I shot a no-budget FEATURE FILM on a Panasonic GH4 

I am glad you liked this video. Yes, I only have fond memories of the GH4 and hopefully get my hand on one again in the future.

Glad to hear that. Keep on making great videos with your awesome tool!

I am glad this helped you!

Thank you so much for this comment! Making a movie is always very personal so I love to see other inspired by what I do. Well, I lost my weight waaay after I finished the film, no worries. 😄 Self distribution is hard and since all other outlets cost money or pull a movie after some time, you might want to wait until I put it up on my own platform. It's free to watch but every click earns me some money. Thank you very much for taking your time to write this lovely comment.

​@@TheBudgetFilmmaker hello, thanks for the video) I'm also going to shoot a movie, also on a Panasonic gh4 and I'm interested in the sound issue. Many people say that the sound from the film set is not very good, that then it is necessary to re sound. What can you say about this as a practice? Initially, need to aim for re-sound or is the sound from the film set normal enough?

My saying is "shit in - shit out". If you don't take care about sound on set it won't get better in post. Yes, it can happen that a take sounds rubbish, but ADR is sooo much work and never sounds as good as on location sound. Plus I can spot ADR everytime because it sounds too clean. I would avoid it if I could. It maybe takes a few minutes more but if everybody on set takes sound seriously you won't regret it. I ADRd my first movie which tool weeks in post and sounded very fake.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker did you shoot in urban conditions? There is always noise on the streets of the city, cars are driving, people are walking, talking. Does it prevent you?

Not on this film but I had plenty of work in urban environments. Make sure your microphone is close enough to the speakers mouth or even hide in their clothes with a lav mic. Then the sounds on the street aren't that loud. Make sure you record enough on location atmosphere to "thicken up" the environment and make it more natural. If you aren't happy with your recording you can still ADR. But I would never choose ADR as my only option.

Thanks, I hope you enjoy it. 😉

Thanks, I try to be. 😉

Thank you very much!

Glad I could help. I wish you all the best when shooting your feature!

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you! Yes, without the fast aperture it would have been pretty noisy.

Thank you! Great you liked my story.

Thank you!

Thanks! Good luck with your camera, it's a great tool!

Thanks, great to hear you feel inspired by my journey. :)

I shot many shorts on a T2i and also did a video on the T3i. If you distribute over the web it is good enough. I did a video on the distribution on my film, maybe there is some input for you in there on what to do with your film. Would be a shame to not make it accessible.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker I'll check it out. The web sounds like a bad place to distribute in terms of it making any returns, though...I'd really like to use this as a means of changing careers; so sick of the regular job.

Thank you!

Glad I could help. TV show sounds exciting. What type of show?

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker its a sci fi dystopian tv show mini series so around 5 episodes each 15 minutes planning to shoot it in around 2 weeks total time. my one question is how do you edit the sound and video together like do you use L cuts or do you sync all the video up to one audio track of dialogue and cut it from there and how do you achieve such a film like look?

Sounds cool, where will it air? Are you referring to the movie? I first edit the dialogue without any J and L cuts, and add those afterwards where I find them fit. I also add reaction shots here and there if it fits with the character and story. Achieving the "film look" is quite hard. As I said in the video, lenses are very important. And regarding lights, use soft or edge lights for flattering skin and background separation. When grading, I go for a principal tone and try to mantain the skin tones. Also, I try to not go too contrasty to the point where the whites are clipping. Those are all very general tips, but I would advise to watch color grading and lighting tutorials for that. Wish you luck for your shoot!

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker thank you for your help im hoping it will air in February of 2022 also one more question whats your best tip to capture the most clear dialogue possible.

@@sampierce1012 Cool, keep me updated when it's time. Use a Shotgun Mic (We used a Rode NTG3) with a blimp for outside shots and go as close as possible without intruding the frame. Also, we recorded audio externally so the sound person could move freely. Keep an ear on distracting sounds, they are tough to get rid of in post. We also did some dubbing when audio was very bad or inaudible. For indoor shots I would now use a cardioid microhone like my Oktava 12 that I use for my RU-vid videos and interviews at the moment. But the shotgun did also fine. I am glad I could help!

