Sjur Pollen

As the title says: What is the optimal frame rate for a music video, shot in Europe, with an European band, in an 230V 50hz environment, but with a potential international release? 25? 24? 23,97? Which has the least problems when converting to different broadcast standards?

I just shot a short on 550D and EX1, and they can certainly be used together, but you do have to tweak things in post. Just make sure you tweak the picture profile to get the highest dynamic range possible on the EX3. Also the 5D will have less perceived resolution. It will be softer and have aliasing/moire problems where the EX3 will not. It's also a good idea to avoid (or at least keep in mind the problem) tungsten light, as the EX3 have problems with IR pollution when shooting under tungsten lighting.

I have a shoot coming up where the main character is withdrawn, alienated, and abusing prescription drugs. She has a very uninspiring job at a conveyor belt in a factory. The light is toppy, flat from the ceiling. Plenty practical fluorescents in a large space, with a high ceiling, working almost like spacelights. This makes for fairly deep shadows in/under her eyes, though the light is, by nature quite flat and thus a little boring. Now as far as eyelights goes, I'm having trouble deciding to use it or not. Without, she would look duller, and the audience might not quite connect with her as much as with eyeligths. I fear she would sort of loose her personality. Then again, it's her that is withdrawn, not the audience or her coworkers. So I have a hard time deciding. Later in the script, she start to "live" a little more, the action picks up, and I'm thinking that if I won't use eyelights in the beginning, here would be a great place to start giving her a little more life/sparkle.... Any thoughts?

I have a shoot coming up, and the main character is working a really dull job at a factory. After loosing her boyfriend in an accident she sort of falls into a state of apathy and misuse of prescription drugs. My challenge is to make her look uneasy, nervous, slightly drugged, alienated and withdraw. Can you guys help me with some tricks and ideas on camera angles, lenses etc? I have little trouble deciding between handheld and static camera. Handheld can make things seem uneasy, but perhaps to lively. Static gives the shot a lifeless, dull. I'm uncertain which one to use, as later in the script the blocking and action pick up the pace, and I think it might be a good idea to then go from static to handheld. Any thoughts on that? Lenses and framing... Long lenses are beautiful. Very long lenses makes for a spying effect. Normal lens is kind of boring, and wide angle is both lively, distorting, intimate and makes the audience more aware of the camera. Also, wide angles have greater depth of field so it's harder to isolate the character from the background. I think to alienate her, it might be wise to use a long lens and isolate her in her own space, without any intruding environments. Any thoughts on this? I'm also not quite sure about the use of closeups. The character is withdrawn, and I don't know if using closeups is adding or subtracting from that, becuase of the intimate nature of closeups. Any thoughs? Other things I'm thing about is framing her unatturally, for instance giving her (too) little space in her looking direction, or giving her lots of headspcae to maker her look small and awkward. Anyt houghts? I know it is a long post, and takes a while to read through. But I hope this is a post where more people than me can learn a great deal, and share perspectives on aproaches. I would greatly appreciate any replies.

Oh, and click the "lenses" link on the left, of course.

There are loads of good lenses for Nikons. Lots of cheap manual focus/aperture lenses with nice, smooth focus-barrels. Check out this page for a reference: http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html

Well, it so happens I'm DPing a shoot where the director want's almost exactly the colored backdrops thing that u did. He haven't seen this video, I think but still, youll soon have a clone out there. Sorry. Now, we don't access to any have a briece... Only a chimera, lacking the eggcrate, and the biggest lights we have are 2K tungstens (blondes and fesnels) to bad... We have some brutes though, and a lot of 4x4 filterholders and lot of foamcore boards. You think I would be better off making some sort of brute bounce instead of the chimera?.

no, I don't unfortunately. Done the shoot now anyway, and got pretty much the result i was aiming for just hitting the talent with the 6K with a 1/4 CTO, and bouncing a little fill on him with a reflector, plus a junior with 3/4 CTB as a kicker. Turned out fairly nice, and mimicked a early fall, afternoon sun which I was aiming for. This is the only image I have from the shoot, and I'm not sure if I should post it here but what the heck. Any constructive critisism?

mhm. thats the thing, there is no where to place the hmi as a backlight, as the talent is coming out of som sliding doors in a big building. We'd have to place the light inside the building to get the hmi as a backlight, but that wouldn't make any sense. Don't you use fill with such strong lights as key? And is there any use for any diffusion? I mean, it seems unnatural to me, but I don't have much experience with outdoor shoots.

