HDV on the Big Screen

[Jason Chan]

Great discussion so far.

 

I'm sure experience filmmakers , dps and so on like the people on board may be able to spot the difference from HD and film.

 

But to be frank, non-filmmakers, the general public do not even know or care about it as long as the story is good.

When I was a regular movie goer, I don't look at the lighting, framing etc as I have no knowledge on that, which applies to 99% of the cinema goers. I just want to watch an entertaining film.

 

In fact, I have some people coming up and says HD is superior as it is a newer technology. I know this isn't true, but the fact is, the general audience would not know their difference unless they are educated on that.

 

So I do agree that we should aim for the highest production value possible, but this argument is not as important to the general audience..

I have not heard of anyone saying Star Wars should have been shot on film, why didn't they do it by the public in general. Only from filmmakers that this argument arises. So my point is, shoot on whatever you are comfortable with, as our main target audiences are the general public, and they won't know unless both footages are put side by side.

[David Mullen ASC]

Another issue is that if HDV is being used for cost-savings, it would make more sense to shoot the whole project in HDV rather than intercut it with 35mm, so the matching problem wouldn't be an issue. And as with most alternative formats to 35mm, if shot well, one tends to get used to the image and just accept it after awhile. It's not an issue of matching 35mm quality if you don't put up 35mm side-by-side. I have no objections to someone who wants to make a feature in HDV; I wish them the best of luck. Who knows, I may have to someday. My objections is when someone shooting in HDV wants to lecture everyone shooting in 35mm that HDV is just as good or that 35mm quality is no longer necessary for movies.

 

Hopefully one would choose a format that suits the visual needs of the project, not only make a choice based on financial considerations. Or if HDV is all they can afford, they find a way to make the project benefit from that choice artistically.

 

Also, one should note that since almost all theatrical features need to be on 35mm prints as of today, even though digital projection is an option on some screens, the cost savings of HD are much less than you'd think. Typical indie film around 1 mil in budget usually shoots about 100,000' of 35mm neg and spends about $60,000 on stock & processing & telecine. Whereas in an HD shoot, you may only spend a few thousand dollars on HD tape stock and downconversions for editing. Yet the costs of a laser recorder transfer to a 35mm IN will be around $60,000 for a feature, and that doesn't factor in the costs of an HD post (online & color-correction.)

 

Of course, on the far end, you save money again shooting on HD because you don't have to make an HD transfer for home video deliverables, which can also cost near $50,000.

 

But once you move up in quality beyond the F900, like "Revenge of the Sith" or "Sin City" did, your savings go down again because of the higher costs from renting HDCAM-SR decks, or hard drives, etc. So far, all my attempts to move an HD production up to a 4:4:4 system have been thwarted by the fact that the costs start to become comparable with 35mm again (assuming a photo-chemical finish for 35mm) -- at least so far as you get producers complaining "I thought HD was supposed to be saving me money!"

 

As for the old argument that "the public doesn't care", I've answered this before. The public ISN'T supposed to care. That's not their job -- they expect the professionals who make their entertainment to care so they don't have to. The public doesn't give a rat's a-- if I used an ND grad filter to hold detail in a sky or a Pola to take some glare off of a roadway. They don't care if I shoot a scene at f/11 or f/2. That doesn't therefore mean that none of these things matter. So the real question is if you as a filmmaker or artist don't care about the quality of the work you create, then why are you doing this? I mean, don't you think Rembrandt cared more about color and shade and composition than the consumers of his paintings? That's why he was Rembrandt and that's why the people buying his paintings didn't just paint them themselves.

 

Most people can't tell a difference between the quality of an audio recording on a CD versus an MP3 recording; does that mean that professional audio people should only record at MP3 quality from now on even if THEY can hear a difference? That their standards should be lowered to that of a layman with no experience in audio?

