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Robert Giampa

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Everything posted by Robert Giampa

  1. Carlos- Thanks for the tips. Of course, if I had a three or four grand set aside I would get a hot rodded G5 with the best of everything haha. What I will be using this system for would be videos like this one which I made with a friend: http://www.satisfactionmusic.com/4.html This is exactly the sort of thing I would be editing... I edited it on my pc, which is the following: P4 1.9 ghz 1 gig of ram windows 2000 80 gig external firewire drive some crappy gforce 4 mx card Premiere 6.0 Do you think the Mini Mac (with 1 gig ram) would be better or worse for this type of thing? Not effects heavy by any means, and all of the telecined footage imported from mini dv tapes. I won't be doing any HD editing or anything. The most intense it will probably get would be some green screen stuff, which I could possibly do in after effects if I needed to, but not very likely. Like I said, pretty simple stuff. I am not too worried about storage space expandability because of external drives. I just wonder if the video card would be too underpowered to really run FCP4 somewhat smoothly. I know it's probably not going to be a superfast dream machine, but I do want to give FCP a shot. I appreciate all of your guy's opinions! Thanks! -Robert
  2. That totally makes sense... I think the Bernie Mac show looks great, but some of the stuff that I have seen (thanks to you guys for the help!) that was shot on the lower end SD 24p cameras I thought didn't look that great. This explanation goes a long way toward explaining that for me. I honestly didn't know that there was HD 24p! For those of us not immersed in the industry, who are just cruising the internet and trying to get as much information as possible, it's pretty hard to figure out what was shot with what. Trade secrets, I guess :) Thanks!
  3. haha I am not actually desperate to see 24p, but I am just very curious to see it. It seems to be a very hot topic amongst certain people, and I would like to check it out. Mainly, one of the projects I have coming up is hovering between shooting on 16mm film or 24p video. I want to shoot 16mm (because I like the look and am used to lighting for it), but really can't honestly say no to 24p without judging some footage or shooting a little bit with it. One of the guys who is putting up the cash for this music video really wants to shoot 24p, but I don't think he's seen any footage from it either. I think he's just read about how it has a more 'film like' appearance. I want to be able to judge that for myself before deciding which one to use for the project.
  4. Yeah those guys are all friends... I don't know Daniel, but I am friends with Jose. And render times SUCK!
  5. This may be a stupid statement, but I have been trying to look at some 24p footage (shot with any 24p camrea) online to get an idea of what it looks like, but I can't seem to find any examples of it anywhere! Maybe I HAVEseen it a million times but just don't know that I have. Anybody know any good sites that might have some examples of things shot in 24p? Thanks, Robert
  6. Again, thanks for all the info! My head is starting to spin! All of this talk made me look up reverse telecine in order to understand what you guys are talking about... and my head is definitely spinning! I know this isn't an editing website, so I will refrain from asking the billions of questions going through my mind right now! All of the various different pulldown ratios and tech specs drive me nuts because I am such a beginner! I think the benefit of switching to FCP for me would be the cut down render times. I am so sick of waiting an eternity (in reality less than 30 seconds to 1 minute) to preview something at a different speed or backwards, or with some color correction. Anyway, if anyone wants to see the video I made using premiere, check this link: http://www.satisfactionmusic.com/4.html I did the cinematography (first time!) and editing (first time). I got around the lip sync timing issue by doing quick cuts, something that is encouraged in videos or so I hear! :) Thanks!
  7. First, thanks for your response! Ok, by , Crucial, I am assuming you mean the Crucial video card? I would love to do that, but I'm not sure you can upgrade anything on the Mac Mini besides the ram and peripherals. If you can, I would definitely go for the better card. I'm used to working on PCs myself, so I have no problem changing cards, adding ram etc. It amazes me that people will pay someone so much extra money just to open the computer case and pop something into a slot! haha I guess computers can be scary to those of us who didn't grow up with them. I will definitely look for final cut pro, even though I am not going to reverse telecine. We shoot the footage on 16mm, then telecine and edit back out to Mini DV or dvd. Pretty low end haha. That said, I always like the options and power that Pro programs offer. There's always something you JUST CAN'T DO with the lower end programs that ends up driving me nuts :)
  8. I just read about the new Apple Mini Mac (here: http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html ) and it seems like an interesting option for someone like me who uses an older PC and Premiere to edit. I am not a pro editor, but sometimes make music videos that I like to edit myself. I would like to get into final cut pro for editing because it just seems so much better. I was wondering if any of you good people can tell from the little amount of info available on this unit if it would make a decent editing machine after throwing a gig of RAM into it. The video card it comes with seems underpowered, but is this an issue? I come from a 3D modeling background where the video card you use is pretty much more important than your actual CPU speed.. Any help or comments would be great! Thanks! -Robert
  9. I am trying to figure this out myself! I have used all of my magical internet searching powers and come up empty handed... I am looking for a place in Los Angeles. It should not be hard to get this info on the net but I just can't pull it off!
  10. Andrew, good to hear that these things can be good little cameras! My main concern with getting one of these would be getting my hands on a wide or semi-angle lens for it, maybe something around an 8 or so. You recommend getting the Nikon lens mount for the front end... As a still photographer, I know Nikon makes amazing lenses for their cameras, but what would you recommend for this camera? Thanks!
