Shooting in Europe

F Bulgarelli · March 22, 2008

Hello everyone,

If I was to shoot in Europe for the US market (NTSC), specifically Ukraine, what things do I need to take into consideration as far as voltage issues, sound, lights and any other potential problems.

any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Francisco

Freya Black · March 22, 2008

Hello everyone,

If I was to shoot in Europe for the US market (NTSC), specifically Ukraine, what things do I need to take into consideration as far as voltage issues, sound, lights and any other potential problems.

any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Francisco

Hiya Francisco!

I'm not sure about a lot of things (your post is slightly vague in some ways), so I'm sorry if this posting covers stuff you have already thought about or that isn't relevant.

First of all, why shoot in NTSC? Do you have a paticular camera in mind? I'm not sure where you are based as it isn't in your sig, but if you are based in a PAL area, you could either shoot Pal and downconvert, or even better shoot H.D. and downconvert to NTSC, both might save you the problems involved in shooting NTSC in a 50Hz world.

Of course you may be thinking of bringing NTSC equipment from where you live, if you are based somewhere that is NTSC then you will have to watch out as the voltage is usually 230volts or there abouts in Europe. Some of your equipment may be switchable, some of it might not be and you may have to buy a new PSU for the camera. Check and double check the equipment is set to the right voltage before you use it there. You obviously don't want to make a nasty mistake over this. If the equipment is switchable voltage you will obviously need to use a plug adaptor as well.

As to lighting. If you are shooting NTSC under flourecant light then you could run into big flicker problems. I expect this will be the same with HMI too, tho I only have experience with NTSC and flo's.

This is because the mains is running at 50hz which means the flicker is at a different frequency. This could be a big problem if you are shooting documentary type footage (you don't say what kind of video you are shooting in your posting) in paticular as you won't be able to choose the lighting conditions so easily.

I hope that helps a little.

love

Freya

Olex Kalynychenko · March 22, 2008

Hello everyone,

If I was to shoot in Europe for the US market (NTSC), specifically Ukraine, what things do I need to take into consideration as far as voltage issues, sound, lights and any other potential problems.

any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Francisco

I'm Filmmaker from Ukraine.

If you will have more questions, can send me email olex.camera@gmail.com

We use main power 220 v 50 Hz

If you wish shoot of film footages for NTSC telecine,

you can use of speeds 23.976, 24 or 29.97 fps. Arri 435, Arri SR16 can load of this speeds.

The many rent companies have HMI lighters with electronic ballast "flicker free ".

We use of speed of shooting 25 fps and PAL telecine.

But, you can use of 24 fps speed and 172.8 angle of shutter disk and you will have full sync with 50 Hz main power lighters.

Or speed 30.556 fps. angle 110 degree

or speed 29.167 fps and angle 105 degree.

You can rent of car's electric power station and set of 48 Hz in voltage generator.

I must underline, NTSC video equipments super rare on Ukraine, we use of PAL video equipments.

The telecine service can be at Moskow ( Salamandra or other ) or in Europe.

We have telecine service in Kiev, but, have problem with processing of film.

You can rent of any equipments in Ukraine and can cooperate with regional crews.

Andrew Rawson · March 22, 2008

I shot a project in Romania and just over the Ukraine border near Tulcea. It's been several years now but I'm pretty sure we shot NTSC, and we definitely shot 25fps to deal with 50Hz electric frequency so things like HMI's, streetlights, fluorescents and monitors wouldn't flicker.

We also knew this was going to be a straight to video release so I think that had a lot to do with our decision making, if it were to be for theatrical release I think we would have had to shoot 24fps with a 172.8 shutter. We shot 35mm and used Kodak labs in Bucharest and they were great. All of our cameras and lighting equipment was obtained locally so there were no issues with power compatibility there.

The smartest move we made however was bringing over a focus puller from the States, and I don't mean that as a slight to the Romanian camera crews who were great, but besides his outstanding focus pulling he went through the camera packages (there were several) and sussed out a lot of things out that I would never have caught and that would have been disastrous if they had been discovered in the field.

I think you are here in LA Francisco, if you want this 1'st AC's name and number let me know. Not only is he fantastic but he also is Hungarian and has worked all over Eastern Europe and can communicate very well with the local crews, and that in itself might have been the most important thing.

Best of Luck

Andy

F Bulgarelli · March 22, 2008

Thank you for your kind replies.

I'm sorry I wasn't more specific about the equipment.

We will be shooting on video, possibly canon xl2 or panasonic hvx200, this is a documentary, I suppose that eventhough initially we will be dealing with the post here in the states, the documentary will have to be transfer to all formats.

I wonder if we should rent a PAL camera so we don't have to deal with any flicker issues, a lot of times we will have to use existing light fixtures and/or a lighting kit rented locally.

My HVX (NTSC) has a syncro scan, I'm wondering if that's an option when it comes to matching to existing lights.

How hard is it to convert PAL footage to NTSC?

Regards,

Francisco

Freya Black · March 22, 2008

Thank you for your kind replies.
I'm sorry I wasn't more specific about the equipment.

We will be shooting on video, possibly canon xl2 or panasonic hvx200, this is a documentary, I suppose that eventhough initially we will be dealing with the post here in the states, the documentary will have to be transfer to all formats.

I wonder if we should rent a PAL camera so we don't have to deal with any flicker issues, a lot of times we will have to use existing light fixtures and/or a lighting kit rented locally.

My HVX (NTSC) has a syncro scan, I'm wondering if that's an option when it comes to matching to existing lights.

How hard is it to convert PAL footage to NTSC?

Regards,

Francisco

I know it's possible to make the HVX shoot various frame rates although I'm not sure that you can get it to shoot at 25fps if it is a 60hz camera. The HVX would be really good tho because you could downsample from 720p to NTSC and also potentially have a PAL or even hidef version in the future. You would of course have to deal with P2 however. I suspect there will be a HVX workflow that would be ideal but I don't know enough about the HVX to really offer advice so maybe someone else could chime in?

PAL footage is much easier to convert to NTSC than the other way round as PAL is higher definition (625 lines instead of 512) and has a lower frame rate. Thus to convert PAL to NTSC you have to add extra frames like you would with film to NTSC. Obviously A high definition camera might give better results when doing the downsample than just a PAL camera tho.

I suspect the HVX might be the key if you aren't going to rent something tho.

love

Freya