fuzzynormal

Persig gets into this with his theory of quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Matinence. The idea, of which I'll poorly explain here, is that exceptional craft is not seen, but inherently felt, even by those ignorant of the skill set needed to accomplish it. This short film is not exceptional craft, but it was an initial attempt at something aiming in that direction. Full disclosure: I'm not good at motorcycle maintenance. But, honestly, we could watch 2 or 3 minutes of reels while doom scrolling and see younger more vibrant craft of video these days. But, yeah, "what do you want to build with that skill" becomes the important question.

Thanks so much for your feedback. I was especially intrigued by this line. We're very pleased you were able to stay interested in the film. We're screening this doc again today, locally. Hopefully more insight keeps coming our way.

Perhaps that's accidental as the nature of my client shooting back then demanded such practices. The other thing was that we wanted the piece to hold onto a timeless quality even though we knew it would be of its era. Therefore we really didn't want to do anything stylistic. A jump cut sequence was as far as we wanted to go editing-wise. Thanks for watching. Really appreciate your input.

Good advice. Thanks so much for offering your suggestion. The director, my wife, is aligned with your take here. She definitely wants to hone the focus and define the 'voice' of the film better.

tl/dr: Made a small and simple doc film years and years ago with my first 'hybrid' camera. The process was inspiring and changed my outlook about working with motion pictures: A bit of online chatter here about cameras that are older and it got me thinking because I recently posted a doc my wife and I are currently working on. It was made with recent camera gear and fancy new computers and software. Something old. Something new. Well, as a retrospect, here's a look at the very first film we attempted. This was in 2011. My entire career at that time had been broadcasting and corporate. Didactic stuff. That was my reality and vocational training. If making a film was compared being an architect designing a building, my education was basically akin to being an electrician. Installing wires and cables I could do -- and that was kind of it, y'know? So when we set out to shoot this 'Camino' flick, our assumption was that we were going to do what was typical for us: Subject-matter-experts-interviews, b-roll, maybe even having a presenter doing stand ups and narration. That type of thing. Interestingly, this upcoming shoot was immediately preceded by a corporate assignment in southern Spain. The experience of filming some pretty incredible scenery footage only to know that it was going to be handed off to my client who would hammer it into a dry travelogue video was disheartening. Also, a year before we had also made a standard travelogue video ourselves in Japan. We were underwhelmed by the results we created there too. My wife saw my frustration with all this and started asking "why". Why were we doing things a certain way. What exactly would we be offering the world with another video that was a parade of talking heads telling the viewer what to think/feel? No acceptable answers were readily available. So, the day before this journey we decided to ditch all the audio gear, the Sachtler tripod, and the HD video camera with multiple lenses. Into the backback went a used 5DII and a nikkor 50mm prime. That was it. Felt a bit naked, tbh. But that was the first day we set off into the world as filmmakers rather than as a cameraman or a broadcast ENG person. We wanted to make something completely impressionistic and opposite of what was typical for us. We'd only use 1 small cam, 1 small lens, a walking staff as a makeshift monopod. This epiphany came about not only from the conversation with my wife, but also the realization that a really simple camera rig was not only going to give me an opportunity to run and gun cinematically; but to do it better than with the extensive gak I normally carried around. Cinematic shooting was something that I never really felt the freedom to explore --until that moment. And so we went to make a humble unassuming little film. The simplicity became it's value. Less was more we reasoned. Create a vibe rather than an info dump. Our modest film might not seem like much, and there's so many mistakes I made first time out of the gate I still cringe at, but it changed our view about our careers. From there we started to be interested in what it took to be better storytellers. Could we actually do that? Really? All of this to say that perspective really matters. And that the gear we talk about here can actually offer new perspectives. But it was the attitude first and foremost that needed a shift. Cheers.

That stinks that it's misbehaving. Which video modes? I rented the OM1 last year and wasn't noticing anything weird. And, again, my lowly em10iii does fine. I did NOT use 60p C4k mode though on the rented OM1. What power is your reducer? Most are .7'ish, so you'd be around a 60mm equiv., but a difference of 5mm isn;t going to affect much.

