shatterkiss
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 p.2 #6 · Indie Film Maker.... Kinoflo alternatives? | |
adamdewilde wrote:
Crank2 was filmed using XH-A1s as well as a few other small canon handicams.
You gotta look at the context, though. They chose those because they specifically wanted a more lo-fi aesthetic, they wanted to shoot as many as 12 cameras at once, they wanted to place them in positions that a larger camera wouldn't fit (again, like crash cams or wearables), they new they'd be constantly destroying them during production and couldn't afford to be blowing up cine cams. Folks like the Mythbusters use the same rationale for shooting things like Sony V1Us.
http://www.collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/7771/tcid/1
I really don't think they'd have made the same decision had they been doing single-cam principal photography.
As far as lighting, and owning a dolly and tracks, and sliders and fluid heads etc etc.. You would need all that no matter what camera you own, correct?
Yes and no. You can take something like a Canon HVX-200a and shoot it without rails if you don't need the mattebox. You can shoot it handheld. You can record sound directly to it. You can run until the tape or P2 card runs out. You can shoot run-and-gun with AF and varying degrees of auto-exposure, and you can rack exposure easily during shots.
Yeah, you're going to need lighting and some form of camera mount at some point, regardless of what camera you're shooting. Most shooters don't own dolly or tracks, just like they don't own jibs or cranes unless they're specifically going out at owner-operators. But those guys aren't going to be your DPs either.
So with all the awesome videos I've seen so far shot with the 5D, and all the "rumors" which will eventually become truths about the 5D being used for movies... Why couldn't someone use it?
I feel like this just isn't sinking in for you: it's not that they CAN'T, it's that it's just so inconvenient in so many ways that there isn't enough incentive to try and use it in 90% of your production situations.
The appeal of the RED system, for instance, isn't just the optical quality...it's that it makes achieving that quality so much easier than other systems. It's smaller, lighter, faster, cheaper, easier to handle, modular, adaptable. That's why it's becoming so popular. There are other systems out there that can achieve the same visual quality, but they're much more of a headache to work with. There are already so many headaches involved in broadcast or cinema production that people will leap at something that reduces them. The 5D adds more headaches in most situations.
I can see it being used to shoot tabletops. Student films. Ultra-low-budget indie stuff that isn't expecting theatrical release. Specialty stuff like vehicle POVs or whatever. I just don't see the current rev being used for principal photography. The people you see getting excited are photographers, not DPs.
I'll give you a good example..
The production I just helped out on, I was using my 5DII for movie stills and behind the scenes video, I happened to setup my camera one night next to the Redsystem to shoot the scene for the heck of it..
That's not a good example at all: there was no expectation whatsoever of the video that you were shooting. Nothing was relying on it. No one needed the focus to be critical and perfect, no one needed to check the color gamut or match it to other footage, you're not going to need to sync it to recorded sound from maybe 100 takes in a shooting day, you didn't have a gaggle of people watching the output of it live from the camera position or video village (DP, op, 2nd AC, focus-puller, director, producer, continuity), you didn't need timecode or immediate playback.
Again, the issue at hand isn't image quality (with the exception of the shutter roll business), it's process. A DSLR just isn't designed for shooting video and makes a clumsy tool for it. Take that to a cine situation and the clumsiness will become a major issue.
Now maybe if you tried to show the 5D clip in a movie theater on a projector it might look ugly and the red would win, but for home DVD use on a regular 24" mac monitor it seems about the same.
A home DVD user needs reliable AF, AE, AWB, a decent mic. They need to be able to start a shot indoors and walk outdoors without half of the shot being unusable. The need to be able to zoom during a shot without making the entire camera leap around. They need to be able to get a stable image from a moving camera without a $2,000 support system.
I know I'm overlooking frame rate, jello effect etc etc, but I'm saying if you wanted to prove a point you could use it.
Production companies are in the business of making films/television and money, not proving points. Doing something just to prove a point is the realm of hobbyists and internet wankery. Making something harder to shoot means you're working more slowly which means it's costing you more to do...and if there isn't a big and noteworthy payoff involved, you'll find that that sort of thing is anathema to productions. They don't make a habit of making things more costly just for a lark.
P.S. Please jump over to my other topic, the lighting question about cinema, as I need some help! 
With all due respect, you don't need help, you need an experienced DP.
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