Zacuto Revenge Shootout Part 3

[zacuto]

Yes, minimizing variables would definitely be preferable. If you wanted to actually have a legitimate DP shootout, you should equip them with the same grip truck and the same camera equipment, and NOT TELL ANY OF US WHAT CAMERA IT WAS!

Who would want to do a DP shootout? What are we talking about the Iron Chef of cinematography

 

[refocusedmedia]

Who would want to do a DP shootout? What are we talking about the Iron Chef of cinematography

Haha that actually sounds awesome, and I would definitely watch it.

 

[Razz16mm]

And I would agree with you and for that purpose I would get a camera that you can easily afford.

Amen to that! Most of mine have effectively paid for themselves with one or two projects. The quality vs cost equation has certainly improved dramatically in the last few years.

For what it is worth, I do greatly appreciate the time and effort you put into doing these tests. There is always much of interest to learn from the process.
Perhaps the way it was presented was intended to generate a lot of controversial discussion. If so you definitely succeeded. Who was it that said there is no such thing as bad publicity? )

 

[Barry_Green]

I did change the title, it's called REVENGE of the great camera shootout. Meaning that it's REVENGING our previous shootouts by adding this new element.

Understood. But clearly that wasn't enough, or there wouldn't be such a kerfuffle.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Who would want to do a DP shootout? What are we talking about the Iron Chef of cinematography

The Wife and I don't have TV, so when we go on vacation sometimes it seems like we 'catch up' for that lack... but one of the shows she really like follow was a show centered on a group of 'photographers (well wannabees...)' and each show one of the there was an assignment, and an elimination round.

I don't think you folks are up for a 12 show series... but a 3 parter that had 3 different lighting conditions would be great.

 

[Barry_Green]

I hate to admit that all of us are babbling on and on about this, when the real message is about talent and getting experience.

And that's exactly the point. Had you said "this production is not about gear, this is to show you that you can get great results without gear", then maybe it would have come off differently. But surely you can see that on the heels of the SCCE, coming out with this entirely 180-degree-different approach was bound to cause controversy? You guys knew what you were doing, you sprung this on the public as a "surprise", and basically, the net effect is to try to make a lot of folks look silly. Not cool.

I don't have a problem with your basic premise of "talent overcomes gear". But just come out and say it. Say "this is the first shootout where we totally revile the notion that gear is important". Let people know what your motivations are up front. That's all. You absolutely had an agenda with this series, and your purposes did not align with what people have come to expect from camera comparison tests. So you created a lot of confusion, and this (and many other threads like it all over the interent) are the result.

Might we all be better off spending our time getting out there and start shooting with what ever camera we have. That was the real message I was hoping people would get from the DP's who inspired us. I'm already off doing my next documentary completely non related to the film industry.

Again, if that's the desired outcome, you could have made that much easier and much clearer by doing the comparison that people expected, and then throwing in a third zany part. Imagine how it would have gone if you'd done Part I, the comparison everyone expected, an objective camera test. And then, after releasing I & II and covering all the objective stuff, then you hit us with the real zinger -- Part III - how much does the cinematographer factor into the equation? Watch this part, guys, this will blow your mind. We've already shown in Part I the huge differences that the different cameras have, but then we decided to personalize it to show how much the person BEHIND the camera makes a difference. And what a difference it makes! Our GH2 shooter got more pleasing results out of that little camera, than our F65 shooter did (according to the audience vote!) How impressive is that? Learn your gear, and go shoot!"

If you'd done that, you'd be hailed as heroes. Instead, you tried to "trick" everyone, to lead them along, and frankly to mislead them into believing something that just patently isn't true. And then at the very end you tried to basically take it back.

It's all in the presentation. And I think a lot of us are saying that the presentation was done in such a misleading way that it's splatted a whole lot of crap all over the internet, and the damage is being done in us having to work with clients now who don't know what they're supposed to take away from all this.

You could have made it crystal clear. Hopefully, in the future, you'll take more care about what the message is that you're trying to deliver, and can maybe tone down the sensationalism a bit (or a whole heck of a lot).

Or maybe that wasn't your goal? Maybe your goal was to be sensationalistic? Lots of us are assuming your goal was to be informative. But if it wasn't, if your goal was instead to "stir the pot", then -- well, you accomplished that. Of course, stirring the pot with misinformation isn't really all that hard, nor is it that worthy of a goal. I would hope that you would want to be informational, not sensationalistic.

