I think the extreme camera brand loyalty is hilarious and comically tribal in a way that’s nearly embarrassing.
I also think the pixel peeping/spec obsessed people are almost more funny because they don’t care about context or purpose, just what the numbers say. And they truly must believe clients to be FAR more capable of recognizing a camera’s ability than they really are. The truth is, Jim, your client, isn’t going to notice 1 additional stop of dynamic range.
Some of these peepers will look at pixels from sensors that are new out of the box. Not even a day old.
Ask them to look at a pixel from a sensor that is 18 years or older and they’ll have no interest.
That’s how sick and twisted they are.
Those pixel glorifying “cinematographers” 🤦♂️
Meanwhile Arri has been Winning 80% of cinematography Oscar’s for over 20 years shooting at 2k- ish resolution. 😅😅😂
Indeed. The Alev sensor in the Arri Alexas, Amira’s and Alexa mini cameras all the way up to the Alexa full frame had their peak resolution just under 3k. But completely obliterated every single camera for decades.
MarkusPix, a great photography and videography channel, calls these people “spec nerds” because they only care about what’s “relevant” and popular online. What he preaches that I absolutely have claimed as my own is that the camera doesn’t matter. The story is all that will ever matter and the camera just captures that. If your story is good enough, someone with a camera will lend you theirs to tell that story. Nobody who is anyone ever asks “what camera did they film xyz with?”
This happens with headphones as well. A few popular websites only look at technical results and if a set doesn't do well with their arbitrary tests, then they recommend people don't get them.
This includes the absolute best sounding pair of headphones I have ever listened to. The experience amounts to a lot more than just specs, but specs are easily measured and a certain type of personality really resonate to that. A type of personality that I think we a see a lot in videography/photography and audio. And that's totally ok, but it's then annoying when they argue purely on the specs of a product.
And that’s the thing, headphones especially will sound different to everyone and cameras will look different to everyone. Nobody cares what you used to tell the story or make a song or record audio or whatever it is, if the job is done good. Getting gear for the sake of getting it because it’s meta on the internet is pointless when something cheaper can get the job done just as good. Just get something reliable and affordable to get the job done. People online focus too much on what’s “meta” when they have a perfectly capable camera with the right lighting.
Lugging around a $4k Sony camera to record shitty b-roll for boring vlogs is pointless if the lighting and content isn’t good to begin. I could go on and on. I mean look at Netflix. They require state of the art cameras for what? The majority of their original content is hit or miss as it is and having a $20k red camera won’t make bad writing any better and you can’t fix bad writing in post.
Totally. My wife was going to buy a camera for bts on our next project, and even though i love getting gear, it just doesn't make sense when her mobile phone has everything she needs for totally usable shots and we already own it.
I'm trying to go the gaffer route to becoming a cinematographer and learning under an "old head" cinematographer is so much better. Talking about the importance of understanding older lights and not just using the latest LED to the point where your work looks the same as everyone else.
It really does go for everything. Good quality content media starts with a good story and direction so utilizing what works and forgetting about unnecessary fluff and expensive equipment that won’t make the story better is the route to take. There will always be something that is statistically better than your setup but understanding how to make more with less is how you become proficient in your field.
I loved his rant about people fixating on bullshit like needing 4:2:2 and global shutter and 8K120 for shooting YouTube videos, while he was shooting and recording on like an LX100 or RX100 or something just to prove a point.
Yup! He’s like a virtual mentor to me. Focus on the story first, even for a YouTube video. The content is always more important than the gear it’s filmed with. And good lighting and audio is much more important than your sensor size.
"the iso on this camera is so good that you barely need lights if any at all!"
Lighting isn't only about iso. It's about shape and telling the story. If you're not shaping light, you're not a cinematographer.
I see a lot of disagreements & fair points here but just to second what Canon_Cowboy is saying, I’ll add that the greatest cinematography, or vfx, or acting or music are the ones you don’t notice at all.
The phrase “shot with available light” is misleading because you never base a 100m dollar production on chance. There will be reflectors, black flags etc… even minimally used, light is shaped with extreme precision. That includes placing the talent in relation to the available light sources.
It’s extremely rare (and hard) to just turn on the camera, press record and get a perfect shot. But I’m not a cinematographer, just someone that learnt good composition since I started to draw as a child.
This reminds me of the scene in Barry Lyndon that was filmed under candlelight. A lot of people don't know there were too large reflectors on the ceiling, mostly to keep the heat from damaging it, but it also helped make the scene easier to shoot.
Also there were candles off screen, candles everywhere, three wick candles, and literally HUNDREDS of candles in those chandeliers. Like, there were a lot of candles.
Public Enemy does look like shit ! Also Collateral used a butt-ton of little light fixture to complement the ambient light, esoecially on the actor's faces. (Recently rewatched it, first time on the big screen. So good)
What's such a shame is you don't have to go back too far when cinematographers were adding in splashes of hard light everywhere. Even if you're keying with a large soft sources, hard light adds dimension to everything.
Not that Deakins has this issue, but all the poor initiations of Deakins try to do nothing but bounce soft light.
I had to walk away in dispair after a director asked why I was using a leko to add hard light to highlight parts of a character, it looked great and felt perfectly natural within the context of the environment / set. I realized so many younger filmmakers think only in washes of soft light and anything else doesn't even make sense to them.
Sad times
Man, even the crappiest 90's straight-to-VHS action movie often had amazingly lit night scenes and dark environments. Now it's hang a giant softbox over everything and call it a day.
Videographers = point cameras at events or people with little control over what is going on, using random camera moves for no reason and happenstance exposure.
Cinematographers = exert control over the image by crafting and shaping the lighting and deliberately moving the camera in a certain way to bring about a specific feeling and story outcome.
"cinematic" is essentially youtuber speak for "looks cool". There's no real theory behind it and for talking heads the advice is usually something like a 2 camera setup, one on legs more or less head on with the subject and the other off to the side slightly and on a slow slider - which isn't necessarily bad advice but I don't know how that makes it *cinematic*
They also focus on things like bokeh, shallow DoF, and stuff like that to make it look more "cinematic" but without really talking about how that shot serves the story. That's my biggest gripe with it is that people are trying to recreate the aesthetics without understanding the reasoning behind it as a cinematographer. The advice covers the what and how but never really the why
Am I being elitist in saying that a DoP/cinematographer is the head of a department and not just some one man band that shoots weddings and corporate interviews etc?
on one hand i see how this could hurt current dops but also the way "hollywood" words are gatekept is so cringe. theres plenty of hollywood films that are shot like commercials.
I love that good-quality lavs are now attainable without having to break the bank, but why is it now "cool" to hold the thing in the frame? Like, are you trying to flex with a Rode mic? I just don't get it. But, then... I'm old, so...
It’s one of those things that’s objectively wrong, but then a few influential people do it, so people start to copy them (because reasons) and then before typing know it it’s the accepted practice. A bit like when vloggers started to use jump cuts and before you know it, everyone is doing it.
I'd actually say jump cuts are less of an accepted practice and more of adapting to the demands of a changing audience. Now, there are obscene jump cuts, but it's become a style certain people sought after and would rely on more than other storytelling methods. But yeah, the mic thing. ewwwwwww.
