Me @ NAB

Here’s where I’ll be in Vegas, baby:

On Monday, 4/20, I’ll be speaking at the Independent Filmmaking—A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget: 2009 Edition panel. 11:30am–12:30pm in Room S222/S223.

That afternoon I will be signing copies of The DV Rebel’s Guide at the NAB Bookstore in the Central Lobby. 3–3:30pm. Copies will be on sale at the store at 15% off retail.

That night I will be at the fxphd party, so if you are enrolled, look for me there.

Tuesday (4/21) afternoon I’ll be signing and even giving away a few copies of The Guide at the Red Giant Software booth. 1:00 pm, booth SL2529.

That’s it for scheduled appearances. The rest of the time I’ll be watching Twitter for recommendations for cool gear to check out.

One spot you’re sure to see me is at the Redrock Micro booth. I’ve been playing with a new DSLR rig from them that combines light weight with single-operator follow-focus capability. Here’s a sneak peek:

It’s hard to see in this shot, but my left hand is wrapped around a horizontal grip that matches the vertical one on the right. I can cradle the grip and operate focus at the same time. Schweet!

If this rig looks weird to you, blame me, not Redrock. Look for more information on that in an announcement from them soon! Redrock is at booth C9544.

Update on Friday, June 12, 2009 at 3:35PM by Stu

That rig, called the “Captain Stu-bling,” is not available directly from Redrock. It may look weird, but it’s a joy to use, and quite affordable as this stuff goes.

Film at Half the Price

Public domain image by Max SmithI write a lot about accesible, i.e. "cheap" filmmaking. But as I explicitly mention in The Guide, filmmaking does cost money, and often the camera and what's in it comprise the least expensive aspect of a shoot.

And while we all know (and I don't say it enough) that color negative film is still the gold standard for motion picture image quality, we also know that it's expensive. Usually, if I eschew film for digital aquisition, it's for workflow reasons—but sometimes it's purely due to cost.

But what if film stock and processing was half price?

Panavision sent me this press release today:

PANAVISION PROPOSES TWO-PERF FILM SYSTEM FOR INDIE FILMMAKING IN TROUBLED ECONOMIC TIMES

Venerable Film System Provides High-quality Images Coupled with Significant Cost Savings

April 7, 2009—Woodland Hills, Calif. — While there is no easy antidote for the effect of the recession on independent filmmakers, Panavision suggests that the venerable two-perf film system may prove to be both an artistic and economic godsend in these troubled times.

Three recent productions – “Curve of Earth,” “Shoot First and Pray You Live” and “Gallow Walker” – are examples of films shot in 35mm two-perf that delivered the artistic vision of the production team, and saved roughly 50 percent on film negative and processing costs over standard four-perf, full-frame production.

Panavision now offers modified 35mm Panaflex cameras with two-perf movements available for rental. All handle Panavision’s range of legendary spherical film lenses from super speeds to Primos.

(For those unfamiliar with two-perf, the term refers to a modified film camera’s ability to record two images within the space usually inhabited by a single four-perf frame. “Perfs,” short for perforations, are the holes on either side of a piece of film that a camera sprocket engages to advance the film past the camera’s shutter.)

According to Andy Romanoff, Panavision Executive Vice President, Technical Marketing and Strategy, two-perf provides filmmakers with the ability to shoot 2.35 wide-screen images, usually attributed to higher-end systems, at reduced costs. It delivers a widescreen viewer experience but slices film stock and negative processing costs by 33 to 50 percent.

“In today’s difficult times,” said Romanoff, “filmmakers want the unique qualities of film, but find themselves daunted by cost. Using digital technology is a viable alternative, certainly, if you are using a sophisticated digital cinema system such as the Panavision Genesis. Using a less robust digital system will produce less robust images, and can compromise an artistic vision.

“With two-perf, no compromise is necessary. The two-perf system delivers true film images, allows creatives to lay down the images they imagined, and still create their film affordably.”

For more information, contact your local Panavision representative.

There's nothing new about 2-perf 35mm—George Lucas used it on THX 1138, back when it was calld Techniscope. No mention of whether the modern incarnation might use the full width of the 35mm frame (Super Techniscope?). The OG Techniscope used Academy width, which, when split horizontally created a perfect 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

This kind of smart use of film is very digital-friendly. Formats like Techniscope and 3-perf never really caught on before the advent of the DI, because they required an optical process to convert to projectable film. But now that every film image is likely to be digitally processed in post, such duplication is unnecessary.

What I like about 2-perf over 3-perf is that it brings some of the cajones back to 'scope filmmaking. There's no post-reframing or full-screen unmatted video versions of a Techniscope film. What you shot is what you got, much like anamorphic 'scope.

