Phil Connolly

Hi The Black Magic Decklink card is probably the most cost effective way of getting full quality digi-beta material into your PC http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/sd/ It does work with Premiere Pro, your computer is probably fast enough, 2 GB of memory is recommended on the black magic site, you will need lots of fast hard diskspace - as the files will be quite large, the black magic site has a list of recommended media drives.

I don't think black infianty cove would be nessary. I've done a few person against complete black shoots and have always used black floor and black drapes. These have been digial shoots HDCAM and Digibeta - but I'm sure similar results are possible on film. As long as the studio is big enough to give you adquate seperation between the performer and cyc you should be fine. You just need to avoid getting light on the cyc - if its 30 ft or so away from the performer thats quite do-able. Keeping the background out of focus helps as well if there are any marks or creases they won't show with a shallow DOF, but if your not putting any light onto the drape it doens't matter how creased it is. Crushing the black background in the grade will help - if you couldn't get enough separation. But Distance and carful lighting should get you there, as long as you control the spill off the performer you should be fine. If space is at a premium you could try using rolls of black paper - I think roscoe makes 8 foot wide rolls. Its quite expensive, but could be hung and layed across the floor in one continuos peace forming a natural infinity cove. I think that would work better than black wrap

Bat For Lashes - Whats a Girl To Do - is well worth checking out as an interesting recent vid, nice and creepy with lots of anamorphic lens flare. Plan B - 'no Good' - lots of stop motion fun Blur 'Coffee and TV' - great example of storytelling with the music video form Gomez 'We Havent turned around' - Also a nice short film to music. Orbital - 'The Box' - great stopmotion very creepy Peter Gabriel 'Sledgehammer' - loverly stop motion from aardman, blew me away when I first saw it as a kid, big influence on me Beastie Boys - Sabotage - love it, my favorite spike Jonze video, although praise you is up there

Actually, I have used similar workflow's, I've done loads of jobs using component kit - working with pretty much every tape format from analogue to digital - but these days the only time I'm called to work with analogue is on documentaries that require archive. Ultimately you use what you have access to and if thats component then its good enough. I'm not trying to trash it - to be awkward, it would work - but whats the point it costs more and results in less quality. If you want to edit in the DVCPRO 50 codec , which is a pretty good codec - why would you want to use componant? I don't understand if DV25 over firewire transcoded is better quality and requires less kit and a cheaper deck. Many DV decks don't have component outs, but they all have firewire. The only advantage of the above workflow is no render time for the transcode, but thats not a big deal these days. Digitising via SDI would avoid any transcodes, look better than component - its pretty rare to find an online suite that doens't have SDI and is component only. But for best quality if your shooting on a digital format and delivering on a digital format, why would you want to mess about with component or any form of analogue? - Your putting your signal through D to A converters and A to D converters - this can only degrade the image. If you already own component kit and it would cost you more to stay digital - thats the only argument to use component. But the fact is a component capture card costs a lot more than a firewire interface and from a DV 25 source the fire wire will result in better picture quality as you are getting a bit for bit EXACT DATA CLONE OF WHATS ON THE TAPE into your edit suit. Component can only be worse - how can it be better than an exact clone - its not magic. As long as the project in the edit suit is uncompressed or DVCPRO50 the DV 25 gets transcoded to the better format to reduce picture degredation. As far as laying back to Digi-Beta, if you have post produced uncompressed or at DVCPRO 50, you will get better results laying back via a component output then you would with a fire-wire solution. But Ideally you would be using SDI - its the best quality and SDI cards are cheaper that component. I don't want to get into a crazy analogue vs digital argument on the internet. The fact is correctly handled fully digital workflows will give you better quality and be cheaper to do if you were to buy the kit. The only reasons to mess with analogue are: You have shot on an analogue format or are delivering on an analogue format (increasingly less likely) You already own or have cheap access to analogue kit and it works out cheaper for you - but analogue typically gives you less bang for your buck. Compare the cost of a blackmagic digital only card and their component card.

