Trying to make professional tape

[sig]

I've been in my high school's video program for the last 3 years. I've been editting with FCP4 for the last year making story packages and a few cool opening sequences here and there. It's my senior year and I'm trying to step it up, specifically in a commercial I'm making to get students to join the sports broadcasting club I made last year. I just finished all of the title work, and it looks great, but now I need to shoot the tape. I don't want to ruin all the work I did to make the titles very professional by getting the same low quality look I have in all of my tape. I shoot DV from a Canon GL2 and XL1 (not S). This commercial is going to involve some up close footage of football I'm going to shoot this friday, and some up close shots of still objects (camera's, equipment, the logo model), and I will be using a blue screen to give me the desired background. If someone can direct me to some threads or give me some advice on lighting, focus, white balance, and all of the other tricks of the trade to make the tape look less like a highschool production and more professional. I'm just now discovering the manual features on the XL1. And I also want to do a couple of shots where the focus moves from the far side of the object to the near side, and am having trouble isolating focus I want. I want a very narrow birth of focus, and would like the out of focus to be as out of focus looking as possible. Right now when I try to do that, the birth is too wide and the whole object ends up in focus. Also if someone can explain to me the diff in 30fps and 24fps, if i can change that, etc. Thanks alot.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> the same low quality look I have in all of my tape...

 

The thing to do is to try and isolate what you don't like about what you've already shot. Be very specific. Compare your work to stuff you do like, and be analytical about how it's different. Look closely at where light is coming from and where things are in the frame. If you're able to, consider mounting some stills on the internet so we can discuss them. Your XL1 will never quite equal the sharpness of the best broadcast material, but otherwise (colour, tone, separation) it's a fine enough camera and is capable of producing nice material if used carefully.

 

> some advice on lighting, focus, white balance, and all of the other tricks of the

> trade

 

That's an impossibly wide question, really - like I said, be analytical, get specific, and we can discuss it. People spend four years at college learning the answer to that question!

 

> couple of shots where the focus moves from the far side of the object to the

> near side

 

I think you're talking about racking focus, which is probably something you have seen used professionally. This is difficult on the XL1 due to the very small size of its image sensor - use the forum search function to read more about this, as it's been discussed in the past. However, you can maximise your chances by moving the camera further away from the object and zooming in. Again, read up for info on why this helps. It's also quite hard to hit focus marks accurately on the XL1's standard lens because there is no direct connection from the control ring to the lens elements. There is a manual lens for the XL1 which improves this, but it isn't a terribly cheap option.

 

> 30fps and 24fps

 

Well, uh, I'd have thought it was fairly clear - one image updates thirty times a second, one updates twenty-four times a second. The motion rendering is actually poorer for 24fps, but most people interpret the juddering motion as being filmlike and therefore nicer-looking. An NTSC XL1 will do 30fps interlaced or progressive (which is something else you should look up); if you desperately want to get to 24fps progressive you should actually shoot 30i. I believe Mr. Pingol has a technique for 30i to 24p conversion; I'm in the UK with 25fps gear so it isn't something I have to do.

 

Phil

[sig]

First off thank you for your reply. I have some stills picked out of what I don't like, I'm trying to figure out how I can go about posting them. Unfortunatly I just got a new computer so all I have is tape that I shot in the last 2 weeks so I can't really pick out anything i've shot that has what I'm looking for.

 

As to what I am looking for, I'm not entirely sure. When i review my footage, it looks, in lack of a better term, too real. When I watch professional video, especially studio work, it looks almost surreal, the colors don't scream out, they almost seam like they are dullen a little, instead of being distracting.

 

As for whitebalance, lighting etc, I basically want to know how to go about doing that. The method that I kind of picked up on is that when you walk into a different lighting enviroment, your supposed to point the camera towards something that is a pure white, like a piece of paper, and then press the white balance button. I never noticed too much success with this, it didn't seem like anything changed, although I'm probably not doing it right. As for lighting, the most important I need to know is how to get a better key out of my blue screen. In the studio we probably 20 lights of all shapes and sizes on the ceiling that can move around, and two working ones that can be on the ground. I noticed last time that I ran bluescreen through my computer, even though I'm pretty experienced on keying (i do alot of pre shot video through it) the base footage either made it so it was choppy, not tight enough on the talent, or the spillover was causing it to cut off pieces of the talent. Here is an example from last year of the problems that I have, this is a spoof on the ipod commercials. This one is a video that I didn't do, rather another kid in our class did it with the same blue screen and same lighting that I had. I also did a version of the ipod commercial that turned out a little smoother since he was using FCP3, which doesn't have a few color smoothing tools that FCP4 has and I'm a little better at keying, but the problems that he ran into are the same that I run into. http://www.finalcutproduction.com/FCP%20Po...iPod_frame.html I want to use the screen because I don't have the time to build a real set that would work with my application, but I want to get the best key possible.