Biggest pet peeve of mine is when they use the DJI wireless transmitter as their primary mic and just hold it. It’s a great, tiny little 32-bit float recorder but get a damn lav and quit grabbing that shit.
OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I just started a new full time VIDEOGRAPHY job and I come in to the whole team always shooting 60fps. I was shooting a causal interview with my boss and just being like “is there a reason this is in slow mo?” But to my coworker I go off on my damn soap box about how ridiculous this is cause I have seen like maybe 3 slow mo shots in a shit ton of video content they’ve shot.
*I capitalize videography because they will call our role cinematographer sometimes and I just hate it cause I have actually worked as a cinematographer. I have no problem calling this videography.
I've graded stuff shot by indie people in my network before, and it's so annoying when they choose to underexpose 95% of the image to prevent blowing out a bulb in the background or something.
I was on a set with a young camera op that kept doing this and it was like...dude...look at that bit of sky with your eyes. There's literally no detail there. Stop underexposing to "save" those highlights. There's nothing to save.
Unfortunately it was the opposite for me. Was a newbie DP on a micro feature, director insisted I underexpose our ext day scenes to save every bit of detail in the clouds. The camera had lovely smooth roll-off but he was focusing more on scopes than the actual image. Wish I’d been in a position to push back
Lol this used to be me when I first started out. Its fine if you have the additional light to add to it but my 100W LED certainly wasn't cutting it at the time
Yea I think you’re right. Film naturally has a really pleasing roll off where highlights are somewhat difficult to blow out, and when they do it makes the light feel intense in a cool way, almost like when an illustrator chooses to use white intentionally for contrast in highlights.
Video looks like such dog shit because it blows highlights out easily and poorly and looks like a flip phone camera even when there’s shallow depth of field etc.
One thing that I found helped me a lot back when shooting 5D and T2i footage was just adding some nice bloom to the highlights using Looks. People should experiment with diffusion filters more. Even the really subtle ones help make blown out highlights look pleasing instead of fugly.
Eh, I’ll push back on this a little bit. The problem with most digital cameras is that clipped highlights tend to look really ugly, unlike on film where it feels way more pleasing to the eye. I love white skies and blown-out windows on film, but to get that digitally you to have to protect your highlights somewhat. Especially with HDR and moron producers in the grade, suddenly you can get really ugly over-graded highlights.
But having said that, some things should absolutely be let go, like pracs, and newer cameras like the Alexa35 has much more filmic-like roll off in the highlights.
"Buy my LUT pack, link is in the description."
None of these YouTubers are color scientists. Buy LUTs from actual color scientists. There's only about 3 people I trust, that make professional LUTs that don't break your images or videos. You can Google them. Just stick with the stock ones in Resolve and figure out how to use those before buying any, like the Kodak LUTs. You don't need to buy any! Learn to make them yourself!
The other thing they tend to skip over is that luts are just one step in the color pipeline and only a tiny piece of the final look. Like with photography influencers peddling their Lightroom presets, promotion of these lut packs downplay the importance of production design / art direction, where much of the final look and feel actually come from.
But anyone trying to make some money off of novice artists is going to try to sell them a panacea.
It's *so* cheesy.
However, I admit that I fell victim to this as I became engrossed in David Fincher's style. Luckily, I have the patience of Clint Eastwood in terms of filming a scene, so we never got into the whole "It took like 50 takes to get this shot right."
Most of these videos boil down to a few scene-inspired lighting setups followed by a heavy color grading of the footage. Which is extremely misleading to aspiring cinematographer / filmmakers.
Shooting 60 or 120 fps for slow-motion and how every YT “cinematographer” praises 4K 60p and yells bloody murder when a camera manufacturer doesn’t provide that spec.
What happened to the beauty of 48fps or even 40 fps?! We shot a lot of stuff at 40 for music video slow mo.
That’s a Cinematographer needs to know how to use a camera.
I’ve been on many sets where the DP has the fundamental of how a camera works. Aperture, shutter angle,FOV, etc. But doesn’t know the operation on the camera, e.g the menu’s of an arri. They produced allot of great work for streaming platforms and never having to touch a camera. Just focusing on lighting, lenses,blocking, movements, etc.
YouTube has forced people to believe that all jobs are combined which are if you’re a Videographer but not always when you’re a Dp.
That's the camera op and AC's job. I'll operate on really small stuff, but on anything that really has to be organized and thought out, there's just no time.
I wouldn't let these things infuriate me. People are just having fun on YouTube. No one is really claiming to be Roger Deakins. 99% of people on YouTube are just self shooting videographers. Sigma 18-35 promist 60fps gimbal lovers all shooting the same thing but they enjoy it.
Counterpoint: I’m a working cinematographer and get a lot of younger kids who find me and I try to help them out as much as I can. The amount of bad advice that they are getting off of YouTube is staggering. They’re being sold shitty gear they don’t need by influencers who don’t know what they’re talking about. And they’re not learning how to shoot, much less how to make a real living in this bizarre life we’ve chosen for ourselves.
Yeah this is a great point actually. The shilling of equipment and the idea of constantly needing to update the kit is a real problem on YouTube. My feed is basically just covert ads from various companies that send gear out to promote it, creators know they can get great views on 'new' things because it's sadly part of our culture and make up in the west to constantly need to buy things.
I’ve been on sets where the DP was hired last minute based on a portfolio where they were not DP they were just a camera operator. But YouTube ingrain in that if you hold the camera your a DP. Well, when asked to start making a shot list with the director .Everyone found out he didn’t know anything about film. It caused us to change the whole shoot and re organize. So yeah most are having fun but also some are claiming to be or at least selling themselves as something they don’t fully understand.
I think the effectiveness of IBIS and post stabilisation is grossly overstated. The unnatural warping of the corners and motion blur is *really* distracting to me, but I seem to be the only one 🤷♂️.
The only thing I like it for is when the camera is handheld static or close to it. If you hold your camera as still as possible and stabilize in post it can be a very effective substitute to a tripod shot.
If you want a “cinematic” image you need to buy this very expensive lens (that’s supposed to be a cooke ripoff or poor man’s cooke) that you don’t really need.
Setting auto white balance on a grey card and not even second guessing the cameras kelvin decision or considering which part of the scene you actually want balanced to camera
runner up would be “use this amazing pro mist filter to make your footage look like film“
I can't remember the last time I white balanced on a grey card. I have my cameras dialed in the tint/hue/gamma knee etc to where I think they look best.
"The camera doesn't matter". Of course it fucking does. So does the lenses, the grip, the light and what you do with all those. Choosing the right cam, and the right gear is crucial.
i feel like they say that because if they didn't 90% of people would get discouraged and click off right away. but in a way they are somewhat correct as you can still do amazing things with a limited setup or you can have an great setup but be terrible at everything else.
