1/30 Shutter Speed for Film Look?

[canada_habs2004]

I have a Sony DCR TRV38, a lower end camera, and I am trying to get a film look on it.

 

One of it's digital effects is SLOW SHUTTER SPEED, and the lowest setting is

1/30 seconds.

 

Would this help give my video a film look, or will it just distort the image in the end?

 

Any help or advice would be great. Thanx

[drew_town]

Well you're obviously not going to get a film look from this camera. The best thing to do is just work with what you've got. I wouldn't suggest trying some grand cinematic scenes or anything. Keep it doc-style and you could come up with something cool. Understand what your camera looks like and work around that. If you want something different you need another camera. To answer the 1/30 shutter question. It will make fast movement look a little blurry (you'll see a slight motion path). And just for you info a 1/30 is not all that slow; an 1/8 is pretty slow and you'll get a crazy motion blur with that.

[Shawn Mielke]

1/30th and anything slower will mean a loss in resolution, if this matters to you (only the look to your eye should matter). It isn't exactly a film look, but it will brighten up your picture and it is an interesting effect, if needed.

[Greg Gross]

Put your camera on the heaviest tripod you can find. Now shoot as if you were

shooting film,shoot as if you were lighting for film. Do not do a lot of real wide

framing, stick to medium close-ups and close-ups. You want to light so that you

have separation,give shape to your subjects. Otherwords you don't want a flat

look. Of course you do have some limitation with the dv format. Hard light cre-

ates shadows and the softest soft light produces no shadows. Playing different

degrees of light (intensity) against shadows produces separation. If you are go-

ing to shoot outside for example the sun could be your hard light and you could

control it to some dregree with reflectors(but you are time limited. If you place

some kind of diffusion material between the sun and your subject than you have

a softer light. I don't know where you are shooting your film. If you are shooting

inside maybe you want to rent or borrow professional lights from someone. A

good book for lighting is- "Film Lighting" by Kris Malkiewicz,Simon&Schuster. It

is possible to give your video a better look. Its not going to look exactly like film.

FILM IS FILM&VIDEO IS VIDEO. Its not going to look like the "Manchurian Candid-

ate or "Sky Captain" ! But you can take pride in shooting the best video possible to

shoot. Best regards for your production.

Greg Gross, Professional Photographer

Student Cinematographer

[Greg Gross]

I forgot to mention a recent film to you. "Man On Fire"(Denzel Washington).

If you have access to it, watch it and take note of scenes with low lit inter-

iors and the extraordinary,beautiful saturation of colors,detail in shadow

areas. Just the the right amount of fill light was used for production of de-

tails in shadows. See if you can distinguish the separation and the 3-D like effect.

Film type,exposure,lighting all came in to play here. Its a Tony Scott Film and

the DP was Paul Cameron.

 

Greg Gross, Professional Photographer

Student Cinematographer