C100: C100 Narrative Filmaking

R

rjbrown7

Member
From all accounts the C100 is a great camera for documentary style film making, nearly every review mentions how great this camera is for Run and Gun. I have found a few vimeo/you tube shorts were it is being used in narrative film making and was wondering what the consensus is on this camera for that purpose. Would any of you recommend the C100 for a narrative feature that had hopes of being projected on a large screen. Budget being suited for a camera in the general price range of the C100, irregardless of renting or buying.

Roy
 
Should be outstanding! I have used HPX170s for my narrative work. C100 would do most of what the HPX would do with a much better visual quality. Provided my currect project sells as expected would be 99% sure of getting a C100 (which is why I watch these threads)
 
I'm itching to shoot a low budget feature with my C300. I shoot mainly doc these days but lately have been shooting dramatizations(RECON) for many of the shows and have found both the C100 & C300 have made some incredible images that match the Alexa and Red. On the large screen the images of these cameras with EF lenses, in my opinion, look remarably good. Doing focus on a drama is the big issue for me. On Doc and RECON i do my own focusing or my AC does it on the fly - with no follow focus. Some people say, to shoot drama with the C300 you need to use PL mount lenses and a solid follow focus. I'd like to try a feature with EF lenses, to keep the camera light and mobile, and maybe add a light weight wireless follow focus unit so my AC can focus of a small HD monitor. My mantra for shooting a feature with these cameras is not to try and mimic a big buget feature but instead take best elements of doc shooting (where the C100/300 excel) and make them work for drama.
 
I just received my 2nd C100 & I highly recommend it. With DSLRs the images on the LCD looks great until you load it onto a computer and view them fullscreen with great disappointment. The C100 blows me away every time I view my footage at fullscreen. All that negative talk about the camera not having 50P, weird screen placement & useless viewfinder all falls away once you start shooting with one. The compressed codec holds up great.
 
Nicholas DK said:
I just received my 2nd C100 & I highly recommend it. With DSLRs the images on the LCD looks great until you load it onto a computer and view them fullscreen with great disappointment. The C100 blows me away every time I view my footage at fullscreen. All that negative talk about the camera not having 50P, weird screen placement & useless viewfinder all falls away once you start shooting with one. The compressed codec holds up great.
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Anxious for my company to give me the OK to purchase. Right now I am using a 60D with so-so lenses and feeling like we need to upgrade. I personally would like to explore some narrative projects, but of course that's not a good reason for my company to shell out $6,000.00 for a camera body.

Roy
 
Roy I come from the 60D myself, I still have three of them. The C100 is very expensive & as you can imagine I'm completely broke after buying two - it's worth the money in my opinion. Did I really need a new C100? Probably not I was getting on fine with my 60D I just got super annoyed with constantly struggling with focus, time limits, audio, low light & acceptable image quality. C100 is a self-contained unit that does everything. I'm inspired to film stories lately, the quality & ease of use the C100 offers is inspiring. I do miss my tiny 60D simply for it compact size, the C100 is something to get use to size wise, I finally understand why I would want a follow focus. If you don't have the funds for a C100 don't stress it out, the 60D is still a wonderful camera but you won't regret buying a C100.
 
Nicholas DK said:
Roy I come from the 60D myself, I still have three of them. The C100 is very expensive & as you can imagine I'm completely broke after buying two - it's worth the money in my opinion. Did I really need a new C100? Probably not I was getting on fine with my 60D I just got super annoyed with constantly struggling with focus, time limits, audio, low light & acceptable image quality. C100 is a self-contained unit that does everything. I'm inspired to film stories lately, the quality & ease of use the C100 offers is inspiring. I do miss my tiny 60D simply for it compact size, the C100 is something to get use to size wise, I finally understand why I would want a follow focus. If you don't have the funds for a C100 don't stress it out, the 60D is still a wonderful camera but you won't regret buying a C100.
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Thanks very much for the insight and encouragement. Yes the 60D has served me well also, and I feel a bit of shame that I am so ready to move on. Of course cameras don't have feelings, or do they! Best of luck in your endeavors.
 
Depends....

Image quality is fine... using it side-by-side with the Alexa and Epic the big difference is the Epic has more resolution (irrelevant at 1080p delivery) and the Alexa has two stops better highlight retention than either. C100 wins for low light! Shifty saturated knee, but the Epic has magenta highlights and every other video camera other than the Alexa has an ugly knee, too. C100 has cleanest gain GREAT for low light. Nice colors, too, but tonality not quite as nice and Canon log is kind of bogus in order to maintain tonality in 8 bit. Not the most fun curve to work with in post, but not awful. Assuming a competent shooter and competent post, it's close enough to be irrelevant as regards differences in image quality against the high end, really very impressive for the money! Meter, though, and use waveofrms; Canon Log is tricky! I would say for 1080p delivery it's on par with the Scarlet and Epic, Alexa still wins, though, for that, and Epic is the resolution king for 2.35:1 spherical 4k delivery.

Form factor wise you can build it up to a studio-style camera or embrace its dSLR/documentary/video style. It feels a lot more like a video camera than most cinema cameras do. A LOT more. I like this about it. Very easy to use relative to other cameras. Amazing battery life. Great dSLR-style ergonomics that fall apart once you put a big lens on it.

