Todd Terry
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COW Coin
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Gosh, where to start…
Well first, go out, buy and hat, and hang the $%&#*% on to it, because this camera will blow you away. It did me, it’s my fav camera ever. We’ve been shooting with it since last fall.
Let’s see, from your list…
“LCD Accuracy”…
Very accurate, I’ve found, and a pleasure to use. Easy to see, even fairly easy to see in sunlight, and you can move the LCD unit into, I think, four different positions on the camera body (with or without the handle), and it rotates and flips. VERY sharp for an LCD, and you can even trust it for focus if you use the Red Line, peaking, and magnification focus assist features. I usually like to use an external monitor as well, but I’m still perfectly comfortable using the LCD for monitoring.“Protecting for Highlights”
Easy enough, I usually keep the waveform monitor turned on to make that easy, but there are also two simultaneous levels of zebra stripes that you can set (I’m not a huge fan of zebras so I rarely use them).“Audio Levels”
Easy enough, there’s an on-screen VU meter for each channel.“Ergonomic factors”
This is the only place I don’t give it really high marks. The camera is a weird shape, and kinda tall… so it’s easy to get top heavy. The first couple of rods/plates systems we tried made the rig VERY top heavy. We finally landed on this very thin sort of “pancake” plate from Zacuto that is made for the camera… it’s very thin, only slightly taller than the 15mm rods that go through it. Works like a charm. I didn’t buy the Zacuto plate at first because it’s $400… but in hindsight it is worth every penny. There’s a weird “lip” on the bottom front of the camera that gave us a little trouble too… it wouldn’t let my followfocus unit slide back far enough on the rods to engage the gears, so I had to get a different FF with the gear on the other side (and now have a really nice Redrock FF just gathering dust). So the moral of that story is that you need to make sure all of your accessories and other things will fit/work as soon as you get your hands on it.“Battery life”
Fair, but not great. I was spoiled, though… I powered my previous XLH1 with a full-size AB brick, which would go for 8-10 hours or more even with my P+S Technik Mini35 running. The C300 batteries are a fraction of that. You can use a more powerful battery than the “stock” battery, but it is bigger and you can’t close the battery compartment door. In fact, there’s a little tab you push to remove the door entirely for that purpose.“Cards”
We use SanDisk Extreme 60MB/s 16GB cards. I’ve heard some people having trouble with larger cards than that. We have had a couple of unreadable cards, so ALWAYS shoot two cards simultaneously if you can.“Overheating”
I’ve never had the camera overheat, nor heard of anyone that had an issue with that.“ND filters”
Well there are 6 stops of ND built in (2, 4, 6). If you like to shoot wide open though, you might want a little more. I sometimes put .9 in the matte box for sunny exteriors, because even with the lowest ISO speed (320) and the maximum internal ND I still want a little more.“Etc”
The biggest thing to notice about the camera is the incredible light sensitivity. It will go to 20,000 IS0… and I think the picture looks great all the way up to the max. You won’t get any gain noise until about 16,000, and even then it looks pretty organic like film grain, not like video noise. This camera has totally changed the way I light and think about lighting. I’m doing so much more subtractive lighting now than additive lighting. We rarely break out HMIs now unless we are compensating for exterior windows, and do almost all LED lighting now (batteries… no more running stingers!). It really took some getting used, to, but I like it.The other thing is that there are many many adjustable parameters so you can really paint the camera like you like. BUT… you’re only going to have it to play with for a little while before your real shoot… so I would either shoot C-log (where you’ll take care of all your color grading in post), or in one of the pre-determined profiles (probably the EOS profile would be a good choice). Doing more than that just takes more time to learn and set than you will have available to play with it.
Happy shooting!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Trevor Ward] ” I typically like working with a minimum of f2.8 on lenses for interviews because I often want the bg out of focus. For wide angle stuff and run and gun, the faster lens is more about light than depth of field. “
That’s pretty much exactly what I do. I don’t do too much “run-n-gun” because, unlike documentary work, most of our projects are fairly planned out and there’s not much spontaneity. But when I do find myself in those rare instances, that is when I will throw on my zoom. I usually say I “rarely use it,” but as luck would have it I just arrived back from a location shoot where I did. I shot some talking heads with 50mm and 80mm primes at f/1.3, then some action shots with the zoom.
If I were you, that’s what I would do to. For those planned interviews, use a nice mid-to-longish fast prime that you can shoot wide open and knock out that background. Run-n-gun, switch to a zoom so you don’t have change lenses.
[Trevor Ward] “It would be great if I could get a decent zoom that went down to f2.8, had a zoom range of 24-150, and could be found for $4000 instead of $40,000.”
Um yeah…haha, wouldn’t we all love that. The one I have my eye on is, I think, $47,000 the last time I looked and is still only half that range (it’s fast, though). Although Canon’s latest generation of fast zooms (in either EF or PL) is about half that. Still pretty pricey, though. Although if you think about it, it’s still a lot less than an equivalent set of superspeed cine primes to cover all those focal lengths. I do love the primes, though.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Patrick…
I certainly don’t mind you asking any future questions you might have.
