What camera do they use?

[Matty2Phatty]

I'm not sure i quite understand, and i don't want to insult your intelligence by answering you too vaguely and simply.

But do you understand the difference between film and digital?

[jussing]

They typically use large 35 mm film cameras.

Some of them (Lucas, Rodriguez, and now Michael Mann, etc) will use a hi-res digital video camera, such as the Cinealta.

Only low budget movies like 28 Days Later and Danish "dogma" movies are shot on regular consumer quality Mini DV camera. DV can not, ever, look like film. :)

Cheers,
- Jonas

[scrimski]

Actually editing isn't about a software, it's about errm.. editing(with 35mm or 16 mm film you can even edit purely on hardware like Steenbeck )
Editing is more concerning about pace, about creating a visual line, following or breaking with editing principles built up in the last decades since film came up.
Go read some books :
'Shot by Shot'
'Grammar of the shot'
'Grammar of the edit'

are a good start to get a picture about it.

You could even start editing with Moviemaker, or Virtual Dub. Avid, which is quite a standard tool, provides a free version of it's software.
http://www.avid.com/freedv/index.asp

[Nucleo]

Elya like jussing said there is no WAY if you are shooting with a digital camera to get the quality that film has.. I am probably not the right person to explain this but just to give you a rough example the film has a lot more resolution compared to digital hence the quality is a lot closer to reality, thats why you are able to see very good photography in films.. Now again like jussing said there are directors who shot with digital cameras that are able to achieve qualities that of film or close, but i think they are too expensive for commercial use.

Now there are programs that they help you enhance the quality of the image shoot by a digital cam but still the difference is obvious..

I am not sure if thats what you asked here but I hope this helps.

[FabioMSilva]

Elya like jussing said there is no WAY if you are shooting with a digital camera to get the quality that film has.. I am probably not the right person to explain this but just to give you a rough example the film has a lot more resolution compared to digital hence the quality is a lot closer to reality, thats why you are able to see very good photography in films.. Now again like jussing said there are directors who shot with digital cameras that are able to achieve qualities that of film or close, but i think they are too expensive for commercial use.

Now there are programs that they help you enhance the quality of the image shoot by a digital cam but still the difference is obvious..

I am not sure if thats what you asked here but I hope this helps.

hey, starwars episode II and Episode III were all shot digitally.

not sure about king kong tough

[jussing]

hey, starwars episode II and Episode III were all shot digitally.Yes, but not on DV. :) Like we said, those hi-res cameras are much more expensive.

And they still - in my opinion - have a video CCD video-look, albeit hi-res and progressive. It's not visible in Star Wars because so much of the frame is CG, but you can tell in Michael Mann's Collateral and Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time In Mexica...

Cheers,
- Jonas

[elya911]

Thanks everybody.

Your replies helped alot. Now, there are some commercial studios who shoot really good quality films. I don't think they can afford the high res digital cameras.

So what makes the image in thier films look really vivid and colourful? editing? the lighting in the set?

I know that making a good film is a combination of all these factors, but for someone who want to buy a camera, I really need to know how much of this depend on the camera i'm using? Also, can you recommend me a camera model i can start with?

Thanks

[jussing]

there are some commercial studios who shoot really good quality films. I don't think they can afford the high res digital camerasWhy not? If they are a commercial studio shooting high quality stuff, you should think they get paid a professional salary?

Besides, they propably don't own the stuff, they rent it when they need it.

And if they really are too small to rent a Cinealta (or other camera of the quality Lucas uses), they propably shoot some in-between HD standard, which is way better than normal DV.

:)

Cheers,
- Jonas

[Nucleo]

Yeah again i am going to agree with jussing probably the average solution you are looking is the HD (High Definition) cameras. Those are digital cameras but they have if iam not mistaken more than half the resolution a film can have.. To give you an example of the quality of HD cameras, they use them in football matches, maybe in news and other sports.


