Robert ODoul

Looks great, I like the angles, colour, lighting, camera work. I'd also like to know the answers to Pete's question - which lenses, and the post production workflow process. Also, how was the very quick 'shudders' or 'shakes' performed.. was that post?

Thanks for the feedback Rod, sounds like I am more or less going the right way. In short, it was a simple setup and post process. I shot with in HDV, 24P on the Canon HV20. The lenses were Nikons. While the len flares are a real effect of the lenses, the film burns and horizontal & vertical streaks flares were in post. I edited and colour corrected in Final Cut Pro. The HDV held up very well in post - I crushed the blacks highly of course, but as a secondary 3-way color correction filter. In all, I used 2 instances of 3-way color corrector filter, and Magic Bullet looks. The HDV held up surprisingly well, but I'd really lean towards a better codec for future projects I'm doing. Why no dutch angles? Aside from hand-held, what'd be so bad about them? I shot it that way to get away from the rigid promotional work I've been doing recently.. this was an artistic 'yell' and release for me ;)

Hello everyone. I?d love feedback, both on what I?m doing right and what I should/can do better. I went for grit on this one. I wanted to do everything to get away from the orderly style, just to try it out. This was all hand held, arm-extended swooping in-your-face shots with aggressive colour grading (which is also used to hide the grain in the blacks). I was only on sticks for two takes - one when with the singer's face is up close, and the other was a wide. I?d really appreciate some constructive feedback, thank you. http://fmw.teack.net/lullaby/lullaby_01.html

Looks great Cole, and I like the concept. Absolutely, it was worth doing! I like the idea of kids pushing the limits more, though it is pretty impressive they built a big box & actually managed to catch a car...

Yes, it's *raw* footage, as in, uncompressed 4:2:2 1080i coming out of the HDMI port on the camera, going through a loss-less convertor that spits out uncompressed 4:2:2 1080i HD-SDI. I used a Mac Pro on the main sets (the cafe + the school scenes) with a Decklink HD Extreme card - and yes, it works well! Cumbersome, but worth it to get around HDV for the main shots. The convertor was Convergent Designs nanoConnect. Worked like a charm, though I wish it had been designed with battery operation, or a battery pack as an option - had to use an AC adapter with a short cord. While the video stream was uncompressed, I opted to use the ProRes 422 HQ Codec, and had a two-hard drive software RAID setup which was ample for capture (I did a test with a 4-drive RAID, and it was overkill for the ProRes codec). Plenty of the B-Roll shots are HDV, and it stood up very well and held it's own most of the time along side the ProRes footage. That said, the project would not have been doable without an uncompressed rig on set... some areas of some shots needed a lot of light in post because we didn't have flags to bring down the exposed areas (faces!)

Thanks for your take.. yes, wish I had an alt take of Alyssa communicating with the waitress.. in the other takes, it was even more in-your-face! In reality, the two actors were the opposite of their characters ;) So maybe that's just fate.. It's tiny alright! But with a mattebox, carbon fibre fails, tripod, HD-SDI convertor, 100' of HD-SDI cable, long lenses, a black adapter, etc etc.. it works a lot like and acts like a manual camera when it's all tricked out. It's longer than a Sony Z1U as I use my setup, and thus, handles like a larger camera (or average-large sized prosumer rig). Besides, I doubt anyone would have taken me seriously if I showed up with a stock HV20 on set.. it's has consumer camera written all over it.

Good eye Tim, and it's the exact opposite. I wanted to communicate, share, learn and post on cinematography.com without google following me around, and I think if one acts appropriately and within reason, it's the new digital form of a pen name used with fair judgement.

Looks interesting, like, I'm interested, but can't view it. Sorry.. cheekiness aside, please post a link so we can view it.

I enjoyed it - I'd really shorten it to 1:30-2mins, max.

'Please' can go a long way ;) Your URL doesn't work - you're welcome.

Hey Abel, Thanks for the kind comments! I use Cinvate's Brevis adapter - www.cinevate.com. Visit the site - the forums are very active. I used Apple's Final Cut Studio, and I shot 24P so I didn't deinterlace per se, but rather performed 3:2 pulldown on the 24P footage that was recorded in a regular 60i video time-line. I have my own webserver, so I encoded and and uploaded myself, again, using Apple's Final Cut Studio (which is a group of programs sold as a suite). I used a boom, so, a mini-crane of sorts. Honestly, the first step to get footage that looks like this is buying a 35mm lens adapter - there are other variants from different companies, and I think most or all ones being sold now will offer pretty much the same results - or close enough anyway. The second step is to shoot 24P - the Canon HV20 is what I used, and the best bang for the buck at this point I'd say. If you get an HV30, it has a true 30P function, which you could shoot and totally avoid ever having to interlace or perform 3:2 pull down on the footage! And there are plenty of lenses to choose from; Canons are good too! TONS of support and stuff to read out there.. really, zoom lenses are fine for 35mm adapters as long as they're true, full-frame 35lenses (many new ones are smaller DX formats, etc for digital cameras - so be careful!)

Absolutely agree! I was talking to a fellow-filmmaker last night about how when one improves his or her professionalism, it's kind of like when you can stop making excuses because less and less issues pop up ? when we all start out, there are problems we can?t hide. And the parts in this project that I totally agree with that really stand out as being shot on video, are the shots with the overexposed objects/subjects in the foreground and background of the actors. And you?re right, it was a budget/time issue - understaffed and without the necessary equipment and manpower. I like how you've exactly nailed what happened, and why! Honestly, there were only 3 crew members on set for the Café scene itself, 4 if you include me. Next time: more people, and free myself up from being director, cinematographer and camera operator and focus on just one of the above. This was all shot with a Canon HV20 and a 35mm adapter, so I?d bet a better ½? or 2/3? camera with better latitude would have handled those highlights better. Next time!

Filip, I used and recommend Magic Bullet Looks. Very easy, powerful and fast to use. Great quality as well. I used MB Looks along with multiple instances of Final Cut Pro's colour correction tools.

Thanks Filip for commenting :) It is a promo video - only way I could buy the 35mm lens adapter to shoot it! So, now that I own it from doing this project, I can now go out and shoot an indie. I shot it iwth two inexpensive Nikon zooms - a 70-150mm and a 24-75mm I believe. I also used a 50mm prime for some shots too. The camera was the very inexpensive HV20 - I'm very impressed with it's image, and had faith in it the entire shoot. And I think it's evident that it worked well enough, or so I hope.

45 views, not one comment. I can only infer that I'm pretty bad at what I'm doing.. wish I knew *what* I was doing wrong though. Please, could you let me know what you think? Just a few words would help..

Hello everyone! I shot this in early September of 2007, and it's been a one-man post-production job since the shoot to edit, colour grade, sound, composite, etc. It's a promo video (my first) and there were complications before and after the shoot and I'd prefer if other seasoned veterans gave me feedback on the images before I release it to the world as a final cut. Does it work? Does it look nice for the most part? Colours okay? It may have been my first shoot of this size - actual permit, small crew, cast + extras (large production for me, a student), but if there's anything you can see that could be fixed, please let me know! There are also people composited into other shots as well - let me know if you can tell which ones. I also did all the post - incl. sound, and composting - I had the original music scored and recorded by a friend. Here's a draft of the 5 minute video (pause to allow for it to download): http://fmw.teack.net/cinematography_D15.html Much appreciated!