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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 8, 2021 19:48:56 GMT -6
I've watched a couple new movies on HBO lately...Wonder Woman, the Denzel Washington one with Rami Malik...if that's an example of what movies are going to be like from here out, boy, are we in trouble.  |
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Post by Dan on Feb 9, 2021 0:38:41 GMT -6
If it's all about selling access to your audience, and I believe that's true, DRM is about the worst thing to have. It's the ultimate disconnect for your audience. In the nineties, I processed data from a marketing project that tried to measure the intrest for a centralised unique digital identifier for every recorded song out there. In my mind, the data couldn't be reliable, with something like a 98% rejection factor. So I started checking by phoning the interviewees. I was pretty amazed. Nearly all were negative in the end. One of the music industry execs I talked to, enlightened me: the one idea nobody would buy was complete accountability. So they missed the chance to run along the digital revolution. I remembered seeing a very similar result when Philips launched the CD. First off, it was Philips, the creator of cassette tapes! Secondly, Philips was leaning heavily on the argument CDs would never wear out. Nobody in the music business welcomed that. Both are examples of things being a lot different from what is generally presumed and sold to the public and to politics. The biggest robbers are inside the music industry. So accountability is as useless to them as ever-lasting products. In business in general, this isn't unusual. In the 70s, a company in the DDR created an everlasting lightbulb. No intrest at all from their fellow manufacturers. And today, only Dubai has real everlasting LED lightbulbs because of one very stubborn sheik. The rest of the world has an inferior product. The film industry, OTOH, has avoided some of these mistakes. I don't know why. Simply smarter execs? But still, once they get big, companies are run by bankers, not by music lovers. Seriously doubt the PRO's want to use something like blockchain to identify every spin and purchase - then they'd actually have to pay everyone the correct amount. Actually, if we used blockchain technology, I'm not sure why we'd need PROs...well, I guess someone would have to manage the data. They'd have to pay out the royalties they signed for and have evidence to be sued over Hollywood accounting practices. There would be no more "trades" or "remaindering" or pretending that X record by Y artist never made back its tiny advance despite being selling a bunch of records and getting widely distributed repressings because they were mentioned by Z popular artist |
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 9, 2021 10:56:23 GMT -6
Seriously doubt the PRO's want to use something like blockchain to identify every spin and purchase - then they'd actually have to pay everyone the correct amount. Actually, if we used blockchain technology, I'm not sure why we'd need PROs...well, I guess someone would have to manage the data. They'd have to pay out the royalties they signed for and have evidence to be sued over Hollywood accounting practices. There would be no more "trades" or "remaindering" or pretending that X record by Y artist never made back its tiny advance despite being selling a bunch of records and getting widely distributed repressings because they were mentioned by Z popular artist YES YES YES...Dan knows whats up lol. Or paying big songwriter X dramatically more than he really made because he threatens to leave and go to the competition. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Feb 9, 2021 12:48:33 GMT -6
The fact that PROs even need to exist is pretty screwy if you think about it. They're essentially acting like bill collectors, and one is saying, "hey, you should hire us b/c we're better repo men than the other main PRO is."
It is such a bizarro industry.
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Post by cyrano on Feb 9, 2021 15:29:08 GMT -6
Some are even watching traffic cams...
When I was young, you could find me three times a week in a movie theatre. Every week.
Then, studios started milking it with sequels. Then, Dolby ruined it with THX certification. Every time, I'd leave the theatre with buzzing ears. Now I suffer from tinnitus...
Of course, a lot of my friends are movie fans too. They all stopped from going to the theatre because of DVDs. Convenience. And they all started pirating because of DRM. Mind you, pirating in that era had a steep learning curve. But it was far, far better than having to undergo the mindless drivel of pre-movie publicity. And one of the things that started the idea of pirating, were the insulting anti-piracy ads from the many MPAA outfits telling us that we all were thieves because we really wanted to watch a movie without wasting half an hour of our lives being insulted because we were stupid enough to buy the goddamned disc.
Audio, fortunately, never was that bad. Yet, both music lovers and movie buffs have digitised their collection a long time ago. Again, convenience. With the exception of analog lovers, of course. That's why vinyl outsells CDs these days.
The music industry first lost radio because they completely corrupted it. They didn't lose it to streaming. It happened a long time before. They lost it because of charts manipulation. People wanting music in their local language, fi, but never found it in the charts. The charts were mainly in English. Even the simplest soul understood why.