 

When "This is Cinerama" came out, despite having no real plot and just being a travelogue showing off the Cinerama process, it was the highest grossing film of the year even though it only played in 12 theaters. So the notion that the public has no interest in image quality is bogus. There are all types of movies made, and some rely more heavily on their images than others, and some of those image-driven films rely more on creating an immersive, large-screen experience more than others. It's not a right or wrong thing, that a small low-key dialogue-heavy character study is inherently better than a visual epic like "2001", or something lyrical like a "Days of Heaven". We need all types of stories out there, and some of them need to look really, really good on the big screen.

 

I have no hang-ups against shooting digitally or else I wouldn't have photographed eight features in HD. But I just want to make sure that anything that threatens to replace 35mm achieves parity with 35mm first, if not even has the potential of surpasssing 35mm. And I'm not just talking about resolution. We don't want to be the generation of filmmakers that collectively decided to settle for a lower standard than what the previous generation accepted.

Edited December 12, 2005 by David Mullen

[Erkki Halkka]

Also, one should note that since almost all theatrical features need to be on 35mm prints as of today, even though digital projection is an option on some screens, the cost savings of HD are much less than you'd think.

 

The price savings are really relevant only if the film is done in true guerilla-style.

 

You can shoot with HDV, edit and color correct your work in PC workstation.

 

I'd say total cost of buying equipment to do a somewhat serious HDV production would be around 15-20K, lights and other stuff like dollies not included.. That would include the camera, a tripod, good mic or two, a workstation, enough HD space and all necessary software to make more or less all you can imagine - including compositing, color correction, audio post, 3D and other SFX.

 

Add in 10K for random rental costs, travel etc.

 

This place

 

http://www.dvfilm.com/faq.htm

 

says they'll do the 35mm film transfer starting from 20K.

 

That would be a total of something around 50K for the technical budget... Now, if you were able to get some good people to work with you on "future profit sharing" ideology... you get my drift - full length feature with under 50K budget - and if it sells, the next one would be only 30K, as you already own the equipment ;-)

 

I'm pretty sure i'm not the first one thinking this route - it might very well mean we get to see some movies that wouldn't have been made at all otherwise. And, who knows, some of them might be really good.

Edited December 12, 2005 by Eki Halkka

[David Mullen ASC]

If you have a really small budget, that sounds like a good plan. DVFilm uses a CRT recorder but they do good work (I would have expected a CRT recording to cost more like $30,000 for a feature though).

 

Just be aware that the more tiny corners you cut in production, post, and film transfer, the further you may be drifting from the goal of making something look like the same quality as most 35mm productions.

 

But with HDV, you can basically make a movie for what it used to cost to shoot and post in DV, but with more resolution, which is nice.

 

Of course, people have made Super-16 features for 50K as well...

Edited December 12, 2005 by David Mullen

[Erkki Halkka]

Just be aware that the more tiny corners you cut in production, post, and film transfer, the further you may be drifting from the goal of making something look like the same quality as most 35mm productions.

 

But with HDV, you can basically make a movie for what it used to cost to shoot and post in DV, but with more resolution, which is nice.

 

That pretty much sums it up, i think ;-)

[Martin Hawkes]

Great thread!

 

I was kind of hoping Charles would post again.

 

As shooters in today´s market we shoot with whatever format is available and make the most of it. But if your producer and director are referencing "classic cinema" and you are shooting on video you will only end up shooting yourself in the foot.

 

All the best,

 

Martin

[andrewbuchanan]

Wow. This is a good thread. It covers a lot of the HDV debate, everything from people who are just repeating things they have read before in the cinematography.com forum and others, to honest considerations of professionals (like Mr. Mullen). I've been reading a lot... A LOT of people debating about the 35mm film out for HDV. Most of it has been... and I hope not to sound like a prick... but a bunch of people who have never attempted the process regurgitating other people's (who generally don't know much either) postings. The amount of misinformation about HDV that is out there is staggering. I'm not a defender, I've never shot any.

