Mike Brennan

Well done David! did you use primes or zooms? Mike brennan

Thanks to John and Mark for making this most concise answers to a wackey post on the net! Mike Brennan

Would an anamorphic zoom for 2/3 inch HD camcorders be a good idea? The new Canon adapter seems to work well, adapting regular prime HD lenses to fill the 16x9 ccds with a scope aspect ratio picture. Problem is that it is not practical to use zooms on the adapter, its too long. Many lower budget f900 shoots a) couldn't afford primes nor the adapter B) Need a zoom to help speed the shoot along Higher budget scope movies go for the Viper. So I fear the adapter will fall through the gap. But what about a scope zoom, say 6 to 54mm for 2/3 inch HD camcorders? How many HD features that members have worked on would have shot scope had there been a scope camcorder available (for about the same rental cost as a f900)? Mike Brennan

Hi Mike, what is the favoured form to PAL frame rate conversion from 23.98p HD? Adding a frame or speeding up 4% or interpolating a frame or....? Mike Brennan

Tim contact me off list, I may be able to help Mike Brennan vista at ntlworld.com

Did you have a rmb 750 or RMB 150 plugged into the camera? Mike Brennan

Do a test. Try a cinegamma curve in the f900/3. (not available for the 750) If the subect is colourfull bright and punchy then the 750 will do a fair job. But F900 is the preferred choice worldwide for largescreen HD projects. HDW750 will do if you have limited funds, but you'll still need same lenses, tape and post route so why not start with a f900? Where are you shooting? Mike Brennan (f900 owner)

In response to following topics raised in this thread: "Film will last a long time" Not always, If The British Film Institute can't get it right who can? Check this out..http://www.hd24.com/parliamentry_report.htm and "we are all aware that every color image on film fades with time,.." Vittorio Storaro http://www.imago.org/aic/01_book/storaro_eng.htm Like David Mullen, I have mulitple clones of my HD work as well as 35mm neg. Best of both worlds! "Video is Artless" Art is what ends up on screen, the tools to make it are irrelevant. Thousands of digital stills photographers have switched to digital. Did they became artless overnight? "Trying to Make video look like film?" In resepct to making video look like film it may surprise US friends that in the UK we have been doing it for TV for over a decade, the day editor Josh Halil removed and delayed fields for a channel 4 series. Bingo! the stoboscopic motion gave it a prime time drama feel. The drop in resolution made it look like 16mm rather than 35mm, but since all UK drama is shot on 16mm it worked. Commissioning editors, critics and the public thought it was filmic. It culminated in the series called "The Lakes" where the producer actually placed a notice in Broadcast Magazine stating it wasn't film. For years we made a fortune shooting high end docs for the USA, we were making them look like film only we were doing it with electronic capture and post, a tool set much better suited to our workflow and creative ambitions. But this so called "film effect" was more difficult to impliment in Prime Time drama in the US as 35mm was used and the drop in resolution would have been a giveaway that it wasn't "normal" drama. With HD there is no need to deinterlace to create the stroboscopic motion so the resolution remains high and is more like 35mm than 16mm. In the UK over the years we have done such a good job making SD look good that there was less pressure to shoot HD. Even BBC, spending $400k per hour on some dramas shoot digi beta and deinterlace! Extra money shooting film is a waste and better spent in front of the camera. So many of the opinions expressed on this list regarding the look of video, however strongly felt do not reflect the significant experience we have had in Europe. Mike Brennan

In my experience the Pro 35 softens the picture regardless of taking lens. Did a filmout test 2 weeks ago with this adapter and a 2nd generation Canon zoom and the difference in resolution is marked. The Canon scope adaptor looks promising, I haven't tested it yet. It would be difficult to use with a zoom and is designed with new Canon primes in mind. A short anamorphic zoom for 2/3 inch cdd would do well. if the adapter goes well Canon or Fuji may make a scope lens. Test test test. Mike Brennan

