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Ben Hayflick

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  1. Hello, I'm shooting a short using the DVX100 or possibly the HVX200. The shoot calls for a lot of tracking - walking alongside subjects that are walking. Can anybody suggest the best Glidecam/Fig Rig type gizmo to use? I basically want something that will eliminate footstep jitter, but a Steadycam is probably overkill (and out of budget). I can rent a Fig Rig for around $40 a day, which might do the trick, but I'm not convinced it does anything that the onboard cam stabilizer wouldn't do, since it doesn't seem to attach to the operator's body at all. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated! Glidecam 2000 Pro? Glidecam Smooth Shooter?
  2. Thanks Eric - actually I am giving full creedence to David Mullen and your posts, and I totally know there's no alterior motives in anything here. Which is why I love this forum. What I haven't mentioned is I may have a special scenario, where I could do the Symphony assembly and cc, and if it's not satisfactory, get some of my money back and apply that towards a full DaVinci tape-to-tape cc (or perhaps a DaVinci cc of certain shots, which I think David Cox mentioned I could do earlier). So the economics of it still make sense - I'd effectively be paying a very good rate for an assembly and an attempted Symphony cc. Believe me, I am still a skeptic about whether the Symphony operator and color correct will be good enough. And believe me, my priority at this point is not to save a few hundred bucks! But why not try it - seems to me my worst case scenario is I end up with an assembled non-corrected master, for a very good price, and then I need to cough up more for the DaVinci work with a dedicated colorist. What's to lose? The important info that I'm looking for is whether the quality of my finished DigiBeta master would suffer in any way, because of any technological factors (e.g. compression, color depths, anything NOT related to the colorist), if I had to go with the above "worst case" scenario.
  3. Thank you kindly, both Davids. Immensely helpful forum this is. Now for a potentially silly question: How can I tell if the monitors have been properly calibrated? And calibrated to what, standard color bars? I am now steering back toward the Avid Symphony option, because the pricing is the best and because of other logistical convenience. However, am I right in saying, if the operator and/or results come out less than satisfactory, I could still take the assembled DigiBeta master from the Symphony, and do a more "legit" tape-to-tape cc on something like a DaVinci, without *any* loss of quality? Perhaps, to prepare for this option, I'd want to output 2 masters from the Symphony: one BEFORE any cc work (a "virgin" master), and one AFTER cc work? Finally, does anyone know if Automatic Duck is *required* in order to successfully import (or export) a FCP HD generated EDL for use on an Avid Symphony?
  4. Can any of the resident senseis take a hack at my latest question? Don't want it to get buried.
  5. Thanks to all for the replies and advice. David was right to bring up budgetary restrictions; while ideal it's simply not feasible to do something like go back to the negs for another round of TK. However a new option has been presented to me for the same job - to do the online and CC on a 10-bit uncompressed Final Cut Pro HD system, with Color Finesse tools and 32-bit floating point color (which may be culled directly from the apple.com marketing copy but at least it sounds fancy). I balked when I heard about this - because FCP for color correct??? - but the colorist I spoke with assured me that for my workflow, this system can easily handle even HD resolutions and color depths et al with no quality loss. Remember that I am working from DigiBeta source tapes, and want to have a cc DigiBeta master to finish. The colorist further said the trouble with doing cc in FCP is usually that the colorist isn't that good or experienced. But this person has experience on other, more dedicated cc systems (Smoke, Avid systems, DaVinci), and would be applying his knowledge and experience as a colorist. So unless you guys raise some red flags, I like the sound of this. For me this FCP workflow presents a real advantage - namely that everything would be done in FCP which is what I cut the project in. No EDLs to mess with, which I'm guessing would save time on the assembly. How does all this sound? Compared with the DaVinci or Symphony options discussed above?
  6. Thanks David. Yes I will be grading from the video masters. In the initial telecine, which was a best light, they went for maximum latitude to allow for best results in the event of a tape to tape CC finish. So hopefully the end results will still be handsome. Actually, is there an advantage of a "tape to tape" cc method, as opposed to the other option of doing all the cc in Avid before spitting back the assembly to DigiBeta (what would it be called - perhaps an "online color correct")? Am I confused about my two options here?
  7. Hello, I am about to do color correction on a short shot on Super 16mm, telecined to DigiBeta, and the finished output will be DigiBeta. My question is, should I do the CC on an Avid Symphony or a DaVinci? My film doesn't need major CC work, just some cleanup here and there. The DaVinci is more expensive (by around $100/hour), is this price increase justified? I believe the Avid will handle uncompressed footage too (please correct me if I'm wrong!) so that shouldn't be a factor. So is there a big difference? Any other advice? (I also realize the colorist is probably 90% of the equation.)
