12 Lessons From The Experience of A Filmmaker.

Here are 12 lessons from the experience for other filmmakers about to dive into a breakneck schedule on their first film:

1.    A good script is a director's best friend.  With little money, time, or experience, it really is doubtful that you'll be able to pull movie magic out of your ass without a solid screenplay. No matter how fucked up things get on set, and believe me, they will get fucked up, if you have a great script, you still have a shot. People will forgive all sorts of technical imperfections, or budgetary constraints if they're drawn into the story you’re telling.

2.    When breaking down the script, try to isolate the beats and turns of every scene. A shot list is important, but it's also important to know why a shot is there in the first place. In a limited schedule, sometimes almost everything that's been planned is thrown out because you just don’t have the time, so it's good to at least have a basic understanding of what is needed from a scene. What is it supposed to feel like? Whose scene is it? Sometimes you can accomplish what you need with one shot instead of five, if the most important moment or emotional turn is captured.

"No matter how fucked up things get on set, and believe me, they will get fucked up, if you have a great script, you still have a shot."

3.    Chose an aesthetic or filming approach that you can actually pull off with the time you have. I chose to film "Cheap Thrills" mostly handheld, not just because I wanted the thing to have a naturalistic, drunken, fly-on-the-wall type feel, but also because I knew that I really wouldn't have the time to fuss around with track, or complicated setups. It can take hours to prepare for a dolly shot, a steadi-cam sometimes takes forever to really prep for. The result can look great, but you have to really know if your schedule can afford it. If your film is going to be very performance based, and dialogue heavy, you really want to design your approach in a way that gives actors the most flexibility and freedom to do their thing, and sometimes a super complicated, technical camera move puts more of the focus on the super complicated technical camera move… and less on them. 

4.    The most important work is assembling the right cast and crew.Honestly, your key decisions will happen before you shoot a frame of anything. You want people that are quick on their feet, skilled, passionate, and will fight to make the film as good as it can be, because with barely any time, that’s what it will take. 

5.    GO, GO, GO!  When you have tons to tackle in one day of shooting, sometimes all you can do is just jump in there and start filming. Save the intellectualizing for the editing room, you really don’t have time. Trust your instincts, and trust your collaborator's instincts, and just fucking make your day. But….

6.    Even if you think you've got the shot, go ahead and get another one anyways. Trust me, when you get to the editing room you’ll be happy that you did. It’s not that the first one is bad per se, but technical errors can sometimes slip past people when they’ve been working long hours, and moving quickly… and sometimes, we all just want the take to go well so badly that occasionally our brain can play tricks on us. You don't want to go crazy and get 20 takes of somebody turning a doorknob, but even when the adrenaline is going, and it seems like there's so much else to do, always make sure to go again just to be safe.

7.    If you film for too long, you're legally insane.  Similar to the above. At some point, after too many hours, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you’ve probably lost perspective. Our last day was an overnight shoot, and it literally took all of our concentration not to leave film equipment in the shots. People would just bust up laughing for no reason, or just stare at each other after forgetting their train of thought. At times like that you have to just push through the slog, and hope that what you're filming doesn't reflect your muddled head space. Also good to watch monitor playback a couple times before signing off on anything.

8.    If your shoot is for 14 days, make sure that your cast and crew set aside 15. We were shooting during one of the hottest Los Angeles summers in recent recorded history… and during the rehearsing of a fight scene in the film, there was a massive blackout. That was it, no more shooting could be done. It literally wasted HALF of a day. Finally we were able to get light in just one corner of the house, forcing me to basically only shoot in one direction, in a very limited space. Because of losing that time, it created a chain reaction effect, where things that we weren't able to shoot got pushed to the next day, which then pushed things to the next day… and ultimately, created the most densely packed schedule on the last day in the house location, where we shot more then 12 pages in one day, and had to go overtime. 

