Is the EX1/3 at a disadvantage to the AF100 for budget cinema production?

Duke M.

Duke M.

Veteran
I'm currently using the EX1 with a Nano, and sometimes a Letus Extreme. The LEX causes light loss and is bulky. An F3 would be wonderful, and I have enough good glass, but the F3 isn't in the budget this year.

I considered the AF100 for the DOF control. I watched all the clips from "Verse." Barry, Tim and the crew are to be congratulated. Tim said he mostly used f5.6-f8 throughout the movie.

The DOF equivalence between a 1/2" and m4/3 sensors is 3 stops. That makes the EX1/3 about the same as f5.6 when wide open, and f8 a stop down. Just throw an ND filter on it.

Of course the AF100 is capable of a shallower DOF by opening up the aperture even further. The EX1/3 is capable of the same thing by stepping back and zooming (if you have the room.)

Also, in my subjective opinion the EX1 with Nano has cleaner images. The AF100 could be used with the Nano too.

Is the EX1 actually at a disadvantage? Or should I save every nickel and dime for an F3 and its extremely good SNR?
 
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Stop worrying so much about gear and get that script and acting talent up to snuff. I just watched a movie called Paranormal Activity that was shot on a lesser HD cam than an EX1 and it made hundreds of millions of dollars and has two sequels in the works. At first I thought it was just going to be a Blair Witch Project rip-off but I was very satisfied with the end/how the story developed.

If you're worried about cinematic depth of field get a lens adaptor.


Happy Holy Days!
 
umm.....adam.....I think maybe you should re-read his post. Good answer but not the right one.... :)
 
Ian-T said:
umm.....adam.....I think maybe you should re-read his post. Good answer but not the right one.... :)
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LOL, I'm sorry man but it just seems like a lot of indy filmmakers live paycheck to paycheck buying gear. It's an endless cycle of sometimes (often times?) going into debt to get a good image but having a so-so script. You have to think about Return on Investment. Will audiences care so much about image quality? Will it put more butts in seats and sell more copies to recoup the cost of the camera/other gear?

I was talking with someone the other day about this very topic. And they said that a decade ago everyone was pushing for better image quality. But with YouTube and internet video in general people/audiences are more willing to accept lesser quality images. The only people who tend to care are other filmmakers/home theatre enthusiasts but general audiences will accept it. Pointing again to Paranormal Activity...I don't even think they did proper deinterlacing/frame rate conversion with that movie but lo and behold I can watch it on Epix on-demand. Down Home Zombie Blues better be a bad ass story and maybe more importantly marketed well or it will fail no matter how good the images are.

Do I personally want a better image? Hell yeah! But what's in front of that camera is WAY more important.
 
But why do we assume the OP doesnt have a good script ?
If he has one or not he still needs answer to his question.
 
Another option would be to keep the Sony for now...seems like an excellent camera for almost everything and get a T2i for very specialized shots(like when you can't zoom the sony) I say T2i because they're so damn inexpensive right now.
 
Sorry...I forgot to say that I don't think you're at that much of a disadvantage...your example of the dof was spot on..not that much of a difference when you have the room. Plus the Sony can do things the AF100 can't, without lots of lens changes, since there are very few fast zooms for a large sensor ...Barry has illustated this several times. BTW....I'd kill to have an EX1. It almost seems like the perfect Indie Film cam. Decent dof control, great in low light, clean images.
 
adamr316 said:
Stop worrying so much about gear and get that script and acting talent up to snuff.
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My script is based on a novel by an author with a national following. My writing mentor, John Hill, has sold over 70 scripts in Hollywood including block busters like Quigley Down Under, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.

Its a sci-fi romance and the script is good enough that so far one of actors from the original Star Trek series and one from Babylon 5 have signed on. Not everyone will love it, but for the niche demographic I'm aiming at I think it will do well.

I'd just like it to be good enough to not just go straight to DVD, but picked up for a theatrical release. To do that I'll try to improve every little thing I can and providing things that will make a distributor happy.

I have a Letus Extreme and a T2i. The LEX loses light and resolution. The T2i loses resolution and has the usual DSLR issues. I think the EX1 with Nano does things the AF100 and F3 can't and vice versa. Ideally I'd have both an EX1 and F3, but I can't.

I agree its what's in front of the camera that counts. After jonesing for an F3 I'm weighing my options.

PS. When the aliens in my movie kill someone they leave a mummified body behind.
 

