[Pete Burger]

Thank you Declan!
Really interesting product. Well, I think I’ll have to ponder if it fits my budget…

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

Thank you, Anders!
A comparison like that, was exactly what I was looking for. Much appreciated!

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

[Paul Pap] “2. Is a DSLR relatively easy to learn in order to be able to film “decent” footage?”

As harsh as it may sound: No!

You might want to check out the DSLR Video forum here on the COW and this brilliant podcast (https://podcasts.creativecow.net/dslr-video-podcast) to get a sense of how these cameras work and what is needed to get decent footage out of them

[Paul Pap] “5. On the Canon 7D I believe the max for filming is 12-13m which takes up around 4GB. Realistically speaking for filming shots of 6-7m would it take up half the memory (is that how it works?)”
Jup. That’s how it works 🙂
The Canon DSLRs are limited to clips of 4GB and/or 29:59 min. That means: In 1080p or 720p the 4GB limit is reached at about 12min. If you’re shooting SD, filming will be stopped at 29:59min.
You can record as many clips as you want until the card is full. A 16GB card holds about 50min of 1080p or 720p footage.

[Paul Pap] “6. Is overheating a realistic problem on DSLR’s? As I will be filming animals will I have to wait for the Canon to cool down?”

I personally never experienced overheating problems with my 2Ti but heard a lot of that subject. I’ve been to Kenya last year but didn’t film there. But I’d guess there will be overheating problems since the camera gets very warm.

[Paul Pap] “Furthermore I am hoping that with the 2 memory slots I will be able to film continuously longer. Is this correct? (if one runs out the other will kick in)”

Not with DSLRs natively. On any VDSLR other than the 7D you can use Magic Lantern (a “firmware hack”) that enables automatic clip restarting (and a couple of other very cool features)

Hope this helps a bit.

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

If it comes to colour-correction I’m also still learning, but I don’t think any special software was used to colour-correct this video. Any 3-way-corrector will do. Plus I see a couple of vignettes which aren’t too complicated to create in any kind of editing software.

I’m not familiar enough with Vegas, but I if I remember correctly, it has a built-in 3-way corrector.

I recently bought two books by Steve Hullfish (“Color Correction For Video” and “The Art And Technique Of Digital Color Correction”) which I can really recommend. They give very deep insight into the subject, and are very clearly written (quite important, for me since english is not my native language). Bought them on Amazon.

Another book was recommended here on the COW by Anna Chiaretta in this thread: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/280/8702
Haven’t had the opportunity to check it out, but it seems, it is also a very valuable resource.

You might want to do a COW search on “color correction”, there are a lot of very good tutorials for Premiere Pro and After Effects (sadly not Vegas), but they are very valuable to learn about the principles how colour-correction tools work.

“MB Looks” is more like an “effects” software to create cinematic colour effects and has some great features to add … well, looks to your film… Like glows, grain, colour-shifts, etc…

Hope this helps a bit…

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

Thank you, Steve! Yes, I hope they’ll remember me, if some day they have some money to spend for videowork 😉

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

[Steve Crow] “It’s been my experience that most clients prefer to have quoted a fix price with everything included and not to be charged for individual expenses or by an hourly rate.”

That’s my experience as well. And that’s the way I work most of the time. Like Steve wrote, it’s a good practice to get a real understanding of how much time you’d have to spend for a specific project.

One little story though:

I had a job to produce four commercial-clips for a big sports company some time ago, each about one minute. Very simple setup: Talent in front of a greenscreen, presenting the latest racket-collection. Had to key in the pre-produced footage that they sent me.

I got the script from the company, I knew the talent from other jobs, I knew the studio and the lighting-equipment they had, so I knew exactly how much time I’d take to shoot and to do all of the postproduction work. So I made a fixed price.

Did work out quite well. I was in-time. But, huge problem: When all the clips where ready, it turned out, the script was wrong in parts plus wrong pre-produced footage (both – as mentioned – came from the company). I got paid, but two of the clips would have never been broadcasted, because the company refused to pay the extra time it would have taken to fix the errors they made.
I decided to do it for free (took me about 6 hours) just to get the darn clips on air.

They were my main-client at that time, so for the prospect of future projects, I decided to show them, they can rely on me… This was the last thing I did for them, since the cut down their advertising budget…

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

To add:

Like Phil wrote: Cinestyle (or any other flat-style) is extremely valuable if you really want to get the last bit of quality out of your footage in post. So you’d have to put a lot of work into grading.

There are two excellent articles by Stu Maschwitz on his Prolost blog about shooting flat in general. In the second one he also mentions (and recommends) the Technicolor Cinestyle.

You might want to check them out:

https://prolost.com/blog/2009/8/3/flatten-your-5d.html
https://prolost.com/blog/2012/4/10/prolost-flat.html

I personally like to use the Cinestyle for my own projects, but I’d be also very careful if you have to hand the footage over to another editor or if you’re showing it to your client. The “RAW”-footage looks kind of awful 😉

I did a couple of shoots lately with a picture style called “Kodachrome 25” which is not a flat-style, but tries to emulate the look of Kodak-films. This is something I use, if I want to have really nice and “warm”-looking footage out-of-camera without having to grade the heck out of my clips to look good… Downside is, you don’t have too much room left for any kind of tweaking in post…

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

I totally agree with everything Steve wrote!

But – if I may – I’d like throw in a word of advice/warning out of my own experience:
Offering free service as a beginning project – or as beginning projects – is a good starting point.

But don’t sell out! That was the big mistake I made a couple of years ago. And I had a very hard time, to convince people to pay me reasonable fees after I worked “for a song”…
(I even paid for jobs in terms of travel expenses, tapes, etc… I was quite naive at that time…)

As soon as I have something to show to people, I’d never ever again would do something for free, even if I think it’d help me to get more or better jobs. Not mainly beacause of the money, but for other people to see and feel, that you do work that is worth it’s price.
Think of your first paid jobs as an opportunity to be able to invest in gear and (the even more important thing) self-confidence.

Of course you have to decide for yourself.

Just my two cents.

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

[Anna Chiaretta] “I am a big fan of “Color Correction Handbook: Professional Techniques for Video and Cinema” by Alexis Van Hurkman”

Thanks, Anna, for that tip! I’ll definitly check it out. I only know and own the two books I mentioned plus about a hundred (well, dozend) of more general filmmaking/editing/postproduction books.

Looked at the table of contents on amazon and it seems to be a great guide.
So, thanks again!

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

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[Pete Burger]

[Stephanie Stiavetti] “What tools do you use to match color?”

In AE I use primarily the built-in effects (levels, curves, hue/saturation), Synthetic Apertures “Color Finesse” and Magic Bullets “Colorista”. In most NLEs (in my case Premiere Pro and AVID) I use the Three-Way-Colour-Corrector.

If you’re interested in that subject:
Since I’m trying get more into Color Correction, I discovered two great books about colour correction from Focal Press by Steve Hullfish (“Color Correction For Video” and “The Art And Technique Of Digital Color Correction”). I think there are reviews of them here on the COW. Great books with very deep insight and very well written too.

——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

Me on Twitter (english/german)
https://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo

My german blog
https://fastfoodvideo.de

Posts by FastFoodVideo