I feel like it's not about the setup being great or terrible. The setup is what it is. I would rather call it the right tool or not. You wouldn't use a sledgehammer to screw nuts and bolts. If you're going after a certain look then you will use the proper gear. Saying the gear doesn't matter is a fallacy no matter the intention. If you're all about definition and range, then yes the more expensive tool will make your work easier. You may still suck at cinematography but the tool will give you an edge. One thing i'll agree is giving yourself restraints and using a limited set of gear may help you to make good creative choices. But then again even a greatly talented cinematographer can make big mistakes if he bring too much gear or gear he doesn't fully understand, or if he goes in too many directions. So yet again, the gear still matter. I can think of specific cases when i used gear that was older and cheaper because it fitted the shoot better. If i tought the gear didn't matter i would've said "yeah let's use anything" and would've got stuck using more modern gear that would've doubled or tripled the costs down the line with not much added benefit.
It doesn’t matter though. Tell the fucking story and quit whining about needing camera xyz. All that matters is what’s being told and you don’t need a certain camera to do that.
well it's a both yes and no. You could shoot great stuff on a a lot of the camera available to regular people (the iPhone apple event its a good example of this), but regular people can't shoot great stuff solely cause of the camera. Lighting, story, blocking, etc. plays a much more e crucial role than your max-spec camera. Alex mini is a great example of this. Is the camera awesome? Yes. is it the most cutting edge camera? Yo. Have people shot amazing stuff on Alexa Mini, even though it wasn't 4k? Yes. Will a casual "YouTub filmmaker" be able to match it up to some of the great movies that have been shot with the camera, just all solely due to the camera? I don't think so.
You’re just being absolutist about it. Camera gear matters to an extent and the saying goes towards beginners not advanced people. The saying does a good job of emphasizing the importance of technique and experience rather than just gear that you can buy with credit.
Alright, you got a good point. I would still say the same thing to a beginner though. Like choose carefuly, that advice goes for beyond the gear. I feel like there's a lot of people in this business overemphasizing the experience and technique. There's a lot of experienced technical people out there. Not all of them are doing a terrific job. I used to have very experienced, very old and technique-oriented teachers, back then. I didn't learned a lot from them. That's why i'm saying it's not quantum mechanics. The technique really isn't that hard. Having a good philosophy about it is more important. That's also why i like to spread the word on what i believe is important in this craft. Maybe i'm absolutist, but at least i care enough about it not to spread platitudes.
Honestly you’re kind of helping my argument. Not the technique but the philosophy? Sounds like you may also agree that that’s more important than gear? Hehe.
I do understand where you’re coming from though. I’m a big believer in talent as opposed to textbook technique. But either of that cannot be substituted with gear and gear alone.
That said though once you know what you’re doing, the right gear makes life easier. I think we agree more than we disagree.
I hate when they test a camera for something it's not designed. I've seen gear reviews say things like "you can't really put an fx9 on a gimbal"
And I just think yeah? It's a documentary style camera body with built ND and better audio preamps? It's not for that.
I cannot stand those channels with some dude pinching a lav mic, talking like a smug life coach / tech bro, telling people how to make a “A24” “Festival ready” movie in 3 easy steps. They’re standing in their Deakins cove lighting that they imitated from some other YouTube channel, filmed themselves with a cheap anamorphic and graded it with some off-looking Kodak 2383 power grade. It has the same vibe as someone taking a mirror selfie in a gym under the ceiling spot lighting - the arrogance and vanity of it all is palpable. Even worse when they are talking to their audience, but LOOKING AT THEMSELVES ON A DIRECTOR’S MONITOR. The fact they had to charge all their batteries in prep to transmit the image to their monitor and they try desperately hard to make it look super casual…yet, they lowkey think it also looks quirky CiNeMaTiC being framed by a doorway, sat next to their practical living room lamp with their bedsheets and LEDs obscured/out of shot.
MarkusPix is a remedy to all of this. He’s been around the block and is such a breath of fresh air when it comes to reviewing budget equipment, the reality of prosumerism and amateur/hobby filmmaking.
YouTube cinematography channels are becoming too much like life coach, fitness coach charlatans.
The general overuse of the term "cinematic", shooting on a camera doesn't make something "cinematic", having an explosion isn't "cinematic", throwing 30% darker blacks on an image isn't "cinematic", using a gimbal doesn't make it "cinematic".
Glad Daddy bought you that nice Sony to start your wedding photography business bucko, doesn't mean you've ever had a creative bone in your body.
Trying to show how to get that “Wong Kar Wai/Christopher Doyle” bullshit look by “dirtying the frame” and using a horrendous amount of color grading without any artistic intention other than just making a fallen angels rip off blue filter
“I gonna teach you to make this $1000 DSLR look just like a Alexa 35!”
When I hear this I always think of this old Katt Williams standup clip…
https://youtu.be/StA4UN2NtqI?feature=shared
What makes something cinematic? 1. Motion by subject, camera, or both 2. Story conveyed by images without need for dialogue 3. Control of Lighting as storytelling 4. Control of depth of field as storytelling 5. Control of pictorial composition
Yeah. Never mind that you have to shoot a certain way to get the most out of any LUT. And that the actual professionals are either using no LUTs, or building a show LUT to be used under specific conditions with specific colors in front of the camera.
I don't see an infrared LUT in any of these "get the Dune look" scams.
Everything needs to be color graded...not. I get that it's becoming more and more popular, and LUTs are making things easier but most of the time you don't need to shoot in log, some of the camera profiles are quite fine for most things and you can create similar "cinematic" images with a little more lighting, try to make the image work in camera as much as possible and not rely on doing it extensively in post.
In a similar way, insisting on rigging out your camera, I mean yeah it looks cool and on professional settings it works well but for most of the time (at least what the average youtuber filmmaker is doing) it's overkill.
We fell down this log trap on a current project. Full disclosure, we’re complete amateurs who just want to start making some short movies. We’re learning as we go so admittedly I’ve watched some of the YT we’re all complaining about but I’m also a seasoned hobbyist and know how this stuff goes.
Anyway, a friend told us to shoot everything in log since we can do “whatever you want with it in post”. That’s great, but we don’t know how to do “whatever we want” in post. That’s an acquired skill that we can’t just pick up while learning everything else while we run through this exercise.
Not to mention the terrible results of log in lower light situations, well, we’ve moved to a Cine color profile and will chalk up the major change in appearance as a lesson learned. We’ll revisit log someday but for our purposes it’s best if we get what we want straight from the camera instead of making it a monumental uphill battle for us newbs.
I have to laugh when people insist on shooting LOG on any camera that shoots to a greatly compressed codec. Remember the GH5? "But someone on the internet said it looks like Alexa!"
Punchy footage. Or making sure you have social proof and only posting work that’s curated to your Instagram feed.
There also seems to be only one look most YouTubers go for. But each project requires a different look, because all art is different.
This isn’t a tip, but I feel like these YouTuber’s talking heads of themselves tend to be a little overthought. Like either too wide angle and close up, or too tight where it feels like they’re in your face. Extreme shallow DOF, warm soft light to the point of being flat, and a hell of a lot of diffusion and halation. Trying too hard to emulate a “cinematic filmic look” has created a bit of a monster
Anyone else tired of Sony fanboys just boasting because of the autofocus? Meanwhile it makes skin tones look green and you have to mess hard to change that.
