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I'm going to be shooting something soon that's just one scene, and it takes place in a single room. I want to start the setup on a tripod, but switch to handheld as the story progresses. Are there any hard and fast rules concerning this? Aside from cutting on action, what can I do to make sure the transition goes unnoticed?
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Aug 31, 2009 18:47
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Well if there are I've never heard of them. I suppose that's really more of an editor question, though. Anywho.. just to keep the ball rolling it's a new month, what's everyone working on? Commercials, shorts, sports, features?... Porn? Freelancing trudges on for me, this last month was especially famine, but this next one is starting pretty feast. I've landed another year of football with the local cable provider, so every Friday night I get to go dodge teenagers. Been trying to grow my freelance business any way I can, I've got two new clients but the real news I've been excited over was my brand new business cards coming in. I got them from Moo.com and they offer this feature where each card is different. So one side of the cards has regular name, company logo, and contact information while the other side has a different picture on every card. I gathered a bunch of my photography and some video stills and did an order of 50. It's like a little pack of videography trading cards, and my client yesterday loved it.
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Sep 1, 2009 23:56
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Rogetz posted:I'm going to be shooting something soon that's just one scene, and it takes place in a single room. I want to start the setup on a tripod, but switch to handheld as the story progresses. Are there any hard and fast rules concerning this? Aside from cutting on action, what can I do to make sure the transition goes unnoticed? Going from tripod to handheld within a scene is typically not done, as there is a big difference in the way a handheld shot feels, even a very steady handheld shot, as opposed to the very solid grounded look on a tripod. That said, there isn't any reason not to if you think the mounting tension of the scene justifies it. I'd strongly recommend working the timing of the shot transitions out with the director / maybe editor beforehand. Don't try to hide the transition from tripod to handheld, but actually use it to accentuate dramatic beats. You may still want to cover things to give the editor options, but use the fact that those transitions are going to stand out to your advantage. The only rule-ish thing I can think of is when shooting handheld is don't deliberately shake the camera. It usually looks fake, and if the audience is more focussed on the camera wobbling too much, then it will take them out of the moment. An exception I can think of is in the behind the scenes of shooting the pilot for lost, they talk about how they deliberately shook the camera during the plane crash sequences (that was a loaded film camera, probably weighting 30 or 40 pounds.) Another exception is in Fight Club during Brad Pitt's short monologue, "You are not your job..." where they also added film perforations shaking into the frame in post. What I'm getting at is only deliberately shake the camera if you really want the image to move around like the world is ending, otherwise try and handhold as still and smooth as possible and know that plenty of camera shake is going to be there from your breathing and movement. So if you want there to be a looser, "more handheld" feel at the end of the scene, instead of shaking the camera, I'd recommend you add a bit of movement, slowly circle the actors while handholding or something like that.
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Sep 3, 2009 23:48
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Slim Pickens posted:Edit: I'll look into that red rock and other 35mm adapters, but just from looking at the redrock page my first thought is "holy poo poo I bet that's expensive as all hell". I went and bought one of these last year for a short I was making (buying one was cheaping than renting one with lenses) and it worked out to total around $5,500 AUD (including postage) for both the kit (rails, baseplate, follow-focus, handle-bars, flip-screen, everything except a matte-box) and 3 new Nikon lenses. Its a good kit. Not the most expensive lens kit around or the best, and unfortunately its got issues with the EX series (corner vignetting) but its definitely been worth it for me as I'm now making plenty of money back on the investment by renting it out to the start-up studios I know. Not to mention it's helped quite a bit with networking as well and it even helped win a Tropfest award for best cinematography for this film. If I had the money though, I'd get a Letus Ultimate. Worked with one of those and they are absolutely leagues ahead of the Redrock, with none of its problems. Don't know which one loses more light to be honest, but the Ultimate has none of the issues that the Redrock has with the EX series. The problem is that it costs far more. The Letus Elite, however, doesn't so I'd say if anyone's looking for an adaptor, the Elite is your best option. Any Melbourne guys out there having trouble looking for work at the moment? I picked up a half-hour short film edit job that starts in the middle of this month, but besides that I've seen only one or two good editing positions open up in the past 4 months in Melbourne. Anyone had any better luck? Hippo Eats Midget fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Sep 7, 2009 |