Hi, I have a shoot coming up that requires "sunligt". We're shooting on location in the shadow-side of a big building, but would like it to appear sunny. The biggest light at my disposal is an 6K HMI fresnel, and the biggest frame will probably be a medium full shot of a person coming out of some sliding doors (carrying a large object). I'm shooting on a Panasonic HVX-200 with an M2 35mm adapter, and this combo is rated at around 64ASA. How do you gater I should set up the HMI to get at nice sun-like look to it? Not nescecarily a noon look, but perhaps some time in the afternoon (a little lower, and a little warmer.) Any suggestions for fill? Reflectors, or do I need another lamp?

Yeah... I know. I was in a hurry when I wrote my first post. I have both available though. Anyway, I knew there wouldn be a very precice translation and was just looking for some aproximates, really. Thanks fot the replies.

Hi. I'm going to do a greenscreen shoot on DVCPRO HD, and I have no practical experience with this. I've read alot about it though, and want to light it one to two stops below key. However, I'm a video guy and I don't have a lightmeter... I do however have a vectorscope, so my question is: Is it possible to translate stops to IRE values? Or does anyone have some good numbers for IRE levels for a geenscreen shoot?

Just to add some insight to this thread, event though it seems to have died down now anyway: A lot of people misjudge Sony Vegas for the low pricetag and it's differnent'nes. It is a very powerful NLE, and are often wrongfully criticized for lacking features that it actually has (by snotty FCP or AVID people). Such as the "lack" of media management, wich was added with the release of version 6 last year (or was it 2004). Vegas' strenghts are these: Extremely intuitive interface, very modest on hardware demands, realtime preview (No matter how many effects you throw on a clip. Allthough framerate will decrease, you dont HAVE to render), it's very responsive, has the beste audiotools of all NLE's (vegas was originally a multitrack audio-editor), scripting, and generally a very fast workflow (it's just quick!). The cons is that it has a very poor ability to working with different sequenses in the same project (it's possible, but ackward and buggy), and that it always puts out 8bit results where effects or transitions have been added. No matter what codec you use for the final output, the result is always deriviated from 8-bit RGB colorspace. So basically you can edit DVCPRO HD with simple cuts, and still maintain the 10-bit YUV colorspace, but as soon as you add an effect or transition it's 8-bit RGB. (This is kind of strange, as all color corrections and such are handled in 4:4:4 deep down in the inner realms of the software...) Anyway, the 10-bit issue is expected to be history with the release of ver 7, wich rumour has it, is planned for release this fall.

Thanks for the advice. I'm still unsure though. If I buy the camera, I will also get a tripod and P2 cards/harddisk recorder as well. How important is the mattebox and follow focus? (I sort of come from a television background, and would like to do more narratives/commercials/musicvideos and such. Hence I'm not to formilliar with stuff like matteboxes.) The reason I'm buing the camera (if I do) is to not having to worry about getting a camera for any kind of job really. As an indie kind of guy (jack of all trades), I will have the oppertunity to experiment with stuff whenever I feel like it. I also do some ENG work, and owning a camera will make me more flexible for the networks that I work for. Oh, and I will have the possibillity to rent the camera out. I do have access to quite a lot of lighting and grip (dolly, jib, glidecam) from a production company I do a lot of work for (they owe me....), and cameras as well, but only SD, and none of them shoot progressive or 4:2:2, and I would like to do more chroma and compositing stuff. Any thoughts on my thoughts? The way I see it, this is a forum for HVX200 owners, and thus you guys must know why you got the camera yourself. Was it worth it?

Hi! I'm currently considering buying the HVX200, and of cours one of the things that holds me back is the fact that technology is developing so fast... Is there any new camera's released in the somewhat near future that would be in the same price-range as the HVX, but besting it in features/quality?