fuzzynormal

I had one of my few clients hit me up for a huge series of online PR videos to use with their Zoom meetings. Being out and about with people during a pandemic here in the red states (and red corners of blue states) is ...ah... different; not a reassuring way for me. So, the work was lucrative, but the risk was unsettling. Just dumb luck I avoided the virus so far.

"I just don’t see this lazy excuse of a camera being anything other than a way to absolutely maximise profit margins." I wonder if this will pretty much be what we should expect from all manufacturers for the foreseeable future, considering how the camera market is globally tanking.

OP is doing weddings. Probably not a 24hr turnaround. but, yeah, I’m still kind of curious as to why they’d want to go with cutting edge hardware when proxies would help immediately for no extra costs...but if that’s what he/she wants, nothing’s wrong with that.

So I'm a big proponent of proxy editing and use it on huge documentary edits. You say transcoding isn't part of your desired workflow. Any particular reason why you're dismissing this option and giving yourself a cheap and easy way to cut?

The XT3 seems like a good bet. FWIW, I'm currently using a EM10iii I bought new/refurbished for $300 and I also have a used Oly 12-40mm pro. $500 now-a-days. The 4K and IBIS are nice. Plus, the body IBIS allows me to use vintage glass and still have stabilization. Olympus never seems to be a popular choice. Not sure why. I think some folks balk at the smaller sensor, but I also use a speed-booster so that kinda makes the system s35'ish. These mid-tier Oly cams have been a good value to me.

I do this often for a corporate client. I think your answer lies outside of worrying about the technical. Simply ask them what their expectations are regarding deliverables. If needed, educate them about the reality of working with the lousy YT compressed video. Unless they really want to pay you to jump through all the hoops to re-gather all the source footage and make the cut as pristine possible (they may be willing to pay for it), I wouldn't do it. Use the footage they offer and make it happen with that. Moreover, to ask someone else to re-deliver footage unto you should also incur a fee that the client needs to cover. I mean, I wouldn't do that for another production completely gratis. Hope you're not expecting a colleague to do so.

I shoot docs, mostly. To me good cinematography is capturing great light in a great frame that helps tell your story. Whatever tool allows you to do that is appropriate...which these days is just about any camera. I think the tech nuances of any recent (and even older) cameras are, more or less, similar to choosing a film stock —and that comes down to your personal aesthetic preferences. For doc shooting I simply go with small equipment to stay flexible on site, not be a burden to my hosts, and be as unobtrusive as possible. As such, I gravitate to M43 cams, but being “small” on location is more of an attitude and a plan to keep things modest... rather than the size of an individual camera.

? I honestly don’t get this line in conjunction with your broader implication that docs need to be ideologically balanced. I mean, MM’s doc work has never been like that.

My opinion is that video shot at that frame rate and shutter speed looks unappealing, but if you're trying to offer a bonus service, it might be worth the tradeoff. I wouldn't claim that I'd be providing "photographs," but "stills-from-video" as there's a big difference. I suppose it depends on how discriminating you and your clients are, but I would never try to pass off video shooting as photography shooting.

As you say, 60fps, shutter speed of 60.

I learned how to use a cheap glide-cam rig a long time ago. I kind of love it. Works like a champ. Never easy, but 100% reliable. It's just metal, joints, hinges, and counter weights. You'd have to run it over with a car to destroy it. And you're right, for the few times I pull it and use it, it delivers the goods. Ain't that all you need from it? Also, there's an argument for having a piece of gear that will do something well, but is somewhat of a PITA to use; I find that it keeps you "honest" visually. Do I REALLY want/need a floaty shot here? Is that visually mission critical for the project? If yes, then lug out the heavy glide-cam rig. If not, then leave it alone. I have a colleague that spent thousands on gimball stuff.... guess what almost all his footage looks like now? It looks novel, granted...but I'm not sold on it. Feels like an lazy aesthetic style of this era....like bell bottom jeans; fun while they're around, but a little cringy looking back on it once everyone moves on from it.

Years ago I committed to making a doc on a GX7 and GM1 with 23.97 and SS 1/30. Was a little unsure (even with my pre-pro tests) but became so enamored with the look it's pretty much my default settings for all things creative I do. I have a narrative filmmaking colleague that committed himself to 29.97 fps and the 180 rule of a SS @ 1/60. I hate the look. His films appear like a video abomination to my eye. He unfortunately also shoots like a videographer not a cinematographer, which is a shame too, but I digress... Worse, the reason he does 29.97 now is because he misunderstood a basic conforming projection error that he made for one of his films over a decade ago. He now can't be talked out of 29.97. Gah. Not that 29.97 if a bad idea for some things. Still, even my corporate stuff when I shoot 29.97 is often with a SS of 1/40. Something about the "long blur" that reads better to my eye than regular crispy digital video. So, slower shutter is just a thing I do in order to make the videos I deliver a little bit visually unique. With everyone shooting vids on their phone these days they're creating a certain high-shutter/high-frame-rate visual standard by attrition...I just don't want my work to look like that. And I also think you're assumption is correct, most stuttering artifacts are simply user error with shutter speeds --and improper conforming during editing. 24fps handled properly, to my eye, looks elegant and smooth. At the end of the day it depends on what you like. The video gaming young'uns dig the fast frame rates. Who's to say they're necessarily wrong?