 

[Barry_Green]

Who would want to do a DP shootout? What are we talking about the Iron Chef of cinematography

Er, well, I guess I kinda thought you did, seeing as that's basically what you did... that's basically what Part I is, isn't it? The person instead of the gear? A comparison of DP's?

 

[MPB]

Problem is, Zacuto was involved in making the doc for last year's SCCE. And that was (nearly) perfect. So they already did it basically exactly right. Why they veered 180 degrees off course into sensationalism and marketing, instead of information, is (I think) what's ticking off a lot of folks.

Last year, it was all about factual information and actual performance. This year it's all about obfuscation, variability, and demonstratable nonsense. It is obvious (especially with part III out) that the first two parts are just plain misleading, isn't it? That the message people are coming away with (the GH2 beat the F65!!!) is just nonsense. That's the part that's annoying. Represent the truth and tell the truth. If your goal is to say "camera is irrelevant, only the shooter matters" (which is, by the way, a defensible argument) then JUST SAY IT. Up front. Say "In this section, we are going to attempt to show that even though there are massive differences between these cameras, if you work hard enough and your skill set is up to the task, you can actually overcome those obstacles and get great footage from any of these cameras". State your objective.

But if that's your objective, don't call it a "camera test", and don't tease and market about how "oooh, you'll never guess which camera "won" the shootout" and all that, because that's just plain misleading.

Go back to the SCCE. Do it that way. That was facts, presented factually, in an unbiased way, that let everyone see exactly what was what, and let them all make up their own minds.

Barry, you've stated my own view on the matter very well. it seemed a bit condescending to me (sorry) to be lectured on the importance of story in a camera test. the importance of story is a given, and i'm glad you loooooove your job. that's not really information i can use, though.

 

[Art Adams]

Yes, minimizing variables would definitely be preferable. If you wanted to actually have a legitimate DP shootout, you should equip them with the same grip truck and the same camera equipment, and NOT TELL ANY OF US WHAT CAMERA IT WAS!

That's the best thing I've read in this forum yet.

 

[S. Matthews]

Sorry but the name is the main issue with me as it implies a camera test whether you ment to or not. Your explanation of it being the revenge of the other shootout is confusing and unnecessary(and honestly doesn't make sense or the point I think you want) why have shootout in the name at all? another issue is not having any of the source files from the cameras to play with(even if it's just one frame), a crucial factor to me, especially when dealing with RAW cameras let alone when you are mixing them with non RAW cameras.

I agree completely with Art and Barry appreciate the effort by all but I'm still left a little confused by all this... especially the reactions to people pointing out the very obvious issues with this documentary/test/whatever.

 

[Art Adams]

Again we can talk about cameras all day long but the emphasis of the test was to show the differences between the actual out of box quality of the camera and what one can do with it if you know what you are doing.

But... how do we know who knew what they were doing?

Some people liked the GH2 and hated the Alexa and F65--but the looks were completely different. The GH2 had by far the brightest lighting job, and the Alexa and F65 were very dark and moody. The DP for the Alexa is extremely experienced and extremely good, and the guys who shot the GH2 are young and relative unknowns... is it true what someone in the audience said about how the hungry kids kicked the butts of the more experienced DPs? Or did the more experienced DPs do more subtle work and take more chances?

How do we know any of this? With all the audience debate I didn't hear anyone asking DPs about their lighting styles, their motivations, the visions for the scene... we got some of that in the behind-the-scenes portions but in the theaters everyone just talked a lot about cameras.

Are the GH2 guys geniuses because they knew how to work with their camera? Or did they take fewer chances than the more experienced DPs and just make things brighter? I'd love to have heard that debate.

It didn't happen.

Heck, WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THE DP WAS FOR THE SONY F65. Is that a question someone from Zacuto would like to answer? And can they tell us why, if DPs are so important, that person got zero credit?

My problem with this test is that it leaves too many opportunities for information contained within to be misconstrued:

-Francis Ford Coppola liked the GH2 first, therefore it is an incredible camera.

-Camera experts know how to wring the best out of their cameras, therefore we should only hire people who know how to work really well with specific cameras. (If you're going to hire a camera expert then someone has to decide which camera to use before interviewing experts, which means the DP is not involved in the camera choice because they need not apply if they aren't experts with that camera. Of course, being an expert with a camera says nothing about how you light...)

-You can shoot with a crappy camera and fix it all in post.

