The only tricky part for this Live webcast for me was walking backwards without tripping or shaking the camera too much.  Shout out to colleague Karen Cole for operating the LitePanels Lykos light and keeping me from bumping into anything!

Watch the replay here.   By the way, that huge Christmas Tree you see in the opening scene is real, as are several other trees in the Georgia-Pacific Center lobby.  If you’re in the area, you should stop by and check out the trees.  You can grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate from the coffee shop too.

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First off, the software does NOT retain any settings when you quit the app.  Zero.  So every time I launched the app, I had to set my frame size, resolution, destination, audio input, etc….  That was super annoying.

The app just quit constantly.  I could generally shoot 2 or 3 movies and then the app would just disappear.  Or would I hit the Home button on my iPhone to use another app, then double click the Home button to retrieve Filmic Pro and it would be gone.   Then of course I would have to reset everything on the app.

I found the focus drifting a lot even when I would manually set and locked it.  Almost seemed like the Camera was competing with the App for control of the focus.  The exposure worked as expected but the focus was problematic.

When using 24p mode via Filmic Pro I found the video quality VERY stuttery and staccato, especially with the pans.  It’s not really an enjoyable experience to watch the 24p material that was shot with it.

So I used Filmic Pro for the rocket launch and the first three days of my cruise and then abandoned it.  I went back to shooting with the Apple Video mode in Camera.  If you DO plan to use Filmic Pro, avoid the zoom feature.  I thought it was awesome when I was playing with it, but the resolution falls apart very quickly as you zoom.

I plan to check out Mavis soon so I’ll report back after I’ve had a chance to really test that app out for more than just a few days.

Now the Shure VP83 Shotgun mic DID perform brilliantly and that was a great investment.

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The process involved some hacks and the author suggests that a “camera tailored to vertical filming” would be quite useful for this technique.  In particular placing the camera controls in such a way that they can be conveniently accessed with the camera in “vertical mode.”    Honestly, we just need camera tripods that have a flip out top like the cheap still camera tripods have.  Rotate the camera vertically and keep shooting while having full access to the controls.   In the fashion industry they have been shooting like this for years as it’s much easier to show the model with the full garment in vertical mode without all that extra space around him / her.   I’ve received Panasonic Varicam footage shot vertically so there must be some sort of tripod attachments already available that will turn the camera vertical.  Now we just need more of that for more cameras.   This could really be something for the tripod manufacturers to jump onto now.  Secure, stable, convertible tripods.

Most importantly though, NRK didn’t forget the golden rule: “One thing does not change, no matter which way we hold our phone. A good story is needed to make a good documentary, so this is where we started.”  

Enjoy the article.   See the full story here.

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Not one to shy away from change, we’ll both acquire and deliver in 4k since we can deliver a 4k master to our distribution partner.   Yes, there will be bumps and starts along the way and I’m sure we’ll be cursing the computers at times, but I went through this rodeo before with HD.   There’s nothing to be “scared” of in 4k.  It’s just another process to work through and mostly we’re going to be dealing with much larger files so our media server is going to have to be robust enough to play the new files back.  Here’s an overview of what we’re considering at this time.

For acquisition we’re looking seriously at both the Panasonic GH4 and the Sony A7s.

Now the GH4 has very pretty picture, records 4k on board, but is terrible in low light.  With the available light / docudrama / reality style shooting we’ll be doing on the network, low light issues will be a concern.  The A7s from what I’ve heard can shoot with candlelight and look great, but it doesn’t record 4k onboard.  That will require something like the Atomos Shogun 4k recorder, an additional $2k purchase per camera AND it records in ProRes 4k which will give us much larger files than the Panasonic.   On the plus side, the Shogun has a 7” monitor which will make shooting with the A7s easier for the photographer.    Still undecided on those two cameras, but it will be a smaller, DSLR sized camera, we’re not going to go near the big, over the shoulder cameras.   Still a few months to decide and who knows if anything new will be announced at IBC in September….

For stabilization we’ll send out both monopods and most likely the Freefly Systems MOVi.

We don’t need “steadicam” style shots all the time, but the MOVi has certainly proved itself to be an incredible stabilizing platform for DSLR sized cameras.   I personally love using a Monopod as it gives me nice stability and a lot of options to quickly change the height of the camera from straight on to overhead to underneath.  Of course we’ll get a couple of sliders too for additional movement, especially for the studio based stuff.

Speaking of studio, yeah, we’ll have a kitchen studio set up by next year most likely configured with the Blackmagic Studio Cameras.   Those just seem so perfect for what we’re doing and super simple to operate.  Love the concept and small form factor will let us use them in “home studios” too in the field.

In the field, we’re probably going to send out a PC laptops with USB 3 drives for on site logging and backup.   For logging and organizing we’re looking seriously at Bullet Proof from Red Giant.  Saw Simon Walker put on a demo of the product at an Atlanta Cutters meeting and it was brilliant.  The only question is whether it will support the new camera formats.   Failing that, we’ll probably use Prelude / Premiere to do quick logging of the clips in the field.  USB 3 transfer speeds are insanely good and PCs with USB 3 are much cheaper than Macs with USB 3 so no need to spend extra money just for a field data transfer / organization machine.

Editorial will be primarily Adobe Premiere Pro CC but I do intend to throw some of the editing at Davinci Resolve 11 to see how that works in some of the shorter series to start with.

Most of the editing doesn’t require special plug-ins and we use a lot of the Rampant Design elements which are video overlays to add a lot of “looks” to pieces, so this will be a good experiment to test out the NLE on “real projects.”   To start with the predominant amount of the editing will be on Premiere Pro and then we’ll just see how it goes from there with Resolve.  Right now it doesn’t look like Resolve likes some of the DSLR native formats in my early testing so they’d have to be converted over to ProRes prior to edit.  We’ll be delivering full 4k ProRes masters to our distribution partner and they’ll handle all the digital compression from there.

Now some of you may be saying “well there’s nobody watching 4k yet or distributing it yet.” 

That’s actually not true.  4k IS being distributed right now and the people who are doing the distributing are actively seeking out original 4k content.  Because of that, we’re already in discussions with distributors I never expected to engage so early on, but since we plan to finish in 4k, they are very interested in our content.   So while the audience may not be large yet in the broadcast / distributed 4k market, there is a demand for it and we’re going to be one of the few 4k content suppliers at this time.

The cost of 4k has dropped so much, so fast it really makes sense with a new venture to go ahead and jump into the pool now.  Why keep waiting for the rest of the world to figure it all out?  Adventure it out there and being on the leading edge is much more fun that watching the rest of the world play.

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