ETHICS STATEMENT: I was paid to DP this film but that is all. All thoughts on this camera now and in the future are my own and will never be influenced by any monetary or contractual arrangement. My ethics are incredibly important to me…my whole site is based upon them. I may change my opinion of things over time, but that is my prerogative and is always going to happen! Read more on my ethics statement here. Ethics Statement

Last month, I was lucky enough to be director of photography on a little project for Panasonic in LA. A film made to promote the brand new GH3 camera from Panasonic.

The camera was a very pre-production until so many of the cool features on offer in the spec list were not fully functional for us so I can’t comment on them until I get my hands on a production camera.

What I can say is it’s bigger and it’s heavier…it’s also a massive step up from the previous model and has a superb 72mb/s All-I codec which is a world away from the compressed-as-hell AVCHD codec that we are used to on many cameras and on all their previous GH series cameras.

I have been using the GH series of cameras ever since I got my hands on a pre-production GH1, 3 and a half years ago. I shot some lovely stuff on that and of course the GH2. My favourite piece being my mum cooking! Excellent cameras that have been adopted into the low budget filmmaking community, especially since the hack to give the GH2 an ALL-I codec surfaced. One of the best things about this camera is that Panasonic have seen this and responded with their new 72 mb/s All-I codec here. It’s more than enough for a camera this size and very robust indeed!

In the early camera we had there were a number of user selectable video recording settings which gave us the AVCHD options as well as .MOV options (which are labelled for use only on high end editing systems!) There are a number of bit rates options the highest being the 72mb/s that we used…again due to the early nature of the camera it was tricky figuring out exactly what was what (this will of course be way easier in the final camera) but the big news is there is an ALL-I setting for 60p and 24p. From the camera we had it didn’t look like there was 25p and 50p. I believe these will be available in the “PAL” version, this will be at a loss of 30p and 60p I believe but will still have 24p…Remember the Gh2 only got 25p through firmware hacks initially then finally through an officially release at the end of last year. It would be nice to have all the frame rates available in the camera like Canon and Nikon do…

Personally, I think this is the step up this camera needed to be used in more professional environments, though without losing its mass appeal. With the Blackmagic camera micro four thirds, we could be coming into the time of this format. Great for me. I have a crap load of glass for the system and would like to use it more!

We did have a few minor tech issues due to the early camera. The biggest hurdle for us was the HDMI out was not giving us a live feed, just playback…again this will be working fully in the release camera for sure. What I don’t know is if the camera outputs a fully recordable uncompressed clean signal for recording on external recorders

Not being able to use a monitor was very challenging for a lot of the big lighting setups so I had my laptop at my side, recording a little bit, pulled the card out to check then tweaked. For the handheld it was no issue as I went off the back screen. For the shots operated by Terry we simply had to go with that old thing that is not used that much anymore…trust! “hey Terry how was that? Did you nail it?” He would say yes or no….not ideal but it worked, sometimes he asked for playback to check it most of the time we just moved on as there was a lot to cover in our 3 days of shooting.

The sensor had a couple of tiny marks on which pop up here and there in some shots. Naturally this was down to the early nature of our camera…

Handling on the camera is also much improved, feeling much more solid in your hand. Better controls with a back dial like on other DSLRs and some fantastic features like 1080p 60p for nice slow motion ability. This is available in some DSLRs, notably the Alpha A77 but it’s AVCHD so by time you slow it down to slow motion you are half your AVCHD bitrate and it falls apart. This is MUCH better!

Written and directed by Bruce Logan, ASC (he shot Tron!) this film was designed to shoot in a number of scenarios to test out the camera. Harsh contrast, interior lighting, direct sunlight, low light, fast movement, handheld…we tried most things. I especially loved the much improved low light performance. The camera was operated by the terrific Terry Bowen and I did a lot of the handheld low light stuff… The arrest sequence, the subway and the taxi shots. That is the joy of small cameras, going and filming small and fast with limited light, but we also used this camera with a full crew as you can see from the credits below.

We used simple lighting set ups for much of it. Lots of bounce and negative fill to add contrast. In the taxi, I lit Chrissy with my iPad! Great little tool that 🙂 At travel town for the end sequence we had a very robust lighting set up of around a dozen lights or so, as we had to light the whole station from scratch. Quite a task. There are a few BTS photos of that below too…

I can’t review the camera as such for now..that will have to wait until a release camera or close to release camera is available but going from what I have seen and used so far it’s a massive step up from the GH2 in build quality, feel, image, low light. All important stuff. It is more expensive for sure and it’s a shame the price couldn’t have been kept closer to that of the GH2 as this camera is exceptional for the low budget crowd…but it’s still cheap for what it does, just look at how much more is on offer both in stills and video. Oh yeah… the ex tele conv mode is still present on this new model, it samplea the native pixels of the 1080p image to give us an in camera crop without loss of quality is present and we used it a few times. Very useful indeed! Check out the speeding car at dusk panning to the right shot. That was shot with it!

Lens wise we used all micro 4/3 or 4/3 glass…Mostly my own glass. We shot a lot on the great Voigtlander 25mm F0.95, used on almost all the low light stuff …a couple of shots on the SLR Magic 12mm F1.6. My Olympus 14-35 F2 was our workhouse. Used this A LOT. Also my 35-100 F2. Great glass. Not ideal for movie shooting though, with the loss of focus when zooming in and fiddly focus. Lots of Lumix glass was used too – especially the brand new lenses coming out soon! I didn’t get a chance to use the 17.5 Voigtlander on this shoot but it’s another cracking lens from them that is perfect for this camera!

