Timo Klages

what about

Aphex Twin - come to daddy (chris cunningham)

?

really great!

also:

madonna - frozen (chris cunningham)

nine inch nails - only (who did it?)

I'm a student of cinematography and I'm currently writing a dissertation on this subject. Primarily, I'm focusing on the transition from reality into a dream sequence. I'm looking at many different examples of this, including; Jacob's Ladder, Wild Strawberries, The City of Lost Children, Requiem for a Dream, Dreams That Money can Buy etc...etc.

 

What I'm really after is suggestions for achieving this transition effectively, without the stereotypical smoke effects, vignettes etc. Also, if anyone has any further suggestions of viewing/reading material that will help with my project.

 

Naturally, I'm tackling this subject from the cinematographers POV, and as such I would appreciate any specific technical guidance or information that can be offered.

 

I'm aware that it's a bit vague at present, but any information that you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Paul Burrows

i cannot give you any books advices right now but imo, the transition effect shouldn´t be visible at all (or if so, it shouldn´t be as clear as smoke/blurring etc...).

it´s about the story and the things in the mind of the character that should make clear it is a dream in the end. also, there are subtles ways to make a scene a little bit "unrealistic" maybe uncomfortable or at least "not normal" in some way for the viewer. but this is not something you need to see but can also be thru sound or whatsoever. i think it is very difficult to make a good dreamsequence without being very "mainstream" so to speak...

well, just my thoughts on this topic ;)

greets,

timo

In Avid XPress HD capturewindow theres a checkbox reading "preserve original framrate" or something similar to that. Does this mean I dont need the hardware framratecoverter when capturing for example 60P at 50fps from a panasonic HD1400 deck? I know I dont need it when capturing 25fps footage.

 

Thanks

 

Björn

when checked it will capture at the original framerate (i.e. 60fps) and will not use the flags set by the cam for slow/fast motion. if unchecked you can capture the slow/fast motion via firewire directly from the camera. do a search on avid for "varicam avid workflow" i think...

greets,

timo

Hey,

 

Found this on videostatic.com I've been interested in seeing some D20 footage and I figured that other would be interested too.

 

Video

http://streetgangfilms.com/mv/blasts/tombaxter/qt.htm

 

Behind the Scenes

http://video.music.yahoo.com/up/music/musi...x%3D24%26y%3D13

 

Its mainly a white cyc setup so not the best indication of the the camera's abilities but still interesting.

 

Matt

if you are interested in seeing a short-movie shot on D20 (serial number 6 i think) from end of 2005 (still a very early version of the cam back in those days), i could put a version of the movie online i guess. it´s about 15 minutes long (and it´s in german...).

the video looks nice but i think it´s always nice to see some outside shots, studio can be quite boring sometimes.

greets,

timo

Nevermind, I see that compressor offers it :P

there are quite some tools that offer sd to hd upconversion but quality differs very much i think. there was a thread about this, but right now i don´t find it.

on the other hand there are hardware tools that do the job, but that will be expensive.

http://www.snellwilcox.com/quasarphc/

greets,

timo

hey all i have done some editing before but not much just wanted to no what you brought when you started doing this type of stuff and how easy it was for you to edit your footage

thank brad

well, i started to learn editing linear (2/3 machine editing). that´s a pretty good way to learn editing imo, since you really need to think about what you are going to do BEFORE you start editing. logging and stuff like that is very essential i think.

after that i started editing on Avid Mediacomposer. i think that is still a very good software and you can start learning with the free edition, workflow is the same more or less.

if you have a mac, fcp will be your choice i guess...

That brings up a good question...

 

I have a friend that is going to shoot some portion of a movie on the F900... plus some film material. Now I suggested that the film material be transferred to HDCAM so that all the tapes are the same format for editing, but the question is, if they rent an HDCAM deck for the editing room, how do they digitize the footage? They'd like the possibility of editing in HD to create a preview cut for HD projection.

 

I assume you'd need some sort of HD video card in the computer and a BNC (HD-SDI) connector added??? Not sure what to tell them that the editor is going to need to be able to use the HDCAM tapes if he wants to edit in hi-def, not using SD downconversion tapes.

that shouldn´t be a problem at all. if you have an avid adrenalin with the dncxel board, you can capture via hd-sdi (BNC connector) to the avid, using the DNxHD codec (DNxHD 220 or 180, depending on 60Hz or 50Hz). i just read an article about the latest movie directed by Ben Affleck (gone baby gone) (link here: http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/cu...ssue/8704.html).

so editing with the DNxHD codec seems to be very nice to have HD preview possibilities. and later on you can make an online finishing on whatever system you like (*fire or whatsoever)...

no SD downconvert needs to be done (although you can make a downconvert on the fly with the avid).

hope that helps a little bit.

greets,

timo

Hi. I am a director of photography and documentary filmmaker (primarily film interviews and B-roll) that is branching out to keep busy during the snow months and decided to try stop motion animation.

 

-snip-

 

If i did decide to get a P2 card and used it to unlock the P2-only features, could I "trick" the camera into recording to tape so I don't have to buy a P2 card reader? Spending money for a reader isn't in my budget.

 

I considered using still photos from a webcam but I won't have the functions and focus options of my pro camera. Something about scaling down to a webcam just seems silly when I have a great camera in hand.

 

I'm dreading the idea of shooting to tape or firestore and having to log/capture the footage frame by frame. I would spend more time logging/capturing than filming, plus the additional import time and reassembly into my editing system. I am open to ANY suggestions.

