utsira

The same year he did Insomnia and One Hour Photo, he also did Death to Smoochy with Edward Norton. It's very very dark. Ebert gave it half a star, calling it "odd, inexplicable and unpleasant". I loved it! It's not well known at all, it was sort of buried. In the UK I don't think it even got a theatrical release. Definitely worth checking out though as part of a kind of "trilogy" of dark roles he played that year! RIP

Two journeys, a plane into Macau, and the ferry to Kowloon, as the storm clouds come in. Panasonic G6, 20mm 1.7, neat video NR, ImpulZ LUTs Unfortunately the noise reduction means that banding is evident in the vimeo stream. It's a bit better if you download it. It got a nice review on Coconuts Hong Kong, which has never happened to me before. If you'll forgive me quoting my own good press! http://hongkong.coconuts.co/2014/08/08/video-fall-love-hong-kongs-typhoon-season-romanticised-wet-weather-treat

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Some interesting suggestions here, but I think a regular sticky thread would be a good place to start, before attempting the more complex (but very interesting) suggestions for curation, staff picks, and contests. We could set guidelines and follow a self-modding route. Here I think the phrase "screening room" is useful, as to me at least it suggests that it is intended for people to post a "work" (or a work-in-progress), whether that be a trailer, travelogue, music video, ad, short, essay, or full-blown narrative piece. Something more than just test shots. Ebrahim's idea of asking people to restrict themselves to one video a month is also an interesting one, but I'm not sure its necessary. I'm not on the modding team for this forum so I don't know how much work goes on behind the scenes deleting irrelevant posts etc. It seems from some of the above comments that people are anxious that there would be a deluge of ropey content, but I don't think that will happen.

Is that level of modding necessary? ie last month 15 videos were posted in the screening room forum, so it's not a huge amount. If the description and cover frame don't grab you you can just scroll past them.

What about optical stabilisation? If you're absolutely sure you don't care about stabilised lenses, then choose a classic DSLR mount, and get a dumb adaptor for now. Nikon Ai-S glass (F mount) is really nice, readily available, and cheap as long as you don't want to go wider than 24mm. Later you could get a speed booster. I got a lens turbo (speedbooster clone) but I'm not impressed with the IQ, so save for the actual speedbooster. But if you think you might want to shoot handheld, or with a light rig, then you might want to consider lenses with optical stabilisation (perhaps Canon EOS), in which case you'll need a smart adaptor (ie one with electronic contacts) to power the lens. This is the more expensive route, but will give you more options in the long run. Another thing to bear in mind, without a speedbooster, it's difficult to go wide if you're adapting vintage 35mm glass. ie 24 mm is standard wide, which equates to almost 50mm on an m43 sensor. It is definitely worth looking at second hand Panasonic M43 glass though. I got a second-hand 20mm 1.7 for 23,000 yen (about 170 euro). Very fast and sharp (no optical stabilisation though). The 14mm 2.5 is even cheaper 2nd hand, about 70 euro. You could get the smaller kit zoom, the 14-42 second hand for around 70 euro too (with optical stabilisation). I see in Europe now they're only offering the G6 with the 14-140 lens, but if you get it body only you can buy one of the smaller kit zooms. Given that the G6 has a good telephoto setting (where it samples a smaller area of the sensor) I think you can do without a super-long zoom at first.

Posts in the subforums just don't seem to get anywhere near the number of eyeballs that topics in the main forum do. It's a shame, there's some great stuff in the screening room sub-forum. I think the issue is it's just too diffuse, with each video in its own thread (and sometimes, if people haven't embedded it properly, it's another click away), plus some things are in the GH4 or ML specific threads. I can see the point of gear-specific threads, but I don't just want to see stuff shot on the same cameras that I have, and I don't think its healthy to have a gear conformity attitude (remember Kendy Ty!) I think screening room would work really well as a long single thread. It would be a one-stop site where you could see what people on the forum are up to and get some inspiration (or, if you're watching one of my contributions, look at an urban cityscape you've seen in countless other videos cut to a hip soundtrack with some speed ramping and a LUT or two. Yeah I know my limits)

This is awesome, incredible photography and editing. Are you using a rig for the handheld shots, or is it just stabilised in post?

