You MIGHT be watching an HD DSLR film if…

Postmaster

Postmaster

Dark Side of the Camera
You MIGHT be watching an HD DSLR film

if…every medium shot is completely out of focus except just the eyes, noses and mouths.

if…every other long shot is shot with a tilt-shift lens.

if…the whole thing is cinema verite style with focus going in and out like the focus pullers were drunk.

if…there’s a timelaspe thrown in the middle of the film for absolutely no apparent reason.

if…it’s color graded to look like it was shot on 70’s vintage film.



Did I miss something?

:D Frank
 
but i'll tell you what i HAVE done, and feel free to add it to your list..

i shoot flower footage, with close-up filters, not real macro.

i film my daughter, and my animals.

i ran right out and got some old primes for my gh1, that damn Ceicio7 adapter everyone raves about, and what turned out to be a knockoff FaderND, because i didn't do my research.

i abuse slow motion.

i make excuses for handheld footage.

i post everything i do on Vimeo for everyone to watch the first 9 seconds of and hit stop.

i make the "awful" "glorified" home movies that don't get much respect around here. and i LOVE it...

sorry Frank, didn't mean to rant. i love your posts, and respect your presence here.

i do all this because i love shooting video, and as it turns out, i'm THAT guy...sorry if you don't like it. but do what i do if i don't like something. watch something else.
 
Relax and have a smoke Chris, I was just making a joke
After all, we are all big boys having fun with our toys (rhyming accidental).

And, yeah, Philip Bloom is guilty at all points. :D

Frank :beer:
 
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Don't worry fellas, I am in pre-pro on my remake of a "I Just Got My New Camera and Here is What My Back Yard Looks Like" video I saw on Vimeo. If the financing comes through we are going to do a double shoot, and get "I Just Got My New Camera, Part Two" "The Front Yard" in the can at the same time!
 
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....the hummingbird just landed....my tripod is not level.......god dammit, they're gone!!! there's always Friday.
 
but hey, on my last smoke break, i witnessed something cool....a spider, with a perfectly woven web on a lightpost outside....i decided to interrupt him by burning a hole in the web with my cigarrette, nowhere near his body....just to see what he would do if his web was compromised. guess what?....he climbed down his web, to assess the damage, and he began to rebuild the missing portion of his web. success. within seconds, he was back at the center...waiting.
 
Postmaster said:
You MIGHT be watching an HD DSLR film

if…every medium shot is completely out of focus except just the eyes, noses and mouths.

if…the whole thing is cinema verite style with focus going in and out like the focus pullers were drunk.

Did I miss something?

:D Frank
Click to expand...


You need to stop critcizing me you cruel bastard!:D

You did forget: If...Micro Jitters are all over the place. Which I'm guilty of towards the end of the shoot.
 
Frank, you forgot these:
-- Vertical SKEW..
-- (and my favorite) improper lighting with the usual tag “Filmed in natural light.”
-- crappy audio
 
I agree. The DLSR video quality:price ratio is creating the same rage that super-8 did for the baby boomers... the only difference is now all those home-movies are "films".

Ironic... considering 95% of those old timers with FILM cameras never considered themselves to be filmmakers :)
 
"filmed in natural light" has it's place and "Improper" is not really a fair call, sometimes it fits the scene to shoot with available lighting. I try not to do it most of the time. things are just so much better when lit correctly, which i'm still learning how to do.

There were tons of crap "films" with crap audio waaaaay before DSLR's, but like Matt said, It's higher quality now. And some of my footage could be called crap for sure.:evil:
 
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Richard J. Johnson said:
"filmed in natural light" has it's place and "Improper" is not really a fair call, sometimes it fits the scene to shoot with available lighting.
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True, true.. For me though it’s a mixed bag. I think there is a right way to shoot in natural lights (using reflectors etc.) and for it to look cinematic. But often times the compositions I see look bland or with not much thought behind “painting” the scene. But if the look is what the DP intended (whether I think it’s good or not) then you’re right…improper is not a fair call.
 