Before you ask about direct comparisons with the GH2, I am afraid I did none. We were very busy on this shoot with very long days and also doing a side by side comparison with a pre-production camera made no sense…that will come soon I am sure!!

I wasn’t able to test the audio, but there IS a headphone jack..HURRAH!!

I hope you enjoy our little film. This really is a great new tool for us filmmakers. Just remember though, this is a tool…not a religion 🙂 ALSO do watch the terrific BTS video by Mick Jones below…Please follow Micky on twitter. He is real talent. Great filmmaker and multi award winner. There is also a short interview with write director Bruce Logan below that.

HUGE thanks to Steve Weiss for the rig/ support gear for the camera. He has done a video going over the options for the GH3. You can order them/ read more about them by clicking here or the banner below. Also here are some options for handheld rigs for the GH3…





Zacuto’s First Look at the Panasonic Lumix GH3 from Steve Weiss on Vimeo.











Genesis from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Panasonic GH3: Behind the scenes from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

I asked director Bruce Logan a few questions about the project for this post:

How did this project come about?





I was the administrator for the Zacuto 2012 Revenge of the Great Camera shoot out. In that test, one of the cameras was the GH2 and it drew a lot of attention when Francis Ford Coppola picked it as his favorite camera. At the suggestion of one of the camera accessory vendors, Panasonic asked me to partner with Philip Bloom to make a short film which would highlight some of the new features of the GH3.





You wrote and directed it…were there specific things you wanted to demonstrate that the camera could do when writing it?





One of the features I was most excited about was the ability to shoot slow motion at full 1920 x 1080 with progressive frames. Writing the story, I wanted to shoot both wide landscapes and intimate interiors, both during the day and also at night to show the full range of the camera.

How freeing is it to work with a small camera and one that doesn’t require too much light?





One of the most amazing things about the camera was its ability to shoot night exteriors with existing natural light outside. We have a scene where our hero is busted by the cops. I had planned for us to light this exterior sequence, but when we got there and put on the F/0.90 25mm lens, we found that we could shoot in the natural city street lighting and with the flashing police car light. Amazing stuff. This of course is very liberating for the filmmaker and greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to shoot a scene.





How important is a camera to a filmmaker?





A camera is of course the heart of the filmmaking process, and the camera’s ability to deliver features that make the process easier is the magic that the manufacturers contribute to the process. However in telling a story, I have found that the process is the same whether I’m using the smallest DSLR or a blimped 65mm Panavision Camera. So, although I love cameras and all the new feature and abilities they bring to the party, they are basically tools for telling stories, and that always has to be my main focus.





You have worked on some incredible films, 3 of which are in my top ten. Do you think science fiction is a genre you may revisit?





Science fiction is a genre which has followed me, more that I have followed it. Excluding films that I have worked on, there are Science fiction films which are in my top ten films of all time, including Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But working in the genre have been some of my most seminal filmmaking experiences and I look forward to doing it again soon.





What was it like working with me? 😉





When I first heard I was going to work with Philip Bloom I was both excited and nervous at the same time. Philip is a fantastic photographer and I have enjoyed his work for a long time. But most of the stuff I have seen has been with small crews, if any, and been very personal storytelling. I wanted to do Genesis in the Hollywood filmmaking style with a full camera crew, a gaffer, grip and a camera operator, etc etc. and I was not sure how Philip would enjoy working that way. But, he loved it and he worked exactly as I would have expected a Hollywood DP to work. But in addition he bought a facility with DSLRs and menu selections and was fantastic in work arounds for all the problems inherent in working with prototype cameras. So I can’t wait to work with him again.





Honestly…do you miss film?





I’m over film. It’s in the past. Yes I hanker for a great black and white print where you can actually see the the crystals of silver halide dancing around on the screen, but modern color film emulsions have grain structures which look just like electronic noise to me. Of course in film the dancing grain actually help to define the image in greater detail, where as in digital the noise is just superimposed on the image, but all digital has to do is double its resolution (which it seems to do every five years) and the result is the same or better. I love file based workflows and desk top color-control technologies which put the control that lots of people had on my projects back into my hands. I’m not going back!

Written and directed by: Bruce Logan

Producers: Elliot Lewis Rosenblatt and Bruce Logan

Director of Photography: Philip Bloom & Bruce Logan ASC

Cast:

Hero: Jeffrey Joslin

Heroine: Crissie Randall

Child: Madaline Galante

Cop1; Skoti Collins

Cop2: Orlando Wilson

Homeless man: Mark Miller-Summer

Taxi Driver: Vahik Avedian

Production Manager: Kara Scobey

1st AD: Lee Davis

Camera Operator: Terry Bowen

1st AC: Ariel Benarroch

2nd AC: Danit Sigler

Key Grip: Stacy Slevek

Gaffer: Mark Meisenheimer

BB Grip: Mike Wesby

Swing: Justin Bernard

Swing: Joe Webb

Costume Designer: Dawn Ritz

Assistant Wardrobe: Christine Fuller

Hair/ Makeup: Lauren Ishi

Art Director: Lauren Ishi

Art Director: Ron Volz

Lead Editors:

Daniel Skubal

Scott Lynch

Editors:

Chase Kubasiak

Chris Voelz

Post Production Supervisor: Scott Lynch

Colourist: Bruce Logan

Behind the scenes: Mick Jones

PAs:

Damien Lang

Jeremy Brown

Elmera Asadipour

Darron Zimmet

Interns:

Chris Bokari

Valerie Much

Pat Sarnaki

Allison Shelley

Casting: Amy de Souza

Craft Services: Samantha Mokwa