cinematography Just how important is what camera you use?

T

TheKoreandonut

As I watched 'Inland Empire' which was filmed entirely in SD, I wondered just how important is the camera(s) that I use for my short films. I have a D90 and a Sony CX150 that I've used extensively. I used to think that better camera = better picture but now I'm not so sure. I recently saw a couple of YT vids where people have rented red ones and made a short film. Some of these films didn't look much different that some that had been filmed with consumer cams and that got me thinking...

Maybe the camera is only as good the person operating it. Maybe with the proper lighting and cinematography, even a cheap, standard definition camera could be used to produce something worthy of the big screen. I know dynamic range and lenses play a big part in this but I dunno, what do you guys think?

If you gave Steven Spielberge a handicam and an amateur filmmaker a 7D, who do you think would come out with the better looking film?
 
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rayw said:
I always enjoy laughing at "respected" actors in deplorable films.
It's kinduva perverse form of entertainment (better than a minors-as-sex-slaves sorta thing).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000686/

Hmm... about what year was it you and Dad went to the video store? VHS, not DVD, right?
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yeah, I was just looking it up. It was this one http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112288/.


I remember the description promising blood and gore, but what I got was a mopy depressed and socially akward college student who became a "vampire". They could survive in daylight, it was just really bright and uncomfortable. And being a vampire just meant you had an addiction to blood, like a drug, and didn't really need it to live.. more of a recreational thing / addiction. It was really boring. It was more like the life of an actual college student, except replace recreational drugs with blood. Thats about it.

This is my version of the movie. "oh man, its bright outside and I'm a depressed girl in her early twenties who just had her first lesbian experience. What should I do? I know, I'll only go out at night and do drugs... I mean drink blood. That means I'm a vampire." Shoot it in black and white and call it art. Fin.

call me old fashioned, but I like my Vampires to be in horror movies, not art films or romance novels. Just sayin.
 
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brianluce said:
The number of people shooting on RED versus the number of people shooting RED that succeed is also LOTTO LIKE.
Suggesting that everyone should go out and buy an Epic because it's what the big boys play with is bad advice. Way smarter to use what little funds you have to invest in human capital. Actors, DP's, writers, costumers, they'll make the difference. Not your RED.
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I never said everyone should go out and buy a red. I keep telling people that if you want to go pro, you have to spend money, and that once you are spending money, red is the camera to buy.

You are leaping to assumptions about what I'm saying that you could not find anywhere in my posts.

List of assumptions people have made so far, that have no basis in anything I've said

I think you cant shoot a movie without a red
Everyone should buy a red, no matter what kind of work they are doing
All you need is a good camera and you can forget about everything else
Camera is more important than sound
Camera is more important than story
camera is more important than acting
Spending money on equipment is a substitute for skill
I'm using money to cover up the fact that I'm not as good as you at having my friends hide behind trees with plastic guns.
I think everyone that doesn't spend a lot of money is a bad filmmaker
and the list goes on and on

These are all things that I'm 100% sure I've never said, but have been accused of saying 3x each. Don't read between the lines, if you are already having trouble reading the lines.

What I talk about on this forum is being practical about competing with the commercial entertainment industry. It's for people who's goal it is to release a film in theaters, that makes money, and therefore reaches a respectable audience. I think there are many of them out there.

You couldn't find a post by me that says "story is unimportant" to save your life. My posts say "Everything is important, and attention to detail is important" That's not stupid, nor condescending advice. It's solid advice. I talk about cameras more than the other stuff, because I feel like on this forum, many people are working specifically on cinematography, with no script, lighting, or actors present. I talk about the subject at hand, and more often than not, it's cameras.

Also the number of reds out there versus success stories is not lotto like. You have literally over 150 known win scenarios, out of maybe 11,000 cameras sold. With DSLRs you have an estimated 25 million sold this year alone, and about 10 success scenarios (is it actually that many? I doubt it). Those aren't the same odds, even if there were such thing as odds of commercial success driven by camera type. It's about the complete package.
 
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Nate North said:
With DSLRs you have an estimated 25 million sold this year alone, and about 10 success scenarios (is it actually that many? I doubt it). Those aren't the same odds, even if there were such thing as odds of commercial success driven by camera type. It's about the complete package.
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That's misleading, only a tiny fraction of the 25 million DSLR's were purchased for video, and an even smaller portion of those people venture into feature films. And of those RED features that were commercial, bet most of them had branded actors and multi million dollar publicity budgets -- so in other words it's an apples to oranges comparison. A micro budgeted feature shot on RED has more or less the same odds as a micro budgeted feature shot on a Canon 5d.
 
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brianluce said:
That's misleading, only a tiny fraction of the 25 million DSLR's were purchased for video, and an even smaller portion of those people venture into feature films. And of those RED features that were commercial, bet most of them had branded actors and multi million dollar publicity budgets -- so in other words it's an apples to oranges comparison. A micro budgeted feature shot on RED has more or less the same odds as a micro budgeted feature shot on a Canon 5d.
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That's true, and I agree. I almost wrote some stuff in there about this, but I cant write an encyclopedia of indie film production in each post.

But it was referenced several times. To simplify, I don't believe in the profit, or entertainment potential of micro budget movies. Even low budget (500k) is pretty shady territory. By the time you hit 3-8 mil, if you have a smart team of people, you can make something of true value to all involved. For me, that's what it's about.