One problem with shooting on such a tight schedule is, that if you don't make your day… you’ll still have to get that stuff you missed shot at some point, it needs to go somewhere, and it's usually at the most inopportune time ever that you’ll have to get it. Next time, I’ll make sure that there's a contingency plan of an emergency extra day that can be added on. This time, the actors' and crew’s schedule was such that they had other things planned directly after our shoot, so it was impossible to add anything else to the schedule because we didn’t plan for that possibility from the beginning. Always plan that things will go wrong, because without fail, they will, and on a short shoot, it can really derail you for good if there's no margin for error.

9.    There is no movie without your crew. Some digital footage that we were transferring got lost, and it happened to be Pat Healy’s performance as he ripped his own finger off. The crew was nice enough to stay late and reshoot the scene… and they really didn’t have to say 'yes' to that. If they hadn’t agreed, we would have been stuck with an incomplete scene. Always appreciate your crew, and make your crew feel appreciated. At the end of the day, the movie is in their hands, and they don’t really owe you shit. Treat them badly, and not only are you an asshole, you might be an asshole with an incomplete film.

10.    FX takes a long fucking time. It doesn’t matter how subtle, make-up and make-up fx take a VERY long time. Just putting on Pat’s final look in the film took more than 6 hours. Problem was, that wasn’t factored into the schedule as realistically as it should have been, and a good portion of our day was spent waiting around. Whenever you have a make-up effect planned, think about ANYTHING else you can shoot while that’s going on, or you’ll literally be paying people to sit on their asses.

11.    Don’t drink at the end of the day. It's nice to want to bond with your crew at the bar, but you have to understand that they’d rather have a functional director who isn’t hung-over and groggy. Some people can pull it off, but filming is really taxing, and your brain has to be sharp to juggle all sorts of last second decisions and to solve problems. There are so many things that you're responsible for, and even though it can be tempting to want to decompress after a long stressful day of shooting, you're really better off just going home and going to bed.

12.    Stay positive. No matter how crazy things get, no matter how impossible everything can sometimes feel, as long as you try to grin and bear it, try to tackle every scene with enthusiasm, heart, and total concentration, you’ll get through the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the shoot, and hopefully, with luck, you might even get a movie out of it.

Several TV Shows Cancelled

As networks prepare for their fall upfront presentations in New York City next week, many shows have learned their fate with dozens resulting in cancellations.


For Fox, many of its freshman series were axed including “Rake,” “Dads,” “Enlisted,” “Surviving Jack” and “Almost Human” (which was canceled April 29). It was learned back in Feb. that Simon Cowell’s “X-Factor” would not be returning, as well as “Raising Hope.”
R.I.P. Cancelled TV Shows: What’s Not Returning Next Year


NBC’s cult favorite “Community,” starring Joel McHale, was canceled after five seasons causing some upset with its fans. “Revolution” was also cancelled on Friday.


Many of NBC’s new series will not be renewed including “Believe,” “Crisis” and “Growing Up Fisher.” Previously, NBC announced the cancellations of “Ironside,” “Welcome to the Family,” “The Michael J. Fox Show” and “Sean Saves the World.”


Freshman series “Trophy Wife” starring Malin Ackerman was canceled by ABC, along with Rebel Wilson’s “Super Fun Night,” and “Mixology.”


Although, “Once Upon A Time” was renewed, “Once Upon A Time in Wonderland” was canceled back in March.


ABC’s “Suburgatory” that has been on the air since 2011 will join the other cancellations, as will “Neighbors.”


For the CW, young Carrie Bradshaw will not return to screen as “The Carrie Diaries” was canceled. Rookie series “The Tomorrow People” and “Star-Crossed” will not return, as well.


CBS has yet to announce any cancellations.

Panasonic GH4: Here's a really good demonstration of features

Panasonic's GH4 is already getting a reputation for gloriously sharp 4K footage. Here's a great video overview

We had to bring you this: it's a comprehensive overview of the Panasonic GH4 from Zacuto.

This is a very nice look at the new 4K GH4 from Panasonic. It's a camera that's already making waves and making comparisons with cameras much more expensive. Building on the reputations of the GH2 and the GH3, it's already got a head start.