Starting and running a movie theatre is a fairly capital intensive business. And the companies who do, are tied to the industry. So they dance to the studio's beat. The few independent "cinephile" theatres we had, went broke because they couldn't dance to the same beat. So they lost the cinephiles too. Contrary to the music scene, however, there are no analog lovers there. No vinyl. And the cinephiles are all pirates, cause they can't get all Fellinis on disc...
The main problem there isn't that the public are inherently thieves. It's regional distribution. Both cinema and music have lost out to their own shenanigans. They've simply missed the boat of globalisation, despite being multinationals. It's incomprehensible, until you learn that most of the big outfits have been cannibalised by their own board who didn't care about anything but their own fortune.
What's interesting these days, is stuff from remarkably small labels. One person companies. Indie movie makers. These are doing well, despite sometimes being harassed by law-firms from the big guys.
I don't make music, nor video. I'm a consumer. But I do write. About food. And I've had to deal with these hyenas on more than one occasion. Freedom of speech and press freedom are all very nice and naive ideas when you have to spend thousands because you mention a brand. The hyenas have no leg to stand on, legally, but the cost to fend them off is very real.
They dug their own graves...
Blockchain would be the wooden stick through the vampire's hearts. Of course they'll never accept it. When things get big, they get powerful. And power corrupts.
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Post by Dan on Feb 9, 2021 16:04:41 GMT -6
They'd have to pay out the royalties they signed for and have evidence to be sued over Hollywood accounting practices. There would be no more "trades" or "remaindering" or pretending that X record by Y artist never made back its tiny advance despite being selling a bunch of records and getting widely distributed repressings because they were mentioned by Z popular artist YES YES YES...Dan knows whats up lol. Or paying big songwriter X dramatically more than he really made because he threatens to leave and go to the competition. Oh yes and while Nielsen record sales made it easier to discern lowest common denominator appeal, it also made it easier to discount sales and not pay people because they’re able to discount a ton of record stores, dealers, and distributors. The false conversion of streams (modern day airplay) to “sales” hurts the charts even more. There are random reissues which sold every copy in every format yet didn’t make any charts. It’s also a lie that vinyl outsells CDs. These reissues and release have pressed exponentially more cd copies than LPs yet the CDs sell more. There are labels not a member of the RIAA and labels in the RIAA not counting the great majority of sales of certain titles. |
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Post by OtisGreying on Feb 20, 2021 6:40:54 GMT -6
Spot on to this topic from a guy in the Marvel movies, Lol.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Feb 20, 2021 16:45:55 GMT -6
Music has the same problem!
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Post by rowmat on Apr 21, 2021 16:52:12 GMT -6
Maybe you'll get accepted to YouTube, LOL! Same thought here, my aspirations don't really go that far with cinema. 11 years ago a director friend and I crowdsourced and self funded 10K$ to shoot a feature film written by the director. At the time we used a hacked GH1 for the first part of the shoot and a hacked GH2 for the second part of the shoot. We borrowed and rented gear and paid the crew a very small amount of money as well as catered the shoots with food. We took nothing for ourselves but we also burned through that money and still had to add more from our pockets. I believe the movie is still on youtube somewhere but I've never looked. I also have some other video work I've done on Youtube and such. I still prefer Vimeo though. Did you ever see the Zacuto Cinecamera shootout where Francis Ford Coppola preferred the look of the GH2 over a bunch of high end cinecameras? In reality I would have given the award to the DP/lighting dept. To make a camera with about 8.5 stops of dynamic range hold up against a camera with 12 or 13 plus stops of DR isn’t about the camera it’s about the light and where you direct it or not and in what amount. I still have 3 hacked GH2’s and while they were great inexpensive cameras which can take all kinds of funky old glass and always killed Canon 5D MK2’s for the look of the video they produced (more film like grain versus the plastic looking 5D files) I wouldn’t have chosen them if money was no object. www.eoshd.com/creative-filmmaking/zacuto-revenge-shootout-part-2-results-revealed-francis-ford-coppola-and-audience-majority-give-win-to-gh2/ |
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Post by svart on Apr 21, 2021 18:12:26 GMT -6
