Robert Ducon

yup, that'll allow you to do near-uncompressed alright! my cable had to be rebuilt since that shoot, and the footage looks a tad softer now for whatever reason, but you get the laitude of the uncompressed, and, bypass the HDV engine in sony's will make it a hell of a lot nicer! (I've used the Sony Z1U and FX1 a LOT - not happy with their internal HDV compression engines - you'll get a lot more out of your camera!) If you truly want uncompressed, you'll need a 4 Hard drive raid - 3 couldn't do it for me, 4 could though (im up to 4x250 GB drives now). I use an IDE hard drive in my spare drive bay as my startup/user/application drive. That's the way to do it!

If those are MiniDV shots.. wow.. the HD will be incredible :D Good job man!

Carl, to make it brief, Apple Mac Pro 2GB ram 3 x250GB hard drives in RAID X1900XT video card (don't think this was important tho) Blackmagic Design Decklink HD Extreme card (to do uncompressed video - beautiful card!) 50' Component Video Cable (I made it.. far more expensive in the end than I thought - if you do it, test an HDMI cable and buy it and a Blackmagic Intensity Pro instead of the Decklink HD) Canon HV20 Camera (incredible camera) Stock Blackmagic Software Captured using Photo JPEG (that's all 3 hard drives could handle - i've added a 4th now, so, i'll try FULLY uncompressed soon..) :D

Haha. I should have been more clear - this was a workflow test, and I shot whatever was in the garden 50' of the computer. This forum group looked the most appropriate so I posted here - didn't really care for feedback on the footage itself. Just for "fun" I've shot a short film, so if you'd like to see what I've done Chris, go to: http://filmmaker.teack.net/

Opps! The file got corrupted somehow in upload/download.. !! HERE is the updated link: http://hv20.teack.net/movies/hornby_island...2_movie.mp4.zip

Hi all! I shot this video last week with my HV20 outputting a LIVE (no HDV) video feed to my Mac Pro 50 feet away, which captured at 4:2:2 1920x1080 60i with the Photo JPEG codec using my Decklink HD Extreme card. Yes, I built a high quality component cable with BNC termination to do this. So I very nearly captured uncompressed component! The Mac Pro had a 3x 250GB hard disk RAID, but still couldn?t get up to 30FPS at 8bit uncompressed (it maxed at 27FPS) ? I needed just one more drive! I?ll do a 4x 250GB RAID within the next month, so I?ll keep everyone up to date when that happens. I captured to full 1080P JPEG, so let me say again, no HDV in this workflow. Here?s a mini music video I made out of the footage I shot (pull down hasn?t happened ? this is 24P footage in a 60i timeline). http://hv20.teack.net/movies/hornby_island_1080P_422.mp4.txt (remove the ?.txt? once downloaded to play) Any artifacts you see are from the codecs (I colour corrected and played with the footage), not the camera itself. The raw footage was very clean. JPEG cannot handle colour correction, so as far as I?m concerned, it?s 8bit uncompressed or Cineform (when it comes out) for post work. Let me know what you think! Could this be cut into a DP reel? Or is it too stock? Also, what do you think of the HV20 and my work flow?

As DOP and Co-Producer, I wanted it all at night, but HDV limitations with lighting a building of that size wasn't smart - I was overruled. Instead, this scene is to occur at dawn, as the sun is just coming up - which would be bright, mind you. The colouring and script will reflect the dawn idea. Yup, it's bright! Yup.. the acting. Um, yup!

