Monday 25 January 2016

EDITING 4K ON A BUDGET


One of the biggest complaints against using 4K is how it affects workflow when it comes to editing, this concern comes from the fact that shooting in 4k obviously creates way more data to manage. I'll admit that when I decided to make the jump to a camera that shoots 4K I too was concerned about how much it would slow me down, or even if I'd be able to do it at all.

I made the choice of getting a camera that could shoot HD 1080p very well, but gave me the option to shoot 4K when I was ready. 

Now my machines are both Mac, I find their build quality and functionally worth the amount I pay for them, people may disagree but I've edited on both low end Macs and high end PC's and personally have had no end of trouble when it comes to anything powered by Microsoft, which is a shame as their choices in editing software are actually more to my preference. 


My system spec for my 2011 iMac
Either way, this is just my opinion, editing on whatever you're comfortable with should be your main goal.

The truth was, however, that cutting on my 2011 out of the box iMac just wasn't as taxing as I had been led to believe. My machine has cut several features and dozens of music videos using Macs standard Graphics Card and only 4GB RAM. That sounds insane right? But it managed, not only fine, but actually quite fast.

Editing 4k on the other hand, well thats a different matter, but 3 months into editing a 4K feature and the same system handles it just fine. Pulling the footage from an external self powered USB 3.0 harddrive (which are very inexpensive at £60/$90 for 2TB, I consider that to be a very good deal.) and it really doesn't have any problem pulling the footage from it during the edit.

The problem it really has is playing back the footage in realtime. The computer really doesn't like it, even in 'Preview' or 'Quicktime' it struggles. The workaround for me was very simple and it should work in any non linear editor on any system.

Note : I did try this on Final Cut 7, but because of how the program uses your Memory it really just couldn't do it. But it works fine on programs like Hitfilm, Premiere Pro CC and FCPX (and probably Sony Vegas too, although I can't say for sure).   

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4K WORK AROUND

Creating ProRes LT proxies I was able to load the footage into a 1080 timeline (all of it) Like a strip of film and then leave it to render. depending on what I've shot, it usually takes around 20 minutes to render the 4K footage for a 3-5 minute scene on my current set up.

Then I just work my way through and remove all the footage I don't want and of course you are left with your scene. Its very similar to cutting and arranging a strip of celluloid.

After that I simply copy and paste the footage back into a 4K timeline, which is linking back to the 4K footage and then export. 

Now I have a 4K master that I can use to export my films to HD, whilst having both a better quality image AND my work ready in a higher resolution for when its needed down the line. All done on a low spec, lowest price, out of the box iMac. 

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PLEASE NOTE : I am aware of the Proxy media approach (creating a lower quality clip for editing) however this, for some reason, still causes major slowdown on a low spec system, which I assume is down to having an initial 4K timeline. My system even warns me that this will happen when I try it.
This work around is essentially a way of making your own proxies as you need them in your timeline without having a playback issue. 

P.S. Remember to empty your cache when done to remove the unused render files when done with your cut.
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Now this probably sounds backwards to most editors out there, and it is, for me too, but its a work around that saves me having to drop money I don't have on extra RAM and the result is fine. 

The fact is, it has made me a more efficient filmmaker, knowing that the more coverage I have to shoot means a more taxing time in the edit means that I shoot what I need to much more efficient standard to make my life easier when I come to cutting the footage. 
Raw footage from Panasonic LX100 : Slasher House 2

Is 4K harder to edit than 1080? Of course it is, you're dealing with 4 times the information and unless you're willing to drop extra cash on your system to make it top notch, then, like every other part of low budget filmmaking, you have to find a way to make it work.

My overall point here, is that, filmmaking overall is a series of challenges. From writing to production to post and you need to keep all of these thing in mind, overlooking the whole journey whilst you're working. It doesn't matter if you're shooting SD, HD, 4K, 8K or 50K, you should be thinking about your whole process from beginning to end and how what you are doing on set will affect your post production. 

Just remember that resolution is a very small part of what makes an image look great.