11 years ago a director friend and I crowdsourced and self funded 10K$ to shoot a feature film written by the director. At the time we used a hacked GH1 for the first part of the shoot and a hacked GH2 for the second part of the shoot. We borrowed and rented gear and paid the crew a very small amount of money as well as catered the shoots with food. We took nothing for ourselves but we also burned through that money and still had to add more from our pockets. I believe the movie is still on youtube somewhere but I've never looked. I also have some other video work I've done on Youtube and such. I still prefer Vimeo though. Did you ever see the Zacuto Cinecamera shootout where Francis Ford Coppola preferred the look of the GH2 over a bunch of high end cinecameras? In reality I would have given the award to the DP/lighting dept. To make a camera with about 8.5 stops of dynamic range hold up against a camera with 12 or 13 plus stops of DR isn’t about the camera it’s about the light and where you direct it or not and in what amount. I still have 3 hacked GH2’s and while they were great inexpensive cameras which can take all kinds of funky old glass and always killed Canon 5D MK2’s for the look of the video they produced (more film like grain versus the plastic looking 5D files) I wouldn’t have chosen them if money was no object. www.eoshd.com/creative-filmmaking/zacuto-revenge-shootout-part-2-results-revealed-francis-ford-coppola-and-audience-majority-give-win-to-gh2/Lighting is always king. Film needs a lot of light no matter what anyone says, but it had so much latitude it was easy to shoot as long as you got at least part of the shot exposed right. Early digital didn't have the latitude in the DR, but was a lot more sensitive despite the sensor noise introduced. Even though I moved to the gh5, I still expose the whites a couple stops lower even though it handles 100% way better than the gh2. The dark noise is almost non-existent so I just bury it in post and it looks pretty lush. |
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Post by rowmat on Apr 21, 2021 19:13:53 GMT -6
Did you ever see the Zacuto Cinecamera shootout where Francis Ford Coppola preferred the look of the GH2 over a bunch of high end cinecameras? In reality I would have given the award to the DP/lighting dept. To make a camera with about 8.5 stops of dynamic range hold up against a camera with 12 or 13 plus stops of DR isn’t about the camera it’s about the light and where you direct it or not and in what amount. I still have 3 hacked GH2’s and while they were great inexpensive cameras which can take all kinds of funky old glass and always killed Canon 5D MK2’s for the look of the video they produced (more film like grain versus the plastic looking 5D files) I wouldn’t have chosen them if money was no object. www.eoshd.com/creative-filmmaking/zacuto-revenge-shootout-part-2-results-revealed-francis-ford-coppola-and-audience-majority-give-win-to-gh2/Lighting is always king. Film needs a lot of light no matter what anyone says, but it had so much latitude it was easy to shoot as long as you got at least part of the shot exposed right. Early digital didn't have the latitude in the DR, but was a lot more sensitive despite the sensor noise introduced. Even though I moved to the gh5, I still expose the whites a couple stops lower even though it handles 100% way better than the gh2. The dark noise is almost non-existent so I just bury it in post and it looks pretty lush. Expose for the highlights and fill the shadows as required on set rather than ‘develop’ for the shadows in digital post. (Cue HDR plug-in) The downside of these newer sensors with 15 stops of DR and base ISO’s of 2000 or more is just because you can get away without lighting doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. The aesthetic of a well lit scene to create a particular look still applies even if technically not needed in relation to under/over exposure issues. I’m seeing more use of HDR effects to which appear to be in lieu of lighting. |
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Post by svart on Apr 22, 2021 7:09:50 GMT -6
Lighting is always king. Film needs a lot of light no matter what anyone says, but it had so much latitude it was easy to shoot as long as you got at least part of the shot exposed right. Early digital didn't have the latitude in the DR, but was a lot more sensitive despite the sensor noise introduced. Even though I moved to the gh5, I still expose the whites a couple stops lower even though it handles 100% way better than the gh2. The dark noise is almost non-existent so I just bury it in post and it looks pretty lush. Expose for the highlights and fill the shadows as required on set rather than ‘develop’ for the shadows in digital post. (Cue HDR plug-in) The downside of these newer sensors with 15 stops of DR and base ISO’s of 2000 or more is just because you can get away without lighting doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. The aesthetic of a well lit scene to create a particular look still applies even if technically not needed in relation to under/over exposure issues. I’m seeing more use of HDR effects to which appear to be in lieu of lighting. I can't remember where, but there was a study done where they tracked eye movements on film scenes. 90% of the eyes watched faces, movement and lighter areas of the scene. Nobody looked at the dark areas. I think they came down to the conclusion that it's best to light and frame to draw the eye where you want people to see something (kinda obvious really) and nothing else matters. Nobody but pixel peepers cared if your greys fell off to black too soon. In fact, it looks more faux-HDR that way. Crush the blacks, raise the whites in post and it looks like more range on normal TVs. LED lighting is an absolute boon for low-budget films. You can get 200W+ LEDs in 3000K all day long for <10$ and outfit all your practicals and shoot more realistically (Think Deacons-esque lighting) now than you could even 10 years ago when you had to use halogens and hot lamps and outfit all your fixtures with new wiring and worry about melting the shades and such, lol. Found some of it: |
