BMCC for a few days so far....

So what else is there to do? Get a band together and do a shoot in the basement of a building....
Premise was to show off the band, but I got to use my "toys" to test. So there's no storyline nor car chases, but it did give me an idea of what I was up against using several cameras.
Ofcourse there was the BMCC (Shot ProRes) as they wanted post to be done quickly. A Canon C100 (With Nanoflash) and an FS700 with Metabones adaptor, all using different canon Glass. The 700 was only used as a slo-mo camera, which was ridiculious! I've never used one before, so this was a good hands on experience. One tip for the FS700, use end trigger for slow-mos, you get what you see in your viewfinder.
BMCC and C100 were used in a two camera shoot, with the C100 as the wide/mid on a dolly, and the BMCC was used to pick off tights, side movements.
The clip will hopefully be up on-line soon, and will send out a link, but in the meantime, here's a few screen shots of the footage.

Another

Another #3

Another #4

Now I'm having a huge love/hate relationship with this camera. I love the footage and the look. But I really hate the ergonomics! Imagine doing a pan, iris and focus move with this camera....it's impossible. Not like a shoulder mount where you can have fingers on both focus/iris and pan at the same time. I had to use my elbow on the pan handle, one finger on the iris button, and one hand on the focus......so needless to say, the footage wasn't up to standards and wasn't used...but I did try it just to see!!
The battery option is a necessary piece of equipment. I didn't have it at the time as the place where I bought my rig (wooden camera) didn't have the battery slider....so I just plugged in when I needed and unplugged when it wasn't possible. But I did notice the battery meter when from 75% to 50% to 25% back to 75% to 25% to 10% back up to 25% while shooting....it was really, really odd! I was actually sweating when the batt meter went down to 10% on a 4min take........Bottom line: you cant trust it!

This is what the full rig (wooden camera) looks like with a genus mattebox. I didn't use faders, but 4X4 nd's which turned out to be a pain with the Canon 24-70 as it sticks out every time you change focal lengths...I consciously knew that, but unconsciously turned it hitting the ND glass almost every occasion. The A-box works well, but the phono plugs stick out quite far, so probably looking to swap them out for elbow joints...
This is not a run-n-gun camera like the C100, it's more to me, like a production camera (red, etc).....

For some reason it's not letting me upload any pics at the moment...will try again later.

Awesome. Thanks for all the info and stills! I can't wait to see the video. Was there something about the FS700 that kept you from also using it for normal frame rate photography on this project?

Hi Jason,

No real reason, for not using the FS700, but I just got the C100 and BMCC within a week of each other, so wanted to try them out more than the FS700.

Thank you Fletcher! I am very interested in your impressions of the C100. Is the footage matching with the BMC fairly well. With your hands on experience, a comparison of the BMC and C100 would be most welcomed.

well, im off to jersey to try out my c100. if anyone in NY wants my BMC preorder...

well, im off to jersey to try out my c100. if anyone in NY wants my BMC preorder...

Depending on where you're at in line and such, I might be interested.

Thank you Fletcher! I am very interested in your impressions of the C100. Is the footage matching with the BMC fairly well. With your hands on experience, a comparison of the BMC and C100 would be most welcomed.

Hi MHood,

I'm not editing the video but I assume with the Canon C100 Cinema Setting and the Nanoflash 4:2:2 mixed with the Prores 4:2:2 would grade somewhat similar (Hopefully!!) Haha! I saw the rushes and the Canon had a bit more saturation to it than the BMCC.
Comparing the two is like night and day unfortunately. Shooting with the Canon C100 was a dream, as I didn't have to fiddle with ND's. And on a few takes after stopping down to re-light again, I actually forgot to turn on the Sennheiser 400 mic for sound (on the BMCC)....so some of the footage was MIT. Where on the Canon, phantom power was there to power the external mic...
There are little things that should have been Camera 101, but after being spoiled with shooting on Shoulder mounts (SX, XDCAM, etc) I forgot the basics with the BMCC. But all in all, depending on the job, I'd choose the camera that best suits.....

Here's a youtube clip up and running....encoding/grading wasn't in particular what was expected...will see if I can get some clips to host up later.....

Here's a youtube clip up and running....encoding/grading wasn't in particular what was expected...will see if I can get some clips to host up later.....

Hey, man, looks great so far. It's probably a bit too saturated, but any quibbles I might have you're probably already aware of judging from the info on the YT link. And what a great song...the whole Skyfall thing was a breath of fresh air. I don't know, but I'm sure they were nodding their heads to John Barry the whole time!

