House MD series finale shot entirely on 5D MkII

jpfahy

http://philipbloom.net/2010/04/10/house-season-finale-shot-entirely-with-canon-5dmkii/

Maybe this is old news but it's new to me and quite remarkable!

meep

Yes, but not everyone agrees this is a good thing;

http://www.eoshd.com/content/255-RED-quot-DSLR-shooters-should-be-embarrassed-quot

Plus the BBC, SKY, National Geographic channel etc will not accept footage from them, and a LOT of rules were bent to allow that House shoot to get to air.

These cameras produce a beautiful image but have problems with aliasing and the codec does not hold up well when compressed for satellite broadcast.

Hopefully we'll get better (less compressed) clean digital out on this gen or next gen units and then who knows....

Peter

Effects

I imagine it came down to Canon paying a huge amount of money to get this to happen.

magicbastarder

i don't really get what's such a big deal about this; so they were able to shoot a TV show on a prosumer camera costing a couple of grand. which features technology or capabilities available on the pro level stuff a few years back, i'd imagine. it's just a gimmick - i'd say the cost of the cameras is fairly low in the budget of a primetime drama, so i don't see what's to be gained from this.

Borderfox

Yer man from RED has a lot to say, sounds like a lot of fear

magicbastarder

the thing about TV is that it works to fixed, universal standards, so there is a point at which cheaper kit can catch up technically. there will be less to distinguish red kit in years to come from much cheaper kit. but it will have little impact on overall cost of producing TV shows, since physical cost of kit is not a limiting factor.

daycent

There was a documentary on the closing of the Beamish & Crawford brewery in Cork on RTE a few weeks ago that was shot on the 5D II. Looked class as well.

Thecageyone

I watched the finale of this seasons House [love that show, following it since it came out] and didn't notice any difference - which says a lot for the camera. But I'm betting they had some of the best lenses on the market too, so it's not exactly a plain ol' dslr accessible to just anyone that did the job. They'll have been using top of the range studio lighting also, plus the fancy editing equipment.

gloobag

The final scene with the ridiculously shallow depth of field was filmed with a 50mm f1.0 lens. There's only a few of those in existence , so that should give you an idea of the budget. Not to mention the grip/rigging/stabilizing and sound equipment it takes to make these cameras usable. I'd say the camera itself was probably one of the smallest expenses.

Effects

magicbastarder wrote: »

i don't see what's to be gained from this.

Promotion for Canon and money for the production company.

magicbastarder

gloobag wrote: »

There's only a few of those in existence , so that should give you an idea of the budget.

exactly - the budget for a single episode ot two and a half men has to include the $825,000 fee charlie sheen earns per episode, so i don't think they're going to worry too much about the difference between a $2,000 camera and a $20,000 camera - especially since the camera is a fixed asset.

Thecageyone

He gets paid about two and a half thousand times too much then!

charybdis

Effects wrote: »

I imagine it came down to Canon paying a huge amount of money to get this to happen.

I'm fairly sure Canon didn't pay them anything, and I doubt the maker of the show would be willing to risk the production value of a program that probably costs well over a million dollars per episode by using technology they weren't confident it just because a consumer camera company slipped them a few bucks.

magicbastarder wrote: »

i don't really get what's such a big deal about this; so they were able to shoot a TV show on a prosumer camera costing a couple of grand. which features technology or capabilities available on the pro level stuff a few years back, i'd imagine. it's just a gimmick - i'd say the cost of the cameras is fairly low in the budget of a primetime drama, so i don't see what's to be gained from this.

Apparently, the reasons they wanted to use the 5D was the large sensor size for creative effect, its low-light performance and small size so they could use it in cramped conditions without turning the room into an oven with cinema lights.

gloobag wrote: »

The final scene with the ridiculously shallow depth of field was filmed with a 50mm f1.0 lens. There's only a few of those in existence , so that should give you an idea of the budget. Not to mention the grip/rigging/stabilizing and sound equipment it takes to make these cameras usable. I'd say the camera itself was probably one of the smallest expenses.

The Canon 50mm f/1.0 was a production lens for over 10 years so there are probably thousands of them floating around. Also, they may sell for more than their original price, but a couple of grand for an SLR lens is chump change compared to the cost of cinema lenses.

Thecageyone wrote: »

I watched the finale of this seasons House [love that show, following it since it came out] and didn't notice any difference - which says a lot for the camera. But I'm betting they had some of the best lenses on the market too, so it's not exactly a plain ol' dslr accessible to just anyone that did the job. They'll have been using top of the range studio lighting also, plus the fancy editing equipment.