MJ

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Monday 18 January 2016

SHOOTING 4K ON A BUDGET


This is part of a series of Blogs looking at implementing 4K into your filming workflow for lo/no budget filmmakers. You can check the others below :

PART 1 : WHY YOU CAN AND SHOULD BE SHOOTING IN 4K
PART 3 : COMING SOON

MAKING THE JUMP TO 4K

I've been shooting on entry level Canon SLR's since 2010 (Our feature Slasher House was actually the first feature shot on a 550d, even though it wasn't the first released). I upgraded to a 600d about 2 years later with the intention of moving up through the range, but I found that the entry level ones performed as well for me as the next teir line and so found myself sitting comfortably there. After 4 features however, I felt like I wanted to take it up a notch for my next one.


Still from Legacy of Thorn : 600D/T3i
When I decided to move from Canon I wasn't really looking for anything with Higher Resolution, I was just looking for a slightly nicer image and I felt like I'd pushed the Canon as far as I could without spending some serious cash on either upgrading to a full frame or spending some serious cash on lenses and I was starting notice how soft the image was compared to a lot of modern cameras.

I was really just looking for something that fit my work flow and had a clearer, cleaner image. After some serious research I settled on moving to Panasonic who seemed to have a much nicer image coming out of their cameras that suited the work I do perfectly. It was here that I discovered that they were slowly making the jump to 4K with the introduction of the GH4, this intrigued me. 

I'm a low budget filmmaker and so dropping £1000+ on a new camera still wasn't really an option and so I decided to figure out a low budget solution for shooting 4K. 


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LOW BUDGET 4K OPTIONS

If I were to buy the set up I have now (including external audio recorder) today, it would cost me less than £1000 for two of the best cams on the market, both shooting 4k.

Following are 3 low budget options for shooters looking to move to 4k but, like me, don't have a lot of money to spend. I found three different options for 3 different budgets, whilst remaining in what I would consider to be a Low budget category of under £1000.


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PANASONIC LX100 (£400)


The LX100 is an incredible little camera. Its a point and shoot with a fixed lens (An incredible Leica 10.9-34mm F1.7-2.8) that literally fits in a jacket pocket and shoots 4K! The camera shootS AVCHD/MP4 1080p at a variety of frame rates (A fairly low bit rate, but nothing to worry about) and 4K (Although limited to MP4, but with a very good 100mbps bit rate). The camera is a great low end 4K solution.

I picked one up a few months after they came out for about £700, but since then they've dropped quite dramatically to £400 new on ebay (less if you go used). Since January last year it has been my 'Main' filmmaking camera, Which sounds crazy as its considered a 'tourists' camera. The fact that it fits in my pocket is one of its best features and you find yourself out and about just shooting 4K whenever you want. Its lens suited all the needs I had in terms of focal lengths I use the most and it only really fell down for me in terms of telescopic zoom (Of which I've used 4 times in the last 5 years). Its amazing in low light too with 1.7 wide open.
Raw Footage from LX100 : SLASHER HOUSE 2

I was a little concerned about shooting exclusively in MP4, but so far the compression hasn't really caused me any noticeable quality loss with anything I've produced on the camera and in November I started shooting my 5th feature on it and the results from the camera were incredible. If you're on a tight budget and looking to shoot 4K right now, this is a great option.

Another slight draw back is that there is no mic input on the camera, I thought about that being a deal breaker, but I record sound to an external recorder anyway and so it never really became a big issue at all. In fact in some respects it made my life a bit easier and made me more cautious with my audio capture on set, which, trust me, is a good thing. The pros of the camera far outweigh the cons and with no need to add lenses it means that the costs of the camera are kept down.


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PANASONIC G7 (£550)


Using the LX100 was a great experience, but I did find myself missing the manual/fluid movement of lenses when focusing and zooming. About midway through the year the Panasonic G7 landed and I really liked the sound of it. It seemed to me like it had all the technical features of the LX100 but with the one thing I was missing, interchangeable lenses (Oh and an audio input!).

