Phil Connolly

Not used that camera, but increasing the detail in camera usually gives the image a ringing edgy digital look, I don't think would be removed by de-interlacing in post, as is only going to soften the vertical axes. But the effect of de-interlacing footage 50i to my eye's results in the same motion as shooting 25p in the first place. As de-interlaced footage doesn't look truly filmic either, since no mechanical shutter is involved. The D20 is the only camera I've worked with that really nails the filmic feel when it comes to motion. As far as I can tell looking at lots of de-interlaced footage it looks pretty fake as well - compared to film - only with added softness and aliasing. What could be an issue is the 25p effect always looks more extreme when your watching it live on the set. I've always felt that it looks fake when your shooting it - I guess its just seeing the motion on a monitor looking jerky compared to the live action actors - also in the same room. But when I'm editing the footage it looks fine and much less jerky then how it seemed during the shoot - so maybe thats part of reason why she may have an issue. Is it the motion that she doesn't like or the sharpness?

Yes you can isolate areas of the image and just tweek the colours in that section - most proper colour correction tools allow you to do this eg: Apples Color, IQ, Pogle, DS, Nucoda, Smoke etc... But to isolate an area you have to draw a shape on the screen to apply the colour effect too. So if theres movement it can be very time consuming to create a moving mask to isolate the colour. On something like pleasentville - a lot of the shots would have involved lots of hand roto - to cut the objects out. The colour correction tools in more basic versions of Avid and FCP are more simple and just allow global changes of colour to the whole image. Thats what caused the problems in the image I posted - in pushing the brightness to get the skintones looking right, I made the bins too bright, as I couldn't isolate them. 'Clipping the whites' just means that the whites get too bright and burn't out, on video it tends make a shot look a bit electronic and digital. So what your trying to do is totally doable in post - as long as you have access to the equipment and an operator who knows what they are doing. The high end stuff can get very expesive - but you can do it yourself with products like after effects or colour, if you can throw lots of time at it - but it may not be as polished a result as you would get in a dedicated grading suite.

Hi, a bleach bypass type look is pretty easy to do in HD- you can quite easily crush the blacks and de-saturate even with the basic tools in FCP or Avid. It doens't totally look like film - as the grain doesn't behave in the same way, but if you want a cleaner look HD is good. I went for a sort of bleach bypass look in a recent project that I directed, it was shot in HD on the EX1 and the shot below was graded using FCP (not colour). With better post tools it could have looked a bit better - but the result was ok - this was for a stylised montarge - that why i didn't mind it looking a bit unsubtle, eg clipping some of the whites on the bins in the back for shot. The only filter used was a classic soft - either 1/8 or 1/4 - i wasn't the DOP, so not sure which strength was on the lens.

- We have no record of you working those days. - The Cheque needs 3 signatures and will get lost before it gets signed. - We can authorise payment with out a valid purchase order number, but we will never get a purchase order to you untill a least a month after compleating the work. - you have missed this months payment window. - The work you did was last tax year, not sure we can carry payments over.

I recently had similar black issue's with Avid Express - when exporting the project as a targa sequence. Graphics that should have been at true black, were sat up - very odd. This was on a HD 25p project so not sure why avid should be messing about with black levels. So the problem goes beyond the DV codec - that said it could have been my editor being stupid - but I'm pretty sure the Targa export settings were correct. I was able to fix this using further colour correction in an online suite - but its an annoying extra step. Once TV shows start being delivered as files rather then on tapes, I think we are going to have lost of export problems in this area.

Its possible, I belive this company, does it: http://dvfilm.com/specials.htm Not seen the results, but I can't imagine that it would be that great, 16mm is not a great projection format and itrs going to just make a soft format even softer. I think spending the money on a high end, tape grade would be more useful and proabably allow you to achive the look you want in a more controlled manner.

The JVC flavor of HDV is different and incompatible with most other deaks and cameras - eg sony decks mostly won't play it back. Generally you need a JVC deck or camera to play back a JVC shot tape. There may be a few other decks that play back JVC tapes - but they are pretty rare.

Good article on IMAX digital: http://www.lfexaminer.com/

Unfortunately these new Imax installations are using the new IMAX digital projection system which just stacks two 2k DLP projectors. So the image isn't even 4K let alone anything close to proper 15/70mm projection. So IMAX is not really offering much more in terms of picture size or quality over a good conventional cinema screen. I think its a real shame and could kill the format - as people will confuse IMAX digital with proper IMAX. Even if the screen is a bit bigger its not going to have that almost real image quality that you get with large format film. I'm sure the digital projection looks ok, but its going to be significantly less good than IMAX film projection - I guess if most of what they show is DMR blowups - your not missing anything. But IMAX originated movies are really going to be degraded in these screens.

