Tim Wilson
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[James Whittington] “…really love the aesthetic a full frame DSLR offers…”
There’s a whole class of full-frame camcorders now that offer many, many advantages over DSLRs. Panasonic AF100, JVC HM100U, Sony F3 and FS100…there are a bunch of others. The ones I mentioned are in the $2000 to $20,000 range (oops – on your budget you might want to skip the F3), and all will make you much happier than a DSLR for a lot of reasons.
Of course, if what you want is a DSLR, that’s one thing. But if you’re looking for video on a 35mm chip, look at a video camera first. This class of camera is exploding. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
And to go off in a different direction, there are a number of really nice HD cameras that allow interchangeable lenses. You can get one of those and some cine lenses and be blown away in your price range.
And to get REALLY radical, you’d be amazed at how affordably you can rent something like a Sony EX-3 and lenses, even an F3. Rent one, shoot something beautiful, and THEN make your case to the boss.
Tim
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine -
I haven’t heard any specific rumors about NAB, or for that matter, anything confirmed…but I’ll observe that for the last two years in a row, Blackmagic Design was given the Creative COW Blue Ribbon Award for Best in Show at NAB, for both the dizzying volume of products released, and the game-changing nature of several of them.
In that sense, nothing that they do will surprise me. This is shaping up to be the hottest NAB in years, but BMD has set itself up as the company to beat.
Although I should also mention that Grant has explicitly denied any intention of buying Avid. 🙂
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine -
[Jan Franzén] “A FCPX MONITOR POEM:
Hope, hope, hope,
Hope, no hope, hope
no hope, hope, no hope
no hope, no hope, no hope”Post of the week.
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Without getting into the relative usefulness of FCPX….
[Thomas Frank] “Yeah and it looks like Avid is going that same rout with there new Avid Studio Application!”
Don’t forget, Avid Studio originated as Pinnacle Studio, and is squarely a consumer application. You used to be able to buy it for $99 at Circuit City and K Mart. When Avid bought Pinnacle in 2005, the software was just coming up on version 9 I think. Maybe 10. It had precisely zero to do with professional editing.
There was a pro-oriented implementation of the same features and technology in Pinnacle Liquid, then Avid Liquid….then EOL’d not so long after the software-only Media Composer was released…which didn’t pick up any of Liquid’s major interfaces or technologies.
So, in review: Pinnacle Studio’s interface came long before FCPX. It has nothing to do with mainstream professional editing today, any more than when it was released many years ago. Avid had years to evaluate the usefulness of this approach for professional editing from the inside…and passed on implementing any of it.
Studio on the iPad should be compared to iMovie on the iPad. Both are a lot of fun, and pros will find uses for them, just as pros have always found uses for everything they can get their hands on…but these are in no way designed for even moderately heavy lifting….
Again, without commenting one way or the other on X….
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[David Roth Weiss] “And, let’s not forget, FCP 1 wasn’t replacing an existing NLE that had already undergone ten years of refinement that made it the most popular NLE on the planet. “
Well, maybe it was kind of doing exactly that. 🙂
The basics back then really were very much the same: source/record, tracks, etc. FCP 1 didn’t require a complete rewiring of the brain because it discarded many of the basic interfaces and underlying schemes associated with professional editing for the previous 10 years. The changes in FCP were meaningful, but still relatively iterative.
Blowing it all up might be a good idea blah blah blah, but when we talk about what FCPX replaced, let’s call it 20+ years of refinement.
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[Chris Harlan] ” in reality it is like saying that cocaine and voting are the same thing because they both involve lines.”
Post of the week. Still a little time left in the month, but I’ve made my nomination.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I can’t get real time Epic playback without reducing playback to 1/2 or lower in PPro.”
Mac or Windows? I remember you as a Mac guy (natch), and Tero is talking about Windows. This gets to a larger point about the relative poverty of a top of the line Mac versus even something like an Acer, primarily because of pitiful Mac graphics support.
Disclosing, as a reminder, I’ve been using Apples since 1979, a Mac since February 1984, and have been complaining about graphics on my Macs since 1986. This isn’t a platform war thing — just the facts.
Albeit perhaps a little off-topic since we’re talking about T-bolt…although very much ON topic to the extent that Tero points out that there are a lot of other factors that affect performance, and a lot of ways to think about performance.
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[Herb Sevush] ” I believe it if you say digital projection “can” be good, but I have never seen it.”
If I can’t see a film digitally, I don’t go. I find the bouncing around intolerable, scratches distracting, the changes between reels jarring. I wouldn’t tolerate a tenth of that in my tv, and see no reason why I would pay money for such dramatically poorer presentation, especially when I’m not allowed to be in my pajamas.
I suspect that the combination of professional projectionists and fresher prints in New York probably helps that. I could probably even wear pajamas in a movie theater there.
The fact is that there are ways in which we’re in the early days of digital projection. Star Wars (Fake) Episode II: Attack of the Yawns, was in 2002. At that point, digital shooting and projection was almost entirely a science project. Although the big push didn’t start until Avatar, the “real” roll-out didn’t get underway until 18 months ago. It wasn’t until last spring that the head of the National Association of Theater Owners announced that there will be no more film prints delivered to theaters by the end of 2013.
Statistical trends point to January 2012 as the point at which digital screens become the majority. The transition is happening more quickly than it can be managed…but it will be. NATO is all-in on this, and I guarantee that they’re not going to let this be one of the things that contributes to their demise.
The article wasn’t about distribution, though. It’s about filmmaking. We didn’t try to pin down a date, but to me, the tipping period (rather than tipping POINT) was as RED and Alexa began pushing the previous limits of the light that a “film” picture could capture. Not just range either, but actual warmth. DPs can do new things, and old things better.
There are still legitimate reasons to consider film, but even the two current movies with the most loving nostalgia for film’s past were shot digitally (The Artist on RED…at RED Studios, actually… and Hugo on Alexa) for exactly the reasons I mention.
I’m hopeful that the intensity with which film-loving directors and DPs are embracing the new possibilities of digital filmmaking will translate to their advocacy for better projection. In the meantime, I’m voting with my pajamas.
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Somewhat related, Debra Kaufman wrote an article for Creative COW Magazine a while back, observing that ARRI, Panavision and Aaton haven’t manufactured a single film camera since 2009.
There are obviously plenty still for rent, and plenty of movies and TV series are still being shot on film…but when there aren’t any more new film cameras, the horizon is still the horizon, but now it’s in view. Somebody is holding the last film camera that may ever be made by these guys….
ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have all quietly ceased production of their film cameras to focus exclusively on the design and manufacture of digital cameras. Film? Fade to black.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine -
[Michael Griggs] “[Bob Zelin] “Aggrivation is worth a lot of money. ”
Someone should put that on a t-shirt. “
With Bob’s picture on it. 🙂