Hi Jason,

Yea, still not "hot" on the grade...but that wasn't in my hands. And the YT compression doesn't really help out either! Still trying to hear back to see if I can get an ungraded version.....

Got the minimal graded version here:

It looks really good, and all three footages fit very very well, is it me or BMCC is a little warmer than the others??? Thnx for sharing with us and I hope you enjoyed working with your BMCC.

Jesus

What I took away from viewing both the YT and Vimeo versions was that we are really splitting hairs with IQ now...especially when YT and Vimeo are the playback media.

The BMCC had to be heavily saturated in order to get any color out of it via FCP...so it could just be the grading... But I do like the look of it...
I think the image quality from YouTube/Vimeo are all about the same...especially when it gets compressed down from gigs of data to less than 200mb....but you do have to make sure your settings as correct...I still envy the quality out of iTunes (movie trailers,music vids)....one day I'll figure their settings out!! Haha!

The BMCC had to be heavily saturated in order to get any color out of it via FCP...so it could just be the grading... But I do like the look of it...

To my eyes the lightly graded version on Vimeo was better; I see colour in it and skin tone subtleties that were overwhelmed in the heavier graded version. That's from looking at both on my iPad4. Very enjoyable video by the way, thanks for posting it.

I undoubtedly would have shot it differently: I think it's overlit. But, despite that, the less-saturated version seems to get the contrast better, but considering the lighting, it probably looks better with a hair more orange. Again, it's a personal preference: earlier I already commented on how nice the video is and how great a job they did with their cover of such a timeless song. Kudos to all, but because it doesn't hurt my eyes from all the sugar candy colors, the Vimeo one's my fave!

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the critique! Will take the advice "onboard" and will think it through a bit more for the next one (hopefully it wouldn't be as short notice and not a 2 man job)! But that's not really an excuse, but I'm sticking to it!!

HI Rick,

Thanks for the reply. I too, didn't really care for the heavily graded version, that was why I wanted to host this version up, to show what the 3 cameras could do without much post-processing. Hope there will be more opportunities like this to shoot in the future!

I, too, much prefer the Vimeo version. It's a lovely song, quite topical now, and I love those instruments, I like their style of performance, I like the vocalist, so for a lyrical piece like this, I believe that the garish blasto style does not fit -- just my two cents. I might quibble with the guy who did the audio mixing in spots, too, but overall this is quite appealing to me in many respects.

Re: controlling the BMCC, why not try a LANC controller? Also, typically in a situation like that, especially for close-ups, I would think you would be on a tripod or dolly. Curious what changes you plan for your next outing with the BMCC. We love seeing more examples!

Hi DNomer,

Thanks for your reply! I do like the classical rendition of it, and the performance from everyone was pretty good. This is actually the bands first "vocal" single that they've made, as they're usually doing things instrumental (check out the rest of their YouTube page). So with this, they totally stepped out of their comfort zone to try something different, and I applaud them for it.
Of course being an Adele song or just a "mainstream" song at the moment, there will be mixed thoughts on the execution, vocals, etc (as it's been picked apart on comments on their YT Page) but I think overall, it's a pretty good effort by them. I was just excited that they decided (even at the last min) to let me experiment on them! Haha! But I don't mind everyone voicing their opinion, it helps us "grow" for future endeavors.

As far as controlling the BMCC, I'm in Sydney, and here in AUS, we are very limited on what's avail. It's not like we can call up B&H or Sammy's and get things here within a day. It takes weeks! And I mean Weeks! Plus customs fees, etc...so you get my point....things don't happen fast here....and if you opt to buy things locally, anything with the word "Professional" in it hangs a price tag of almost double of what everyone pays in the US/Asia.... So unfortunately being new to the camera, I wasn't sure what exactly I needed until I actually take it out to see what is necessary...and even then I'm not too sure what I need...(hope this makes sense!!)
The Video was shot on sticks and dolly, but there are moves that I wanted to make that wasn't feasible on the BMCC, but I think it just takes practice and a bit more patience vs. a shoulder mount that I'm use to....
I have a few corporates booked this last 2 weeks of 2012, so I'll check with them to see if I can post any "highlights" up....but I'm leaning towards a "No", but guess it can't hurt to ask.....Will keep you posted!

Thanks again for your reply!

The only thing mainstream about Skyfall is that Adelle is attached to it. Otherwise, it sounds like a cover to a song written in the '60's! These guys did a great job with it. Again, a nice video and real-world test of these cameras playing well with each other and a good proving ground for the BMCC. I want to see more, of course, and hold it in my hands but so far so good. Also, as a piano player myself, the lady pianist is super hot.