Hi, Personally I would shoot HD using something along the lines of an EX1/EX3 or a HPX500. These cameras have similar rental prices to DVCpro50 kit, but result in better images. I've just finished shooting a micro budget feature (10,000UKP) on the EX1 and the results were excellent generally better most of the SD stuff I've shot on Digi-Beta in the past. The internal 35mbs compression on the EX1/EX3 does look very good - leagues ahead of HDV. The HDX900 is worth checking out its a proper broadcast HD camera and it might be in your budget if you get a good deal. As good as DVCpro50 kit is, I think its been overshadowed by the new generation of affordable HD stuff. Also DVCpro50 never took off in the UK in a huge way and not as many hire companies carry it - so you would have less choice in who you hire from. I think on your budget super 16 may be too expensive, its doable but would not leave much money left for everything else. Production design, makeup, costume and lighting are just as important in the final quality of the image as shooting format. Personally I'd choose HD, and spend more money on lights, locations etc... I don't regret that decision on the EX1 feature I just wrapped, we kept the camera costs low and had good locations and the right lighting - super16 would have killed us. Also on a micro budget feature, the money gets spent very quickly on boring things like food and travel expenses - even with a modest size cast and crew. I may be called a heathen but for some projects I prefer the look of HD. Super 16 can look far too grainy for my tastes, especially if your using faster stocks. And on low budget films you often need to use faster stocks because you can't afford enough lights to work with 50/100ASA film stock. One approach you could try is rather then renting you could buy the camera and then sell it at the end of the production. In some cases its cheaper, doable with cameras like the Ex1/Ex3 their resale value is pretty good.

I believe the Z7u has a rolling shutter as well as the Ex1, since they are both CMOS. That said I've not had any issues with the rolling shutter on the EX1 so I doubt it would be a problem on the Z7. I would agree that the Ex1 is not well balanced for hand holding, its not a deal breaker for me because I don't do much hand held. My biggest problem with the EX1 is the zoom range of the lens is a little short and could do with being able to zoom in a bit further. Ex3 is nice with its shoulder mount but too expensive for me. The SxS cards are a bit of a hassle and I had problems on the shoot today with the card downloads and back up slowing everything down - tapes are easier. But the extra quality is noticeable over standard HDV Like I said the Z7 is a nice camera but I'm not sure if its being embraced as much as either the Z1 or Ex1, most of the hire companies have big stocks of Z1s and increasing numbers of Ex1's. Z7's are rare as hens teeth in the rental market, I tried to rent one for a shoot a couple of months ago and struggled to find one.

The Z7 has 1/3 Inch sensors so the general dof look is going to be pretty deep. For shallow depth you'd need a dof 35mm lens adapter like the mini35. The Z7 looks like a nice camera but I think its been overshadowed by the EX1 which is only slightly more expensive and a truly amazing camera, for the price. I'm shooting a feature on one at the moment and its working out great. Right now I would say that the EX1 is the best camera out there for micro budget stuff.

The main problem you can encounter when converting from 60i to 50i, is motion artifacts - most noticeable on pans - they would look jerky. In a basic standards conversion such as the FCP one your basically throwing frames away to get from 60i - to 50i, these missing frames can make your footage look jumpy. Expensive standards converters such as the Snell and Willcox Alchemist can fix this issue, as the conversion is motion compensated and does lots of clever things to make up for the missing frames and re-time the motion, resulting in a very good standards conversion - but its expensive. You might get away with conversions in FCP if your footage doesnt have much movement. If your final delivery is PAL its better to try and shoot in that format to avoid conversions. But if you have no choice: I would try and shoot in 24p - as its compatible with NTSC kit with a 3:2 pull down and easily converted to PAL by speeding the 24fps to 25fps - resulting in smooth motion but you would need to have the audio pitch dropped by 4%

Its hard to give detailed answers without seeing the shots, regarding what would work and not work and how long things take. It depends a lot on how the light is hitting the, shirt, if its creased, how it moves, textures, shadows etc.. If it wasn't too technically demanding with no shadows over the logo and not too much movement - it could be done in about 2 days by a good paint artist, it would take longer if the shots were more difficult or if you have less experienced paint artist/shake op. It also depends how large the object is in frame and how perfect you need it to look

