GH1's capable of feature films yet?
- Thread starter Azmyth
- Start date
Homunculus
Carbonite Member
just curious what is it that didn't impress you about it? And how much is the HD Betacam you speak of? Red is 17,500$ for the body
I think it is called opinion. Getting back to facts, I have no idea what you mean by "HD Betacam". Maybe you mean HDCAM?
Blackout
Veteran
I completely disagree with you Koli as regards to the images being more important. The acting and the sound are more important than beautiful composition - and beautiful composition and images ONLY work if the other two are in place. We are not in the era of silent films for a looooong time now and even when we were, they had to have title cards.
If you have good actors and very clear sound, you can close your eyes and still have a clue as to what is happening in the movie. If the sound gets cut off, you can't tell what is happening unless your movie is specifically designed to tell the whole tale without words, which ummm I haven't seen any features do that in the past 50 years, and if it does, it's an art piece in imax or a museum.
I am not saying that image is not important, everything is important - but the sound is the foundation... sound will always color the impression audiences get MORE than picture. This has been proven. For instance, open up a scene of an ordinary house, exterior, day. Play some creepy dark music and you have just done more than all the set designers in the world could do to create the dark mood. Now do the opposite. Take a house and have your art team make it 'creepy house', day, or night, exterior, and play comedic music while you show it - the music will overpower the image in the mind of the viewer EVERY time and the most evil looking set design will still come off funny if the music is light and funny. So don't give me 'sound is not important this is called MOVING pictures' baloney.. you are wrong.
Audiences will WALK out of a theater if they can't hear the actors or if the speakers blow. Audiences will sit and deal with a blurry image filmed on VHS or DV if it is compelling enough and they can HEAR. Case in point - Blair Which and Paranormal Activity. Both had horrible images, but the sound was good, both made huge $$$ even though in truth, they kinda sucked. The images DEFINITELY sucked.
Let's look at Baz Lurhman's AUSTRALIA.
Some of the most gorgeous DP and camera work I have ever seen, but what a complete turd of a movie. Awful awful dreadful acting and story. Beautiful images couldn't save it. And that had good sound too.
Take Woody Allen films - almost all of them have one big master shot and the acting, story, and sound carry the shot, not the shot composition, not incredible beautiful images. There is nothing special, it's just a wide master shot and he gets everyone to hit it and moves on. He barely even shoots any coverage. The movies are wildly successful. Artsy fartsy DPs hate 'romatic comedies' cause they don't get to be artsy fartsy. Just look at the latest film up on the zacuto sight right now. It's old school DPs saying how much they hate romantic comedies because the focus is on the actor hitting a brilliant improv moment, not on the lighting.
Let me not act as if I am trying to diminish the DP's role. I am not. Everyone is important. But I notice time and time again people get caught up in the visuals and skimp on the hiring of a proper sound engineer and post sound sweetener / mixer, and composer, and I find these things MUST be in place in order for the DPs work to be of any value. Good actors and story goes without saying - but tech wise, people forget and skip or skimp on sound. It's a huge mistake. Build a very beautiful pretty mansion on top of a shoddy foundation, and it crumbles to the ground.
Look at the current state of youtube. They went from the worst looking trash to fairly imcrdible image capability in less than a years time. Now almost anyone can buy a very good HD camera for $1000 - $2000 and get an image that required a digi betacam 10 years ago that cost $50,000 and wasn't even HD. But what is the universal flaw in almost all youtube videos? BAD AUDIO. Look at all of this well lit, nicely shot sketches and shorts that have bad echo audio used from the cameras mic. It ruins it.
Beautiful images shot on expensive lenses with gorgeous composition and depth of field go down the toilet when the sound is off the camera or some random person who was given a $300 mic on a boom and told to hold it up because people think that a boom mic is a magic stick that records Hollywood style audio....... and I see that happen ALL THE TIME. Bad sound RUINS good images. Poor images, if at least cut right, can pass with very good sound.
If you have good actors and very clear sound, you can close your eyes and still have a clue as to what is happening in the movie. If the sound gets cut off, you can't tell what is happening unless your movie is specifically designed to tell the whole tale without words, which ummm I haven't seen any features do that in the past 50 years, and if it does, it's an art piece in imax or a museum.
I am not saying that image is not important, everything is important - but the sound is the foundation... sound will always color the impression audiences get MORE than picture. This has been proven. For instance, open up a scene of an ordinary house, exterior, day. Play some creepy dark music and you have just done more than all the set designers in the world could do to create the dark mood. Now do the opposite. Take a house and have your art team make it 'creepy house', day, or night, exterior, and play comedic music while you show it - the music will overpower the image in the mind of the viewer EVERY time and the most evil looking set design will still come off funny if the music is light and funny. So don't give me 'sound is not important this is called MOVING pictures' baloney.. you are wrong.
