Really great article. Just finished my first narrative feature but been earning a living cutting docs for Vice where the execs are really strong and you're absolutely right, you have to have watched everything and you find yourself suddenly an avid amateur enthusiast. Narratively too documentaries are so gorgeously fluid, they can play like straight factual tv, or they can be fully dramatic through recon or just the plain nature of the story. Such an amazing and varied genre I definitely feel like it's one where there's still so much more we haven't seen yet

Ditto. Short sharp, informative. Thanks for pulling this together TC.

Good question. It kind of means everything. Where you put your actors, why you make them move, why you move the camera, why you put the camera where you do. It all falls into line with a very clear understanding of what the script is asking of you (i.e. rendering the action) and the way you want to present your material to the world.

It's a massive subject and it all really boils down to a subjective appreciation of drama. What makes something dramatic. As he says in the rest of the post, there's a million ways to stage something but it boils down to only 2 and one of them is wrong.

It's quite possible to completely lose your head over staging so really allowing yourself to interpret and appreciate something like this is pretty cool.

I remember going to a talk Rodney gave a few years back when DSLRs first showed their hands and he unequivocally said 'You stand there and see this 4k image and it's mighty impressive.' And yes, it is. Personally I find 4k images more involving than 2k ones, the detail draws me in, the pictures feel alive in a way 1080p don't.

There's this rote response that no-one will be able to spot the difference on a TV from the couch. To which I say bollocks. If you're on this blog then you have a keen interest in this kind of thing and you ought to be able to see a very noticeable difference. 1080p is great as shot but most people only experience it as crappily encoded broadcast signals and if we can make that experience better by pumping out a 4k signal at the source then surely that's a win for everybody?

Resolution is good. It gives you options. Master at 2k if you like. Shoot on film if you like...

That's the impossible dream though right there, the 'as-film' digital camera. One day we'll have it then we'll all be sobbing into our CMOS sensors.

We've come along way in the last three years, long may it continue.

These are great Micah, such an important part of being a committed filmmaker is trying to work out how to balance the all-in immersion of the job with being a functioning human being. I have no idea what the answer is. All I know is, somebody somewhere is always annoyed with me!

Just watching the trailer for 'I believe in butterflies' shot on S16. I know it's a tired old story but watching this all it made me think was 'My next film will be shot on... film'

Shot my first feature on Alexa which has bags of personality, next film on F55 and the follow up on Epic and none of them come close to that feeling film gives you.

Commenter below comparing this to the Sony look, and I have to agree, although it shares the GH4's super-clean look. In the right hands any camera can shine but I didn't see anything to love here. The BMC's seem to have more 'personality'.

Such a tricky thing to pin down but it's not worth judging a cam on one sample too much.