Yep theres lots of odd ideas out there when it comes to post producing DV. But the basic answer is the fire DV25 signal is the best your going to get off that tape. Post producing uncompressed will not add quality, but it will reduce picture degridation during grading. So a cuts only edit - straight DV would give the same quality as uncompressed. Regarding 10bit - although DV is only 8 bit, Digi-Beta is 10 bit, so working in a 10 bit colour space will make things look a bit better eg fades can be smoother as there are more luma levels, more shade of grey - reducing the possibility of banding - etc. Likewise grades will be a bit more accurate as the maths of colour correction will be using 10 bit precision rather than 8bit. It will look better but not massively as your only starting with 8 bit DV, It won't magically add quality but will reduce the amount of degredation to the pictures in a heavy grade. Thats why some onlines work at even higher bit rates internally such as 12bit for Avid DS Nitris. If you have a suite that can do 10 bit and your going to digi-beta there's no harm in using it but the difference will be pretty minimal over 8 bit - but the extra disk space required is not massive.

Import via the fire-wire port as DV25, it will result in the best quality images into the system. Going via componant will degrade the images. The info via firewire is exactly whats on the tape, so using Black magic or some other SDI card isn't going to add quality that doesnt exist. But don't grade the project at DV 25 - because any changes you make to the image will be re-compressed by the codec and degraded quite quickly. Its best to import as DV 25 then transcode to 8/10 bit uncompressed, or if your disks/computer is not fast enough DVCPRO50. If you have access to an Online suite throughout and a DVCAM deck with SDI out, you could digitise directly at 8 or 10 bit uncompressed and skip the transcode step. Personally I would still digitise everything via firewire at DV25 resolution then just transcode the final shots you use rather then everything. The quality will be the same but diskspace is more efficient, uncompressed takes a lot more space than DV, so if you have a lot of rushes DV is better. Once its graded - its just a matter of playing out directly to Digi-Beta so you need a edit suit with SDI out, don't play out to DV and then dub to Digi-Beta as you will loose quality.

You can colour balence, make the image brighter or darker, make selective areas of the image brighter or darker, increase colour saturation and contrast, and decrease colour saturation and contrast. You can de-interlace in Avid, but you apply the "Fluid Film Progressive" effect. It works well, but be prepaired for long render times. Older Avids may not have this effect but the current versions including express have it in the timewarp effects folder.

I learnt to edit on fcp and have since started cutting on Avid. I found avid less intuative than fcp and frustrating initially, mainly in the way you trim and move shots about on avid compaired to fcp. But once I got my head round avid trim mode, I was ok. First couple of projects on avid I hated it and was a bit "why can't it more like fcp, its much better". Then the Avid technique 'clicked' and I'm a born again avid user and for straight cutting (I don't really deal with effects and stuff) i prefere it. The programmes are similar enough that a good percentage of your knowledge will be useful on both, but its worth spending a bit of time on an avid before you use it in anger on a big project. A good Avid book and a couple of days on an Avid would get you up to speed. I went on a basic avid course after learning fcp and found it a bit slow. Maybe spend some time on Avid Free DV then do an intermediate avid course to learn the more high end features. Its definatly worth learning both, fcp is taking off and getting used on bigger projects but it won't kill avid off. From my experience in where I'm based (london) there is still more paid work for avid editors than fcp.

I wouldn't go through a DVCPRO HD Step or use final cut pro to up reZ Tape route: Grade in SD - on an uncompressed timeline - the new color package in FCP is good - but not as good as a dedicated faciliy house with proper monitoring. But it depends on what you can afford, I would try and out source if possible as a talented colourist can bring a lot to the look of your film. Playout to digi-beta go to facility house with nice Snell and Willcox up-rez box such as the Alchemist HD and get them to do a straight dub and upconversion to hdcam. Software route: Grade in SD Up res in After Effects or similar Export as uncompressed quicktime at HD Res - or what ever the Facility house your using, recommends. Take file to facility house and get them to play it out to HDCAM - any fac house in your area with HD edit kit and HDCAM deak should be able to do this I don't think there would be any advantage in grading the HD up rez'ed version and it would cost more

Sometimes I've found DV tapes that don't play back on most decks, can be played back on a Sony DSR-2000 VTR, it seems to play tapes that others can't. One trick, is to put it in vari-speed DMC mode and play back at 100% - rather than normal playback, this can for some reason seems to playback tapes that fail in normal mode, not sure why this is. So for irriplacible damaged DV tapes its worth traking down a facility with this deck. I've seen this fault before on the XL-1 it always stemmed from dirty heads, recycled tapes or combination of both.

