Jon Allen

what camera were you using and what settings did you have it at?

No matter how cerebrally deep (or not) Lucas gets into episodes 1-3, we're still not looking at Predator and Clones with the same set of eyes. Besides a story that we already know the ending to and writing that seems to pander to the sub 10 year old crowd, Lucas' execution is very good. The angles seem strange because the editing isn't very good (how many movies have a full-blown teaser trailer 6 months before a movie is released?), but then again, very few of us have seen the complete movie so we can contexualize the angles. Besides all of this, I think Lucas does a great job. IMHO He is one of the few directors/producers that can actually drive his special fx guys to match the lighting and gammas between the CG and live-action characters. But maybe this conversation is best reserved until the movie actually comes out. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!

Gilligan's Island anyone?

Isn't the point of a "fine art" to be actually serious about your craft? I mean, what kind of actor would lower themselves to that level? Gore-fest movies are all alike, if you star in them you're either a has-been or a never-will-be. Maybe this isn't so true, remember Eva LaRue in Ghoulies? Of course, she never landed any roles outside of soaps- so I think it's true.

I saw a commercial this week (for dodge) and it was obviously done incorrectly. I pointed it out to my wife, but she didn't notice even after I showed her- yeah, I married a non-videohead. There was supposed to be some glow around the CG on top of some black bg, the glow stopped short and didnt dissolve correctly. Another victim of poor IRE setup.

Even the previews reminded me of Jason X. kind of like this "Oh crap, I'm gonna die" even the characters calling their own deaths.

does this topic belong here? -->I'm not trying to kick anyone out, sorry

I'm sure it was a matter of everyone wanting to say something, but not wanting to look like the 1st pervert in the thread.

Supergoo!

There are several companies that offer video to film transfers. All of the ones I've read material from practically BEG users to shoot & edit 24A if at all possible. NTSC compensates for less resolution by higher framrate and thus, smoother motion, on the other hand, if your final output is 24 anyway, then you might as well opt for the extra 50 or so pixels.

Genius is never recognized in it's own time.

Maybe I'm just not a fan of blocky yellow print on top of photo montages to wind up a movie.

I have a question- does HDTV still retain a 7.5 IRE setup?

VO usually works if it's been written into the screenplay and actors know that they're going to have some help- degree of explicitness for the characters is higher. I remember seeing project greenlight 2 "Shaker Heights" and when they were in the editing suite, cutting the movie together, they couldn't get it, so they brought the main character in and had him record a VO. The end result of that experiment was admittedly bad. VO **MIGHT** be able to save a bad director, but then, it might also be the last nail in the coffin for a movie.

I thought it went a little over the top near/at the end when it talked about charities and different civil rights issues. Maybe that's all a big deal now, but they could have talked about that stuff AS WELL AS the rest of his life- other accomplishments, etc. Also, didn't it seem like he basically stopped writing new songs once he went clean? Was the idea to say that "hallucinagens make you more creative"?

I usually set mine for 0, which gives the greatest actual recorded black levels. Then I pull a color corrector and make sure nothing's too bright and nothing's too dark before I send it out. You can also add a "broadcast safe" filter to the whole thing in post if you want to. I've found that paying attention to the vectorscope in post does an adequate job.

Just saw this over the weekend. Thought it was pretty good, was impressed with just about everything- a little bit overdramatic with the racist stuff- but overall, very well done. What did you guys think? (I haven't seen a movie in the theatre since Last Samurai, so this was a unique experience)

It seems I've outlived my usefulness...

I used to work at staples and they sold a "universal power adapter kit" which you could basically take to any country and it would adapt their plugs to our plugs and vice versa. I have no idea how well they worked, but I'm sure you can find something similar with a good recommendation.

Can't you test this yourself? It usually depends on the camera and NLE. Experiment! Have Fun!

I recently aquired the 100a, and needless to say I'm impressed. There is a fair amount of noise, yes, but I really only notice it on the computer monitor, not so much when I see the footage aired. In regard to manipulating in post as opposed to doing all that in-camera, we need to clarify one thing: hardly anyone shoots EXACTLY the colors and depth they want- most everything needs to be done in post. Even "easy" shots on big movie productions go through tremendous amounts of colorizing, setup and whatnot- JUST to get the "normal" feel. I don't know if Phil will have anything to say, but do remember, if you get a camera with only a 1/3" chip, you're getting a little less fidelity and color. Do remember what you're shooting ON and what you're shooting FOR. Again, once you do get your camera, practice! The factory settings are probably not what you'll want- I usually want a day or so just to familiarize myself with the controls, so I can do a quick white balance here and there, or change my iris etc... especially when I'm on a gorilla set. Good luck!

Zebra is a quick way to tell if your exposure is above the level you're wanting. The lines produced that you see in the finder are indicators if your IREs are exceeding that level that you've set your zebra at. I believe the factory setting was 80% and 100%, I guess I've always assumed the % was always IRE level, but I could be wrong. Naturally, the best way to figure out what works best for you is to shoot and monitor, then shoot and test again. I usually set one zebra to a low setting 80-90, then the other to a bit higher than 100%. Of course, it always depends on what look you're going for. And remember, it's always best to be a little underexposed than a little over exposed. You can push up the brightness and get some extra detail in your editor, but if something's all white, it's all white and there's nothing you can do about it.

I stumbled across this article: Your Eyes Suck at Blue http://nfg.2y.net/games/ntsc/visual.shtm And I can't say I know a lot about compression and all that. But it sure seems to me that if this is true, then wouldn't it be possible to compress the blue of an image off a 3-chip CCD more and then compress the Red and Green less- and quite possibly have a better-looking image at the end? What do you guys think? Is this possible? Does this happen already? Is the R&D worth it?

I was going to put this in the dvx100 area, but I remembered that I had similar issues with the sony vx2000. Does anyone else have trouble getting the color reproduction how you want it? I have absolutely NO problem with anything the 100a does, except with saturation. Whenever I shoot something, I have to go in to FCP and run the 3-way color corrector and pump up the saturation manually. Granted when I do this, the color turns out pretty good, but I still think that I dont want to adjust the color on every stinking shot I have in a production. Any tips, tricks or treatments?

I was disappointed a lot when the special edition came out. I'll admit some stuff was cool, but there was a lot they could have cleaned up since they were going to all the trouble, especially in Jedi. In jabba's palace, Luke falls into the rancor's pit. He climbs under a rock (or something) and the Rancor's leg steps in front of him (bluescreened and nastly matte lines)- why couldn't they have done something about this too? It barely looks like the rancor's foot hits the ground, just kind of hovers in air, or like he stepped on a mattress. Second, the end battle sequences when Luke is in the emperor's room. When the shot goes to the emperor and we see a CU of him in his chair- there's this big nastly blurry blob next to his right temple. It kind of looks like they wanted to cover up something (patch of skin that showed, who knows?) but this always distracted me, at least (yes setup level) match the black shadow with the... well, black of his cloak. lastly, again in jabba's palace, what's with the new musical number? I mean, the style of that sequence didn't make any sense at all in regard to the rest of the film. What other time do we look directly into the mouth of a singing, dancing creature? I will admit though, I liked the extended Cloud City sequence and I thought turning some walls into windows made sense with the actual "size" of the city. But the style matching is probably what made a lot of that new stuff just seem really kooky. It was kind of a "Hey we have a program that does motion tracking and cool-looking 3d animation- Let's remake Star Wars!" This kind of reminds me of when my mom revised the school papers I wrote in Junior High...