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In that case, I would definitely not spend 6 grand on an af100 when I already have an ex1/nano combo. You're not going to get better then that spatial and chromatic resolution wise until your spending the kind of money needed for an f3. If you could afford it, going with the f3 would be a fantastic step up from the ex1 with its 2 full stops higher dynamic range, ridiculous snr and lowlight capability, and the news that's rolling in is that the kit lenses are great for the price. If not, Id say stick with the ex1 and nano and use that 6 grand on other things you might end up needing instead. If dof is that big of an issue like someone said you can just pull the camera back and zoom in, and also, the ex1's macro mode gives you inches of depth of field, if you need closer shots. If depth of field is that huge of an issue for you, I'm not sure what to advise! the new panasonic gh2 is looking ridiculously promising


and merry christmas guys! May we all wake up to a nicely kitted out Alexa under the tree. perhaps an arri too
 
Duke M. said:
My script is based on a novel by an author with a national following. My writing mentor, John Hill, has sold over 70 scripts in Hollywood including block busters like Quigley Down Under, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.

Its a sci-fi romance and the script is good enough that so far one of actors from the original Star Trek series and one from Babylon 5 have signed on. Not everyone will love it, but for the niche demographic I'm aiming at I think it will do well.

I'd just like it to be good enough to not just go straight to DVD, but picked up for a theatrical release. To do that I'll try to improve every little thing I can and providing things that will make a distributor happy.

I have a Letus Extreme and a T2i. The LEX loses light and resolution. The T2i loses resolution and has the usual DSLR issues. I think the EX1 with Nano does things the AF100 and F3 can't and vice versa. Ideally I'd have both an EX1 and F3, but I can't.

I agree its what's in front of the camera that counts. After jonesing for an F3 I'm weighing my options.

PS. When the aliens in my movie kill someone they leave a mummified body behind.
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Awesome Duke! OK with that talent/writing behind you now I get where you're coming from. As long as you're not living paycheck to paycheck that's cool!

Ever considered renting the F3 when it comes out? Or what a lot of people do is buy it then sell it once production is over. That's always an option...
 
Duke M. said:
My script is based on a novel by an author with a national following. My writing mentor, John Hill, has sold over 70 scripts in Hollywood including block busters like Quigley Down Under, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.

Its a sci-fi romance and the script is good enough that so far one of actors from the original Star Trek series and one from Babylon 5 have signed on. Not everyone will love it, but for the niche demographic I'm aiming at I think it will do well.

I'd just like it to be good enough to not just go straight to DVD, but picked up for a theatrical release. To do that I'll try to improve every little thing I can and providing things that will make a distributor happy.

I have a Letus Extreme and a T2i. The LEX loses light and resolution. The T2i loses resolution and has the usual DSLR issues. I think the EX1 with Nano does things the AF100 and F3 can't and vice versa. Ideally I'd have both an EX1 and F3, but I can't.

I agree its what's in front of the camera that counts. After jonesing for an F3 I'm weighing my options.

PS. When the aliens in my movie kill someone they leave a mummified body behind.
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I hate to be the voice of cold hard reality but... to get even a limited theatrical release you need a lot of money behind your distribution deal. So much so that you'd really have to get a killer visual to secure that. I dont care what anyone tells you and what you read on the internet. The truth is, its EXTREMELY rare for any independent film shot with anything else than say a RED One that holds its own to a distruibution deal willing to spend money on theatrical release. My producer and I are in the middle of 2 small/mid size productions (5Million and 2.3Million), one of them I'm a producer on has Ashton Kutcher attached... The numbers games are hard even for us to get theatrical distribution and we have names and money attached. You need a VERY strong business plan, a very strong visual, and THEN a very strong story. I hate to say it but, in this business great story doesn't get you theatrical distribution, sure it helps, but the buisness plan is FIRST.

By the time you've even come close to landing a theatrical distribution deal, your production will have already spent thousands on lawyer bills, paperwork, man power, and more. If you really want a good start, work with the business plan first.

Second is the visual. You see everything under the sun getting a DVD distribution deal, and thats for a reason... Its private, cheap, and easy to put a dvd in a rental system. Its public, expensive, and hard, to get a theater chain willing to show a movie that may flop when they could be filling it up with a regular block buster of the month. If you have a strong visual, it will bypass some of the people in your way, because to be frank... If it doesn't look like it was shot with 10 million bucks or more, they don't want it in their theater. Theaters uphold a reputation of having good movies. If they start showing something that looks like it should be on sci-fi channel, or a hallmark tv movie, instead of a film from the top five, they don't want it playing. Period.

