Camera Heads

[pookie_old]

Re: Camera Heads

If nothing else, this whole monsterous thread shows there's more than one way to do things.

And hopefully, people reading along might pick up some tips, or ideas they didn't know before.

Isn't that the point, after all.





btw John, wouldn't a pro/con list just start up a whole new mess, along the same lines "no that's not a con, oh yes it is, oh no it's not", haven't we all suffered enough?

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Re: Camera Heads

Sure. Hopefully that is always the goal. Mine currently being a LIST of PROS and CONS.

Damn it.

 

[pookie_old]

Re: Camera Heads

I think you're wrong John, damn it......back in the old days we didn't need........................





LOL

 

[Barry_Green]

Re: Camera Heads

[quote author=pookie link=board=Offtopic;num=1104273877;start=60#61 date=12/29/04 at 15:18:56]By actually reviewing, and logging, you see things that are very, very easily overlooked with the time code method....shots tossed because you "think" you know everything in that shot.[/quote]
Oh, there's certainly merit to that school of thought.  Knowing what you shot is vital.  But... well, I guess it depends on what you're shooting.  For a TV commercial, where you have a grand total of 35 minutes of tape, it's not such a big deal.  But the first feature-length video we did, we ended up shooting 16 tapes, and (being new) we insisted on reviewing it all, double-checking, triple-checking, making sure we got the "best" take... and in the end, the whole project was so horrible (as nearly all first-time films are!) that I just look back on the process and shake my head -- we obsessed over every take, looking for this little nuance or that little inflection, but in the overall product just stunk, so why did we bother?

So, over the years, we've decided to trust our on-set and on-monitor eyes more.  We'll make sure that we get at *least* two quality takes that we think are "brilliant" (at the time, live on set), and decide among them in the editing process.  And many times when in editing we'll think "there's something missing, etc" and THEN we'll go back and review the tapes.  Or, there may be some continuity error or something else that we "missed" in our evaluation of it live, but in post it becomes obvious, rendering the take less than ideal -- so then we go look for another.

For commercials we might shoot 20 or 30 takes, and it's just brain-numbing to review it all, over and over, so we rely more on our impressions at the time and the rating we give the take at the time. We know what we're looking for, and usually we get it. But, of course, that comes from experience.

I see the need for people to learn the craft, not just use whatever "tricks" the newest software/hardware can do.

Oh, absolutely -- AB SO LUTELY!  That's why whenever people say "just shoot, tape is cheap" I have to suppress the urge to throttle 'em.  Tape is cheap, yes: but locations and time and overtime and patience and everything else are not.  I cut my teeth on Super 8, where we'd practice and then we'd shoot it once and we'd know we had to live with it, no matter what we got, so we MADE SURE we got what we wanted.  There were no re-takes.  An entire roll of film would go by in two and a half minutes!  My first 35mm camera was an Eyemo, which takes 100' loads, which means you get 66 seconds total out of a full roll of film.  Most cinematographers nowadays would throw away a 100' "short end", but to us that was a FULL LOAD.  And we'd get three or four takes on a roll!  You had to be precise, know exactly what you wanted, and THINK IT ALL THROUGH before you pulled the trigger.  At $50 per minute of footage, you didn't waste it.

And I think that is the element of the craft that video shooters never have to learn.  Some may learn it, but it's never forced upon them, and as such I think we'll see a different style coming from this crop.  But I think they're doing themselves a disservice by not learning that level of discipline.

There's a major problem these days, kids who can't do simple math without a calculator, or a cashier in a store who needs to look at the till in order to give change on a dollar, for a thirty nine cent purchase.

You ain't kidding.  Movies have been being made for over 100 years now, and the techniques that have been developed are time-tested and proven, and to just abandon them, or to not bother to learn about them, is folly.

Techniques do change, and we need to be able to adapt our workflow (the introduction of CGI sure put a damper on stop-motion animation artists!)  And sometimes the new way of doing things is actually better.  Editing on computer is different, and usually better, than editing by cutting and splicing negatives.  But sometimes newer sure isn't better -- just watched SW:ANH on DVD, and I've got to say, the old techniques of using physical models and flying the camera around them beats the living daylights out of today's CG spaceships!

 

[TC]

Re: Camera Heads

[quote author=Barry_Green link=board=Offtopic;num=1104273877;start=75#83 date=12/29/04 at 18:49:24]That's why whenever people say "just shoot, tape is cheap" I have to suppress the urge to throttle 'em.  Tape is cheap, yes: but locations and time and overtime and patience and everything else are not.[/quote]
I couldn't agree more with that statement.