason I bought this camera+lens was because I really want to produce video for when I travel with my friends. My main goal is to emulate the style of the Vietnam video below. However, as you can see from my video beneath that, which I hastily edited together after my first day with the GH2 (it's not graded or modified at all), I can't seem to get stable footage.

In the first video, he appears to be shooting handheld while walking, riding cars and motorcycles, and for the most part it's all pretty free of micro-shakes and vibrations. Did he apply something in post? Is he just better at holding the camera? I've looked at some stabilization solutions, but I really would like to keep the setup discreet and simple for walking around.

I suppose my question is: How do I make something like the Vietnam video?

PASSWORD: 'winter'

Cynical yet true analysis of jobs on a modern film set

ahbleza — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:27:01 +0000

This web site provides a rather funny yet slightly cynical list of all the jobs on a movie set (both UK and US), and what they do. It's written from the point of view of an experienced DP.

http://www.cineman.co.uk/

Film movement/panning issue

pvjames — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:10:19 +0000

Hey V/Guys: I'm having some issues when putting together my short clips. I'm not completely sure if its user-error with my pan movements, too high of a bit-rate being rendered for the movie player to handle smoothness becoming jerky, or a combination of both. Its been kind of a hit/miss thing. I've rendered at a lower bitrate to test out of PPro and i'm not sure if that is the prob. Are you experiencing this or does this sound familiar? I've been using Cluster hack with the 95mb/64gb card. The flowmotion hack is more for water and stream movements more then 'pans' movements i assume? Thanks.

Shot on What?

shian — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:36:25 +0000

http://shotonwhat.com

Now you can find out what cameras, what lenses, etc were used to shoot certain films, also if they were strictly DI, or transferred to film for their final master/negative.

Very interesting to see what lenses were used on certain films. I wish they had more details, such as which camera used which lenses when listing the cameras.

Post-Prodocution Workflow GH2>After Effects>Twixtor>Final Cut Pro

Bania — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:06:47 +0000

Hi All,

I am in need of a little guidance regarding my workflow options for an upcoming project I will be shooting on a Panasonic GH2.

Footage from my GH2 is in the .mts format/AVCHD codec and my usual workflow is to use FCP's 'log and transfer' function to convert the footage to ProRes, for editing in FCP. I usually also archive each SD card as back up.

However, I am wondering whether there is a better method for this project, which will involve heavy use of the Twixtor plugin in After Effects. My initial instinct was to transcode the raw files into ProRes via FCP as per usual and then import these ProRes files into After Effects for processing. But I wonder whether I would be better of editing the .mts files directly in After Effects before exporting for FCP. My understanding is that this method involves one less re-compression and should theoretically result in less artifacts.

I am also unsure about what the most efficient codec for exporting from After Effects to bring back into FCP.

My ultimate goal here is to preserve quality and minimise re-compression artifacts.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers. J

Banding - Avoiding It and Fixing It - Current Consensus

matt_gh2 — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:00:50 +0000

I've had some banding issues on my GH2- not a lot, but sometimes, so I was searching through the site to try to figure out how to avoid it (or minimize it) when shooting, and also how to fix it in post if you need to. I was hoping to see if anyone basically knew the definitive current consensus, but hadn't seen too much on how to avoid it. I also saw a few proposed solutions (convert to 5DtoRGB, apply dithering/noise, add a second layer that's blurred), but there was some debate, so was hoping to see what people have found works for them when it comes to avoiding and fixing banding. Thank you

Visual ideas for shooting live music performance

Mark_the_Harp — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 08:35:42 +0000

I think this is a great example of a simple video of a performance. I'm guessing it was probably done in more than one take, but what I really love is the use of focus pulls, particularly where several "planes" are involved, and also the shots of the performers at the start of the video. It captures perfectly what goes through your mind as a performer before starting a piece.

This is a link to the facebook page - I can't find out where the original source video is so you'll have to visit the page to see this. Well worth it, though, for anyone considering doing video of performance, just for some ideas.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=232639466870299

While you can do an imaginative video using all sorts of locations and parallel stories, I think it's a challenge to do an interesting video of performers which just concentrates on them throughout. I really like what they've done here and would be interested in seeing any other examples of video which is confined to the one location.

Camera Center of Gravity for Steadicam - Can anyone make sense of this?

solarwnz — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:04:34 +0000

Greetings all! This is my first post. Hopefully of many.

I recently purchased a Merlin Steadicam 2 and, as I was warned, it is EXTREMELY difficult to balance. I found an online excel formula that will tell you the precise calibration of every adjustment, to achieve perfect balance, so long as you know the exact Weight of your camera with all items attached (which I do, since I bought a digital scale) and the Center of Gravity measurements of the camera. This is where things get confusing for me. Here is how the people at Merlin Steadicam (Tiffen) instruct you to determine this Center of Gravity measurement:

"Measure vert. c.g. distance from plane of camera base to point on side of camera where camera could balance lying sideways on the tip of your finger. If there are no flat surfaces on either side of your camera, this plane may also be discovered by pointing the camera straight up and balancing the rear surface of the battery (if flat) on your fingertip at the point where the camera can almost be balanced. Likewise if your lens shade is hard, this plane can be discovered with the camera standing vertically on its lens, and balanced on a round pen lying between the lens and your table. Then measure the perpendicular distance to the plane of the camera’s base. This is the camera vertical c.g. distance."

Source: http://www.merlincookbook.com/MerlinBetaBalInstr1-27.pdf

Can anyone help me translate that into something my feeble brain can understand? If anyone owns a Merlin Steadicam or can help me figure out how to measure the center of gravity I would be very appreciative. Not to mention so would many new Merlin users!

My camera is a Canon T3i. The lens is an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Autofocus. I have attached a Vello-BG-C5 Battery Grip with two LP-E8 batteries, and a Hoya - 58mm UV filter. The weight is 2.36 lbs.

GH2 STROBES IN "HBR" OR "CINEMA24" MODE

rrivkin — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:33:29 +0000

Hello everybody, I recently bought a GH2 (2-3 weeks ago-my first camera so I don't have many experience), I see that every body around here are so happy with it but unfortunately I'm not so much... My main issue is that I can't shoot videos in "hbr" or "cinema24p" a PAN view or to do any moves at all without having STROBES.... I found out a temporary solution for that... I'm shooting in "SH" (720P 60P) but the quality got worse... I saw many conversations about that but to tell you the truth didn't understand if that can be fixed or not... many people said that they have same problem no matter what patch they installed.... Can anybody SUMMERIZE this issue somehow??? even if this camera can't make it without strobes in high quality mode like HBR or CINEMA24p..... I'll count it as an answer.... cause I got so tired of all the experiments so far..... Thanks in advance. :-)

Bitrate viewer

dadix — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 06:05:52 +0000

http://www.winhoros.de/docs/bitrate-viewer/index.html

Free tool for analyse bitrate.

In this picture is analyse bitrate structure for gh2 flow motion v2 low light shot 1080p mjpeg hd 1920x1080. Original file to download the video: