Danny_Schmidt

Hey All - Thought I'd share a personal passion project I finished this year. It's a short documentary called Janwaar that celebrates a rambunctious group of kids whose lives are transformed when a skatepark is built in their small village in India. A bit of backstory: I was in Mumbai for a commercial job and I convinced my friend and colleague who I was working with to accompany me to this tiny village to make this doc while we were there. It was one hell of an adventure! I am a life-long skateboarder so it meant a lot to visit this place. For the gear folks out there: We shot this largely on the Sony FS7 with Zeiss CP.2 primes. There are a few shots in there from a RED camera and the Fuji XT3 as well. Nearly all of my film projects these days are work-for-hire DP or directing gigs. Rarely do I have time or energy to make something for myself, with no strings attached. This was one of those times where it all came together to make something fun, low budget, and truly indie. Enjoy! -DS 

AirTags are a great idea, Doug!

If you work in film long enough, sooner or later you’re going to find yourself at the airport with all of your equipment. It’s part of the job, and it can be stressful. Here are a couple of tips/tricks I’ve gleaned over the years and after many hundreds of thousands of miles in the air. Invest in some hard cases for your gear. I personally like Pelican brand, but there are lots of others. They can be a bit expensive, but they are bomber and will last forever. The 1510 is a perfect size for carry-on and fitting in overheads, and the 1650 is a great size for filling with stuff to be checked luggage.Always take with you in your carryon what you’ll need to show up and shoot. This was a film school lesson I learned from my professor and I’ve always stuck with it. This way, if all of your other luggage gets lost, at least you’ll have the bare minimum gear to show up and work. Additionally, all lithium ion batteries must be in your carry on. So what does this look like? For me it means packing the following in my Pelican 1510 and in a backpack and carrying both of these on the plane:Camera bodyBatteriesCamera Media At least one lensLaptop/Charger/Card ReaderAudio gear if neededPack your things in your checked luggage with care! Baggage handlers don’t care about your expensive tripod head or brand new EasyRig. Even inside a big pelican case I add extra padding. I usually take the head off of my tripod and wrap it in bubble wrap within my cases.Put your name and contact info on all of your casesGet a Media Credential / Media ID card. Your bags will be quite heavy and you will probably have more than the allowed airline limit. With a media card you can qualify for the ‘media rate’ which will save you a TON of money on your flights. What tips and tricks do you have for flying with gear?

Thanks, Oakley! As with all wild animals (gators especially!), film from a safe distance and stay aware of their behavior. The pic with my tripod in the frame is a bit of a forced perspective illusion -- that gator was a safe distance out, even though he happened to park himself right on the trail!

Hey All -- I had the opportunity to take the FX6 to Florida this year and film in one of my all-time favorite places: The Corkscrew Swamp. Seriously - if you ever find yourself in the Sunshine State, make the trip to Corkscrew to get a glimpse at the real wild Florida. I've shot here a lot and it is always a treat. Loads of animals and birds line the trail and, depending on the time of year, much of the wildlife is concentrated in small ponds accessible from a boardwalk. I took my FX6 with me along with the following gear: Sony 200-600, Sony 24mm, DJI Ronin 2, Cartoni Focus 22 Tripod, and the Laowa Probe macro lens. It wasn't a ton of gear, but it felt like a lot to haul around all day by myself! A few things about shooting in the swamp that makes things difficult: the light can be harsh - either too dark or too bright, and often both at the same time. I was impressed with the ability of the FX6 to handle the dynamic range. The other element that makes any wildlife filming difficult is the fact that animals can be skittish, and often times the behavior you are hoping to capture happens very quickly. The ability to shoot 4K 120 with a preroll function made it much easier to capture behaviors without missing too much. I was able to switch between gimbal and long lens pretty easily with the FX6. A stripped down version of the camera fits well on a handheld gimbal and yet is easy to build back out with steel rails and dovetail plates to shoot proper long lens on a tripod. This isn't possible with too many cameras that possess this feature set. Please hit me up with any questions or thoughts about this stuff. Or about Florida wildlife! Enjoy 😎 Watch the video here!           #sonyfx6

Beautiful work, Josh! I love the shot of the moon at 1:35!

The Sony FX6 has been a wild success, so much so that most folks are waiting months and months for the camera to come available and off of backorder. Meanwhile, the Sony FX9 has been quietly shipping to happy cinematographers the world over. When the FX9 came out, I was in the position to move on from my trusty FS7 and the logical next camera seemed like the full frame, feature-heavy FX9. I am not the type to just buy gear on a whim. For me, all of this stuff is a tool for my job and I loath the idea of investing in a piece of camera gear that is just going to sit in the closet. When I buy something big (like a camera), I need to make sure that it will pay itself off in a reasonable amount of time - usually a year or less. When I dropped in on the FX9, I had a big project coming up - DP’ing an hour of the long-running Nature strand for PBS. We were going to be shooting lots of days in variable conditions and I needed a burly camera that could hold up to all the abuse I had put my FS7 through. You can watch the full episode here! What I love about the FX9: 1. The fact that you can switch between full-frame 4K and s35 4K with no loss of resolution basically means this is like two cameras in one. It opens up so many lens options, especially in the cine zoom world. For this show, we were shooting mostly on Sigma Cine Zooms (18-35 and 50-100) which are made for s35, but I also had the Sony 200-600 and Sony 70-200, both of which are beauties on a full frame sensor. 2. Dual-Base ISO. I know other cameras have this functionality, but I must say being able to shoot well after sun down is such a luxury, especially in the nature doc world. 3. Form-factor. It is so close in size/shape to the FS7 that it really felt like nothing had changed when I switched cameras. I out near the Great Salt Lake by my home. Check it out!#SonyFX9

Love this, Alister. I appreciate the free master class! 🙌

Thanks, @tanyallyon 😊 I am stoked to share some stories about this stuff ⬆️ !

Hi All! My name is Danny Schmidt and I am a full-time cinematographer and filmmaker and a Sony Cine Ambassador. First of all, I just want to say how excited I am to take part in the official Sony Cine Forums. I know this will be an awesome place to learn from each other and chat about the world of filmmaking, camera gear, cinematography, and art of translating the real world to film. I am psyched to meet more of you as the Forums take shape, but in the meantime here is a bit more about me and what I do. I’ve been working professionally in nonfiction film for over 10 years. I took a rather circuitous path to get here, but it more or less started when I finished my MFA in Documentary Film in 2012 and was thrust into the real world to try and figure out how the business works. It’s been a journey - lots of trial and error, many lessons learned, and plenty of hard work - and one that I am very much still on. There are so many stories to tell in this world, and the camera is such an infinitely fascinating way to interpret our reality and generate empathy in an audience. This job has taken me on adventures around the globe. I am excited to chat with all of you about your own adventures (and misadventures) in filmmaking and to form a community from which we can all draw inspiration. I’ll be posting regularly - sometimes long and thoughtful, other times with just a simple prompt to start a conversation. You can see more of my work here: www.dannyschmidtfilms.com Please share your own websites, reels, and portfolios in your introductions so we can see what you’ve all been working on. 🤠 🎥 In my Kit: #SonyFX6 #SonyFX9 #lotsoflenses #cartonitripods #