Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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Wow, Dave. It’s nice to have a new official title (Mr. DSLR Fanboy!) – even if one I don’t think I’m particularly qualified to hold said title considering that I’ve shot paid work on more than 25 cameras over the course of my career ranging from a 35mm Mitchell BMC through various Iki’s Sonys, JVC’s Panasonics, and now, yes, even the increasingly ubiquitous Canon 5d!
Yes, the OP specifically asked about motion artifacting – and you answered him well and wisely FROM THE PERSPECTIVE of someone who works in a TV station and (one suspects) who’s experience revolves largely around local broadcast work. The 5DmkII is NOT a good choice for that.
Of course, one good question might be what IS a good choice in the broadcast world right now? The network O&Os in my area seem not to have a clue. I’ve seen XDcam, P2, even Compact Flash! in the field shooting for news here in the Phoenix ADI – that’s a market in FLUX if i’ve ever seen one! PLUS scared to death of shrinking revenue – they’re now starting to out the camera ops and having the freeking REPORTERS shoot their own stand ups and B-ROLL half the time. Who’d a thunk it?
It’s been YEARS since I worked in local broadcast TV and back then, there wasn’t anything even remotely similar to the 5d. In fact, when I started, there wasn’t even Beta – let alone Beta SP. It was all 1″ type C as a rule. Then I went into advertising where 35mm film was the quality standard.
But that was then, this is now. And my personal reading between the lines was that if the OP listened to your advice, they would miss out on a profound change — that whether or not it has ANY value to your personal work in local television — *IS* changing the landscape of video work everywhere else.
DSLR video is NOT the be all and end all. But even in it’s infancy, on PROFESSIONAL worth it’s difficult to deny the pathway it’s carving through the industry.
The NEXT generation of cameras will have SIGNIFICANTLY better resolution. So much better that they require new ways of thinking and new ways of approaching work. Yeah, motion issues are one small part of the puzzle. But in exchange for battling that – you are given a frame that has the potential to look WAY, WAY better than even the BEST shot video of a decade ago that the image quality game ends for anyone who understands V-DSLRs before it begins.
YOUR business – local broadcast will be among the last to change. Why? Because every local station where I know people is in nearly crisis management mode – laying off the “old school” folks and trying DESPERATELY to come to grips with the new production paradigms. Heck, I went to a local Final Cut Pro meeting last week and two of the new attendees were 50 something local network affiliate broadcast dudes trying desperately not to be made obsolete by kids who cut their teeth on DV cams. (A good description of myself, BTW)
And whatever is next will likely marry the chip size of today’s DSLR with the convenience of the traditional camera form factor – AND that chip size will mean you’d BETTER be able to understand and operate in a world of 35mm chip size depth of field and sensor geometry.
In sum, you’re right from your perspective. And the OP would do well to listen to you… IF he’s on the same path that you are.
I suspect that he is not.
So I’ll stand by my thoughts on the matter.
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This is what I call a “wart behind Cindy Crawford’s knee” critique.
Unless you’re a professional dermatologist – staring at the dammed wart is proof positive that you don’t yet “get” this whole DSLR thing.
YES. DSLR’s are flawed. NO. They don’t do everything you’d want to do in a comprehensive video career.
But god in heaven the reason that these things are the hottest, most talked about technology in the past 5 years is because they do something that is both SINGULAR as well as EXTRAORDINARY.
The image quality is a SUPERMAN style LEAP over what’s been available to consumers before. PLUS they’re CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP compared to anything close to their league that’s ever been widely available before.
There are lots of reasonable arguments against DSLRs for specific uses. And if you fall in one of those categories. For heavens sake avoid them.
If, however, you’d like to learn to shoot almost UNIMAGINABLY beautiful footage with an inexpensieve rig – AND are willing to devote a LOT of time and energy to learning how to master, light, lens choices, scene composition, double system audio, and the dozen other things that go hand in hand with excellence in image making – there’s NEVER been a less expensive way to do that.
Or go right ahead and wait for something more “perfect.” Just don’t bet upset with what are now THOUSANES of folks in line ahead of you who managed to overlook what the camera does NOT do perfectly – in favor of learning how to master what it DOES do so well.
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Maybe.
