Help us produce a DUI video for schools everywhere

Help us produce a DUI video for schools everywhere

Laythrom Media will be producing a non-profit educational video concerning teenage drinking and DUIs. This video will be donated to MADD, SADD, and hundreds of school districts across the United States. We are profound activists in attempting to curb teenage drinking and drinking and driving. With your help, we can finish production of this video (scheduled for May 11th, 2013) and distribute it across the US, reaching thousands of teens and young adults everywhere. Without your support and the support of others, this video may not be able to reach as many people as we wish.

Cameras for the Indie Filmmaker

Wow, loaded title huh?

Even though we technically can’t spend the next four hours discussing all of the different cameras and camera platforms that can be used by the indie filmmaker, we will layout some different types and some of the different platforms that we use.

DSLR:

DSLRs are great for those who wish to get into both photography and video. I would consider them nice entry platforms (IMO) since they can be picked up online, in departments stores and in camera shops (at okay prices). They do have some issues (on the video side) in lieu of low light conditions and rolling shutter, but with the filmmaker’s creative talents, these can be counteracted.  There are many different cameras out there, but these are the ones that we use.

Canon T3i: Definitely a nice camera to start off, the package runs approximately $700 and has the capability of shooting 18 MP (photo) and HD 1080 (video).

Nikon D3100: Also not a bad camera, runs about $650 and shoots 14.4 MP (photo) and HD 1080 (video).

Canon T4i: A little bit more in price at $900, the T4i is a cropped DSLR rated at 18 MP for photo and shoots both HD 720 (60 fps)  & 1080 (24 & 30 fps) for video.

Pro Video Cameras:

When we get into Pro Video, we usually deal with Sony and Panasonic cameras; but the Black Magic camera is by far our favorite. Keep in mind that these cameras are not cheap and are hell if you get them wet or drop em.

Panasonic AG-AC90: We typically use this camera for some actions shots and slowing time down (since we can over crank the 1080p footage to 60 fps) and later emulate 120 fps in post. It also has dual XLR inputs for good audio input without using a converter box.

Sony NEX-EA50UH: This is used primarily for ‘studio’ shoots or interviews since it is a bit larger than the typical ProCam and seems to have a more balanced weight (of a little over 3 pounds). It also has dual XLR inputs for running boom mics or lapels (if you are not running separate audio).  It also has the ability to output timecodes from video.

Sony PMW-200 XDCAM: Not a bad camera, has the ability for timecode input and output, and features 3 x 1/2″ CMOS sensors. However due to a lack of XLR inputs and a slight weight problem (close to 6 pounds), this camera is usually kept on a jib, dolly or tripod. Another big downside to this camera is that it require SXs cards for capturing video (and they are not cheap).

Panasonic AG-HMC150: Aside from our GoPro cameras, this camera is usually abused and films a lot of our ‘action’ shots and sequences. It’s a stable, decent sized and a good quality camera. It features 3 x 1/3″ CCD sensors and a Leica Lens, films up to 60 fps @ 1080, and shoots rather well in lower light conditions (advertised at 3 Lux). It also features XLR inputs and records to SDHC cards.

Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera: By far, one of my favorite camera systems yet (aside from the uber-expensive RED platform). It features a 12 bit/2.5k RAW resolution possibility, EF lens mount, 5″ touchscreen monitor, 13 stops of Dynamic Range and the easy ability to enter Metadata directly to the footage in camera. It records to any 2.5″ Solid State Hard Drive instead of special cards (like the Sony PMW-200). Downsides: no XLR inputs and only 1/4″ analog audio inputs.

Other Cameras:

GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition: Mountable to almost anything and everything! Although these are technically able to film up to 4k resolution, we have never pushed past 1080 (for the moment), so we can’t really comment on their 4k and 2.7k capabilities. They’re robust, compact and waterproof (in the waterproof casing); we love the built in WIFI feature and constantly use our iPhones (via the GoPro App) to set up the shots and start recording. Definitely worth spending $400.

Computer for Editing/Rendering HD Video

“What type of computer should I get for editing HD?”

Well…you can always go out and spend $7000 on a Dell Workstation that can handle HD; but for us, other indie filmmakers and the other people that visit our blog, cost is an issue. We are always pushing that mark of high computational power vs cost effectiveness/cost efficiency.

Here, we will help you weigh the prices and options to make decisions.

Workstations (Desktops) vs Laptops:

Although workstations are preferred in lieu of cost, upgrades/aftermarket, and power; we understand the desire of laptops because of their small footprint and their portability.

In my opinion, (concerning Windows based laptops) I would ignore Intel i3 and i5 based platforms. I would also either ignore Windows 8 systems (or roll back to Windows 7  x64 Professional or x64 Ultimate operating system). You will also need to look for  a laptop that has a video card and steer away from laptops with integrated or “shared” video memory.

