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Descent into Madness
Throw away the Digital SLRs with DOF adapters and matte boxes and pitch those old fashioned RED cameras, gentlemen (and ladies)… BEHOLD!!!!!
https://www.markertek.com/Digital-Video-Production/Camera-Support-Stabilizers/ZACUTO/Z-ZG-IP.xhtml
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23 Replies
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And such a bargain too… Markertek is discounting it from $295.00 MSRP down to an incredibly low price of just $280.25. That clinches it, I’ll buy several at that price.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Do you suppose Apple paid Zacuto to make this device? If you’re going to spend $300 for a stabilizer, why not spend a bit more and get an actual VIDEO CAMERA. The whole point of shooting video with a PHONE is that it is a PHONE and you don’t stand out in the crowd holding a VIDEO CAMERA.
I wonder if they make one for the Fisher Price camcorder. Anyone remember that one. It recorded to audio cassettes in black and white, but the picture was very shaky. A Zacuto stabilizer would have helped 7 year olds shoot much better video.
While we’re on the subject, I hear Etch-a-Sketch is coming out with an interface for Photoshop.
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I remember a quote about the great cinematographer Roger Deakins from a few years ago, someone said that he was such an amazing DP that he “Could shoot a movie with a cell phone and it would look great.”
Guess it will be getting easier for Roger.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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If you have Fischer-Price “Pixelvision” camera, it is worth a lot of money on the collector’s market, BTW.
Zacuto sells a “Budget” version of this pistol grip clamp for cell phones in the $60 range, but that one requires you to use your wrist to articulate it. How gauche’.
I was just kind of astonished by this product, and brought it up here because it signals to me that the trend towards smaller-faster and above all else cheaper is gathering momentum, but so is a mirror-image trend in accessories to make the crappy tools more impressive.
We talked about this in an earlier thread, prompted by a Wired magazine article called “good enough” or something like that. And yet even as we see the smaller-is-better trend, where video is now only considered “real” and “honest” when it is hand-held and viewed thru a dime-sized $5 lens, ironically here is Zacuto re-complicating it with this attachment thingie. Can an outboard extension tube for an optical eyepiece attachment be far behind? You thought that was a joke? Go see Zacuto’s whole line, they already SELL something like it. Clamps onto your DSLR’s back.
You see a trend in things like motorsports or sailing or airplane racing: the organizers want to re-invigorate a moribund niche of the sport/hobby/whatever, and they create a new category or formula designed to encourage low-dollar easy entry and bring in newcomers.
A season goes by, and human nature being what it is, folks start to find new “speed secrets” to hop-up or otherwise improve the “stock” platforms. Pretty soon the division or formula or category once again fills with high-tech-high-dollar versions of what was supposed to be “entry level” and “all-equal” one-design competitions, where the driver/pilot/captain was the only variable. And it begins again.
Now, in things like motorsports and boating, these cycles are what drive all the innovation that eventually filters into consumer and ordinary everyday users. ANd that’s good.
In our business, we saw the initial wave of DV camcorders as the consumer/prosumer toys they mostly were, however, some of the trend-setters applied their well-honed skills to these “toys”, using them with pro techniques, they got similar “pro” looks on less investment, and broke open the business and the way we do things.
Then the cycle reached up towards another peak, and we saw the counter-move to lower-tech, smaller, more mobile systems and products again, thigns like i-phones and flip cams. The inevitable follow-on is taking that grunge/low-fi stuff and tarting it up again with more doo-dads and add-ons until we will get something like a huge prime lens and DOF control box with a Flip USB cam velcroed to the back of it, being hailed as the next HD breakthru.
It just makes me alternately laugh and cry to think about it.
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[Mark Suszko] “It just makes me alternately laugh and cry to think about it.”
They prescribe lithium for that Mark.
My trademark below only qualifies me to diagnose, but unfortunately not to prescribe, otherwise I’d have given you a professional discount.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[Mark Suszko] “It just makes me alternately laugh and cry to think about it.”
The “quality” of television these days make me alternately laugh and cry.
TZM.com. Really. We need to waste 30 minutes of television per day for this? But think how handy this iPhone contraption is going to be for this show……
And how many “My life with” series do we really need on E?
MTV. Do they even hire people who actually know how to shoot and edit anymore? Storytelling? Composition? Quality? What? iPhone is perfect for these shows.
I could go on, but I’m trying to figure out how to put this thing together so I can get my iPhone in there and go out to shoot my dog molly running around the park catching tennis balls. I figure 30 minutes of that set to the latest grunge band should be Emmy Award winning material….
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
The iphone with this on it reminds me of this:
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Wait… isn’t that Steve Wargo’s car??
(Kidding you Steve)
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Walter writes –
“MTV. Do they even hire people who actually know how to shoot and edit anymore? Storytelling? Composition? Quality? What? iPhone is perfect for these shows. ”
Sadly, many of the MTV and VH1 reality shows are shot by “free labor”, however are edited (or should I say assembled) by real editors. It’s hard work plowing thru hundreds of hours of crap and coming up with anything.
Don’t you know the expression – “even a 10 year old can do it” – well, now, the 5th grade class will be producing shows (with McDonalds as the sponsor) while “we” debate lossless compression in HD Codecs (while standing on the unemployment line).
Bob Zeiln
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[walter biscardi] “I figure 30 minutes of that set to the latest grunge band should be Emmy Award winning material….”
And be sure not to get permission to use that music.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!
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