Motion Cadencemo

[fuzzynormal]

​I think you're not grasping how films are made. They are made in a studio with a hazer blowing out in the corner with 2kw lights pretending to be sunlight.

Not the movies I've made. I shoot mostly available natural light.

And you might want to ask Terrence Malick how he feels about your assertions.

Still... One of my favorite films is Casablanca --so I do get your meaning. 

[hmcindie]

Not the movies I've made. I shoot mostly available natural light.

And you might want to ask Terrence Malick how he feels about your assertions.

​Well yeah sure but Terrence does have a really filmic aesthetic. You think he would shoot 60p??

About the CCD / CMOS:

CCD

CMOS:

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Jesus christ, why must everything turn into a fight and so impolite calling on this forum lately? 

24p is a look, 60p is a look, some like the former, some like the later. End of story. None of them is right or wrong! 

[fuzzynormal]

Jesus christ, why must everything turn into a fight and so impolite calling on this forum lately? 

24p is a look, 60p is a look, some like the former, some like the later. End of story. None of them is right or wrong! 

What I think is the only way it can be.

Me!  Me!  Look at me!  I'm typing on the Internet! Validate my opinion.  Validate me!  Let me know the camera I own is awesome.  Tell me I make great choices in the things I buy!!

Wait, are you agreeing or disagreeing with my opinion?  :-)

I actually like all frame rates depending on what I wanna do. Seems like mixed frame rates in the same film could be exploited as a narrative tool as well.

...and slow frame rates too. I once shot some stuff @15 0degree shutter  for a cool effect.  

[Kristoferman]

Huh.  I didn't think it worked. I thought it looked stupid. Maybe my opinion was influenced by how god awful, trite, and terrible the story was.

Did I mention stupid?  

Regardless, in my subjective opinion hfr in that movie just looked ridiculous. 

Guess that's what it's ultimately about. Subjectivity. 

Avatar wasn't HFR. The new one was going to be but I'm pretty sure i read that James Cameron changed his mind and that only certain scenes would be HFR.

[Ed_David]

What I think is the only way it can be.

Me!  Me!  Look at me!  I'm typing on the Internet! Validate my opinion.  Validate me!  Let me know the camera I own is awesome.  Tell me I make great choices in the things I buy!!

Wait, are you agreeing or disagreeing with my opinion?  :-)

I actually like all frame rates depending on what I wanna do. Seems like mixed frame rates in the same film could be exploited as a narrative tool as well.

...and slow frame rates too. I once shot some stuff @15 0degree shutter  for a cool effect.  

​I think this forum has always been a little bit "intense" with comments - that's what I like and don't like about it.  I also appreciate the moderators for not censoring comments as much as the other nerd forums like dvxuser or reduser which feels like way too type A.

But also this is people questioning people's gear - which cost them thousands of dollars. I understand how people can get their feathers ruffled.  Imagine going up to a Harley motorcycle owner and telling him that the bikes are as good as they used to be.  

[fuzzynormal]

​I think this forum has always been a little bit "intense" with comments - that's what I like and don't like about it.

​Yeah, same here.  The place isn't perfect, thank goodness.

BTW, on higher budget shoots, has this motion cadence thing ever come from the client, or it more a creative side of things?

[fuzzynormal]

Avatar wasn't HFR.

​I probably couldn't tell in between the brief moments when my eyes weren't rolling.

I seem to recall Cameron recently bitching about not being able to pan fast enough with 24fps and something about jutter.  He strikes me as a guy that loves delving into the tech side of film making and pushing those limits.  Pretty much consider him cheesy in the storytelling department though.

[Ed_David]

Motion cadencemo, I go so - 

here's something I whipped together - sony f35 - CCD - I softened the image in post to try to make it feel like super 16mm or god knows what - let me know your thoughts:

 

[Cinegain]

Looks stunning. Great stuff.

[Mattias Burling]

That looked amazing. Loved the look, grain, everything.
Hmm.. maybe my D16 will get a bigger brother in a year or two when prices have dropped further.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Ed, your f35 work (and the other mac cult on dvxuser) is very dangerous. From time to time I just think of making a friend from abroad (someomr trusty on the forum, like you) buy me an f35 and ship it to Egypt, as unfortunately there's only one in my entire country and it's rental, more so, it's renting for MORE than the Alexa! So should I ever try to ask buying it it wouldn't be less than used alexa prices, something FAR beyond my by budget, plus that particular unit was an f23 converted to f35 back in the days when Sony offered that for like a hundred K! So god knows what she's been through as a rental. But at the prices you guys seem to get, god it's alexa league for DSLR prices! 

I sometimes just think of selling everything and buying one and shooting with it until it breaks or until my clienta ask for 4K (not less than 5 years from now), thia would juat end all my search for a new good looling camera. 

I am always looking for my image, the camera that delivers everything I need, and after years of workimg with 1-Canon DSLRs (horrible blocky noise and softness), then Nikon D5200 (softness) then D810 (lovely image but somehow modern and as filmlike as alexa and f35 and bolex, but it is the best) then GH4 (just horrible image everything, screams video for me, the colours, the motion, the artificial sharpness, the 2.3x deep DOF), the a7s (just has a bad colour image that needs TIME), and even the C100/300 which are D810 like in being in everything but doesn't look filmic, it looks modern and great for that), and the Epic is the same. great but modern and doesn't have feeling. It's lile the difference between a modern perfect Canon L lens and a beautifully sharp yet soulful cooke.

