GH2 Being Talent & Tech with the GH - Digital Film Making Finally Beats Chemical Film

I just watched your reel. Good stuff... it looks more Canon than Panny though? Were you a 7D / 5D convert who came to the Panny or did you just push and supersaturate your colors as a conscious choice?
 
Thanks! My entire reel is Af100 with some old dvx100 footage in there. I have never used a Canon before. Although I always shot with the "5D scene settings" on the af100 and since I do a lot of music videos I tend to push the colors pretty hard. I could never get the Af100 to look the way I wanted to (too soft or too "video" looking.) I am hoping the GH2 satisfies.. The footage I have seen from the hacks sure looks like it will.
 
I think the main difference between film and digital is in production. Before digital (and video taps) there was much more guess work involved in a take. There also involved a greater degree of intuition as well as technical skill (non-computer) from the cinematographer (light meters, etc.) because photo-chemical processes involve a degree of uncertainty. I believe this degree of uncertainty is a good thing because you're taking a risk -- and isn't art about taking risks? This also goes for acting while shooting film. You can afford many more takes with digital, so unless the take involves an expensive stunt, the actor is freed from the cost constraint pressures of multiple takes, but at what cost? Spontaneity? Maybe Blackout can comment on that? I'm not an actor...

Me? I shoot digital and have done so for years because it is a). Affordable b). Accessible c). I am self taught and couldn't afford to go to film school.
 
scorsesefan said:
I think the main difference between film and digital is in production. Before digital (and video taps) there was much more guess work involved in a take. There also involved a greater degree of intuition as well as technical skill (non-computer) from the cinematographer (light meters, etc.) because photo-chemical processes involve a degree of uncertainty. I believe this degree of uncertainty is a good thing because you're taking a risk -- and isn't art about taking risks? This also goes for acting while shooting film. You can afford many more takes with digital, so unless the take involves an expensive stunt, the actor is freed from the cost constraint pressures of multiple takes, but at what cost? Spontaneity? Maybe Blackout can comment on that? I'm not an actor...

Me? I shoot digital and have done so for years because it is a). Affordable b). Accessible c). I am self taught and couldn't afford to go to film school.
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As an actor, I have been in so many films that were shot on real film and then DV where I dedicated my time, many times for free, only to see the final work be a total piece of junk. The films went nowhere and I did many of them and got depressed and went back to plays. I had a stint on VH1 for bit and G4 but they were cheesy host things that don't show up on imdb. I look more like a damn boom op sound mixer on imdb which kind of annoys me. The only film I ever did as an actor where I think the director is very talented and capable and the film actually won some festivals was a mockumentary on film making called "FILM CONTEST?" and while I thought it had funny moments, I was unhappy with the final film. It was shot on a sony HDV and I hated the look of it and then it just kind of gets disjointed to me and could have been edited better in my opinion (he's gonna kill me if he reads this) but it was fun to do. I had a blast making it and loved the cast and crew, and got to do the festival thing as an actor and oddly the HDV master projection looked good and it was neat to see it on a big screen and talk to audiences after. It was his first feature length project. He finally did make it available for viewing when it didn't sell and for this crowd here you'll probably get some laughs out of it:


It's a very bad copy as I think it's from a DVD and not the HDV master and I don't think this version was color corrected or sound mixed correctly, but at least it has some funny moments. I play Milton Butterfly a spaced out new age film maker.. We had some real film makers mixed in with some planted ones (me) and it was my job to annoy everyone (especially the real people). The directer sensed I wasn't happy and we had a tiny falling out but I really do believe in his talent and hope to work with him again because I know he learned a lot and has advanced. He's got a twisted sense of humor like me. I had met him from a prior film festival where he had done a short called "ART'S POINT OF VIEW" that I was very impressed with and I introduced myself and auditioned later for it.

http://www.blackout.com/artspointofview


I long for the day that I can get in front of camera and have FULL trust in the director and crew, but I have not found that yet. I had all these ideas in my head and so I got into film making out of being a frustrated actor and then I was actually able to make more money with my gear than acting so I kinda let acting slide to the back for a while but now I'm feeling that itch again. Oddly most of the money I made was from first sound mixing then doing music videos with the GH1H and GH2 that most people have never seen but a few did actually get on to networks and go beyond youtube but I don't put them up. I distance myself from them.

I want to go the route of Billy Bob Thorton... writing, acting and directing. If there are any good talented GH2 people in NYC who want to help me on my pilot I would love to hear from you. Or if anyone is seriously going to make a film with the GH2 I would like to go back to acting for a while.