-ASC members think many of these cameras look mostly the same.

I've been hearing and reading variations of this stuff and it scares me. So many high profile DPs in one place and a test that really doesn't say anything... it's not a scientific test because there's no equipment control, and it's not an artistic test because the equipment changed constantly... what is it? What does it mean? And why do so many high-level DPs endorse it?

The argument I keep hearing from Zacuto is that everyone who sees this is rational, everyone who sees this is artistic, everyone who sees this can separate artistry from technology... have these people EVER worked in the film industry?

 

[Art Adams]

I really think a lot of people are really overreacting to the effects this little documentary will have on the industry.

RED's marketing had a significant effect on the industry: it made the camera the rock star instead of the people behind it. Now, every year, there's a new must-have camera, and those of us who freelance find ourselves constantly being told that we're going to use the latest flavor because that's what the client wants. I hardly get asked anymore.

Fads hit this industry fast and hard, and half the time no one really knows where they come from. They swoop in, dramatically affect our lives for a while, and then leave--to be replaced by something else. It's bad enough when the fads come from thin air and hang around for a long time (shaky cam, anyone?) but when the source comes endorsed by well-established people in our own industry... it's dangerous.

The GH2 fad is already happening. Someone on every set I walk on these days talks about the GH2. It wasn't even on my radar before a few weeks ago. It may pass, or we may all have to buy GH2s in order to keep working for the next six months. There's no way to know.

 

[morgan_moore]

My memory is not perfect but last year I believe there was a lot of 'chat' about the cheap cameras not being given a proper chance, because the test team did not know how to use them.

I think that is why this year each camera has its own 'master'

The truth is a cheap camera can, with a bit of fill chucked in, look great, last year we did not see that, this year we did, but the example may have been too extreme, or failed to expand fully to properly show how a cheap camera can do a simple scene, but pushed beyond that, maybe into the desert, or midday, or suchlike can fall over pretty badly.

I guess DP is navigating through such compromise sets, and probably the best tools they can use to do that are cold hard tests.

S

 

[Art Adams]

The truth is a cheap camera can, with a bit of fill chucked in, look great, last year we did not see that, this year we did, but the example may have been too extreme, or failed to expand fully to properly show how a cheap camera can do a simple scene, but pushed beyond that, maybe into the desert, or midday, or suchlike can fall over pretty badly.

That's the part that was missing from the presentation: some of these cameras almost always look great but cost a lot of money; some of these cameras can look great under controlled circumstances or if you're willing to accept certain abstractions. There are times when my reel has contained footage from REDs, Alexas, HVX-200s, EX3s and Canon 5Ds -all at the same time.- They can all look great. They can't all look great telling the same story under the same conditions.

The trick is that this is a complex message. The meta message is that you should talk to your DP to figure out what your budget allows and then let them pick the best option for the story the director wants to tell.

The unfortunate thing is that there are too many people out there who mistrust DPs for one reason or another, and think that we're always just asking for toys instead of sticking to what we need, and they want a certain amount of control over what we do. Rather than show them a doc that says, clearly, "The people are EVERYTHING!" we have instead a doc that says "In this blind test some famous people picked toy cameras that anyone can buy, and cheap!"

I got this phone call a few months back from a commercial company out of LA:

Them: "Hi! We're shooting a national spot in your area and we want to know if you're available! We're shooting on either an Alexa, a RED ONE MX, an F3 or a Canon 5D! Are you interested?"

Me: "Um... you know those are very, very, very different cameras with very different looks, right?"

Them: "Oh sure. The director will make a decision any day now."

I then talked a bit about how choosing a camera can be a complex choice but I could potentially save them a lot of money by helping them pick the right one for the job. I asked for more details about the job and they said they'd call me right back.

They gave the job to someone else who just said "Sure."

Those people are watching this documentary as well.

 

[DBP]

Well, they've certainly spawned some heavy discussion. Each part has had several multi page threads come out of it.

I do like how they kept the camera identities a secret for a while. I find that with camera tests, there aren't nearly enough double blind tests. When people know the identity, often their inner fanboy-ism comes out, and they tend to exaggerate the differences. They proclaim that certain differences are obvious. When we remember Philip Bloom's christmas shoot-out, it was really funny to see how many people messed up the labelling of the pre release stills. These are pros who pixel peep for a living. With average joes, the differences are even less apparent. I know the Revenge shoot out is far from a perfect double blind since so many variables changed (DOP, lighting style) but still...it'd be nice to have more tests where the viewer's inner bias couldn't rear it's ugly head first.