 

I hope this gives a more detailed explanation about what i want to know, thank you in advance for your response.

[Andrew Cefalo]

I hate to post her sig seeing as how I see you everyday and I could just tell you my thoughts but I had a point I wanted to mention that might help others to understand what I think you want.

 

I noticed while watching Lord of the Rings this effect, the colors are all to perfect, they are like paintings... like every single frame had work done to it in Photoshop.

 

I have the extended-extended full-length 4 disks set of both the first movie and second. I did not realize how the performed this effect until I sat through 8 hours of behind the scenes stuff. They use a program (I assume similar to shake or shake itself) to actually do what I just mentioned, go through every frame with color correction, it is stunning. They take an image that looks like we shot it and turn it into what you see. This is just done with color correction alone. The process is called Digital Grading.

 

The affect sig wants out of his "lighting or white balance" does not sound like it can be solved by this but in reality... this works. If you know a technique that performs a Digital Grading look I think sig would like to know about it.

 

That is not the only thing though that he asking about. I cannot answer his questions because I only know so much... we are both pushing to figure this stuff out, looking at a lot of pro work and comparing it to ours. I guess we (and by we I mean mostly me) are just confused as to why Cold Mountain had the same setup as we do and they produced that. I cannot speak for sig here but I know Digital Grading would greatly improve his shots in a fashion he wants.

 

I can host those files for you sig... after all, you did link to my server once for that iPod video (then proceeded to rip on it and say your copy of it was better) but it's ok, I'm a nice guy.

[sig]

Hi,

 

> the same low quality look I have in all of my tape...

 

The thing to do is to try and isolate what you don't like about what you've already shot. Be very specific. Compare your work to stuff you do like, and be analytical about how it's different. Look closely at where light is coming from and where things are in the frame. If you're able to, consider mounting some stills on the internet so we can discuss them. Your XL1 will never quite equal the sharpness of the best broadcast material, but otherwise (colour, tone, separation) it's a fine enough camera and is capable of producing nice material if used carefully.

 

> some advice on lighting, focus, white balance, and all of the other tricks of the

> trade

 

That's an impossibly wide question, really - like I said, be analytical, get specific, and we can discuss it. People spend four years at college learning the answer to that question!

 

> couple of shots where the focus moves from the far side of the object to the

> near side

 

I think you're talking about racking focus, which is probably something you have seen used professionally. This is difficult on the XL1 due to the very small size of its image sensor - use the forum search function to read more about this, as it's been discussed in the past. However, you can maximise your chances by moving the camera further away from the object and zooming in. Again, read up for info on why this helps. It's also quite hard to hit focus marks accurately on the XL1's standard lens because there is no direct connection from the control ring to the lens elements. There is a manual lens for the XL1 which improves this, but it isn't a terribly cheap option.

 

> 30fps and 24fps

 

Well, uh, I'd have thought it was fairly clear - one image updates thirty times a second, one updates twenty-four times a second. The motion rendering is actually poorer for 24fps, but most people interpret the juddering motion as being filmlike and therefore nicer-looking. An NTSC XL1 will do 30fps interlaced or progressive (which is something else you should look up); if you desperately want to get to 24fps progressive you should actually shoot 30i. I believe Mr. Pingol has a technique for 30i to 24p conversion; I'm in the UK with 25fps gear so it isn't something I have to do.

 

Phil

Thanks andrew (darwin).

 

Andrew is another student in my media program, we pride ourselves in keeping up a friendly competition between us, a competition which I almost always win :D

 

Andrew, unless you just watched the lord of the rings behind the scenes stuff tonight and got this insight, I am going to seriously have to hurt you, considering that we were talking about this exact problem earlier today and you mentioned nothing about digital grading. Even though your advice would have been better told in person when I asked you about it, I think your explanation captures what I'm trying to get. I mean Cold Mountain used FCP4 to edit tape that they shot in DV, I have DV cameras, and I have FCP4, what can I do to get my product to look like theres. I know this is WAY too much to ask for, and i don't expect to have nearly as a professional turnout as they did, but I would like to start applying some techniques that will give me a product I can be proud of.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Woah, lot of questions. I may miss something.