Audiences will WALK out of a theater if they can't hear the actors or if the speakers blow. Audiences will sit and deal with a blurry image filmed on VHS or DV if it is compelling enough and they can HEAR. Case in point - Blair Which and Paranormal Activity. Both had horrible images, but the sound was good, both made huge $$$ even though in truth, they kinda sucked. The images DEFINITELY sucked.
Let's look at Baz Lurhman's AUSTRALIA.
Some of the most gorgeous DP and camera work I have ever seen, but what a complete turd of a movie. Awful awful dreadful acting and story. Beautiful images couldn't save it. And that had good sound too.
Take Woody Allen films - almost all of them have one big master shot and the acting, story, and sound carry the shot, not the shot composition, not incredible beautiful images. There is nothing special, it's just a wide master shot and he gets everyone to hit it and moves on. He barely even shoots any coverage. The movies are wildly successful. Artsy fartsy DPs hate 'romatic comedies' cause they don't get to be artsy fartsy. Just look at the latest film up on the zacuto sight right now. It's old school DPs saying how much they hate romantic comedies because the focus is on the actor hitting a brilliant improv moment, not on the lighting.
Let me not act as if I am trying to diminish the DP's role. I am not. Everyone is important. But I notice time and time again people get caught up in the visuals and skimp on the hiring of a proper sound engineer and post sound sweetener / mixer, and composer, and I find these things MUST be in place in order for the DPs work to be of any value. Good actors and story goes without saying - but tech wise, people forget and skip or skimp on sound. It's a huge mistake. Build a very beautiful pretty mansion on top of a shoddy foundation, and it crumbles to the ground.
Look at the current state of youtube. They went from the worst looking trash to fairly imcrdible image capability in less than a years time. Now almost anyone can buy a very good HD camera for $1000 - $2000 and get an image that required a digi betacam 10 years ago that cost $50,000 and wasn't even HD. But what is the universal flaw in almost all youtube videos? BAD AUDIO. Look at all of this well lit, nicely shot sketches and shorts that have bad echo audio used from the cameras mic. It ruins it.
Beautiful images shot on expensive lenses with gorgeous composition and depth of field go down the toilet when the sound is off the camera or some random person who was given a $300 mic on a boom and told to hold it up because people think that a boom mic is a magic stick that records Hollywood style audio....... and I see that happen ALL THE TIME. Bad sound RUINS good images. Poor images, if at least cut right, can pass with very good sound.
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Azmyth
Veteran
For the sake of the thread. I'm extremely anal about audio, and its one of my biggest pet peeves about low budget movies. It completely ruins it for me if the sound is blown out or the levels are all over the place. I'm a musician so audio is extremely important to me. I intend to spend a ton of time in post on sound design and my audio will be good. We've already reshot some footage because the audio was bad. I don't like doing ADR either.
So with that out of the way, thats why I am focusing on the camera.
So the current plan is to rent a RED ONE if we get this investor in the mix. If I have to fund it again myself then I'll be buying a GH1 (or similar) some lenses, and using my HV40 as a B cam. I mean, I could easily use my HV40 again, but I just like moving up. Its like upgrading my PC.. I don't need to do it, but If I do it will make everything I do on it alot better.
So with that out of the way, thats why I am focusing on the camera.
So the current plan is to rent a RED ONE if we get this investor in the mix. If I have to fund it again myself then I'll be buying a GH1 (or similar) some lenses, and using my HV40 as a B cam. I mean, I could easily use my HV40 again, but I just like moving up. Its like upgrading my PC.. I don't need to do it, but If I do it will make everything I do on it alot better.
Well, I think there are a lot of areas that can make/break a movie. Some have more latitude for error than others but not that much. I think the point is that the GH1 can be *good enough* for the video part. Is it the best option? Probably not, but it gets the job done and is pretty cheap.
As was pointed out in the other thread about GH1 vs. RED one, The RED still suffers some of the same problems as the GH1, namely the skew/rolling shutter. Those are bigger detractors for me than the AVCHD codec in the GH1. So now why would I rent a camera with the same issues I dislike in the GH1 when I think the picture in the (hacked) GH1 is *good enough* for a low budget production?
Besides, my productions could never foot the bill to rent anything. I can barely pay for lunch for the talent!
Anyway I'd like to bring up something that started earlier, the use of the XL1 on the production of 28 Days Later. The film had a budget of 3 million $. They used XL1s. What did they spend that money on? Good talent, good sets, good effects, good lighting and good sound. The grainy picture adds to the movie IMHO but it doesn't really detract all that much. Why? Because everything else is up to snuff, including the story.
As was pointed out in the other thread about GH1 vs. RED one, The RED still suffers some of the same problems as the GH1, namely the skew/rolling shutter. Those are bigger detractors for me than the AVCHD codec in the GH1. So now why would I rent a camera with the same issues I dislike in the GH1 when I think the picture in the (hacked) GH1 is *good enough* for a low budget production?
Besides, my productions could never foot the bill to rent anything. I can barely pay for lunch for the talent!