Another vote for the G6 from me, I picked up a second-hand one a month or so ago and love it. In the past I've used an NEX-5N, NEX 6, a Nikon D5200. I love the detail and the colour of the G6. It's just a proper, solid 1080p image, with a good deal less moire, rolling shutter, softness, than some other cameras I've tried. I found with the other (APSC) cameras I wasn't quite getting that, and I'd end up just taking photos as I wasn't satisfied with the video (tho the D5200 comes in a close second IQ wise. I sold it for the ergonomic issues with video). I haven't tried the latest generation APSC cameras like the D5300 or the A6000 though. There are a lot of fast (1.7 aperture etc), relatively inexpensive primes for M4/3, so I haven't noticed the low light issues mentioned above. Also, check out this ISO noise test, ISO 640 is very clean: The ergonomics and feature-set for video on the G6 are the best I've used on a hybrid camera. Last night I just discovered the picture-in-picture manual focus aid (I guess newer Panny bodies like the GX7 and the GH4 would also have this?)

Come on Sony, give us a truly top of the line APSC camera. An A7000 with mic inputs, s-log 2, XAVCS.

This guy thinks that native LUT management could be coming to a future version of FCPX: http://alex4d.com/notes/item/future-fcpx-hidden-in-imovie

I think the E-M5, which has 5 axis stabilization, also uses an element of electronic stabilisation. When you are shooting a video, you don't hear the (very soft) whir of sensor motors. They are audible when you have the shutter half pressed to take a photo. Also, sometimes the footage you get out looks exactly like footage that has been stabilised in post: it has that same "ripple" effect, where the camera movement has been removed, but the artefacts of that movement (rolling shutter, a bit of motion blur perhaps) are still there (presumably, if the sensor was physically moving to counteract the camera's motion as in photo mode, you wouldn't see that kind of ripple effect?). One theory I read is that the gyroscopes are still active, but instead of the data from them being used to physically move the sensor (as in photo mode), it's being used to do (usually really excellent) in-camera electronic stabilisation. I suppose I could test whether a crop appears when IS is turned on. E-M1 owners, does your camera behave in a similar way?

Has anyone else had the issue I have where the "colour implosion" LUTs make FCPX crash as soon as you load them? Happens to me every time. And what do the colour implosion LUTs look like anyway, am I missing anything?

Peters is wrong, it definitely goes from top to bottom in the inspector window, ie all effects first, then colour board. http://www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/3882-effects-before-color-correction http://www.larryjordan.biz/fcp-x-stacking-multiple-effects/

Part of me worries that this is the work of a Spike Jonze-style ironist. I hope not. My heart says it's real.

My understanding of the FCPX order of operations is that it basically goes from the top of the video inspector panel to the bottom; ie the first effect to be applied is at the top of the effects section, then the colour board after all of the effects. It then moves up the timeline (I guess that's a confusing switch of direction), adding overlays and adjustment layers. So the vision color recommended order, on their digital negative page, is denoise, then primary colour correction, then film grain (an overlay, or I made it into a motion effect. Grain is basically adding a kind of noise), then LUT (using the adjustment layer, so that the LUT is applied after the primary correction on the colour board), then, if necessary, a second colour board correction in the adjustment layer, which would be applied after the LUT. I agree with you though, that I'm not sure whether the "always denoise the chroma" (ie even broad daylight at iso 100), followed by add grain is necessary. I guess the theory is that one noise is ugly, the other is beautiful? And I wonder whether Sherif is overdoing the denoise? i.e. the woman's face looks, as he puts it, plastic, all the texture has gone. Perhaps he forgot to dial down the luma denoise? Ie vision color recommend denoising the chroma channel only, unless there is, you know, actual visible noise.