I got a bit burnt out on churning out rap videos.

As to the takes... I really don't care - I really get lost in acting and kind of channel things... sometimes i don't even remember till I see it played back. I like when a director lets me improv a bit and really make the lines my own. I'll do it 900 times if I have to but I am pretty good at nailing things quick. Acting feels very light to me now after directing and editing - which was exhilarating but exhausting because you are responsible for so much more. I think I need to find / team up with a really good DP here in NYC and get a small crew and we could storm sundance.
 
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Blackout said:
I got a bit burnt out on churning out rap videos.
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I got a bit burnt out watching 'rap videos'... to the point where I don't click on any of the clips put up here that have 'music video' mentioned...

What I can say is that most DSLR based filmmakers, and previously their 'prosumer' video based predecessors, is that 'lighting and set design' are the major failings relative to the 'cinematic look'.

I just did a little project for a group doing a 'parody' of a major production, at the exact same location. The lighting and set work are like night and day... ok, one can't fault a nolo budget for not having the ability to rent out a location, re-do much of the decor and then put it all back together again... but lighting... putting a light in the deep dark recesses... remembering that 'mirrors work'... etc... This is not the 'cool' wyrdness of a fancy 'music video'... but just simple light up things for balance on the screen...

It was very interesting to see the difference.
 
I was lucky in that I had a really good gaffer for a while and he had all the pro lighting gear but not much understanding shooting, editing, or story structure so he was working on a bunch of student productions for free and teamed up and I hacked his GH1, and got him on a few payed projects. He had come from a still background and was learning motion picture lighting but he was very talented so I got to work on just explaining the look I want and he'd do his magic. I remember the astounded look on his face when we first played back some of the hacked gh1 footage after I got it tweaked to where I wanted it and the 24p was working correctly. His jaw dropped. Unfortunately he was an older guy and had knee trouble and got out of being a gaffer.

There's a tendency to try and be a one man army with DSLRs and I have done it several times but it can burn you out. I know where my strengths are and I would much rather have a good gaffer. I have a very good eye for light and composition but I just have a basic lowel kit. I had a flood in my basement apt that was pretty bad a few months ago and it wiped out some of my stuff and I am recovering from that mess and regrouping. If I act, I can't be on the camera obviously so it's locked down shots until I find another good GH2 hack versed DP here in NYC which is a rarity now but once the Zacuto shoot comes out there's a good chance everyone's going to go running for the GH2. Buy some more now before they become out of stock.
 
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Loganm187 said:
They need to hear it and are aware.
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Yeah but what are they going to do with that? The AF-100 was a failure to me personally... when I can get better footage out of an $800 camera than the supposedly pro $5000 version that = fail to me. I mean I'll bet it was financially successful to them and they sold a bunch of units because of the supposed 'this is pro' marketing 'that is consumer' but the image is better out of the hacked GH2, it just is. You'd think they would have hired Tester13 at that point or learned from the hack. I know the divisions supposedly don't talk to each other but there is no way they can be that blind as to have their head in the sand. The AF-100 should have had something similar to the hack software built in and they could have called at avchd-h or whatever and let you go up to whatever bitrates and set things how you want. You can do less on the pro camera an you're spending 4200 more? No. Ok it has more buttons on it. That's about it. It looks more pro because of the body. That's why you have to deck out your GH2 and hide the toy look of the camera from the clients!
 
It certainly can, or close enough that an audience won't know or care. I have seen it. I will tell you about how it looks on a dual 4K projector.

35mm film doesn't = super awesome image by default... I have scene horrible grainy poor 35mm film of which the GH2 hacked looks superior.

I'm watching the Godfather right now on Blu-Ray and it's a grainy mess in many scenes lacking detail.
 
"I'm watching the Godfather right now on Blu-Ray and it's a grainy mess in many scenes lacking detail."

You mean The Godfather one of the tour de forces of cinematography, maybe one of the 15 or 20 most beautifully shot films ever....

We're ALMOST to the point where a top of the line digital cameras (Alexa, F65, etc...) CAN look ALMOST as good as 35mm film (in the hands of equally competent cinematographers). It's not about pixel peeping in the shadows, it's about the roll off of the highlights, the organic nature of grain (which can look beautiful as compared to noise which always looks like ****).