Impressive Alex! Congrats to your team and you. That's def a portfolio keeper ;) And Incubus no less! Like Nadav Hekselman, I'd love to know what camera that was, and the software would have been great to know as well. I liked the last shots of the video - the couch, the couple, the picture. Nice. :)

Daniel, there will be convincing gun shots that will be shown.. muzzle flashes, escaping gas, and emptying shells from the chamber.. it'll be added in when I have more time, and the current edit is locked down. I'm quite confident I'll be able to make it believable - you'll all be the judge of that of course, when it's eventually posted. Jonathan, thanks for the feedback. Agreed, the colours in the stills were all too harsh (it was post work that did that - the actual set's lighting wasn't over the top) I've since changed the look and brought it back to a more reasonable spectrum of saturation and gamma. And, I agree - it's obviously digital if one is watching for it. I know what'd I'd do different next time, but still a lot of things that I can't really hide. The Z1U was a great camera though, and working with a 1920x1080 image in post was absolutly the right descicion I believe - the other choice was a DVX100. Next week I will be showing this same footage (the chase scene, as well as the 5 minute office scene) to a pro cinematographer next week, so hopefully that'll make it even better. The feedback is great, and I'll be certain to post more when it's ready. I'm itching to the gun effects - just need to have a good chunk of time to sit down and composite again in After Effects. I'm a full time business student currently .. the film isn't supposed to be a priority lol. Yet, here I am ;)

Daniel, very flattering, thanks! No one "in real life" has seen this, still blanketed in post and secrecy lol, so, it's nice to hear something positive! I've never seen/heard of Ultimate Force until you mentioned it - looks interesting. Yes, with that chase scene, the HDV codec held up well (still frames look messy, but, that's not the point of video - when movement occurs, it holds up rather well to the eye) - that's probably the hardest the codec would have to work.. so much fast, jerky movement and light and darkness. And it wasn't that bad! The more light, the better - the HDV codec looks the worst when it's dealing with darkened areas.. (because then it's having to compress camera grain as well!) I'll post more stuff as it becomes available.

Dan, where did you think we shot it? What kind of feel does it have? Honestly, I?m wondering what you were thinking.. let me know. It was a brand brand brand new $40 million CDN dollar building at a University. Amazed they let us use it, but they did - it hadn't even had a class in it yet! It had been completed only 2 months before and was sitting, waiting for school to start. Btw, we used it for many more scenes/angles that have yet to be shown.. ;) Bhavin, we were absolutely aware of the over exposure (the director chose the location) - and believe me, I got more latitude out of that camera that the average joe! ;) I had graduated ND filters on the front, and did some extensive post correction in the highs - that's as good as it's going to get, and much better than the stock footage (which isn't saying much I realize lol). Thanks for the quote though! We used what lights we had available to put as much light on the darker areas (the actors, hallway, etc) but we lost a 1k bulb just as we started. The overexposed areas would still be blown out with that small amount of light we had to play with, even on film, but yes, it would have looked much better than 8bit HDV. A better camera and 10bit or higher capture would have yielded better results. The polarizer I had wasn't used because it simply made the darker areas that much darker. Had it been a real film with a real budget I would have used a lot more lights on the hallway, gelled the fluorescents with a matching blue hue, and shot in a different time of the day. Took what we could get - which was one weekend, with next to no crew. It's still a draft edit - thanks for pointing out the inconsistency. That light above her head was "real" and part of the building - her standing there was my chance/her blocking spot.

I was hoping for feedback on the PHOTOS supplied of the scene in the office (which is more static, not the video at the top of the page). Besides the obvious orange tint, how does that particular scene look? Thanks!

Easton, this was shot 12 months ago - it's in the can, no reshoot and changing the director's vision and plot at this time. However, thank you for pointing out your opinion.

Let me know how these stills look please! I've used G Film Effects (will be purchasing the plug in soon)! It's fuzzy and "artistic" - the director wanted an Alias/24/CSI Miami feel. I used the plug ins to bring up the chroma and to reduce the horrible HDV compression. Mind you, this is my first film - but plesae be honest!! http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_01.jpg http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_02.jpg http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_03.jpg http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_04.jpg http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_05.jpg http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_06.jpg http://filmmaker.teack.net/office_Scene/office_scene_07.jpg

Thanks Dan, appreciate it! 1. Acting, there are other choices for that part.. It might make more sense if you saw the scene before, but I can't tell - test audience feedback hopefully will when the time comes! In terms of the woman pacing with the gun, must sort that out more. 2 & 3. Not going for the video look! Any suggestions? (I should note: 95% of this film is tripod and track shot, so this is the only hand held *jerky* scene.. which I would think makes it look more video-like. Also, the sun blew out the huge windows - couldn't help but overexpose.) What elements make it look video - sure helps to get feedback and another person?s perspective!