There are really rare instances like 'Paranormal Activity' and 'blare witch' but please understand, those are extremely rare, and their marketing was huge. The money spent on advertisements alone would blow your mind. The visuals have to be top notch, it really is key, not matter what anyone will tell you. No major distributor will screen a movie that looks like it was shot on an EX1/3 and get behind it for theatrical (not at least with out a ton of money shoved their way)... its just too big of a gamble for them.

I have tons of hard numbers about this stuff too, so for people who keep saying "story is king" I'd like to see how many of them actually have a movie they shot in THEATRICAL distribution in the USA. If you want to be serious about movies, you need to be serious about your visuals and sound. Hate to be the one to give the slap of reality, but the numbers are highly against low budget independent movies to begin with, we only hear about the ones that made it... there are literally thousands upon thousands each year that dont make it anywhere, and many of them have great stories. The only time they are usually seen is film festivals.
 
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That's the reality that each of us faces, including you. The studios are funding very little right now that isn't a remake, a comic book or a best selling novel. Something they see as a sure thing. But they are never going to give a guy like me a shot anyway because I'm not giving up my day job. (I'm an Attorney so I've set up my LLC, work comp, liability ins., contracts etc.)

As far as cameras, I will be renting a Red One for a week so I can truthfully say the movie was shot on both a Red and a Cinealta EX1 just like District 9. :happy: [That's one of the reasons I investigated movies that used the EX1/3 like Public Enemies, Monsters, etc.]

The first thing distributors ask you is "What genre?" Next is "Who's in it?" Then they say "What's it about?" Its third on the list and they don't want a two page synopsis. They want 25 words or less that's still exciting, imaginative and tells a beginning, middle and end. I'm sure you know how hard that is to do. Then they may ask for a synopsis.

At this point I have European and South American distribution lined up because I planned ahead. The distributors want things they can advertise. Name talent, a successful novel, nostalgia, something unique. If you don't have those things its too hard for them to distribute. I am aware of the issues.

Marketing is king to get distribution, but story is queen to make it succeed. They better go hand in hand.

My reason for using the EX1 with a Nano is the clean signal and full raster resolution. Its about as good as you can get in the 1080p format when properly set up. Of course there are higher end cameras that have nice features, but the EX1 with Nano gives an image very close to those higher end cameras.

The AF100 will match the DOF of the Red and could use the same lenses, but isn't quite the same clean signal. An F3 would be ideal.
 
You got the F3 little brother coming from Sony at the middle of next year, if it is not too late. The NXcam hd is sharing the same sensor etc and has 10 bit hdsdi output etc.

A little question to everyone here. It seems that everyone is saying that the af-100/nano combination will not be better than the Ex1/letus/nano one? If the af-100 has at least the same dynamic range as the EX1 won' t it better in every other sector. If he sells his ex1 and letus and buy the af-100 and use the hd-sdi output with the nano, won' t it be better.
 
The NXCam is too late for this project. Its something to consider for whatever I'm doing next year.

My impression is that the AF100 will most likely have more artifacts than an EX1 (from me pixel peeping footage), though I've seen no explicit tests yet. It also worries me that no one has posted a proper resolution test yet.

After getting sucked into the DSLR craze for time and money I'm a lot more cautious now. I'm expecting it to be slightly less good in those categories, but its too early to say with any certainty. Close is plenty good enough for most purposes, however EX1 DOF can be close to AF100 DOF too.
 
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Giuseppe Pugliese said:
The visuals have to be top notch, it really is key, not matter what anyone will tell you. No major distributor will screen a movie that looks like it was shot on an EX1/3 and get behind it for theatrical [release]...

If you want to be serious about movies, you need to be serious about your visuals and sound.
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Absolutely. However, I've seen Red footage that looked like crap too.

EX1 footage is often most recognizable by its deep DOF and improper handling of high lights. Handle those two and get good audio while making the pictures pretty, getting motion into the scenes, good color and a million other little details. LOL Then it will work.
 
