Is the 7D the better 5D for filmmakers?

bwwd said:
But 30 seriously looks so fake, i dont know if some of you guys dont see its fakiness and unconvincing movement then what can i say? It just doesnt convince me that its film and acting looks like amateur video in so smooth movement,totally not filmlike.
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I don't think its trying to convince you its film. And it looks very much real to me in the sense an artist said these things to empower his audience.

It's this kind of shi* that is trashing these forums. "Filmic" and "cinematic" are two different things. I don't care what that piece was shot on, because it felt cinematic - it evoked some kind of emotional response.

Send us some of your work so we can understand your filmic standard.
 
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I use to be all crazy about not being able to shoot 24p. But Barry here at DVX taught me that that is a small part of the film look, the main part is taking care of cinematic lighting, camera movement, that type of thing. Frame rate is a small small part of it.

some features are shot at 25p.

just my opninion,
Derrick
 
Taylor Rudd said:
I don't think its trying to convince you its film. And it looks very much real to me in the sense an artist said these things to empower his audience.

It's this kind of shi* that is trashing these forums. "Filmic" and "cinematic" are two different things. I don't care what that piece was shot on, because it felt cinematic - it evoked some kind of emotional response.

Send us some of your work so we can understand your filmic standard.
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So basically youre sayin something like "you have to land on the moon to be able to talk about the moon".
It looks how it looks ,its not my fault and i have right to tell what im seeing ,some videos get 1-4 responses or even 0 because people arent giving feedback ,i see 2 seconds of motion picture and i know that its film,when i see 2 seconds of 30p then i know that its 30p - its that simple.
23.976 is associated with filmic movement,not my fault really but thats how it is ,if movement is too smooth then it looks kinda fake like in soap operas.If it doesnt hit you (too smooth movement)then lets leave it.

We are forced to use 30p because its almost only framerate mode in DSLRs now and you pretend like its your choice or doesnt matter,for years films were made in 23.976 ,30p is forced by TV guys and NTSC standard.

And once again can someone tell me the title of feature film shot in 30p on film camera? If it really doesnt matter then i would like to see it (shot on film).
 
bwwd said:
So basically youre sayin something like "you have to land on the moon to be able to talk about the moon".
It looks how it looks ,its not my fault and i have right to tell what im seeing ,some videos get 1-4 responses or even 0 because people arent giving feedback ,i see 2 seconds of motion picture and i know that its film,when i see 2 seconds of 30p then i know that its 30p - its that simple.
23.976 is associated with filmic movement,not my fault really but thats how it is ,if movement is too smooth then it looks kinda fake like in soap operas.If it doesnt hit you (too smooth movement)then lets leave it.

We are forced to use 30p because its almost only framerate mode in DSLRs now and you pretend like its your choice or doesnt matter,for years films were made in 23.976 ,30p is forced by TV guys and NTSC standard.

And once again can someone tell me the title of feature film shot in 30p on film camera? If it really doesn't matter then i would like to see it (shot on film).
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No I think what he is saying is you have to have some sort of qualifications to talk about the moon and or you run the risk of sounding like an idiot. If you have taught film, shot film, reviewed film, edit film, projected film, or if you have done anything at all that qualifies you as an expert in film motion that would add some weight to your argument.
 
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You can shoot 30p ,i hate the look of 30p and i tried to convince myself to it,it is not right ,you need to drop some frames, its the same situation with interlaced vs progressive where interlaced is too smooth after deinterlacing with field blending,BUT you need to have experience with that to be able to talk about this and i have thats why i suggest to avoid 30p or convert whenever you can to 25 or 23.976 ,event when you convert then youre still converting too smooth movement to 23.976 and you still will be able sometimes to see that its converted.Too smooth movement always looks like video.
I dont even get this debate, we are forced to use 30p, its a misunderstanding that we even have it and we are forced by companies to use it,sports in tv can use it thats fine but not filmlike material.
 
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If the camera I'm using has 24p, I'll shoot 24p. If it doesn't, it won't change how my lighting/composition/movement motivates the scene. The content remains the same.

I prefer 24p for many reasons, but I'm not going to ignore the artistic merit of a (beautiful) piece because of something as asinine as framerate. The thing that bothers me - and I mean really gets to me - is when the technical aspects are at the forefront of filmmaking. They are certainly important, no doubt. But I'll take a show with great content shot at 30p over bad story in the cinematic 24p any day.

If 24p is the only thing that qualifies something as cinematic, the future is pretty bleak.
 
30 P is fine.

30 P is fine.

bwwd said:
But 30 seriously looks so fake, i dont know if some of you guys dont see its fakiness and unconvincing movement then what can i say? It just doesnt convince me that its film and acting looks like amateur video in so smooth movement,totally not filmlike.
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By the way , can anyone tell me a title of feature film shot in 30FPS ? I would like to see how it looks and does it looks so fake and bad like 30p video.
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24p was not chosen because of its superior aesthetics. The standard prior to 24p was 18 FPS (it was the slowest you could run before you sensed frame judder). 24p was introduced with sound. At 18 fps, projection motors had too much wow and flutter to not notice the "warble" effect in the sound track. 24 was the lowest rate at which the oscillation error wouldn't be noticeable. Not because it looked realistic or better.

