Stuart Brereton

Try www.creativevideo.co.uk I shot a short horror film with DSR450 last year. I was very pleased with the pictures, and there was lots of room for Image manipulation via the extensive menus.

If you can, Telecine to something other than mini DV. You're throwing away so much information.

Any time you shoot at anything other than 24fps & 180deg shutter

You need to justify a source of light. You say there's no streetlight, so the obvious choice is moonlight. Use the biggest lamp you've got as a backlight or kicker. Place it up high, and far enough back to give a even spread of illumination. If it's a tungsten lamp you may want to use 1/4 CTB or something to create a slightly cold look. Then you'll need something to light the characters faces. Maybe there is light spilling from the house they are outside of. Or you could simulate light from the dash with a Kino car kit or other soft source. Lightning can be achieved a number of ways. Strobe lights like you find at DJ equipment stores are an easy way to create this effect. You'll need something fairly powerful to cover a wide shot, say a 3k Strobe. If you have access to a fire truck then you should have no problem with creating rain effects. Remember, rain needs to be backlit to show up on film. Your Moonlight lamp should take care of this nicely, or you can augment the effect with other lamps. Absolutely avoid Day for Night. It is far easier to create these effects at night. Red filters make things go red, unless you are shooting Black & White. Do not use with colour film unless you want everything red. 500T is the way to go.

Hey Tim, how about a new Cinematography Kindergarten forum? I think we've found it's first member....

Stephen, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you saying the fixed lenses on the DVX are better than the Canon glass? If so, I have to disagree! The Canon lenses are far better than any fixed lens on a prosumer camera. I've shot with both cameras and have always hated the DVX. I don't like the design, and I find the pictures vastly inferior to the XL2. I'm not trying to start an argument here, these are just my opinions...

Well, the promo has been shot, and is being cut at the moment. Here's a test still with the 70's TV look applied It was front lit with a pair of 5k's through frames of 216. The lamps were set far enough back from the set that they were fairly hard sources, even with the 216, so that we got a Hard TV look. There was a 650w high up on the back of the set for hair/toplight. In post, the contrast was raised, and a Glow filter applied, which seemed to blow out the highlights, and generally soften the image.

how many is a million brazillian?? sounds like a lot.... :-)

Hi, Here's a promo I shot a while back. The post-production schedule was very long (as you'll see...) so it's only just been completed. Shot greenscreen on an F750 in one very long day. This version is pretty low rez, but you get the picture.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. The look we want is that of 1970's NTSC television, so, nice and soft, muddy blacks. But there's also a certain feel to the colors as well, a kind of yellowness to skintones etc. Thanks again.

Hi, I have a promo coming up where we need to recreate the look of bad NTSC tv. Now, I know that it's not necessarily an 'in-camera' thing, so I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience of creating a look like this, either in post, or any other way. thanks.

Geez, Mike, do you really need to be so needlessly spikey? Tim is a well informed and well respected member of this forum, who has a great deal of respect for cinematography and cinematographers. Before we take your comments too seriously, perhaps we could see a list of your awards? No? Of course not! Having won an Oscar is not a prerequisite of posting here. You're very fond of posting withering putdowns to the less experienced members of this board, and yes, sometimes I find myself agreeing with you, but on this occasion I think you've been unnecessarily rude to someone who does not deserve it. Lighten up.

It's hard enough finding space for two cameras, let alone five! There may sometimes be situations where you could get a wide shot as well as cross shoot mediums and C/Us at the same time, but these are few and far between. The rest of the time you are compromising the lighting, and frequently the actors performance, as what works for a wide is far too big for a C/U and vice versa. I've been on shoots where we've wasted 20 minutes squeezing in a 2nd camera, when it would have only taken 10 minutes to just shoot it again with a longer lens. it's a false economy a lot of the time.

Bollocks. What an insult to those of us who earn our livelihood behind the camera. It seems that you're unable to say anything without insulting someone. Learn some manners.

When you say, A and B could see the slate, do you mean that both cameras could see it well enough for the number and clap to be easily identifiable?. Unless the editor can see the clap well enough to sync rushes, you should use A & B slates, even if both cameras can see a common board.

I think you forgot to mention your book.... oh no, my mistake, you did :-)

I wouldn't use the video tap for anything but a general sense of what's going on. It's no good for judging exposure or critical focus. Checking framing is OK, but you could still be missing important detail within the frame. You may be able to judge performance from it too, I guess it just depends how nuanced the performance is, and how wide the shot is. If none of these things bother you, and you just want some material for a rough offline edit, I suppose it would work. BTW, a question like this is probably better off in general discussion, rather than Film Stocks & Processing.

Shooting at 1/50th should eliminate problems from sources powered on 50hz mains. Sodium and Mercury lamps do not emit the full spectrum of light. Large parts of it are missing from these lamps, and they exhibit huge spikes at other frequencies. Sodium lamps, as you've probably noticed, are a kind of pinky orange (unless they are the older Low pressure sodium lamps, which are much more saturated orange). Because of the discontinuous spectrum of these lamps, you cannot correct them back to white, there is simply too much of the spectrum missing. I would use a tungsten white balance on the camera, and try to use the sodium sources as backlight or kickers, and use a soft tungsten source as a key for the talent. If you need to gel your lamps to a sodium look, I suggest you check the archives for Michael Nash's gel pack of CTO and bastard amber (I think), which is a very good match.

you could try www.lee.co.uk. it has a pretty good description of most of their kit, along with photometric charts.

How long is a piece of string? your lighting package will vary depending on the kind of work you do, and the budget you have. for doco work, I'd say that your existing package is good enough. Maybe add a 2k open face lamp for a bit more firepower. Add a selection of diffusion materials, or maybe some softboxes. Kinos are nice, but not as flexible as fresnels and a lot more expensive If you are shooting drama or promos, you will almost certainly need more lamps than you have, but that doesn't mean you should buy them. Rent until you are sure that you can justify the expense. It's very tempting to have a large selection of lamps at home on the shelf, but unless you are using them regularly it's a waste of money.

The PACT/BECTU rate in the UK for a camera operator is £1117 per 60 hour week. Many productions would pay more than this though.

I wasn't trying to start an argument, merely use the correct terms for the task in hand. Grading is grading and DI is DI. The similarities between the processes are not in question. Where it matters is when you walk into a post facility and ask for a quote for a DI when you actually mean color correction. The extra 00000 on the quote will make your head spin.

I'm being picky, I know, but strictly speaking a DI is the digital grading of film for a film finish, hence the 'Intermediate'. Grading for a tape finish, either in Telecine or in post is just called Grading.

I certainly wouldn't refer to Chad & Michael as 'Pimple Faced Brats'. Michael made a legitimate comment and received a rather rude response. Everything else was a reaction to that.

As I understand it, your constitution only provides the right to bear arms to citizens as part of an organised militia, who are engaged in protecting America from outside attack. I find guns fascinating, but with gun crime on the increase in England, it is hard to be anything but against them.