Yes red can look like crap, but also I think it goes without saying... My point was you need great cinematography to get treated like a real film in the US theatrical market. I'm going to get yelled at for this but thankfully this is freedom of speach... I saw that western short film with the AF100.... that cinematography was very weak, and was quite bland, yet I see people on this site going crazy over it... why? because they have lower standards. Theaters and distribution companies have way higher standards than that. Its going to take really great cinematography to impress for US theatrical release. It cannot look like a low budget film (unless of coarse you're going for a blare witch or paranormal activity which revolves a story around that look).

Again I'm not saying any of these things to discourage you or put down someones work, I'm giving honest constructive criticism. I would never give advice to anyone on something I didn't actually know, and I know this, if you're serious about USA Theatrical release the last thing you want to skimp on is the cinematography. Names can sure do a lot, but lets face it, even movies with the biggest names in Hollywood won't save you if your film just sucks.

I can't talk much about the film I'm working on with Ashton Kutcher, but I can tell you that it is budgeted around $5Million and its being put together with producers on my team, including myself. We already are doing well with the money side of things, and should see it being finalized soon. Even with 5 Million dollars, its a really low budget. But one of the most important things is the cinematographer, as well as post sound. Those are things you just can't get away with. It HAS to look like every other major budget film. People will not take it seriously unless so. I hear and talk with many people all day long who talk about distribution and how they have secured distribution world wide. But I then never hear anything from them, because the reality is: It will not make it. There is a reason why tens of millions of dollars are spent in the movie industry, its an investment and the money needs to come back. There are tax intensives that need to be met, mathematically you have to be quite sound in your numbers for you to achieve theatrical distribution.

I'm talking a small number of maybe 100-200 theaters in the USA. That number alone, is not easy. There are about 6,000 movie theaters in the USA, roughly 18,000 movie screens. Its about return on investment. It might be more beneficial for your film to be putting money towards direct to dvd, and taking out a TON of internet ads, than spending a relatively small amount of money (compared to the market) on ads for theatrical release.

If you're serious about your film going for theatrical, I just have to say that going theatrical doesn't necessarily mean you're investment is sound. Your investment and/or investors will need to make their money back, plus whatever else the threshold will allow once the money starts coming in. Its much cheaper to put DVD's out for rental through netflix,blockbuster online, RedBox, iTunes, and all those others; which means you could reach larger masses and make more money, than say having the theater take %60 of the tickets, then the rest to the distributors, then whatever trickles down you're looking at roughly the same amount of money for limited theatrical, than having your DVD in every rental online which could yield more money. (nice run on sentence).

There is a reason why most of the Disney movies ever made, go directly to DVD. The market is huge and strong, and they make more money with their smaller budget films (which by the way are made with around 5-10million dollars each) than spending the money on marketing for theatrical, even if it was limited. And these movies are no joke.

All I'm saying is the dream of US theatrical is more for vanity and less for a money making plan. I'd rather show investors I have a sound business plan that can return their money in 18 months with profit right away with DVD, than hoping your film becomes a hit and not knowing if in 18 months your investors will even break even yet.

Please don't take offense, I'm literally speaking from years of experience with my producer funding films from $3M to $8M. He has already fully funded a couple of features in those ranges, and I've been there at all the steps. Its much harder than people realize, even with names and money.
 
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What you're saying doesn't upset me. I fact I agree with pretty much everything that you said. I fully expect the bulk, if not all, of the money that's made from the film will be from DVD sales.

I even agree that theatrical distribution is a vanity for someone in my position. Theatrical release is a losing proposition in every way but one.

You see, the film school I went to in LA was small (even though Quinten Tarantino and Michael Jackson both went there, and yes I'm that old) and any contacts I made there have been more interested in my lawyer skills than my movie making skills.

Even if its only in 10 theaters in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas a theatrical release will give me much more credibility than just a DVD release. Ten to twenty indie specialty theaters LA area I can do. Maybe more. Add to that the festivals.

The vanity is that it will advance my position in the community. Vanity being defined as trying to look good, so yes.

The biggest difference I see in small budget and big budget is number of people paying attention to details and planning. That way its all just likely to be done better.
 
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assuming the f3 is available, it´ll be available in rental houses first - rent it - if you don´t have that room in your budget then...... the truth is we are becoming overly possessive of our cameras esp. for narrative work - you can´t even own a panavison - the arri 416 costs 40k w/o lenses - the f3 will be a steal but still cost 18k with the three primes - renting is a good solution for single projects with a budget and then you can see if you really want to own one , or the way the world is turning , something faster, brighter, bigger will be out soon enough
 
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