 

> when you walk into a different lighting enviroment, your supposed to point the

> camera towards something that is a pure white, like a piece of paper, and then

> press the white balance button

 

This is interesting, because in many situations you have to constantly be aware of the changing white balance and make a judgement call on when it's worth re-balancing. Rebalancing will ensure everything looks right, but it means it'll be inconsistent with the previous material if, for example, you're shooting through the tail end of the day and the sun is going down making everything more orange as time goes on.

 

However, your basic understanding of the technique is correct. Frame up something white, ensure it isn't overexposed (if the RGB values are clamped at 255,255,255 the camera can't tell if the blue is actually brighter than the rest of it, yes?) and hit the white balance button. If you're going from - say - an exterior under sunlight to an interior under tungsten light, you should be able to see it change easily - the tungsten will look very orange in such a situation, and usually you'll see it fade to a purer white. Obviously you have to have the camera in manual white balance mode for this to work!

 

White balance can be creative, too. It's perfectly acceptable to carry some artist's coloured papers around with you and white balance on something that isn't white, thus throwing the colour of the scene. If you balance on a pale blue card, the scene will look warmer, which can be a life-saver if you are shooting under a cold grey overcast but it's supposed to look pleasant.

 

> Digital Grading

 

Better known as digital intermediate, the process of scanning a 35mm film negative, working with it in software (not usually Photoshop, but very similar abilities to Photoshop) then laser recording it back to film. I've been working at Filmlight in London recently, and they had a lot of frames of "Cold Mountain" hanging around for demo work, so I've had the opportunity to play with it.

 

The thing is, you can do this stuff in FCP. It has grading and colour correction tools; the three-way colour corrector is pretty much exactly what you get in a telecine suite, and the Levels filter is an extremely comprehensive way to adjust colour, brightness and contrast.

 

If you are going to shoot stuff for grading, you will gradually discover that you tend to underexpose it very slightly, so that the hard hilight cutoff of video doesn't start to look nasty. Also, there simply isn't anything like as much colour data in DV video as there is in a 35mm film scan, so you can't push the colour around nearly as much without it starting to look compressed and nasty, but it's something I'd definitely encourage you to start looking at.

 

Phil

[Stas Tagios]

I mean Cold Mountain used FCP4 to edit tape that they shot in DV, I have DV cameras, and I have FCP4, what can I do to get my product to look like theres.

A slight clarification here... "Cold Mountain" posted on FCP, but the movie was shot on 35mm film, which goes a long way toward explaining the difference in looks between that film and material you may have shot on DV.

 

Not, of course, to say that DV can't be lit and shot to look beautiful (e.g., the film "November," shot on DV with the DVX-100, won the "best cinematography" award at Sundance this year), just that 35mm film has far more resolution and exposure latitude than DV. This greater resolution, exposure latitude, and overall greater picture information also allows for much more extensive manipulation in post production, via digital grading (in which the original film negative is scanned into the computer at 2k or 4k resolution for manipulation), than what you could achieve in FCP using DV footage.

 

FCP offers extensive image manipulation controls and you can certainly achieve many varied "looks" and styles, but in general, DV footage, due to its high level of compression, won't hold up as well to extreme manipulation (the more you alter the image, the greater the chance of introducing digital artifacting).

[sig]

Hey, I have a few stills that I shot this weekend that I want you guys to critique. It would be great if you could show me what I'm doing right, wrong, and what I can do to make my shots better.

 

http://www.finalcutproduction.com/sig/waterstill.jpg

 

http://www.finalcutproduction.com/sig/helmetstill.jpg

 

http://www.finalcutproduction.com/sig/runningstill.jpg

 

 

Any criticism you can provide would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Woah, that's quite nice, particularly the water still. I'm not really qualified to critique your stuff, but my opinion is that the "running" shot, directly into the big light, probably isn't one I'd use on a demo reel. Some of the shirts are a bit over anyway - I'd have stopped down to bring the flare a bit more under control, and if it became a silhouette, go with that as a style choice. The "water" shot is really rather nice - what was this shot on, and what did you do to it between there and my screen?

 

Phil

[sig]

Thanks for the compliments/suggestions. The video is at a football game (as you could have guessed) using the XL1 and working with the lighting that the floodlights gave off. These clips are being used in the commercial i was talking about in my first post, and to give it that surreal feel that I was looking for, I used a sepia effect with highlight set to 46 and amount set to 31, with a green-yellow color since our school color is green. I'm kinda new to color correction which is why I choose to forgo the color wheels, but on some shots I took of our equipment (for the commercial) today I dove into the 3 wheel color correction and was very pleased with my results. I'll post stills up of those shots as soon as I can get them uploaded.