I'm pretty sure they used normal Canon lenses. The lighting and other stuff was probably a bit more non-standard though.

Effects wrote: »

Promotion for Canon and money for the production company.

Apparently, when they were shooting it they practically had to hide the cameras as Panavision was suing Canon at the time and they didn't want to antagonise them any further, and given that Canon basically blundered their way into making a camera that approaches the capability of cinema cameras, I doubt they're savvy enough to go out of their way to promote it by paying production companies to use it.

daycent

Thecageyone wrote: »

I watched the finale of this seasons House [love that show, following it since it came out] and didn't notice any difference - which says a lot for the camera. But I'm betting they had some of the best lenses on the market too, so it's not exactly a plain ol' dslr accessible to just anyone that did the job. They'll have been using top of the range studio lighting also, plus the fancy editing equipment.

gloobag wrote: »

The final scene with the ridiculously shallow depth of field was filmed with a 50mm f1.0 lens. There's only a few of those in existence , so that should give you an idea of the budget. Not to mention the grip/rigging/stabilizing and sound equipment it takes to make these cameras usable. I'd say the camera itself was probably one of the smallest expenses.

They used a 24-70 L and 70-200 L f2.8 IS apparently as their main lenses, which are great lenses, but not the best in terms of video (like Zeiss primes etc. or so I hear).
Also, the only stabilization they used were tripods, the rest was entirely handheld.

Effects

charybdis wrote: »

I'm fairly sure Canon didn't pay them anything, and I doubt the maker of the show would be willing to risk the production value of a program that probably costs well over a million dollars per episode by using technology they weren't confident it just because a consumer camera company slipped them a few bucks.

You're naive to think this wouldn't be the case. Also, who said they would be risking production values or using technology they didn't have confidance in?

charybdis

Effects wrote: »

You're naive to think this wouldn't be the case. Also, who said they would be risking production values or using technology they didn't have confidance in?

Presumably, if they were using the 5D because Canon paid them to do so, it wouldn't be because they had confidence in the hardware, it would be because they were being paid to do so. I guess, even if they were paid, it'd still be a strong endorsement of the camera's capability. Although I really don't think they were paid off by Canon, what makes you so sure?

magicbastarder

charybdis wrote: »

given that Canon basically blundered their way into making a camera that approaches the capability of cinema cameras

i think you're selling canon a bit short with the 'blundering' there.

anyway, it's obvious that when you have fixed benchmarks such as resolution and frame rate to aim towards, technology will always catch up. but it's a kind of false debate, since camera technology rarely sticks to the minimum people generally need. especially since we're past that point with digital cameras, in the main.

magicbastarder

daycent wrote: »

They used a 24-70 L and 70-200 L f2.8 IS apparently as their main lenses, which are great lenses, but not the best in terms of video (like Zeiss primes etc. or so I hear).

how much difference would you notice between the lenses (bar max aperture, maybe) on a TV screen?

Effects

charybdis wrote: »

Presumably, if they were using the 5D because Canon paid them to do so, it wouldn't be because they had confidence in the hardware, it would be because they were being paid to do so. I guess, even if they were paid, it'd still be a strong endorsement of the camera's capability. Although I really don't think they were paid off by Canon, what makes you so sure?

Marketing isn't as simple as just giving someone money and getting them to use your product.

daycent

magicbastarder wrote: »

how much difference would you notice between the lenses (bar max aperture, maybe) on a TV screen?

Haven't a clue really, I'm just going on what I've read.

charybdis

magicbastarder wrote: »

i think you're selling canon a bit short with the 'blundering' there.

I really amn't. They tacked on video functionality to a camera with nonsense framerates, no manual control, a poor post-production codec, mosaic and aliasing problems, and significant rolling-shutter issues. This is from a company that makes high-end video cameras used in broadcast TV and for film-making. The fact that people love the 5D for video completely caught Canon's SLR and pro video divisions off-guard. They blindly stumbled into what will probably be the biggest growing market for their cameras for the next 10 years.

magicbastarder wrote: »

anyway, it's obvious that when you have fixed benchmarks such as resolution and frame rate to aim towards, technology will always catch up. but it's a kind of false debate, since camera technology rarely sticks to the minimum people generally need. especially since we're past that point with digital cameras, in the main.

Cheap cameras that fulfil the resolution and framerate requirement for TV and even HDTV have been available for years. There's a big difference between a camera than meets certain broadcast requirement and one that allows for creative control over the images produced with it.

magicbastarder wrote: »

how much difference would you notice between the lenses (bar max aperture, maybe) on a TV screen?

