How well would the Black Magic Cinema Camera (BMCC) work for making documentaries?

[kgimedia]

Well, the easiest and most common situation to illustrate this with is a sudden move from indoor to outdoor, where the amount and color of light changes rapidly. If you have a prosumer camcorder, and your subject suddenly runs inside, you can follow them and make that switch pretty quickly -- there's a little switch to turn up the gain (i.e., ISO) and you can have two white balance settings so if you're prepared properly, you just flick two little switches as you're running into/out the door and no one even notices the difference. On the BMCC, both of those settings are in the menus, I think, so you'd have to stop shooting, open the menus and reset both things before you could keep shooting. If you're good with the camera, it'd probably take 10-20 seconds. That could be totally inconsequential, or it could cause you to miss the most crucial ten seconds of your film. Depends what you're shooting.

If you are shooting RAW can you not White Balance in post?

[Michael Bergstrom]

For the last couple years (and on the show I'm currently working on) we shoot Sony ex1s and ex3 as a primary camera. They are highly weather resistant, good battery life, excellent image quality and don't necessary need a rig to use. For the interviews, we use a canon 5d II or Sony fs100. The dslr is nice for interviews because of the dof, and non intimidating form factor. The ex cameras are nice because of their focus peaking, real controls, form factor and the ability to have a lot of things in focus. I do have a black magic on order, and hope to experiment on this show once it gets in. I do not see it as a doc camera, but the RED cameras weren't built for it either and people still use them for docs.

[Danny1280]

Here's an idea I floated on the BMC forum, and was flattered that Barry Green was considering similar:

BMCC for interviews, beauty shots, b-roll that allows for setup, tripod, etc.
HPX250 for run & gun.

Go with pro-res or dnxhd for the BMCC and transcode to match from the HPX250.
So you have two tools to cover different tasks (rather than using them simultaneously for 2-cameras at the same time).
And you're in a 10 bit 422 space on your timeline--all broadcast spec.

I think people might be subconsciously trained to accept the mixing of shallow and deep DOF in one film if they are different types of shots.
And then you're not dependent on the BMCC for run and gun situations.

[unadog]

As far as the form factor, I personally don't like any of the hand-held options. I much prefer a tripod or a crane. I'd love to invent some type of anti-gravity and gyro device, because even 3lbs gets heavy after a while. I often carry around a light weight tripod on my travels and even that is tiring on long days of touring.

I just bought one of these Sony units used for under $300. They run about $750 new at B&H:

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-VCTSP1BP/



sony.jpg

The monopod is incredibly light. It will tilt but not pan - basically you pan by turning your body. There are adjustible straps on the left & right that clip at 3 different levels on the vest, and 4 levels on the monopod. It is very stable.

The counterweight is preset, with only an On or OFF, which is too bad. But otherwise it is a very nice, light, simple unit that is not too conspicous in cooler weather. (The vest would obviously look a little weird on the beach.)

Michael