As for tutorials though, I’m afraid I’m of no help. Unless you count the original “get started” manual that came with 4.0 way back in 1997, I’ve never used any tutorials… although I know there are some out there. You might ask in the Adobe Premiere Pro forum if anyone has any suggestions.
I don’t think you have to worry about a “Premiere Mindset.” It’s pretty much the same as the Avid mindset and the FCP mindset (at least pre-X version). These days most of the various editing platforms are all so similar that if you are extremely proficient in FCP then moving to Premiere should be a cakewalk.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well I can’t speak at all to FCP (other than the anecdotal reports of how many people hate FCPX), as we are an all-PC house… but I can give you impressions of Premiere.
We’ve been Premiere users for 16 years going all the way back to Premier 4.0. Our suites now use the most current versions of CS6 (specifically, in Matrox MX02 machines).
Although sometimes (and that’s sometimes, I can’t say why) the previous version of Premiere (CS5 on our now-retired Matrox AXIO machines) sometimes needed file conversions, CS6 flawlessly imports and uses Canon’s native MXF files (and yes it’s MXF, not XMF). We shoot with the C300PL and use the Canon utility to backup the cards and merge/organize/rename MXF files. They’re ready to go, ready to use.
Like many (if not most) Premiere users, I have nothing but good things to say about CS6. For a job like you mentioned, talking heads with color grading, that’s child’s play for Premiere… easy breezy and most likely in real time (depending on your machine).
Also, to me one of the biggest reasons to use Premiere is how seamlessly it works with all the other programs in the suite that you probably already use… files can bounce instantly from one program to another and any work you do in, say Photoshop (graphics tweaking, etc) or After Effects (compositing jobs that you have moved over), or Audition (such as audio edits that need more precision), those changes are immediately reflected and updated on your Premiere timeline.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Ryan…
The iPad reflection was motion video that was taken from another shot of the actress… if I recall I believe it was from the same setup as the previous shot in the spot (although with a longer lens). It wasn’t a shot that was specifically shot for reflection (we didn’t do that or sadly even think of it at the time), but just a shot our editor grabbed to use.
This shot was just ghosted and motion tracked over the “main” iPad video, and then some more moving white reflections were added, too. The video that was the main desktop content of the iPad was created after the rough cut of the spot was done, so we would know exactly what the screen needed to do at what timing.
I believe (I’m not sure, my editor cut that spot) that the main iPad content was tracked with Mocha CS6, whereas the reflections were just hand tracked with Premiere Motion so they would be a bit looser and not quite locked in with the Mocha tracking.
And yes, the human brain is pretty forgiving of the reflections. Just watching that spot, the reflections look fine. But if you play it slow or stop it and analyze the scene, our reflections are really pretty terrible. You’d never actually see a reflection of that actress’ face in an iPad shot from that angle and held in that position… at best you’d see the actor next to her, but most likely you’d just see sky (or rather, the big butterfly frame overhead). And while you see her face reflected, you don’t see her hand as she works the iPad. But the shots are so short (I think each of the two shots is only about 20 frames each) that it goes by before your brain has a chance to say “Hey, that’s not right.” On the other hand, without even our sloppy reflections it would look very phony.
If the shots had been longer, we would probably have taken more time to get them “right.”
You see “incorrect” reflections all the time in movies and TV shows… reflections that either wouldn’t actually quite be like that in real life, or just plain impossible.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Personally I’ve found that whenever we did the “Ok let’s get one green screen version just in case…” bit, that almost invariably that’s what we end up using. Almost without fail.
And on a side note… thanks Mark. Previously with a different client we also needed a beach shot. This is a client we love because they literally drip money and, even better, they’ve never heard a bad idea. Ever. The only way to really get the scene they needed was for us to actually go to the coast (nearest beach is the Gulf of Mexico, about 8 hours away). So we spent about four days down in Florida.
I think the actual shoot lasted, hmmm, maybe 90 minutes.
This credit union client was not quite as gullible. Dang.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Ryan…
You can certainly do it either way… practical screens or screens replaced in post. We’ve done plenty of it both ways. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages… and sometimes one way is better for a particular shot or setup, and a different way better for another one.
When doing it practically, this is not as big an issue as it was years ago, with film shoots and CRT monitors. Those days required special 24-frame playback monitors, and there were a couple of Hollywood supply houses that had special 24fps monitors in just about every conceivable TV brand and style. That’s just not needed anymore.
Firstly, it’s very likely you’ll have LCD, LED, or plasma monitors. These do not nearly have the flicker issues of old CRTs (and certainly none of the “rolling”). Plasma monitors in particular I found work best when I shoot 35mm film.
Secondly, these days all you really need is a camera that can shoot in “clearscan mode,” where you dial in a very exact and precise shutter speed (note: not frame rate, but shutter speed) that will completely eliminate any flickering or phasing. The Alexa will certainly do that.
Whenever we’ve shot practical monitors we’ve usually done it two ways with the same setup. First we’ll shoot the scene practically. Then we’ll shoot another take or two but with the monitors displaying a pure green screen. That gives us lots of flexibility… if the practical version works, great. But if not, the greenscreen version makes it easy to replace the screens.