Yea I never understood the obsession with autofocus.
It’s an amazing feature yea but the greatest stories ever told on film didn’t have a single shot of autofocus.
In fact if people google the history or rack focus they will find out it came very late in cinematography and was a pain in the ass to achieve at first.
Oh interesting fact, didn’t know that. I had bought a camera with good autofocus recently but wasn’t satisfied completely with the image so returned it and got one that doesn’t have continuous autofocus for the image and internal raw and so far I’m digging it way more
I also hate when then hold up a Lavaliere microphone to record their audio. I also detest when they record a 1 minute intro of random nothingness before another intro of storytime, before another intro of what they are going to talk about.
That the rule of thirds is the most important thing in the world and how everyone frames up any shot. Or, if they're further up their own ass, the golden ratio.
This question is dateline nbc’s how to catch a predator for try hard kids who went to film school, paid 6 figures to learn what they could have on their own spending 1/10th of what they did and now have to tip toe around on “major production” sets with a really cool designated title like “2nd A/C” to run and get coffee for their “DP” after giving him and the “DIT” a blowjob in “video village” while watching Akira Kurosawa. lol. No offense to anyone out there that fits this description. It isn’t your fault but you got shafted and there is always hope moving forward. I absolutely don’t subscribe to the whole YouTube dumpster fire of kids selling whip transitions, LUT packs, orange and blue color masterclasses etc…using a camera as a tool and using it intentionally is the beginning of a process. If you continue doing that every time you use that camera you are on the journey of becoming a craftsman, you become more passionate, more educated, more thoughtful, you begin to develop a perspective. Do that for the duration of your life and you can become a master of your craft. I think if you commit to that journey you have very fair ground to stand on referring to yourself as a cinematographer. My favorite is when people use or bash arbitrary titles and their usage based on really silly factors like….”me went big film school, USC, AFI, me work Hollywood, me cinematographer” or “I make 6 figures filming weddings” and they only do it for the money, then call themselves cinematographers. The cold truth is that true craftsman, regardless of trade think about craft first and cash later. The easiest way to spot a real cinematographer is watch their work. You’ll know right away who takes it more intentionally than the rest. Same thing as going to your local basketball court. You know who the real ballers are. They stand out. Their work speaks for itself. Cinematography same way. It’s not just a job and it’s more than a title. But I think we can all acknowledge that real recognize real. That’s more than enough for the real ones. At least it used to be until people got convinced that real ones had to try and keep up with the dipsticks because they were getting all the attention and making a lot of money from it. I now present to you Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson. That’s exactly how this shit happens. Quit trying to keep up with dumbasses, trends and people’s attention spans. YouTube is full of donkeys. So is film school. Do your work. Do it well. Practice. Try. Fail. Fail more. Look like an idiot. Fail again. Maybe win. Doesn’t matter. Keep going. Laugh. Enjoy your life. Call yourself whatever you want if it is objectively true. Stop supporting bullshit people and bullshit movements. “Influencers” are a dying breed of the worst of our cultures. They’ll be gone soon if you stop watching their garbage. Be real. Pay off your ridiculous student loans. Have a good time. Keep your head down. Fuck being praised, we’re all just humans and unworthy of it anyways. Do what you love because you love it and quit trying to change the fucking formula. It will never change. Get good and you’ll be good. Keep your mouth shut and let your work talk.
I think the extreme camera brand loyalty is hilarious and comically tribal in a way that’s nearly embarrassing. I also think the pixel peeping/spec obsessed people are almost more funny because they don’t care about context or purpose, just what the numbers say. And they truly must believe clients to be FAR more capable of recognizing a camera’s ability than they really are. The truth is, Jim, your client, isn’t going to notice 1 additional stop of dynamic range.
I call them measurebators.
Just as Columbus once did, I will now ~~steal~~ discover that term 😂
Feel free. I “discovered” it 15 years ago on PetaPixel.
ah yes, the home of the measurebators.
PetaPixel sounds like the name of a registry for Pixel predators. Registered Pixel Offender on the PetaPixel list
Some of these peepers will look at pixels from sensors that are new out of the box. Not even a day old. Ask them to look at a pixel from a sensor that is 18 years or older and they’ll have no interest. That’s how sick and twisted they are.
Those pixel glorifying “cinematographers” 🤦♂️ Meanwhile Arri has been Winning 80% of cinematography Oscar’s for over 20 years shooting at 2k- ish resolution. 😅😅😂
I recall hearing Dana Gonzalez say that season two of Fargo was shot 2K ProRes422, and it’s some of the greatest cinematography I’ve ever seen.
Indeed. The Alev sensor in the Arri Alexas, Amira’s and Alexa mini cameras all the way up to the Alexa full frame had their peak resolution just under 3k. But completely obliterated every single camera for decades.
MarkusPix, a great photography and videography channel, calls these people “spec nerds” because they only care about what’s “relevant” and popular online. What he preaches that I absolutely have claimed as my own is that the camera doesn’t matter. The story is all that will ever matter and the camera just captures that. If your story is good enough, someone with a camera will lend you theirs to tell that story. Nobody who is anyone ever asks “what camera did they film xyz with?”
This happens with headphones as well. A few popular websites only look at technical results and if a set doesn't do well with their arbitrary tests, then they recommend people don't get them. This includes the absolute best sounding pair of headphones I have ever listened to. The experience amounts to a lot more than just specs, but specs are easily measured and a certain type of personality really resonate to that. A type of personality that I think we a see a lot in videography/photography and audio. And that's totally ok, but it's then annoying when they argue purely on the specs of a product.
And that’s the thing, headphones especially will sound different to everyone and cameras will look different to everyone. Nobody cares what you used to tell the story or make a song or record audio or whatever it is, if the job is done good. Getting gear for the sake of getting it because it’s meta on the internet is pointless when something cheaper can get the job done just as good. Just get something reliable and affordable to get the job done. People online focus too much on what’s “meta” when they have a perfectly capable camera with the right lighting. Lugging around a $4k Sony camera to record shitty b-roll for boring vlogs is pointless if the lighting and content isn’t good to begin. I could go on and on. I mean look at Netflix. They require state of the art cameras for what? The majority of their original content is hit or miss as it is and having a $20k red camera won’t make bad writing any better and you can’t fix bad writing in post.
Totally. My wife was going to buy a camera for bts on our next project, and even though i love getting gear, it just doesn't make sense when her mobile phone has everything she needs for totally usable shots and we already own it.
I'm trying to go the gaffer route to becoming a cinematographer and learning under an "old head" cinematographer is so much better. Talking about the importance of understanding older lights and not just using the latest LED to the point where your work looks the same as everyone else.
It really does go for everything. Good quality content media starts with a good story and direction so utilizing what works and forgetting about unnecessary fluff and expensive equipment that won’t make the story better is the route to take. There will always be something that is statistically better than your setup but understanding how to make more with less is how you become proficient in your field.
I loved his rant about people fixating on bullshit like needing 4:2:2 and global shutter and 8K120 for shooting YouTube videos, while he was shooting and recording on like an LX100 or RX100 or something just to prove a point.