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Post by svart on Apr 22, 2021 8:27:39 GMT -6
Lighting is always king. Film needs a lot of light no matter what anyone says, but it had so much latitude it was easy to shoot as long as you got at least part of the shot exposed right. Early digital didn't have the latitude in the DR, but was a lot more sensitive despite the sensor noise introduced. Even though I moved to the gh5, I still expose the whites a couple stops lower even though it handles 100% way better than the gh2. The dark noise is almost non-existent so I just bury it in post and it looks pretty lush. Expose for the highlights and fill the shadows as required on set rather than ‘develop’ for the shadows in digital post. (Cue HDR plug-in) The downside of these newer sensors with 15 stops of DR and base ISO’s of 2000 or more is just because you can get away without lighting doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. The aesthetic of a well lit scene to create a particular look still applies even if technically not needed in relation to under/over exposure issues. I’m seeing more use of HDR effects to which appear to be in lieu of lighting. I did a music video shoot where I got brought in as second camera op for coverage. The director had a 5D, maybe mk3/mk4 and a couple lenses. He chose to shoot wide open on some zoom lens for that razor thin DOP that seems to be in vogue still. I shot on my GH5 with old nikon primes. I also brought a couple 700w HMI fresnels for fill as they were shooting in an apartment with huge windows behind the band. Despite the director and his crew telling the band that I wasn't needed, I came anyway and within minutes they were upset at the blown out background and didn't know what to do about it.. They wanted pictures on the windows to show up in the background but when you have morning sun illuminating a huge building behind, it's pretty much impossible without gelling down the windows with ND, which they also didn't have nor understand. I set up the HMIs and a bedsheet bounce as front fill and just blasted the band with light and we got some pretty good shots although it was a bit too much "fake light" according to the director. The band also chose about 80% of the shots from my camera rather than the 5D since the 5D op had blown everything out trying to get wide open without ND filters. None of my ND filters would fit their lenses. I'm no pro, but the director had worked on dozens of music videos in the indie community here and didn't even know basic exposure and lighting. He says it's "his style" and spouted off some bullshit about being true dogme95, lol. The director edited the video and I got listed in the "thanks" rather than as camera op. |
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Post by Michael Carnes on Apr 22, 2021 8:28:51 GMT -6
Yeah, it's a wonderful thing to have a DP who manages to keep the important stuff within a dynamic range we can actually see. There are films and TV shows that seem to revel in the fact that they can capture stuff with almost no illumination. They seem ignorant of the fact that viewers see nothing but shadows. If we commit the sin of watching a show in daylight hours or not having a dedicated dark basement theater, then it's us to blame for not being able to see a damned thing.
When I watch an older movie--Hitchcock, David Lean, Sydney Pollack, etc--that's been properly restored onto 4K, it's absolutely stunning how good it can look. I don't think it's the look of film, per se, but more the fact that the DP had to light within the capabilities of the medium. Then I watch something like "The Expanse". It's just a sea of black with occasional evidence of movement in there.
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Post by svart on Apr 22, 2021 8:40:47 GMT -6
Yeah, it's a wonderful thing to have a DP who manages to keep the important stuff within a dynamic range we can actually see. There are films and TV shows that seem to revel in the fact that they can capture stuff with almost no illumination. They seem ignorant of the fact that viewers see nothing but shadows. If we commit the sin of watching a show in daylight hours or not having a dedicated dark basement theater, then it's us to blame for not being able to see a damned thing. When I watch an older movie--Hitchcock, David Lean, Sydney Pollack, etc--that's been properly restored onto 4K, it's absolutely stunning how good it can look. I don't think it's the look of film, per se, but more the fact that the DP had to light within the capabilities of the medium. Then I watch something like "The Expanse". It's just a sea of black with occasional evidence of movement in there. Not just shadows but that damn MPEG macroblocking you see on streaming movies! I can't stand a bunch of dark scenes with 8 bit blocks jumping around in the shadows. The old movies used tons of light. The older film stocks (before the late 80's) needed so much light or else they got grainy as a wheat field and a lot of them were mostly shot high-key because of it. The advent of low-light film stock really changed the game but digital sensors as well as CGI have made the use of low-key lighting more enticing. Looks great on HDR 4K blu rays but absolutely unwatchable through streaming. I liked the expanse. Thankfully the action and stuff drew my eye away from peeping the pixels too much, but I watched a few series on HBO like Penny Dreadful and The Alienist and the pace is so slow you can't help but notice the really drab grey palettes and large areas of darkness with nothing meaningful in them. Macroblocking city. Yuck. |