What camera(s) did you use? Looks great!

It's clean, stable, easy to see the actors (not too dark - often a problem in indie shorts), and nothing is too small in the frame to have trouble viewing, so it's well proportioned. Since this is cinematography.com, should we be talking to Gary Powell, the DP instead? Kidding ;) If you'd like critique, here's my personal view: If anything, I'd like to see an establishing wide shot now and then, and in terms of editing, the conversation between the father and son needed some cuts to make up for a lack of pacing.. it could have used some pauses. Also, I wouldn't have put him in front of the window.. the white was overpowering - it was fine that it was overexposed (even though it wouldn't have been possible to change that aspect!) Camera movement - there wasn't any ;) A nice pan or two would have been nice.. let the characters move about - blocking. I know, time constraints.. I've been there. But if you could do it again, right? It's a good solid piece to start off from. I'm new to this forum - lots of inspiration and knowledge here; check it out!

Okay, I'm buying that! My work is in the genre similar to this paintball video. That 35mm lens and the slow-mo really assisted too.. great combo in addition to the D.O.P.

A: Not sure.. if this link doesn't help, I'm sure someone else here will step up to the plate. Here's the official Sony link: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusin...rogressive.html B. From what I've seen, it's useless for real production.. makes the video some ulta-low quality stuff. Again, hope someone else can get into that. C. I'm very sure it's still HDV - 25Mbs, MPEG-GOP, and that's 1440-1080 res. Just good 'ole HDV. Hey, that hard drive is still a great idea!

It's great Marc! Real pro stuff. What country are you/most of this, from? It'd be great to see a larger, less compressed QuickTime version of this! Cheers!

Thanks for getting back to us Greg! Glad you liked our comments ;) Another question - that music! It fit perfectly.. what was it, or did you make it and with what? Cheers!

I paintball, so this is nice to see. Where did you shoot this? Great area! At first, the first video's vibration is distracting (in open areas, such as the sky) but soon you forget about it when the action occurs. Very cool. Is the grain I see all because of the glass used? You just made me fall in love with 35mm lenses all over again. It's great to SEE the results of someone's work with a 35mm lens and adapter, not just hear theory. Too cool. Here in Canada, there are new TV adverts looking to recruit people into the military. They're dark and gritty, much like these - realistic. Good work! Let us know if there is more down the road.

Nicholas, Very nice video - did I spot a knoll factory flare in there? ;) Question: I went to your site, PixelLoft, and your system supports HD-SDI, Component Capture at 12bit, etc. Did you use component capture at any point from the FX1 (real time video, not play back of HDV) to get uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 which is better than the HDV 8-bit MPEG GOP 4:2:0? I have a Decklink HD.. never captured live from the Z1U/FX1 but I've been meaning to.. just curious if this style ever entered your work flow, and did you ever consider it? Cheers!

Lauri, That's some incredible camera latitude. It beat the high-def Sony Z1U I used for my short.. what do I mean? The actor is lit, but not overexposed, nor is the ground overexposed - and you can still see the sky's blue! Then again, you said you shot at golden hour, right? Questions: a) How did you get the crane shots? B) Did you use a real (professional) track, and if not, how did you get the tracking shots? c) The compositing - which application was that created and finalized in? EXCELLENT Doping, excellent sound (that really sold it) and great piece all together. It's fantastic that you don't need to have any particular language - it speaks for itself. The acting is legit too! Cheers!

If it was common knowledge, I wouldn't be asking ;) It's 4:2:2, and processed at 8bit - I now know that. That said, bypassing HDV compression is a sweet idea. Has anyone captured component from a HDV camera with nice results?