Yes its possible to paint the logo out, though quite time consuming. Its usually done using products such as the paint tool's in Shake, After Effects or Silhouette. Its not something I would attempt with the airbrush tool in something like photo shop as you need to be able to paint onto the frames and animate through them - to make sure it looks smooth in motion and doesn't boil. (eg the painted areas look unnatural during movement or move on their own accord) In photoshop you would be able to touch up the individual frames so the look good when still, but they might not look smooth when stung together, and moving if that makes sense. It might be doable, depending on the shot, but I doubt it would be seamless In something like Shake, you can keep playing the section and keep scrubbing back and forth to make sure the painted frames work together.

I don't think that Dark Night will result in much more large format production. If anything it might be 15/70 film productions swan song. The new IMAX installations that are currently being built are digital and I believe they are using 2 X 2K DLP projectors, I can't believe that this is going to be remotely as good as 15/70 projection or even 5/70 projection. So IMAX will be a just about big screens and good sound, but not ultra high resolution images. I'd have thought that there would be less 15/70 production, since for the new digital IMAX houses 35mm or 4K digital production would be sufficient. If you go on the IMAX web page, theres very little mention of film, its all about their new digital systems. I think more films will come out in IMAX and there will be more screens to play them on - but its going to be a watered down version of IMAX. Hopefully they will keep improving and make 8k or 12k digital IMAX screens that are capable of matching 15/70 film projection. Personally I doubt it as this is the company that thinks a DMR blow up from a 2 K source is good enough to be labeled an IMAX presentation.

1: not sure but I'd have thought 60 fps timecode would be needed for 720/60p HD 2: generally timecode is 24 hours so the highest number would be 23:59:59:29 for 30 fps 3: multiple tapes can have the same timecode, you just need to make sure the tape name or number is different. When you digitise into a non linear edit system such as Avid or FCP, you log the tape number as well. So the protocol is number your tapes and make sure no two tapes have the same number and this number is correctly entered into the edit system during the offline. When you come to re-conform the footage for the online the Edit system (FCP, Avid, Smoke etc) will ask you for the correct tape number when it re-digitize the shot. Most post houses have their own tape numbering system with a 5, 6 or 7 digit bar code numbering system - so that if used correctly, many productions can be edited in the same building without the tapes getting mixed up. Same deal with film - give each roll its own number. Incrementing the timecode by an hour for each tape is good practice but if your shooting multiple cameras and using time of day timecode - its not always possible.

Hello A 90 degree flip is really easy to do in FCP. I assuming you want to end up with a 3:4 image pillorboxed in a 16:9 HD frame. I'm assuming you shot 4:3 originally, but you could do the same with 16:9 material - for a more pronounced portrait effect. Your right, there would be no cropping but you would have to do a slight re-size as HD has square pixels and SD has non-square pixels. So even if you have your 720 pixels lined up perfectly with no re-sizing on the vertical axis - in the horizontal axis you would have to a slight re-size as the pixels are a different shape. In a 720p HD square pixel project a 3:4 vertical image (I'm assuming you shot 4:3 and rotate to get 3:4) would be 720 pixels high and 540 pixels across if my maths is right, NOT 480 or 576 you would get from shooting standard DV in PAL or NTSC. So if you shot NTSC you would have to do a slight stretch to get from 480 to 540. If you shot PAL you would squeeze the image slightly So it won't be perfect - but its easy to do and would work better in PAL than NTSC. The other option is just edit your footage in SD and when you screen it mount the projector or monitor on their side, not great for DVD's you send out - but if your doing an installation etc.... Hope I've made sense

Hi One book that is quite good is "Studio and Outside Broadcast Camerawork" by Peter Ward. It doesn't cover everything but does have some information about multi-camera event photography. A search on Amazon for Outside Broadcast does list some other titles - but I've no idea how good they are. Shooting live events (especially music) is quite difficult to learn from a book, its really an hours in the chair thing. One way to learn is try to go on some shoots as an observer, Ideally you need to be either in the gallery or be able to hear the director over talk-back. Camera assisting on these sort of shoots is a good way to learn to camera side of things or there are courses in multi-camera directing. I'm currently doing an MA in Television directing and am gradually getting my head round the process. The first time in the gallery is very daunting. Its a head masher to watch all your camera monitors, your mixer output, direct all these cameras in a concise way - while your also reading your script, so you know whats happening next. But theres a real buzz about working on live unrepeatable events. The best advice I've been given about shooting music events is to know the songs backwards, so you know the songs word for word. Know that the guitar solo is 8 bars long and what instruments are playing when, in the mayhem of the shoot its easy to get lost, especially if you don't have many cameras and you have to move a camera from instrument to the next to capture key events. Watch the below clip as a behind the scenes mayhem of live music broadcast, pretty standard http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj2NX03Uo_4