FWIW, I recently did a post about the doc the wife and I are working on. Some of our production insights there. Examples are posted too, so you can judge if what we're talking about measures up to your standards. Not the first time we've done that either. Yeah, it's a gear site first and foremost, but other info floats around too.

Huh? Surely that can't be right? I use an EM10iii and can stabilize my old prime lenses as needed --and it does so quite well. It's a big reason why I bought it. Or are you writing in context to the 120 burst mode?

Yeah. Totally not depressing, that.

The soundimage.org guy has been posting here for over a decade! Lots of interesting and useful stuff there, btw.

The shots were so dense I literally couldn't get past it to concentrate on the story. Style over substance. Or, the style was most of the substance. Looked ridiculously good though, didn't it?

Might be a bit of survivor bias here. The older movies that were shot on film might seem to be of a nicer IQ standard, but those are the ones that are still acknowledged. As an dude that went to the local 1$ 'grindhouse' theater rather regularly as a kid, I assure you that the quality of the image for the forgettable films were often nothing remarkable. However, I will say that the darker, deeper, contrasty look that was in fashion among better cinematographers back then is something I miss. Less is more. Too much detail in a scene can be a detriment at times. All that dynamic range often is not needed. Spielberg's West Side Story looked remarkable and like shit simultaneously, imo.

FWIW, I have one. Got it used for $1,250 a year ago. Great IQ, but I just don't like using it for video. That cam's ergos fight me.

Thank you for taking the time to actually give the film a shot and devoting some of your time to it. It's actually a big ask to request someone's attention --and then have them do it; much less write out a critique. Believe me, it's super appreciated!

It's a work in progress, yes, so the feedback is appreciated. Your suggestions align with our thoughts as well, so the affirmation is encouraging. There were a few different storytelling tacts we considered. We ultimately decided to not deviate from their reality much and stay true. Our usual tendencies would have been to play up some of the challenges to heighten stakes, but their thing is actually rather modest and somewhat mellow, so (this edit for our locals anyway) is character study and a slow unfolding of their situation. We expect to ultimately make a short "TV" version where the tighter and conventional storytelling stuff is in play. So many different cameras were used simply because that's what we had on hand. Also, there was a perverse pleasure in knowing we were using a ridiculous mix of cameras and then trying to unify IQ in post. So much of what my wife shot was on an old Fuji XPro2. Which is kind of a really dumb thing to do if you know that camera. But oh well! I often used a Olympus EM10iii --with a 1970's 50mm on it. That's the camera that caught alot of the people shots. For the hawks, my severely banged up GH5 had a super cheap vintage Toyo 500mm lens and a 2x extender on it. That was the rig that caught the most bird footage. Rented some things along the way, but the timing of the rentals and nature didn't yield much. Having that old lens was the silliest thing ever for capturing clean nature shots, but there was a lot of fun in the challenge of trying to make it work. Manually trying to focus while panning at an effective 2000mm fov? That was difficult. I should have bought a real tripod, like a Sachtler, for trying to get birds in flight. Not doing that was a mistake. The Oly cam was the most doc friendly. Small, unobtrusive. Easy to use handheld kuz of the decent IS. Looked good most of the time. Trying to film on my Xiomi 12s Ultra was...meh. Got a few pretty shots on it, but missed so much while fiddling with the touch screen. No thanks. Not doing that anymore. Also, the phone's IS induces unwanted image jitter. Bleh. The phone camera can look really great. On par with the other cams in a way. Not a practical tool though. As for audio we just put 3 lav recorders on the main characters and let it rip. Typically 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours at night. x3 x60 days x2 years. No monitoring of the audio. We got what we got. Keeping impressionistic field notes helped when trying to find good phrases later. The standard grind of doc editing there, mitigated with the novel AI assist of transcribing. Every once in awhile we'd pull out a blimp/deadcat/shotgun thing and get some quick interviews, but only a handful. Finally, the days in the field were not really working shoots, per se. More like us hanging out with friends, so those numerous hours were not a problem whatsoever. Still, our rate card plus those hours would have kept the wife and I flush, but this is doc film making so that ain't happening. If we ever see a return on this I'd be amazed. Cheers!