Collision Conference Day 2

6:45 on a Sunday morning and Image Mechanics used the same trick to get me out of bed… Of course I didn’t expect to win any raffle prizes, but with my luck I knew my number would be drawn if I wasn’t there… haven’t quite figured out how to beat this system, yet…

It was also very upsetting to find dozens of delicious fresh Krispy Kreme boxes, for you to eat as many as your consciousness would tell you not to…

Despite all that, I was still pretty excited! I knew today was going to be geared more towards filmmakers!

A quick revisit at the show’s floor… a little more drooling over the Zeiss lenses and I was off to the theatre, eager to hear Liam Finn and Illya Friedman’s adventure, on the first feature film shot on a hybrid camera.

I’ve been pretty excited about the potential of the GH1 since I first heard about it. I’ve always looked at it as a video camera that does an amazing job taking stills. You might think differently of course, but if you observe closely, the 5D works in 2 completely different modes. When you’re taking pictures you have a full on SLR at work! Doing exactly what a film camera does, with the sole difference being, when you press the button you expose a sensor instead of film. When in video mode, the mirror retracts, you can’t see through your optical viewfinder and your now permanently exposed sensor feeds the LCD screen in the back. The GH1 has it’s sensor exposed all the time, just like a video camera. There are no mirrors or optical view finders… these differences cater for both cameras strengths and downfalls…

Mr Finn and Mr. Friedman had the insight to look into one of the most exploitable characteristics of the GH1; the shallowness of its sensor pit. This means that because the sensor sits so close to the base of the lens mount, it is possible to create adaptors for almost any kind of lens you can imagine. Just go for a stroll on ebay and you’ll see how many inexpensive adapters you’ll find. The only draw back, is that you end up with roughly a 2x optical factor… meaning your 50mm will be a 100mm…

Illya Friedman runs Hotrodcameras.com which is a website/blog/shop you should definitely have a look at. The Hotrodcameras adapter adds to the endless mounting options for the Gh1 in a very special way… the PL way. Yeah, you got it… cinema lenses on your tiny $900 camera body…

As bold filmmakers with their go for it attitude of jumping into a feature film production with a camera that wasn’t even available in the american market, they exposed their untreated footage to a critical audience on a big enough screen, for us to evaluate its true potential.

The one undeniable factor is that hybrid cameras have unbeatable low light performance! That reason alone makes them an extremely useful tool, if nothing else as a B-cam. The GH1 examples of exterior night scenes, lit only by the existing practicals was very, very impressive!

Indie filmmakers will relish with this fact! Better light sensitivity means smaller light kit, or in many cases no light kit… and from what I’ve seen so far, if you know what you’re doing, with no quality compromises.

I heard some people commenting that they weren’t too thrilled with the look of the GH1 on the big screen … I saw a lot of potential! And also acknowledge that streaming your footage from a computer to a huge screen isn’t probably the ideal solution… But beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

The question you probably want answered is if this camera is the one… and well… I have sad news for you… there is no such thing… but there is “the one camera” (or 2) that is for you! If the Gh1 is the one for you, is one of the reasons I write this blog, to hopefully give you a little help in making that hard decision.

I see the GH1 as a much more user friendly camera then the 5D, capable of satisfying the most common needs of photography and “video”. Different tools for different users. The fact alone that it can autofocus with some lenses, puts it in a completely different “neighborhood”. And only you know where you’d like to live…

The fact that someone has shot an entire feature film on a GH1 with cinema lenses makes the previous statement a little more confusing, but that’s why this “game” has gotten so exciting lately.

People have a very short memories… not long ago, we were rejoicing about a fixed lens DVX 100, with all the inherent extreme limitations of miniDV and tiny CCDs… now all you hear is bitching and moaning about this or that feature, the most amazing cameras we have ever had access to, don’t have… not to mention there was no basis and we would not dare comparing it to a Cinealta or a Varicam…

I think there can be little doubts that the GH1 is the king of the sub $1,000 hybrid cameras and I would say that’s a very big “neighborhood” factor… for how long? That remains to be seen…

You can find a ton of information about “Rejouer”, the first movie shot with a GH1 at  finndependent.com. I definitely recommend you checking it out as it holds a world of precious information. You’ll also be able to see some of the footage we watched today.