I picked one up just before Christmas for about (£300!!! yeah thats right, That was with a store discount and Panasonic were offering £200 cash back if it was bought before a certain date) and it was an offer I really couldn't pass up. The fact that this was a third of what I paid for a 550d (T2i) in 2010 is crazy.


Raw Footage from PANASONIC G7 : SLASHER HOUSE 2
Again, some drawbacks are that it still only shoots in MP4 when shooting 4K (again not really a huge issue), but this time there is an added mic input (although no headphone output STILL!). The camera is Micro 4/3's which means I was able to use some awesome (and super cheap) CCTV lenses that I bought for my malfunctioned EOS-M straight off the bat and they really brought this new camera to life for me.

Its an incredible and super low budget little machine for indy filmmakers and its has a much smaller form factor that a lot of DSLR'S and mirror less cameras at this level. I managed to shift to using this as my 'A' cam on our newest feature (demoting the LX100 to B cam) with no fuss whatsoever. It also drags over some the GH4's camera profiles that help with getting those nice flat shots with plenty of dynamic range and has some pretty nifty focus updates coming sometime this year. This really is the best camera I have EVER owned.


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PANASONIC GH4 (£900-£1400)


The GH4 is well known as a great piece of filmmaking kit. During my 4K research the camera came up over and over again. It now sits at just under £1000 for just the body and a little more for a complete Kit. The price of it has been steadily coming down over the last year and I expect to see a large drop when Panasonic releases its next model.

Now I don't own a GH4, so I don't really want to dive into any major depth about the usefulness of the camera as my exprience with it is limited. What I do know, is that it is incredibly similar to the G7, but with all the little niggles that that camera has taken out. It features better a better 4K codec (Mov) and a headphone output. In general this is a great home run camera for 4K filmmaking and although its a little outside of my budget right now I'll certainly be looking to make this my 'A' camera in the future.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS
This isn't the end of your options when it comes to 4K, the newly release GX8 is essentially a bridge between the G7 and the GH4 that seems like a great option for a B cam set up. The FZ100 is a bridge camera with a built in lens and is similar to the LX100 in a lot of ways but with the form factor of a larger SLR. These cameras weren't really options as far as I'm concerned due to things like low light performance and price and because of that I didn't feel they were viable options for me.

Of course, this is all my opinion. The great thing about filmmaking is that its like being an artist. You find the brushes (or in this case cameras) that suit what you do best. I believe that there is no One 'Perfect' camera, but when your making low budget stuff its better to try and get as close to that as possible.


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This may all sound like an advert for Panasonic cameras, but I promise that that is not the case (although some free kit would be nice), the simple fact is, at this moment in time, Panasonic are offering the right kind of picture quality that I'm after at a budget that I can afford as a low/no budget filmmaker. Sony have affordable(ish) options, although not really in my budget range, but they just weren't for me.

Listen, of course there are better options at a higher price that only shoot HD that and if you cash afford something at those prices then that great and you should go an do it. The point here is that you can buy an excellent HD camera with a 4K option, for the price of an equivalent camera that only shoots HD. To me, thats a no brainer. 

The good news is I think we'll see a shift in more companies offering this kind of tech at entry level prices, especially with Nikon releasing 4K DSLR into the market in the next few months, 4K will become common place before we even know it.  

But the most important thing isn't what your shooting on, its what you shoot and how you shoot it. So don't get caught in the resolution battle. Use what you have to do what you can. If you're always chasing tech you'll never have time to make anything. If 4K shooting had been out of my reach I wouldn't have stopped making movies and neither should you.

Just remember that resolution is a very small part of what makes an image look great.

MJ

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Monday 11 January 2016

3 REASONS WHY YOU CAN AND SHOULD BE SHOOTING 4K


Before I start let me just say, today, right now, in terms of film production, there isn't a necessity to be using anything more than the standard 1080 HD that ANY camera worth its salt comes fully equipped to shoot. 1080 is perfectly acceptable and then some and it will be for a long time. 4K is not a necessity by any means, At least not yet. That brings me to the main reason I decided to make the jump.

