mercer

Okay, this will be a long answer full of personal theories that will probably enrage someone... From an acting standpoint, I find ADR to be extremely easy, but I'm not a real actor that has studied and honed my craft. To go line by line and listen to your line reading and then repeat it, is probably the easiest thing I've ever done as an actor. With that being said, it is pretty soulless and devoid of any form of performance creativity. But I am totally fine with the most generic of styles, a friend of mine who is an indie filmmaker, will sometimes do a line reading and then ask me to repeat it the way he said it... Especially with specific lines that require a specific cadence. I do not get offended by this type of performance, but I am sure a lot of actors would because they want to bring something personal to their character. I don't care about such things. I am more like David Mamet who believes that everything an actor needs to know about a character is on the page. As a no budget director, ADR sounds both liberating and terrifying. Now when I say no budget, I am not mincing words, I am not speaking micro budget or low budget... I mean NO BUDGET. I have a decent day job that affords me the time and a little cash to pursue this, but I am in zero position to invest too heavily into any one project. I am a one man band filmmaker that will occasionally have a little help, but I have learned very quickly that you can never count on any help when it comes to making movies on the cheap. You can only count on yourself. I do pay my actors on a small per diem basis which is usually enough to cover their expenses and put a little coin in their pocket. So I try to schedule everything I need from them for as few days as possible... So much so I will rewrite characters and combine characters if it gets the short made. I believe in getting the best quality I can get based on the level I am at. I am not a professional audio guy. I cannot afford a professional audio guy... or gal. If I can plug a Rode VideoMic Pro into my camera and get usable audio, I will do that every time. If I will get better audio doing double sound with a lav and a small pocket recorder... I will do that. If I have to do ADR, I will do that, but never before I attempt to get good on set dialogue. Where my opinion differs from most, is that a lot of low to no budget filmmakers believe that if they use a sennheiser Mic plugged into a zoom recorder and have a friend hold a boom pole over the actor's head, they are getting professional sound because Hollywood does double system, and Hollywood sound techs use boom poles. Sure that's true, but Hollywood has professional equipment way better than a zoom recorder and a mixing board with a mixer adjusting the levels of the tracks as the tape is being rolled. And you know what, even after all of that, in a lot of instances, Hollywood films are ADRd in post. There really is no right answer but there are a lot of options and every shot, scene and sequence has a mountain that needs to be climbed to get it in the can. So, do what's best for the time and resources you have. If you can get the dialogue on set, awesome... One less thing to worry about. If not, fix it in post. To add one more thing, my theories and practices are based on 2 short films I have done and a half dozen or so, that I started and then abandoned because they either didn't have the legs they needed to be a compelling short on either a personal or artistic level, or they turned out to be something I couldn't do well enough at my level... Some projects require more than I can give.

This was a great short. Technically the short was so well done, the tech almost goes unnoticed because it served the story so well. The acting was very good as well.

Yeah, I am just looking for a little fill to help brighten his facial features. I briefly thought about a ring light, but wasn't sure how good they were, and never really heard of anyone using them. Do they throw enough light? It would definitely help to keep my rig small and handheld... Which is really the most important thing to me.

Thanks @andy lee I really need to start picking up some lights. As of now I have a mix of small LED panels, some Home Depot clamp lights and some practical lights I put some photo floods in. I also try to stage my scenes around the practicals and available window light. In the short I'm working on now. I have a scene in a tent. I think I'm gonna light the outside with flood lights to try and mimick moonlight shining through the tent. Some shots in the scene will be POV through a camcorder, so an on camera light should work well as a key and hopefully the floods outside will provide the fill and backlight. I will also have a lantern hanging from the top of the tent, so I may try and hide a small China ball lantern with a photo flood at the very top of the tent... Or if I have to, I'll cut some of the roof off and hang it above it outside. Anyway, thanks for the links, I'll definitely be checking these out.

I don't want to completely drown out the shade, I just want to brighten his face a touch. I'll be tracking him from 5 to 10' away. I have a couple small LED panels, I'll give them a go first, but I'm really looking for something similar to what... @Michael Coffee posted... A mini fresnel.

Depending on the framing of your shot, you could always tie a thin rope between you and you actor/subject... Attach it to your belt and his... Hit your focus before you start moving and as long as you keep the rope taut as you track him, you will stay in focus.

The RMC Tokina 17mm hits infinity at about 15 feet. If he wants to nail his focus with a steadicam and a manual lens, I would use 20mm lens or less. He should hit infinity at 20' or less with a lot of ultra wide lenses. Or at least the ones, I've owned. Sorry, read it quickly, I thought he was using a manual lens for some reason... Hot summer brain I guess.