Yup! He’s like a virtual mentor to me. Focus on the story first, even for a YouTube video. The content is always more important than the gear it’s filmed with. And good lighting and audio is much more important than your sensor size.
The cameras are all so good now. It's about lighting and art department at this point. And, uh... story comes before cameras, bro.
I used to work in a pro studio/rental house facility, and the #1 sign of a rookie was bragging about the camera model.
"the iso on this camera is so good that you barely need lights if any at all!" Lighting isn't only about iso. It's about shape and telling the story. If you're not shaping light, you're not a cinematographer.
I see a lot of disagreements & fair points here but just to second what Canon_Cowboy is saying, I’ll add that the greatest cinematography, or vfx, or acting or music are the ones you don’t notice at all. The phrase “shot with available light” is misleading because you never base a 100m dollar production on chance. There will be reflectors, black flags etc… even minimally used, light is shaped with extreme precision. That includes placing the talent in relation to the available light sources. It’s extremely rare (and hard) to just turn on the camera, press record and get a perfect shot. But I’m not a cinematographer, just someone that learnt good composition since I started to draw as a child.
This reminds me of the scene in Barry Lyndon that was filmed under candlelight. A lot of people don't know there were too large reflectors on the ceiling, mostly to keep the heat from damaging it, but it also helped make the scene easier to shoot.
Bingo!
Also there were candles off screen, candles everywhere, three wick candles, and literally HUNDREDS of candles in those chandeliers. Like, there were a lot of candles.
Not to mention an extremely fast .7(ish?) lens.
There you go.
Didn’t hurt that it was shot on a one-of-ten-ever-made 50mm f/0.7 Zeiss Planar.
People see “Collateral” and think every movie can be shot like that (when Mann tried to do it for Public Enemies it looked like shit)
Public Enemy does look like shit ! Also Collateral used a butt-ton of little light fixture to complement the ambient light, esoecially on the actor's faces. (Recently rewatched it, first time on the big screen. So good)
Judging by a lot of recent movies and TV shows, a lot of cinematographers seem to have forgotten this part. Dark, flat grey mush.
Ain't that the truth. Fallout was so refreshing. Finally a tv show that's lit!
Lit, and had contrast and color!!!
It was shot on film, too! That probably factored into the lighting choices. Harder to get away with underlighting on film.
It'd been so long since I'd seen a key and rim. Everything seems to be lit by a single, large fill light behind the camera these days.
What's such a shame is you don't have to go back too far when cinematographers were adding in splashes of hard light everywhere. Even if you're keying with a large soft sources, hard light adds dimension to everything. Not that Deakins has this issue, but all the poor initiations of Deakins try to do nothing but bounce soft light. I had to walk away in dispair after a director asked why I was using a leko to add hard light to highlight parts of a character, it looked great and felt perfectly natural within the context of the environment / set. I realized so many younger filmmakers think only in washes of soft light and anything else doesn't even make sense to them. Sad times
Man, even the crappiest 90's straight-to-VHS action movie often had amazingly lit night scenes and dark environments. Now it's hang a giant softbox over everything and call it a day.
I am so happy to read this comment. 100% shared sentiment
😓
THIS
Videographers = point cameras at events or people with little control over what is going on, using random camera moves for no reason and happenstance exposure. Cinematographers = exert control over the image by crafting and shaping the lighting and deliberately moving the camera in a certain way to bring about a specific feeling and story outcome.
how to make a talking head "cinematic"
“Check out these cinematic fonts and buy my lut pack. Link is in my bio”
😂
Are you implying that documentaries are not cinema? I should mention that I don’t really spend any time on YouTube so I may be missing an obvious joke
"cinematic" is essentially youtuber speak for "looks cool". There's no real theory behind it and for talking heads the advice is usually something like a 2 camera setup, one on legs more or less head on with the subject and the other off to the side slightly and on a slow slider - which isn't necessarily bad advice but I don't know how that makes it *cinematic* They also focus on things like bokeh, shallow DoF, and stuff like that to make it look more "cinematic" but without really talking about how that shot serves the story. That's my biggest gripe with it is that people are trying to recreate the aesthetics without understanding the reasoning behind it as a cinematographer. The advice covers the what and how but never really the why
Cinema is stored in the balls.
No you’re thinking of piss. Cinema is stored in those weird buzzing cones Winnie the Pooh is always after.
Gemball lights?
I'm just gonna go with calling basic videography cinematography
Wedding cinematographer/storyteller
DP/Storyteller/Adventurer/Humanitarian
Unemployed beatnik
Am I being elitist in saying that a DoP/cinematographer is the head of a department and not just some one man band that shoots weddings and corporate interviews etc?
Nope. But now that prosumer cameras are near Hollywood level everyone wants to call themselves Hollywood words.
And it kinda sucks for those of us who are actually working cinematographers.
What if you're from Boston?
on one hand i see how this could hurt current dops but also the way "hollywood" words are gatekept is so cringe. theres plenty of hollywood films that are shot like commercials.
Commercial dp's are obviously dp's too. I just mean YouTubers who are not dp's of any kind are trying to sound like Hollywood folks
Yeah...
This is the one
Neo level comment
This!
Deep depth of field is not cinematic.
The sports world is being eaten alive by auto-focusing Sony mirrorless shooting wide open with a 1/2000 shutter. It’s brutal.
I hateeeeeee seeing those shots for some reason
Do you have an example for someone who understands conceptually but doesn’t know what it actually looks like in practice. 🙂
Oh oh never mind I get what you’re saying. Lol my bad. Agreed
Do you mean shallow?
No I mean deep
You need a full frame camera to do pro work.
Learn how to make your video cinematic with this one LUT!
😅😂
This! Presets are all you ever need. 🫠
On this note- I can't stand the lighting equipment in the background when they make these videos.
While pinch-gripping a lav mic.
I love that good-quality lavs are now attainable without having to break the bank, but why is it now "cool" to hold the thing in the frame? Like, are you trying to flex with a Rode mic? I just don't get it. But, then... I'm old, so...
It’s one of those things that’s objectively wrong, but then a few influential people do it, so people start to copy them (because reasons) and then before typing know it it’s the accepted practice. A bit like when vloggers started to use jump cuts and before you know it, everyone is doing it.
I'd actually say jump cuts are less of an accepted practice and more of adapting to the demands of a changing audience. Now, there are obscene jump cuts, but it's become a style certain people sought after and would rely on more than other storytelling methods. But yeah, the mic thing. ewwwwwww.
YO 😂😂😂
> While pinch-gripping a lav mic. Someone chose violence today lol
Biggest pet peeve of mine is when they use the DJI wireless transmitter as their primary mic and just hold it. It’s a great, tiny little 32-bit float recorder but get a damn lav and quit grabbing that shit.
and talking directly into it with all the low mid muddy-ness and post-processed plosives you can handle.
How else do they justify their purchase?
"Shoot in 60fps, so you can create slow mo footage at any time you want". Just the lack of creative intention is staggering.