Doing it in post generally looks better, and you have perfect control over the timing and content of the monitors. It’s certainly more labor intensive though, as just replacing the screens straight looks so phony. You’ve got a lot of issues like tweaking chroma, brightness and contrast to make it look real, motion tracking, adding reflections, and all that jazz. We’ve found though that most of the time it seems the replaced monitors just look a lot better.
Here’s a couple of recent samples we did for one credit union client…
This iPad screen is practical…
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news086.html…whereas this one is fake, replaced in post…
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news088.html…and the smartphone screen in this was replaced…
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news094.html…and the laptop screen here was replaced…
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news098.htmlSo, you can certainly do it either way.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Age doesn’t matter. Sometimes.
Two quick examples…
My friend Jeff is literally the best cinematographer that I personally know (I said that I know… I don’t know Roger Deakins). Jeff is unbelievably good, his images are so pretty they’ll make you want to cry. He has enough film festival awards to build a house. He lives in L.A. and has a bigshot Hollywood agent. He’s spending the summer in Austin TX shooting a feature film (and already has several features under his belt).
Jeff is, I think, 26. Hate him.
We had a kid named Will as college intern a couple of summers ago. Today Will, armed with just his Canon DSLR, is already a fantastic director, a great eye, excellent storyteller, and so much enthusiasm that it makes me tired just talking to him. I’d hire Will in a heartbeat… and only don’t because he went to college on an ROTC scholarship and has to give Uncle Sam a few years first.
Now I will say those are the exceptions, not the rule. Like most people in this forum probably do, I get demo DVDs across my desk every week without fail… mostly from young people. I do watch them all (maybe not immediately, but I do eventually pop them in). I cannot even recall the last one that I saw that was even remotely good. It’s been years. I don’t know if it’s an education thing, an entitlement thing, or a talent thing… but most of them range from horrible to bad.
Cheap technology has put the ability to do what we do (or to try to do what we do) in the hands of anyone who wants it. $600 today will buy you a camera that shoots better than one 25 years ago that cost most than my first house. But what I think I’m seeing is that while that accessibility puts the tools in the hands of many more talented people than before, it also puts it in the hands of many many more untalented people than before… and seeing so much of that bad work now floating around makes us sometimes rush to judgment about the “young’uns.”
So, it comes down to talent. As Tim Kolb once told me “Talent comes before Technology in the dictionary” and it should in our daily work, too.
So for me it’s not at all an age thing… it’s a talent thing. And while talent is, I believe, largely an inborn thing… talent is developed by experience, among other things. And sometimes that simply comes with age.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yeah I couldn’t tell what the set is either or where exactly it would go… but Mark’s advice is right on the money.
You’ll definitely want t block out everything coming from that window. It is, as Mark said, nothing but trouble. I’d suggest black sound blankets for that purpose, which might also be helpful because acoustically that room looks very “live.” If you don’t have real sound blankets, zip to your local Harbor Freight Tools and pick up a few of their moving blankets, they’re just a few bucks apiece. Quality-wise, they are abut two-thirds as good as real Matthews blankets, at about one-tenth the price. No brainer.
If it is a true round-table setup with talent all the way around, then yep the good ol’ China ball is the way to go. Cheap and easy and very beautiful light. Go to your local Pier One Imports and buy the largest white Chinese lantern they have, it will be about $10-15. Inside that you want to put a bigass flo tube. We have a couple that are 200w which work perfectly. Note that these are 200 actual watts, not the equivalent of 200w, which a lot of flo tubes will say. These are pretty big tubes with a mogul base (looks like a regular Edison base, but a little bigger), and they are available in daylight or tungsten balance. They are not real photo tubes so the CRI is not sky high, but I’ve never had any color issues with them. You can see them in this pic of a behind-the-scenes setup we did on a shoot a while back… you can ignore most of the shots in this composite, but it does show the lantern, and the bulb in the upper right…
Suspend this lantern right over the center of your table, high enough to be just out of frame.
After that you’ll want three small fixtures, as a backlight instrument for each talent. I’d probably use small tungsten fresnels.
You can get away with only four instruments here and have great looking lighting, cheap.
Of course that only lights the talent, not the set… but you didn’t mention if that needs lighting, or what it is or looks like.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Mark…
What shutter speed are you shooting?
Shooting at a higher than “normal” shutter speed can give choppy looking imagines (“normal” meaning a speed equivalent to a 180° shutter in a motion picture camera).
A “normal” shutter speed is “one over twice the frame rate.” Ergo, for your 30fps shooting a normal shutter would be 1/60th of a second.
Faster than that and you get that choppy strobby “narrow shutter” look. Think “Saving Private Ryan” or “Gladiator.” It’s popular in movies now to make action scenes look more “actiony”…but can make scenes you want to look normal look just plain bad.
That higher shutter speed makes images look choppy because each frame is sharp… no motion blur. Your brain needs that motion blur to interpret the motion as smooth.
People often mistakenly use higher shutter speeds to cut down on overexposure and not realizing it seriously affects the motion look of the images.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
