This is not legal guidance, it is not a replacement for advice from a solicitor etc. It’s based on my experience as a cameraman that has been in these situations many times. Read it, understand it, but please take proper legal advice if you ever run into copyright issues!

First of all what is a commission? Well it’s basically anything where you have been asked to shoot or produce something (normally ahead of shooting) and then been paid for doing so.

In respect of who can do what with the footage there are 3 different things to take into account.

1: Copyright,

2: Rights Assignment,

3: Licensing.

Unless the contract between you and the commissioner includes an assignment of rights the copyright almost always remains with the originator. However the originator can through a contract assign the copyright in the original to a 3rd party, in doing so giving up all rights and claims to the original. Most TV commissions will involve an assignment of rights, but it must be written into the contract to be valid and everybody involved in the production should be under a similar contract, because for example if the cameraman does not assign his rights, he keeps them, so the production company cannot then re-assign them because they don’t own them, the cameraman still does.

In all cases you must consider who is the originator of the material. If you are a production company that would be the cameraman, not the production company unless the cameraman’s contract includes rights assignment. The production company would have the copyright in the edit or finished production but not necessarily in the original footage.

A copyright owner can sell a licence to use material that they own the copyright in and this is what you do if you shoot stock footage etc. You do still retain the copyright, you are just selling a licence to use the footage and you can sell multiple licences for the same footage. But you must be sure that you are the copyright owner before you do this.

Where it gets particularly grey, normally because people don’t bother to draw up proper contracts is over the rights in a commissioned work. If there is no contract then all rights remain with the originator by default. However when there is no contract, that can easily be challenged in a court of law, and generally the courts will award the commissioner with a licence to use the footage as they see fit, based on the fact that they paid to have the material created.  The court may also place restrictions on the originator as to what they can do with the footage, for example preventing it from being licensed to anyone other than the original commissioner. So it is vital that whenever you are paid to produce a work for someone that you have a contract that clearly sets out who owns what, otherwise, in reality, the moment you receive payment no matter how large or small, you are giving all your rights away (although it may take a court order for this to happen). Licensing footage you have shot while working on a commissioned project is a dangerous thing to do unless you have a contract that that specifically states that you are retaining your rights in the material.

For a commissioned project where I want to retain the right to use or later licence the footage to someone else I will normally include a statement in the contract that the rights in the material remain with me and that I am providing a licence for the commissioner to use the footage within their production for a specified period and geographical area. Depending on the client this will often be an indefinite period and include the entire known universe. Sometimes I have to give them a licence to do whatever they want with the footage, even sub licensing. But I do still try to retain my right to do what I wish with the footage, perhaps after a blackout period. Sometimes this just isn’t possible, many times I have to assign all my rights to the commissioner.

The main thing is to have a contract and a clear understanding of who owns what as more often than not if you’ve been paid and it goes to court, no contract = no right to use or licence, even if you do still own the copyright.

A further reminder that I am running some half day workshops in Oslo, Norway on the 26th of November at Videoutstyr and then in Tallinn, Estonia on the 28th of November.

Click here to register for the Oslo event. Click here for more details about the Tallinn event.

Want to know more about the Sony PMW-F5, F55 or FS700. Do you want to learn which codec or gamma to use? How to expose S-log2 correctly or how to make the most of the amazing 4K raw capabilities? Why not join me for a full day seminar and workshop in Toronto, Canada on December the 13th. The workshop will be hosted by Vistek and full details will be provided in the coming days, so keep the date free in your diary and come learn about these cool cameras and the workflows that really makes them sing. I’ll post further details in due course.

I’m running 3 days of intensive workshops at Omega Broadcast in Austin Texas between December 7th and 10th. There are workshops for complete beginners through to experienced shooters covering all kinds of topics from getting in to professional video production through to advanced shooting techniques such as raw and log.

December 7th. From Hobbyist to Pro-Shooter, learn what it takes to turn your hobby into a profession.