If your still getting timecode on the tape thats readable by other decks. It looks like the camera is just displaying the "user bit" as I belive from rusty memory that the LCD either displays timecode, control track or user bit. Soo it should just be a menu setting to display the timecode - it gets recorded regardless. I don't have a camera in front of me to be able to describe the process to change this, but its not a fault just a setting.

Erm no, it can't magically make the lamp on the projector any brighter and would probably just result in white clipping at best, and sync issues at worst, a projectors input is designed to take a signal at a certain level, feeding it with an illegal signal can only create unpredictable results.

I don't think its a big deal to intercut HVX200 with RED in a Doco. Most audiences accept mixed formats in a documentary, as long as your consistant eg all the interviews on HVX and other stuff on RED it would be fine. It would be jaring if you shot interviews on RED and HVX and intercut, eg RED on wides HVX on close up. I worked on the post production of a documentary series that was shot on a mixture of PAL Digi-Beta, HDCAM, HDV (Z1) and 35mm/16mm archive. The show had a very good grade that helped tie the feel together and the footage on each format was well shot, which helps. The final result wasn't particually jaring, even when watching it on high end 24" CRT. Drama productions would be a different story, as different formats draw attention to them selfs and that may not be appropriate. But we are so used to see all kinds of grades of footage mixed up in documentaries _ espcially if archive material is used, you could well end up intercutting RED and VHS Or, you could make a feature of the differences and celibrate the differences of the different formats, I directed a project that intercut Arri D20 footage, super 8 and super 16. Theres a very big difference between super 8 and the D20, but I made a feature of that difference and didn't get any complaints about the changes in texture.

no, HD-D5 its not best possible tape format - the best one out there is HDCAM-SR HD-D5 is compressed to 258Mbit/s at 24 fps, with 4:2:2 colour sampling, only SD D5 is uncompressed. HDCAM SR has a data rate of 440Mbit/s in 4:2:2 or 880Mbit/s in 4:4:4 HQ mode this is still compressed but less so than HD-D5. HDCAM SR is the better option if intensive colour grading and chromakey is needed, but HDD5 is still very good.

"London to Brighton" was 2.39:1 super 16, it looked pretty good, I saw it in a 2K D-cinema - so the film prints may be a bit softer, but the 16mm texture worked really well for the film. It wasn't too grainy not sure what the stocks were but the film was very low budget and theres quite a bit of night stuff with limited lighting that looked good. I also saw a short shot on super 16 composed for 2.39:1 and put through a DI and screened of HDCAM and that looked totally acceptable - sharper and less grainy then a couple of 1960s, 1970s true scope 35mm Panavision, rep prints I saw at the cinema recently.

It looks like I'm still going to use nets on my shoot. But, I did camera operate on a shoot last week that used lee soft gel filters (lee soft 1) on the back of a 2/3 inch lens. They were just cut to about 3 cm in diameter and placed between the back of the lens and the CCD block. It worked pretty well with a subtle softening and no major back-focus headaches. So its definataly do-able, but you have to hack up a filter to do this, i wouldn't use lighting gels but the optically better (and much more expensive) camera filter gels work fine - but are fiddly to cut to size and mount.

Unlike the XL1s the XL1 dosent have 16:9 guides in the viewfinder. I've composed for 16:9 on the XL-1 by using a monitor thats been taped off to 16:9. It is possible to eyeball the framing - once you get used to doing it, you still have the option to reframe in post. Do mask it in post - its better I wouldn't use the 16:9 in camera mode as its seems to soften the image more than doing it in post. You will get a much better result using something like After Effects to crop and streach 4:3 to 16:9 anamorphic. You also get the option of re-frameing in post which is useful and could save a shot if the boom creeps in. If you only plan to letterbox the footage, rather than convert to 16:9 anamorphic, the widescreen mask in FCP pro would work nicely with 4:3 footage and it has a re-frame option built in.