GH4 4K Shootout vs BMPCC vs Canon 5D Mark lll

There is no comparsion with the GH4 and the other three. It isa much better quality recording.

 Using some test footage from a preproduction GH4 model with an early firmware (0.5), I conducted a series of quick grading presets tests to discover the latitude of the GH4’s footage when it comes to grading. 

There’s a significant improvement over the GH3 due to:
1- GH4 has a flat cinema color profile (CineD) which offers more latitude especially in the highlights and shadows.
2- GH4 quadrupled the bit rate of the GH3 at 50FPS from 50 Mbps to 200 Mbps. Quite a step up...!!!

Edited in Final cut X using the following plugins:

Color Grading Central – LUT Utility
colorgradingcentral.com/lututility
This is a great tool that lets you apply 3D LUTs to your footage from within FCPX.
In this test I’ve used both LUTs to emulate film stock and looks.

Motion VFX - mLooks
motionvfx.com/mplugs-30.html
Another great tool to let you apply a look emulating famous Hollywood looks or famous film processes.
This plugin would usually push the footage to its limits as it’s much more dramatic impact compared to applying a simple Film emulator LUT. Yet, the GH4 footage seems to have accepted the challenge.
I’ve tweaked each look slightly to achieve those results.

Film Convert
filmconvert.com
This is a genius plugin that would offer your digital footage an instant authentic Film Stock look. The guys at Film Convert have mapped the most common digital cameras in the market as well as the most common film stocks used in the industry to offer you the closest film look match based on your camera profile.
Yet you can get really interesting results when you start mixing different camera inputs that do not match your camera profile to different film stocks.
Again, the GH4 was holding perfectly and offered very interesting results.

Camera settings:
Lens: Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm 2.8 (Equivilant to 24-70mm on full frame)
FullHD 1080 50FPS 200 Mbps
Shot at 2.8 180D Shutter Angle (Equivalent to 1/100 Shutter speed)
Color Profile Cine D
Shadows +5
Highlights -5
Master pedestal +10
internal recording on SD 45Mb/s Sandisk card

Editing & Grading:
Edited on Final Cut Pro X 10.1.1
Conformed to a 24FPS timeline.
Minor saturation and exposure tweaks from within FCPX were applied.

Cast
Magda Hindia
Mo Younes

Music
Khaled Hamdy
khaledhamdy.net

Panasonic GH4 Gives 10-Bit. Will Give 4K Native HDMI

Panasonic GH4 Gives 10-Bit Will Give 4K Native HDMI.

But needs a 4K recorder to do via HDMI.

When Panasonic announced the GH4 (and I still think they should call it the GH4K), the promise was that it would shoot 10-bit 4K video in 4:2:2 with a little help from its external YAGH HD-SDI box. But that's not necessarily the case. In fact, the latest news is that the GH4 could record 4K video directly through its mini HDMI port natively. But Panasonic hasn't invented it yet. Still, there are options.

The latest details coming about the GH4 specs is that while users can output the GH4′s ultra high definition signal through the optional YAGH HD-SDI attachment and record to a 4K recorder, it by no means is the only way it can take the ultra high definition stream. It turns out that the GH4′s YAGH box relies on the native 4K stream via HDMI in order to route it to the HD-SDI ports in the attachment.

So, that means that if there was a 4K HDMI external recorder available, users could plug the GH4 directly to it and record, bypassing the need for the YAGH attachment altogether. But since Panasonic hasn’t announced or even invented the 4K HDMI external option yet, it needs the YAGH to process the signal. That’s welcome news to third party recorder manufacturers who are probably feverishly designing one as we speak.

But some, like EOSHD‘s Andrew Reid, say that external recorders, while convenient for long duration imaging, offer little benefit in terms of recording quality, especially with DSLRs. “I found the quality gains to be virtually zero with DSLRs,” writes Reid, “no increase in colour depth or resolution and as for compression even with the Sony FS100 at just 24Mbit/s I was hard pressed to tell the difference between the externally recorded 220Mbit/s footage and internal AVCHD codec in terms of outright quality.”