Opps it was meant to read "Its my vision and its private" or "its my vision work with me to achive it" The notion being that since it is a visual mediam a monitor helps the director and DP communicate their vision. Certainly usefull at the beginning of a shoot. Mike Brennan

In response to some of your questions regarding digital... *Timelapse is available on HDW750 cameras as well as varicam. *Timelapse will be available on Genesis, using RAM buffer in the SRW1, down to 1 fps I believe. *Since tape is relativly cheap and one is unlikely to leave a $100k camera unattended some people opt for recording real time if the duration of shooting is under 15 minutes. *For long exposures digital still cameras will be the way to go. You don't need a hard drive A large format digital back like the Imacon Ixpress 528C, can hold 850 frames (each frame 16bit 22 megapixel) With such a large frame you can leave the moco pan and tilt head at home. Benifit of digital timelapse is that you can replay to see exactly what happened in frame (if you have left the camera unattended) *Digital slo mo is at a reasonable level of quality, but not up to film. However latest Photron will do 3000 frames per second at 3k. These industrial cams need some work in post and really should not be considerd for feature work unless the shot and audience benifits from very high frame rates/low cost of shooting/instant replay. *Next generation full res HD cams will do 60p don't be surprised if they go to 120p by 2006. *Ikegami has a 120fps full res HD camera tethered to hard disk at NAB. *The flash back sequence you descibe is just where HD and digital effects go hand in hand. DPs (with majority of experience in film) should not be expected to pick up a professional digital knowledge and street smarts overnight. Digital stills photographers have adjusted quickly as they are multiskilled producer shooter and post producer. The learning curve is much faster. Mike Brennan

Schuh, like many of the postings on this particular list you are either repeating what you heard in the pub or maybe read in a pro film magazine! Where else do you get such off the mark information:) The reality is the following plans have been announced: French commercial TV network TF1, to transmit HD digital terrestrial system by next autumn; French pay TV group Canal Plus premium channels end 2005. French TPS plan to transmit their premium channels in HD via satellite by the end of 2005 German pay TV group Premiere, which promises to offer HD satellite and cable broadcasts by the end of 2005; U.K. satcaster British Sky Broadcasting, overing all of Europe with a wide ranging HDTV service in 2006. (all 800 staff are undergoing training in early 2005) Mike Brennan

A good director uses HD monitors to communicate. Why would say makeup start telling the director his job? Actually under the massive magnification of a 46 inch monitor the director is more likely to be telling her how to do her job! Its my vision and its private or its my vision work and with me to achive it? Don't tell me a monitor doesn't help mosat of the time. Mike Brennan

Happy to oblige, just give me your GPS coordinates:) Mike Brennan

Thanks John, I wasn't thinking along those lines but I'll share the credit for the Y, Pr Pb ccd idea with you:) I was referring to any possible loss of dynamic range caused by in-camera processing post A/D. Possible (subtle) differences in highlight or shadow detail between 4:4:4, 4:2:2 (recorded 10 bit) and 3:1:1 recorded 8 bit. I'm enquiring about dynamic range, but perhaps referring to *recorded dynamic range* would be more to the point. Does rounding and quantisation chop a little off the dynamic range? In respect to recording 4:4:4 are we really seeing an improvement in dynamic range? Mike Brennan

Speaking of elegant solutions.... On a recent HD aerial shoot in Europe using a stabilised 14.5 inch diameter gimbal... Produced 12 hours of material using 2:1 compression 10 bit SR format (In the future potentially capable of 4k recording by running tape at double speed? Thats a 22 minute load for $90!) Hardly a" truck full of hard drives"! In fact..... Weight of 14 hours of stock 8 kilos. Potential Xray damage nil Need to process locally nil. Wasted flight time in needing to land to change mags nil. Time spent shooting in the air during "The golden hour"...60 minutes. Max speed of the heli 130knots (Wescam is 85 knots) Extra time available to shoot due to high speed of transit... 2 hours! Complete shipping weight of HD package including heli bracket was only 280 kilos Picture Quality? Remarkable! rock steady with lenses from 4.7 to 400mm on 2/3 inch format. A coffee table book is planned using the frame grabs. HD has its applications, the benifits are primarily to the audience and producers. But this is a cinematography list so who cares about the producer :) Mike Brennan

