Andrew Reid

[url="http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/the-hobbit-ian-mckellan-cate-blanchett-the-hobbit.jpg"][img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/the-hobbit-ian-mckellan-cate-blanchett-the-hobbit.jpg[/img][/url] "Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second." - Jean Luc Godard "Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world." - Jean Luc Godard Cinema used to be an illusion, but now the camera is putting extra pressure on filmmakers to keep up the illusion. Drawing on a conversation I had a few months ago with a VFX supervisor, EOSHD presents the challenges and problems that 4K and 48p (HFR) bring to the film set.

  CG looks much better now. But I still hate the way CG characters move. It is all too linear and placed, too staged. Those swooping keyframed movements on all character animation is so tired now.

Super smooth slow mo looks cinematic yet it is often shown at 30p not 24p. I think Axel has a good point here that somehow 24p adds gravity and weight to actors, and with 48p they just kind of float there lifelessly. 

  This is a good point. The whole point of HFR and 3D is to make the story telling more immersive. If it doesn't and looks worse aesthetically, then serious questions should be asked of the industry's technological direction.   Like the magic trick, art isn't explicitly real, it is allegory and so the camera work should also have hidden meaning and not put everything on display in equal detail whether it is a prop or an actor. Peter Jackson is a great craftsman and story teller but I'm beginning to doubt that he's made a piece of art here.

  I am really torn over this. Cannot figure out if the problem is as you say above - messing with culture - and the shock of it suddenly changing, or if the aesthetic of 24p is fundamental to our human vision in making an immersive cinematic experience.   Nobody in their right mind preferred the look of 60i over 24p in the DV days so why suddenly now is The Hobbit shot this way?

Seriously??

I really hope this is not the case and that beauty has a universal appeal through the generations. I consider the Mona Lisa more beautiful than a TV soap opera for instance.   So I don't agree with your point!

The TV comparison comes up a lot.   "It looks like TV" not cinema. Is this a learned thing or are people really saying "It looks cheap and not artistic"?   If there's an inherent aesthetic flaw here in 48p surely Peter Jackson, with his eye, would have spotted it way before it got on a cinema set.   I do wonder that if the costume and prop departments could raise their game even further, and with the right material, that 48p 4K in 3D could be a winner. I just don't think this epic fantasy production is well suited to it.   All those silly beards...   What about a thriller set in a hyper real-life location where you feel like you are there?   The intention of The Hobbit was to make you feel like you're in Middle Earth. If the result is that you feel like you're on a set, than make the set less like a set and more real.

[url="http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Cate-Blanchett-The-Hobbit.jpg"][img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Cate-Blanchett-The-Hobbit.jpg[/img][/url] Above: Cate Blanchett receives some all-too-real makeup on the set of The Hobbit Peter Jackson shot The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at 48 frames per second (HFR) in 3D. So what is the verdict on HFR technology... More immersive? Helps the story? More beautiful?

Very cool.   Just got my Go Pro Hero 3 Black Edition. Amazed at how small and powerful it is.

The camera conversation has long since left the building hasn't it?   Now where were we...   Where is Grant's update? Any theories?

She didn't deserve a harsh response and I take it back as I may have misunderstood her point. Just becoming extremely fed up with some of the comments on here. They are really misinformed. Have some of you guys been reading Planet5D or something!??

You're talking crap.   Reason I haven't 'flooded you with footage' yet is that quality takes time. Maybe your posts would benefit from more thinking time.

  So shoot raw and convert it to 2.5K ProRes or H.264 after grading. This is what I am doing. Right now.

  Price!! Minimum shooting price is $3000 + $299 battery + $200 SSD + $100 vari-ND. Stick it on your tripod, shoot ProRes and you don't need to upgrade your editing rig. So a long way off $6500 C100 price for a better image. Same Canon lenses.

There's no way you can judge this from a crappy 720p Vimeo stream. No original file. I'm surprised Blackmagic let stuff like this out of the gate without first checking for major artefacts as it creates a whole bunch of (possibly unnecessary) doubt about the performance of the camera.   If you have a situation where moire is an issue, you can use a softer lens to avoid it on the BMCC and GH3 since the moire on these cameras only occurs with very sharp glass, unlike on the 5D Mark II or D800 which needed filters to remove it.