MattinSTL said:
I agree. The DLSR video quality:price ratio is creating the same rage that super-8 did for the baby boomers... the only difference is now all those home-movies are "films".

Ironic... considering 95% of those old timers with FILM cameras never considered themselves to be filmmakers :)
Click to expand...

Well, I cut my teeth on Super 8 and there was a very vibrant independent film community, beyond home movies, for the small gauge films. Pick up some copies of Super Filmmaker Magazine, or Lenny Lipton's "Independent Filmmaking", "The Super 8 Handbook", "Super 8 in the Video Age" by Brodski and Treadway, or other film books from the '70's and '80's if you get a chance. A lot of what is discussed here is covered in those books and mag, but for small gauge film.

Now I agree, more than 95% of folks with Super 8 cameras never thought of themselves as filmmakers, but I would say that is true for the vast majority of the folks who are buying video capable DSLRs today.
 
Ian-T said:
True, true.. For me though it’s a mixed bag. I think there is a right way to shoot in natural lights (using reflectors etc.) and for it to look cinematic. But often times the compositions I see look bland or with not much thought behind “painting” the scene. But if the look is what the DP intended (whether I think it’s good or not) then you’re right…improper is not a fair call.
Click to expand...


I can't even wrap my head around the artform. And since I am the DP I really should know much more than I do. For me it all goes back to NOT doing EVERYTHING on set. Any of my films would have looked much better with proper lighting.

But what IS improper is you not shooting.:furious3:
 
Ian-T said:
True, true.. For me though it’s a mixed bag. I think there is a right way to shoot in natural lights (using reflectors etc.) and for it to look cinematic. But often times the compositions I see look bland or with not much thought behind “painting” the scene. But if the look is what the DP intended (whether I think it’s good or not) then you’re right…improper is not a fair call.
Click to expand...

I have been trying to formulate a lighting aesthetic that I call "Augmented Available Light", inspired by the work of the French New Wave cinematographer Raoul Coutard and the some of the seventies "New Hollywood" cinematographers, for a while now. Technically, how I would want to achieve this aesthetic is by punching up available practical lighting, as needed/practical, arranging them, as needed/practical, as part of the film production design, and then supplementing this lighting with small, portable lights, as needed, with an emphasis on effective and/or attractive portraiture lighting. The lighting kit for this I was envisioning is what used to be called a "Station Wagon Kit", which is exactly what it sounds like, a lighting kit that fit in the back of station wagon (and was a designation of an a lighting package that was available from the old Victor Duncan rental house outside of Detroit). I guess the designation now would be a "Mini-van kit". (I will give you that that the size of the necessary kit keeps growing though).

For this, with an orientation from shooting film, I pretty much considered that I would need a film stock (imaging system) with an ASA (ISO) of at least 800, and was really looking forward to the day of a very "Usable" 1000 ASA(ISO). Until recent advances in imaging systems, this aesthetic has been more of an intellectual exercise, then a practical possibility for low budget narrative production. Digital imaging, including the current crop of DSLRs, and new lighting gear, especially flo's and LED, has advanced to the point where I think that this style of working and aesthetic is very viable for the telling of some types of fictional narrative films. Now I know that this style/aesthetic is not for ALL types of narrative films, and is especially not well suited for the genre films that are very popular on this forum.

I know that this may sound laughable to a lot of folks. I am also of the opinion that pulling this off, effectively, would take as much, if not more, skill and creativity as lighting a film with a ten ton lighting and grip package. Of course, the first, most important skill and creative decision, would be knowing when, and for what kinds of stories, this would be appropriate.

I do agree that a lot of the "Hey Mom, I Got a New Camera" videos, shot at night on the streets of (Insert town name here) are pretty inane and are not what I am talking about at all.

But no time now.... I have to get back to the pre-pro on my film, the remake of a "I Just Got My New Camera and Here is What My Back Yard Looks Like" and the sequel, "I Just Got My New Camera, Part Two" "The Front Yard".
 
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