It’s been kicking around in my head for a little while now.. well the past few days, feeling inspiration to make something great. It started with DIYDays… which got me inspired to get serious about film making… and what of the From Here to Awesome Film festival stuff played at Mass Art recently….. That really got me going bit.

Then I took a look at my first attempt at video podcasting..  My impression of it, after not looking at it for ages was.. well that yes it has flaws but.. the potential it speaks for knocked me out.

My approach to film making is in no way conventional.. I would describe it as “a painters approach to film making.” Or maybe that’s my approach to editing and post production.. A way of thinking where this end of things becomes the core of the process.. and the other parts are more like “lets go get some raw materials.” In any event.. the process is that of an exploratory painter.. really. 

Raw Materials 

As it turns out.. I have some raw materials.. video I’ve been shooting for the raw materials of a project.. I have a tun of tapes going back the last.. oh, I don’t know.. lets say 8 or 9 years.. plus a few that go back a whole lot further.

The idea behind my shooting was to make a kind of record.. to kind of show you life in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise see. To try and open the worlds eyes to reality.. or something like that. Who knows, I was on LSD or some psychedelic when I conceived of it, right?

But now I’m contemplating “a new stage of raw material acquisition.” To put it another way, I’m thinking of buying new cameras. 

Thinking about Cameras 

Generally, in thinking about cameras, we have a few categories of video cameras.

1. Social Media Cams: These are generally cheap.. usually pretty pour quality.. but the kinda things you can always have on you, which is the real key here.. and they don’t really call attention to them selves.. we are talking flip cams (that run around 100 bucks) or perhaps smart phones that let you broadcast live over the internet via qik. These could also be just basic photo cameras that also let you shoot video.. even the cheapest of cheap cell phones often have this sorta option
2. Spy-ish Cams: These are cheap from the perspective of video quality.. and actually not all that expensive..  The cameras them selves are usually sub $1000, perhaps sub $500.. The real point of these cameras is that nobody knows your using them. I like the idea of being able to shoot without calling attention to myself.. both from the perspective of documenting something as it is.. without the subject becoming self conscious.. and the idea that you could create a narrative film.. taking place in real spaces.. without anyone knowing there’s a film going on.
3. Quality Video Cameras: From my perspective.. we are talking about the ability to have a lot of Aesthetic control here.. If we are talking from a serious film making perspective.. all the other cameras are rather “punk rock” where as.. here we are talking.. cinematography. These are cameras that cost many thousands of dollars.

Quality Cameras Canon EOS 5D Mark II  

Let us start with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. This is really a DSLR.. which is to say a camera for photography.. a very professional camera at that.. It lists for $2700 for just the body, and $3500 for the body and the lens. (The lens being worth a bit more then a grand I believe). 

Besides being a pretty serious DSLR, the 5D Mark II is also a camera capable of shooting 30 fps 1080p… which it records to H.264. From a film making perspective.. being limited to 30 fps is not really ideal.. though firm ware could change this.. But over all.. for the price, it’s very difficult to beat this camera.. as a video camera. I mean.. for this price and having a lens system? Not to mention that you’re also getting a very nice DSLR? So I’ve been thinking seriously about the 5D Mark II. 

Red Scarlet 

Ok.. this is what we call in the biz a game changer. 

And

Ok, since most of my readers are probably not the type to be following this sorta thing.. let me kind of break this down for you a little.

Here’s a link to a little thing that explains what 3k means. This isn’t a totally accurate statement.. but it’s something that will point you in the right direction “3k is to HD what HD is to standard deffiniton.” 3K is ideal if you want to bring what you’re shooting to theatrical release.

The price of $3000 is.. for a red scarlet.. is probably about what you would be paying to rent, for a weekend, a current 3k camera. I could point you to $10,000 camera’s I’ve lusted after.. that are not capable of half of what this Red Scarlet is capable of.

Now the final thing that sets the REDs apart is.. its a bit like shooting with film, in the sense that you have something like a negative.. which you can develop from.. a negative having more dynamic range then actual picture out putted. This means a much higher level of aesthetic control..  

Well, I think I’ll end this post here, for now.. there’s many more subjects to cover on this subject.. We’ll see what happens. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Media Arts, Photography, film making. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.