Rugs will knock down high and upper mid frequencies pretty effectively.
However, the lower the frequencies the harder they are to block or control.
Hanging rugs might just result in all speech sounding “boomy” in that space.
Can’t say until you try it. (or you send your plans to someone who understands audio and can do a proper analysis on how sounds will reflect/absorb in that particular space with those particular surface characteristics.)
In truth – GOOD VIDEO RECORDING, while difficult – is often crazy easy compared to GOOD AUDIO RECORDING.
Welcome to the business!
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I know a debate on Health Care policy is inappropriate here – however for balance, I’ll place a health care opinion along with some video business advice to try to “piggyback” this into surviving the forum admin scrutiny (hi folks – great job as always!)
On allowing policies to be sold across state lines – what would then stop any huge multi-national insurance company from then selling a nationwide LOWEST POSSIBLE COST but ALSO – WORST POSSIBLE COVERAGE policy – effectively circumventing ALL local control over minimum benefits offered in the state?
I bet in 10 seconds any good national insurance lawyer could find an argument, for example, that SKIN CANCER diagnosed for someone living in Arizona MUST be a pre-existing condition because it involves lifetime cumulative exposure – and therefore they’d DENY coverage under your “nationwide” policy – whereby the AZ, CA, and Florida legislatures might REQUIRE such coverage for policies sold in their states.
One could argue that Nationwide Insurance company regulation is more BIG Government. While LOCAL control is a SMALL government view.
This stuff is NEVER as simple as it sounds.
Just like getting business insurance! No reasonable business person practices without appropriate insurance in place. IN fact, at some point in your career you’ll likely be REQUIRED to have it. You’ll need a “named insured” certificate to shoot in a government building or to work on a large project involving a public space. So the point of this thread is to help the new guys understand that if you’re building your business by offering high-end products at CUT RATE prices – and doing so by ignoring the typical costs of stuff like business licenses, insurance, legal advice, CPA help, and other typical business expenses and think you’re actually COMPETING in the market place – you’re not. You’ve just discovered that your machine can turn out pretty pictures for a small investment – but you haven’t yet run into the reality that operating a real business at a real, sustainable profit is SELDOM as easy as it seams.
Still, it’s been like this forever – and sooner or later, the guys who undercut will, themselves be undercut – and the market will stabilize with the divisions being between those who’ve learned the craft AND the business – and those who grabbed the new tool and decided they could simply “do it cheaper” than everyone else.
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Tony,
You’re chasing a phantom. “Better audio results” is conditional, ephemeral, and only exists when there’s a baseline from which to judge. Your suggested group of equipment moves that baseline around so radically as to make comparisons virtually meaningless.
ANY recording chain that results in a recording direct to the 5d is going to be a problem. That’s not because it can’t record audio – even good audio – it’s because it employs a consumer grade Automatic Gain Control (AGC) which will DESTROY dynamic range and cause unacceptable levels of amplified hiss during the recording of anything with quiet passages. That alone makes 1 and 4 solutions that no pro would consider. (Even the solutions where external devices feed a subsonic “pilot tone” to the DSLR to avoid AGC pumping have proved to result in lackluster recordings at best, and I don’t know of a single pro who goes this route.
As to 2 and 3 – it’s the functional equivalent of whether you prefer Snickers or Baby Ruth candy bars. Snickers is the “best selling” between the two, just as the H4n is the best selling outboard recorder in 5d rigs. But only a fool would argue that Snickers is a “BETTER” candy bar than a Baby Ruth. Both easily justify their existence in candy stores. The ONLY way to decide which candy bar you prefer is to taste both. The ONLY way to decide which recorder you prefer is to USE both. If that’s not possible, don’t sweat it. Understand that each of them will satisfy your sweet tooth perfectly well.
End of story.
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Bob,
We’re in very similar situations. I talked to my Blue Cross rep asking if there was any way to lower the increasing (and increasingly INSANE premiums) and she indicated that if I increased my deductible from $1k to $5k I could lower the monthly premium from $1000 to around $600. That made the “payback” point under a year. So if you have savings or can set aside the extra $400/mo. you’re already paying out for a year to cover your deductible, you can at least lower the monthly payment.