 

[zacuto]

And that's exactly the point. Had you said "this production is not about gear, this is to show you that you can get great results without gear", then maybe it would have come off differently. But surely you can see that on the heels of the SCCE, coming out with this entirely 180-degree-different approach was bound to cause controversy? You guys knew what you were doing, you sprung this on the public as a "surprise", and basically, the net effect is to try to make a lot of folks look silly. Not cool.

I don't have a problem with your basic premise of "talent overcomes gear". But just come out and say it. Say "this is the first shootout where we totally revile the notion that gear is important". Let people know what your motivations are up front. That's all. You absolutely had an agenda with this series, and your purposes did not align with what people have come to expect from camera comparison tests. So you created a lot of confusion, and this (and many other threads like it all over the interent) are the result.


Again, if that's the desired outcome, you could have made that much easier and much clearer by doing the comparison that people expected, and then throwing in a third zany part. Imagine how it would have gone if you'd done Part I, the comparison everyone expected, an objective camera test. And then, after releasing I & II and covering all the objective stuff, then you hit us with the real zinger -- Part III - how much does the cinematographer factor into the equation? Watch this part, guys, this will blow your mind. We've already shown in Part I the huge differences that the different cameras have, but then we decided to personalize it to show how much the person BEHIND the camera makes a difference. And what a difference it makes! Our GH2 shooter got more pleasing results out of that little camera, than our F65 shooter did (according to the audience vote!) How impressive is that? Learn your gear, and go shoot!"

If you'd done that, you'd be hailed as heroes. Instead, you tried to "trick" everyone, to lead them along, and frankly to mislead them into believing something that just patently isn't true. And then at the very end you tried to basically take it back.

It's all in the presentation. And I think a lot of us are saying that the presentation was done in such a misleading way that it's splatted a whole lot of crap all over the internet, and the damage is being done in us having to work with clients now who don't know what they're supposed to take away from all this.

You could have made it crystal clear. Hopefully, in the future, you'll take more care about what the message is that you're trying to deliver, and can maybe tone down the sensationalism a bit (or a whole heck of a lot).

Or maybe that wasn't your goal? Maybe your goal was to be sensationalistic? Lots of us are assuming your goal was to be informative. But if it wasn't, if your goal was instead to "stir the pot", then -- well, you accomplished that. Of course, stirring the pot with misinformation isn't really all that hard, nor is it that worthy of a goal. I would hope that you would want to be informational, not sensationalistic.

Frist off besides some forums a few articles, this program is a huge success. A documentary should evoke some to love it and some to hate it. In the large scale of 200,000 viewers so far I've got less then 100 of the same people bitching on various forums. Which is fine. If I made a documentary where everyone looked at it and said "yep" all good. It really wouldn't tell you the full story. The full story is that the tool is only half of the message or even less then that. And I know that every time I say that if makes everyone here madder and madder. Sorry. But it's the truth, the sooner you accept the quicker you can start focusing on what really matters, lighting & gaining experience. I've had hundreds of emails from ASC members, corporate and indie filmmakers, as well as 1000's of positive comments. Most people are incredibly inspired and motivated to go out and shoot. They listen to the DP's and hear the total message where many here tune that out and only care about the test. Yes, I've made a different program then I've made in the past. It's called change. It's pretty clear to me, if you listen to Bruce in the first 5 minutes of the part one of the docu, he lays it all out. What you are about to see. If I would have presented part three first, as many have suggested, all of the folks here would have watched that said, "oh boy" my camera did well "I feel good" and never come around to watch parts two and three. Not what I wanted to say. I wanted the entire message to be told and it came off exactly how I wanted it to. I'm thrilled with it, just as it is. You need to understand as the director, that is my prerogative. You can have the option not to like it, I'm fine with that. But understand that I thought long and hard about how I wanted my film to be, and this is it, and I stand behind it. It's 1/2 traditional test, 1/2 subjective test. You are supposed to be slightly more humored about the subjective test. It's just showing possibilities. I do have a problem with a lot of folks saying things that are untrue, mis-quoting, especially not reading. Here is the page where you watch the video. Read the text at the top of the page before you watch the video. I think it makes it pretty damn clear what you are about to see: http://www.zacuto.com/shootout-revenge-2012/revenge-great-camera-shootout-part-one

 

[zacuto]

Er, well, I guess I kinda thought you did, seeing as that's basically what you did... that's basically what Part I is, isn't it? The person instead of the gear? A comparison of DP's?