I thought they were shooting on Sellotape :rolleyes:

16mm is a supported format on DTS. All thats required is a special DTS preamp that goes between the optical audio out of the 16mm projector and the standard DTS cinema processor. More info here: www.film-tech.com/warehouse/wareview.php?id=1049&category=2 - Not sure how many labs would be able to create a 16mm DTS timecode track as Freya said its a bit of a niche format and rarely used. The other option for good sound on 16mm is to use a mag dubber interlocked with the projector(eg sound of separate mag tape on separate machine) - I've been to quite a few preview theaters that have mag dubbers in the booth for this purpose and some festivals may use them. Personally I don't think either of these methods are worth the hassle and cost, especially considering how good digital projection is getting. Also there are a lot more digital projectors in cinemas than 16mm ones.

Hi I don't know where your based so its hard to recommend a location for a camera course. But the camera is pretty common so a lot of rental companies should have them and be able to show you the basics. I recommend Paul Wheelers book - '"Digital Cinematography", it covers the DVW series of cameras in some detail and goes through the menus of DVW700 and 790 - with recommended setups.

Channel 4 are transmitting in HD on the Sky platform, its a simulcast of their SD service so a lot of it is up-converted SD. But they are pretty stringent on the HD deliverables, 1080/50i or 1080/25psf are the required delivery formats. I think with careful shooting and post production they would accept EX1 footage, but maybe not HVX-200. But the thing to remeber with broadcaster spec sheets is that they are for commissions, it doesn't apply to purchased material. Ideally they would like everything to conform to the spec, but if a production doesn't comply they still may show it. C4 have broadcast plenty of horrible looking doco's shot on nasty formats - but these are usually acquisitions and as such the broadcaster has no say over the shooting format. But the like the film eg 'super size me' but 'super size me' NTSC DV 60i converted to 24p then converted to PAL - looked horrible, failed its QC, but still got broadcast by C4 But if your doc is commissioned, I would abide by the spec sheet as its part of your contract to do so, if you don't they can justifiably withhold payment. That said on a commission you should be getting sufficient money to make the production on the format the broadcaster requires.

I don't think the Z1 is as fast as 320 ASA, something closer to 120ASA I've not measured this - but its definatly slower than the typical 320ASA of 2/3" video cameras. With a 1.2K HMI, as your big light you might find your stuggling for exposure on the Z1 on its own with out adding a lens adapter to the mix - nightmare. If you want to use sodium vapor lights as pratical illumination - I would avoid the Z1 and movie tube and look for a faster camera. Maybe a Digi-Beta(DVW970 is really good in low light)/HDCAM or Varicam - something with a 2/3" chip, they would work much better in low light and allow you to take more advantage of practical illumination. Cost wise it might not be much more expensive - once you have the cost of Z1 + super speeds + extra light needed + extra time needed to rehearse and pull focus on supers at T1.3. Your probably approching the rental of full size 2/3" HD camera HDCAM/Varicam/HVX500 ect with a decent HD Zoom - which would ultimatly give you much better images. I would shop about see if you can do a deal and shoot on a better format within your budget

Early Todd-AO films were shot at 30fps on 65mm stock such as Oklahoma!, they actually filmed it twice. Using 30 fps - Todd AO 65mm cameras and 24 fps Cinemascope cameras for the 35mm version. Only a few Todd AO films were shot at 30fps, it was discontinued due to the inability of converting to 24 fps for 35mm distribution and the shooting every take on two separate formats ala Oklahoma wasn't cost effective. Later Todd AO films were 24 fps. The same thing happened with Cinerama films, the first few were shot at 26fps but the later cinerama titles were shot at 24fps for better compatibility with conventional 35mm cinemas. Showscan was indeed 60fps 65mm, and watching it does have a video feel to the motion - but with perfect hi resolution grain free images. There was a short lived Imax HD format that shot at 48fps, but I think only a couple of compatible projectors were made and one or two films. I really think Imax would benefit from higher frame rates, many films look really jerky on such a large screen.