GH1's capable of feature films yet?

Kholi said:
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.
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Okay, I know we're spinning wheels on the sound vs. picture argument, but as a guy who's produced a training DVD to hopefully help filmmakers improve the quality of the sound they record, knowing how important sound is...

Let me just say a couple of things:
1) If you think sound is overwhelmingly important, you may be in the wrong industry. We have an industry that deals with only sound, it's called "radio". To dismiss the importance of the pictures is ... well, it's not a sustainable notion.

2) Sound and Pictures can each exist entirely independent of each other. The radio does just fine with music, and photographers do fine with images that have no sound accompaniment. But a motion picture is always a merging of the two. Even in "silent films" there is always a soundtrack.

3) Bad sound kills the experience. Over and done.

4) Here's a point I really want to get at, and it supports Kholi's position -- you should be able to tell a story without dialogue. That's an exercise that any filmmaker should be able to complete, and successfully telling a story without dialogue will make you a better filmmaker. Dialogue should be the icing on the cake, not the crutch of the storytelling.

Which leads me to

5) If you want to do the #1 thing for SLASHING your budget, SLASHING your schedule, ELIMINATING waste and squandered time and retakes, and make your filmmaking as EFFICIENT, INEXPENSIVE, and FUN as possible: GET RID OF THE DIALOGUE. Nothing slows down or ruins the flow of filming, like sound. If you get rid of the dialogue, look what else you can expunge from your production day: any worries about noise from airplanes, trucks, trains, dogs barking, air conditioners going off, echo, lawn mowers, lav mics rustling, neighbors, stereos, crew members who don't understand that they have to SHUT UP during a take, blown takes due to missed lines, managing batteries in your lavs, boom shadows, paying and feeding boom ops and sound mixers, sync'ing audio takes, and on and on and on and on.

Seriously, nothing makes a production fly like getting rid of sound. The more you can minimize the need for dialogue, the faster, cheaper, and smoother your production will run. The day just flows when the actors and crew aren't constantly interrupted by outside interruptions. They can get into a groove and just do it right and finish it, rather than restarting, trying again, re-setting, "back to one", and on and on.

I used to do a lot of ads on 35mm film, and I'd structure them to be as silent or dialogue-free as possible. Voiceover wherever I needed it, and maybe a line or two in the actual spot that would be dubbed over. I'd get through an entire 35mm film spot with multiple shots and angles, in three or four hours.

Nothing kills an indie production like bad sound. And nothing kills the flow of your workday like having to record sound. It's not always practical to shoot a scene MOS, but whenever you can structure it that way, you'll reap massive benefits.
 
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I will definitely agree that bad sound kills a product swiftly. No doubt about it. Getting the best audio should be a no brainer for sure.
 
Clean audio is very important on a movie set, especially in this case.

Randy

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I AGREE
 
My production team, crew and actors are having a lot of fun and our film is very dialogue driven. These broad statements don't apply to all productions, you must to what's right for the story you are telling. Although I will admit that not having to worry about noise while recording would be very nice.
 
It seems to be getting more and more difficult to get clean outside audio these days. Audio pollution is very much on the rise.

:angry:
 
I'll agree 100% on that-for my shoot last weekend I was floored by the noise pollution in Los Angeles-everything from cars, jackhammers, horn, sirens, a nonstop cavalcade of hum from which I can't determine the orgin-the general flux of humanity-anyway as EVERY shot was exterior I've got some major time with a Noise Reduction filter in Sound Forge 10 to try to salvage my actors dialogue-either that or ADR and I hate synch issues so I'm going w/ the idea that L.A. is riddled w/ sound 24/7 so it fits that my flick reflect that.
 
heh, when was the last time a silent feature was shot? 1800's? (sarcasm) dialogue is crucial to a movie. there isn't going to be another movie made that's going to get any acclaim if it has little to no dialogue. every movie out there that's put on screen looks and sounds good, but a poorly written script with poorly written dialogue isn't going to garnish any attention other than, "that movie sucks, what was the point of that movie, i could've done better". unless of course it's just purely action, then you're just going for mind numbing special effects. take for example a kevin smith movie. as much as i hate his cult following, his movie's look okay and sound okay, but it was his witty script that made him huge success. take away his dialogue and all you have are just dudes playing hockey on a rooftop or kids terrorizing a mall. but all of this is like totally my opinion man. make a movie that's silent. i suppose you're at least making something?

furthermore, i guess given the budget and the talent you attach to your project, i'm sure the Gh1 is capable of doing some kind of featurey type film. nothing action, but along the lines of "Garden State" or some kind of shitty Wes Anderson movie. Look at the season finale of House. All shot with the MK2.
 
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This just in...

My HV40 got ran over last night. Don't ask me how. My DP was driving my car to grab the tripod and apparently somehow the camera case was left on the ground. (I was elsewhere doing makeup) and he clipped it with my tire. My case is demolished. The camera seems to be in one piece, but the LCD is not functioning. I don't know what to do, we only have 5 more days of shooting left and even though my DP assures me he can finish the film with just the view finder or his external monitor.. I don't trust damaged electronics. They can easily stop working on you at any given moment.
 
I wouldn't trust it either - might work for a bit and then crap out, you just never know. I'd either grab an eBay HV40, buy a GH1 (I think the price just came down at Amazon) or rent something for the next 5 days of shooting.
 
