Driver

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Here's a link to a technical manual:

http://www.intervalometers.com/resource/manuals.php

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Hello everyone

 

My 16mm student film is off to be developed, then the negative will be sent over for a Best Light Telecine. I will attend.

 

I've heard that transferring film to miniDV makes the footage look awful. Given that we will be editing on the latest version of Final Cut Pro, what other options do I have?

 

And can they transfer in 4:3 ratio, so I can crop to 16:9 later, differently depending on the shot? My framing has been fairly inconsistent, and want to know if it can be fixed....

 

Many thanks in advance!

Mini DV is crap. Have them scan the film and create a file using an uncompressed video codec that works with FCP.

They would most likely give you a letterbox transfer since your aspect ratio is not 16:9.

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With a low brightness range scene, you'll get away with that: with a higher brightness range, you will, by definition, either have overexposed blue highlights (which will look a bit yellowish on transfer) or you will have underexposed red shadows, (which will pick up a warmish colour).

Yeah that makes sense. I spent some time making internegatives from transparencies and know from that experience that unless you know what you're doing, you'll have colors crossing that you can never correct out because of the lack of balance in exposure across all layers.

I know some DP's don't bother to correct tungsten balanced film with 85 filtration but rather, they just let a colorist correct out the blue in telecine.

Has anyone ever noticed any color crossover when not correcting with 85 filtration and allowing the correction to take place in telecine?

Hi,

 

I've had this.

 

<snip>

 

My attitude remains "stuff 'em."

 

Phil

Yeah. That's my attitude too. You can't tell me the footage is "barely usable" and then not let me see the footage. Until I get to see the footage on my own terms, I'd say the footage is completely fine.

You are paid to know what you are doing. You did not prep your equipment thru lack of knowledge or experience.

Well... I'm not a video tech, nor am I an AC. I lit and composed and focused and recorded. I think from now on I am going to present myself in prep as a DP with a contract that states that I am NOT liable for issues such as this, and advise that a tech or an AC be hired on the crew.

The real crux of this whole issue is not who is liable or who isn't or how incompetant I am. It's the fact that they won't let me have the tapes.

Hi,

 

Sounds like they just don't want to pay! If they won't let you see the footage then I guess there is nothing wrong with it!

 

Just my 2c.

 

Stephen

That's entirely possible. If I ever get my hands on the tapes and they appear to be anything other than what I remember (dubs) I will know what's what.

Wait, I'm confused. So was the camera setting correct or incorrect? I mean, because later in your post you indicate that the producers are running around saying the rental equipment is faulty or old. If the camera setting was incorrect, why would they be saying that?

The initial finding was that the chroma was low. But THEN I started hearing about all these other problems which basically add up to every possible problem known to man on video tape.

We knew the chroma was low after we were told because I had the rental man check the gear.

Another possibility is that the editor's monitor could be grossly miscalibrated. Perhaps instead of getting the tapes, you could visit the edit bay and see what the editor's talking about. It could be as simple as the office cleaning person wiped down the monitor and spun the chroma dial.

I wish. What the editor is describing sounds like footage that was recorded on a totally beat deck which we definitely did not use.

I recently shot a one day job (tape) with rented gear that ended up being slightly desaturated due to a camera setting that was accidentally... set wrong.

Apparently, this switch on the HC400 is used when recording on 3/4" instead of Beta, and it makes the footage about 10% low on chroma (almost not noticeable to the eye apparently.)

This was confirmed to be the case when I called the rental house the day after the job when the producer discovered the footage was less than perfect. Also, during that day the deck AND the camera were checked out and (and I mean thoroughly) proved to be 100%.

Anyway, that much we knew. However, the editor subsequently started citing a laundry list of "problems" with the footage which I made note of and forwarded to the rental man. Rental man contacted the certified video engineer he sub-rented the deck from (a BVW 50) who checked it out AGAIN and said it was 100%.

I watched playback from the 50 at least 2 or 3 times during the day of production and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, and especially NOT the stuff the editor was describing.

Now, here's were the real problem comes in. The producer will not let me have the raw footage tapes so that I may examine them. I have asked many times over the past 2 weeks, and even though the job is finished, this person claims she doesn't have time and that getting me the tapes "is not a priority" for her.

The 2 guys involved in the rental should be allowed to see these tapes especially in light of the fact that there are 2 producers out there running around saying that the gear is faulty and/or "old." I should be allowed to see the tapes since it's really my ass on the line here because I'm the guy who shot this supposed barely usable footage.

And yet, this producer person will not even make a phone call to the post house or to whosever shelf the tapes are sitting on right now so that I may arrange to briefly take possession of them.

If anyone has any insight into what I might be able to do here, or should do, I'd really appreciate it.

Surely this has been posted repeatedly but I am new to this board. Wondering if someone knows a website that can tell me how to make a 1K dimmer.  How much material cost would I be looking at?

 

Thanks

Matt

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A 1K dimmer? Get an aluminum heatsink and bond it to the face of a standard 650 watt dimmer. That should work fine, and make sure you don't put the thing in a sealed housing. It's got to radiate the extra heat.

I recently shot a very nice pro bono capital campaign piece that will have a very small amount of stock footage included in it.

I'm wondering what people do when including pieces like this on demo reels to call attention to the stock footage? Or should I even bother? I'm guessing the piece will have (it's in post now) maybe a half dozen stock clips used, or something like less than 5% of the total footage used (that I shot.)

Thanks for any ideas...