In the late 90's and early 2000's the video revolution was in full swing. Canon had released the XL1, which, thanks to a slew of indie horrors, including Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (which was actually only partially shot on the XL1) became the go to camera for making video features on the cheap and soon places like Blockbuster had their shelves filled with some inventive (some not so much), low budget horror movies. It was a good time to be a horror fan.

Eventually the HD revolution began as the prices for High Definition tape and cameras finally started to come down and the tech became affordable for your average consumer. In 2009 I made an SD horror feature called Creepsville, exactly the same time the next year I shot my first HD film Slasher House. A year or so later when we started trying to sell them I noticed something disturbing.

A lot of the films I loved as I grew into adulthood were now facing extinction because they were we're shot in SD and without brand recognition they weren't being picked up for rerelease anymore. Most of these titles we're now being deleted from existence, from the point of view of the market anyway. It stands to reason that one day in the not too distant future we'll see the same happen to HD (1080). Which brings me to my first reason.


1. FUTURE PROOFING

For most distributors SD just wasn't an option anymore, they were interested as hell in the High Def film, but they told me in no uncertain terms that "SD just wasn't an option for them anymore" in fact they told me that "Anything produced before 1999 in terms of new films was not worth them taking on". I watched a lot of filmmakers face that struggle as we transitioned into the new High resolution technology (of course there were odd exceptions like Marc Price's Colin that slipped through) and failed to find a home for their Standard Def features.

There is now continued interest from distributors in my HD film Slasher House 5 years on, But no distributor wants to touch the SD Creepsville because its not 'viable' for them to try and shift Standard Definition programming anymore, even though ultimately the film wold end up on DVD which is of course Standard Def, distributors now demand a higher quality master.

So with that said, why wouldn't the same eventually happen with 4K? Well, it might, but the life of any films shot on 4k will be longer than anything shot in SD going forward. 4K resolution also boasts the size (from my understanding at least) as cinema screen resolution, which puts it just higher than digital protections lowest standard (2k). There is every reason to believe that we'll sat at this standard for a fairly long time, if not permanently.


2. ITS CHEAPER THAN YOU THINK

"Surely this cinematic quality comes at a price?" We'll yeah it does, but that price doesn't have to break the bank anymore and in 2016 is not really anymore than shooting 1080p. The truth is, that in the last year, 4K has become a very affordable option for everyone. I looked into shooting in higher resolution in 2014 when we came back from the Premiere of Legacy of Thorn and it just wasn't an option for me as a low budget indie with cheapest options being £4000, before adding tens tuff to make them functional.

Today you can start shooting out of the box for as little as £400 (or less if you buy used) as there are now many more options thanks to companies like Sony and Panasonic leading the charge to bring the tech to the everyday consumer. We're now talking the same price as Canon's latest Rebel (T*i) models but with the added bonus of four times the resolution.



The best part is that, this tech is becoming cheaper all the time, its all ready fallen to 10 times less than it was 2 years ago. Next year it'll be available for much less again and pretty soon, shooting in 4K will become the norm and thats a good thing. I mean, even your phones (mainly Samsung) have been shooting 4k for a couple of years now.

I've detailed a list of 4K options in Part 2 of this blog (coming soon) that range from solutions for the penniless filmmaker to something a little fancier for those with a bit more money to spend, but of course I've kept within the low budget ethos of this blog, It really is worth looking at the options out there now as you'll find...


3. IT REALLY IS BETTER THAN HD

Shot from Panasonic LX100 (4K) : Slasher House 2
This seems fairly obvious, as you are working with more resolution. But I often hear, and have been guilty of thinking it myself "How much difference can it make?". I have to say, in a few short months of shooting both HD and UHD (4K), even shooting 4K compressed to a MP4 container, I would say the difference is VERY noticeable and in a very positive way.

I was concerned that it really wouldn't make a difference, and that shooting 4K would ultimately be a large risk with added expense, but the second I got the rushes back from our first shoot I could see a clear jump in quality, even from the 1080 AVCHD that the same camera also shoots.