NO, again, nobody is listening. They are just saying stuff because they are mad. If you go and re-watch that part of the program. Bruce tells the variables they are allowed to change. Actually it's not so much as you think. They cannot move his base lighting, they can only dim or increase those lights. They can add lights to help them try to fake DR by filling in areas. This is exactly what you would do if you were walking on that set with one of the lesser cameras. No changing the sun, or window. These people who were brought was because they were a master of their particular camera. The idea here is that if you walked into an apartment and were not able to change the window or sun. And basically had a room lit with practices, what would you do to make it work for your camera. Again trying to play off of the cameras strengths and your creative abilities. if you had some fill lighting what could you do to make this extremely dark interior work with the camera that you are a master of. Then each DP went about telling us why they did what they did and the reasons for it to make the scene work for their camera. It's a subjective test. This was stated like 1000 times. It's interesting, that's all. Part three is different, it's an empirical test.

 

[zacuto]

That's the part that was missing from the presentation: some of these cameras almost always look great but cost a lot of money; some of these cameras can look great under controlled circumstances or if you're willing to accept certain abstractions. There are times when my reel has contained footage from REDs, Alexas, HVX-200s, EX3s and Canon 5Ds -all at the same time.- They can all look great. They can't all look great telling the same story under the same conditions.

The trick is that this is a complex message. The meta message is that you should talk to your DP to figure out what your budget allows and then let them pick the best option for the story the director wants to tell.

The unfortunate thing is that there are too many people out there who mistrust DPs for one reason or another, and think that we're always just asking for toys instead of sticking to what we need, and they want a certain amount of control over what we do. Rather than show them a doc that says, clearly, "The people are EVERYTHING!" we have instead a doc that says "In this blind test some famous people picked toy cameras that anyone can buy, and cheap!"

I got this phone call a few months back from a commercial company out of LA:

Them: "Hi! We're shooting a national spot in your area and we want to know if you're available! We're shooting on either an Alexa, a RED ONE MX, an F3 or a Canon 5D! Are you interested?"

Me: "Um... you know those are very, very, very different cameras with very different looks, right?"

Them: "Oh sure. The director will make a decision any day now."

I then talked a bit about how choosing a camera can be a complex choice but I could potentially save them a lot of money by helping them pick the right one for the job. I asked for more details about the job and they said they'd call me right back.

They gave the job to someone else who just said "Sure."

Those people are watching this documentary as well.

It's kind of pointless mentioning anything to you because it all gets taken out of context, twisted in to untrue and slanderous statements, oh and you haven't watched the program either. But in part two and three there are three producers that comment on camera after they watched the test footage and said that it this has opened there eyes and said that in the future they realize that the camera decision needs to be made with the producer, director and DP together. I know you will find some interesting way to twist this around. These were producers in the audience that commented. Let's see how you can turn this around.

 

[zacuto]

Just in case everyone is not mad enough, check out these gorgeous images that my buddy Dan Chung did of the Olympics. Now since I need to be very clear, they were all specifically shot with an iPhone: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/27/london-olympics-2012-smartphone?fb=native These pics are all him, that creative--dirty word--we really can't talk much abut his camera. I'd say creativity played an important role here. If this is the quality of a phone today. What will video camera tech be like in 4 years, in the $1,000 market???? We will be laughing at this thread.

 

[morgan_moore]

Them: "Hi! We're shooting a national spot in your area and we want to know if you're available! We're shooting on either an Alexa, a RED ONE MX, an F3 or a Canon 5D! Are you interested?"

That is the real tragedy, clients not engaging with the person who they are hiring.

I dont get that, I dont go to my dentist and say "we are doing a filling today, using an Acme Drill, I heard they a really cheap and good"

I go to my dentist and say - "can you help me with the ache in my tooth"

I own three cameras, FS100, EX1 and 5d2, there are no cost implications to the client on their camera choice, because hiring me you get them all.

I have shot at least two jobs where the client specced the 5d but the FS100 would have been way better.
Certainly shot a job on the FS100 where the EX1 would have been better
And also a job on the FS100, where the 5d would be better

I mentioned in Pre, my ideal choice of camera (from the ones I own), was over ruled, and my subsequent operating/images were compromised by camera choice which reflects badly on me.

S