Hi thanks for your input, David and Michael The idea of using tulle fabric sounds like a good one - as consistancy between cameras is quite important, I won't have much grading time, so ideally the look has to be achived in camera. I'll give it a try and see how it looks.

Hi I'm organising a multi-camera shoot of a live band performance. Using 4 Digi-Beta cameras - I would really like to use pro mists, to take the give slight halitation to the image and to take the digital edge off - basically the usual reasons.... I'm filming a Jazz enseble But my budgets is super tight and hiring matt boxes and glass pro-mists is probably not do-able (well its do-able but at the expense of other things) I did think about using nets but I'm worried that the effect might too extreme. But then I heard about using Lee soft filters on the back of the lens would give a nice diffusion effect and be much cheaper, than pro mists. I've not used them before and only heard about them recently. Any one got any opinions of using them in a concert situation - are they a useful poor mans pro mist? Or am I barking up the wrong tree. I won't really get chance to do any in context camera tests till the day of the shoot.

Most sony consumer DV cameras do playback DVCAM. So it might be possible to borrow one and capture. But if you'd requested DV then the telecine house should fix the problem and make DV dubs of your tapes. But if you knew someone with a sony DV camera it might be quicker and easier to borrow one.

Yuck - maybe the producers were trying to save money by just producing one 16:9 digital master - rather than a 16:9 digital master for TV and DVD and separate 2.35:1 master for D Cinema. Still doesn't seem worth it, I don't understand the aversion to 2.35:1 and the need to crop down to 16:9 for DVD and TV release. Reminds me of the time my local cinema projected Citizen Kane at 1.85:1 - nice

Personally I'd try and keep the footage quality as high as possible, if DV is your lowest denominator - you could be degrading the look of your higher grade stuff in the reel (HD, digi-beta, film). Sometimes mixed sources can give bits of your reel, a bit of texture and variation - make a feature of it. As far aspect ratio goes, I would keep everthing in its orginal aspect ratio and just go with either an anamorphic 16:9 project or a 4:3 project and ARC the shots to fit the format. eg letterbox your 1.85 shots on an anamorphic project or pillorbox your 4:3 shots on a 16:9 anamorphic project. As far as the choice between 4:3 and 16:9 projects depends on what the majority of your footage is. Most of my stuff is 16:9 anamorphic - so thats the format of my reel and then I have the odd shot in 4:3 pillorbox, and 2.35:1 letterbox - but the geometry is anamorphic - but for VHS copies I keep everything in 4:3 letterbox. That said I would probably keep everything SD at this stage as a HD edit would cost more and it would be unlikly people would view your reel in HD - if your distributing it on DVD/VHS As long as the cuts between ratios arn't too jaring, people won't mind mixed ratios and formats.

Ridley Scott and Jordan Cronenweth, only one film but one of the best looking films there is. I also like the Danny Boyle / Brian Tufano collaborations

Theirs a UK company: http://www.derann.co.uk/ They release super 8 prints of contempory films - they seem to have some lucasfilm stuff in their catologue (but I'm not sure I've they made the starwars trailer), so I assume its possible to clear the rights. So there are people making super 8 scope prints of stuff, not sure why theres still a market for this, with todays digital home cinema kit as good as it is.

Hi, I'm quite sure that you can't use a anamorphic adapter with these camera's. As adapters are designed for smaller prosumer cameras such as the PD-150. It might be possible to gerry-rig an anamorphic adapter onto the front, but I suspect it would only work for a limited amount of focal lengths - as it wouldn't cover the larger front element of a broadcast lens - you would have to zoom in a bit to avoid seeing the edges. It would be something, you would have to test to see if the range was workable for you. Personally, I'm not a fan of anamorphic adapters anyway, I've used them a couple of times on PD-150s and they tend to soften the image, limit your focal range - they don't tend to hold focus at longer focal lengths. I would either try hard to get a widescreen camera dsr500/570/450. Or just compose for 16:9 - the cameras have user selectable 16:9 framing guides in the viewfinder, then ARC in post. I've done this a few times with the dsr 390 and its always looked pretty good, softer than true 16:9 but not horrendous.