The only advice i can give you if intend on telling a story is to concentrate as much as you can in the story.. The story is what keeps the audience going on. How the movie will look depends on what the story is about. There are great movies out there shot on black and white shot on digital cameras and there are awful movies shot with the best equipment..

Plan everything in your script, if you have another person writing the script for you make sure you participate enough in the process in order to convey whatever meaning that is.

l8rz

[jussing]

Absolutely, a good camera alone will not get you good images either, the most important thing to getting professional images is to have professional production values:

Lighting:
If your set and actors are poorly lit, it doesn't matter what camera you use - it'll look bad anyway.
Photography:
Handheld is getting more and more "in" with professional feature films (yuck), but I still think a good dolly or crane shot makes your shoot look better.
High quality:
Just because you have a perfect vision of your movie in your head, doesn't mean you can just "get it". -Get actors who can act, and a director who can direct. Nothing screams "amateur" like the acting in a Star Wars fan film. ;)
Sometimes, local semi-celebrities will work on student films for free, if they trust the quality. Having a celeb name on your poster boosts your production value by 1000%.
Other production value stuff:
Getting permission to cool stuff will make your production look bigger. -Like getting access to a cool location, filming a helicopter landing, an airplane taking off, etc.
Cheers,
- Jonas

[FabioMSilva]

Yes, but not on DV. :) Like we said, those hi-res cameras are much more expensive.

And they still - in my opinion - have a video CCD video-look, albeit hi-res and progressive. It's not visible in Star Wars because so much of the frame is CG, but you can tell in Michael Mann's Collateral and Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time In Mexica...

Cheers,
- Jonas

Heheh u're right!

But still, arent those less expensive than 35mm and it's "tape"?

[jussing]

But still, arent those less expensive than 35mm and it's "tape"?Honestly, I don't know...

I would expect the camera itself to be more expensive (cutting edge technology, hasn't been main-streamed yet), but the cost per recorded second should be cheaper, as you don't use film, don't need to develop it, etc...

Cheers,
- Jonas

[Matty2Phatty]

generally speaking, shooting 2k digital and shooting 35mm are about the same cost, and 35mm is actually faster at some points in the process. It's slowly becoming more of a matter of which look you prefer (though people do continue to shoot digital wanting it to look like film).

King Kong was shot on 35mm on Arri cameras.

[Nucleo]

Honestly, I don't know...

I would expect the camera itself to be more expensive (cutting edge technology, hasn't been main-streamed yet), but the cost per recorded second should be cheaper, as you don't use film, don't need to develop it, etc...

Cheers,
- Jonas

Yeah when you deal with digital its a lot more time efficient than when you have film.. Thats why filmmakers like Lucas and Spielberg are strugling to improve the limits of the technology.

When you have digital you can shoot a sequence and then right after the shooting you can give to the editor transfer it to an avid or whatever editing software they use and then edit it on the same day.

Its amazing how much the industry has changed and will change because of the digital technology. So to recap digital is less time consuming, you can manipulate the image a lot better than in film and it costs a lot less than film. The only drawback is that of the image resolution or quality but iam taking a wild wild guess here that it wont be long before digital image reaches the same level of quality that films has.

[elya911]

Absolutely, a good camera alone will not get you good images either, the most important thing to getting professional images is to have professional production values:

Lighting:
If your set and actors are poorly lit, it doesn't matter what camera you use - it'll look bad anyway.
Photography:
Handheld is getting more and more "in" with professional feature films (yuck), but I still think a good dolly or crane shot makes your shoot look better.
High quality:
Just because you have a perfect vision of your movie in your head, doesn't mean you can just "get it". -Get actors who can act, and a director who can direct. Nothing screams "amateur" like the acting in a Star Wars fan film. ;)
Sometimes, local semi-celebrities will work on student films for free, if they trust the quality. Having a celeb name on your poster boosts your production value by 1000%.
Other production value stuff:
Getting permission to cool stuff will make your production look bigger. -Like getting access to a cool location, filming a helicopter landing, an airplane taking off, etc.
Cheers,
- Jonas