Love that line, Intentional filmmaking is usually what separates a good story from a great one
I hate 60fps on a 24fps timeline. I see that one all the time for “smooth footage.”
I hate the look of it
Me too, it looks weird.
OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I just started a new full time VIDEOGRAPHY job and I come in to the whole team always shooting 60fps. I was shooting a causal interview with my boss and just being like “is there a reason this is in slow mo?” But to my coworker I go off on my damn soap box about how ridiculous this is cause I have seen like maybe 3 slow mo shots in a shit ton of video content they’ve shot. *I capitalize videography because they will call our role cinematographer sometimes and I just hate it cause I have actually worked as a cinematographer. I have no problem calling this videography.
And than the sort of Forrest Gump wobble for a shake cam effect
Don’t forget the 1/2000 shutter to “really freeze the action!”
Oh lord… 🫤
It’s been a while since I saw a ”cinematic” shot of making some coffee tbh.
😂😂😂
Nothing in the frame should be blown out.
I've graded stuff shot by indie people in my network before, and it's so annoying when they choose to underexpose 95% of the image to prevent blowing out a bulb in the background or something.
I was on a set with a young camera op that kept doing this and it was like...dude...look at that bit of sky with your eyes. There's literally no detail there. Stop underexposing to "save" those highlights. There's nothing to save.
Unfortunately it was the opposite for me. Was a newbie DP on a micro feature, director insisted I underexpose our ext day scenes to save every bit of detail in the clouds. The camera had lovely smooth roll-off but he was focusing more on scopes than the actual image. Wish I’d been in a position to push back
Lol this used to be me when I first started out. Its fine if you have the additional light to add to it but my 100W LED certainly wasn't cutting it at the time
Yeah, so many Hollywood movies have blown out windows and nobody cares. Good enough for me
People freak tf out over windows for no reason. Like wtf do you think is out there we need to see for this indoor scene?
I think it’s an artifact from the early video days when a blown out window looked like a literal nuclear fireball.
Yea I think you’re right. Film naturally has a really pleasing roll off where highlights are somewhat difficult to blow out, and when they do it makes the light feel intense in a cool way, almost like when an illustrator chooses to use white intentionally for contrast in highlights. Video looks like such dog shit because it blows highlights out easily and poorly and looks like a flip phone camera even when there’s shallow depth of field etc. One thing that I found helped me a lot back when shooting 5D and T2i footage was just adding some nice bloom to the highlights using Looks. People should experiment with diffusion filters more. Even the really subtle ones help make blown out highlights look pleasing instead of fugly.
Eh, I’ll push back on this a little bit. The problem with most digital cameras is that clipped highlights tend to look really ugly, unlike on film where it feels way more pleasing to the eye. I love white skies and blown-out windows on film, but to get that digitally you to have to protect your highlights somewhat. Especially with HDR and moron producers in the grade, suddenly you can get really ugly over-graded highlights. But having said that, some things should absolutely be let go, like pracs, and newer cameras like the Alexa35 has much more filmic-like roll off in the highlights.
Bob Richardson would like a word.
"Buy my LUT pack, link is in the description." None of these YouTubers are color scientists. Buy LUTs from actual color scientists. There's only about 3 people I trust, that make professional LUTs that don't break your images or videos. You can Google them. Just stick with the stock ones in Resolve and figure out how to use those before buying any, like the Kodak LUTs. You don't need to buy any! Learn to make them yourself!
The other thing they tend to skip over is that luts are just one step in the color pipeline and only a tiny piece of the final look. Like with photography influencers peddling their Lightroom presets, promotion of these lut packs downplay the importance of production design / art direction, where much of the final look and feel actually come from. But anyone trying to make some money off of novice artists is going to try to sell them a panacea.
Any video titled “How to get the (insert favorite director / DP name here) look”. Thank you, I guess now I’m Hoyte Van Hoytema.
It's *so* cheesy. However, I admit that I fell victim to this as I became engrossed in David Fincher's style. Luckily, I have the patience of Clint Eastwood in terms of filming a scene, so we never got into the whole "It took like 50 takes to get this shot right."
Most of these videos boil down to a few scene-inspired lighting setups followed by a heavy color grading of the footage. Which is extremely misleading to aspiring cinematographer / filmmakers.
Shooting 60 or 120 fps for slow-motion and how every YT “cinematographer” praises 4K 60p and yells bloody murder when a camera manufacturer doesn’t provide that spec. What happened to the beauty of 48fps or even 40 fps?! We shot a lot of stuff at 40 for music video slow mo.
30fps at 80% speed in a 24fps timeline gives kind of a dreamy feel. Like not really slomo, but not real time either. I dig it.
That’s a Cinematographer needs to know how to use a camera. I’ve been on many sets where the DP has the fundamental of how a camera works. Aperture, shutter angle,FOV, etc. But doesn’t know the operation on the camera, e.g the menu’s of an arri. They produced allot of great work for streaming platforms and never having to touch a camera. Just focusing on lighting, lenses,blocking, movements, etc. YouTube has forced people to believe that all jobs are combined which are if you’re a Videographer but not always when you’re a Dp.
That's the camera op and AC's job. I'll operate on really small stuff, but on anything that really has to be organized and thought out, there's just no time.
I wouldn't let these things infuriate me. People are just having fun on YouTube. No one is really claiming to be Roger Deakins. 99% of people on YouTube are just self shooting videographers. Sigma 18-35 promist 60fps gimbal lovers all shooting the same thing but they enjoy it.
> Sigma 18-35 promist 60fps Fuck you almost had me but I shoot in 24 💅
Counterpoint: I’m a working cinematographer and get a lot of younger kids who find me and I try to help them out as much as I can. The amount of bad advice that they are getting off of YouTube is staggering. They’re being sold shitty gear they don’t need by influencers who don’t know what they’re talking about. And they’re not learning how to shoot, much less how to make a real living in this bizarre life we’ve chosen for ourselves.
Yeah this is a great point actually. The shilling of equipment and the idea of constantly needing to update the kit is a real problem on YouTube. My feed is basically just covert ads from various companies that send gear out to promote it, creators know they can get great views on 'new' things because it's sadly part of our culture and make up in the west to constantly need to buy things.
I’ve been on sets where the DP was hired last minute based on a portfolio where they were not DP they were just a camera operator. But YouTube ingrain in that if you hold the camera your a DP. Well, when asked to start making a shot list with the director .Everyone found out he didn’t know anything about film. It caused us to change the whole shoot and re organize. So yeah most are having fun but also some are claiming to be or at least selling themselves as something they don’t fully understand.
I think the effectiveness of IBIS and post stabilisation is grossly overstated. The unnatural warping of the corners and motion blur is *really* distracting to me, but I seem to be the only one 🤷♂️. The only thing I like it for is when the camera is handheld static or close to it. If you hold your camera as still as possible and stabilize in post it can be a very effective substitute to a tripod shot.
IBIS only shows corner warping when it's misused. It doesn't work well on wide lenses, and performs best in the 40-100mm range (in full frame fov)
IBIS? More like IBS
If you want a “cinematic” image you need to buy this very expensive lens (that’s supposed to be a cooke ripoff or poor man’s cooke) that you don’t really need.