You love shooting video for fun and now you are thinking of turning that into a business. What do you need to do, how do you start? Learn the techniques that help turn an amateur into a pro, how to shoot and prepare a show reel and how to pitch for work.

10am – 10.15: Introductions and course outline.

10.15 – 10.30: What makes a Pro and Pro? A brief discussion on what it is that makes you a professional and what you should consider before turning your hobby into a business.

10:30 – 10:45: Professional Approach: How to deal with the needs of a customer.

Coffee

11.00 – 11.30: Planning and preparation. Projects run smoother when properly planned. Simple guidelines for production planning.

11.30 – 12.30: Equipment choices: Buy or rent? What to buy. A look at the different types of cameras available today, what’s best for your business.

Lunch

13.30 – 14.30: Post Production: Pro’s and con’s of doing it all yourself, what software or equipment to get.

14.30 – 15.00: Copyright and Licences. What are your rights, what do you own. Buying and licensing music and stock footage for use in commercial productions.

Coffee

15.15 – 16.00: Showreels: How to put together a great showreel.

16.00 – 16.30: Selling yourself: The hard part, how to pitch for work and how to get your business off the ground.

16.30 -17.30: Budgets and Rates: How to calculate what to charge and what profit margins can you expect. Other ways to make money in between projects.

Monday, December 9th

Advanced Shooting Techniques for the Modern Filmmaker.

Discover how to spice up your video productions using clever but surprisingly easy shooting methods including time-lapse, slow motion, green screen and motion control. In the past these techniques were expensive and difficult. Today they are within almost everyone’s grasp. In this workshop you will learn how make the most of these exciting creative tools. We will spend time in the classroom and studio learning the principles behind these methods. In the evening we will put it all into practice with an evening shoot where we combine time-lapse, motion control and green screen to produce a cleverly composite scene.

Who is this workshop for: Anyone! You don’t need to have any previous film making experience to learn a great deal during this workshop. However some experience of basic video shooting or still photography is beneficial. We will provide a basic motion control rig and a selection of cameras, but if you have a DSLR or time-lapse capable camcorder you might want to bring that along.

This is going to be a very, very busy day with lots of exciting and interesting things to take a look at and learn about. I hope it will be a highly enjoyable day and the end shot we will walk away with should amaze your friends while still being something that you can do yourself with only basic tools.

10.00 – 10.30: Introductions and outline of the day ahead.

10.30 – 10.45: Understand how and when to use special effects shooting modes and when it might be better to do it in post.

10.45 – 11.15: How to set up a camera for a special effects shot. Picture profile and camera settings considerations.

11.15 – 11.30: Coffee.

11.30 – 12.45: Green screen – how to shoot and light perfect green screen, including shooting part of out final special effects composition.

12.45 – 13.30: Lunch.

13.30 – 14.45: Time-lapse – how to speed up time, different techniques with video cameras and DSLR’s.

14.45 – 15.00: Coffee.

15.00 – 16.00: Slow motion – how to shoot slow mo with a high speed camera. What lights can you use and how many will you need?

16.00 – 17.00: Motion Control – A basic introduction to motion control and how you can combine it with time-lapse and green-screen.

17.00 – 19.00: Break for you to have diner.

19.00 – 20.30: Putting it all together – combining time-lapse, green-screen and motion control into a very clever special effects shot.

Tuesday, December 10th

Modern Digital Cinematography Techniques.

This workshop is for videographers, digital imaging technicians and cinematographers that are interested in learning more about the latest camera technologies. Learn about shooting using Log gamma, raw and 4K. What are the differences between conventional gammas, log and raw and how does it affect the entire production. Discover how to work with LUT’s (look Up Tables) and “Looks”. Find out how to correctly use the ACES workflow (Academy Color Encoding System) to gain consistency between different cameras and standardize your workflow. Learn how to safely manage the large amounts of data that can be generated by a modern digital cinema camera and then how to grade the footage using DaVinci Resolve.