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Sep 7, 2009 16:34
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The Affair posted:Anywho.. just to keep the ball rolling it's a new month, what's everyone working on? Commercials, shorts, sports, features?... Porn? Hear ya there. Nobody likes spending money it seems. Feels like I simply work for food and free beer. The latest project may land me in Dubai and Sydney in the coming months for these two videos that I produced same day during the International Moth Races (if you don't know what a moth is, check out the vids). I shot both on an EX1. I've only had it for a month. It's been a massive and most wonderful upgrade over my PD150. Music is by forums user ErrandBoy. Moth Slalom  http://www.allexits.net/node/45 Moth Final Race  http://www.allexits.net/node/47 FloatingPoop fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Sep 8, 2009 |
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Sep 8, 2009 00:37
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Gonna start up school again here shortly. In the mean time I want to shoot more footage and get more comfortable with the camera and what it can do visually, as well as try to build a portfolio to get into dxarts at University of Washington next year. For people already in the business, what suggestions do you have on what fields I should study other than cinema, or what programs I should be proficient with? Using a camera and editing software are obvious, but I'd like to know if employers prefer people that can use flash, photoshop, etc.
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Sep 10, 2009 00:38
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Learn some of the basics of design and typography. It'll make you a much stronger editor if the title cards you come up with on the fly don't look like something out of a WYSIWYG. I struggle with design type stuff in After Effects every day. It's especially bad when a client is really partial to their own font.
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Sep 10, 2009 03:57
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The Affair posted:It's especially bad when a client is really partial to their own font. Fighting over which variation of Helvetica to use? Many sleepless nights over here. Seriously, gently caress serifs and 99% of all typefaces.
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Sep 10, 2009 17:48
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I've mostly just done student projects so far, but just got a gig to film some interviews for a professional documentary project. This means I need to rent a camera.I was looking at renting a Canon XHA1 its within the budget and the reviews seem to make it look easy with the picture quality I want. My main concern is that I won't get a chance to use the camera before I rent it, I may get a night to mess around with it at most. the manuals on line so I can have a good read through that before but does anyone who used it know how easy it would be for me to pick up it up just from that. Ive used an assortment of MiniDv cameras, but the only real professionalish camera I have used for a decent length of time is the Sony PDX10. Also I want be the one editing this. The interview need to be done before the main production starts as it could take a while and the people being interviewed are very old. This means I don't really have a good idea of what format and frame rate the rest of the footage will be shot in. Is there anything i can do at this stage to help this from becoming a problem down the line? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Sep 12, 2009 10:37
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Well, going to be participating in the Boulder Shoot-Out 24 Hour Film Fest. All in-camera editing. This is going to be hell, but at least it's really fun hell. Anybody doing or done one of these recently? I want war stories.
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Sep 13, 2009 04:18
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dr_rat posted:words The XHA1 is a decent little camera, it's really no different than a GL1 or 2 if you're familiar with those. The controls are basically all on the side of the camera, you shouldn't have to hunt through menus for anything. I'd shoot the interviews at 1080 60i. HDV gets a little weird but that seems to be the most flexible way of shooting.
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Sep 13, 2009 20:31
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Hello fellow filmmakers - I posted in QCS asking about the possibility of bringing back the Filmy Filmmakers subforum of CD. It's only gotten one (positive) reply so far, but if any of you like me would prefer having a dedicated subforum over a single thread and you reply to that post, there just might be a chance of getting it back!
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Sep 17, 2009 23:51
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Absolutely not I hated Filmy Filmmakers. What is the point of having a subforum that only 20 people frequent? No thanks. I like posting my work in CD for the masses to see.
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Sep 18, 2009 00:04
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I don't think anyone ever said you had to post there. At any rate, posting your work certainly isn't the only reason for bringing it back.