Illya and Liam were inundated with questions at the end of their presentation… many were left unanswered because of time constrains… so much so, we didn’t even leave the theatre for the following presentation…

Rodney Charters, the DP from 24, started his presentation talking about social networking. When he opened his TweetDeck, it was kind of funny to see my Gravatar there… haha!

Rodney’s presentation transpired a vast real world experience of a passionate professional.

Walking us through a slideshow of pictures taken by his father during the war, Rodney showed us where his first influences came from.

It was so obvious to conclude this man is natural born story teller, watching how he unfolded his presentation.

His excitement to show us how small his traveling Red package is, couldn’t but teleport your imagination to exotic locations capturing what you love!

So after telling us the trip tale, with his traveling Red package, he undertook during writers strike, Rodney moved on to start showing his admiration about the 5D.

This camera seems to infatuate anyone that crosses its path. After pointing out the well know flaws and shortcomings, hearing someone like Rodney speak of this “little camera” really makes you wonder…

He was very clear on how you really have to add on to tis camera to make it useable, emphasizing it’s LCD limitations and raising the Z-Finder as an absolute must have piece of equipment.

Rodney and his team have been pushing the envelope, always open to test new cameras, since the days of the first pro-summer HD cameras in the real world scenario of 24. But when he went on to show us a side by side comparison of 35mm film telecined at 2K with the 5D…

I really wouldn’t be able to translate into words what I felt as I was watching this… I apologize the photo above is by no means a way to compare quality or look, but it can give you a rough idea how close they get…  In Rodney’s own words: “This camera has no business looking this good…”

From this point onwards I have to confess I had trouble to keep my focus. I’ve been doing my best to be patient and not let myself get sucked into a compulsive purchase, if nothing else because I’m in the middle of post of a feature length movie that is going to keep me busy until the end of the year (at least), but I just couldn’t control my enthusiasm to see the potential of such an amazing tool that is nothing but one click away from finding its way into my hands…

…and the build up kept going…

The next few examples compared some of the best lenses in the world with the ones, us mere mortals, can get our hands on. As Rodney stated, their unquestionable superior quality, he also questioned when does it become justifiable with such close results?!

In some examples I think the difference was so subtle, unless you would want to be super critical and analyze a still frame that is going to be spit at you, at 24 frames a second, you probably wouldn’t be able to verbalize the differences… you can kind of “feel” the difference, which depending on what look you’re going for, could even tend towards the unthinkable… I mean, if you’re doing a “fat budget movie”, why wouldn’t you go for the best of the best. After all it is the filmmaker’s prerogative to try attaining the unattainable perfection… otherwise, as an indie filmmaker myself, I can find a million reasons to not justify it…

And it was time for lunch… my head was spinning with enthusiasm…

At the floor I found one of the suspects hanging out with a cool entourage…

It was great to have the opportunity to play around with the GH1, using Zeiss Compact Primes mounted with the Hotrodcamera adapter. This is indeed a nifty little rig! My opinion didn’t change. The Gh1 feels like a video camera despite its form factor. On a lens like this, it basically feels like you have no camera… kind of an odd feeling that I’m not sure if even the Hotrod can compensate for… but it’s definitely cool and there’s no doubt that in the right hands it can produce outstanding results.

Also on the floor, Image Mechanics had 5D MKII and Red One hybrid photography demos going all day, which were free to anyone attending the show.

The afternoon brought us Ted Shilowitz, the leader of the Rebellion himself.

Some very impressive printouts of Red One footage spiced everyone’s curiosity. If I didn’t know, there was no way I could have distinguished them from a pro quality photo…

Ted started by walking us through Red‘s history so far. I thought the 1st Red camera prototype was the coolest thing!!!

Red’s products roadmap is exciting, scary, bold, arrogant and amazing… I’ve seen Red as the real game changer since I first saw their cast model at NAB. Yeah, it wasn’t even a camera, it couldn’t even turn on… but you could just feel it! Something different was coming… and when it did, it arrived with a boom!