"A movie could Improve your life" I'm going to print that out in foot-high Comic Sans and stick it on my wall. Seriously, this is great! I couldn't decide whether this is ironic or not, but I think it's completely beyond irony. Their chroma-key layer needs tweaking though, I think.

I have the E-M5 and a G6. I haven't had either for very long (both were second hand and cheap). The OMD stabilisation is definitely very impressive, but it isn't quite steadicam level. Maybe I have a somewhat lolloping gait, but I haven't been able to get a decent traveling shot by walking along with it. Maybe I need to learn Tai Chi. This isn't a complaint of course, it's wonderful that it can stabilise to the degree it does, with old manual lenses too, even 100mm (full frame equiv) is doable.

Some really interesting analysis here. Particular the image comparing with and w/o NR. Personally I wasn't too keen on the look of the Cinelike D footage, it seems too low-contrast. I wonder if that's partly why he's seeing highlight roll-off banding and colour macro-blocking.

The ektar 100 is my least favourite of the LUTs. With Rec.709 on G6 footage, it only seems to respond to green, and desaturates everything else.

What do people think about vision color's recommended workflow for creating a digital negative? http://www.vision-color.com/digital-negative/ they recommend always denoising the chroma, even if it appears noise-free, to "blend pixel values together". I'm a little sceptical as to whether this is necessary, if the footage looks noise-free. I seem to remember Stu Maschwitz recommending something similar in the DV Rebel's Guide.

More LUT fun, this time with the E-M5. This is almost all Tetrachrome 400.

Oh OK, the LUT Utility + ImpulZ bundle doesn't come with an adjustment layer... they should really add that to the ImpulZ bundles too. I must admit, I still haven't tried FCPX's audition tool.... maybe that's why you need 16GB of ram :)

Sudopera, that's an awesome tip. I hadn't heard of the RT adjustment layer, thanks for that. One major advantage that your method has over my idea of using compound clips, is that while you are doing the pre-LUT colour grade, in the Viewer you can see the effects of your grade after the LUT has been applied. When you're inside a compound clip, the Viewer only shows the results of that layer, and you have to exit the clip to see how the primary grade looks after it has been through the LUT.

Yeah the performance issue is interesting. For the "Walking Home" clip above, my machine did slow down to a crawl by the end of the editing. I had a Neat Video denoise at the top of the effects slot (but presumably that's just a one-off render isn't it? It doesn't continue to calculate the denoising in real time, I would have thought?), a little bit of stabilization (also a one-off render) occasionally a pre-correction, then the LUT, then a secondary correction, then the titles. It got really slow with the titles. But in another sequence I've been working with, which is just an edit, a bit of stabilization, LUT, and then a light grade, the performance hasn't really been affected. I've never had the "not enough app memory" error though. And I edited it on a 4GB MacBook Air, which is just good enough I think for this kind of grade on 1080p H.264. And yes, particularly if you compare it to the all-plugins $595 version of Film Convert, it's good value. I don't have any of the Adobe LUTs, but I was experimenting with the ones that come bundled with DaVinci Resolve, as well as ones posted in various places, eg: http://juanmelara.com.au/print-film-emulation-luts-for-download/ I found them very tricky to use with Rec 709 footage. They all seem to expect logarithmic colour. The result was a very high contrast image, with highlights and shadows blown and crushed. You needed a severe, "unnatural" grade (ie one you would never normally do) before the LUT, lifting the gamma and crushing the contrast, trying to create something that looks like log footage. You couldn't just place them over a grade you were working on to see what they looked like for instance. With ImpulZ, the output, in terms of the contrast, the range of values, is predictable. In the pro version each LUT has three output options. So far I've just used the "film contrast" output, which seems to give values between 5-95% (ie it never outputs values in the superblacks or superwhites) and without the clipping issues I was getting with other LUTs. If you need it slightly punchier you can do a secondary correction to push the shadows down and the highlights up 4% or so.