Who is this workshop for: Intermediate to advanced content creators!

10.00 – 10.30: Introductions and course outline.

10.30 – 11.00: What is gamma, why do we use it and what are it’s limitations. Standard gamma curves and the knee.

11.00 – 11.15: What’s the difference between latitude and dynamic range.

11.15 – 11.30: Coffee.

11.30 – 12.00: Advanced gamma curves, what do they do and why should I choose them?

12.00 – 12.30: Log gamma, what does it add, the pro’s and con’s and when and how do I use it. Correct log exposure.

12.30 – 13.00: Lunch.

13.00 – 13.30: Display referenced and scene referenced, what does this mean and why is it important in modern workflows?

13.30 – 13.45: Raw, what is raw and what are it’s benefits.

13.45 – 14.00: How to expose when shooting raw. Understanding EI gain and latitude control.

14.00 – 14.30: Look Up Tables. 1D and 3D Luts, how to use them, how to create them.

14.30 – 14.45: ACES, an introduction to the principles of the Academy ACES workflow.

14.45 – 15.00: Coffee.

15.00 – 15.45: DaVinci Resolve, an introduction to grading with DaVinci Resolve.

15.45 – 16.30: Hands on session putting it all together. Your chance to try different gammas or raw.

16.30 – 17.00: Q&A. Anything you didn’t quite get or want to know more about? Now’s your chance to ask.

 

Important note. The above is an outline of how the day should run. However depending on the group, the timing and running order may change to fit the skills and abilities of the group. Nothing will be missed, every effort will be made to tailor the day to fit the attendees needs rather than watching the clock and sticking to a rigid schedule. It is not unusual for the running order to change a little as students explore some of the topics covered in more depth and others perhaps a little less.

Please contact Omega to book a place. I look forward to working with you!

 

Just a reminder that I’m running a workshop in Dubai on the FS700 on the 22/23rd of November.  The outline agenda for each day is as follows:

FS700 4K Raw  Workshop:

•           Introduction to 4K, what is 4K and what benefits can it bring, even for HD production.

•           The difference between conventional shooting and using raw.

•           Introduction to NEX-FS700RH

•           FS700 4K Raw setup

•           Raw workflow considerations and overview.

•           Managing and monitoring high dynamic range images.

•           Using Picture Profiles and Look Up Tables for monitoring (LUT’s).

•           Practical: Correct S-Log2 exposure.

•           Practical: Pushing the camera to its limits, discovering how far you can push your exposure.

•           Practical: Shooting in 4K, re-framing in post-production.

•           The future of TV, Internet and web delivery and the importance of 4K acquisition.

•           Introduction to PXW-Z100

•           Q&A.

For more information please contact Advanced Media in Dubai: http://www.amt.tv/event/FS700-Workshop/

It’s been in Beta for a while now, but now the release versions of Black Magic Designs colour grading tool is available to download in both the full paid and free lite versions. The Lite version now allows you to export at up to UHD resolution, so even those shooting 4K are going to be able to deliver at better than HD resolution. One of the best new features in Resolve 10 is a more refined and comprehensive set of editing tools including a title generator. For full details take a look a the BlackMagicDesign web site.

Here’s a list of workshops and events that I’m involved in in the coming months:

Bucharest, Romainia, O-Video are opening a new centre and will be launching this with open days including seminars on the FS700, F5 and F55 on the 5/6/7th of November.
Advanced Media Dubai, FS700 and hopefully Convergent Design Odyssey 7Q 22/23rd November.

Tallin Estonia, FS700 workshop, 28th November, location TBA.

New York, F5/F55 2 hour evening seminar, Sony Cine Alta Forum , NYC 4th December.
Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced video production skills workshops at Omega Broadcast, Austin Texas, 7,9,10th December. great opportunity to come and improve your video skills whatever you experience levels. This was a fantastic event last year and this year should be even better. Fun, educational, inspirational.

