Chance Shirley

There is a good discussion about the home video versions of Kubrick's later films (including The Shining) here: http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...showtopic=12692

"...and with the new ridiculously sized sensors..." Yawn. Vaporware.

Yawn. Vaporware.

For starters, the HVX can shoot HD (1080p and 720p). The DVX is strictly SD (480p).

Check out Below... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276816/ Underrated submarine flick with excellent cinematography.

We're all biased. That's why we like 24p, because we've been watching movies shot that way for years.

To answer your questions in reverse order... 2. Your footage is interlaced because it was transferred from 24 progressive frames per second to 29.97 interlaced frames per second using a 2:3 pulldown insertion process. Before editing the video, you need to remove those extra frames using Cinema Tools. You should be able to find documentation to explain how Cinema Tools works -- it's pretty simple. You might also read about true 24p vs. 23.976p. 23.976p is more compatible with NTSC, DVD, Blu-ray, etc. 24p is good for film out or digital cinema projection. If you're transferring to MiniDV, I expect you'll want 23.976p. 1. MiniDV NTSC 4:3 video is 720 x 480 pixels. I know the math doesn't make any sense. The thing is, NTSC televisions display non-square pixels, so the aspect ratio, as viewed, is 4:3. So, your MiniDV footage is not 640 x 480. You'll want to import it into a Final Cut Pro timeline as 720 x 480. Final Cut Pro will display it properly. If/when you export it for the web (or another non-NTSC system), you'll want to change the picture size to 640 x 480. Export to DVD should stay at 720 x 480.

Unfortunately, from a commercial standpoint, black and white and 1.33:1 have both been dead for a long time. If you make non-commercial films, you are always free to shoot in any format(s) you like.

Some people want to be "famous" and don't care if it is for something embarrassing. Legally, copyrighted images appearing incidentally in a movie should be covered by "fair use." Unfortunately, the courts seem more interested in protecting corporations than the law these days, so don't count on fair use to do you much good if you get sued (as in the Simpsons case you mentioned). If it is a studio film, you can bet the studio's team of lawyers secured permission to use every one of those trademarked logos.

Depends on your style of shooting and the nature of the movie you're making. I've heard of well-planned features with a 1.5:1 ratio, and documentary ratios can obviously be very high -- 60:1, 70:1, 200:1, etc. I'm around 6:1 on my current feature. I was hoping for 4:1 but missed that mark due to some complex (for me, at least) shots and poor planning.

Film Emporium.

Watch movies. Preferably well-directed ones. Pay attention to how the directors use shot selection and edits to tell their stories. Then get yourself an inexpensive camera and a couple of friends and start making your own movies.

Sounds too high to me. Last I checked, 400 feet of 16mm was going for less than $140. Next time you're ordering stock, I'd recommend Film Emporium... http://www.tapesuperstore.com/16mm35mm.html I get Fuji 16mm stock from them and have always found their prices and service top-notch. (They're currently selling 100' Fuji 250D for $33.)

I'm not really familiar with Premiere. That said, if the DVD is working correctly, sounds like your timeline is true/correct 24p. I'd think you could output a 24p AVI (computer video playback should be frame rate agnostic). If you output a 24pA AVI, that is going to look choppy, as every fifth frame is redundant. In theory, Final Cut Pro can correctly output a 24p timeline to 29.97 fps for tape on the fly -- not sure about Premiere. What I usually end up doing is using After Effects to re-interpolate my 24p footage into 29.97 fps (w/proper pulldown frames), then take that 29.97 file to the post house for transfer to DigiBeta, etc. You can create a 29.97 fps DVD (or MiniDV tape or whatever) to test and make sure the 29.97 fps file is correct before taking it to the post house.

I guess "bang for the buck" is subjective. Adobe = $799, Apple = $1,299. Adobe is obviously cheaper, but I think the Apple package is more than worth the extra $500. A lot of the decision probably has to do with your workflow. I cut features, I don't deal with videotape, and I farm out stuff to other editors and effects artists on occasion. Apple is the only way to go for me, if for no other reason that all of the other editors and effects people I deal with are using Apple. I maintain it's the most flexible and robust solution for beginning editors (I started with FCP 2.0 and DVD Studio Pro 1.0). And beginning computer users, for that matter.

> There's not much difference between them except for the personal experiences of the software and OSs... Well, yeah. That's kind of the point of the discussion. For both video and audio work, I find Apple's Mac OS superior to Windows. And, bang-for-the-buck, the Final Cut Pro software package can't be beat. > And OMF is just stupid. Unless you need to move a media project from one software application to another.

Mac all the way. You can get After Effects and Premiere for the Mac if you want, but I would definitely recommend FCP over Premiere for editing. Here's a blog post by a friend of mine that explains several Premiere pitfalls.

For my current feature, we've been getting Super 16 film transferred direct-to-disk, using the DVCPro HD 1080p/23.976 FPS codec. From here, we can down-res for DVDs, and we have an HD master we can use if we get to release the finished movie in some HD format (Blu-ray, etc.).

By my calculations, that graphic is not very accurate. Plus, film doesn't have strict resolution like video, so it is kind of an apples-and-oranges thing. I think this example is a little better -- SD (16x9 enhanced) vs. 1080p HD vs. 2K: For the sake of comparison, you could consider Super 16 somewhere in the 2K range. Super 35 would be somewhere in the 4K range.

A Doggicam Bodymount? http://www.doggicam.com/

I actually wrote a short black and white segment into my currently-filming feature just so I'd have an excuse to shoot some 16 mm Double-X.

Very interesting. Did you explain how the Graffield works in the other post? If so, could you provide a link (couldn't find it via site search)? Thanks...

Thanks a lot, guys! I appreciate the encouragement, especially as production on my second feature has dragged on for more than a year (so far). That's just one or two weekends a month but, still, a long haul.

That's the way I've always filmed those type scenes. With one camera, I can't really see any other way to do it.

Is your a computer monitor LCD? If so, how does the DVD look when played back on the computer at 100% resolution? The difference between a good LCD monitor and a good LCD television should be negligible, I would think. Also... if your DVD looks pixel-y on the LCD TV, but "pro" DVDs look good, I'd guess the problem is in the MPEG-2 compression. "Pro" DVDs are made by pro compressionists who are most likely using tools more powerful than iDVD. Have you tried using Final Cut Pro and Compressor to create an MPEG-2? That combo tends to give me near-pro results, especially with a suitably high bitrate and "two-pass" encoding.