I say buy a red camera, because you'll need 2 mil in marketing, which means an additional 2 mil budget (or other way around) and by that time, why even bother degrading the entire film to save 50 grand?

This guy is one of the people I work with, he spent 250k, plus free crew for the most part, and he fell flat on his face (so far, he still has a chance). So now I'm telling people not to mortgage their house and move to Hollywood because they got a 5d. I think that's reasonable.

Here's the trailer for that, And it's a very strong effort indeed,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anyVECZxBJY
 
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DangerDigital said:
Does anyone know how well the red stacks up to other pro level cameras that its competing with? Is it the bang for the buck camera or does it tear up the competition?
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I would say better than most digital cameras out there. And I know I'm going to get flak for this, but I prefer the image the RED Epic puts out compared to film (ditto on the Arri Alexa vs film). The stock image looks way better, especially in low light, even when film has all sorts of noise reduction stuff applied.
 
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DangerDigital said:
Does anyone know how well the red stacks up to other pro level cameras that its competing with? Is it the bang for the buck camera or does it tear up the competition?
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It starts to become subjective at a certain point. For example, I like grain (not noise), and 35mm has it. A RED or Viper can give you an image with no grain, which I don't personally care for as it gives a hard, cold aesthetic. But some, like Cameronchapman, like it. I believe film still has the most latitude and I wouldn't be surprised if film yields inkier blacks. If this is still true, the differences in latitude and blacks is incremental. Video/RAW just has so many practical advantages over film, which is why it's supplanting film. For example, actors love getting immediate access to dailies. They fret and stress over their performances, and waiting on a film lab must be difficult.

REDONE was a notch below the super high end video cameras, such as Genesis and F23, but Epic may have closed the gap. I don't think it's tearing up the competition though, it recently came up short when matched against the Arri Alexa. For sure though, it's the king of bang for the buck of high end cameras.
 
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brianluce said:
It starts to become subjective at a certain point. For example, I like grain (not noise), and 35mm has it. A RED or Viper can give you an image with no grain, which I don't personally care for as it gives a hard, cold aesthetic. But some, like Cameronchapman, like it. I believe film still has the most latitude and I wouldn't be surprised if film yields inkier blacks. If this is still true, the differences in latitude and blacks is incremental. Video/RAW just has so many practical advantages over film, which is why it's supplanting film. For example, actors love getting immediate access to dailies. They fret and stress over their performances, and waiting on a film lab must be difficult.

REDONE was a notch below the super high end video cameras, such as Genesis and F23, but Epic may have closed the gap. Nate would know.
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Yeah, but cant you add in a grainy look in post? Or is it a cheesy effect? and if so, does anyone notice who is not well versed in the art of film?

I could see the blacks being better in film though. ;)
 
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brianluce said:
REDONE was a notch below the super high end video cameras, such as Genesis and F23, but Epic may have closed the gap. I don't think it's tearing up the competition though, it recently came up short when matched against the Arri Alexa. For sure though, it's the king of bang for the buck of high end cameras.
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Yeah, I'm a fan of the look of the Alexa over the Red. I think the Alexa has a...richer?...image than the Red.

DangerDigital said:
Yeah, but cant you add in a grainy look in post? Or is it a cheesy effect? and if so, does anyone notice who is not well versed in the art of film?
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You can add noise in post that will approximate grain pretty well, but it's still not grain. ETA: I think.
 
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I think that might be what I miss about having an old crt tv. my HDTV is too crisp. I was used to motion blur and noise. Now I see things in clarity that I dont really care to see. It kind of gives me a headache.
 
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RED crushes the F23 feature wise. Even the RED One. F23 still [only] shoots 1080p at a low/standard frame rate.

Personally I'd go RED over Alexa 4/5 times. I do like the Arri feel for a few things, but the Epic is 5k at a crazy frame rate shooting RAW 4:4:4 with a good sensor size/DOF comparable to film. That's why it wins.
 
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DangerDigital said:
Yeah, but cant you add in a grainy look in post? Or is it a cheesy effect?
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No, its not a cheesy effect. When done by an expert you won't be able to tell the difference.

Let me tell you a secret -- grain is never consistent across all your raw footage, even with actual film. Editors fine tune EACH CLIP by adding a little grain or changing the grain size and/or color so there is a consistent look across the the entire film.

Adding grain one of the tools used to avoid the dreaded video look. I sort of chuckle at techies splitting hairs over camera specs when I know I'm planning to add grain to the final images. :lol:
 
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For some reason, RED has managed to build for itself a portfolio that's much more impressive than Arri Alexa's.

I don't know or am not interested in any of the movies in this list:
http://www.arridigital.com/credits/complete/Feature

But I've watched a few in this one:
http://www.red.com/experience

The 2 best RED movies I've seen are "Inside job" and "The Social Network".



If you have achieved some nice results adding grain to digital footage, please post it here.
 
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GuerrillaAngel said:
No, its not a cheesy effect. When done by an expert you won't be able to tell the difference.

Let me tell you a secret -- grain is never consistent across all your raw footage, even with actual film. Editors fine tune EACH CLIP by adding a little grain or changing the grain size and/or color so there is a consistent look across the the entire film.

Adding grain one of the tools used to avoid the dreaded video look. I sort of chuckle at techies splitting hairs over camera specs when I know I'm planning to add grain to the final images. :lol:
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I've never seen it look like real grain. Either way, film is a different aesthetic and I think it looks better than video and RAW.
 
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