Thanks alot Jonas, that really helps alot :)

I've just ordered the LORT extended edition triology. I'll have a deep look at the making :) try to apply what u got here as well ;)

[gridlocke12]

Lucas shot the new Star Wars series on the Sony F900 which he has helped develop even further. Hooray for Lucas, Rodriguez and Mann :applause: Bring on HD!! :applause:

And yes, you can never carbon copy digital (DV) to look like Film (the grain spectrum cannot be fully duplicated) - YES, you can emulate it to some extent (ie. prosumer: Panasonic DVX-100 (with 24P)) - when it comes to HD....there are a dozen factors but for one...Lucas acheives it through the use of professional 35mm film lenses - and allot of modding.

[Matty2Phatty]

Lucas acheives it

Ofcourse, this is highly subjective.

[jussing]

Ofcourse, this is highly subjective.I think Lucas avoids the video look successfully, but only because 90% of the frame is CG. :)

- Jonas

[Nucleo]

Ofcourse, this is highly subjective.

which part?

[jussing]

which part?Lucas making his HD look like film, I guess.

- Jonas

[Nucleo]

Lucas making his HD look like film, I guess.

- Jonas

Well if thats the case thats not subjective at all cus lucas does achieve it.. you cant notice the difference at all, of course the image does have a different look but thats cus its cg however the quality of the image is practically the same as that of film. What changes is how real the image is..

Part of it is because its has not being filmed (it is not a record of reality) it is constructed thats why the look is different, and part is because its a combination of live action + CG thats what makes it look different but that applies only in sci-fi or other movies that have show an unreal or fantastic world..

[Matty2Phatty]

Yeah that's all i meant, that saying Lucas made Star Wars look like it was shot on film is subjective, because it looks very digital to me, though others have stated it looks like film to them. I'm not bagging the way it looks, i just don't think it looks like film.

I love digital as a format, i just think it's a bad idea to try to make it look like film. I say embrace it's digital look, like Michael Mann did with Collateral, instead of trying to make it filmlike.

Superman Returns looks very convincing with it's Panavision Genesis footage. I couldn't tell the difference at all. But with Star Wars, it wasn't quite there.

Again, just my opinion, hence my subjective comment. I don't think you could claim something looks like film as fact. The best you could do is say it convinced you that it looked like film.

[jussing]

Yup, I agree with that. It's definitely subjective.

Though, I hate the video look, and I don't think digital filming technology is there until it looks like film. :)

Cheers,
- Jonas

[Nucleo]

Again, just my opinion, hence my subjective comment. I don't think you could claim something looks like film as fact. The best you could do is say it convinced you that it looked like film.

Hey isnt that whats storytelling is about :p? To convince you (the audience) that what is happening on the screen is real. Take compositing for an example with certain techniques or methods you can combine elements in a picture so they look organic in order the human brain would not be able to understand the differences and receive the image as a whole?

I think that what lucas is trying to do. To be able to use digital format and with certain "tricks" get the same quality that film has.. maybe iam wrong but its just my opinion.

[ZaKKoS]

Don't forget that between minidv and 35mm there are a lot of things. 16mm and S16mm are still used a lot, 8mm has a good spread inside the indipendent/videoclip/indie/poor videomakers community.

Obviously this isn't related to the video/film look debate.

Anyway my opinion about it is that if you search film look inside video you're looking for the wrong thing, try searching for good video inside video realm and god film inside film realm. They're just different medium.

[Kai01W]

First of all, Spielberg claims he will never shoot digital unless the last lab that processes film closes... ;-) He even edits his >film< manually on one of those editing tables (english?).

When I look at Episode II / III I think that Lucas actually embraced the video look. He wanted everything to look super clean and a bit flat. And everything from the lighting to the colorscemes and sets seemed to support this look (cause he wanted contrast to the more gritty look of the originals -> look at the story. However I think it did not fit into the "video = bad, film=good" scheme. I felt it was rather refreshing.