For me it takes the edge of of reality. It’s a visual pretense that tells you what you’re watching is a bit of a conceit. There’s some real psychological power in that. Assumptions and biases are made by the viewer. These are good things depending on what narrative you’d like to present. As for YT’ers. They’ll often mess up the shutter speed regardless of the frame rate, so I wouldn’t base any decisions about one’s video settings from random content creators.

None. I've discovered that for 90% of the shots I want to get, an incredibly modest EM10III does the trick. If the other 10% is mission critical, I rent. If not, I simply suffer not being able to do certain visual tricks. So-mo, heavy grading, etc. Which, as I've also discovered are just tricks, not really a big part of fundamental storytelling/production. The burden of not being able to do something actually keeps me more visually "honest." Weirdly, I just don't fret about tech limitations too much anymore. Didn't think that was going to happen so suddenly, but for me it did.

For an older guy like me, these examples are the reasons I'm a bit loyal to this EOSHD. It's a website, not a marketing "platform." And the way it's run reminds me of the young-information-super-highway-idealism of what the internet had potential to be. Also, I especially like the irony that the title of the website is now an anachronism...in less than a decade. And that titular company is routinely and harshly critiqued here. That's simply something backwardly pure. That would never exist if it had to get filtered through a corporate system; probably would have ad 3 re-branding launches by now if that was the case. EOSHD, I guess, is kind of like visiting an awesome chef-run-restaurant in a town that only has corporate fast-food franchises in it. You can get fed in both, but you can only get a proper meal from one.

Yup, it was a mediocre film and Patty Jenkins certainly did a mediocre job with a mediocre script. Still, I liked what they were trying to do with the antagonist. Different, at least. But that premise? eh. But that's what corporate creations do, sprinkle in bits and pieces of things they hope will expand their audience. It's marketing. Whether it be two females smooching in Star Wars or a male idiot as a bad guy in a woman-super-hero-film. I'm blase' by it, really. The reaction to the film is more interesting than the film. Bad movies come and go all the time. Welcome to modern life. We're all monkeys being pushed around by algorithms. So much so we just had an insurrection here in the USA that was directly aided by such. That's how serious this sort of stuff is. Anyone that liked gritty 70's/80's stuff like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy was probably on board with those types of films being mashed-up with a super-villian character. I was. Pretty much the same sentiment I'm offering. The thing is a lot of people actually want to forget where they came from. Coming from a crap place ain't exactly anything one should want to continue to emulate. I love my small MI hometown for sentimental reasons, but I preferred to leave behind the BS attitudes that are prevalent in that township. Other things I hold onto.

You're kinda in the biz and from Detroit, yeah? As you undoubtedly know, the industry is populated with creatives from meager backgrounds as well as the affluent. I think the main reason you get an ideological skew is simply that in order to succeed in accomplished merit, one has to get the hell off the farm and into a much bigger world. Rural is conservative and homogeneous, Urban is progressive and heterogeneous. People are attracted and then adapt to those environments and expectations. That's human nature. It's true in many industries outside of entertainment. Also, if the big studio movie industry is anything, it's a barometer of popular culture, or at least striving as a business to hit the balance of lowest-common-denominator-appeal. I consider Hollywood creations to be a pretty accurate mirror to who we are; take that as you will. So....movies are trying to get more woke? Guess what, so is global society. Might be annoying and deserve some push back, but there you go. As for DC "tone" whiplash, when has it been anything but? Not only is it all over the map, they're usually on the north and south poles of a Mercator projection.

And now you see the fruit of this reality.

I’m not implying the US carried the burden of victory in Europe. For that you have to hand it to the Russians and their relentless war of attrition. Of course the Brits holding on and keeping their front a challenge made a big difference. I’m talking about coming out of the thing being in the best shape. Political clout. Natural resources unmolested. Banging economy. A lot of the German scientists. —The post war boom was incredible. The atomic age in the USA was filled with affluence and optimism. The goal in WWII may have been to take down fascism, but we certainly got rewarded in the aftermath. Also, we’re a nation of citizens that are very much isolationists, (not as much as 80 years ago) but our government was certainly emboldened by WWII to change that attitude. Still, insular attitudes by most US citizens is a definitely a fact. Barely 40% have a passport.