Shot from Panasonic G7 (4k) : Slasher House 2
Another worry a lot of people have is the expense of things like storage etc, Obviously the files are about 4 times larger. but buying new harddrives didn't break the bank too much as the prices are dropping so dramatically it set me back the same amount as I would have paid 2 years ago for quarter of the storage, so it kind of evens out, I got two 2GB usb3 drives for around £100 (one edit, one backup) and they run fine on my out of the box 2012 Imac (the cheapest you can buy too).

You should take into a account that a low end machine will struggle with 4K playback from time to time and if you don't have a butt load of Ram, you're gonna have a slightly slower machine when it comes to cutting, but I've found a decent work around that I'll talk about in Part 3 (Coming soon).

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I'll try and cover elements here in more detail over the next couple of weeks.

Please note that 4k is not the be all and end all. Its important that you don't worry about this too much, if moving to 4K is an option, you should certainly consider it for the first reason alone, but its more important that you just keep making movies.

Whether it's on 8/16/35mm film, Analogue Tape, MiniDV, SLR, Compact Camera, your iPhone or a 'Red Max Ninja Dragon T2 Turbo : Street Edition', Don't let technology worry you its all there for one reason. To help you tell stories and in the end it really doesn't matter how you do that as long as you do it well.

MJ

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Monday 4 January 2016

THE ULTIMATE FILMMAKER TOOL : THE IPAD - THE FILMMAKERS BEST FRIEND



**PLEASE NOTE : I am not sponsored by Apple in any way to write this post , if I was, I would hope they'd send me something better than an outdated, refurbished iPad 2.
You should also note that I'm a Mac user so it made sense for me to go with the iPad, but I'm sure that a cheaper Android (or other) tablet can do just as good a job as this thing.

A decade or so ago, back when I was making short films on a camera the size of a small car (joking of course, but not by much) I remember the feeling of dread as I would stare at the boxes and boxes of equipment and paperwork that needed to be lugged along with me for even the smallest shoot.

Hell, even just doing a reccee (Location scout) would involve me having to load up a large rucksack or sometimes a car with a stills camera, video camera, pile of paper work, scripts, notepads, sketchpads and various other 'useful' items and that was just to look over  a suitable location.

When I started pre production on Legacy of Thorn (My 3rd feature) in 2013 I was looking for a solution for something completely different. For years I had used an old chalk slate to sync sound, but that always seemed a little cheap and we were trying to take a step up.

Looking into a new slate, I started to notice how expensive they were, for a piece of plastic that you write some stuff on they were fairly over priced and electronic ones were 100's of pounds out of our budget. Looking into low budget solutions I discovered that you could actually load one of these things onto an iPad via an app. The only problem was that an iPad cost about 4-8 times more than your standard chalk slate.

After some research I discovered that I could pick up a refurbished iPad 2 for £200 * (which was just over double what I would have paid for the plastic white board slate) and that would come with a decent 16gb memory, that seemed like a good deal if it could do what I needed it to do, but that wasn't quite enough for me to pull the trigger on it. I did some more research.

*You can get a much more up to date iPad for much less than paid for this one today.

To make the investment worth while it needed to be able to take over more than just just marking
duties, it would have to be able to do a whole lot more. It became obvious to me very quickly that not only would I be able to do a great deal of other things on using this little device that could slip in my shoulder bag, in fact, I could almost cover my entire creative process from start to finish.

So here is a list of of the apps I use throughout production from start to finish, some are free, some are cheap, But i've made a point to never spend more than a few pounds/bucks on anything to go with it. So lets get started.

PRE PRODUCTION :

CELTX (£7/$10)
Celtx is a paid app, it costs about £7($10) and although there are free apps out there that do a similar job, I use Celtx on my main laptop and desktop for writing when I'm at home so it made sense to have an app that would be compatible with the scripts I had already written.

The app itself is fairly similar to the desktop edition, with a few things tweaked to make it work with touch screen tech, but nothing major. Since I got the app I've actually written two features on it from start to finish, the small screen size makes navigation a bit more difficult, but its certainly possible to use the app to write your next film.

I paired it with an iMac keyboard to make typing more comfortable, but in a pinch its fine to use the touch screen keys if your out on the road. It doesn't feature then Prose setting that the desktop version has, but that seems tone all thats missing.


