User

Hi folks, I've been extremely isolated in my filmmaking process, so I very much appreciate any guidance on the road ahead... I'll try to keep this short and to the point. - My process has been to continually return to a city over the last 10 years, find new characters, and then add their files to the main project. - The project began on Premiere Pro CS6 in 2013 and was then imported into CC 2014, its been there ever since. I'm on a 2013 Macbook Pro (16GB RAM SSD) running Mountain Lion. The media is housed in a TB 5 bay JBOD (4tb 7200 spinning discs that are all within 20-100gb of being full). The Media Cache/ Media Cache Database and Preview files are located on one of these discs containing media, some say that this is not exactly ideal but it works. - The project file now has around 18,000 files (LongGop, H.264, ProRes etc.) associated to it and there are a great deal of sequences that I've been building up over the years. When I open the project, it takes about 20 minutes to open the file, load the media and index the files. When it auto saves in can take 2 minutes to save the 215mb file. Ugh. - In going forward, for the first time ever, I open a new project and imported one sequence from the big main project into the new project. Needless to say, it opens and loads the media very quickly. Problem is that if I import another sequence into this new project it start duplicates some of the media and this starts to get confusing. - Recently I've heard that Premiere Pro 2018 has the ability to open multiple projects at once. So with this, I've been imagining breaking the main big project in (6-7) smaller projects that just include one character as a way to continue. And that PPro 2018 can have multiple projects open at the same time, it seems like this could be a decent way forward but it could also be limiting and confusing in other ways. If possible it would be ideal to keep everything in one project and work from there as I have been if it were not so slow to load and save. Yes Avid seems to handle large projects better, to a point. But can anyone here comment on an approach that they are using that is working well in editing a massive long form project on Premiere?

It's a nice attempt at something that feels classic, but the quick editing kills it for me. I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who can't really handle this kind of attention deficit editing anymore... it actually disconnects me from the piece.

Apologies to further derail the OP... Appreciate the effort Webrunner. In the early tests comparing the MkI with the MkII, I remember that there was a slight difference image quality and ISO, but NOT 1 1/2 stops. I could never understand how folks were saying that they could shoot beyond 6400 and still be happy with the degradation... unless they used a Denoiser/ Neat Video... but I never went past 6400 so as to see if applying noise reduction helped much. Maybe jhnkng can clarify further.

Hats off Andrew... it's the people that make the place.

Thank you for your test and insights jhnkng, I appreciate it. The comment on the the compromise between soulless vs good job (in focus) fits as I'd expect. At the end of the day, focus wins. I'll take another look at this lens in the days to come... the focal range is fantastic for apsc... face tracking is just another great bonus. Let me ask, how well does the face tracking work when tracking a subject who is on the move... say walking in the streets? Another question? Every once in a while I hear folks say things like "the C100mk2 is so clean even up to 12800" but I'm often shooting in very dark conditions and never push past 6400 as the image gets too muddy for my liking. After 6400, if there is not too much movement in the subject matter, I'll drop the shutter down - as long as it doesn't introduce flicker from light sources - rather than take the ISO gain hit. How is it that pushing past 6400 still holds up for you as clean? In asking this, I understand that everything is subjective.

Great thread. I may be just stating the obvious here but one of the main issues here sounds like it could be about 'motivation' - though I also certainly appreciate the contributions on individual editing processes. Towards the motivation aspect, I think I'm not alone in suggesting that one might need to imagine getting the work up and off to an audience that can appreciate what you've put together, a drink and a laugh, the human side of presentation. I'm in the edit on a huge (18,000+ assets) long form doc shot across many years... often I create little vignettes and pass them along to a few friends to see if and how they respond... it serves as a bit of a driver to keep me pushing especially since there is so very little financial remuneration in doc film.

Not to derail the thread... but the 18-135mm certainly sounds like a decent solution for run and gun. Face tracking would certainly be welcomed at times. I'd be curious how the look and feel of the image it renders compares to the Sigma 18-35mm at equivalent fstops. Something tells me I'd be more comfortable using 18-135 on productions where critical focus trumps image aesthetics. Any thoughts? We know that the Canon 24-105 isn't a constant f4 through its zoom range, more like a 5.6 on the long end... so that 18-135 should have it beat by a hair for low light. But I do like the image it gives on the long end. The Sigma almost never leaves my C100Mk2... and they are heavy enough together that I don't need IS. But it sucks that I can't trust the combo to auto focus. The 16-35 f4 nails it every time... but it's no damn good in the dark. Alas.

I came to really appreciate his posts and didn't realize that he had been banned. In hearing this, part of me wonders if the decision to ban someone should maybe sometimes be put to a vote? Not that it my place to say this though. He certainly contributed more solid info on camera tech etc than the other material, which is somehow relevant - but could have been better tempered - he is from California after all. Let's all close our eyes for a moment... breath in... and gently request his presence... come back JCS.?

