silvertonesx24

In ANH, the hero is so flawed to the point where he has to be bailed out several times by others, is extremely inexperienced, and has no hope of defeating the villain head on. People he loves have to fight and die for him to keep going. It takes another full movie of experience and training to build up to the point where he can even face the villain himself (plus his own internal temptations and fears), and even then he is still more or less toyed with by Vader. That two-film long character development is what makes the end of ESB so incredible. Flawed, conflicted heros make for great cinema storytelling. Watching those characters on a journey to overcome their flaws while having to make great sacrifices along the way is what makes trilogies like the original Star Wars so great. The hero of TFA is an instant ace at literally everything she picks up, and defeats the villain at the end without any sacrifices made along the way. If this were an original, standalone film with no universe of canon to respect and no continuing storyline, that would be less of an issue, but it's not.

Not sure how to discuss this without spoilers, but I thought the character writing/development was abysmal. It was good fun for sure. But far from transcendental cinema, just another JJ Abrams remix.

Overall I liked it. 6.5/10 But the character writing (well, one in particular) brings it down for me at least a full point.

Looks good, but keep in mind early and new releases do always skew way higher on both RT and IMDb. Especially with a fanbase like Star Wars.

Make sure you see it in a real IMAX, not LieMAX. Only true IMAX theaters in Chicago are Navy Pier, Seven Bridges Woodridge, and Regal Lincolnshire Add link for real IMAX theaters, look for "1570": http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm

They hired Peter Jackson to shoot a short film for their Red One promo. They are literally the Rolex of the camera world. Most people think they are the end-all-be-all, especially those on the periphery of the world, when they are neither high nor low; they just know how to brand far more effectively than anyone else.

Any camera will look great in a pro environment. If you have production design, makeup, costumes, and sets on the level of this video, and the crew and the budget to support it, you'll get something that looks damn good. Something like this meant to fool the 90% of creatives who spend their hours wondering why their content sucks, and then they see this, so obviously, it must be that they are not using RED

Just received one of these. A few first impressions: Did not work with Komputerbay Cards at first. A firmware update fixed that and added new features (zebra, peaking). 64gb Komputerbay will record ProRes HQ in short takes at 1080p24, will drop frames at 1080p60.Feels well-built. It emits a high-pitched whine that is a bit annoying when powered on. Not sure if it is the fan, or a defective unit. I have sent a recording over to Blackmagic for review.I also requested anamorphic de-squeeze for a firmware update.GH4 carries audio signal over HDMI.This thing really sucks up the batteries. This is the cable you need if you want to connect it to a power supply, which I will definitely be doing http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-5-5mm-2-5mm-Male-DC-Coiled-Extendable-Spring-Power-Cable-for-Photography-/281661609835The biggest downside of this is the lack of OLED screen. Blacks are pretty washy, and the viewing angle isn't that great.If a major OEM (Samsung, Apple) would ever add some cable that takes HDMI in, these $200-300 tablets we all have would blow every monitor/evf out of the water when it comes to screen size, quality, and battery life. Imagine being able to pull up your shot list, screen tests, location scout pics on your tablet/monitor and then swipe over for live view or even recording. But until then, it's a pretty nice monitor to have at the price point.

I just bought a GH4, all excited to use VLOG. OK, paying $100 for a camera profile is fairly annoying, but it looks great, so whatever. But this camera profile involves an actual physical process that has to be shipped? Is this 1990 are you joking?

I don't need any recording features. Is this device acceptable as a field monitor only? I'd like something that's full HD and moderately sized and for the price vs specs this seems good.

Key hackintosh rules: Have a separate working computer at your side for the Google searches you will be doing. Preferably a Mac. Back up religiously. Keep a log of what you did to get it up and running. There's nothing like installing a new GFX card or having some kind of freak accident, and having to rebuild your system after not having even thought about things like bootflags and kext files for the past three years. Basically it can be like starting all over again.

Make sure you are OK with the +3ft min focus distance with the Rokinon. I personally found it to be cumbersome.