 

I recently ran across a article about test by some decently professional people who made an HDV print. No, they weren't huge Hollywood DPs, but some decently respectable folks in North Carolina. One of them was my cinematography professor from film school. To qualify, I never liked the guy, but he knows what he is talking about. I think the article was in DV magazine.

 

Anyway, they gave the HDV print a very satisfactory review. It wasn't focused on numerical qualities, just a viewing experience. They said it held up well against Super 16mm. I don't know the circumstances of the shoot, the lightingm, what shots they used, etc - BUT, it was nice to hear from someone who was really testing the process, and not posting some hype they read on dvxuser.com (which is good forum).

 

Oddly, there were some concerns I'm familiar with from film. They tested prints from different labs. This made a big difference. They came to the conclusion that testing is critical. Also, they used a progressive camera (The Z1U I think) and deinterlaced in post - a mortal sin according to soooo many post I have read.

 

Any way, I would suggest taking a look at the article before you decide to talk about how s*&^*y HDV is on film. It's not what I would use in a perfect world... but given the opportunity, I certainly wouldn't refuse a gig using it either. In fact, I think it would be a fun challange. Seriously... I'm available. January is wide open for me. My rates are great. I have some dates open...

[Sam Wells]

But to be frank, non-filmmakers, the general public do not even know or care about it as long as the story is good.

When I was a regular movie goer, I don't look at the lighting, framing etc as I have no knowledge on that, which applies to 99% of the cinema goers. I just want to watch an entertaining film.

 

But you DO (as does the general public) look at these things, otherwise you don't see the entertaining film.

Not defining the qualities doesn't mean they aren't there.

 

-Sam

[Tenolian Bell]

Hhhmm, I've been working and missed this thread.

 

Over the past couple of months I've shot two short films on Sony's HDV. I actually wanted to dislike this format, but have to admit it does look a lot better than its specs would determine. Because of compression I felt we would be limited in color correction so I pretty much exposed everything as perfectly as I could.

 

I watched the dailies on an HD monitor and it looked really great. We shot some exterior scenes on the Las Vegas strip which looked very good. But not better than HDCAM.

 

I did notice thought that the sharpening needed to be considerably boosted. Normally I reduce the sharpening, but in this case it was too soft, I actually needed to add.

 

Philosophically I'm still not that excited about HDV. High Definition was created as an improvment, but a lot of emphasis has been placed on far can we reduce it to an acceptable level of mediocrity.

 

Sony of course wants to leverage its HD R&D for the consumer market. High ticket item such as HDCAM will not sell in mass, but HDV would.

 

The average Joe/Jane with big Hollywood dreams would feel a camera that can record HD for a fraction of the cost can equalize his/her opportunity to break into the big game.

 

If given a choice I would prefer the SDX-900 with a Digiprime lens package. Inspite of the SDX being an SD camera I still like the image better than the Z1.

 

 

 

Some tid bits from this thread.

 

but at least in digital domain, the color is simply math: it's just numbers.

 

The color measurements of all imaging systems are based in math. Even more with film all elements of film recording and control are based on math. You can sit down with pencil and paper and create an entire shot with mathematical formulas, and produce an image using the answers from those calculations.

 

 

how come I ALWAYS recognize whether something is shot on video just by the look of the skintones?

 

For me skin tones always stand out in digital based on texture. Which I imagine is based on the need for artificial sharpening based on low quantization and bit depth.

 

You can always add grain in post production, if you wish. Synthetic film grain doesn't - real does. Shoot a gray card with the film stock of your choice, digitize it, composite on top of video - voilá!!

 

I've never heard of this trick, but it does not seem to me would reproduce the way film looks. The reason most post film grain plug ins don't look real is because grain in real film is random. Many different size crystals are used across the frame and are randomly arranged.

 

It's something that will allow Joe Average to get technically "close enough" of big time, with cheap off the shelf equipment - the current generation of it is kind of at the edge, the next gen will probably be over it already. So, the difference won't be who has the big bucks, but rather who's good.