Sounds like you've spending time with jihadi friends again... and as I remember from your entertaining and insightful location feeds, you've certainly got the beard to fit right in. Well done!

Well said Chris, thank you! Btw, this was my favorite line.

Thanks Kaylee. I'm writing a book about it that I trust will be more profitable than the films I make. At the book launch, the plan is have people strapped half way up the auditorium wall, naked. Then, bring in a old world catapult to fire the book they've purchased at them. Whoever gets the biggest welt, gets their copy autographed. And for those want to watch and yell obscene remarks, that's right, I'll be selling tickets. Drinks at the bar after.

I loathe Dvds or any other lazer read/ write media. Way too problematic. But as the others have said, the older troglodytes have been conditioned to trust them... holding something in their hands to feel like they've got value for their money... more plastic crap. A file on a memory stick, or a web link is what I want. Maybe scan the movie to 70mm and throw individual frames into a light box and sell these with a link to the film. My proven method is to create a kind of danegerous sexy vibe in and around the film, then you've got them, and they'll spend every penny they have to party with you.

I absolutely agree and have been referring to it as a kind of delayed/ retarded adolescence. North America is the absolute goofy epicentre of this... people largely weened on shit media going around as cartoon caricatures... tripping all over themselves thanking and apologising profusely rather that actually taking real responsibility for their behaviour. Embarrassing, but serves as amusement if/ when they leave home turf for distant lands where they quickly become the laughing stock and fodder for the locals. I digress.

You're welcome, I'm not as think as you stoned I am. You seem to be quite 'certain' in your judgements, but one thing for sure is that Lars isn't sitting around criticising your new film that he hasn't seen.

Hot off the burner: https://www.munkdebates.com/The-Debates/Political-Correctness Stephen Fry quoting Bertrand Russell: "'One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.' Let doubt prevail"

Cup of urine anyone?

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Francis Behan

I only watched the trailer but couldn't stop laughing. At times, I even wondered how LvT strapped all those cameras and mics on and around me without my knowledge. But seriously, I have a problem with gratuitous violence when there is no intelligence behind it. Fortunately most of what I've seen from Lars is turning larger wheels... and knowing just how terribly conservative some cultures can be, part of me is extremely grateful for the ones who push the limits and the cultures that are open enough to value it, however uncomfortable for some. For those who want to get a sense of where and how we've arrived to this place of ugly liberal values supported by half baked social justice warriors, please look towards the work of Jordan Peterson who is one of the brightest people we have amoung us today and currently the hottest names on the talk circuit.

I've never used the 300 MkII, but want it for the fat 1080 on doc films.

Thank you for jumping in Parker! I'm still running CC2014 (for another few days anyway) so no h.265 yet but it sounds promising as a way to keep the quality up. This 18 min render already takes around 8 hours or so on this 2013 Macbook... I wonder how much faster a new one could chew through it.

Hi folks, just readying an export to Vimeo. My usual settings had been: 2560x1440, 90 CBR, 1 Keyframe 24 frames. This gave me a file that is about 5.23 gb for a 10 min clip. Vimeo will accept the small amount more than my 5gb account. Now the clip I want to export is 18 min and the above settings would render a clip that is 10gb Lowering the 90CBR to 34CBR renders the clip to 5.23gb. Can anyone comment on my settings? Do I have the best possible? On a side note, after I began using these settings (2560x1440, 90 CBR, 1 Keyframe 24 frames) I noticed that the only player that I have that would play these export smoothly is Quicktime Player 10.2. Any thoughts on why a player like VLC struggles to play a clip exported with these settings smoothly? Is the bit rate too high? Is it the keyframe distance? Anyone?

I'll try and remember you said this when its 2028

Ain't that the truth. And towards this, and the idea of using (documentary) material captured on older/ lesser cameras to be combined with new cameras in the future, part of me wonders, if in ten years, there will be software that will be able to bite in these 'thin' codecs and 'fatten' them up. Now I know you can't exactly pull something out of an image that isn't there, but it feels like this is, somehow, about to change.

I'm on a long hall documentary with material shot on 4 different cameras. When, for example, the 5DM2 material collides with the C100MkII, one can often see the difference between the two under certain conditions. I'm wondering, with the current crop of reasonably affordable 4k cameras today, if the difference between cameras will be less noticeable in 10 years? Have we more or less arrived to a place where digital image quality is will hold up the way motion picture film did? 4k seems adequate enough, and we have that. Dynamic range will probably see incremental bumps, but how much further can that go? Any thoughts?

I think it's, in part, because anyone who was ready to jump to a new body grabbed the GH5 when it landed. Nobody saw this coming. Now if they could have just thrown in some internal ND, it would have really shaken things up.