For 2k DCP I'd recommend getting an external recorder and pillarboxing. Posting with C100 on an Alexa show now and you do lose a little resolution on the upscale and AVCHD does not survive well macroblocking becomes evident without some tricks in post, ESPECIALLY with low light and night exteriors. Shadow detail and high frequency areas suffer first.

That said it is not a "professional" "a cam" for narrative or high end corporate. No jam sync and no HDSDI, both professional standards and necessary. Codec is too low bitrate for delivery to most networks as an a cam. Image quality is great, but this is not a narrative a cam. Poor LCD/finder, too. C300 is an a cam, not C100! You might be mucking up your workflow and high end corporate in particular relies on HDSDI for monitoring in my experience... the camera will get laughed off a high end corporate shoot or as an a cam for narrative, stick to your EX3 or AF100 for that irrespective of image quality... (Or use pluraleyes and an HDMI recorder and don't tell anyone if image quality is more important to you than workflow, but you are shooting your editor in the foot a bit and HDMI is such a pain on set imo!)

Inaccurate color rendering fwiw but great skin tones and a punchy pretty image overall. Image qualities is insanely better than any dSLR.
 
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I would agree with everything being said here. The only thing to add is that IMO, when you buy a C100, what you are really paying for is form factor and ease of use, which is obviously something more desirable in a doc setting than anywhere else. If you need a camera for studio cinema work, or any other cinema work where you have a controlled environment, you may want to consider other options that are more fully featured for similar price points, such as a used Sony F3. I bought a C100 for doc work, and having just got back from my first project in the Middle East, I can safely say there is no other camera I would have preferred for the job, not even a C300! I needed something small with batteries and media that would last all day, and the C100 was just that. If I was doing narrative filmmaking, I would probably go for the Sony F3 or Black Magic 4K cam.

Though to answer your question...Yes, the C100 would make a fantastic camera for narrative work. The image is fantastic.
 
You can use any camera for narrative filmmaking since what is really important is story. Three years ago I shot "Absentia" on the Canon 5D2. We were picked up by Phase 4 Films for North American distribution a little over 2 years ago and then finally released on DVD on March of 2012. Since then we have sold over 100,000 DVDs in North America, won several festivals, named on many best of lists, screened many times on Showtime, and been the most viewed thing on Netflix for nearly a week during it's premiere on there in July 2012. I had no experience shooting a narrative piece and I was coming from a stills background. "Absentia" was made by a group a friends who got together to make a feature with the $70,000 they raised ($25,000 from Kickstarter) and I was the one with the camera. We shot with what we had, if we were making the film today we would be shooting with the C100 since that is what I have now.
 
rustincerveny said:
You can use any camera for narrative filmmaking since what is really important is story.
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Yes I agree, but somehow story or lack of doesn't stop hundreds of films from being made and released every year. Congrats on your film, I think that breaking through to that level of success really says something for the team who put it all together. I am not a huge fan of the horror genre, but will certainly have to sit down and watch it. My 14 year old loves this kind of stuff (go figure!) I see its rated R so maybe I will watch it first. Thanks for your insight.

Roy
 
I think for "true" indies, where the cost of camera and other "hardware" makes up the main portion of the budget, the C100 is gold. Yeah you could try ML and RAW on older Canon DSLRs or the MIII, but I probably wouldn´t want to fiddle around with this on projects other than a music video for a friend's band.
The C300 is good enough for some budget:
This is the C100:
This was shot with a GH2:
Choose your poison.
There is still Blackmagicdesign with its cinema cameras. The thing about the C100 is, its a damn nice camera to just earn money with when not shooting indies ;)
 
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Bart - shot with the C100 with i believe a canon sponsored film crew, looks very good. The behind the scenes really shows a lot of available light shooting and indy style setups. Very filmic in my opinion. Would love to see "Bart" and the Cannes Film on the big screen, but alas Davenport Iowa is not the hotbed of indie theaters.

I like the idea of the BlackMagic Camera but as Spartacus and others keep saying - the C100 will fit so many more roles and get the job done.

Has anybody seen a film from either the C300 or the C100 projected professionally on a large screen?

Roy
 
Thanks! We did have a great team! Mike Flanagan, the writer/director of "Absentia" was able to get one of his other projects made due to "Absentia" success. In October of 2012 I spent a month in Alabama filming the BTS/EPK for his next feature "Oculus" which was filmed on the ALEXA and cost mid seven figures. "Oculus" is going to be released to theaters in the near future by Film District. I shot the BTS/EPK with my 5D3. Really happy to have a C100 for my work now. "Absentia" received an R rating due to some language, scary elements, drug use. There is no sex and very little blood/gore.
 
I have just completed DPing a 2 day shoot with my C100 and Ninja 2 (set at ProRes HQ) on a short film, and can say from what I've seen of the unedited footage it is ideal being very sharp and filmic, and C-Log was incredible. 90% of the cinematography was a mixture of handheld using just the Ninja 2, or shoulder rig setup, with Ninja 2, Zacuto EVF and follow focus etc and it was very easy to work with. I also had the handle attached to provide scratch sound. The lenses used were a mixture of 35mm and 85mm Samyang/Rokinon primes and a Tamron 17-55 F2.8 for wide shots. The camera is incredibly versatile, and can be striped down to the basics or built up with rails and external monitors/recorders, etc.

I hope to post some screen grabs soon if permission is granted.
 
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