What does footage on high end cameras look like with no lighting?

There are inumerable features shot on 35mm and high-end HD that look like sh*t. The only advantage a Red ONE has over a HV40 is that it is more usable. Point them at a crap scene and they'll both look like crap. Point them at an amazing scene and they'll both look amazing.
 
Barry, actually you are both right in a way that one camera is not necessary better then the other.

Sure RED is less compressed but you also have to render out the footage which takes considerable amount of time and storage space that eats into the edit. Plus the camera is so bulky you need a real man power to handle it (1st AC to help with the focus plus 2nd AC to offload the footage). Both cameras are light hungry (RED at about 200-250 while HV40 at around 120). So there are plenty of cases where i would take HV40 over RED and equal amount of cases where i would take RED over HV40.
 
Thanks Patryk that's basically what I was getting at.

On your average home screen I highly, HIGHLY doubt the average Joe could tell the difference between a Red and an HV40 in a documentary style shoot - run n' gun, no lighting, no planning, etc. Sure, the Red might get a narrower DOF, or a bit more latitude, but would my grandmother notice? No way.

Now, if we're talking a planned shoot, well, that's a whole different ball game. But the OP was talking about a shoot with no lighting/prep/etc.
 
I could go along with that -- on an unplanned documentary, I'd probably reach for the HV40 instead of the Red One as well.

I was just challenging the notion that there's no advantage to a Red over an HV40 other than usability -- 4K rez, shallow DOF, interchangeable lenses, 4-channel audio, and 120fps overcranking all immediately spring to mind.
 
Anyone who ever filmed started out without lights so go with the flow until u can purchase some
*despretly looking to purchase lights pm me!:)*
 
Anybody who wants to see 35mm and 16mm film shot like home movies should look at porno films made in the 1970's. While there were some attempts during the "Porno chic" era of the early '70s to put some "Quality" into “Adult films" with some higher budget films like " Behind the Green Door" and "The Devil in Miss Jones", the novelty wore off quick. These films quickly digressed to a just get the image aesthetic, and that industry was taken over by video production within no time. It is interesting to compare the porno films shot on film with the ones shot on video. While it is arguable that the film versions look "Better" than the video versions, they still look like sh*t!

Barry is so right on this. What is in front of the lens is the most important part of making good looking images. The next most important factor is the person behind the lens and their technical and creative choices. Only then does the lens and the camera it is attached to make a difference.


The great documentary photographer, Walker Evans, continued to make photographs well into his last days, and I was impressed by seeing a collection of some of his last photographs, that he shot with a Polaroid Land SX-70 camera, a pure consumer camera. The pictures where great. Now the photographs were not great because they were shot with a Polaroid Land SX-70 camera, they were great because they were shot by Walker Evans, using a Polaroid Land SX-70 camera.
 
wow, nice video, if even to be suckered in by the total masculine manipulation (i.e. let's put megan fox (are those stretch marks from a girl entirely too young to think about such things?_ in the total she-seems-just-like-my-girlfriend poses). but the point of the post is that a camera records the light and mise-en-scene. some do it better than others. web compression makes most of it look like crap. vive francia. mise-en-scene is everything. or illumination? can't remember witch? hahah, our best tools of today will be tomorrow remembered. i think i just made that up or took a version of it from somewhere and spun a twist. genius or plagiarist? camera or mise-en-scene? this is a philosophical question so let's put our thinking caps on....
 
HV40, Red, 35mm, lighting....What it all comes down to is how good are you with tools at hand. A rock and chisel in my hands becomes a smaller uglier rock and a worn out chisel. Bot the same rock and chisel in Michelangelo's hands and you get This.
 

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Huy Vu said:
We have an example right here: Megan Fox shot on the RED with no lighting whatsoever. She still looks damn hot, but the video quality itself is pretty unimpressive.

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/megan-fox-video
Click to expand...

Man, if they showed this in classes on the importance of film lighting everyone would be taking a class in film lighting.

She's so friggin hot...

But I swear, if they cast that no talent b*^@# as Buffy I'm gonna start taking hostages.

What is this thread about again?
 
David G. Smith said:
Anybody who wants to see 35mm and 16mm film shot like home movies should look at porno films made in the 1970's. While there were some attempts during the "Porno chic" era of the early '70s to put some "Quality" into “Adult films" with some higher budget films like " Behind the Green Door" and "The Devil in Miss Jones", the novelty wore off quick. These films quickly digressed to a just get the image aesthetic, and that industry was taken over by video production within no time. It is interesting to compare the porno films shot on film with the ones shot on video. While it is arguable that the film versions look "Better" than the video versions, they still look like sh*t!

Barry is so right on this. What is in front of the lens is the most important part of making good looking images. The next most important factor is the person behind the lens and their technical and creative choices. Only then does the lens and the camera it is attached to make a difference.