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Sep 18, 2009 02:11
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Crop Top Skank posted:if any of you like me would prefer having a dedicated subforum over a single thread and you reply to that post, there just might be a chance of getting it back! I would love to have a subforum that filmmakers could post in, but the reality is there isn't enough of them here, at least contributing. Look at this thread, I haven't browsed it in days and there were only 9 new posts when I came in here now... I'm probably guilty of not contributing myself, but luckily it seems work has been picking up for freelancers a bit where I am lately, and I'm pretty busy shooting again, finally. Anyone else noticing this around the country?
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Sep 18, 2009 02:56
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I'm starting to do some resume building with odd PA jobs, and (I think) I'm going to be running second camera on a feature in October for deferred pay. I'm realizing now however that I don't know what a real production resume looks like. Anyone care to post a sample? Or where I could find one? It would be much appreciated.
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Sep 18, 2009 03:49
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I really liked Filmy Filmmakers, and wished it was a bit more popular. Same with this thread, but even big sites like dvinfo, and dxvuser have their slow weeks. Just to keep it all rolling, and I know I keep asking this, but what's everyone working on? I'm knee-deep in doctor videos for a local practice, nothing too challenging, just a lot of the same stuff. A week or two ago I worked a PSA for a production company who wouldnt tell us what it was about until about ten minutes before the talent arrived, it was Dolly Parton. A class act all the way. Aside from all that, Friday football continues. Last two weeks I've been doing field-cam. No clobbering yet, I'll let you know when it happens, (it probably will). And finally the big news today is I've been offered a full-time position at my old college as their system-wide videographer. Steady money, yay! Tubby pictures:   
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Sep 18, 2009 04:01
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I'm working in post on my Thesis project, a short narrative. It's taking a lot longer than it should. It's hard to motivate people when most of them aren't getting paid. (except you ButteryPancakes, you did great job and in short time.)
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Sep 18, 2009 07:03
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wanted a shoulder mount adapter for my xh-a1, and dvinfo seemed mostly in favor of the cb105 as far as cheap solutions went. ordered that, and I might be doing some stuff for Pacific Raceways. I asked about doing infield taping for motorcycle races, and she asked if I wanted to tape for car and drag races too. Could be fun to do, and probably worth it for the experience anyways. Last thing I made was a very short edit of a day out on highway 7 of some motorcyclists. There were only 3 that were running the same road multiple times, so they show up the most. I just wanted to try out some slow motion stuff, so I recorded everything in 60i and knocked it down to half speed. Learned that my tripod sticks too much(re-greased it, should be smooth now) and that a faster shutter speed is a must. Tracking's a bitch on a tripod. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLTr7hto9ZM Any suggestions for recording action are welcome.
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Sep 18, 2009 08:58
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Filmy Filmmakers was great... but it's hard to imagine that it would be suddenly popular if brought back. Let's try and keep a thread going first. I'm doing contract work for a heavy metal act and a lot of free work on the side. It's to the point with the contract gig that I've got to come up with some new projects in order to keep from going nuts with boredom. My boss's idea of creating a music video out of thin air has proven to be troublesome.
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Sep 18, 2009 09:24
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Crop Top Skank posted:I don't think anyone ever said you had to post there. At any rate, posting your work certainly isn't the only reason for bringing it back. The problem is, if we had a FF subforum and someone posts something for all to see in CD they say "don't post that here, you have a subforum for that."
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Sep 18, 2009 09:39
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SquareDog posted:The problem is, if we had a FF subforum and someone posts something for all to see in CD they say "don't post that here, you have a subforum for that." Hey, don't worry about it. It looks it's not going to happen anyway. Return to your regularly scheduled programming everyone.