Interesting effect. I guess that really can only really be appreciated with great shot blocking and framing. I was mostly referring to the countless demo videos I've seen shooting anamorphic outdoors 18mm at f/8

​I don't understand why people want wide fields of view with anamorphic adapters, unless you're looking to bury a shot in flares. Just shoot spherical and crop, and use your anamorphic for your medium to long shots.

Old, but good. http://coffeeandcelluloid.com/2010/05/my-kickstarter-experience-the-good-bad-and-ugly/ My girlfriend raised about $6500 for a short film script she wrote. She had no previous experience or anything else to show. Her key to success was two-fold: identifying a unmet need in a niche topic of interest and spending 8hrs a day on Facebook or similar building an audience in that niche.

I find by far the most expensive part of commercial shoots not the gear but the locations and the talent. I find the most challenging aspect of commercial work not to be the gear but working within tight specifications of a creative brief and crafting original ideas. That's why we can make a nice living with creative work, while good luck scratching something out as a painter or non-copy writer. Don't forget either that the technology allows all new genres to be chartered with blazing speed. In the music scene- Dubstep was made possible by multi-core computers running Digital Audio Workstations that could support hundreds of tracks of software synthesizers at once. It would have been practically impossible to create dubstep music not even a decade ago.

I'm not discussing whether people like it or not. You like it, I dislike it. But "bringing down the movie business" and "turning it into art"? Come on. "Anyway, imo the whole discussion about this movie is pointless. The dude had an idea, wanted to make it. Went to Kickstarter, found a lot of people who wanted to see it. Those people paid for it, dude made the movie. People that wanted to see it loved it, so did million others. It's completely unpretentious. That's what I like about it." So essentially what you're saying is that what you like about it is not the film itself, but the process of how it was made. That's not really any different than celebrating a film because of the super awesome camera it was shot on rather than what it contributes to the ethos of a generation.

Also, 3.6ft focus means that diopters will still be needed to really bring out that anamorphic look. Good thing it has the front filter

I'd love to get excited about this but their anamorphic offerings have been so promising, yet when actually released and footage starts coming out, they've been a dud IMO.

Do the story, characters, and message connect with an audience? Kung Fury doesn't connect with me any more than Vimeo VFX reels do. The people who work on those have a lot of "heart and love" too I'm sure. They're fun for 5 minutes or so. And that's it. Into the mental recycle bin it goes. I would rather watch 10 Ex Machinas over 10 Kung Furies.

​Great, I'm all for that, in small doses. Which is why for the first five minutes I kind of enjoyed the film, and then spent the next twenty-five waiting for a payoff, and when there was none, and then I read articles and comments hailing this film as the pinnacle of independent crowdfunded filmmaking artistry, I wonder what people are smoking.

Never been to film school. We are hyper-saturated with content that either says nothing or says the same old thing in the same old way. If you're going to slobber over something like it's high art (the OP), yet it brings absolutely nothing new, why is it worth anyone's time? Just admit that it's a fun hurr durr $600k VFX reel and eat your popcorn. Nothing wrong with that, but it's certainly not the next Mozart.

You and I evaluate art very differently. I don't care how much fun he had making it. I don't care about his vision, his heart, any of that. I care about what he has to say. I found absolutely nothing at all. Mike Judge can take a bunch of dumb ideas and make a true satire. David Sandberg can take dumb ideas and make a VFX show.

"Dumb" films, now and then, are great for entertainment value. I am a fan of Mike Judge because his work says something. I am talking about those hailing Kung Fury as some kind of beacon for independent filmmakers- even, laughably- as the next Symphony No 40- when it says absolutely nothing new. Not one thing. I don't care what camera shot it on. I don't care if he shot it in his house. I don't care if it was crowdfunded or bankrolled by some real estate greaseball. It adds nothing of value to any conversation at all. Ex Machina at the least contributes to relevant issues- the increasing desire to make tech more human, tech role in society, mass data collection by companies, etc. And I know it's a subjective argument, but in what world does the overcomposited Kung Fury look better than Ex Machina?

​The aliasing/moire is pretty bad though- at least on the KineMini