The great documentary photographer, Walker Evans, continued to make photographs well into his last days, and I was impressed by seeing a collection of some of his last photographs, that he shot with a Polaroid Land SX-70 camera, a pure consumer camera. The pictures where great. Now the photographs were not great because they were shot with a Polaroid Land SX-70 camera, they were great because they were shot by Walker Evans, using a Polaroid Land SX-70 camera.
Click to expand...

LOL! I love that this thread is like, "If you want to see bad lighting techniques watch porn and Megan Fox." No one is going to learn anything!! Geez
 
David G. Smith said:
Anybody who wants to see 35mm and 16mm film shot like home movies should look at porno films made in the 1970's. While there were some attempts during the "Porno chic" era of the early '70s to put some "Quality" into “Adult films" with some higher budget films like " Behind the Green Door" and "The Devil in Miss Jones", the novelty wore off quick. These films quickly digressed to a just get the image aesthetic, and that industry was taken over by video production within no time. It is interesting to compare the porno films shot on film with the ones shot on video. While it is arguable that the film versions look "Better" than the video versions, they still look like sh*t!
Click to expand...

Well, most porn until the 80's was shot on film... whether 8mm, 16mm, or 35mm, and then often transfered to 8mm for distribution. The last 'peepshow' based on 8mm setup I saw was in Kokomo Indiana in the 80s... purely academic research lead me there of course... that and the sign out on the highway... "Topless Shoe Shine"...

But as for the 'transition' from film to video... that transition was due in part because of the continued heavy zoning of movie houses that showed predominantly 'adult' material, out of existence, the 'mainstream' movie houses that didn't want picketers at their theaters if they showed an 'adult' film, and the trend of home viewing, distributed via VHS in the US, and VCD in Asia.

Personally, I wouldn't have minded more films like "Cafe Flesh"(1982), or even the 'X' parts of "Caligula"(1979) (despite the rage of the 'mainstream' cast and writer on the inclusion of 'explicit' sex scenes by Guccione...)

And of course, "Flesh Gordon"(1974) did have a pretty good claymation sequence... and then there's the, adult musical, "Alice in Wonderland"(1976)

Personally I don't think 'novelty wearing off' had anything to do with it. I strongly believe the campaign to 'drive explicit sex out of existence, or at least deep underground' had far more to do with the reduced production values of 1) the need to go to video, 2) a return to the 'just sex' of the 'blue movie'.

Oh, yeah... the last places I saw 'drive-in' X-rated theaters was in Indiana and South Carolina... again purely due to my academic research...
 
haha that was nice thread , im bumping this ,just to show some bad 35mm film stuff that looks like minidv camera :




This is disgusting
 
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I don't think that basketball one was bad at all and the last three suffer from the telecine more than anything. That Valentines day one was pretty horrendous though.
 
yeah basketball had 2-3 good shots i must admit but still it was kinda like video because os shutter.
VAlentine day is disaster,from the middle and to the end there are like 2 shots that are ok because of shallow dof but thats it.
 
Watch any good outdoor adventure film. Anything from Matchstick Productions, The Collective, Anthill Films, Confluence Films... Even some of my stuff (yeah, self plug, WHOOOO!!!!).
 
Read film theory

Read film theory

Everyone keeps looking for the "magic cinema" button. There are people whose job it is to explore what "cinematic" is.

They are called film theorists.

If you studied "Film As Art" by Arnheim you'd understand what you need to do with your camera to make your stuff no longer look like a home movie, but like CINEMA.

If you studied"Theory Of Film" by Kracuaer you'd understand how Lars Von Trier and the neo-realists are able to create art with a consumer camera

If you understood MONTAGE THEORY (Pudovkin, Eisenstein) you'd understand how editing makes cinema.

THE CINEMA BUTTON IS IN YOUR MIND NOT IN THE EQUIPMENT.

Study Film Theory.
 
Whole lotta stuff going on. I don't think the answer to the initial question matters, or is simply "who cares?"

But, answers to its antithesis have gone amok.

Lest we forget, Baraka was shot with natural light.

And if you shoot with 65mm film, you collect about 14-15 stops of dynamic range. That's what you collect from what's in front of you, and bring back to give to the world.

When you shoot with a Handycam, you're lucky to get 7 stops of highly compressed, artifct filled, blown highlights, etc.

Some of the repeated shouts of "crap" and "****" seem extremely arrogant. One does not have to have stylized Hollywood lighting to have usable footage. This arrogance has been detrimental to the discussion, and a bit pompous to boot.

All sorts of looks and lighting are acceptable. There is no mandate to do it the way you would like it done. Using cameras that capture more of this dynamic range will help give flexibility to naturally lit scenes.

The HDR capture (my article on Red HDRx) should expand the ability of filmmakers to light less and capture more simultaneously. I am very hopeful about the new HDR possibilities. To me the naturally lit look is far preferable than the old overlit Hollywood style, people standing in front of 10K spotlights.

Notice, I didn't call that look "crap," just less appealing to my own style preferences.

I saw Festen (The Celebration) in the theater, way back when, and never even noticed it was all "available light." Pretty remarkable, and the story was so good, that the image considerations never even popped up.
 
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