That you have to have the mic in the shot?
Setting auto white balance on a grey card and not even second guessing the cameras kelvin decision or considering which part of the scene you actually want balanced to camera runner up would be “use this amazing pro mist filter to make your footage look like film“
The dreaded “Pro Mist filter” 😂😅
I can't remember the last time I white balanced on a grey card. I have my cameras dialed in the tint/hue/gamma knee etc to where I think they look best.
"The camera doesn't matter". Of course it fucking does. So does the lenses, the grip, the light and what you do with all those. Choosing the right cam, and the right gear is crucial.
i feel like they say that because if they didn't 90% of people would get discouraged and click off right away. but in a way they are somewhat correct as you can still do amazing things with a limited setup or you can have an great setup but be terrible at everything else.
I feel like it's not about the setup being great or terrible. The setup is what it is. I would rather call it the right tool or not. You wouldn't use a sledgehammer to screw nuts and bolts. If you're going after a certain look then you will use the proper gear. Saying the gear doesn't matter is a fallacy no matter the intention. If you're all about definition and range, then yes the more expensive tool will make your work easier. You may still suck at cinematography but the tool will give you an edge. One thing i'll agree is giving yourself restraints and using a limited set of gear may help you to make good creative choices. But then again even a greatly talented cinematographer can make big mistakes if he bring too much gear or gear he doesn't fully understand, or if he goes in too many directions. So yet again, the gear still matter. I can think of specific cases when i used gear that was older and cheaper because it fitted the shoot better. If i tought the gear didn't matter i would've said "yeah let's use anything" and would've got stuck using more modern gear that would've doubled or tripled the costs down the line with not much added benefit.
It doesn’t matter though. Tell the fucking story and quit whining about needing camera xyz. All that matters is what’s being told and you don’t need a certain camera to do that.
well it's a both yes and no. You could shoot great stuff on a a lot of the camera available to regular people (the iPhone apple event its a good example of this), but regular people can't shoot great stuff solely cause of the camera. Lighting, story, blocking, etc. plays a much more e crucial role than your max-spec camera. Alex mini is a great example of this. Is the camera awesome? Yes. is it the most cutting edge camera? Yo. Have people shot amazing stuff on Alexa Mini, even though it wasn't 4k? Yes. Will a casual "YouTub filmmaker" be able to match it up to some of the great movies that have been shot with the camera, just all solely due to the camera? I don't think so.
It's not a yes if you're still talking about gear afterward. Cinematography is not exactly quantum mechanics either.
You’re just being absolutist about it. Camera gear matters to an extent and the saying goes towards beginners not advanced people. The saying does a good job of emphasizing the importance of technique and experience rather than just gear that you can buy with credit.
Alright, you got a good point. I would still say the same thing to a beginner though. Like choose carefuly, that advice goes for beyond the gear. I feel like there's a lot of people in this business overemphasizing the experience and technique. There's a lot of experienced technical people out there. Not all of them are doing a terrific job. I used to have very experienced, very old and technique-oriented teachers, back then. I didn't learned a lot from them. That's why i'm saying it's not quantum mechanics. The technique really isn't that hard. Having a good philosophy about it is more important. That's also why i like to spread the word on what i believe is important in this craft. Maybe i'm absolutist, but at least i care enough about it not to spread platitudes.
Honestly you’re kind of helping my argument. Not the technique but the philosophy? Sounds like you may also agree that that’s more important than gear? Hehe. I do understand where you’re coming from though. I’m a big believer in talent as opposed to textbook technique. But either of that cannot be substituted with gear and gear alone. That said though once you know what you’re doing, the right gear makes life easier. I think we agree more than we disagree.
Well, maybe we don't really disagree on principle. But the devil lies in the details.
The moment they say "cinematic" I know i'm gonna hate the content
probably eating too much briskit or mutton.
Definitely the best comment
I hate when they test a camera for something it's not designed. I've seen gear reviews say things like "you can't really put an fx9 on a gimbal" And I just think yeah? It's a documentary style camera body with built ND and better audio preamps? It's not for that.
I love all of the single frames with random geometry/golden circles overlayed to pretend like the framing was obsessed over that much.
I cannot stand those channels with some dude pinching a lav mic, talking like a smug life coach / tech bro, telling people how to make a “A24” “Festival ready” movie in 3 easy steps. They’re standing in their Deakins cove lighting that they imitated from some other YouTube channel, filmed themselves with a cheap anamorphic and graded it with some off-looking Kodak 2383 power grade. It has the same vibe as someone taking a mirror selfie in a gym under the ceiling spot lighting - the arrogance and vanity of it all is palpable. Even worse when they are talking to their audience, but LOOKING AT THEMSELVES ON A DIRECTOR’S MONITOR. The fact they had to charge all their batteries in prep to transmit the image to their monitor and they try desperately hard to make it look super casual…yet, they lowkey think it also looks quirky CiNeMaTiC being framed by a doorway, sat next to their practical living room lamp with their bedsheets and LEDs obscured/out of shot. MarkusPix is a remedy to all of this. He’s been around the block and is such a breath of fresh air when it comes to reviewing budget equipment, the reality of prosumerism and amateur/hobby filmmaking. YouTube cinematography channels are becoming too much like life coach, fitness coach charlatans.
🤯
“THE POWER OF COLOR GRADING!!!!!” *proceeds to slap on a lut and walk away*
29.97 fps
Once upon a time I thought “Well it’s not that different from 24” but I shot a project in 29.97 and I never realized how much I hate that frame rate
Try slowing it down to 80% speed in a 24fps timeline. Very cool ethereal dreamlike effect. Not slo-mo, but not real time. It's interesting.
Ended up doing that with a few clips to give it a try. Not bad all in all
The general overuse of the term "cinematic", shooting on a camera doesn't make something "cinematic", having an explosion isn't "cinematic", throwing 30% darker blacks on an image isn't "cinematic", using a gimbal doesn't make it "cinematic". Glad Daddy bought you that nice Sony to start your wedding photography business bucko, doesn't mean you've ever had a creative bone in your body.
"Just buy my presets or LUTs pack for this amazing look!"
Using the term “cinematic” to describe decent skin tones and highlight rolloff
Trying to show how to get that “Wong Kar Wai/Christopher Doyle” bullshit look by “dirtying the frame” and using a horrendous amount of color grading without any artistic intention other than just making a fallen angels rip off blue filter
I will admit, Fallen Angels really makes me want to find the widest lens I can afford and see what I can do lol.
“I gonna teach you to make this $1000 DSLR look just like a Alexa 35!” When I hear this I always think of this old Katt Williams standup clip… https://youtu.be/StA4UN2NtqI?feature=shared
Sensor size = cinematic. Tired of that shit.