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Sep 18, 2009 10:11
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Slim Pickens posted:Any suggestions for recording action are welcome. Practice the exact move you expect to do a few times, to commit it to muscle memory, before you do the actual shot. Especially for slow motion stuff, it's vital that the move be as perfect as you can get it because slow-mo will show any mistake you make so much clearer. Also, don't grip too hard with your operating hand. It's much more fluid to pan by just using your body weight pushing against the grip instead of trying to apply constant pressure on your hands. It creates a lot of jitter in the frame if you grip too tight because the pressure doesn't get distributed evenly to your fluid head, you lose the feel. I usually don't even use the handle on the tripod, I just grab the back of the camera/film mag and pan/tilt with that. With smaller cameras that might not always be practical but on larger cameras it gives you a much more immediate feel of the shot you're making. If you are consigned to the handle, angle it upwards instead of downwards, that way your hand grabs up and your wrist isn't angled downward. It makes operating a lot more comfortable. You also get a lot more feedback through your hands since your wrist muscles are not being pulled at so they are under no stress. This is especially good during fast, but precise moves. Another tip, if you have to make fast pans/tilts and end at an exact point. is to look at the trailing edge of the frame and find a visual marker there that you can line up (like a tree or a house). This will show up on your viewfinder a lot quicker than anything on the leading edge and allows you a little breathing room to get the exact frame you want. If you wait for a visual marker on the leading edge you can easily overshoot it because it won't come in frame until the last moment. Seems obvious but most people don't think of doing this. As for what I'm doing, well I just finished a lenghty period of color correction on my last feature and just got back from Deluxe in Rome to check the print. It's being duplicated as we speak and will be released in theaters October 8th here in Holland and Belgium. Should be pretty big, we're going out with 102 prints last I heard, but that may increase next week depending on the distributor. I'm a little nervous about how it will be received but very happy with the end result!
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Sep 19, 2009 16:29
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Friday football update: No clobbering, but it was crazy rainy yesterday and I did get a pretty alarming shock off the wrapped BNC/headset/XLR cable coming from the broadcast trailer to me on the field. Have any of you used wireless video transmitters out in (or in my case on) the field before?
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Sep 20, 2009 00:43
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My baby cousin just started film school, and I'd like to get her a digital camera to use for the shorts she makes outside of class. Do you guys have any recommendations for a decent camera with manual controls? I don't have any particular budget concerns, but I figure something like a RED camera is overkill for an eighteen-year-old.
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Sep 28, 2009 03:52
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Slashie posted:My baby cousin just started film school, and I'd like to get her a digital camera to use for the shorts she makes outside of class. Do you guys have any recommendations for a decent camera with manual controls? I don't have any particular budget concerns, but I figure something like a RED camera is overkill for an eighteen-year-old. The Panasonic HPX 170 is an excellent all purpose low budget camera. It'll be about $7000 including accessories and a decent tripod. It has an great optical zoom lens and a whole myriad of manual controls and setting. The best thing about it is that it doesn't use tape at all, it records to solid state media called P2 cards. You just import it directly into your editing program. It has two slots for P2 cards and you can buy whatever size of cards you want 8 GB is the smallest I believe, on two 16GB card with the right settings you can record 80 minutes of footage without having to unload either card. For someone who is just starting, it has a steep learning curve but she's got to learn sometime and the sooner the better.
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Sep 28, 2009 07:36
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butterypancakes posted:stuff. cheers for that.
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Sep 28, 2009 20:36
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SquareDog posted:The Panasonic HPX 170 is an excellent all purpose low budget camera. It'll be about $7000 including accessories and a decent tripod. It has an great optical zoom lens and a whole myriad of manual controls and setting. The best thing about it is that it doesn't use tape at all, it records to solid state media called P2 cards. You just import it directly into your editing program. It has two slots for P2 cards and you can buy whatever size of cards you want 8 GB is the smallest I believe, on two 16GB card with the right settings you can record 80 minutes of footage without having to unload either card. For someone who is just starting, it has a steep learning curve but she's got to learn sometime and the sooner the better. That sounds fantastic, thanks. I'll probably get her some P2 cards too - anything I should be aware of when buying them?
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Sep 28, 2009 20:38
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Slashie posted:That sounds fantastic, thanks. I'll probably get her some P2 cards too - anything I should be aware of when buying them? I don't think that "off-brand" P2's exist so don't worry about getting the "wrong one". Also there are about a half dozen ways to get the P2 media in to any given editing software and it can be difficult to figure out, but once you figure out one way it's a snap after that. And, don't get scared when you see the price for one card, you're not getting ripped off, they're just that expensive. I did I quick google search and it looks like Panasonic put out a new gray "E series" of P2 cards that are supposed to be much cheaper and perform better. I've never used them but it sounds like a pretty safe bet, just make sure you have a warranty. One more thing to consider is storage. Professionals never store their footage and projects on their main hard drive, they use external drives only. It makes it easier to manage and transport. Just try to buy quality hard drives like Lacie, they are proven to fail the least out of any brand of hard drive.