  8. I have informed my post house as to what path to take. I want to thank everyone for the input - this forum rocks! One more (easy) question - in selecting DVCam tape stock, what is the difference between the tapes with a chip versus without? And between the more costly "Digital Mastering" kind versus the normal kind of DVCam?
  9. Thanks everyone. A few new questions: 1. If I have a keycode burn in, but don't have a corresponding Ale/FLEX flie created, is the keycode still useful in the event that I want to cut the negative later on? 2. For a one-light, I was initially quoted 8-10 hours of transfer time for an MOS transfer of 4.5 hours of s16 footage. Does this sound right? 3. How much time should it add for a transfer of the same exact footage, but with sound from DATs synced to match the smart slate?
  10. I just read this, thanks. But as I mentioned, even if I go with Scenario #2, which includes that final tape-to-tape CC session, I think it still comes out cheaper. And the end product would be identical (negative -> supervised selects telecine and HD-D5 assembly -> D5-HD to D5-HD final color correct). How can I lose by going this route? The other way ends up being more expensive, because of the relatively high cost of D5 stock, as well as the high cost of HD telecine. Really? I will look into this, maybe this will bring down the price enough to compete with Scenario #2. In the event I go with Scenario #2, which involves that supervised transfer of selects to HD, I agree with this statement; the tape-to-tape CC finish should take less time, because of the color correction work done during TK. But with Scenario #1, the one and only TK (to HD, of all my footage) would have to be a one-light/best light, so that would actually make Scenario #1's tape-to-tape CC finish work LONGER. Scenario #2 wins again, right?
  11. Thanks David. Interesting - so you mean it might be possible to effectively combine the second selects telecine and the assembly session? Or would the results still need fine tuning in an assembly session (this is my hunch - but the process you speak of would doubtless streamline the assembly session)? Regarding Keycodes, I am having those added to the DVCam footage as well, in the event that I will want to cut the negative for a blowup sometime down the road. I figure it's a good thing to have on my working footage. But plain and simple, besides the two original arguments I've put forth, would anyone recommend against my Scenario #2? What would I be missing by not having all my footage transferred to HD?
  12. Hi all, first time poster. I recently shot a short film on s16 7217 and now am entering post. I have a few questions about HD and telecine. 1. Is D5-HD a good HD format to finish to? I don't have infinite funds here, but I do have an affordable way to finish to D5-HD. Without doubling my budget, is this format my best HD option? 2. Can anyone recommend a place to get D5-HD tapes? I found www.cheaptapes.com, and they seem to have the best deals on the web. Has anyone bought from them, or can recommend somewhere else? And also, does the brand matter? Fuji or Panasonic? 3. Is there a difference between standard def D5 and D5-HD? Which are exactly the right ones to get? Are the tape formats/names a little confusing or is it me? 4. Finally, can anyone comment on why I'd want to have all my footage telecined to D5, DVCam EDL, and then finish with a tape-to-tape color correct (D5-HD to D5-HD), rather than going the somewhat less costly (and seemingly more reasonable) route of negative -> DigiBeta + DVCam, DVCam EDL, and do a SECOND supervised selects telecine from negative -> D5-HD, and finish on that? Is there any creedence to the notion that the first scenario will give better results, because it will be a tape to tape color correct which occurs when the film is ALREADY ASSEMBLED (and thus the colorist/I can be more precise in the color correction session), versus the second scenario, in which it would be a supervised telecine of selects from the negative -> D5-HD? To help unpack my own question for you guys, my thinking is that the only reason I'd want to have all my footage on D5, rather than all of my footage on DigiBeta, is if I wanted to recut the HD version of the film. In this case having all my footage on D5 would prevent me from having to do yet another telecine. But obviously I do not want to do my tweaking in the HD online room! Because Ouch. The only time I want to be dealing with HD is for one final assembly session (and possibly the color correction session), period, so this advantage to having all the footage on D5 seems somewhat unnecessary. So then the only other argument I can think of for having everything put on D5 would be what I mentioned above; that a tape to tape color correct session would yield better aesthetic results than a supervised telecine of selects. But I realize this second argument is also somewhat flawed. Why? Because I could always do a tape to tape color correct session from the supervised telecine of selects, if that supervised telecine proves unsatisfactory. In effect, the choice is as follows: Scenario #1 s16 negative -> D5-HD and DVCam (all footage) -> DVCam EDL -> D5-HD to D5-HD (color corrected) finish - or - Scenario #2 s16 negative -> DigiBeta and DVCam (all footage) -> DVCam EDL -> return to the s16 negative -> D5-HD supervised selects telecine -> if needed, D5-HD to D5-HD (color corrected) finish In the end scenario #2 is considerably cheaper. Even with the extra tape to tape color correct it's still cheaper. But please disabuse me of any misconceptions/logical flaws I am having in any of the above, or if there are any other questions I should be asking at this phase! thanks ben h.
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