Anyone else in USA looking for training early December? I’ll be in the US so if you or your company would like me to put on some training or an event please let me know asap.

I was recently invited to talk about 4K at a Sony event in Myanmar. Rather than just standing up and talking I always like to use practical demonstrations of the things I am talking about. So for this particular workshop I decided to go to one of the local landmarks the day before the event, shoot it in 4K, edit that footage and then grade it in order to produce a short 4K film. The object being to prove that Sony’s 4K raw is not something to be afraid of. It’s actually quite manageable to work with, even with just a laptop.

Having just flown in to Myanmar from a workshop in Vietnam, I was travelling light in order to keep my excess baggage charges to a minimum and to avoid too much aggravation at customs. In total I had about 35kg of luggage including enough clothes for two weeks on the road.

My very minimal equipment for this mini project comprised of a Sony PMW-F5 camera with AXS-R5 recorder. I used an MTF FZ to Nikon lens adapter and a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DSLR lens. The tripod was the excellent Miller Solo with a Compass 15 head. Power came from a couple of Lith 150Wh batteries. A really basic shooting kit but one that can produce remarkably good results. The weakest part of the kit is the lens, I really could have done with a wider lens and the Sigma is prone to flare, so I’m open to suggestions for a better budget zoom lens.

The shoot was surprisingly easy. I’ve heard many stories of Myanmar (Burma) being a closed country, but I had no issues shooting at the temple or around the city of Yangon other than curious onlookers as a large camera like the F5 is a rare sight for the locals.

I shot in 4K raw, I love the post production flexibility that the raw footage brings. In order to keep image noise to a minimum and also to keep exposure easy I used a MLUT  (Lut 2) and 640 EI ISO. I know that when I shoot at 640 EI and use 100% zebras that I can expose nice and bright in the viewfinder and just keep an eye out for zebras just starting to appear. With the F5 at 640 EI, 100% zebras will show just a little before clipping, so as long as you only have the very tiniest amount of zebra on your brightest highlights your exposure will be fine, nice and bright but not clipped.

During the day I spent a couple of hours at the temple and then another hour at the temple in the evening. In the YouTube video you will also see a time-lapse shot. This was done after the workshop and was not included in the original edit.

Once back at the hotel the first stage was to transfer everything from the AXS card to a hard drive. For my travel shoots I use Seagate 2TB USB 3 drives. These are 3.5″ drives so require mains power, 2.5″ drives are not really fast enough for 4K raw editing. My hotel bedroom had one power socket on one side of the room and another on the other side of the room. So with the AXS-CR1 card reader plugged into one and the hard drive into the other I had to sit on the floor in the middle of the room with my laptop running on it’s battery while I transferred the files, about an hours worth of clips. This took about 40 minutes.

Once the clips were on the hard drive I could begin the edit. I could have used the XDCAM HD files from the camera as proxies for the edit, but I find it just as easy to use the raw files. My laptop is an off-the-shelf 15″ Retina MacBook Pro with 8GB of ram. I use Adobe Premiere CC with Sony’s raw plugin for the edit. One thing I have found necessary is to re-boot the computer before editing the raw files. I find Premiere more stable if I do this.

To edit Sony’s 4K raw I use one of the Sony 4K raw presets that get installed when you add the Sony raw plugin. The other thing I have to do is to drop the resolution of the clip viewer and timeline viewer windows to 1/4. This really isn’t a big deal as 1/4 of 4K is HD and when just using the laptops screen I’m not viewing the small viewer windows at a very high resolution anyway. Editing the 4K raw is smooth and painless. Dissolves and effects can be a little jumpy as you try to pull 2 streams of 4K of the single hard drive, but for cuts only or a simple edit it’s really not a problem.

Once I’m happy with the picture cut I export an AAF file from Adobe Premiere. I then close Premiere and start DaVinci Resolve. I use the full paid version as I often want to export in 4K. The free Lite version will happily edit and grade Sony’s 4K raw, but you can only export at up to HD resolution.