Concerning prices, for Windows based systems be prepared to spend between $800-$1400 for a decent high performance platform and around $2800 for a Macbook Pro.

What do you really need? Well, it depends…are you running 720p, 1080p, 2.5k or 4k? A dual core processor, 6 GB of ram and a medium end graphics card will handle 720p fine but will start lagging (exponentially) at higher resolutions.  Not many indie filmmakers have the copious amounts of money for high end 4k cameras and video formats (for now); if you expect to get into the 4k realm within the next year or two, I would be somewhat generous with the workstation budget. Also if you plan on going down that path, you might be better off building the workstation yourself. A platform capable of fluently editing 4k video will most likely run you approximately $5000-8000 from Dell, HP, Boxx Technologies or Mac. If you take the time to research, plan and price components on TigerDirect or NewEgg, you could expect to only pay around $3200-4000 (both prices including display monitors).

What are you getting for your money?

Laptops

Avg Dell Pricing: $1000

• Intel Core i7 (2 Cores, 4 Threads) @ 3.0 GHz
• 15.6″ LED Display
• 8 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Nvidia GeForce GT630M @ 2 GB DDR3 Video Memory
• 500 GB SATA HD @ 5400 RPM

Avg HP Pricing: $925

• Intel Core i7 (4 Cores, 8 Threads) @ 2.4 GHz
• 17.3″ LED Display
• 8 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Nvidia GeForce GT635M @ 2 GB DDR3 Video Memory
• 1 TB SATA HD @ 5400 RPM

Avg Boxx Technologies Pricing: $2767

• Intel Core i7 (4 Cores, 8 Threads) @ 2.7 GHz
• 17.3″ LED Display
• 8 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Nvidia GeForce GT675MX @ 4 GB DDR3 Video Memory
• 750 GB SATA HD @ 7200 RPM

Avg Macbook Pro Pricing: $2878

• Intel Core i7 (4 Cores, 8 Threads) @ 2.7 GHz
• 15″ LED Retina Display
• 16 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Video Hardware Unknown
• 512 GB Flash HD

Avg Asus Pricing: $800

• Intel Core i7 (4 Cores, 8 Threads) @ 2.4 GHz
• 17.3″ LED Display
• 8 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Nvidia GeForce GT635M @ 2 GB DDR3 Video Memory
• 750 GB SATA HD @ 5400 RPM

Workstations (Desktop)

Avg iMac Pricing: $1778

• Intel Core i7 (4 Cores, 8 Threads) @ 3.1 GHz
• 21.5″ LED Display
• 8 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Nvidia GeForce GT650M @ 512 MB DDR5 Video Memory
• 1 TB SATA HD @ 5400 RPM

Avg Dell Pricing: $1115

• Intel Core i7 (4 Cores, 8 Threads) @ 3.90 GHz
• 21.5″ LED Display
• 12 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• AMD Radeon HD 7570 @ 1 GB DDR5 Video Memory
• 1 TB SATA HD @ 7200 RPM

Avg HP Pricing: $910

• AMD FX-8120 (8 Cores) @ 3.1 GHz
• 23″ LED Display
• 10 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• AMD Radeon HD 7570 @ 2 GB DDR5 Video Memory
• 1 TB SATA HD @ 7200 RPM

Avg Custom Made Workstation: $1140

• AMD FX-8350 (8 Cores) @ 4.0 GHz
• 24″ LED Display
• 16 GB DDR3 Ram @ 1600 MHz
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 @ 2 GB DDR5 Video Memory
• 2 TB SATA HD @ 7200 RPM

CGI Renderers and Render Information

Finally have gotten to CGI Rendering…

Not meaning that we’ve never done any 3d modeling or VFX yet; but finally we have had the chance to sit down and shine some input on the different programs and renderers that are out there.

Personally, we typically use Autodesk Maya for any CGI that we create [second place is 3ds Max Design]; we have been using it for some time now and hell, we like it.

But on to actual information related to the title at hand…

Instead of rendering images on our “Iron Horse” workstation or on a farm (Render Farm), I actually decided to use one of our laptops that we use in the field at times [for scripting, live view, story boards, etc]. I did this mainly because I have seen many indie filmmakers using laptops vs workstations due to portability reasons; so please keep in mind that any listed render times are for reference only [the times will be different but the ratio between the different renderers should be close to the same].

PC Laptop Specs and Information:

After digging out one of our most basic laptops [easily purchased from any department store for approximately $500], I then downloaded Cinebench from Maxon specifically for this segment (benchmarking information follows).

Windows 7 Laptop, 64 bit OS
1.60 GHz, Intel Dual Core Processor
6 GB DDR3 Ram
Intel HD (onboard) Graphics; 1366 x 768

Cinebench CPU Score: 1.03 pts
Cinebench OpenGL Score: 5.64 fps

Now after running these tests and chuckling to myself about this laptop’s lack of power [approx. 1/10th of the ability of our Iron Horse workstation), I took one of our UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter models into Maya and started running the renders.

