Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Approved Cameras

partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 315 posts

Re: Approved Cameras

#181

Post by vkou »

malermeister wrote: post #154
vanilla_nut wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The McDonald's of TV show production. With very, very few exceptions (Midnight Mass, maybe?) I at least know what I'm getting into: designed-by-committee, very very "safe", out of place (most likely contracted) references to other Netflix shows to try to cross-pollinate viewers... not exactly a recipe for success. Similar to how Amazon Originals now seem synonymous with "we cut the writer's outline from 12 episodes t…

I thought Dark was excellent and not at all like you described.

DAЯK was excellent, but as the saying goes, it's the exception that proves the rule.

Re: Approved Cameras

#182

Post by ryandamm »

zakary wrote: post #178
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely legacy lenses can be reproduced (or modelled digitally!) so that it is impossible to tell the difference. For the component lenses don't you 'just' use the same refractive index and make it the same shape? We can make microchips for a few quid but a metal tube with a few small lumps of shaped glass costs 10,000 times as much? Seems unlikely. Is it a fashion thing, like unless it has the right logo on the lens…

Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. A lot of these lenses are expensive not just due to rarity but from the shear complexity and difficulty in producing them. Some can take literally months of production time. They frequently contain dozens of pieces of specialised glass which are ground to tolerances measured in nanometers. The way the light interacts with these lenses is simply not something that you can simulate.…

I believe it's the other way around: Kubrick got a version of the NASA lens modified to accept a Mitchell mount so he could put it on a 35mm motion film camera. He only used it for the candlelight scene because he had to remove the spinning mirror assembly used for monitoring, so they were shooting blind.

Don't remember the sources for the anecdote, sorry. But the wikipedia page corresponds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7

Re: Approved Cameras

#183

Post by ryandamm »

chirau wrote: post #29

I once thought about a high-end camera rental side business. Never really completed the research, but I am curious again... Do studios and creators own these cameras or they usually rent? Is there an aggregated marketplace where I could be able to put my camera for rent if I do eventually get one?

Don't do it. Cameras and lenses are a low margin, high labor industry. Professionals are exceptionally picky about their gear, so you need skilled technicians working hard to keep your gear in top shape, and the prices are very low.

The bigger rental houses make all their money on other things -- the ROI on sandbags, sound blankets, even consumables is ridiculous compared to cameras. (Granted I'm blending grip and camera, but some houses do both.)

You're also competing with owner/operators, and even in-house studio operations. It doesn't scale -- relationships matter and it's highly regional. Compared to other ways to put your capital to work, it's not a great investment.

Re: Approved Cameras

#184

Post by divbzero »

This Netflix site lists the preferred capture formats (RAW, REDCODE RAW, X-OCN, etc.) for recording the video. What file format would be used to submit the final video (edited with audio and captions) to Netflix?

Re: Approved Cameras

#185

Post by dylan604 »

germinalphrase wrote: post #162
dylan604 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"depending on size of crew" To get to 2nd AC, you had a good sized crew

I suppose, but we’re talking about Netflix here. DP, Operator, 1st AC, 2nd AC, and a loader is pretty standard on even sub-10 mil budgets (which is nothing ).

Debating the size of the crew is fun and all, and yes, traditionally for a full crew, this is the purview of the 2nd AC. As the crew gets smaller, those duties roll up to the next person.

The fact that a "log" is still a thing in today's productions is not dependant on which crew member is doing it. In fact, with all of the digital f/x, they are crucial.

Re: Approved Cameras

#186

Post by laurent92 »

WalterBright wrote: post #168
docflabby wrote: post #163

They probably do better to put more work into writing a guide for approved writers. So many (many) shows with great actors completely let down by terrible scripts....

Let's just add some explosions! That'll fix a terrible script. The king of witless, trite scripts has got to be the recent "La Brea" series. There's such a lack of creativity that the characters recycle each others lines.

Let me bet, they stare at each other to express feelings, very very often as a way of stretching the duration of scenes?

Re: Approved Cameras

#187

Post by ryandamm »

dylan604 wrote: post #22
Laminary wrote: post #7

Wonder why they approve the Canon C70 but not Canon C200

If it were up to me, if the camera doesn't have Global Shutter, it should not be allowed. Nothing more annoying to me than when flash/strobes appear on partial multiple frames. Then again, if it were up to me, it would not be allowed to be called cinema unless it used global shutter.

I agree with you about how ugly the split screen effect is, but that's not strictly a camera issue -- you can sync strobes to your genlock signal. That reflects a production choice not a camera choice.

The quality of global shutter cameras is simply nowhere near the quality of rolling shutter cameras, though there are more acceptable options showing up these days, they still typically have lower dynamic range and generally worse specs.

Re: Approved Cameras

#189

Post by maxmcd »

divbzero wrote: post #184

This Netflix site lists the preferred capture formats (RAW, REDCODE RAW, X-OCN, etc. ) for recording the video. What file format would be used to submit the final video (edited with audio and captions) to Netflix?

I believe that info might be in here:

https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/214...

and here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_bwbUs4NaF7Y-07_NHwQqsL5L6z...

Re: Approved Cameras

#190

Post by eyelidlessness »

ace2358 wrote: post #130
rectang wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that capturing at higher resolutions makes it feasible to crop and zoom? In digital production, you always want to work at high resolution for all intermediate stages, then reduce bit depth only during the final output stage. When I worked in music production a while back, we often had the problem of source material recorded at low amplitude to 16-bit media (e.g. DAT, CDDA, ADAT). While 16-bit is theore…

I know recording live music can get hairy, but yikes! How was 16bits not enough? Were all the preamps set to max? Who records at -12db - -6db? Record at a way lower level and boost at the amp stage?

My understanding is that 24-bit source material (the standard when I was last recording which was several years ago) provides enough dynamic range that you can bring up the desired volume without overly muddying quiet sections with noise, especially when mixing multiple sources where that noise adds up quickly. My own personal experience recording at 16 bits was… “I must play louder and overstate my song’s understatements” because I never could get a 16 bit output that didn’t sound like garbage. Granted I’ve never been more than a novice at recording and I’m certain there’s more I could learn to work with the lower bit rate but… why?
Post reply on HN