Mike Donis

Insert it into the camera's deck, and hit "play" for 5-10 seconds. Don't play for longer than 10 seconds - if your heads are still dirty after this, look into getting them professionally cleaned.

Every article I've read about it says the movie was shot on Super 16mm.

You won't need a print to film - many festivals use digital projection now. A print for a feature from DV would cost you in the neighborhood of $30,000, for one print. If you have 6,000 to spend, I would definitely go with either a DVX100 or an XL2. If you can wait, Panasonic is releasing an HVX200. It will likely cost around 6 or 7K, and can shoot 1080 24P. I would assume this would be a fantastic deal, and it would be within your price range. If you need a camera right now, I would go with either of the ones you mentioned.

I clearly contradicted myself - and meant to say a 1/50 shutter, when converted to film, the motion would look like 24fps film. Might as well just leave these things to David anyways - he's clearer, more concise, and rarely makes mistakes!

Definitely - a motion picture camera would generally use a 180 degree shutter, and a 180 degree shutter at 25fps would give you a shutter speed of 1/50 second. 1/25 would make everything look smooth - similar to the look of most of "Collateral". When converted to film (assuming it will be 24fps) - the motion would look almost exactly like most 24fps film.

Make sure you know the expense of a film transfer. It will likely cost about $30,000 for a 90 minute feature, and it will only end up being DV resolution. I wouldn't realistically worry about a transfer at this point - a distribution company would do that once your film has been picked up. That being said, with the DVX100, for the highest quality I would shoot in Thin mode, with a lower detail setting (mine is generally set all the way down, to -7). Shooting in 24PA lets you edit in 24 frames per second, which is almost required for a 35mm transfer. You'd definitely want all the resolution you can get. The anamorphic adaptor has its advantages and disadvantages - it's harder to focus, and reduces some creative control. It's easier to shoot with it on more closed apertures, which gives you a sharper depth of field, which many people don't like. But it will give you higher resolution if used properly. There's a book by Barry Green, which is worshipped by many anamorphic DVX shooters as the book that will help you get the most out of your adaptor. Check out www.dvxuser.com for more details. I'll say again though, that a transfer to 35mm from a DVX will be very costly, and negate many of the financial benefits to shooting on DV in the first place. If you're paying for it yourself, or have a distributor already willing to pay for the transfer - it may be well worth looking into shooting 35mm in the first place, or shooting HD instead. Both formats would give you considerably higher resolution for 35mm release prints.

I'm shooting a picture this summer, and one of the lead actresses has a "soft face". She has the same colouring as Scarlett Johanson, probably very similar skin.

When shooting video, it rarely matters to have a light meter on set. Because the output is at full quality, what you see is what you get - the zebra settings are your biggest exposure determining tool.

The DVX has a low resolution, 24p video look. The FX1 has a high resolution, 60i video look.

Thank you for the kind words :)

I own a cinetactics matte box (the non-anamorphic version, however)...and it's great for what you pay. That said, it's about half price of what you generally pay for a matte box - so you do the math and figure if it's worth it for you.

I could shamelessly plug the website in my signature - it's got the trailer to a movie I shot last winter, shot with a DVX100 :rolleyes: Not the DVX100a, though. Same difference really...

Perhaps it was a 16:9 letterboxed image, downsampled from an HD full-frame master? Couldn't tell you really. Many people would probably complain about 2.35 letterboxing anyways...jerks :lol:

I believe far to many people are concerned with getting a film look - but what really separates what many people CALL the *film look* from the video look is all that makes a cinematographer an expert in his craft: Lighting, composition, camera movement - the elements and principles of design. Film is expensive - we all know that. DV is considerably cheaper. Because of this, in general, people who END UP using film have a lot more experience than those shooting in a cheaper format, like DV. Look at, for example, - and I know I'll be killed for this example - Lucas' latest Star Wars movies. They most definitely *do* look like video - they ARE video: video in 24 frames per second. But all other characteristics of the image are traditionally associated with *movies*. Movies that are shot on film. Compare this, now, to your average first-year-film-school-student's 16mm work, which obviously *is* film. Most people would insist that Lucas' movies are much more "filmic". Many of the things that make a movie look like "film" are nothing to do with the medium with which it was captured - for the most part, you'll get a fantastic image regardless of what you do, if you do it RIGHT. As several people have said, embrace video for what it is. This, I think, is where the time and effort should be spent - I can guarantee you that Storaro shooting with a Panasonic DVX100 could make much more traditionally "filmic" images than a first-year student with an Arriflex and anamorphic primes. Sure, he'll have a much lower resolved picture, and the film student will be working from a fine-grained negative - but so what? Storaro's stuff will very likely use the medium to his advantage, and what he'll have will be INTERESTING for what it is. It'll be good video. Forget the grain, forget the dust, forget the weave you'll add on a computer. Expose creatively, compose creatively, and tell your story visually - and do it *in front* of your lens. You'll have fantastic cinematography.

You'd have to send it in

Funny however, when shooting video, a big complaint heard is the greater depth of field. Can't please anyone :lol:

I didn't have a problem at all with the motion rendition. Looks exactly the same as 35mm at 24 frames per second with a 180 degree shutter. EXACTLY the same, IMO. I thought the movie was fantastic - definitely Rodriguez's best. All around solid movie - even some of the lacklustre CGI didn't bug me. I felt the entire time as though I were watching a comic at 24 frames per second - so anything that was "animated" seemed to fit. Yes, Rourke was great. And the HD held up well on the big screen - the best HD-to-35mm transfer I've seen.

Regardless of how digital any of it looked - I thought it looked fantastic.

www.dvxuser.com has a side-by-side comparison of the FX1, XL2, and the DVX. It's pretty long, and they go into quite some detail. It's definitely worth a read.

I thought it looked fantastic, albeit I didn't see a film print. The grittier style gave it a grittier feel, and I thought it fit the form of the film right on the button - striking, and yet gritty. I wish I had seen it in the cinemas, though...

Thanks! I had always read that 180 was the standard here - film tech teachers.... :P

A film teacher of mine told me that the majority of film cameras have the 172.8 degree shutter, with 1/50th a second, not the 180 degree as I said (he seems to like making students feel they know less than him). But from what's being said here it seems that 180 is in fact more common. I know it's not really important, but I was just wondering...

I've seen footage shot with the DVX100 look very good - if you can control the lighting, then the dynamic range issue isn't a problem really B)

I'm quite certain it has - I'm not familiar with Mr. Kane's "Video Essentials" - but I know that computers display many (all the Hollywood DVDs I own) in "true" 24P, with no 3:2 pulldown. I'm seeing the native frames played back at 1/24 of a second. And I know that many of the DVXusers are creating their own DVDs that play on standard DVD players, with the source being a 23.98 fps MPEG2 file. The DVD player adds the pulldown automatically with those DVDs. I would only assume Hollywood would be using this technology, it saves space on the discs, and if you're encoding a progressive image, it should be higher quality than compression artifacts on a 60i image with a 3:2 pulldown.

I'm doing a silent short in black and white 16mm. You said that you should overexpose by just under a stop with colour negatives - is this the case in black and white as well? Thanks for your time