Initially I set my project setting to HD as this gives smoother playback. I then open the AAF file that I saved in Premiere. Resolve will ask for a location to search for the clips, so just navigate to the parent folder of the directory where your clips are stored and click “search”. After a short wait your Premiere edit will open in a timeline in Resolve. Now you can go to the “Color” room in Resolve to grade your footage. If your using a low power system like a laptop you may want to go to the project settings and under the raw settings, choose “Sony Raw” and set the De-Bayer to half or quarter. This will help make playback smoother and faster but sacrifices a little image quality. Don’t worry though, we can force Resolve to do a full resolution De-Bayer when we are ready to export the graded clips.

I’m not going to teach you how to grade here. I’m not a colourist, fortunately resolve is pretty straight forward and I can now quickly create a look, save that look and apply it to multiple clips and then go back and tweak and refine the grade where needed, perhaps adding secondary corrections here and there. For the Shwe Dagon video there were only a couple of shots where I used secondaries, these included shots with dark interiors. The overall grade was pretty straight forward.

Once I was happy with the look of the shots I went to the project settings and changed the project resolution back to 4K.  I then used the “deliver” room in Resolve to export the clips. To keep life simple I exported the grade as individual clips with the same file names as the original clips using 4K ProRes HQ to a new folder on my USB 3 hard drive. I also check the “force full resolution debayer” check box to make sure that the quality of the renders is as good as it can be. Rendering the files from Resolve on my MacBook is not a real time process. I get around 5 frames per second, so a minute of footage takes about 5 or 6 minutes. The Shwe Dagon video is a little over 4 minutes so rendering out the graded shots took about half an hour.

Once the render in resolve is completed I then exit Resolve and go back to Premiere. In between I re-boot the laptop. Back in the original edit project I simply import the resolve render files and swap the raw clips in the timeline with the graded clips. I then add any titles or other effects in Premiere before finally exporting the finished piece in the codecs I need using Adobe’s media encoder. For YouTube I export the clips as 4K .mp4 files with a bit rate of 50-75Mb/s.

It really is possible to edit and grade Sony’s 4K raw on a laptop. It’s not particularly painful to do. I wouldn’t want to do a long or complex project this way, but for short simple projects it’s really not a big deal. If you get a BlackMagic thunderbolt MiniMonitor box you can use any HDMI equipped TV as an external monitor. Sony’s 4K raw is easy to work with, the biggest headache is simply the size of the files. At 500GB per hour at 24/25fps there’s a lot of data to manage, but this is no more than uncompressed RGB HD. In the office I have a workstation with a pair of NVIDIA GTX570 graphics cards, these graphics cards give me enough video processing power to work with 4K raw at full resolution in real time.

 

 

I’m currently sitting in the airport lounge at Bangkok airport, on my way to Taiwan for a training event tomorrow (teaching local camera operators to become trainers). So I thought I’d take a few minutes to catch up on things.

The big news is the release of the firmware version 2.0 for Sony’s F5 and F55 cameras. All I can say is wow! A huge number of new features, way to many to list here. Of course the biggie is 240fps super slow-mo 2K raw. Also we get XAVC high speed at up to 120fps (eventually this will go up to 180 fps). There’s the ability to use XQD media which is a fair bit cheaper than SxS and a great new focus tool. The focus assist mode provides you with a “sharpness” bar graph that you can use to check the focus of objects in the center of the field of view. It’s much more precise than peaking and a really great tool to have on a 4K camera. For exposure there is now a very clear waveform monitor display as well as a histogram. If you have the OLED EVF then there is also the addition of false color (although the EVF has to go back to Sony for an update to enable this).