You can watch it on pergstream.at which is a small plattform I run. It's a german site but you can activate subtitles in the player. Glad that you liked the videi and got inspired. I would love to know if you make your project in the future!

Will be next week, so tune in then.

Thanks, glad you liked it. It's quite simple, I put all the files into Media Encoder and set the output to DNxHD422, but now you can also use ProResHQ. By downscaling, the values of 4 pixels should be interpolated into 1 pixel and therefore 422, or even 444. I don't know the technical details behind that, but some people smarter then me suggest that this actually works.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker thanks for your reply. It's going to be of great help. In fact, I have been doing some research online of turning 420 footage to 422/444 during Downscaling. But everywhere I found a bit of doubt. I hope your media encoder process helps in the process. Shall let you know after I have converted some footages. Just one quick question: did you find the banding gone while grading the converted footages? Thanks in advance for your reply.

I know these discussions and the main point was that some say that you get 10Bit color depth, which I seriously doubt, since you can't magically produce more color values. However, sub-sampling is "just" a compression method. You exchange pixel resolution for color resolution. That, for me, makes perfect sense. But this won't magically reduce banding, since that can only be solved with higher bit depth and data rate. Both of which this method has no impact on. But it makes the footage a bit sturdier. And since I don't need 4K for delivery, this worked well for me. I never had issues with banding there, since I used Cinelike-D, which is meant to be used in 8Bit. I would not use V-Log L in 8Bit, since Log produces banding really fast. The downscaling method won't fix that, only recording in 10Bit.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker thanks for your in-depth reply. I cannot but agree with whatever you said. In fact, everyone will agree. The positive thing is we get a better quality image both for grading and production. That's quite enough. Anyways, my best wishes for your ongoing and future projects. Shall keep following your updates. Take care and thanks again.

@@PurnenduDey Thank you, I would be happy if you kepp following along!

You can record in both HD and 4K to get 10Bit 422.

Maybe over the german amazon site?

Thanks! Well, the camera for big budget films like these is the smallest concern regarding budget, haha. If you want to make an Indiana Jones-style film, I think that it would be sufficient of you have a tight budget.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker But it's still pretty damn interesting!)))

​@@TheBudgetFilmmakerYou also used Sigma 18:35, Fujinon 135mm, Samyang 85 mm and Helios 44:2 mm lenses for the film. I know that Helios was used during the filming of the movie "Batman"))

The Helios has amazing character, very reminicent of an anamorphic lens with that hazy flair. It costs next to nothing, is easy adaptable and is widely available on the used market. Great lens I would recommend anytime. I made a video about it some time ago.

​@@TheBudgetFilmmaker Ok!

www.amazon.de/gp/video/detail/B01N0V4EC7/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r Have fun!

Mostly regarding battery life and sometimes it would shut off during a shoot. Also it was much harder to work with since it needed so much rigging with the dim small display. That was just my personal experience with the camera, others might have been completely fine and never had problems. I honestly would still want to buy one someday since the IQ was great for such a tiny camera.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker I see, thanks for explaining.

Auch nicht auf dem zweiten Link? www.pergstream.at/ungeheuer

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker Mist, wer lesen kann, ist klar im Vorteil...funktioniert :-)

Really? Autofocus or manual focus? Autofocus is not good on the GH4 but with focus peaking it's a capable manual focus camera.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker manual focus mate but i use a sigma 18- 35mm with metabones adapter which is what i think is causing the issue

Weird, since that is the same setup I have used the last 6 years for the most part. It takes a lot of practice or maybe an external monitor could help nailing focus.

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker yes ive got a monitor but still struggle. i read somewhere that i need to update the metabones firmware.so thats my next move just need to figure out how

Is there a problem with infinity focus maybe? That's a common issue with the Metabones ones.

As far as I remember it is technically possible to switch to NTSC via a hack, but you loose all the PAL framerates, which is a bummer for anyone outside the US and Japan. But if the only concern is 24p, then this could be a viable option

@@TheBudgetFilmmaker I have the America release or North America NTSC release. When you switch to PAL you have to hold two buttons and if you want to switch back turn the camera off and hold those two buttons. The Panasonic G7 can do this but without the firmware hack.