 

In the real Hollywood system its not even totally based on who's good. A lot of it is based on who's connected, who's related to the right person, who has friends in high places, who is lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

 

35mm isn't 4k. I've looked at scans at 2 and 4 side by side and all you're doing is resolving more grain.

 

Which is true because the film image is made of billions of little crystals.

 

In NY I saw a Kodak scientist Roger Morton who gave a presentation on how much resolution and detail can be resloved in a 35mm image.

 

He showed us microscopic slides of film grain and magnified pixels of film scanned to digital. He showed us what pixels looked like with and without sharpening. His discovery showed us fine detail was being lost in the 4K scan and that 6K would be needed to show all of it without additional sharpening.

 

they gave the HDV print a very satisfactory review. It wasn't focused on numerical qualities, just a viewing experience. They said it held up well against Super 16mm

 

I've seen several of these tests with miniDV, DVC-Pro, Digibeta, and HD, versus a super 16 blow up. And at everyone of them I was obviously watching a poor super 16 blow up. At one of these demostrations I told the guys from the lab this test clearly shows me I would never come to them for a super 16 blow up.

 

A Super 16 frame can be scanned at uncompressed 2K 4:4:4 full 16 bit log. Which is exponentially many times over better than HDV.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> He showed us microscopic slides of film grain and magnified pixels of film scanned to digital. He showed us

> what pixels looked like with and without sharpening. His discovery showed us fine detail was being lost in the

> 4K scan and that 6K would be needed to show all of it without additional sharpening.

 

Hey, and guess what - if I computer render something at 2K and laser it out to film, the film doesn't resolve every pixel! Oh, no! Film's crap! But of course it isn't.

 

Once again: being able to go from film to film transparently via digital does not reveal anything about the true comparative resolution.

 

And to shut this tiresome discussion up once and for all - you can tell when something's video because of the highlight rendering and colour tone. I can tell when something's film because of the dirt, grain, scratches and unsteadiness. Congratulations. We're all professionals, we know what we're looking at by its characteristics.

 

Now can we puh-leease move on?

 

Phil

[Erkki Halkka]

I've never heard of this trick, but it does not seem to me would reproduce the way film looks. The reason most post film grain plug ins don't look real is because grain in real film is random. Many different size crystals are used across the frame and are randomly arranged.

 

I use it a lot, when i need to give "film look" finish to video or CGI. The beauty of it is that it uses actual film grain. The grain looks real simply because it IS real.

 

I have a small collection of digitized film grain, or more accurately, black footage from film transfers, i.e. the beginning of an archive film, or a telecine session. I simply put these on top of video in additive or screen transfer mode mode. It works pretty well. I control the amount of grain by color correcting the grain layer - more contrast = more grain.

 

Shooting a gray card so that it's exposed to 50% luminosity, and compositing that in overlay mode would be theorethically slightly better method. In my "black" method, the grain always lightens the image. With "gray" method, some of the grain lightens, some darkens the image - dunno how much that matters in real life ,-)

 

 

 

In the real Hollywood system its not even totally based on who's good. A lot of it is based on who's connected, who's related to the right person, who has friends in high places, who is lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

 

I was just referring to technical quality... that has been out of the reach untill now. That said, there's places outside Hollywood... usually they too work in the same way though ;-)

Edited December 14, 2005 by Eki Halkka

[Jason Chan]

But you DO (as does the general public) look at these things, otherwise you don't see the entertaining film.

Not defining the qualities doesn't mean they aren't there.

 

-Sam

 

 

To be frank, I don't, that is until i became a filmmaker myself.

I still remember asking myself, why do telemovies not shown in the big screen and are only released straight to tv.

 

But now i appreciate all the effort from art direction till lighting etc in a film.

[Max Jacoby]

I can tell when something's film because of the dirt, grain, scratches and unsteadiness.

