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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Quick Links

I May Never Buy a Camera Again | RON DAWSON | Dare Dreamer
Interesting thoughts on renting vs. owning:
I guess what I’m saying is this: think with your head, and not with your heart when it comes to making an investment in something as expensive as a camera, especially when they change as often as they do. I’d be more inclined to invest my money in great glass that you can use on multiple cameras. A Zeiss CP.2 cinema lens can be used on everything from a T2i to a RED. No matter what kind of shoot you’re doing, a good lens will come in handy.


NAB 2012: Quantel new Pablo and Neo Nano | Scott Simmons | ProVideoColaition
Quantel's "cheaper" (~$50,000) color grading solutions:
The Pablo control surface really is a thing of beauty and if you ever get the chance to lay your hands on one by all means do and you’ll see what I mean. It is very well engineered and feels amazing under your hands. The new Neo Nano is stripped down in size removing the keyboard, tablet, transport controls and a lot of buttons but the majority of the functionality is still there


NAB 2012: Baselight for Avid Media Composer | Scott Simmons
| ProVideoCoalition
At $999, Baselight is a cheaper grading solution, and now it's coming to Avid Media Composer:
It would appear the Filmlight strategy is coming to fruition: put Baselight on many of the leading post-production applicants and allow for interoperability between the Baselight Editions and a real Baselight color grading system. The Editions will cost $995 each.


Video Comparisons
Three video camera comparisons clips:

Canon 5D Mark II vs. Mark III vs. Nikon D800 - Candlelight: High-ISO | Joe Marine
| Vimeo

Image comparison C300 / 5DmkII / 5DmkIII | Dennis Ersöz | Vimeo
The preset look of the mkIII surprises me the most and for a real job I would definitely go for a very flat setting instead. Even the C300 would benefit from much lower detail settings, especially when shooting faces.

Red Epic Vs Sony PMW-F3 Vs Canon C300 | Filippo Chiesa | Vimeo
Red Epic recorded RAW on-board in Red Log 4K HD.
Sony PMW-F3 recorded in S-Log both in DPX on Gemini 4:4:4 10 bit and on-board.
Canon C300 recorded in Canon-Log both in DPX on Gemini 4:2:2 8 bit and on-board.


Storage, asset management and archive. Where does it all go? | Mike Sutton
| Wide Open Camera
The dirty little secret of most budget video-shooters; no good backup strategy!
Backing up your movie, commercial, etc to LTO-5 is probably one of the smartest things you can do these days. They hold 1.5TB of data each and are index-able with metadata and will last over 50 years. You can span projects and if used with an asset management system like CAT-DV or FLOW you can keep tabs on everything properly.


NAB 2012 - Editshare Lightworks | StudioTechTV | YouTube
An interview with David Shapton of Editshare about Lightworks, the only top-end, low-cost NLE system that runs on Windows, Linux & Mac (the latter; maybe)



NAB 2012 – New Product Preview: Magic Bullet Arsenal, Knoll Light Factory 3
| Aharon Rabinowitz | Red Giant Software
A quick look at some of what Red Giant showed at NAB: Magic Bullet Arsenal and Knoll Light Factory 3. Neither is available yet.

And Larry Jordan does a Preview of FCPX Plugin Mojo by Red Giant | YouTube



The Canon C300 saved my butt | Jonathan Yi | Vimeo
Short clip showing how the low-light capabilities of the Canon C300 (plus an iPhone flashlight app) saved the day on a commercial shoot.



Crowdfunding for Filmmakers, raise a million dollars over the Internet
| Mark Litwark | Entertainment Law Resources Blog
More on the JOBS Act and it's impact on budget filmmakers:
Most promising for indie filmmakers, the JOBS Act contains provisions that for the first time will allow internet crowdfunding for the production of films. Crowdfunding is a method of raising capital by obtaining small amounts of money from a large number of investors. Although existing companies like Kickstarter.com and IndieGoGo currently enable filmmakers to raise funding through donations (i.e., gifts), this new law, when it becomes effective, will allow filmmakers to raise up to one million dollars in equity investments by soliciting the general public without the prior restraints.


8 Tips on being a better cinematographer | Joyce | StillMotionBlog
Some interesting suggestions applicable to all creatives:
2. be mindful
think slow, act fast. shooters just starting out often roll all the time in fear of missing something but by doing so you’re not making a conscious decision about what you’re shooting and therefore actually get less out of the scene. take the time to think about what’s going on and how to capture it, and THEN hit record. you will be more focused and…


Do broadcasters understand 3D? | Stephane Savard | Blog
Of course not! Neither do I!
One example did happen yesterday at the session that was talking about the 2d to 3d conversion of “Titanic”. That movie has been converted with lots of depth and I think the 3D effect is very impressive. They presented some scene from the converted movie and during the question period, one attendee did say that there was not much 3D in what we saw… basically for him if things are not jumping off the screen and comes into your face, this is not 3D!



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