Different Renderers

Obviously, there are several different renderers out there, the ones that we will be touching today follow;

Maya: Software, Mental Ray, Vray, FinalRender

Although we are mainly using Maya for this run through, you have the Software & Mental Ray options for 3ds Max Design and can also obtain the Vray plugin as well as iray, although I am not sure about FinalRender for 3ds Max Design. All of the renderings were rendered out at 640×480 @ 300 dpi resolution, settings were tuned to Production (High) quality and the scenes are identical.

Maya Software Render

Honestly, the Maya Software render kind of surprised me [since we rarely use it]; it took over 16 minutes to render, a lot of the colors are there but there is no Ambient Occlusion, the shadows are not fantastic and I am not a big fan of the glass.

Maya Mental Ray

As for Mental Ray, I will have to look into the settings and modify a few things. There is a lot of noise through out the image and it is starting to get blown out (over whitening). I like the shadowing on this one more than software and it did render out in a little over 8 minutes (half of the software time) but the noise in the image is driving me nuts.

Maya Vray

Although the Vray image isn’t horrible, the image is getting blown out, the shadows are off and the AO has quite a bit of noise in it. I personally like the look of the glass objects with Vray and don’t mind the 10 minute render time if there wasn’t so much noise.

Maya FinalRender

I don’t have many complaints about FinalRender (aside from the obvious watermark). The color looks good and so does the environment; there is some noise in the shadows which bother me and a render time of 24 minutes isn’t awesome either.

Other platform solutions

I was planning on putting the render from Bunkspeed on here, but lets be honest…it’s taking FOREVER on the laptop! As I am writing this it managed to complete 2113 ‘passes’ and has also taken 3 hours (thus far). I will be posting raw renderings from other platforms (such as Cinema 4d, Bunkspeed and 3ds Max (possibly also Softimage) in the future. Hopefully posts like this will help spread the information flow in lieu of rendering for others [including beginners]. I also plan to start posting renderer settings and values for entry, mid-level, and professional production quality as well. If anyone wants to help me add to this plethora of information, let us know.

Update:

Due to some light confusion and some emails, let me explain something;
The above renders were setup in a manner with settings that could be used by others with basic PCs. Ultra high settings that output a nice quality photorealistic end result (something that would take 45 minutes to an hour on our farm) is not being compared at this moment. The reason why I mainly did this is because I figured that most hobby users and amateur modelers would not like to wait around for 12-14 hours for just one frame.

Looking towards the Future

The Future of Laythrom Media

What do we have in the works at Laythrom Media?

Well we’ll give you some insight…

The plan is to release one short film at least every month. We would like to push it up to one a week, but for now it’s looking like once a month. Each short will roughly be between 10-40 minutes each and will jump from genre to genre.

Why no full feature films?

Honestly, at this time it’s mainly due to budget reasons; it’s easier, quicker and cheaper to run short films [at a few hundred dollar budget] than it is to run the full feature films that we already have scripts written for [at an estimated $8000-10000 budget]. Granted, we could run full feature films at a significantly lower budget than what we are estimating, however we believe that the quality would suffer and that is something that we do not wish to cut corners on.

Film Festivals

Not only do we plan to release our short films on our YouTube page, but we also plan on pushing some of them to local and national film festivals.

Military Prop Inventory

So we’ve finally sat down an laid out about 60-70% of the Laythrom Media “Military/Police Props” (excluding all but four of our prop weapons).

It’s a good amount of stuff, but we’re always getting more; Army-Navy stores beware. If anyone knows a good place to buy or rent Blank Fire weapons, let us know; same for any off the wall military surplus (like dummy rockets, dummy grenades, parachute packs, kevlars, etc)

Operation Iron Horse

Operation Iron Horse

We are currently writing our latest short film named “Operation Iron Horse, and we hope to start filming within the next few weeks. Volunteers looking to take part in front of the camera are welcome; we can use two more hostages and some other extras.

The synopsis follows below:

“A lone Special Forces Operator takes on a group of rebels in an attempt to rescue a Senator’s Daughter and her friends from captivity. A friend of the Senators’, the operator cannot fail his mission; only question is, can he survive the overwhelming odds?”

Filming for this project should prove interesting; guns, explosions, hand to hand combat and a small group of people running around two different abandoned locations.

We will be throwing a lot of visual effects into this short film, including some new stuff [such as overhead UAV footage, vehicles, possibly helicopters, thousands of rounds of ammunition and maybe even a surprise or two].

Keep your eyes and ears open; soon after filming, both the action short and behind the scenes footage will be publicly broadcast. If you’re wanting to volunteer, do so now…shoot dates are coming up soon!