The Audio control button for the side LCD now works and you get easy, direct access to all the major audio functions. In addition you can now change the EI gain from the side LCD. All 4 HDSDI outs now work together giving you two clean HDSDI outs plus two with overlays. Furthermore S-Log2 has been added as a new Look Up Table when shootin in EI mode (don’t forget  you also get S-Log2 out of the AUX HDSDI on the R5 anyway, one way of having 709 + S-Log together). You can also now get standard definition out of SDI 3/4 and the Test out.

For the DiT’s out there there is now a user gamma page where you can roll your own gamma curve, although I have not had time to play with this function yet.

All in all this is a massive update for these cameras and really transforms the camera (not that is was bad before hand). All I need now is to get the new 2K Optical Low Pass Filter. You can download the update files from here:

PMW-F55 V2 Update.

PMW-F5 V2 Update.

AXS-R5 V2 Update.

Do note that you must do an “All Reset” immediately after the update and this update cannot be rolled back!

Last week I was in Yangon, Myanmar running some short half day workshops on Sony cameras. We had about 200 people through the workshops over a couple of days. In between I was able to go out and shoot the Shwe Dagon Pagoda in 4K. It’s a beautiful place, covered in gold bars that sparkle in the sun and diamonds that refract the light from the lights at night into a myriad of colors. I did a quick edit in Myanmar to show at the workshops, but as soon as I get home I’ll finish it off and get it up on to YouTube in 4K. It looks fantastic. A big thank you from me to the team at TMW Enterprises for looking after me so well.

Before that I was in Vietnam running a 3 day workshop for Saigon Film School. What a great bunch. Had a really good time and the 3 short films that the students produced over the course of the workshop all look great. Nice to see such enthusiasm and nice to see many of the techniques I taught put to good use in the films. I hope to go back in the new year to do something even bigger, but only if the faculty staff promise not to get me quite so drunk with “bottoms up” giant glasses of wine at the after school party.

Coming up: I’m preparing some articles on the difference between “Scene Referred” and “Display Referred” shooting and workflows. This is very relevant to anyone shooting raw or looking at implementing an ACES workflow. Also a back to basics tutorial on getting the very best from a lens, whether thats a built in zoom or a prime lens. These should go online in the next week. After that I have a big TV commercial shoot.

Just a brief update from IBC. Firmware version 2.0 will be released at the end of September and will include the high speed raw shooting modes, 2K at up to 240fps. In addition there will be the addition of waveform, vectorscope and histogram.

The Audio button and File bottom on the side panel will be become active. The audio button adding 2 pages of Audio control functions including quick switching for each channel between manual and auto as well as manual level control via the large menu knob. The file button gives quick access to load and save a number of “all files” so you can quickly switch between different camera setups.

Further new features are full support for the Fujinon Cabrio lens (the lens will need a firmware update too) with zoom control and rec start/stop. Support for Sony’s new LA-FZB1 (5000 Euro approx) and FZB2 (9000 Euro approx) lens adapters for B4 lenses.

This is a very significant update for the cameras and includes a lot of other smaller new features.

When shooting 2K the camera uses the full sensor, but it is read in a different way, one that create larger “virtual” pixels (my words, not Sony’s). This means that as the sensor is now operating as a 2K sensor that the factory fitted 4K optical low pass filter (OLPF) is not optimum for controlling aliasing and moire. Sony will be offering (for sale) a drop in replacement 2K OLPF. The 2K OLPF will control aliasing and moire at 2K as well as providing a softer look at 4K for those wanting this. It is almost essential for the 2K high speed modes and gives a smoother look at 4K that works well for beauty, cosmetic, period drama and similar projects. I could not get a price for the 2K OLPF but I have been assured that it will be affordable (even for me and my small budget).

Version 3 Firmware will be released at the end of year, probably a little after Christmas. Version 3 will add the compressed XAVC high speed modes as well as a new feature which is a 2K super 16mm crop mode. The S16 crop mode will allow you to use S16 PL mount lenses or B4 zoom lenses using the MTF FZ-B4 adapter without the 2x extender and only a 0.3 stop light loss. Also included will be AES/EBU digital audio and other features not listed here.