PAPER (Free)
Paper is probably the best app on the iPad in terms of sheer value and power, in the last 2 years I've watched it go from a fairly capable, if somewhat limited, tool to a powerhouse for tablet artists. The original version came with one pen tool and a limited colour set. I bought the extra art tools for about £5 and it really opened the app up for me.

The app now comes with all these tools as standard and its still free on IOS. I've used this app for everything from costume design, to storyboarding, to expressing ideas to cast and crew and plotting out movies. Its an extremely powerful tool and probably my favourite to use.

There is an official 'pencil' you can buy for about £50, but i've found that a basic Stylus from poundland (Comes in a pack of 2) works just as good :)


CAMERA (Free)
Your iPad comes with a camera app as standard and its improving all the time with updates and added features. Now instead of taking a whole bunch of gear to a location for reccee's I simply take the iPad and run off some pictures through there.

The biggest advantage of this is that I can send them to other crew members instantly via dropbox, or the cloud and of course I can skim back through them with ease to show team members what we found there.

Its exposure and focus is automatic so it not really any good for judging light levels or anything like that, for that I would take a smaller camera rig if needed, but for grabbing reference pictures its perfect and it means I have my notepad at the ready on the same device should I need to take notes.



VIDEO (Free)
Another app that comes as standard and another app that is extremely useful. Its really just a  functional extension of the camera app and comes with same exposure and focus draw backs, but it has a fair few uses.

There is an app called FilmicPro that costs about £3($5) but it does give you control over exposure/focus.

First of all, Videos of location can be more helpful than stills at times and if I can't make a scout, its amazing to be able to have a video sent over to me from the location. We never set foot in the location from Slasher House before shooting as it was essentially in another country on a small island. Our contact there sent us a video of the place and we could judge its suitability from that.

One of its more interesting uses is the ability to video storyboard. I'll quite often shoot a video storyboard of a scene during a scout to make sure that the location has all my desired angles and if it doesn't what do they have to be changed to. The best part about doing it on your tablet is that you can be cutting the video storyboard (I'll talk about that later) in the car on the way home, If you're not driving that is.

PRODUCTION :

MARKER SLATE (Free)
The main reason I invested in the tablet in the first place was that I was aware that I could use it as a Clapper board and it would look a little bit more professional than using the old skool chalk board that I'd use for the last few years. It was only researching all these other things that it could do that really sealed the deal for me.

If you're shooting sync audio, which we usually do, then you'll usually need to be marking each shot with a slate. The View Finder Marker Slate is free, its a pretty basic clapper, but its everything I need when it comes down to finding and syncing shots in the edit.

There are probably much better slate apps out there, in fact, I know there are, but they cost a fair chunk for an app and the free one I use works just fine.


SIDE BOOKS (Free/£1.50 unlimited docs) 
The days of having dozens of paper copies of the script littering the set are over. We can now take our script in the same slimline package as everything else and share it out with the rest of the cast and crew to read on their phone or tablet.

Side Books is another free app, I just transfer the script onto it before we go to the shoot and then I have instant access to it when we need to check anything or run dialogue. It really cuts down on having a lot of extra paper to carry around etc. Now we can even use it to have people sign releases etc.

I believe there is an extra charge to store more documents of about £1.50, but it stores half a dozen documents as standard as far as I remember.

Note : we usually do have one hard copy just in case. 


LENS+ (Free)
As I've said before, you could easily shoot a decent looking movie on a phone or an iPad now (especially with the quality of the camera in the newer iPhones which now shoot in 4k), whilst the camera app built in to the iPad is pretty basic, Lens+ allows you to emulate some cool, old skool film stocks in the camera itself and it leads to some fun results.

It is by no means professional looking, but its fairly useful for specific tasks. I used it to shoot some old style movie footage on the go a while ago for a prospective project that came out great and I tend to use it for shooting some pretentious behind the scenes on music videos which is pretty awesome if you're a hipster.