To say 30p looks fake is somewhat erroneous. There are considerable artifacts at 24p when you pan or track strong lateral movement. What one calls "cinematic" is just cultural conditioning, not necessarily a more authentic reproduction. In fact, George Lucus once proposed changing the standard to 60p but was deemed too expensive by producers.

Several broadcasters have chosen 60p because of the more accurate motion capture. Back in the film days, I often shot commercials at 30p and transferred at 29.97 to get a heightened definition and clarity you just wouldn't get at 24p. I shoot alot of action and hand held and to be honest, I wish the projection standard was 30. Frame rates and the historical reasons for them were hardly arrived at by aesthetic / artistic debate but more so out of standards and economics. 25 in Europe because their electric standard runs 50 mhz while its 30 here because of 60 mhz AC.

I think the most abhorrent artifact that screams video is interlacing. But 30p I think is an excellent frame rate. Shot a Beanie Seagal/ Freeway video at 30p with a bleach bypass at mostly an F8 to F11 on Super 16. We had depth of field from Philly to the moon, an unworldly sharpness but not for a moment did anyone thnk it was video. The color and texture screamed film. And that's where most video cameras fail. I feel the EX1 lacks the color depth of an HVX and hence looks thin and artificial to me. I find my RED when dialed in right looks a lot more cinematic than I could ever get a Varicam to be. That said, it goes way beyond frame rate to make something "filmic" or in short have some soul.
 
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Tim Naylor said:
24p was not chosen because of its superior aesthetics. The standard prior to 24p was 18 FPS (it was the slowest you could run before you sensed frame judder). 24p was introduced with sound. At 18 fps, projection motors had too much wow and flutter to not notice the "warble" effect in the sound track. 24 was the lowest rate at which the oscillation error wouldn't be noticeable. Not because it looked realistic or better.
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Tim, while I agree with everything you're saying, I don't think it's fair to downplay the importance of 24.

The pitches and chords in music are only enjoyable to us because of cultural conditioning. Certain combinations of notes sound incorrect to humans, although there is nothing inherently "incorrect" about the frequencies.
 
Jim, I think you are absolutly right. When peolple say:"But 30 seriously looks so fake...",
I ask myself "fake" in relation to what?? At least only to the old standards. 30p is closer to the "real" movements. And in a range, what makes a good film, is the question of framerate (as far as we talk about 25 or 30p) tertiary.
But clear for me is, that I would like to have the controll over the the movements in my film, so that I can decide, what kind of look I prefer. Here we come back to the 7D: If this camera can provide more than one framerate in a similar quality of the 5D, I shoud buy it.
Benn
 
> I ask myself "fake" in relation to what??

Fake in relation to what the viewer is used to feeling. We've got 100 years of cinema telling us what movies should look like.

When shooting narrative I always opted for Kodak because [past tense :-( ] I knew the inherent emotional impact that kodak stock would have on the (American) viewer even on a subconscious level, and I wanted to use that manipulation to my advantage to make my movies feel more like "a real movie" Same reason I snatched up the 1st gen DVX - so I could tap into the conditioning that was already present in the viewer.

BTW, when I wanted to the viewer to feel something else (something new or different), say for commercials or music videos, I would opt for Fuji stock or perhaps a different transfer frame rate or processing.

It's all about what you want the viewer to feel, and that is why people are so passionate about 24p. (Including myself) That's why I'm addicted to checking this forum every day for news about a camera that does not yet exist...
 
Well gimme my fake 30p looking 5d mark II over the 24p of any other camera i've owned (quite a few actually). Not one client has said to me wow that is really 30p'ish, and regular folk? They just say wow. They'll do the same thing when I get the 7d on 10/15 and I mix the two. These discussions are always to inane. This is not a stab at you I as you have obviously been in the game waaayyy longer than my self, but until the lens adapter revolution 24p ion any camera looked like straight video to me.
 
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If you bring Kodak and Fuji material here in the game...I am afraid its the complet wrong platform. We are working on CF cards without any old Charme of diffrent graines etc
We are talking about a 2000 Euro camera what makes things possible, Sergio Leone couldnt (and probably wouldnt) imagine when he shoot "Once Upon a Time in the West".
Benn
 
i
If you bring Kodak and Fuji material here in the game...I am afraid its the complet wrong platform. We are working on CF cards without any old Charme of diffrent graines etc
We are talking about a 2000 Euro camera what makes things possible, Sergio Leone couldnt (and probably wouldnt) imagine when he shoot "Once Upon a Time in the West".
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Well, actually the inherent properties of different kinds of films is now really inside the camera, not on the CF card of course. There are a lot of bells and whistles inside the menus to emulate a lot of those properties that different film had. In addition you complete the look you want in post. 30 FPS looks great but it is comparable to the look of "video". It is great if you want to give your film the look of One Life To Live or Survivor, which are very good shows in their genre with high production values. You can't change that fact. It is a reality. Amazingly, and perhaps to many magically, when you shoot at 24 fps digitally the footage emulates very close the "look" of "real" film. Of course it needs the combination of on camera image manipulation and post work. And that is a fact. The problem here is that the person behind the camera has to understand these facts. The higher the level of knowledge about the difference between 30p and 24p the more the person would be able to recognize the effects of each one on the final product. If the person behind the camera doesn't have a clue about this facts then that is a real problem.
 