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Sep 28, 2009 20:51
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7 Grand for a student camera? drat, I wish I was related to you. On topic, I'm going to be Camera Op for a feature starting in October, shooting on a Canon XH-G1. Never shot on that model, or a Canon for that matter, anything in particular that I should know about it?
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Sep 28, 2009 21:04
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SquareDog posted:One more thing to consider is storage. Professionals never store their footage and projects on their main hard drive, they use external drives only. It makes it easier to manage and transport. Just try to buy quality hard drives like Lacie, they are proven to fail the least out of any brand of hard drive. She's got a pretty slick editing setup already, so I'm pretty sure she's all covered for storage. It's just that she'd been using her boyfriend's camera to actually shoot stuff with and, well, there's been some drama. But nothing fixes that like presents! Thanks again for all your help!
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Sep 28, 2009 21:10
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Rogetz posted:7 Grand for a student camera? drat, I wish I was related to you. That's what I was thinking. Panasonic's line of consumer AVCHD cameras are a great value. No it's not a pro camera but when she needs to learn about pro gear she can rent. Having a simple camera can really help someone overwhelmed by new technology focus on the story and direction. Those are the sorts of things you're suppose to be learning in film school anyway.
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Sep 29, 2009 01:31
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Where did YOU go to school?
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Sep 29, 2009 03:35
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A theory and research school with a dying film program.
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Sep 29, 2009 04:17
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Rogetz posted:A theory and research school with a dying film program. Well, the first school I went to that's pretty much true. Film students don't need to own an HPX, that was pretty much my argument.
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Sep 29, 2009 04:23
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butterypancakes posted:Well, the first school I went to that's pretty much true. This is true, but I wish I owned one.
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Sep 29, 2009 07:27
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I would seriously poo poo a brick if my cousin bought me an HPX with extra P2 cards. Something like an HV30 would probably be plenty for a film student. Somebody probably makes something similar, but records to flash or hard drives instead. Don't worry about the video quality, it's plenty of camera if it's in the right hands. (Guy used an HV20, basically an older hv30) Edit: "Anyway, the video was shot pretty much guerilla style with equipment that can not be described as proffesional by no means.Canon hv-20, a cheap sliq tripod, lots of filters (polarizers,nd's,half nd's, gradient grays etc.)Edited on a laptop that runs Sony Vegas 8.Thanks." Slim Pickens fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Sep 29, 2009 |
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Sep 29, 2009 09:39
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By all means, buy her a camera if you can. The more she shoots the better she'll get, and quicker. Part of the reason I feel as strong with the camera as I am (even though I'm probably not) is because I took out some loans early on and bought my XL2 so I wouldn't have to rely on the school's cameras. Saying that, though, does her school offer cameras that the students can check out? Ours had a strict two-day "some" questions asked policy. We could get it for 48 hours with only one sentence on a piece of paper describing what we're going to be doing with it. God bless you, little school Z1U. You and those weddings on the side helped put me through school.
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Sep 29, 2009 12:58
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She goes to one of the major schools so they have lots of equipment available (not sure what freshies can check out though), but I know how difficult it is to pull together shoots in school and how important building a non-homework portfolio is, so anything I can do to make that easier is worth it. She's serious about what she does - I know it wouldn't just sit in a corner gathering dust while she went to frat parties. And one of our older cousins made a similar investment in me back in the day, and it was a huge contributing factor to my now awesome career. Someday she will buy the next generation of cousins a hologram camera or some kind of flying car and the tradition will continue.
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Sep 29, 2009 14:09
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SquareDog posted:This is true, but I wish I owned one. You're not a freshman film student. or are you? 
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Sep 29, 2009 17:58
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