"I don't see anything extraordinary,"

Clearly you've never seen it as the makers intended either from a 70mm print or projected at 4K. When you see it that way THEN you will see something extraordinary.

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Could you pull off something similar without all the heavy iron, the best optics ever made and all that resolution. Sort of. but with just a tripod you're going to have a hard time of it.
A significant part of the impact ot those images comes from moving the camera extremely slowly and very smoothly. Moving something very slowly without any unintended movement is way harder than moving it quickly.

Bob.

Yeah I know. I have a feeling that there is going to be a bit of a difference in opinion between me (who is going to want to tripod everything with just subtle fluid head movements) and my friend who is going to want to try to move the camera slowly in order to get the look he's seeing in Baraka. My feeling is that without the camera movement machinery, we simply won't be able to get that kind of slow subtle movement and we should just stick to trying to get the best look out of conventional video techniques. Is there any way to get that kind of movement without the special gear? Can I pickup the camera tripod and all and use the extra inertia of the tripod in order to smooth out the movement for instance?

What about a slider?

Kestler makes a good one small enough for travel.

http://www.kesslercrane.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=112

" Is there any way to get that kind of movement without the special gear? Can I pickup the camera tripod and all and use the extra inertia of the tripod in order to smooth out the movement for instance? "

NO!

We have some cheap dollies. I've also had a play with a Fisher dolly at NAB, chalk and cheese. You could try using a slider but that's more kit to carry and the cheap ones have a lot of striction which makes really slow moves problematic.


Here's some thoughts though. As you've alread worked out, you cannot remake Baraka on a shoestring however you can get something that's still interesting.
Look for the mundane where you're going. Really that's what Baraka is doing, it takes the mundane and shows it to us like we've never seen it.
Don't let highlights blow out, underexpose a bit to keep rich colors. Framing is important. If you can't move the camera or zoom very smoothly then don't, just leave the static image to soak into the viewers mind. Imagine you're shooting stills where there's just enough movement to keep the eye looking. If your camera is capable you could overcrank a little e.g. shoot 30p and run it at 24p.

Bob.

I've shot 30p with my Canon SX1IS and slowed it down to 24p for a project and it looked really good. I did it with Cineform HD Link using the "keep the pitch the same" option and it sounded good enough for b-roll ambience. This project will be edited with FCP though, and I don't believe they will be using Cineform at all. Can FCP slow down the footage and keep the audio the same pitch?

"Can FCP slow down the footage and keep the audio the same pitch? "

FCP seems to have issues doing many things we take for granted :)

In any case YOU could always do this and hand the footage off to the FCP editor. Do you really need the location sound in these shots though. If I had to I can retime 30p to 24p and use Elastique resampling in Vegas. No need for Cineform to do this.

One other tip if I may. When you travel buy CDs of local music.

Bob.

"with just subtle fluid head movements" ain't gonna do it. What's needed is a gear head for those extremely slow and smooth pans and tilts.

Laurence,
along with the recommendation to bring back CDs of local music, I'd recommend you take an inexpensive digital recorder (Olympus makes a stereo one for about $80 that records in .wav format) to record those interesting sounds that might be useful when you're not running the video camera...
Animal sounds, rivers and other nature sounds, and the hustle and bustle of the places you visit... they might come in handy for building the ambience during the editing and viewing ...
* * *
Our best wishes and prayers go your way for a safe and successful trip...

Until that time ... please give us some feedback on how the project progressed when you get home... Earl J.

"'I don't see anything extraordinary,'"

I've seen the DVD. It is not extraordinary in that is no better than anything captured by any other professional cinematographer. That does not diminish in any way what was done.

I've seen equally stunning images with lesser equipment. It is NOT the equipment only that accounts for beautiful images. More than anything, it's the person behind the camera and his knowledge and talent that makes the difference.

Bob's suggestions in his second post is pretty much what I said, only with more verbiage.

If you're final presentation format is SD or the Web, you will be able to create slow, smooth, minor zooms and pans in post without any appreciable loss in image quality.

You have neither the budget nor the hardware Ron Fricke had. Bottom line, do the best you can with what you've got. Like the old saying goes, "Pick any two of the three--time, quality, money." Since you don't have the money, that leaves you with time and quality--take your time to get the quality!