The difference is usually in how easy they are to work with on set. Zeiss primes and most other manual-focus lenses have long throws that are more suited to precision manual focusing and working with focus-pulling rigs. They are also possibly more colour matched between lenses and breathe less as you pull focus.

Effects wrote: »

Marketing isn't as simple as just giving someone money and getting them to use your product.

I know. I still don't think this was paid marketing by Canon.

DaireQuinlan

charybdis wrote: »

I know. I still don't think this was paid marketing by Canon.

I dunno, I find it hard to believe, given the overwhelming amount of coverage this got, that there wasn't huge sums of money thrown around by someone, and the someone who stands to gain the most is obviously Canon.

The thing is that, as MB says above, even with its limitations, it's still vastly in excess of what most people will need, but consumers being what they are, they'll sniffily trot out reasons why using a DSLR is baddd, mmmkay, for video, aliasing don't you know, rolling shutter issues etc etc etc. These are obviously problems for pro productions, but for joe soap doing some shakey cam of his kid they don't matter a jot.

So with one fell swoop canon eclipsed all that bad consumer press with one episode of a popular TV series. I wouldn't say the idea was ever to get more actual professional productions using the cameras for production, but to get more 'prosumers' using them. They're where the moneys at.

charybdis

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

I dunno, I find it hard to believe, given the overwhelming amount of coverage this got, that there wasn't huge sums of money thrown around by someone, and the someone who stands to gain the most is obviously Canon.

The thing is that, as MB says above, even with its limitations, it's still vastly in excess of what most people will need, but consumers being what they are, they'll sniffily trot out reasons why using a DSLR is baddd, mmmkay, for video, aliasing don't you know, rolling shutter issues etc etc etc. These are obviously problems for pro productions, but for joe soap doing some shakey cam of his kid they don't matter a jot.

So with one fell swoop canon eclipsed all that bad consumer press with one episode of a popular TV series. I wouldn't say the idea was ever to get more actual professional productions using the cameras for production, but to get more 'prosumers' using them. They're where the moneys at.

I really can't see Canon paying the amount of money a huge TV production like House would require to use their camera just to impress a few thousand people on the internet, only a fraction of whom will even consider buying a 5D. Besides, DSLR video is awful for joe soap doing some shaky cam of his kid; if anything, the 5D's use on House proves that it's a capable camera in capable hands when its limitations are understood and mitigated, it doesn't suggest it's something the average consumer could spend a couple grand on and trot out Lord of the Rings with his toddler in a funny hat and a few cats taped together.

Is it really that difficult to consider the possibility that the director of photography for the episode in question liked the camera and wanted to use it in production to get shots that would've been far more difficult to get with a giant film camera?

DaireQuinlan

charybdis wrote: »

I really can't see Canon paying the amount of money a huge TV production like House would require to use their camera just to impress a few thousand people on the internet, only a fraction of whom will even consider buying a 5D. Besides, DSLR video is awful for joe soap doing some shaky cam of his kid; if anything, the 5D's use on House proves that it's a capable camera in capable hands when its limitations are understood and mitigated,

yeah but the details get lost in the marketing. The message is "Canon DSLR is good enough for high end TV production, it's good enough for you" and thats that. It's a trickle down effect, that perception of quality then imparts a subtle gleam to every canon product. I've seen this mentioned on quite a few quite mainstream sites, I think BBC did a bit on it aswell.

it doesn't suggest it's something the average consumer could spend a couple grand on and trot out Lord of the Rings with his toddler in a funny hat and a few cats taped together.

Hey ! That's just given me an idea ... now to find a couple of cats ... hmmmm ...

meep

Interesting interview with House DP where some of these questions are answered.

PopeBuckfastXVI

meep wrote: »

Interesting interview with House DP where some of these questions are answered.

What's the tl;dr version??

meep

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

tl;dr

?

Ciaran500

meep wrote: »

?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=+tl%3Bdr

meep

ah, you whippersnappers with your cool l33t txt spk and techie interweb ways

I could have looked that up if it didn't look like a typo!

for all the lazy bones;


According to the article, history & reasons for using it are as follows;

Came across it first being used by other production staff who were shooting a commercial for Canon

Used it on earlier episode of House where they were shooting down on a baby and liked the idea of mitigating risk by using a smaller camera

Really attracted by shallow depth of field

Could get multiple cameras into restricted spaces (better sets, better sense pof reality for actors)

Really likes the combo of image quality / digital workflow and being untethered

They had no technical issues with the networks because the simply didn't ask in advance!

It comes down to the story