Anyway I'd like to bring up something that started earlier, the use of the XL1 on the production of 28 Days Later. The film had a budget of 3 million $. They used XL1s. What did they spend that money on? Good talent, good sets, good effects, good lighting and good sound. The grainy picture adds to the movie IMHO but it doesn't really detract all that much. Why? Because everything else is up to snuff, including the story.
Azmyth
Veteran
The funny thing is, when I saw 28 days later. I never knew it was shot on a prosumer camera til I actually started to get into film making. I thought it was a big budget movie just like any other I'd ever seen. I've seen stuff done from everyone of the DSLR's that is comparable to much higher end cameras. The thing here is that no matter what route I choose to go, there will be things to work around. There is no perfect solution.
Bologna*
And, I didn't say SOUND IS NOT IMPORTANT. Read what I said, make sure you're responding to what I said, not something you fashioned in your head. YOU said Sound is more important than the image, I'm saying that's silly.
You're making a case out of what...? Movies that were designed to be horrible looking?
Not gonna entertain the remainder of your post beyond the fact that a rather basic lesson in mastering the language of cinema (which is not considered SOUND) is learning how to tell a story without audio.
There ARE filmmakers that still practice silent film, where silent means a score, perhaps, but no foley, dialog, etc.
Seriously....
stoneinapond
Veteran
This is a serious question.
Is the above a general statement, or are there resources that teach the specifics?
(Other than what might be taught in film school during the general curriculum.)
I ran across a few cinematography and "filmmaking" books in Barnes and Nobles back when I began to self-educate. Don't remember what they were (I lost all of my books in my Los Angeles move, as well). I didn't go to film school, but I'm not surprised that it's part of the curriculum.
Oh, and if you think you can't tell what's going on in a MODERN Motion Picture/Film without audio, go watch the new SHERLOCK HOLMES on mute.
thisisapocalypse
Well-known member
Things that bother me most in a film? 1. Bad Script, 2. Bad Sound, 3. Bad Talent, 4. Bad Picture and the first three bother me way more than a bad picture. It's important to get all of them right, but if 1-3 aren't there it doesn't matter how good it looks on screen. If there's no sound at all or the story was intended to be told without sound, that's fine, I'd still call that "good sound."
stoneinapond
Veteran
Sorry to ask the question again, but perhaps I phrased the earlier question incorrectly.
Is there a separate discipline that focuses on telling a story without sound, (like a distinct sub genre that one can practice), as opposed to what is generally considered to be good film making techniques?
Azmyth
Veteran
lol I thought I cleared up the sound issues. I'm very well aware of SOUND, LIGHTING, SET DESIGN, ACTING and SCRIPT. This thread is only about cameras. I know we get people here every day who are completely new to this and think that a magical camera will save them from all their woes, and that they don't need to worry about anything else. I'm not one of those people, Ive already covered everything else, and learned alot about it from actually making a feature.. This topic is based on having everything else on point, and only choosing a camera. I doubt I will have the budget to rent a RED, so looking for the next best option.
It's just Silent Film. I've run across a few filmmakers here in LA that have gone back to silent projects to strengthen their skill as a director, including one writer who wanted to write a short without dialog to learn how to make every action count.
But, if you're talking about something like "dogma" filmmaking, I don't think there's any sort of discipline.
Agreed. It was definitely a camera topic and it's pretty obvious that you're not misconstrued on what matters.
GH-13 would be my next choice
stoneinapond
Veteran
Well if the previous 7 pages didn't manage to answer your question, I don't know what will.
My apologies for turning the subject away from your original question. (Didn't start your perceived hijack) but I thought there was some value in the discussion for other people here.
As you were....
I used to date this girl in the Drama department all through college. I was privy to all of the inside details and pretty much forced to be a sounding board for dialog practices and stuff.
One of the lessons/classes was that of acting without dialog. You were given stories that you had to act out without use of dialog as a crutch. Most of the students had a fairly hard time in that class as much as I could tell.
Anyway, IMHO, modern cinema has turned to either excessive dialog or excessive action to tell stories. Maybe I'm somewhat disillusioned or something but it seems that most movies pander to and audience that doesn't want to think. Even the crazy plot twists these days are explained for you. Nothing is left to imagine anymore.
One of the lessons/classes was that of acting without dialog. You were given stories that you had to act out without use of dialog as a crutch. Most of the students had a fairly hard time in that class as much as I could tell.
Anyway, IMHO, modern cinema has turned to either excessive dialog or excessive action to tell stories. Maybe I'm somewhat disillusioned or something but it seems that most movies pander to and audience that doesn't want to think. Even the crazy plot twists these days are explained for you. Nothing is left to imagine anymore.
Others touched on IQ aspects, but from ergonomics perspective one thing to be aware of with GH13 is absence of live monitoring (either SD or HDMI), which precludes its use in such shooting scenarios where two people need to monitor video output live. This is one of the areas where GH13 falls behinds its "cineDSLR brethren". It is my opinion that from ergonomics perspective the time spent on physically handling the equipment in question is very much worth it, especially when such is not a very complicated to arrangement to make (as is the case with most cineDSLRs).