"Collateral" is a bad example cause they wanted a real dirty video look, so they pushed the gain of the viper quite a bit so there was a lot of noise everywhere. This was also intended cause they wanted to go for a, lets say, "urban" look.

As for the HD vs film res. Its rather clear that film has a higher pixel res. However how much exactly I think is less obvious. Just because you can scan film at any res you want does not mean film actually provides that res and that you will gain any more info than just sharper grain. Plus since you convert from analogue to digital and back you always need to oversample.
So though in general film has more I'd still say it depends. If you shoot digital HD and project digital, the subjective impression might be sharper (also due to lack of grain) than film scanned at 2k and printed back to film and projected analogue.

Where its far more obvious is the dynamic range. Film has a much wider lattitude than most HD cameras. Apparently the Panavision Genesis which is used to shoot superman returns, is getting closer but we will see.

-k

[Matty2Phatty]

"Collateral" is a bad example cause they wanted a real dirty video look, so they pushed the gain of the viper quite a bit so there was a lot of noise everywhere. This was also intended cause they wanted to go for a, lets say, "urban" look.

Just out of curiosity, where did you read that it was shot on a viper? Mann himself said he used an F900.

I mean, it's not unheard of to use different cameras throughout a shoot, it's just that i'd never heard anything about using a viper before and i'm curious.

[jussing]

Its rather clear that film has a higher pixel res. However how much exactly I think is less obvious.
A pixel image also needs more detail to be as good as a film image.

That sounds like a contradiction in terms, but my point is, pixels are aligned in a perfect 2-dimensional matrix, which makes them extremely vulnerable to artifacts (curves or angles "stairstepping" because of pixels).

Technically, a film with same grain resolution will have the same degree of quality loss, but because the grain is random you won't have stairtepping that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Stairstepping makes an even bigger difference with video, because those darn pixels remain in the same place from frame to frame, so if the camera doesn't move, the stairstepping artifacts will sit tight for everyone to observe (and if the camera moves a little, they will crawl or wobble, and be a direct annoyance), where as film grain scatters randomly all over the place, providing an - on average - more pleasing and perfect picture than a pixel signal of the same "resolution".

Bottomline, grain is random which makes it harder to spot than pixels, hence if pixels need to "be as good as" film of a certain grain resolution, they need to provide lots more detail.

Cheers,
- Jonas

[jussing]

...and Mann used both F900 and Viper, and even 35mm:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0369339/technical

I'd like to know exactly which scenes he shot with what camera, to see if there's a connection with what shots look bad...

Cheers all,
- Jonas

[Matty2Phatty]

Hey that's very cool, i didn't know IMDb had a tech spec section.

[Kai01W]

A pixel image also needs more detail to be as good as a film image.

That sounds like a contradiction in terms, but my point is, pixels are aligned in a perfect 2-dimensional matrix, which makes them extremely vulnerable to artifacts (curves or angles "stairstepping" because of pixels).

Technically, a film with same grain resolution will have the same degree of quality loss, but because the grain is random you won't have stairtepping that sticks out like a sore thumb.


Bottomline, grain is random which makes it harder to spot than pixels, hence if pixels need to "be as good as" film of a certain grain resolution, they need to provide lots more detail.

Cheers,
- Jonas

Well, bottomline is that the final result of an HD camera is already processed alot. You cannot compare the final output of an HD camera to what the initial A/D converting device could resolve. The CCDs are for more complex than that. You won't see much stairstepping in the final result.

I would not trust the IMDB specs too much. Especially with HD, for some movies it still says 35mm since the final result was a print.

As for collateral I think most of the movie was shot with the viper, some parts where they needed the flexibility of a camcorder where shot on F900 and a few parts (clubscene) where shot on film. However I have some difficulties to spot which was which (except for the obvious clubscene). Apparently they degraded the filmimages too. The Airport scene at the beginning is supposed to be shot on film at it looks really bad. The cab driving inside shots are apparently all video since they wanted to have huge depth of field so as not to have the backgrounds blur too much.

