SKIN - First short film to use 5D Mark III Magic Lantern raw, a guest post by Andrew Wonder

[django123]

Art doesn't necessarily need dialogue to "say" something. I think it's pretty abstract and one could take away many things from it.

I would agree with you that art does not have to "say" anything, but it should at least be moving in some way. Otherwise it just becomes another boring excuse for a "professionally shot" "test" video. And to get back to my point, Raw doth not (necessarily)  maketh art.

[peak3media]

Wonderfully weird work BUT I'd like to just say that this is in no way the first short film to use 5D3 RAW.  Electric Igloo shot a feature over memorial day weekend that is now in post and we wrapped this short on June 16th which is also now in post.

 

https://vimeo.com/68521859

[nahua]

I gotta agree with Andrew's notes.  It's hard to work with RAW.  Much easier now, I hope that it will be much improved in the months to come. I think the look is great, and he has a point about color.  The immediate improvement over H.264 is just the richness of color.  But you can't be shooting RAW for everything.  It just takes too much work and too much space.  Either way, he shot a nice short and it sure made my skin crawl....

[nahua]

Wonderfully weird work BUT I'd like to just say that this is in no way the first short film to use 5D3 RAW.  Electric Igloo shot a feature over memorial day weekend that is now in post and we wrapped this short on June 16th which is also now in post.

 

The shot at 00:52 is great.  I look forward to seeing this!

[Wild Ranger]

I think that the problem with raw is that we are going to see a lot of "badly color graded" films or videos until people learn to grade it. It gives so much freedom that people tends to abuse of it. Takes time to master a thing as color. Over all its an amazing think to have it.

[Bruno]

Wonderfully weird work BUT I'd like to just say that this is in no way the first short film to use 5D3 RAW.  Electric Igloo shot a feature over memorial day weekend that is now in post and we wrapped this short on June 16th which is also now in post.

 

Calling it "The 1st 5D3 Raw Short Film" sounds a lot like a gimmick and IMO doesn't help any piece of art.

Calling it "The first professional short film" is demeaning to every other videos out there made with the 5D3 with the raw hack, especially when it doesn't look that professional at all, not with the out of focus and poorly lit shots. A couple cheap LED lights could have helped getting rid of that nasty noise in some shots.

 

However, in regards to the works you mention, I must say that a film in post is not considered a finished film. :)

[Andrew Benton]

I think that the problem with raw is that we are going to see a lot of "badly color graded" films or videos until people learn to grade it. It gives so much freedom that people tends to abuse of it. Takes time to master a thing as color. Over all its an amazing think to have it.

If people attempt to color grade then that's a step above the multitude of people who don't even bother, or even understand the importance of post work on color, contrast and exposure adjustments. There are plenty of videos and feature films with horrible colors already, I don't think the access to raw changes anything, if the short film has terrible colors then so be it, there will be people that pay attention and care, and others that honestly wouldn't even notice. It's difficult enough to match the palette for each shot in a sequence, especially when one can't afford all the right lights and color matched lenses.

[Ivar Kristjan Ivarsson]

I like the short for the most part. Made me uncomfortable, I think that is the artists intention. Very cinematic in many of the shots, but I have to agree about the noise, it is a bit distracting, but that does not make me think that something is wrong with the Mark III, I think it is a question of lighting for camera and maybe in some of the shots in "skin" could have been less noisy with more lighting and less iso.

 

My two cents. Bottom line....I liked it :)

[pinger007]

First off, I enjoyed it.  It was well done, shots were in focus, camera was steady, editing was well-paced, and sound design was appropriate.  The concept was well-executed; I applaud them for creating an experimental dance piece around a soon-to-be-demolished building.  Bravo!

 

With that being said, I don't consider this to be a short film.  If anything, this is a modern dance video (very well done to be sure).  I feel like the term 'short film' is thrown around way too freely.  Not to diminish SKIN at all, but just because someone shoots a bunch of footage (often unplanned with no thought to a throughline or story arc) and edits it together (often with music) doesn't make it a short film.  If that were the case, then every camera/makeup/lighting test I've ever done before actually shooting a short film would be considered a short film (just add music).  :P 

 

In the end, this is a great piece, just not a short film.  The execution was good, and the project's use of the RAW recording format was appropriate - the color space really enhanced the color and depth and highlights were saved that would have otherwise been blown out.  Nice work.

[alanpoiuyt]

Everyone's pixelpeeping noise, highlights, grade, etc. when I'd like to applaud Andrew on his anamorphic chops and being able to use a dslr to shoot a narrative in such a time-honored tradition so seamlessly. The flares, closeups, focus pulls, IQ, on a rig the size of a kid's shoebox-great job!

[Zach]

Wonderfully weird work BUT I'd like to just say that this is in no way the first short film to use 5D3 RAW.  Electric Igloo shot a feature over memorial day weekend that is now in post and we wrapped this short on June 16th which is also now in post.

 

https://vimeo.com/68521859 

 

 

I found this trailer much more enjoyable than the short film in the original topic. 

 

Also, why does everyone keep capitalizing raw? 

[odie]

it's all in the post

[kurth]

...boring...and pretentious

[hmcindie]

Nice but some weird misconceptions here and there. For example, he claims that you coulnd't do that chroma key with a 1DC. Eh? You could do that with almost any camera in the market, even older HDV variants. I bet I could easily do that chroma key with 1DC or even 5dmarkIII h264 material.

 

RAW gives you the ability to do LOTS of cool little things. But that shot is not one of them. It seems like people are forgetting that grading has been done a long, long time with all kinds of different material and the tools are here. Undercity wasn't much graded so I kinda get that he is new at that.

 

Capitalizing RAW is just easier to read I guess.

[pask74]

I like the concept, pace, camera moves, location, pumping walls but struggle to find it appealing in terms of image quality. The noise is really distracting, the skin tones not very flattering (those end shots) and the false skin really looks like plastic. I don't see how this can be a good showcase for 5D raw.

[pask74]

Here is another disturbing film that was shot raw with the BMCC and that I find more convincing:

http://vimeo.com/64712637

 

And if you read French, here are the director's comments:

http://www.pampuri.net/2013/05/07/retour-dutilisation-de-la-blackmagic-cinema-camera-par-marc-linnhoff/

[Jocelyn Deguise]

The grading is all over the place, but I can see the potential. Damn ! Wow !

 

(I also don't think the short is "narrative". Try "Artsy" or "Experimental".)

[Chrisbottrellphotography]

Not sure why people are slating this so much, I liked it, maybe not the best video ever made but no one is perfect and we are always learning. Personally I find the RAW workflow a piece of cake, I grade and correct all my dng files in Lightroom. Lightroom is specifically built for processing raw files, yes I know it's designed for photographers but it dose an excellent job with dng frames. Export as tiffs and edit in anything you want importing as a tiff sequence.

I think it's great that the magic lantern raw is finally here, you will soon see a lot of photographers making some great videos due to being used to raw shooting, at the end of the day raw video and raw photography are the same, just 24frames a second difference (in pal land)

I agree the images were noisy in places but looked like the guys had fun making it.

[Michael Ma]

Interesting that they made that last shot very noisy on purpose.  Maybe you have to own a 5D3 to get the message.

 

I didn't really see anything that they probably couldn't pull off with the 5D3, unless the only source of lighting was the sun peeking through the windows.