I'm reading something about being able to mount PL cinema lenses on a GH1 with some sort of adapter? How does that work?
 
Kholi said:
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....
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I didn't mean to come off bitchy...nor did I mean to spell bologna wrong - it's just the biggest error I see almost every low budget production make. Worrying worrying about the camera...and forgetting sound. Visual technology has jumped leaps and bounds in the last 20 years, and you now can approach visuals that rival or at least come close enough to what Hollywood can produce, for a fraction of the cost. Any of the current hd-slrs, in capable hands, can do that now with dealing with some workarounds and issues.

Audio, on the other hand, has not really changed at all. There are some slightly snazzy new digital recorders but they don't necessarily sound better than old nagras. The only piece of gear that reattains it's value are mics. I bought my sanken cs-3e for $1500 5 years ago and I can sell it today for nearly the same price or maybe $100 less.

In any case - I think the answer to this thread is yes, the GH1 could do a feature... but will you have all the other stuff that is needed for it to really work and really look, sound, and flow (proper editing) like a feature and most importantly the proper people BEHIND the gear in ALL the departments.

Most of the movies as of late, are going too crazy with art design and leaving story and acting in the backseat. Case in point "Alice in Wonderland". The Tim Burton version. One of the worst beautiful films I have ever seen. If ya know what I mean, and I am a fan of Depp and Burton - but that movie was awful. A visual feast with no story whatsoever.

I do NOT agree with Barry on "get rid of as much dialog as you can" to make a movie faster. You may make a movie faster, but what the hell type of movie? What is it the people remember in a movie the most, memorable dialog! You hear people quoting actor's lines to each other, not camera moves!

I am a fan of well written and well acted dialog, and I would rather take my time getting that dialog recorded correctly on set with pro gear and a sound mixer who knows what he's doing along with a DP who knows what he's doing and having everyone 'gel'. Yeah, yeah, your movie will shoot faster if you have no dialog, but it will also be forgotten faster except for a few certain special cases or art films.

Of course, again, it's all important and this is a matter of style and taste. I tend to like really good dialog driven movies when the dialog is truthful and not so damn contrived and exposition oriented. Ideally the whole thing should be a marriage of talents perfectly wed.

Funny enough Barry hit the nail on the head, I did come over from theater and radio into film. I like the sculpting of film and consider it the ultimate human art form except for perhaps... building a theme park ride.. that is the only thing that might be a little more difficult. Anyone ever ridden spider-man the ride in Islands of Adventure? Imagine combining an imax-3d action movie with a roller coaster, animatronics, live effects and set design, and sound and motion design all at once... the most mind blowing experience I have ever had was that ride.
 
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wturber said:
1976. Mel Brooks' film "Silent Movie" had no dialogue save one word which was spoken by the famous mime, Marcel Marceau.

Oops! I'm wrong. It looks like 2006. Guy Maddin's "Brand Upon the Brain."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_Upon_the_Brain!

:)
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eggaxtly. the jist of my comment is that movie never received any sort of recognition, no renowned critics reviewed it, nobody cared. at most the movie is going to get is a wiki page that the director himself probably created. but like i said in my previous post, this is just strictly my opinion, put all the money in the world into a movie with crappy to no dialogue and you're not going to get anything in return other than congratulatory pat on the back in failing realize how crucial good dialogue is.
 
I approach all productions as a writer / director / actor. I want the team to gel, and the story to be fun and amazing. To me, while I do love beautiful visuals, I am more a fan of good acting... I think you can do more with two very good actors in a very plain white room, than you can with cruddy actors in the most lavish set with the highest end camera, lenses, dp ect, look at the Star Wars prequils they even had great actors but the story and script were so god awful.......so I tend to favor the actors and what they are doing a little more than the style... not that I don't like style... but I fashion that AFTER story and actors.... how can style fit, and does it all gel? Does it melt together like a nice chicken soup....? You can't put only chicken, or only noodles, in your chicken soup.. or it's gonna suck. I hire myself out as a sound engineer and DP, but I would rather worry about the directing than DP on my own movie I think...
I would be very involved though. I guess I came off a little wrong in my earlier posts, I wasn't really trying to say sound is MORE important, just that it's very important and the most often thing skipped or overlooked as everyone huddles around the hd monitor. Audiences EXPECT good sound.. they won't talk about it like they will the acting or story or visuals. A lot of people get into setting up this awesome style and light and shot, but a movie is not a painting.... even though it has elements of that art in it.

Look at the whole 3D thing, it seems to be burning itself out as fast as it started.
 
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PS: here is a short running the festival circuits that combines both the ex1, gh1, good cinematography, & good sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chEOllO4bcs

password is "audiowork" if it asks

I did sound on this not the visuals, but it was difficult to match because some sound was spoken or sung live on set and some pre recorded and lip synced, but i think it came out really well....
 
that's real good blackout. hilarious lol.

do you know which scenes were with the GH1 out of curiosity? (was it hacked?)
 
LOLOLOLOL....That was funny.

I bet the restaurant scene was with the GH-1...right? Not that I could tell in terms of PQ...but that fast pan revealed it for me (unless of course the EX-1 is also a CMOS sensor....I'm not sure).
 
a lot of the close ups are b cam gh1 pre hack.. you can tell real close if you look... ex1 has hotter whites, even though they color corrected... youtube screwed up some of the sync.. I'm gonna pull it down and put it on vimeo password protected...
 
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