-k

[jussing]

You cannot compare the final output of an HD camera to what the initial A/D converting device could resolve.

I don't think I did?

The CCDs are for more complex than that. You won't see much stairstepping in the final result.

I dare claim that any image represented with pixels in a 2D matrix will have stairstepping if you get close enough. ;)

Cheers,
- Jonas

[aricshow]

Heres one that is HD quality. I suggest this one because it has a really nice picture even though it is DV. I find DV easier to use because its easier to get it on the computer, for me. If your willing to spend more money check out there other HD cameras, they look more impressive.

(i dont know hot to do links in this forum, ill try)
[url]http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=HDRHC1KIT1&Dept=cameras&CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HighDefinitionVideo[usl]
thats one try


<a href="http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=HDRHC1KIT1&Dept=cameras&CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HighDefinitionVideo">try #2</a>


i hope one of those work. It also depends on what you want to use the camera for. If you useing it for professional use i would suggest spending a little more money. If its for fun, learning, demo reel, ext this ones just fine.

have fun :)

[aricshow]

this ones cost a little mre but is better. i see my links befor didnt work so ill just post the address.
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/+INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=HDRFX1VGSKIT2&Dept=cameras&CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HighDefinitionVideo
enjoy!
Remeber, always have fun with what you do.

Aric

[Reminiscence]

I have that one, the HDR-FX1E. Worth every cent.

Anyways I still believe it's not WHAT you use that counts, it's HOW you use it. Even if it's DV, HDV, Film, whatever. Content is key. Even bad/horrible movies were made on film and they looked great...

That's just my opinion...

Regards
Reminiscence

[Raji]

i'm glad Reminiscence said this.

too many people get caught up in drooling over the cool toys the big guys get to play with. Those things don't matter worth crap if you can't make a movie interesting. Just like you can have all the CG in the world and it won't make a movie any better. I won't point out any examples, because there's plenty of them.

I have an XL2 which is Standard Definition (SD) and i can do great things with it. Just like someone with a DVX100 can or whatever other model. In fact, the last studio i worked for had a game tester that had done a bunch of projects for his high school. There was a nice little crowd that gathered around the monitor to watch his stuff and we all laughed our asses off. This guy had a $300-500 camera i think. It was all in the editing choices and the content.

If you want to make movies, stop posting and start shooting. Do that a billion times and you'll be fine.

[aricshow]

I agree with you on that, but id also like to point out that no matter how nice your shots are, if its on a crappy camera, its not going to look as professional.

[Raji]

aricshow, well yeah, i'm assuming people understand that we're not talking about those tiny little cameras that Sony and Canon sell over at Circuit City and stuff. I know i mentionned $300 cameras, but that was just to illustrate that grabbing people's attention doesn't depend on the quality of the footage or the sound.

If you want to make anything look professional, the quality of the video and audio does matter, but even there, you can easily get away with the great quality offered by comparatively lower-priced cameras like the XL and DVX cameras.

Plus, it seems to me like the differences between some of those cameras are so minute that it's really a matter of preference over a matter of quality.

[aricshow]

lol. yeah, your right. Oh, and responed in minutes, good for you ;)

[Raji]

lol. Are you calling me a loser? I am so NOT a loser!!:scream: :D

[aricshow]

no, im just saying it was fast, and this is now a chatroom basicly,lol

[aricshow]

oh, and i like your animations on your website, im on it now

[Raji]

schweet! I'm glad you like my work! My website needs some SERIOUS updating though...

and i know you were just kidding.:)

speaking of chatrooms, asl? lol jk

[aricshow]

edit* now that you already read what i said, i think ill keep it privite.

[ReinaldoRomero]

Heheh u're right!

But still, arent those less expensive than 35mm and it's "tape"?

Actually it was the sony HDCF950... price about 115000 USD:shrug:

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