Paulio

That is what I am saying. Do you need a RAW?  the back end for dealing with it is going to be a pain in the arse and expensive for a modest gain in performance. An investment of time in studying screenwriting or cinematography will yield much bigger gains (and cheaper) than the difference between a hacked gh2 and 5dIII raw.

Spielberg, Lucas and Soderberg are all whinging about the state of the industry because things aren't going their way so much as they used to. I'm sorry but is anyone surprised red tails couldn't find distribution or that Lincoln had difficulty finding it? These guys want to make passion projects with big budgets and full theatrical marketing campaigns.   hot tip, if you want to make a period piece with a niche audience how bout trimming your budget down to <30 million, yes Lincoln was a commercial success in the end, but what exec wouldn't be adverse to plunging 60 million plus into marketing a period film for theatrical release.   There is no crash coming at disney, this is a company that makes 30 billion, yes BILLION a year on merchandising alone. 250 million is literally nothing, sure they won't make a lone ranger 2, but it's not going to cause some cinema apocalypse. It's a hit and miss game, but as you can see if you have a library of "hits" they will generate ridiculous money on the back end for years to come.   I know we all want to see less of these sort of films and more original, exciting storytelling. But predicting the fall of the popcorn film industry based of one flop is wishful thinking.

For this type of film, you are banking on families. Since they make up only 22% of the people who went to see it, it's clearly not going to be a "family film", this is a big problem since it is supposed to fit into the pirates of the Caribbean/family action adventure category.   There are always exceptions, like the hangover that pull a massive BO off an adult comedy, but by and large superhero films, animated films and action adventure/re-hashes are considered the safest bets. Hollywood is a business and they have somewhat financially successfully managed to refine this formula and people have been handing money over hand and fist, look at dreamworks and pixars b.o records, spectacular.   Of course all things run their course, with internet and cable tv distribution changing so rapidly and the demand for content at home, I hope we will see a place where modestly budgeted stories can turn a profit. Back in the days of VHS studios could make money simply by turning out as many crap movies as possible and getting them on the shelves. The multiplex will always be around for those who want to see trans4mers and get vfx machined gunned into their skulls, but hopefully for people with... ummm.. taste, we will see some sort of centralization of internet content similar to what itunes did for music. A more democratic distribution system that casts a wider content net and where for a modest fee the discerning cinema fan can find new and interesting films along side the popcorn/blockbuster variety.   I think it can only get better from here for those wanting to watch and tell fresh stories.

I think pacific rim will probably do okay business in the USA. Japan represents only a tiny slice of the B.O pie and even great success there would have little bearing on overall profitability, especially since studios take home as little as a 20% cut of international box office takings, whereas its more like %50 of the domestic takings, thus why they care so much about domestic.

Camera bodies come and go very quickly, lenses are forever. If your not making any money off your camera, i'd use a hacked gh2 over a 5d, the camera body costs 600 bucks or so and the image quality when hacked is ridiculous, it won't hold you back and you won't have to jump through hoops processing raw data etc. You'll be grateful you spent $3500 (spend it on lenses and accessories instead!) less in 12 months time when some other camera is the hot thing.   In a blind test, Francis ford coppola actually picked gh2 footage as his favourite footage over red epic, arri alexia and other pro cameras, some of which cost as much as 75k.   http://www.43rumors.com/zacuto-shootout-francis-ford-coppola-votes-for-the-gh2-and-beats-arri-and-sony/   Good luck!

I believe what they are saying is Lone Ranger missed the family demo. If you are making a 250m movie, you need to hit all demographics but most important is the kid/family demmo, statistics be damned that is where the money is for these films, esp on the backend. It's crazy, the blockbuster model is becoming a sickness.   Here at work it's a disaster if our film pulls less than 25m opening weekend. It was considered a failure when shrek 4 made 70m opening weekend! The cost to make animated films/"blockbusters" and market them is so high, that making money has to drive the content which is all wrong.   Still praying for a revolution, a platform where film success is merit driven and wide audiences can be reached by small films.

I've had a lot of success using rolling shutter correction in premiere, you can do perfect swish pans. I've not battled rolling shutter extensively though,  what are the limitations for repairing RL on a pro shoot?

Short answer, no it will be a massive loss.

Yeah don't think his Mac has a card reader. Any other way to easily use avhdc in final cut 7. 5dtorgb is un usable as it is multiplying the file sizes by about five times even without the hq flag.

Great, thanks a lot for the info Francisco, that helps a bunch. I'll try your settings.   wish my friend would just use premiere! fcp7 is a pain in the anus

yes he using fcp7. Do i need to use both 5dtorgb and transcode?   I'm using intravenus II hack, but can switch if the workflow will be easier.   Is there a guide or something for this workflow? what a nightmare, its just drag and drop with pc cs6...

Hi,   I usually edit/grade my gh2 footage on a pc with adobe products and it works great. I'm shooting something for a friend who uses mac and final cut. Are there still issues with needing to re-encode or remux footage to use a mac with gh2 footage?   Thanks!

Great advice. How would you rate the hawk, arri, cooke's in comparison to your iscorama?

Damn, no way your could trim the weight down on your rig?

Hey Zach, where is the link?

I use a GH2. Not a bad idea, my isco is MC though as I mentioned so the flares are not super helpful even using a led torch.   I've heard of people using a ball as source to check alignment too.

It's been said before but the tech behind these is going to be reproduced very shortly by manufactures in China and India. 2013 is going to be year of the gyro. I wouldn't drop $2300 on the first wave.

they were about 100 bucks last I checked. Very reasonable

dahlfors, that is kind of my method too, but I'm not sure its super accurate.

Neat video for sure

That is awesome. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on these then.

Cool, have fun with it

Great stuff thanks for posting Rob. I hope some additional sizes come later, It's a modified Helios right?   The footage looks really beautiful, but usability would be low for me as one taking mm would be too limiting for narrative, and I couldn't maintain a consistent look if I mixed with other lenses.   Modify a Jupiter 9, a tair and mir 24 and I'd by a whole kit!

It's not advertising, I have no affiliation with the site. It's just your question sounds more like a stream of conciousness, and the next 10 questions that come after that are probably already covered and it would save everyone from having to spoon feed you. But here let me answer a couple.   Yes you will need diopters for close focus on pretty much all anamorphics, how close you can get without diopters varies, but the minimum focus for most of the popular lenses are covered in the guide, or you can google.   Yes bigger adapters like Kowa B&H,  will realistically need a rail based support rig. Even on an iscorama 36 which is compact i like to use a support.   Yes there are many types of anamorphic with names like isco, iscorama and they vary wildly in terms of features and usablity.   If you are looking at the cheap end of the spectrum,   Kowa B&H has some of the best optics of any affordable anamorphic, and a 2x stretch,  brilliant minimum focus. Only con is its dual focus.   Century optics I have not used personally but have a good reputation for usability, again at the cheaper end of the spectrum.   Beware when buying on EBAY, many of the lenses are overpriced and deliberately mislabeled "iscorama".

Well since the guide DOES answer the basic questions you asking, it's somewhat rude to come in with the attitude that we should be jumping to answer things that can be easily looked up.  ;)   And the guide is right,  bulky projection lenses are not a good purchase, if cheapness is your main factor there are far better options.