So why would you invest in the optional YAGH box to output to an external source, or even the external HDMI recorder? Well, Reid says that the SD-HDI connections are far more solid and robust, and offer audio advantages like balanced inputs, pre-amps, and phantom power for XLR connections, vs. the “wobbly” micro HDMI connection.

There’s also the benefit of running cable to an external monitor, which Reid says will degrade farther out with HDMI after only a few yards, vs. an SD-HDI cable which can go for hundreds of feet. And the YAGH interface also allows for processing the time code generated by the GH4, whereas, users would be hard pressed to get it routed through HDMI, because it can’t.

And while that’s a very good argument, at around $2,000, there has to be a more cost effective option out there for low budget indy’s looking to up their game to 4K. One option would be an all in one monitor recorder which can hook to the HDMI and record right from the camera rig itself. Yep. That’s a good idea. But you still don’t get time code that way. So it really comes down to this… with the amazing color and resolution quality that the GH4 will provide, where are you going to put your money for add-ons? It’s just a matter of naming your poison.

Panasonic GH4 Shoots It Out With RED EPIC And Canon 5D Mk. III

Panasonic GH4 Shoots it Out with RED EPIC and Canon 5D Mk. III. And it really isn't a fair fight. More and more of the shooters I know are starting to get their hands on the Panasonic GH4, and as a result, we're starting to see some amazing 4K test footage on the Internet, showing just how sharp the ultra high definition camera is in testing. But what we didn't expect was how well this plucky $1800 mirror-less camera would do against some of the big boys, like the RED EPIC. I mean, I expected it to beat out the Canon 5D Mk, lll, since that platform is really starting to show it's age. But could it beat out a platform that costs up to 20 times more? Well, take a look at the video below, I think you'll be stunned. .

The test video, which admittedly is only about a minute and a half long, shows the Panasonic GH4 shot at both 100% zoom and then 300% zoom to see if the image can break, but not before we get a few shots of a model in various lighting conditions so we can see what the GH4 does as a base line.

Once that’s set, we get this daylight image of a barn with trees in the background and a cloudy day. Not a bad image since there’s plenty of opportunity for moire in the roof line and there’s also various lighting conditions along the dynamic range.

Click for larger

The footage is all ungraded so you get what you get coming straight out of all three cameras – the Panasonic GH4, the RED EPIC, and the Canon 5D Mk. III, the last of which really shouldn’t be in this mix at all since the state of the art has really left it behind. But since it has Magic Lantern Raw on it, you can see at least some nice dynamic range.

When the GH4 is shot at and goes from 100% zoom to 300% zoom, you really don’t see any loss of detail (note the telephone pole in all three scenes, that tells the tale). That’s what 4K buys you. But when you see the RED Epic get zoomed in, you start to see the image get really soft. Almost muddy.

And the 5D Mk. III is even worse since Neumann had to upscale the image to 4K in order to keep the test consistent. But the GH4′s performance in this test is stunning when you think that an $1800 camera can out perform a $35,000 camera platform like the Epic (note, it isn’t a Dragon model). It’s all for you to see in the video below. Amazing clarity and sharpness.

No Film School breaks it down rather nicely in pointing out that even though sharpness can be fudged by enhancing the edges of an image, the GH4 is doing what both the RED Epic and Canon 5D Mk. III Raw aren’t doing … processing the image in camera. And the result is a more sharp image writing to the card. And that the GH4 is designed to take that 4K image and run it down to 1080p without losing any detail is where it works best. But this is straight out of the camera to 4K for testing purposes and even then it holds up.

Now sure, you can massage the 5D Mk. III’s Magic Lantern Raw image to draw out more dynamic range, and use color correction like Davinci Resolve to make the RED Epic look far better than it is out of the rig.  And frankly, I’d love to see it go up against the Dragon, just so see how close it can get. But that wouldn’t be a fair fight on the other side either. Still, I rather doubt that shooters are going to be putting their Epic up on eBay. But the bottom line for NFS is this … “ the camera that costs the least, looks “the best,” and requires the least amount of work to get to a satisfactory image might be the one they favor …”

I know I would.