 

Thanks in advance.

hmmm, a few thoughts from me.

i did a stop motion project this year with some friend (ended up with a 7 minute short film in HD). We used a Canon EOS-1D Mark II i think. and i would always use a digital SLR for a stop motion project. you have a full-frame sensor (well, at least the markII has one). if you have the chance to do so, do it!

you can check out what we did (a little trailer is online by now) at: http://www.vampire-film.de

if you shoot on p2, you "only" need a pc-card slot (like most laptops have) and of course the p2-drivers installed. with later avid versions you can import directly from the card in this case...

well, hope that helps a little...

good luck,

timo

and another thing... there's like, more AVID versions out there than there are movies made in india!! ah! which one?

since i haven´t used FCP really seriously for editing at all up to this point, i am only answering your last question.

basically, for editing purpose, the workflow is pretty much the same, no matter if you use XPress Pro, FreeDV or Mediacomposer. I think, even Newscutter will be the same when it comes to editing. Adrenalin is just referring to the hardware attached (basically it´s the same as MC (mediacomposer)).

Symphony is giving you more features for finishing / conforming purposes (great color correction), DS is made for compositing and finishing purpose (it once was Softimage DS).

SO, basically, only DS (Nitris) is different from all the other Avid´s that basically give you the same Editing interface with different features (like more video and audio tracks, better timewarps and so on...).

i hope that helps a bit...

Shooting and editing a STARZ HD concert series and we shot the UK band the Kaiser Chiefs in NYC on Saturday night at the Beacon Theatre. Shooting HVX200's with Fire Stores because we didn't have access to enough P2 cards for the shoot, very last minute shoot and the Fire Stores were the next best thing (remind me never to say that again, because no hard drive should ever be setup to do something like this). Anyway, 5 minutes before set time one of the Fire Stores corrupted/came unformatted and so we sent that camera into the crowd roving, but running SD to tape, the only way around our problem.

 

We now need to find a way to get that footage upconverted/upressed to HD if that is even possible. I've tried do research to no end online this AM and can't find anything solid other than Red Giants product. I know that this is certainly not an exact science, and in fact isn't even truly an HD solution, but we need something to at least give us some more resolution out of that blow up which will be very obvious on a STARZ HD channel.

 

Any help, solutions, thoughts, trouble shoots?

 

Much obliged,

 

Rod

there are some software tools that may be able to do the job

the plug ins: Digital Anarchy Resizer 2.1, Red Giant Instant HD 1.0 and Topaz Enhance 2.2

Standalone: VideoEnhancer 1.3

there was a test of those tools in the german magazin "digital production" some time ago. i think they got some nice results but i don´t remember the exact test-results. could check em out later this week if needed!

hope that helps,

timo

i encountered a problem when i was transcoding material that was shot in 720/50p to an project that is 1080/50i.

the resulting material was sort of "zoomed" in and shifted to the upper right of the picture. this only happened when transcoding from progressiv to interlaced.

i am using Media Composer 2.7.2 (with and without Adrenalin and DNXcel Board).

is there any way to transcode p to i without these "effects"?

thanks a lot for any help!

timo

Anyone have a list of feature films shot with the D20?

Can't find one on the Arri website.

Mike Brennan

are you "only" looking for a list of really big feature films or also short movies that were shot with the Arriflex D20?

,

Timo

On the sensor side, the HPX-2000 has 1280 x 720 2/3" sensors. The HPX-500 has lower resolution 2/3" sensors, they're supposed to be upgrades to the SDX-900's sensors (which were 960x480), but with a new spatial offset technology applied to get up to HD resolution.

 

In addition, the HPX-500 has the same basic imaging controls as the HVX-200, while the HPX-2000 has a lot more advanced controls over gamma, matrix, etc.

 

Add to that the HPX-2000 has one more P2 slot, and there's the price difference.

 

Both cameras look good, obviously, and they're both good choices at their respective price points, but the HPX-2000 is going to have better performance in a number of ways - that's what you pay the extra $ for.

 

Best.

 

John

thank you for the fast reply!

greets,

timo

I already read in some other threads about the HPX500 and HVX2000 and so on but one information that i am still missing is about the sensors (ccd´s) in these cameras.

the panasonic homepage tells me, that the HPX2100 has an "active" resolution of 1280x720 pixels that are used and recorded so to speak. but i never got a reply from panasonic when i asked about the sensor in the HPX500.

can anyone tell me, what kind of sensor (actice pixels and so on) is used in the HPX500?

i am still wondering why there is such a great price difference between the 2100 and the 500.

thanks for anyone who can help!

timo klages

correct.

we use, since 2002, uncompressed discrecorders (which are even better than hdcam sr) when we want to shoot with hdcam cameras for ultracomplex postpro.

(keying of semitransparent objects in front of their shadows, 3d motion tracking etc).

interesting!

what format do you record in this case? raw-file format (like the D20 can do with the fraunhofer disk recorder)? and is the difference really so big between uncompressed files and, let´s say, HQ-mode when using the SRW-1 considering the post pro?

Interesting... thank you for the replies! I wasn't aware that you could hook the SRW1 VTR to the F900.

in general, you can hook up any camera to the SRW-1 recorder that has an HD-SDI output (or even better, a dual-link HD-SDI). not only sony...

greets,

timo klages