We're almost there. Probably one more generation of the top end cameras and they'll be comparable to film.
The advantage of digital is all in the workflow.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
"I'm watching the Godfather right now on Blu-Ray and it's a grainy mess in many scenes lacking detail."

You mean The Godfather one of the tour de forces of cinematography, maybe one of the 15 or 20 most beautifully shot films ever....

We're ALMOST to the point where a top of the line digital cameras (Alexa, F65, etc...) CAN look ALMOST as good as 35mm film (in the hands of equally competent cinematographers). It's not about pixel peeping in the shadows, it's about the roll off of the highlights, the organic nature of grain (which can look beautiful as compared to noise which always looks like s*%t).

We're almost there. Probably one more generation of the top end cameras and they'll be comparable to film.
The advantage of digital is all in the workflow.
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Oh... I see where you are going with this... Now, what if I told you what makes the right image in cinema is entirely dependent on the story (themes, style, etc) and with that said there are many stories where digital has surpassed s35mm film... and there are stories where 16mm will be the most fitting. Usually the situation with film is that it does to some degree have the picture already baked in(grain, color rendition) where digital can provide a much cleaner image, so if you know what features from the celluloid you want you can bring it over to the digital image in the post process or by filtration.
 
Like I said, digital is almost there (at the top end). Where the latitude it gives you allows you make it look like almost any flavor of... film. Add the workflow advantages of the DP not spending the night sweating bullets waiting for the lab report and the removal of the need to telecine, etc... and in the next decade or so it will fully take over (as older DPs retire).
 
I wasn't a fan of the af100 for a while after it came out, then some people started posting work with it dialed in properly, and I can say this, it looks everybit as good as the hacked gh2. Although that may have been due to the fact is was recorded from hd/sdi into an external recorder, something the gh2 cant do because it doesn't have hd/sdi, just crappy built hdmi. Plus the built in nd filters, built in xlr's, and yes a lot more buttons which save valuable time, and money when it counts. The gh2 menu system is laughable at best. I would gladly pay the extra for a bigger body with pro features, Again, time is money. And sometimes when I use the gh2, I feel like I'm going to break it, I have to baby it in a way thats comical. I'm not disagreeing that the gh2 makes pretty pics, I own one , and can tell you from experience, that it does. But there's no way I would take it over an af100 for shooting a feature, there's just no way.

Put it this way, if you cant make any of the above look beautiful, your in the wrong field. Go back to diggin ditches, cause there's no excuse, none what so ever.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
"I'm watching the Godfather right now on Blu-Ray and it's a grainy mess in many scenes lacking detail."

You mean The Godfather one of the tour de forces of cinematography, maybe one of the 15 or 20 most beautifully shot films ever....

We're ALMOST to the point where a top of the line digital cameras (Alexa, F65, etc...) CAN look ALMOST as good as 35mm film (in the hands of equally competent cinematographers). It's not about pixel peeping in the shadows, it's about the roll off of the highlights, the organic nature of grain (which can look beautiful as compared to noise which always looks like s*%t).

We're almost there. Probably one more generation of the top end cameras and they'll be comparable to film.
The advantage of digital is all in the workflow.
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I don't think we're almost there I think we're there. Will it get even better? Sure. It won't take a generation, as years of advancement seem to happen in days now and at this point it doesn't really matter. The film elite are NOT the audience and it is at the point where 95% of the audience wouldn't know or care what camera, be it digital or film - a good story with good actors with a very talented director, dp, and small crew can now do things for thousands that needed millions before.

Look at all the people going to these 3D rendered pixar like films? Where all the animation has the same kinda plasticy shiny look to it. I personally am bored the hell out of them, and they never even have any real light touch any lens of any sort - yet they are valid motion pictures people flock to and are making a killing of cash and no director has to worry about camera choice because they don't even use any camera, the use a virtual camera in a rendering program and render straight to digital and project digital.

I agree The Godfather is beautifully shot - I am not debating that. I should rephrase. Firstly, I don't want to get into a debate about what 'beautifully shot' means because that's so subjective... art is art and we all like many different things. My tastes are 24p with high detail and a film like look. My dislikes are the video look, interlace, 48 or 60p for narratives - but useful for live events - above all I hate 24p films played in the motion interpolators that bring them up to the framerate of 60p or higher - I really really dislike that look and think it ruins things in narrative story telling but I could see it having awesome use in virtual reality attractions.