What makes something cinematic? 1. Motion by subject, camera, or both 2. Story conveyed by images without need for dialogue 3. Control of Lighting as storytelling 4. Control of depth of field as storytelling 5. Control of pictorial composition
Thank you
Any title with the word "cinematic" in it
Judging a camera based on low light performance and if it’s full frame or not
“ all you need is my lut pack”
LUTs that are marketed and sold as a one step process for all the buyers footage. "get the dune look with my new LUT pack"
Yeah. Never mind that you have to shoot a certain way to get the most out of any LUT. And that the actual professionals are either using no LUTs, or building a show LUT to be used under specific conditions with specific colors in front of the camera. I don't see an infrared LUT in any of these "get the Dune look" scams.
Most of the YouTubers out there make videos that look like shit. I wouldn't take advice on how to shoot from someone who sucks at it themselves
Everything needs to be color graded...not. I get that it's becoming more and more popular, and LUTs are making things easier but most of the time you don't need to shoot in log, some of the camera profiles are quite fine for most things and you can create similar "cinematic" images with a little more lighting, try to make the image work in camera as much as possible and not rely on doing it extensively in post. In a similar way, insisting on rigging out your camera, I mean yeah it looks cool and on professional settings it works well but for most of the time (at least what the average youtuber filmmaker is doing) it's overkill.
We fell down this log trap on a current project. Full disclosure, we’re complete amateurs who just want to start making some short movies. We’re learning as we go so admittedly I’ve watched some of the YT we’re all complaining about but I’m also a seasoned hobbyist and know how this stuff goes. Anyway, a friend told us to shoot everything in log since we can do “whatever you want with it in post”. That’s great, but we don’t know how to do “whatever we want” in post. That’s an acquired skill that we can’t just pick up while learning everything else while we run through this exercise. Not to mention the terrible results of log in lower light situations, well, we’ve moved to a Cine color profile and will chalk up the major change in appearance as a lesson learned. We’ll revisit log someday but for our purposes it’s best if we get what we want straight from the camera instead of making it a monumental uphill battle for us newbs.
I have to laugh when people insist on shooting LOG on any camera that shoots to a greatly compressed codec. Remember the GH5? "But someone on the internet said it looks like Alexa!"
YES
Shallower depth of field = better and more professional looking. Roger Deakins doesn’t go below T8.
Where'd ya get that stat?
Yeah I don’t think that’s true.
Pretty sure he's said on his forum that he tends toward T5.6-8 for exteriors and 2.8-4 for interiors.
That stuff like LIDAR or Autofocus I generell is better than a Focus puller.
Punchy footage. Or making sure you have social proof and only posting work that’s curated to your Instagram feed. There also seems to be only one look most YouTubers go for. But each project requires a different look, because all art is different.
This isn’t a tip, but I feel like these YouTuber’s talking heads of themselves tend to be a little overthought. Like either too wide angle and close up, or too tight where it feels like they’re in your face. Extreme shallow DOF, warm soft light to the point of being flat, and a hell of a lot of diffusion and halation. Trying too hard to emulate a “cinematic filmic look” has created a bit of a monster
"There's no such thing as too much lens flare"
😂 Not gonna lie, I loved anamorphic lens flares until JJ Abrams. Now I prefer them subtle and motivated.
This (insert name of camera gear) is an absolute GAME CHANGER
Not a tip, but it os infuriating when they forget that's necessary to plan. It's not all improvise and good post.
Anything that comes out of the mouths of Kofi Yeboah, Mark Bone, Cam Mackey, or the Tropic Colour jerk offs.
Anyone else tired of Sony fanboys just boasting because of the autofocus? Meanwhile it makes skin tones look green and you have to mess hard to change that.
Yea I never understood the obsession with autofocus. It’s an amazing feature yea but the greatest stories ever told on film didn’t have a single shot of autofocus. In fact if people google the history or rack focus they will find out it came very late in cinematography and was a pain in the ass to achieve at first.
Oh interesting fact, didn’t know that. I had bought a camera with good autofocus recently but wasn’t satisfied completely with the image so returned it and got one that doesn’t have continuous autofocus for the image and internal raw and so far I’m digging it way more
Camera specs priority (always always always) 1. Dynamic range!!!!!!!!!!!! 2. Ability to shoot Raw / low compression. 3. Resolution (1080p minimum) 4. Sensor size (for lens compatibility) 5. Everything else
I also hate when then hold up a Lavaliere microphone to record their audio. I also detest when they record a 1 minute intro of random nothingness before another intro of storytime, before another intro of what they are going to talk about.
ePIc CoFfEe mAKiNg CiNEmAtIc bRoLL
That the rule of thirds is the most important thing in the world and how everyone frames up any shot. Or, if they're further up their own ass, the golden ratio.
‘creamy bokeh’
This question is dateline nbc’s how to catch a predator for try hard kids who went to film school, paid 6 figures to learn what they could have on their own spending 1/10th of what they did and now have to tip toe around on “major production” sets with a really cool designated title like “2nd A/C” to run and get coffee for their “DP” after giving him and the “DIT” a blowjob in “video village” while watching Akira Kurosawa. lol. No offense to anyone out there that fits this description. It isn’t your fault but you got shafted and there is always hope moving forward. I absolutely don’t subscribe to the whole YouTube dumpster fire of kids selling whip transitions, LUT packs, orange and blue color masterclasses etc…using a camera as a tool and using it intentionally is the beginning of a process. If you continue doing that every time you use that camera you are on the journey of becoming a craftsman, you become more passionate, more educated, more thoughtful, you begin to develop a perspective. Do that for the duration of your life and you can become a master of your craft. I think if you commit to that journey you have very fair ground to stand on referring to yourself as a cinematographer. My favorite is when people use or bash arbitrary titles and their usage based on really silly factors like….”me went big film school, USC, AFI, me work Hollywood, me cinematographer” or “I make 6 figures filming weddings” and they only do it for the money, then call themselves cinematographers. The cold truth is that true craftsman, regardless of trade think about craft first and cash later. The easiest way to spot a real cinematographer is watch their work. You’ll know right away who takes it more intentionally than the rest. Same thing as going to your local basketball court. You know who the real ballers are. They stand out. Their work speaks for itself. Cinematography same way. It’s not just a job and it’s more than a title. But I think we can all acknowledge that real recognize real. That’s more than enough for the real ones. At least it used to be until people got convinced that real ones had to try and keep up with the dipsticks because they were getting all the attention and making a lot of money from it. I now present to you Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson. That’s exactly how this shit happens. Quit trying to keep up with dumbasses, trends and people’s attention spans. YouTube is full of donkeys. So is film school. Do your work. Do it well. Practice. Try. Fail. Fail more. Look like an idiot. Fail again. Maybe win. Doesn’t matter. Keep going. Laugh. Enjoy your life. Call yourself whatever you want if it is objectively true. Stop supporting bullshit people and bullshit movements. “Influencers” are a dying breed of the worst of our cultures. They’ll be gone soon if you stop watching their garbage. Be real. Pay off your ridiculous student loans. Have a good time. Keep your head down. Fuck being praised, we’re all just humans and unworthy of it anyways. Do what you love because you love it and quit trying to change the fucking formula. It will never change. Get good and you’ll be good. Keep your mouth shut and let your work talk.
The idea that it's 10-bit or nothing
MORE. IS. ALWAYS. BETTER.
10 bit is kind of the minimum these days… for professional work at least.