Thousands of movies have been shot on the Red One today and many more will continue, but the Red One is still a camera for the elites. The Scarlet, in my opinion, is what’s is really going to change the game in a very democratic way.

Can you imagine being able to buy a camera kit over 20 times cheaper then a top of the range camera, from one of the usual suspects like Sony or Panasonic, capable not only of competing but actually surpass in almost every aspect???!!! I’ve been really looking forward to that day… and something tells me there’s going to be a Scarlet in my life!

Day dreaming is a healthy practice… especially when you’re holding the “future” in your hands…

The Canon 5D and the coming 7D are all nice and dandy, but this is a completely different ball  game!!!

Red does not have to cut through any red tape (pun intended)! The big corporations are in this for the money. The little soul their products have is inherited by the few passionate people that happen to get involved in the making. The rest is purely marketing and commercially driven. Just think about it for a second… why do they leave us so short from having the products we really want??? Red on the other hand is pure soul!!! From film lovers to film lovers, with no hidden agendas… just look at the backtrack of the key people behind Red… but for now all we can do is keep our hopes that this story will continue unfolding a happy second act.

Now the scary and arrogant part of Red roadmap is this…

28K… for real?! 7x the resolution of 35mm film?!

As far as I know there aren’t even any lenses that can cover that massive sensor?!

Oh… how I wish I could see the faces of the film school teachers that gave me so much shit about how digital could never be as good as film…

And why do I say it’s arrogant? This will change the face of film!!! That’s kind of arrogant don’t you think?! But who said arrogant couldn’t be a good thing. Many very “big” men, that did many great things had to have this kind of posture to make what others said impossible, the norm…

The 2K projection of Red’s reel speaks for itself… and all the film purists out there can keep bathing in celluloid developing solution, for all I care… I just hope to get to a point in my career that I can have access to the Monstro when it comes out! And if not, I’m sure I will rejoice watching the epics other filmmakers will be shooting with it!

At the end of the presentation, while I was holding the Scarlet’s prototype in my hands, I had a chance of asking Ted himself when could I place a pre-order for one of these… smiling: “That’s a very good question…” he said… Oh well, at least I tried…

(I didn’t get your name, but thank you for taking this picture. Maybe it was the good Karma that made you a winner of the raffle drawing, right after this…

What a day… I was overloaded with inspiration… but little did I know about what was still to come.

To be honest, the only thing I knew about Shane Hurlbut before this presentation was that he was the DP on Terminator Salvation… now I know he’s the most passionate DP I have ever heard…

It felt like he was there on a mission… If by any chance you were there too, tell me you didn’t feel like buying a 5D on the spot?!

haha! Shane was so enthusiastic about the 5D that Canon not hiring him for every single presentation they do on the 5D is just as insightful as the lack of 24p in it…

I’m afraid I don’t have anymore pics of this presentation, but even if I did they could not do it justice…

“I own 15 of these!” he said. “That’s how much I love it!”

Surrounded by what sounds like a dream team, Shane told us his incredible stories of how the 5D has been put to use in his productions and he couldn’t make it sound more inspiring! From impossible shots that resulted on camera destruction in T4, or by putting it in front of real US Marine’s line of fire, Shane kept raising the 5D’s pedestal.

The examples shown were of the expected caliber, but the stories and the energy he put into telling them was even better.

The last piece he screened, “Twixtored” to 24p just blew me away… I mean, literally! Every inch of me was saying; you gotta get a 5D!!! Haha…

One thing very interesting throughout the weekend was hearing contradicting opinions from the “masters” on how to get the best results out of a 5D and I will be doing a post soon about it, but for now listen to Shane: “It’s time to stop the tech talk! Go out there and start shooting!”

This means we’re walking on uncharted territory! Explore! Be bold! Because the rules aren’t set in stone yet!

Outside the theatre Shane’s team awaited us with a plethora of rigs they use with the 5D. Even Rodney Charters couldn’t help himself from checking it out…

All in all it was an amazing weekend!

Congratulations are due to Image Mechanics!!! I just want to see how are you going to top this event, though…

If you made it this far, thank you for reading but please leave a comment! Tell me if and what you liked or didn’t like and let me know which subjects you’d like to see in this blog.

Thanx for reading!!!

T  ; )~