 

Don't be silly Phil. This is not a problem of film origination, but of BAD projection, something of which I have seen very little in my life.

[Rolfe Klement]

Just a quick question - who among the posters in this thread has actually shot 35mm film and | or been in a telecine transfer with one of the big 10 post houses.

 

Just a yes | no answer please

 

One of the problems | advantages of the internet is the level playing field :)

 

thanks

 

Rolfe

[Stephen Williams]

Just a quick question - who among the posters in this thread has actually shot 35mm film and | or been in a telecine transfer with one of the big 10 post houses.

 

Just a yes | no answer please

 

One of the problems | advantages of the internet is the level playing field :)

 

thanks

 

Rolfe

 

Rolfe,

 

Yes well over 1,000,000 feet, in 25 years.

 

Stephen

[Max Jacoby]

My own films have all been 35mm anamorphic. And I don't intend to change that any time soon, unless the perfect project for 65mm comes along.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I have many hundreds of hours of exposure to 2 and 4K scans in a grading environment.

 

And...

 

> My own films have all been 35mm anamorphic.

 

My you're rich!

 

And look, nobody's being "silly". I defy you to find me a feature film DVD that doesn't have one single particle of dirt or a single instance of instability on it. This doesn't mean I decry film as useless.

 

Phil

[Max Jacoby]

My you're rich!

I never put my own money in my films.

[Erkki Halkka]

Just a quick question - who among the posters in this thread has actually shot 35mm film and | or been in a telecine transfer with one of the big 10 post houses.

 

Just a yes | no answer please

 

Shoot 35mm film as DOP: No.

Direct stuff shot on 35mm film: Yes.

Done post production / color timing with telecined film: Yes.

Done post production / color timing with 2K film scans: Yes.

 

Been in telecine: Yes.

In one of the 10 big post houses: Not in U.S.A. - Yes in Finland.

Edited December 14, 2005 by Eki Halkka

[Stephen Williams]

Shoot 35mm film as DOP: No.

 

Hi,

 

Would you feel comfortable shooting on 16 or 35mm film as a DoP?

 

Stephen

[Erkki Halkka]

Would you feel comfortable shooting on 16 or 35mm film as a DoP?

 

I wouldn't feel comfortable operating due to lack of experience, but if someone else operated the camera for me, and/or offered a bit of backup when making technical decisions, i'd be happy to give it a try.

[Brian Drysdale]

Just a quick question - who among the posters in this thread has actually shot 35mm film and | or been in a telecine transfer with one of the big 10 post houses.

 

Just a yes | no answer please

 

One of the problems | advantages of the internet is the level playing field :)

 

thanks

 

Rolfe

 

I've shot 35mm, with transfers in London and Dublin.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> I never put my own money in my films.

 

It strikes me that they're not really your films, in that case.

 

Whose films are they?

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

Don't be silly Phil. This is not a problem of film origination, but of BAD projection, something of which I have seen very little in my life.

 

Well, I had a lot of dirt & light scratching problems on my last 35mm shoot which I never could track down. Loader blamed the lab and lab blamed the loader, mags were switched out, etc.... A lot of it will drop out with wet-gate printing, and hopefully we'll be doing a D.I. so I can paint some of it out, which is a shame that I even have to do that.

 

But steadiness problems tend to be more of a projection phenomenon (you do steadiness tests before you begin a production) or a telecine problem, and grain can be controlled, so if it's there and fairly heavy, it's usually a creative choice, not a mistake.

 

There are a LOT of quality-control issues behind shooting film, so let's not pretend they don't exist. However, the same can be said about shooting digitally -- it's just that you have a host of different artifacts to deal with, and viewers are less used to them so they can stand out more.

Edited December 14, 2005 by David Mullen

[Max Jacoby]

> I never put my own money in my films.

 

It strikes me that they're not really your films, in that case.

 

Whose films are they?

Phil, don't be silly. This becoming a bit repetitious...