C300 Demo: Sword by Félix Alcalá and Larry Carroll

[Chris Hurd]

Many elements of this demo were shot in available light at ISO 20,000.

"Sword" -- Directed by Félix Alcalá and Larry Carroll on Vimeo

"Sword": Behind the Scenes by Reel to Real Productions on Vimeo

[Mark David Williams]

Wow Wow and thrice Wow.

Beautiful pictures! Who cares about blowing out highlights when they look like this. Fantastic.

[Joachim Hoge]

Very impressive the 20000 ISO.
I remember a few last year I was in LA trying to do some B-roll around Sunset BLV at night with a XDCAM PDW700 and everything was just so dark as there are very few tall buildings around and not as much light as I thought it was. It looked like they drove in that area and you can see so much in that footage at 20000.

[Allan Black]

Changes everything, stories, locations, setups, lighting, prod time = budgets.

Those poor devils, fancy shooting pix like that then having to go back to their day jobs .. that's showbiz :)

Cheers.

[Bill Grant]

Just goes to show that relatively pretty pictures don't make up for a weak story and cardboard acting. And why not do the swordfight in 60p at least instead of the weird strobing slomo. Sure the high ISO looked good, but I'd almost rather watch test charts than this weak piece.
Bill

[Peter Wiley]

Looks really nice, but I have to agree with Ben re the story. A short sword is not a slashing weapon.

[Tim Polster]

Thanks for posting. I think this shows the market Canon is looking at - T.V. Too bad they left out 1080p60 in this model but ISO 20,000 is quite impressive. Although noise reduction software could have been applied. Anyway, the tools are getting better and better.

[Brian David Melnyk]

Originally Posted by Bill Grant

Just goes to show that relatively pretty pictures don't make up for a weak story and cardboard acting. And why not do the swordfight in 60p at least instead of the weird strobing slomo. Sure the high ISO looked good, but I'd almost rather watch test charts than this weak piece.
Bill

targeting the makers of Zena and Stargate???
it never ceases to amaze me how much money, how many people, and how much time and energy goes into producing (at best) mediocrity...
(realizing full well my own mediocrity... but i do it ALL myself!!!)

[Nick Hiltgen]

Are any of the people clamoring about how beautiful this looks, watching it in full screen hd? This looks moderately better then a 7d (and that's being generous) and yes, the acting and story were terrible. I hope this isn't indicative of what kind of footage we can expect from this camera.

[Henry Coll]

I agree. The acting and story were terrible. And the image didn't look that great, to be honest. There's plenty of stuff in Vimeo made by a bunch of friends with a 5D2 that looks better.

The worse of it all is that it was terribly lighted, or rather, not at all. This is the biggest fear I have. People thinking that you don't need professional lighting just because the camera is more sensitive.

Are we on the verge of a donwgrade path, where films/TV dramas won't be lighted so that it will be cheaper to make (lighting IS very expensive), and the public, who might complain a bit at the beginning, won't care in the end?

[Chris Hurd]

In short, Henry, the answer to your question is NO.

This short serves only to demonstrate the no-light capability of the C300's high ISO range.

Please don't read into it any more than that. Thanks,

[Jim Martin]

Originally Posted by Nick Hiltgen

Are any of the people clamoring about how beautiful this looks, watching it in full screen hd? This looks moderately better then a 7d (and that's being generous) and yes, the acting and story were terrible. I hope this isn't indicative of what kind of footage we can expect from this camera.

Nick-
Seeing it on the big screen at Paramount with 4K projection is the only way to truly judge the footage.....and it was awesome......but you know that. As for the acting, it was not the point....and you know that too.

Jim Martin
Filmtools.com

[Henry Coll]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

In short, Henry, the answer to your question is NO

Well, how are you so sure?

In the last few years, and specially after the worldwide economic crisis, we've been seeing cost cuts everywhere, staffs reduced to a minimum and people asked to do things they're not prepared for. We're now in the "good enough" mindset.
Now you see magazines with terrible images made with $100 flatbed scanners; photogs sacked left and right and interns asked to assume that task at newspapers; TV News footage looking totally rubbish for using a cheap camera and an unskilled operator (a one man band PJ), etc, etc.


I can hear the producers now. Didn't you say the camera could see in the dark? Why do you need 4x12K HMIs then? Here, you've got a budget for renting a pair of 1.2k PARs and a Kino.

[Murray Christian]

I must say I missed the era of fantastic high standards across the board and the audience accepting nothing less. Where costs and corners were never cut and nobody ever wanted more flexible equipment.

Must have been before my time.

[Nick Hiltgen]

Jim you raise an interesting point, I've always been of the opinion that if you could get something to look good at a larger resolution it'll look better at a lower one. Now, it might just be the vimeo compression, but I've seen some good vimeo stuff too. But maybe the grain and low light noise that I see actually looks better blown up, more filmic or what have you, maybe not, I don't know.

I think it's just hard for me because I've always been a canon fan boy and I'm having a really hard time getting behind this camera. Maybe it's just sour grapes because they didn't commission me to shoot something!

I will say that the vincent laforet stuff looks signficantly better, but again, some of the things they were trying to show off seemed to fall a little short. Maybe I've been working with the more expensive cameras for too long. And maybe it wasn't the acting, maybe it was the direction, or the writing. We blame the actors too much...

P.S. Jim, How do i order directly through you for film tools?