There is ALWAYS a bad image character in every single camera I've shot on, something that bothers me when I am grading and analyzing my work, 

Yet the F35 just seems perfect like the alexa. Plus I can't imagine havingsuch a beast would push my client base SO high vs DSLRs. 

It's itching, but look at that motion! f

-Can't it be stripped down as just the body with a Small Ninja as a recorder or a BM video assist on top and a V lock battery screwed to the back and you can go shoot and have ready f35 S log footage on cheap SSDs at the end of the just a an it be used that simple or is it a whole different beast that needs a codex recorder, an IF box several V lock batteries ina abag, and lots of cables and just just a pain to carrt and use? 

 

[hmcindie]

Ed, that was just beautiful. I really like global shutter and the feeling it gives motion.

Ebrahim: Though after you buy the F35 your probably just gonna be "Damn, this thing is big! I wonder if a dslr could replace it" 8)

[Oliver Daniel]

Ed, that was just beautiful. I really like global shutter and the feeling it gives motion.

Ebrahim: Though after you buy the F35 your probably just gonna be "Damn, this thing is big! I wonder if a dslr could replace it" 8)

 I'm on my last day of a music video shoot with the F55. Never used before. Not looked at any rushes to check motion etc. General impressions are similar to FS7 with a bit better colour. 

F35... Too big for me. I'm handheld. Lovely footage though Ed!

[Stab]

Not that I want to turn this topic into a linkdump version of 'look what my camera can do', but I feel like there is one camera that is very underestimated which is the Panasonic GH3.

The GH3 (and GH4) are great camera's in my opinion, but they have one major major flaw. When you use native M4/3 lenses you end up with an harsh, digital 'video like' image. Oversharpened, strange colors, 2,3x crop etc. All the character is taken out of the camera's 'soul' (sensor). My colleague shoots with a GH4 with the Lumix 12-35 f2.8 and I don't like the image out of that camera at all. However, the image out of my GH3 with adapted (Speed Boosted) lenses keeps impressing me, still after every shoot. I have no intention of upgrading to another camera just yet. Together with the amazing battery life (I use 2 batteries on a whole wedding day), small ready to edit files and 1080p 60fps I have not much to ask for besides a higher dynamic range.

Then, the topic is 'motion cadence'. And that's why I want to post a (real) short film that I shot with the GH3 a while ago. Don't get me wrong, a Black Magic global shutter looks better, but is this worse in your eyes than Canon or Nikon DSLR's? I don't see it.

 

[Ed_David]

the cold rush piece looks really nice - I think using any camera is always interesting - especially the ones long forgotten.

the F35 with the odyssey 7q is pretty much the same weight as the Red Dragon - around 8-12 Lbs or 4 KG-6KG - and it's boxy about the size of the black magic production camera or 4k camera - it's really not that big.  

It's much smaller than the alexa - half the size and you can configure it for handheld work that makes it very small - that's what I do.

I put a baseplate on it with 15mm and use a snap on matte box and it's off - with the odyssey 7q now as the monitor and recorder - and it's really not that much more than like a f55.

yes it's bigger than a DSLR, but once you trick out the DSLR and add audio inputs and a monitor and external battery supply - at the end of the day - it all weighs pretty much the same - maybe 2 KG more - 

there is one on ebay still - and I think Matt Allard is trying to sell his because he got upset at Sony so he's selling all his sony products.  His loss, your gain.

I think Egypt would be a great place for the f35 because of handling the desert highlights and I have used it in 120 degree F weather - I think like 45 degrees celesius and it holds up fine - it's a beast.

[Cinegain]

You probably don't just so happen to have a bit behind the scenes stuff for us now, do you?

[Ed_David]

here's a few instagrams from another production - basically the same setup - https://instagram.com/aedigitalstudios/

[Axel]

Avatar @ 48p (or higher): Works, because the narration itself says this is virtual reality. This is  N O W.

​

Huh.  I didn't think it worked. I thought it looked stupid.

​Avatar was 24p. Cameron later said he would have preferred it in 48p or 60p, but the cinema servers in 2009 couldn't handle that yet. He was right. There were scenes in the military base where pans (in 3D !) looked terrible. 

Maybe my opinion was influenced by how god awful, trite, and terrible the story was.

Did I mention stupid?

​Yeah, I agree, but not totally. I think the only good film Cameron made was the first Terminator. I hate Aliens, True Lies and Titanic. I absolutely hated the first Avatar trailers, I thought they looked like Fern Gully. So my expectations were low. 

I had to test preview the film alone, a few hours before the first open screening, and I was deeply impressed. You are right, the story is harebrained. In a way, but not totally. What worked (for me and about 11.000.000 others) was the idea that someone wakes up in a fantasy world and then alternately he wakes up in 'reality'. So there is a subtext about cinematic immersion. In german, there is a tenderly disrespectful name for this kind of cinema: Kintopp. Maybe the english word movie comes close (like in Scary Movie), if it describes a film of little meaning but great fun factor. Like Eisensteins 'montage of attractions', but without any dogmatic background.

I am not looking forward to Avatar II though. 

[Sekhar]

Looks stunning. Great stuff.

​OK guys, could someone explain to me why you're all loving this? I'm NOT trying to be snarky or contrarian...I really want to understand so I can improve my own work. I found Ed's video fuzzy and grainy (clearly done on purpose) and cut rapidly with no clear purpose that I could discern. Since it appealed to you guys, clearly I'm not getting it, so would appreciate if you could explain. From a fluidity of motion perspective (the focus of this thread), I can see it's pleasing. But I don't get the other basic stuff. E.g., are we still expected to add lots of grain and try to mimic film? I thought that was passe. Again, I'm really trying to get this.