Correct, creative modes are point & shoot, no manual control. I don't see a place for them.

I actually think Jim is spot on here, and Dragon looks amazing.   That part is such an important differentiating factor in a camera. If you want to see something stupid look at Sony. They gave their best sensor technology to Nikon (D800) and put a lousy moire riddled 24MP chip in their OWN camera (A99, VG900) which isn't as good on the stills side either. It is like they wanted to lose? Canon on the other hand will develop one truly good sensor every 3 years and try to shoehorn it into 10 different products to make as much money as possible. Incredibly boring. Jim is also correct in his reference to Canon's fabrication process - it is old by modern semiconductor standards. Panasonic and Olympus seem happy meanwhile to be also-rans and buy Sony sensors, this despite the fact Panasonic had a cutting edge CMOS program of their own. Baffling. How can they ever hope to overcome Canon, Nikon and Sony if they can't out perform them on image quality? Fuji innovate on the sensor side - but sadly not on the business side. They had the chance to replace their film stock with a digital equivalent and didn't. Happy to let their cinema business die along with Kodak. Again - baffling.   The Germans have it right. Leica with CMOSIS and Arri. The Japanese don't seem to have a clue at the moment, maybe it is the economy.

I think you mean expensive compared to the price in GBP which is £2200? 2999 euros is a mark up over Blackmagic's official pricing?

Not sure what Helen is questioning (see my next post) but I find that when it comes to pricing a lot of consumers need to get a clue. They'd happily spend 1000 euros on a TV which makes movies look like digital sick, but a mini Alexa artistic tool is 'too expensive' at 3000 euros.

Million dollar blah blah blah. So you're suggesting the reason Aronofsky movies are good is because they are expensive. If you look at the way he conceived of and shot Black Sawn I think you'd change your mind! I'm not against your argument for shallow DOF and good cinematography giving a low budget shoot a higher production quality and DSLRs are great for this. Your conclusion about me being some kind of apologist for the BMCC is way out of order though. It is superior technology.

No we only had it for one day and a few hours at that. The aim was purely to see what the performance and handling was like. We shot some nice footage and I'll post it soon.   I actually think test footage if done right tells you more than a narrative film, it is essential to have a reference camera and compare the two. Sometimes it even helps to compare 4 or 5 cameras at once. A narrative film is my artistic goal, you need a mixture of both. Tests have their place, it would not be practical or scientific to only show creative work. I loved watching Moonrise Kingdom lately but it really doesn't tell me which camera I should buy out of Super 16mm and the Alexa.

  Who cares?     Who cares? Video village. Meh. There wasn't even a video village on Dark Knight Rises, it was hands-on.     Superior for $35,000?! Good detective work Mr Bruno :)

What Lynch says is always springing to mind. How about this from the Hollywood Reporter... It's another gem...           This is so true. As soon as your heart is not in what you do and you are more concerned with what people will think of the outcome, and the more you try and focus on controlling the outcome rather than focus on the film itself, you are done for.   In today's Hollywood a paycheck without inspiration is all too easy.   Unfortunately the 2nd page of his interview is behind a paywall :)   [url="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-lynch-feature-films-have-395849"]http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-lynch-feature-films-have-395849[/url]   A couple of examples from my own experience really relate to what he's saying. If suddenly a format that I didn't like became incredibly popular with readers of EOSHD, would I start using it and blogging about it? I would not. It has to come from your passion, your interests. Another example... The reason EOSHD carries no advertising despite 500,000 visits per month is because I'm dispassionate about it. To do something well you have to believe in it. I believe in the books and my own filmmaking. Everything else is not concerned with the "action" as David puts it, or the love of it, but for the fruit of the action. I believe if the emphasis is placed in the action that the fruit of the action follows naturally. This is my advice for all filmmakers. Just focus on the action and only do something if you're passionately in love with it. You can make a quick buck with no passion or inspiration, but you'd have to be insane to put so much energy and effort and time into something you're not interested in.

  Depends if you need to spend $40k. I wouldn't spend it on a camera at all!   Regardless, comparing a $3000 price tag to a $40k one is kind of insane.   And you shoot with what you can afford, allocate funds appropriately. If you're Roger Deakins it would be silly to compromise on a mere camera.