So rather than appearing to be dissing the Godfather (I only really dislike III) and thereby invoking the wrath of the film gods, (which isn't my intention), let me get a little more specific and say the blu-ray transfer looks... well.... weird to me. I should clarify actually it was the Godfather II blu-ray I had on, and many of the wide shots were smushy and grainy and had some odd artifacts. Whatever restoration process they did made many scenes look not so good to me. Perhaps some sort of digital noise reduction fighting against the natural film grain? I'm not sure but now you've made me want to go and inspect it some more. I've noticed the same thing in the original trilogy of Star Wars blu-rays (if we can even call any of Star Wars the Original Star Wars it's been so tampered with) but I am not talking of the prequils - mention them not. Many of the shots look very weird if studied closely... it looks like they did a lot of grain cleanup work but there is some strange artifacting that results from it the almost looks like photoshop smudging on certain frames or odd detail aliasing. I'm especially sensitive to artifacting and see it where others don't a lot. It's hard for me to watch HD cable without getting itchy from the amount of artifacting on pans. The blu-ray of the Godfather II urked me some how. Now I'm sure if I were in an actual 35mm movie theater with a nice newly restored print, projected on a new 35mm projector, it would feel entirely different.... but that's getting harder to find.

Kinda of going off topic as this may be a encoding/decoding blu-ray issue more than a digital cinema looks as good and sometimes better than film cinema.

Basically my whole point of this article is YOU CAN EAT cake. NOW!

Of the capable cameras, shot something GOOD, it appears to me no one is going to care. I can't wait to see the results of the zacuto shootout to see who thought what was what and see how many people were mixed up. I think it will prove the point. Elite will argue, and the little guys who are serious about it will rejoice and get to making movies that actually look like movies (as they have already been doing).

Unless you are working within the studio system and they want a certain camera because so and so wants it and won't give you money unless you get so and so DP and this is what he wants and blah de blah that's more politics of big budget films than talking about if digital cinema can hold up. It can. It does. It will only get better. I'm a Robert Rodriguez and Silent Bob fan. Not a fan boy.. I don't like all of their work and a few thinks I really don't like - but I admire their character and all who embrace that independent spirit that just goes and does and follows their passion when everyone else says NO WAY.

YES Way! And MOST Excellent! (Bill & Ted)

I still hope the true last imax massive chemical negative films don't go away (I really love those things - the Simpsons is blurry and inferior to Back to the Future cause they used crappy projectors but It can be updated as time goes on which sadly, the old film negative couldn't. I expect you will only find them in a few museums soon and that the TRUE imax experience will be replicated with digital in under a year. GO on the Amazing Spider Man ride in orlando or the Transformers ride in Universal Hollywood. They replaced the 70mm dual 3D projectors with digital and it DOES look better. I went in a skeptic, I came out convinced. Terminator II 3D is going to go bye bye too so see it while you can.
 
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Blackout do specific research and you will discover HD TV was produced as a prototype as far back as in 1944 as in 1000 lines chromatic resolution by John Logie Baird. The War squashed Logie's proposal as the country was getting bankrupt real fast. How foolish and sad are we to be nattering on about 1080 resolution several decades later.

These electronic cabals conspire with one another to produce products with JND "just noticeable difference" to make the marketingly educated cattle buy the drones they produce. Its no wonder people fall over themselves to buy a camera with an extra button, function or model number change. Webers Law or Constant is the mode in which these faceless monsters operate. 99% of people in the world have no clue what anybody here is talking about and don't care. Is quality more important than content? if not what is the balance? I used to install Plasma and LCD in peoples homes, do you have any idea how awful an SD analog pictures looks on a 50inch panel? These customers were over the moon! I would bite my lip and smile.

The story called 28 Days Later was recorded Mini DV cams, not even the full monkey at 500 lines of resolution from the Canons XL-1's. Yet 28 Days Later is a genuine stand out movie in its genre. I enjoy watching 28 Days later more than its high budget Hollywood squeal, similarly with Romero squeals that have no depth of story or subtext to speak of. We don't need the latest Flagship technology to make a piece of art or a great story. Its not about the latest hack, brightest lens with mega bokeh, its about capturing people's souls with a story, that should be our internal focus when making a moving story.
 
I agree. 28 days later did look smushy though.

Amazing content over tech of course matters more,
but it's hard to get something shot on VHS in a professional door.

I have learned.. use what you have now.... and do the best you can with it. Otherwise you'll be waiting forever.
I toyed and waited a long time. I thought I had reasons and a lot of excuses. I don't anymore and now know the only thing in the way of me is me. (pushes self out of the way)
 
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