PLAY MEMORIES & PANASONIC IMAGE APP (Free)
This a quite app specific, but as I currently use Panasonic Lumix and Sony Action cams these two apps respectively let me use the iPad as a monitor for those awkward shots, such as crane shots, high shots where I can't get a good look at the LCD.

Sometimes I will just use it as general monitor, although being self shooter that doesn't come into play too much, but it is incredibly useful for the action cam that does have an onboard monitor and the Panasonic app even allows you to control the camera remotely.




INSTAGRAM (Free)
Instagram is one of those apps that everyone uses these days. The main reason I find it so useful is that I can take, edit and share pictures directly to our Facebook/Twitter etc from it in seconds and thats very helpful when you're out on set.

Usually we're shooting in some abandoned school, factory, prison, wasteland etc and so wifi access on our sets is usually impossible. If we're shooting for 14 days, that could mean 14 days blackout on social media pages, which as a growing company is not good.

Instagram gives me the ability to send picture updates from set quickly and efficiently using my data plan. It also means that I can snap a picture, upload and then be back to shooting in seconds. You can do it with other social media apps these days, but this my favourite.

POST PRODUCTION :

IMOVIE (£3/$5)
IMovie for IOS is a touch screen, stripped down version of the app that comes pre loaded on Apple machines. This is by no means a pro grade editor, but for cutting quick pre vis stuff on set, its an absolute godsend.

Its does cost about £3/$5 or something like that. but its well worth the money if your looking for something that can do basic edits on the run. That said, with enough storage space on an modern iPad, i'm convinced you could cut at least a short film on one of these things.

I don't use this one as often as I should, but its nice to know its available to me should I need to do editing on the move. Like the desktop version its a very powerful tool, even if its missing one or two of the apps features.



GARAGE BAND (£3/$5)
This is probably my favourite app. Its a touch screen version of the program that comes free with any Apple System although this version will only set you back around £3/$5, it lacks some of the desktops editions functionality, but it more than makes up from it with touch screen keyboards, drums and things like Smart Guitar and Bass and even a full Orchestra at the end of your fingers.

This is one of those programs that I couldn't do without. I've written entire scores and albums using this thing, as well as it being useful for creating general ambience for projects, trailers etc. For about £10 you can also pick up an 'Irig' that will let you plug in mics, guitars and even a full mixing desk should you want to.

I use it as is and its full array of instruments is really incredible and the best part is that you can export your projects to the larger desktop version if needed to take advantage of the mastering tools, a larger array of sounds and of course in my case, auto tune ;)


PHOTOSHOP TOUCH (£7/$10)
This is about £7 and the most expensive app I own I think. Its another stripped down touch screen version of a desktop program, this time its Adobe Photoshop, but it has a lot of the functionality that the full program has, albeit a lite version. It is a bit of fuss to get your head around but its extremely useful for doing any graphic design work on the go.

I use it mainly for colouring as that seems to be its strong point, I can use the Paper app to sketch something out, do some quick, decent quality colouring in the Photoshop app and then message it straight over to cast and crew so they have an idea of whatever it I'm talking about in terms of colour for sets, costumes in my designs. It also has some cool features and filters that are similar to the ones found in the full version.


BLOGGER (Free)
If, like me, you keep online production diaries and write for blogs such as this one, then the FREE Blogger app is perfect. Almost 90% of the posts on this blog were at least drafted via the app. Its almost as fully functional as the full browser version, which of course you can still use via the tablets web app if needs be.

I use it all the time and its super handy to have on set or at home. I'm working on this blog write now using it and I figured it was good app to end on.

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I've been using this outdated, refurb now for over 2 years and I've never felt the need to replace it. I use it day in day out across the entire creative process and beyond it. Its not just a tool I take on set, its a tool that I use all day every day to help me keep on top of all my film related tasks.

It really is the most impressive tool in my whole kit and even though my screen is cracked and its grubby from its time spent in warehouses and abandoned buildings it comes with me everywhere and beyond its filmmaking uses, it serves as a great way to watch movies if I find myself at a loose end and that to me is what makes it a filmmakers best friend.


MJ

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