Old Canon video cameras used to shoot low shutter too. I remember shooting 15 fps hi-8 video for my "dramatic" moments. That's not really step printing though. I did stumble across a neat little in-camera effect back in the day. Shot 8fps shutter with my XH-A1 and then would ramp up the footage in post. Lots of camera blur, and if you filmed your subject moving in slow-mo, it looked like stop motion animation.

Super common in 80's movies. It kind of came into vogue for a stretch. Think Luke Skywalker facing Ghost-Vader in the Dark Side cave on Dagobah. I'm not sure what popular movie initially leaned really hard into the effect and pulled it off, but I seem to recall Lucas was enamored with the look and that's why we see it in Empire Strikes Back. I just remember seeing it often...war movies, cop movies, dramas, etc. --since I watched a ton of HBO and Cinemax back in the day. Oh god, I just remembered the Tarzan movie made by John Derek! I think they shot a 45 minute movie and decided to pad it out with that effect to reach 90 minutes. That was a "too much cocaine on set need to fix a problem we created" use of the technique, not an aesthetic.

All that said, art thrives in chaos, as it should. That too is human nature. Whatever models exist to help create that art might change, but it'll happen. Yes, in the brave new world it will have a harder time to rise above the noise, but the good stuff will be always be vibrant and endure. Always remember when looking back into the past and considering art that what survives also existed amongst a sea of mediocrity. We recognize the good stuff because previous generation have curated it for us.

"personal attributes above don’t stand out in a modern show-biz style argument on TV news, let alone in a tabloid newspaper, which is how we decide who we elect." As it is in all democracies. We endure the mood swings of populism. I do think we've basically drifted away from the solemnity of attitudes that affected culture after WWII and we're leaning hard back into humanity's default mode. Your anecdote about Germany supports this argument, I believe. Their culture reflects the gravitas of a nation that learned lessons in a very hard and disturbing way. From my perspective in the states, Americans are isolationists so we have an unfortunate ability to be narcissistic, knee-jerk-contrarian, and insular. We're doomed to have non-serious people elect other non-serious people until that way creates a crisis and tragedy....then we'll all be like, "damn, we can't do that anymore." A few generations will pass, rinse-repeat. WWII interrupted this cycle and also heaved a victor/spoils unto us right at the height of the industrial revolution, so we've been on the happy side of the scale for a short stretch. We're spoiled children, to be it bluntly --and now our toys are breaking or have broken. Throw in a pandemic that basically is trying to steal our last lollipop and you see how the Boomers react to it. Also, the whole lock-down thing exposes a flaw I can't stand regarding a global economy. I'd much more prefer micro-economies regionally based that would create more local employment in the trades and food distribution, but that model is an unfortunate fantasy and has many flaws as well. Eh, that's a tangent. Like you said, it's always a choice of trying to decide what's the lesser of two evils. Nobody likes doing that. We here, unfortunately, have been conditioned to think we're entitled to the best of anything we want.

Here's a fun anecdote. In 2019 I did a "4-wall" tour of a doc my wife and I made. I'd set up screenings with theaters in the area that were willing to rent out their auditoriums. Basically we took it on the road to a bunch of local meet-ups with groups that supported the theme of the film. We did this in conjunction with our film fest run so we were able to bounce in and out of region where the film was accepted. The story had a niche appeal so we were able to pull about 50-75 people, on average, into the theaters wherever we sold tickets. As such, I made a DCP. Not the first time I did that, but it was the first time I traveled with the DCP and watched it on multiple screens in multiple theaters. Here's the deal. It looked different in almost every theater I took it into. The variable of sound quality was even more intense; usually in an unfortunate way. With DCP visuals at least , theoretically, you should be getting a standardized visual experience -- as the projectors and media are supposedly tightly controlled. Well, nah. Far from it. For every theater that had well informed skilled people working the projection, just as many were kids with the priority job of selling popcorn. Sometimes it was a struggle to to explain the concept of aspect ratio to the projectionist. The state of their DCP equipment was all over the map too. Although, there was one grand old theater in upstate New York that not only sounded amazing, but had the best color rendition, biggest screen, and the sharpest resolution of them all. That one? They didn't have a DCP projector. I played the film from a PC laptop off a 8-bit 1080p .mp4 usuing a high-end consumer projector. I don't know who their technician was at that theater, but they REALLY had it dialed in. Restored my faith in the movie-going experience, that show. Point is, you can round and round about standards and whatnot, but you can't really adjust for the chance of what's going to happen in the real world. After all, you can't really overcome ignorance you can only hope to alleviate it a little bit here and there. So, yeah, fight the good fight if you want, but it's a war of attrition and the other side has more troops.

You build what you want to an acceptable baseline that satisfies you and then release it into the wild. What happens after that is anybody's guess. If you think video is bad, you should try making music recordings and then giving it over to the world.