fuzzynormal

I made my last doc for basically free. Just my wife and I doing everything. Paid for flights to and from Japan, that was pretty much it. As for the current film festival circuit: They're a legacy thing. Back in the day festivals had clout simply because they were a bigger deal. Now-a-days they exist to prop up the purveyors on the things and, maybe, actual filmmakers every now-and-again. BTW, I'm a film festival producer for our local shin-dig here in SoCal, and I also helped (years ago) to launch one of the current premiere film fests in the mid-south, such as it is. Ultimately, fests are like everything else these days. Everybody's doing it since digital made it easy. It's not a problem to get into some sort of a film festival. However, it's not easy getting into a good one. I just got back with my film from a rather lousy fest, that had no serious networking, horrible screenings, poor attendance...yet it was a lot of fun. My wife and I even gleaned a great nugget of financial info from one of the panels that was wildly invaluable, so you never know... We have our last one in Toronto coming up, and it's gonna be the most "legit" festival we got into. Still, that might be a lesser experience than our goofy no-budget fest we just attended. We enjoyed our time at the goofy fest. We made some new friends. If you can do that, that's the main thing. Just be gracious, try to get on the same wavelength as the interesting people you'll meet, and you'll be fine. At the middle rung and lower rung of festivals, these things are just glorified parties -- if you're lucky! (Some aren't even that) That's the best you can hope from it. Having fun and meeting some good folks. There's really only two or three festivals where industry stuff actually happens and films get "launched." Because of that, there's only industry films represented. Unless you're a creative wunderkind that made something uniquely awesome (and entertainingly so) you're probably not going to get into any serious festivals on your own. Actually, in spite of making something awesome and new, that actually would probably get you rejected from most film festivals. The reality is that most selection committees are community regular-joe/jane types. They're not savvy about film. If subject matter floats in front of their eyes that they can relate to, they'll ignore all the shortcomings of the flick and give it a big old bear hug, filmmaking craft be damned. Arguably, this happens with "savvy" festivals as well. Three actors and three crew. Make something with that situation. Learn how to be smart with your time and talent. It WILL pay off; creatively and professionally.

Could it be a circle of confusion?

If using drones is part of the vocabulary of cinema these days, it's damn close to becomming a tired catch phrase. Be careful how you use it. Cliches' can cheapen one's efforts pretty quickly. With that said, I'd worry less about what you're shooting with and more about if you can narratively justify the shot to begin with. I had my romance with aerials. It's seductive, but it's not enough to build a healthy narrative relationship. More like a fun make out session.

I dunno. choreograph dancers doing indentical specific movement inside the suits and out side the suits? Superimpose the normal dancers into the chroma key dancers of numerous outdoor static shots. The slightly off set nature of the movement would create really odd, distorted, but fluid images at the same time. Or maybe, if you want to be metaphoric, have wildly gestulating dancers "inside" the shapes of people acting "normal," like shopping, banking, socializing, etc. the inner id of people that's not allowed to escape, for example.

What's wrong with the share? I'm glad I watched it. Just pointing out how the too-fast-shutter pulled me out of the narrative.

Well, regarding that "woman" video: whatever gains are accomplished with using the lens are destroyed by the inability of the shooter to properly control the shutter speed. That was a bit odd.

Buy an old laptop. Mac or PC. You may not want to use a laptop, but it's reliable and cheap.

Guilty as charged. I can't escape it in the corporate video world.

Not that I'm aware...Once the recording starts, that function is locked out.

Yes. Normal. Thus, worthwhile? In other words, since the thing is easily do-able and many many people are capable of doing it, what value does it have? Should one use it just because one can, or can the visuals it offers be implemented creatively? I had a corporate client demand it on a recent production "just because," and I felt it ultimately looked ridiculous. Ostentatious for no particular reason. It actually was detrimental to the video. The shots had no motivation. They were just there because the client thought it looked cool.

I do wonder if, instead of debating about the tool, we should consider that the value of aerial shots is overrated?

Fair enough. Good luck.

Simple is better, until it isn't. I'd suggest trying the proxy work flow a few times and compare. Those 2 or 3 second delays when dealing with h.264 footage tend to add up over the course of a longer edit. It does, and I do utilize that feature, which is nice. Still, when things hum with along proxy footage it then becomes rather difficult to go back to a slower workflow; even if it's not a lot slower. Why exactly are you wanting to export h.265?

I'm not taking the tinfoil off my head for anything.

I couldn't get optimized media to work reliably with h.264 footage in Resolve. Maybe with raw it's better. I'd like to know your experience with it once you give it a shot.

Agreed. Not sure how small it can be made, however. Still think it would have to be a substantial piece of glass.