I've seen the DVD. It is not extraordinary in that is no better than anything captured by any other professional cinematographer.

Seeing it projected in real 70mm on a really big screen, it is extraordinary to the point of being worth a long trip to see it. Imho of course.

If you saw other films designed for 70mm projection on DVD (such as Jacques Tati's Playtime, etc.), you were probably wondering what all the fuss was about.

Being able to look anywhere YOU want and see clearly can't be done in 35mm or 2K digital.

Sony 4K SXRD or 70mm film, yes. It's a different experience, and oh btw, how the film maker created it.

I have an Olympus LS-10 with a 16GB memory card that I'm planning to bring. Hopefully I'll get some local music. The end project will have a final score, but some local music would do much to add flavor I think. How does licensing work with local music if the project ends up getting some sort of distribution deal?

"Seeing it projected in real 70mm on a really big screen, it is extraordinary to the point of being worth a long trip to see it. Imho of course."

Bjorn, you assume I've never seen anything shot and projected in 70mm. Well, you couldn't be more wrong. I'd old enough and have been around the block several times.

I don't care if it was shot in 140mm and projected on a 500 foot screen. I didn't say it wasn't well done, I said it wasn't extraordinary--no better than anything shot by any other professional cinematographer.

"Being able to look anywhere YOU want and see clearly can't be done in 35mm or 2K digital."

The OP doesn't have budget to shoot in 70mm. That's not what we're talking about in this thread. Apparently, he's referring to the subtle camera movements, which has nothing whatsoever to do with image quality or the lack thereof.

Laurence, most of the time ex-lapsed shots can be done with some nice DSLRs.

"The OP doesn't have budget to shoot in 70mm. That's not what we're talking about in this thread."

Do we really know that?

I have to agree with Course. Baraka is all about resolution and the 70mm stock it was shot on is way better than the stock used back in the heyday of 70mm. Comparing Baraka to old 70mm films is a bit pointless. I've only seen a few minuts of Baraka in 4K and it is pretty friggin impressive. Nothing else on Sony's showreel came remotely close, way better than NHK's 8K projected at 8K.

On the other hand if all Laurence is after is what Baraka looks like on YouTube then sure, not impossible to pull off without a budget the GDP of half the countries on the planet. The latitude of HDV cameras could be an issue though. Content shot on 35mm looks better than HDV even on YouTube, there's no getting away from that, so even there the acquisition medium makes a difference.

Bob.

Youtube, not quite. I would be happy with getting my project to look as good as Baraka does on Bluray though... ;-)

I just got an email that reads like this:

Hello Laurence,

Has anyone here achieved a "smooth gliding shot" by holding a tripod's legs horizontally?

> How does licensing work with local music if the project ends up getting some sort of distribution deal?

Same as any music from anywhere else - to use it without permission is theft.

"Has anyone here achieved a "smooth gliding shot" by holding a tripod's legs horizontally?"

Laurence, it doesn't appear that you're listening. Bob, has already told you, and rightly so, that "NO" you will not get the smooth, stable movement you want with any hand-held equipment, short of a steadycam, and even then you'd get some "floating" motion.

Baraka was shot with a massive Todd-AO camera, far too large to use with any kind of steadycam. Those images are rock solid because they were "locked down" on equally large tripods, dollies, and cranes. In order to attain that rock steady image (and smooth movement), you too will have to do the same--lock down the camera, on a dolly, for example, in the tracking shots. Some one above mentioned gear heads, for a camera like the Todd-AO a gear head IS manditory.

How many cameras and operators will you be using on the shoot?

P.S. Evidently, Todd-AO has developed a smaller camera that CAN be used on a steadycam. However, based on what I've seen in Baraka, there is no visual evidence that a steadycam-type mount was used.

"Has anyone here achieved a "smooth gliding shot" by holding a tripod's legs horizontally?"

No.

That email is setting off alarm bells with me, both the content and the tone of it.

Bob.

Bob, what are your concerns (curious to see if they coincide with mine)?

i agree with bob and jay....

from my pov the tone of the letter is similar to that from someone in a creative / marketing dept. who really has no practical idea of what they're talking about, but saw something they liked and thought it would be a 'piece of cake' to reproduce.

something like ben hur with one horse and we'll sort it out later in post.

i mean no offence by this post.