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Post by rowmat on Apr 22, 2021 11:54:09 GMT -6
I was gaffer on this B&W noir style short ‘Courier’ a few years ago. Set in an upper floor hotel room during WW2. As the script dictated the interior hotel lights were dysfunctional (blown globe, fuse etc) the outside ‘street lamps’ (2k old school tungsten Arri Fresnels) were essentially the key (back) lights set high pointing down through the exterior windows plus some Dedos along with the practical bedside lamp. The upper section of the windows appear hot because they were but the DP wanted that effect. However this Vimeo 720 version has a few other hotspots which are better controlled in the original files. Shot on a Sony F5 and Zeiss primes I think from memory. Converted to B&W in post with added grain. I supplied the DP with Tiffen Black mist Pro filter which helped to give it a more film like appearance. Set was three walls (rear and sides) pre-built and brought in on a truck and then assembled and wallpapered. Location was inside the State Theater in St Kilda near Melbourne. And some additional BTS pics. ballardigital.wixsite.com/jamesballard/courier |
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Post by svart on Apr 22, 2021 13:19:54 GMT -6
I was gaffer on this B&W noir style short ‘Courier’ a few years ago. Set in an upper floor hotel room during WW2. As the script dictated the interior hotel lights were dysfunctional (blown globe, fuse etc) the outside ‘street lamps’ (2k old school tungsten Arri Fresnels) were essentially the key (back) lights set high pointing down through the exterior windows plus some Dedos along with the practical bedside lamp. The upper section of the windows appear hot because they were but the DP wanted that effect. However this Vimeo 720 version has a few other hotspots which are better controlled in the original files. Shot on a Sony F5 and Zeiss primes I think from memory. Converted to B&W in post with added grain. I supplied the DP with Tiffen Black mist Pro filter which helped to give it a more film like appearance. Set was three walls (rear and sides) pre-built and brought in on a truck and then assembled and wallpapered. Location was inside the State Theater in St Kilda near Melbourne. And some additional BTS pics. ballardigital.wixsite.com/jamesballard/courierLooks outstanding! |
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Post by rowmat on Apr 22, 2021 18:31:03 GMT -6
I was gaffer on this B&W noir style short ‘Courier’ a few years ago. Set in an upper floor hotel room during WW2. As the script dictated the interior hotel lights were dysfunctional (blown globe, fuse etc) the outside ‘street lamps’ (2k old school tungsten Arri Fresnels) were essentially the key (back) lights set high pointing down through the exterior windows plus some Dedos along with the practical bedside lamp. The upper section of the windows appear hot because they were but the DP wanted that effect. However this Vimeo 720 version has a few other hotspots which are better controlled in the original files. Shot on a Sony F5 and Zeiss primes I think from memory. Converted to B&W in post with added grain. I supplied the DP with Tiffen Black mist Pro filter which helped to give it a more film like appearance. Set was three walls (rear and sides) pre-built and brought in on a truck and then assembled and wallpapered. Location was inside the State Theater in St Kilda near Melbourne. And some additional BTS pics. ballardigital.wixsite.com/jamesballard/courierLooks outstanding! Another next to no budget production. The DP and sound got paid something and and I expect the female lead and I basically got gas money. The two male leads directed and wrote it so it was their project. The set was built by some of the crew and director’s friends. The DP owned his own gear otherwise most of any $$ would have gone to camera rental. If you think money is hard to come by in the sound recording biz it doesn’t compare to Indy film making where everyone is trying to get noticed and are prepared to work for peanuts which sets the financial remuneration bar in the basement. |
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Post by stratboy on May 4, 2021 9:45:40 GMT -6
I used to work in postproduction, both video and audio for video. I love the fact that this discussion is happening on RGO. What a great place to hang out and learn!
What’s next, color correction?
Carry on, please!
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Post by svart on May 5, 2021 7:08:37 GMT -6
I used to work in postproduction, both video and audio for video. I love the fact that this discussion is happening on RGO. What a great place to hang out and learn! What’s next, color correction? Carry on, please! I use Davinci Resolve for my editing and I love messing with the color correction. Thankfully there's a free version out there (I use the paid version due to 4K files) but it means that there's also a ton of 3rd party Youtube tutorials with some really powerful and novel methods being taught. I tend to set the camera with a flat color profile and push color in post production, but I've also found a LOVE of circular polarizers on the camera. I can find a position that eliminates a lot of digital hotspots from reflections and whatnot and it really helps colors pop when pushed. They seem to be something that most newbies don't even know about but they have reinvented my photos/videos. |
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