  11. After reading these posts I am seriously considering buying one of these Russkie badboys... does anyone know any websites that have footage shot with one of these? I managed to find one super tiny quicktime movie that was a time lapse piece, so it didn't really give a good indication of the quality of the camera. For around 200 bones I wouldn't expect too much. Does anyone know if it compare at least to the Canon Scoopic? I shot a video with the scoopic and was pretty impressed with the totally 1970's feel it added to the project If you are interested, you can check it out here: http://www.myspace.com/satisfaction Thanks in advance for any advice! -Robert
  12. I just saw Suspect Zero last night, and I noticed that the film was extremely grainy, looking almost as if it was shot on 16mm and blown up for projection. Of course, I am no expert... I have come to expect that 'grainy dark look' in every serial killer movie because of Se7en, but in this case it seemed almost unintentional! Add to that what also seem to be ND filters used to make some of the daylight scene shots look a lot darker. Hey, that's fine with me, but a lot of the scenes don't really match very well. All of this leads me to think that these decisions were not really thought out or at least just not used too well... but that's just my opinion, and I don't want to diminish the achievement of actually shooting and completing a film, no easy task. Anybody else have an opinion? (uh oh, I asked for it! hahaha) -Robert
  13. Aaron, 1.- we didn't do any sync sound on the video... we basically just set up my ipod with the song blasting through the band's PA for them to play and sing along to. This worked pretty well, but I think the reason that some of the singing looks out of sync is because the version of the song we used did not have the final vocal tracks on it, just scratch vocals (BAD IDEA!). This bothered me as I knew that there would be problems, but the band didn't really care for some reason... The final vocal tracks are sung a little differently than the ones we used during the shoot (of course!), so it appears to be out of sync. If you look at what the band is playing, the music is actually in sync though the vocals are not (as a first time editor, I am totally willing to admit that some of the shots might not be spot on either... I did the best I could!) 2- The camera didn't seem especially loud, although it was probably loud enough to be picked up by recording equipment if we were using any. This is just a judgement based on absolutley no experience with sync sound by the way! I would say the camera would probably have to be blimped or isolated somehow. I heard that someone once draped a heavy leather jacket over a camera and that knocked the sound levels enough for decent recording! -Robert ps- the editing was made more difficult by the fact that the film was shot at 24fps and transferred to DV CAM then mini DV for editing at 29.997 fps )this made the shots go out of sync with the music after a small amount of time)... that is one of the main reasons why we didn't stay on the band for too long. However, this did not become a significant problem because of the nature of the video; we planned tons of quick cuts for the band stuff to avoid this problem and allow us to 'cheat' the sound sync issue as much as possible.
  14. Gentlemen, thank you very, very much for the info and links you provided! I was a bit afraid of being flamed because I am such a newbie to this forum haha! Again, thanks for your help and kindness! -Robert
  15. Hey, does anyone know which TV shows (current or within the last 10 years or so) are shot on 16mm and which are shot on 35mm? I'm not really seeking a complete list or anything, I am just curious... I have been told that most are shot on 16, so maybe I am an idiot and should not be posting this! Specifically, I would like to know the details about shows like Alias, CSI(s), The Practice, X-files, Millennium, etc. Any info would be helpful! Thanks! -Robert (Perhaps there is a website that lists info like this?)
  16. Chance, Thanks! We got the telecine done at Crest National labs, if I recall correctly. We also bought the film/processing from them, but I am told that now they do only telecine. Overall I am pretty happy with the work they did, though I wish we had had a bit more time and money to dedicate to it. I think we got out of there at about 2 hours, and we telecined 16 rolls of 100' film. We didn't do any special color correction or enhancement, we just tried to get the film to look decent haha! Next time I will be sure to budget for more time to really nail it if possible... -Robert
  17. Aaron, Thanks! I did not use the Scoopic's built in meter at all, except for the bathroom pan shot ending on me looking into the mirror. This was done by accident, as I didn't know the meter was on! It was the first shot we did for the whole shoot, and I forgot to change it from the automatic setting. The shot came out really dark, because I think that as with most in-camera meters, you never really know what it's metering... I would suggest using a normal light meter as usual because that way you are sure of what light levels the film is going to record. The scene where I walk in on the band was not a post effect; in that scene (and on that entire roll of film that we shot that scene on), what occured was that the film was for some reason not secured flat against the film plane as it is supposed to be. Therefore, the focus was thrown off and wobbly because the film was sort of bouncing around in there. As far as I know, this happened because the camera was a community college piece of equipment, and has not been treated with care. Also, it was shot at (I think) 64 fps, or whatever the highest speed possible on the scoopics. I noticed that all the slo mo scenes we shot were pretty shaky... I think this is because the Scoopics may be too light, or at least not as precision as some of the more expensive or well built cameras out there. But that is only a guess! -Robert
  18. Wow, I have never been told that I look like Tom Green before... I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult haha. Thanks for checking out my stuff, and I really appreciate your comments!
  19. No replies, huh? Someone help a brother out!
  20. Hey everyone, this is my first post on this great website... anyway, my first music video has just come online and I would love for anyone and everyone to check it out and let me know what you think! it can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/satisfaction My friend Matt Michael directed it, and I did the lighting, cinemetography, acting (I am the sad guy with the 'stache), and editing (haha). We used a cannon Scoopic camera, and shot on Fuji 250T and a bit on fuji 250D. I am a freelance photographer, and this was my first foray into shooting anything, anywhere, and I think this is something I would like to pursue... Any comments? Criticisms? All are appreciated... -Robert
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