Color correcting the Stunt People short

…using the DV Rebel Tools.

Panasonic GH1

As promised, Panasonic today announced the video-equipped successor to the DMC-G1, their Micro Four Thirds not-an-SLR that conspicuously lacked video. Called the DMC-GH1, it was the talk of Twitter today.

And deservedly so. As promised, it's all the juicy photography things the G1 was and more, plus HD video from a company with a terrific track record in that area that spans the high end to the proletariat. Panasonic, after all, brought 24p to the masses with the DVX100. Like Canon, they have long made terrific stills and video gear. Unlike Canon, it seems that Panasonic allows those divisions to talk to each other.

The GH1 is the first stills camera with video that reflects true attention to the video part. Remember that Panasonic not only brought us 24p DV, they also brought us HD on the desktop (even the laptop!) with their compressed-just-the-right-amount-for-today DVCPROHD format. Panasonic knows video, and that knowledge is reflected in the GH1. Its AVCHD formats are readily supported by the major video editing packages, and the press release proudly touts "a Creative Movie mode, which lets the user set the shutter speed and aperture manually to make even more impressive movies."

Manual settings. Finally, somebody swallowed the Obvious Pill.

Further evidence that Panasonic is a video company that makes a stills camera that shoots video: You can record until your card fills up. Autofocus works—the right way (smooth not fast). There's a flip-out LCD for shooting things other than your identical twin. There's a whole button just for shooting video. At any time. And it's red.

So a company well known for pioneering filmmaker-friendly camcorders and killer stills gear finally put the chocolate and the peanut butter into the awesomizer and hit frappé. What's to complain about?

Thanks for asking. First, as I said, Panasonic knows video. I don't even like to use the term video. When I first held my DVX100, I saw it as the first accessible Digital Cinema camera, not a video camera. Video is tapes and signals and pluge (pluge?) and vertical blanking. Digital cinema is pixels and fricking movies.

Panasonic's focus on capital-V video is evident in the GH1's 24p recording method. It encodes the true 1080p24 off the sensor into a 1080i60 stream, via 3:2 pulldown. That means it's recording redundant (bandwidth-wasting) information to the video file. It falls to you to remove the pulldown in post, adding numerous headaches and necessitating careful attention to avoid recompression.

AVCHD supports 1080p24—in fact, Panasonic's own HMC150 records it. Why did Panasonic force 3:2 pulldown (which is to 24p as stone tablets are to the Kindle 2) on the GH1? Maybe they were desperate to have something about their HD cameras be better than this little game changer. More on that in a bit.

Because while we're in the one-step-forward, two-steps-back department, we also have to talk about the lens. The GH1 comes with a kit lens that, like most kit lenses, goes the Microsoft route of doing everything poorly rather than doing one thing well. The LUMIX G VARIO HD 14-140mm/F4.0-5.8 ASPH./MEGA O.I.S. lens (yes, seriously) is mandatory with the GH1, and follows the kit lens mandate of being slow-as-heck in order to be lightweight, affordable, and provide a broad range of focal lengths.

Presumably we film folk are interested in the GH1 because of its big-ass sensor and the shallow depth of field that it portends. So how stoked are we going to be shooting at between f/4 and f/5.8? Not. So we'll be buying more cute little lenses and swapping them often. One step forward, two steps back.

It's funny how the badass little LX3 shows up its big brother in a few key ways. The LX3 shoots lightly-compressed 24p movies that are actually 24p. And its tiny little lens is f/2.0 at the wide end.

So the GH1 isn't perfect. What's to be excited about then?

Everything. Especially this:

The Micro Four Thirds sensor is almost as big as that of the RED One. It's nearly Super35 in size. It dwarfs the nearest prosumer video camera sensor size.

There is a camera coming this summer that has a sensor nearly as big as the RED one's, takes interchangeable lenses, and fits in the palm of your hand. It has full manual control, state-of-the art automatic features (not just face detection, face recognition), and shoots both 24p and 60p.

And it will cost less than $2,000 (rumored) with a lens.

Panasonic has the kintamas to make a stills camera that would make one think twice about buying a much more expensive HD video camera. From Panasonic.

And that is why I love them.

Remember the original (now dead) Scarlet? It's here in a couple of months, cheaper by a third, and has a bigger chip and swappable glass. If you don't mind a little compression.

Now we just gotta see some footage (uhm, I mean real footage, not this). Panasonic, if you're using those dual Venus Engine HD image processors to make that video right (downsampling rather than line-skipping or pixel-binning), you may just have made the ultimate camera for the DOF-obsessed Rebel.

Let the Subway Shorts commence!