Not really, there is a big difference between having hybrid capabilities and being completely marketed as a hybrid camera... Which is what you said. It's a camcorder that takes stills... But really what is the difference anyway? You obviously are not enamored by anything that says Canon on it, so don't buy anything with that badge. I don't care if you like Canon products, why do you care so much that other people do? I mean, this is getting really ridiculous now. You only post on the forum to ridicule Canon. Do you work for Sony, or Nikon, or another company... Or are you just so bored that you have nothing better to do?

Wide angle lens set to infinity. As wide as you can get.

Great idea... Will definitely do this when I can.

Most Hollywood movies end up looping their dialogue. Of course they're going to try and get good sound on location, but the real reason they hire all of those people is probably due to union contracts.

Audio is recorded on set, then usually post dubbed later on. At this level though, clean on set audio is probably your best bet.

I was thinking about a bounce board but for the majority of these shots, I will be the only crew. I was thinking something like the Gekko K7, but even that is a hair too big.

I am shooting a short in the middle of the woods with some tracking shots in and out of pockets of sun and curtains of shade. I'm looking for a tiny... I mean as small as possible... Smaller than the cheap LED panels, to eliminate the under eye shadows, add some eye sparkle and just add a little more even exposure to my actor's face as I follow him in and out of the shade. Any suggestions?

Good question... It's listed on BH as an instant savings. The price isn't even listed in the Canon USA site. I just bought an XC10 with the "instant savings." According to Canon, it's up on the 31st, but when I received my sales slip from BH it states the instant savings is good until 9/31/16. I have a feeling this is a final price cut to get rid of inventory. Photokina should be an interesting show for Canon.

Panny, I have very little time to test the camera as I am about to start a short film with it. One more day of testing before I start and it's really just a dress rehearsal, sound test situation. But don't worry, my short takes place entirely in the woods, so they'll be plenty of "greens"... God help us all...

Don't underestimate the Rode VideoMic Pro. It's small and discrete and that +20db switch is amazing. Set the in camera audio low, flick the +20db switch on the Rode, set it to narrow field and get close to your actors. Get one or two takes with the actors performing their dialogue with the camera 3 feet or less from their face and you should get some usable dialogue. If you capture it slightly low, it should be clean and you can raise it in post. Or as others have said, grab a couple H1s or the new Little Darling recorders from JuicedLink and lav up your actors. Even an inexpensive Azden lav will sound pretty damn good under those circumstances.

Cinematic is sometimes a subjective thing. The 1dX ii has a beautiful image and that video with the hot girl riding on the back of a motorcycle was very instrumental in bringing me back to Canon... Their colors are just undeniable... In their most basic out of camera looks and when graded. If I were a richer man, I would love to own the 1dX mkii.

Thanks, I'll definitely check those out. I didn't even know Canon made LUTS... Makes sense though. I did try some of the Impulz Log LUTS and they worked beautifully. In some of my wide shots, where the sky was very prevalent in the shot, I noticed they introduced a little macro blocking, though. I actually start off with the simple 3 Strip LUT that comes with Color Finale. I found it helps to balance the image and it introduces just enough saturation to start the grade.

I think I just like a softer image because I have only added sharpening to one of my clips thus far. Do you use the Sharpen effect in FCPX? That's what I had used, just at its default... I think it's 2.5.

Each frame is compressed individually with mjpeg, that with c-log could add a smooth heft to the image, but I'm just guessing because I noticed the same thing. I also noticed a weight to the 1dXii image but not that smooth cinematic quality the 1dC has. But don't get me wrong I have liked most things I've seen shot with the 1dXii as well.

I just finished watching that video... Beautiful footage. The 4K on this camera is nuts. Did you add any sharpening in post? I have to get some more C-Fast cards... What brand are you using? Thanks again for the tips. I'll have to check out that LUT. Did you say you got it here? I don't like the one that comes with Color Finale... Of course I am trying to get better at color correction/grading without any LUTS.

Hey Tom, really great info here. The 70 zebras saved me the other day, but I have a question regarding shooting in TV with C-Log. If the camera is setting the ISO and aperture for me, does it know the proper exposure for the best C-Log results? You mention using the Tiffen Fader ND, but when you darken the image with the Fader ND, doesn't the camera adjust the aperture accordingly, or does the +/- ae adjustment automatically lock the exposure, so then you're free to adjust the ND appropriately?

Dave, this is effin beautiful!!! Was this 4K or 1080p? C-Log?

Do you think it's the full frame aesthetic mixed with c-log? With the right lens, those creamy OOF areas add a totally different texture to the C-Log.