Then it’s a matter of how much “health care” services you need in the average year. That’s the key issue.
But a 1 year payback and a net savings of $400/month was sensible for our family.
My BCBS agent noted that very few people who’ve been with their plans for a long time look at what they could change to lower their effective rates – they just keep doing what they’ve done for years. (The SAME thing I did until a billing dispute on my son’s coverage caused me to open the dusty file and look at it.)
You mileage may (and probably will) vary.
BTW, I agree wholeheartedly that the newbies that don’t run REAL business models with sustainable expenses and who do 4k work at DV prices just because they CAN – are going to wake up some day and wonder why they can’t both pay their bills and pay their taxes.
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Todd,
God I wish I could help you. I think this is an area where there’s been a HUGE devolution in products and services over time. Once upon a time, a small business system was easy to find, solid and dependable, and didn’t require a specialist to install or maintain. (remembering fondly the old AT&T Merlin systems of my early career!)
Today, I hate to say it, but you might have to talk to a small business telephone expert and pay for the expertise that, once upon a time, you could manage yourself.
Personally, we use an AT&T 954 system – but there’s no “central box” anymore – all the intelligence is built into chips in the phone units. Each phone is so complex that other than picking up the damn thing and occasionally using the HOLD button, I don’t mess with any of the other 400 things it’s SUPPOSED to do. (As an example, there are 17 “special purpose” buttons on the dial plate that have NOTHING to do with making a simple call or selecting a line. Things like “timer/delete” and “set/review” that are probably useful for someone – but not for me.
Today’s telephone systems are largely propriatary “programmable” computerized gadgets that have 10 times the features that the vast majority of their customers NEED and are built to the cheapest standards possible. Like everything else today, they know that the current tech will likely be tossed in the dustbin in a few years, in favor of a replacement – so there’s no real profit in building quality that lasts.
3 to 5 years on a phone system would likely be twice what you should expect – and that’s a damn shame coming from an era where a telephone could be expected to work for a decade or more.
Good luck and let us know if you find the holy grail.
Rant mode off.
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My experience with these are primarily to get driving shots on scenic road trip situations.
The last time we rigged one, we affixed the Film Tools suction mount which came with it’s own simple 3 way camera head to the trunk of a rented convertible. The rise of the head itself gave us the correct height to frame a wide shot of both driver and passenger, most of the front window view, plus a lot of the surrounding scenery. Before we stuck the suction mount to the trunk lid, we wrapped two ratchet straps around said trunk lid and had two safety cables that ran from hard points on the camera to those straps. The idea is that if the suction cup fails, you want to keep the rig closely attached to the car body and obviously NOT let it fall off the moving car.
Later we moved the same rig to the hood in the same fashion.
There are complicated multi-rubber pad mounts with rails that are used on Hollywood style insert car rigs – but these suction mounts are a good quick and easy alternative if your shots are simple and you don’t expect too much.
One issue to be careful of, tho, is not to drive too fast. Wind buffetting of the camera itself can start unwanted vibrations that will ruin an otherwise good shot.
YMMV. Good luck.
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John is spot on.
Also don’t forget to allow for the fact that the spacial conditions in post will almost always be significantly different than in field production. So you’ll likely have to “tune” your new recordings to best match what you got in the field. It’s often useful to use the SAME audio gear used for your field recording in the studio, since that will give you the best sonic match.
ADR (I actually prefer the original acronym translation of Automatic Dialog Replacement -which better focuses on the idea that you’re trying to MATCH the tone and sound of what you’ve already recorded, not just replace one set of sounds with another.) is never easy. But you’re correct that if you want the best results you need to set up a recording chain that allows the talent to SEE and monitor the original VO recording and video a couple of times, before you “punch in” the replacement track. This can be easily handled by using a double system setup where you record ALL the performance and then just match the “good takes” in post. The rest of the process is just switching the mic and the playback tracks into and/or out of the talent mix.
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I’ll second the vote for the industrial suction cup lines handled by FilmTools.
They’re solid industrial grade units and are about the best mounting of this type I’ve seen or used.
Just remember to NEVER depend on a suction mount as your only support. Expect to lose or damage your gear beyond repair if you don’t back this kind of mount up with safety cables and other appropriate “fail safe” backups.