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No,no,no.
The "video" look is normally much more characterized by the enormous DOF than the framerate of 6 fields more per second. If an important part of mankind woul be as sensitiv as some people here concerning framerates, the world would probably look better.
Benn
 
From my experience shooting various framerates, everything else being equal the 'big' difference in looking like film is not so much the framerate (24 vs 30) but more so the DOF, the lighting, and white balance. Shooting with my old Sony Hi-8 video camera screamed 'video'. Shooting with my EX1, even at 30p, with variations of DOF, in sweet light with a warm/fuzzy white balance setting is gorgeous and 'film-like'. Just my opinion. Good, filmic cinematography is much more than, and is not based upon, 24p. Shot properly, 30p does not scream video.
 
Boy…this thread is one big misconception after another.

I understand the arguments for both sides but I have to say that I really agree with what bwwd said about 30p looking fake. That comment has nothing to do with the cinematic quality of a person’s work…but…it's about the lack of flickering motion that we’ve all been accustomed to since we were kids. The work could be the most cinematic piece I could ever watch…but if it is in 30p…then I can tell right away (in most cases). The real issue there is…here goes…”where one watches it.” What I mean is…if you are just watching a piece of work on the Web…then 30p in more cases than not is probably perfect. But…if you were to watch the very same piece on the big screen then the motion of 30p will stick out like a sore thumb.

It’s that “flicker” of 24p that helps to suspend reality in movies. Some folks claim they hate it but that is what the world has been conditioned to see when viewing a movie. Six more frames a second starts to look like….”REALITY”…or in other words “video-like.” Remember…not necessarily on a PC screen (though I can tell) but on a big screen. Whether a piece of work is cinematic is really a whole other conversation. Also, the so called “film-look” is not just about shallow/wide DOF. Heck…I’ve seen Soap Operas that use shallow DOF…and incorporate many cinematic looking scenes…but as far as the motion goes…it looked FAKE…or in other words like I was in the same room with them. There was something missing. That’s what folks like bwwd is saying.

And as far as what James Cameron was saying about higher frame rates…he was not suggesting to do away with 24p (I think a lot of people take his remarks out of context). What he wants (which is a great idea) is for digital cameras to shoot 48p because it resolves great “detail” with motion for CG work etc. He stated that 48p is perfect because you can divide 24p into that perfectly for the final product. He said 60p is “out of the question.” Though I’m paraphrasing just think about that for a second. I mentioned this in another forum but when it comes to our beloved digital cams all of them display faster rates with much better detail and color.

My example was if the 5Dll had 24p on it I guarantee you folks will complain that the picture just does not look as good as the 30p. Well duh…the 30p with have more color and look a little more detailed. If it had 60p it would look even better. But that’s just it…you have a whole lot more information in the footage when the speed goes up (given you’re shooting at the same resolution). That’s the same thought process James Cameron has. What he wants is for cams to shoot at a higher frame rate (specifically 48p) so he could have a much better response when adding CG effects and THEN finalizing the project in 24p (because 48p divides perfectly into 24p). That all sounds very smart to me. He’s not saying that he wants movies to be made at 48p.

Ok I’ll shut up now.
 
Hola, Ian! At least we're having fun with this, eh? :Þ

The work could be the most cinematic piece I could ever watch…but if it is in 30p…then I can tell right away (in most cases).
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You see, "in most cases" as you say... if it's shot properly to really go for a filmic look, it would most likely fall into your "I can't really tell" category. Most people shooting with 24p and 30p video cameras aren't producing serious stuff, most of us are hobbyists and hacks with visions of grandeur. Most of the 24p stuff shot on video cameras looks like they were shot on video cameras. Whether there's an extra 6 frames/sec or not doesn't make people go buy popcorn and sit down and enjoy it because it looks like a real film.


Heck…I’ve seen Soap Operas that use shallow DOF…and incorporate many cinematic looking scenes…but as far as the motion goes…it looked FAKE
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If Soap Operas were shot in 24p vs 30p, they still would not resemble a movie in any way, they would look pretty much the same. I sometimes shoot in 24p with my EX1 and you wouldn't be able to tell 24p from 30p when I'm shooting my 3 year old boy playing at the park. But if I try and make it look filmic, with either setting of 24p or 30p, I can. I can give it a warm white balance during magic lighting hours and use a jib and various DOF and have a sweet color profile setting and shoot it as if it were a film, and it looks filmic.

Also, the so called “film-look” is not just about shallow/wide DOF
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We agree, no one is saying that, and it's not just about 24p either. It's all subjective, but from my experience, the 24p/30p is the smallest factor to consider going for the film look when you take into consideration lighting, various DOF options, white balance, shooting style, good cinematography skills, the entire approach to shooting. In fact during quicker pans I find video cameras stutter in 24p more so than film would stutter, to the point of distraction. But that's just me and what I observe.
 
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