WHAT IS IT WITH THIS VIDEO

[Amarjeet Singh Sadal]

i had recently shot this short peice as a part of my ma film production course.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylS_DcUm1hA

 

i shot it on 16mm. did everything from conceptualization, cinematography, editing, vfx and sound.

 

the problem is the look. it is not as good and clean looking as the other 16mm films i have seen. what is missing here. where did i goof up. although the grungy look is quite appropriate for the kinda of film in question that i have made. but we will soon be shooting our final films on 16mm. i certainly would not want it to look like this.

 

my lighting gear was very simple one i suppose. film speed was 200. lights included 2000, 800, 650, ianaro and dedo. i don remember which was used specifically in which shot. but almost all the backlight was provided by 2000 and closeups where done mostly with dedo.

 

please advise.

[David Mullen ASC]

Looks pretty good for 16mm, from what I can tell from a compressed U-Tube presentation.

 

What lenses were you using? What was telecine was the film transferred on? To what tape format? How was it posted?

 

Technical quality is often not one or two things, but a dozen little things that add up. Individually, they may not produce much of a hit in quality, but too many little hits and you start to notice.

 

But there are also limitations to the 16mm format.

[Amarjeet Singh Sadal]

thanks david. you are right i completely forgot about those aspects.

 

we used 9mm, 16mm, 28mm, and a zoom lens (i don remember the zoom lens mm)

 

it was a telecine from film to a beta and then to a minidv. which i digitised and did the post on, since we only have small sony minidv decks which only digitize minidv. don remember the name. then i took a quiktime output as a personal copy which was uploaded on youtube.

 

also our cinematography tutor said that although the production houses they send for telecine boast of top of the line machines. they usually put student telecine on old and outdated machines which they never commit they did.

 

also he said that student telecines are usually not graded. that maybe another reason.

 

the camera was an arriflex sr3 and the lights are also arri.

[Chad Stockfleth]

Telecine to beta and then dubbed to minidv is gonna take a pretty significant hit.

 

Perhaps next time you can telecine to digibeta and then capture footage somewhere else? that would be a lot cleaner.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

it was a telecine from film to a beta and then to a minidv

 

There's the problem right there, probably. Was it regular Beta or DigiBeta? Either way, you're probably going to have some generation loss, hence the loss in quality.

 

If you're going to the same production house for another telecine, you should find out if they output onto any other formats. MiniDV, DVCAM, etc.

[Amarjeet Singh Sadal]

i agree that there might be a huge loss during the film>beta(not digi)>mini dv

but i can swear that i have seen other films which look quite immaculate on mini dv. yes there was loss on those but not so much so that the entire film look changes.

 

i still think it was something to do with the telecine.

[Jon Kukla]

It reminds me of some old friends' film school films which were shot on 16mm, printed, edited on a flatbed, and then telecined. So I have to ask - was this a TK straight from the original uncut negative, or is it coming from something else, like a workprint?