GH4 Short Film "Struggle" I shot / directed / edited - Panasonic GH4

ShaneC

ShaneC

Active member
Had fun shooting this short film. I used a 11.00 adapter off ebay with two Minolta Lenses. 28mm F2.8 and a 50mm F1.7. Edited in FCP 7 on 2009 imac. Shot in 4K converted to 1080HD. ALL sound recorded separate on a Tascam DR-60D and Audio Technica Shotgun Mic.
 
Thanks jcs. My imac started to choke a bit near the end. I converted the 4K to ProRes444. Some basic 3-Wheel color in FCP and some basic Magic Bullet Looks (free) used at 40% for some shots. I also shot a commercial for a film festival contest on the GH4. We won the contest! I will post that video soon once it plays at the festival in a few weeks.
 
Nicely done. Great shooting. I love my Minoltas as well. I've put together a nice collection from Ebay and Craig's List and all told may be under $100, and they're great lenses with a lot of character. Story wise, this was paced well. I watched to the end, which I can't say about a lot of shorts. The only critique I'd give is that the music cut to abruptly for my taste when she starts to talk to her mom on the phone. Personally, I felt like that music could have continued just fine over that scene, but that's just my taste and a tiny critique of a very nice short. Keep up the great work.

Out of curiosity, did you get any permits or just run and gun it? I'm guessing running and gunning, but I know they're strict about that stuff down there.
 
Thanks Blazer003. Yeah I probably could have had the music play out! good catch! I'm digging these Minolta lenses. I'm looking at some other lenses on ebay now. I probably paid about 20.00 each for the 50mm and the 28mm, so I'm pretty happy with them!
Run n Gun all the way. No crew. I do all the work myself. My favorite past time I guess. Hell, I shot a feature film on the Panasonic HMC40 a while back and I was the only crew member for 98% of the film. I just like shooting!
 
Congrats on your festival win! We're wrapping up our first short (Sci-Fi) and our 2010 MacPro with Quadro 5000 was showing its age with 4K GH4 footage (only with the green screen shots). Upgraded to a macvidcards modded GTX 770 (will switch to a GTX 980 when they are readily available- faster and less wattage) and its now much faster (still some challenging PPro bugs (Win7x64sp1)- I will try testing in OSX- perhaps less issues). Did all effects and compositing in PPro (to take advantage of GPU acceleration (After Effects is too slow)). We have FCP X on the OSX side- may take another look if Adobe can't fix their GPU issues.

We too shot run & gun with wireless mics. Mostly on the A7S with GH4 4K for all green screen shots. Look forward to seeing and hearing about your festival win.
 
Sorry to go off-topic: Just to be clear, you're running your MacPro in Windows 7? What CPU(s) does it come with?
 
2010 MacPro 12-Core 2.93GHz Nehalem Xeons (it's possible to upgrade to 12-Core 3.46 Westmere's for $2700 (macsales.com), however the GTX 980 is the best upgrade for GFX rendering performance in PPro. Upgrading to a GTX 770 improved not only real-time performance but also previews and final rendering vs. the Quadro 5000). OSX 10.9.5: runs slower than Win7x64 but no lockups or crashes so far (some black screens in main window (nothing renders), but not very often). Will try to finish our short on the OSX side (sounds like next update for PPro CC is end of October at the soonest).
 
Pretty cool jcs. I would love to see the footage (trailer?) for your short Sci Fi film when it's ready! Sounds like a lot of work went into it! I'm sure the footage cut well between the A7S and the GH4? haven't used the A7S.
 
Nice short. Really loved the shot from 2nd floor of the apartment, as you pan over to steps. But the cut after seems too fast--she went from bottom of stairs to 2nd floor immediately.
 
Great little short film. This is the first film I've seen where the GH4 really looks more like a movie and less like video camera footage. I'm sure those vintage Rokkor lenses helped. I used to use them myself when I had my GH1 and GH2 before the GH1 was stolen and the GH2 was swapped for my 60D.
 
Thanks roxics. I didn't know what the Minolta's would look like with the GH4. Never used them before. I'm pretty knew to these types of camera's coming from camcorders (DVX100 / HVX200 / HMC40) the camera before this was a Canon T3i... I love these lenses. Looking for more on ebay.
 
Nice job! Two suggestions, if I may:

1. Ask a designed to help you with the titles and credits. It's not much work at all for them, and it will really help the overall professionalism if the typography rises to the level of the rest of the piece.

2. Some of those interior shots would benefit from removing that strong yellow cast. (I'm thinking kitchen, hallway.) Should be a simple fix to balance and would really help.
 
Hi joe12south glad you liked it. I used the font straight from FCP so it is pretty generic. I'm still learning some basic color correcting so I might pull those files again and have at it!
 
I liked it! It's one of the first shorts I've watched all the way through.

If we're keepin' it real about constructive criticism, I think there were a few too many close ups. A closeup needs to tell the viewer "Hey look at this! It's important!". Grabbing the towel, hanging the keys, etc. just didn't seem to propel the story forward.

Other than that, it was awesome!
 
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