Directly editing h.264 just stinks. Even on a zippy machine. It'll work --and I do it all the time for short TRT projects, but I still like to edit with transcoded files. Or, better yet, edit with proxies. Once you start doing that, a modern machine will slice and scroll through stuff without much effort. It's pretty cool. Lagging video when trying to set heads/tails or just previewing a clip is the worst. Premiere CC 2015.3 has been very effective for me with proxies. My assistant editor even does work on our 7 year old Mac with LUMIX UHD footage. Works great. With proxies you can use cheap slow drives for editing, so it's a great way to stretch a budget and still be productive. FCPX is also well regarded in this area too. Resolve also does "proxies" by creating "Optimized" media, but I had a hell of a time making that work. Too buggy. Moved onto Premiere. Not my fav editing platform, but it's robust enough to handle my documentary workload. Decent media management tools too, I think.

You can certainly get there if you're willing to go w/speedbooster. Although, something like this would be physically too big and too expensive after the speedbooster... https://www.amazon.com/Sigma-Aspherical-Macro-Aperture-Cameras/dp/B00005RKSO The expensive speedbooster opens up a lot of other lens choices. Besides, at a certain point they're battling optical physics. You can only make it so small and keep it fast, right?

Yup. 'Tis true.

What is a "current panorama"? ...and do I have to be standing on a mountain to experience it?

Yeah, the max I can push it is to use my canon fd 55mm f1.2 on a speedbooster. Shooting 4K I can run 3200iso and get a clean useable exposure when delivering for 1080. Does that make sense? Anyway, that'll pick up some pretty low light scenes. Not perfect, mind you, the glass gets soft wide open, but low light is there if I really need it. 99%

The GX85 seems like the best value on the market if you're a shooter desiring 5-axis stabilization. It's a cheap cam with good IQ and the 5-axis works quite well. Who can argue with that? Would I say it's a great camera overall? No. But it's an AWESOME camera if you're buying it to do what it's strengths allow you to do --'kuz you get more for less.

I'm doing 6 30 minute docs for a local PBS series. Using 5-axis for these 6 episodes has been beneficial, no question. However, I also shot a 30 minute doc in Japan two years ago on a GM1 and GX7. All b-roll was handheld. Honestly, I'm liking the vibe of my previous work more. ...some of that has to do with content, but the visuals just have more verve to 'em. No slow mo, no IBIS.

I've been enamored with shooting 5-axis stabilization. It's undeniably a great tool and I do rely on it for a lot of work. Utilizing it for over a year now, and now the motion pictures are tending to look uninspired to me. I'm finding myself drawn back to the sloppiness of true hand held. I don't know. Maybe because strong IBIS has been such a constant in my work, the opposite approach is now more tantalizing than the current? There's an organic energy in the connection of a (good-not-bad) hand-held shooter to the camera. A 5-axis camera can dull it. Add to the fact that I've really leaned on using slow-mo and combined it with 5-axis...for no good reason other than I can do it, if I'm being honest... Eh, is it true when they say, "the grass is always greener?" Anyone else that been dabbling in 5-axis questioning it? Perhaps it's because my work has been "rely"-ing on it...maybe that's the issue. Why should I rely on a feature that much? Is it necessary? Maybe in my older age I'm just yearning for nostalgia and basic simple shooting reminds me of that? It's interesting because I'm old enough to recall how the hand-held aesthetic upset so many traditional cinema folks as it came into wildly adopted vogue years ago. Is my 5-axis romance just a "phase?"

Occasional? I scan channels on my G3 before every shoot, set my frequency, and I still get interference often. Been in the city a lot so I guess that's the issue. Lots of radio waves flying' 'round. The spectrum is only going to get more crowded into the future. How viable is wireless in these environments, really? Here's the thing, the work I do, if something is going bad I really can't do anything about it in the moment, so ultimately (and god help you if you're an audio guy reading this) monitoring a wireless system does nothing but tell me what I'm getting might be dropping out or squelching every once in awhile. So, that's nice to know, but again, I can't really interrupt the moments and do anything about it... and, since that's the case, why not just carefully place a wired lav on my subject and hope for the best? After all, that's what I'm doing with my G3 wireless anyway. I'm one guy with a camera following my documentary subject. Yes, there's the "right" way to do audio, and then there's the "actually-productive-on-a-shoe-string-budget-way." Poo-poo that if you must. I'd love to be able to monitor and fix all my audio with whatever problems arise, but there are times I just can't. Wireless that's monitored is usually the best solution. Maybe in other situations it is not. Audio solutions are like video solutions. I'm not shooting 8-bit on a GX85 because it's the best camera. I'm using it because I think it's the best solution for my particular job. Similarly, unmonitored wired solutions like the DR10L is a viable tool for certain gigs. I kinda feel like it's deserving consideration.