Arri in London may have preproduction models for testing later this year. They are not in a rush to sell boxes, they have a reputation to keep! I don't think you wil lbe able to finish your paper until late 2005... Mike Brennan

25p is much "easier" to offline in PAL countries than 24p or 23.98 By easier I mean 1/can be offlined in any old TV offline suite that are much easier to beg and borrow than 24p capable suite. (Basically he'll need to find a NTSC capable offline.) 2/ less chance of screw ups with 25p (50i) timecode and audio than introducing 23.98 in a PAL facility that may not be giving him the best service since he is on a low budget. 3/ Posting 23.98 or 24 is more expensive than 25p. Many facilities are just setup for 25p TV work so do not own tri level sych generators or f500s, let alone know how to operate them... 4/Not enough experience in PAL countries with 23.98 and 24p, so although he may find a 24p capable offline edit suite, posting is unlikely to be trouble free. Mike Brennan

There isn't even a decent Viper 4:4:4 versus f900 test. Steve shaw has a film vs Viper at digital praxis. I'm trying to get to the bottom of where dynamic losses occur in camera processing versus gains in gamma and knee processing. Not easy! Mike Brennan

What frame rate did you shoot? Did you record sound on camera? Try and get a student facility or someone with new HD kit to help. Mike Brennan

It looked like the video assist "crew" was a team of one. Well of course you are not going to have the need for that degree of kit on location if you are not doing greenscreen! In respect of moving it around the cost is small beer compared to the advantages, which the promo highlights. Mike Brennan

Taking risks does not only mean dramatic results on screen. Taking a risk could mean having a tiny shaft of light rather than a wide beam to reduce spill. The benifit is in efficent and creative use of the resources at your disposal. It does not necessarily follow that the result should be anything other than what is right for the script. If you can't see that he has taken a risk then it has probably paid off. Mike Brennan

"Of the 16.7 million colors available in studio R?G?B?, only about 2.75 million are available in Y?CBCR. If R?G?B? is transcoded to Y?CBCR, then transcoded back to R?G?B?, the resulting R?G?B? can?t have any more than 2.75 million colors! 4 220 2784375 10648000 0261 3 ==. I haven't seen RGB to HDTV described in this way before. Here is the white paper from Charles Poynton "http://www1.discreet.com/SITE/whitepapers.nsf/0ce70f9723c01b7485256562005e6153/b6f5ed7125054754852565ef00743e26/$FILE/Merging_RGB_and_422.pdf Are we saying 4:2:2 can only register 2.75 million colours from a CCD? Mike Brennan

I think we have got to the nub of the question, it is worth clarifying what in-camera processing takes place on the reel-stream and the Viper f950 when outputting 4:4:4 Also Charles Poynton says that Y CbCr has very poor codeword utilisation with only 17% of the codewords representing colours. Can someone put this in context? Is this where the missing colours go...? Mike Brennan

Avoid live downconversons on set. Rent a JH3 instead of the Miranda. Get production to rent it for the duration of production. Initially put it in the offline so the editor can see the rushes on a HD monitor. He can digitise and do a DV copy at the same time. Since you are a clever guy you have recorded sound on camera so he can start editing immediatley. Then production can use it to view any HD footage ie cgi, rough cuts, pickup shots, stock footage ect, with audio! 25p is the way to go unless you are shooting a musical or unless the finaciers insist (which case you say you will deliver 24p, but you are shooting at 25 for artistic reasons!) Since every HD edit suite I know has HD gremlins you build your own long form online at your peril:) A DIY edit setup for kicking around a few minutes of HD pics for comping tests effects work ect is less of an issue. Mike Brennan