stephen lamb

Hey all, I've done two transfers at Bono, and while the footage hasn't come back to me looking horrible...I don't exactly love the company. I can't attest one way or the other how good or bad my footage looked as far as the noise/softness etc because i have only ever seen the footage as a Bono transfer. I've nothing to compare it to. I did however, have to wait for seven weeks to receive roughly 35minutes of super16mm from them due to a "time crunch" at the lab. I was thouroughly dissapointed i had to wait that long. There has been mention of other labs that perfrom HD--> harddrive. can anyone tell me what lab(s) do this, and maybe what thier price range is? I am not anywhere within 700 miles of an HD deck, or, to my knowledge, even a digibeta deck, so if i want better than DVcam, it has to come on a hard drive. Montana, great place to be, but can be tough to shoot film here. thanks Steve also, something to consider/question about the comparison above....was the bono footage transferred as uncompressed? i haven't had a chance to read the full article...if it was transferred as DVCproHD, that could account for the noise etc, don't know if that's how it was transferred though.

DOsborne, I actually have gone through this exact workflow. I shot super16mm and had it transferred at Bono labs to DVCPro HD. The video footage therefore being exactly the same as the HVX-200. I did sort of an offline edit in Final Cut with the DVCPro HD footage. I then went into aftereffects and using the origanal master video file i recieved from bono, went though, clip by clip, and color corrected as an 8-Bit Blackmagic uncompressed codec. I took those files into final cut pro and did an "online" with the color corrected. Below are stills from before/after. The question now of course is, was that extra step worth it? I think so, but the other replies on this topic might have better information. Steve http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/3188/2abefore6yv.jpg http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2623/2aafter3ca.jpg

DOsborne, Yes, Final Cut Pro brings the file onto the scratch disk as a Final Cut Pro quicktime movie. So once you go throuhg the Importing process, you have a normal file to play with. That file can easily be backed up onto an external drive, DVD etc etc. Steve Lamb

Hey all, Just shot a short 10 minute piece in Seattle over the weekend. Seems that there are lots of questions and concerns over how well this camera will actually be able to be integrated into a typical shoot. In a nutshell, I thought the camera worked quite well. I haven't watched all the footage, so I won't go into the image quality itself, suffice to say, it's not film (we all know that anyways), but i feel that it blows DV out of the water. I had two 8 gigabyte P2 cards, a powerbook Mac with FCP 5.04 and a LaCie 200 GB external harddrive connected via firewire 800. I used the HVX in 1080i30P mode, which gave me roughly a minute of footage per gigabyte. The P2 card system works pretty dang well. I had a crew of three, including myself, and we were using a fisher dolly quite often, and i still felt that we were not over burderned with the downloading process of the cards. Generally here's what I did: I had one card in the camera to record on, when that was full, i swapped cards, and gave the full one to my AC, she would go download the card straight onto my external drive, a process that took about 2-4 minutes per card. (i'll get into some details later) Meanwhile, i would shoot away on the other card, or get working on the new setup or whatever else i needed to do. I never had a problem losing data, or the computer freezing, or the cards malfunctioning, worked like a charm. I also never felt that that i was slowed down or hindered by the P2 system. In fact this was probably the smoothest shoot i have even been on, we were wrapped early or on time every day, at every location. One hint i will say, since i couldn't find it in any manuals, and had to figure it out myself, is this: if you are going directly from the P2 cards onto a laptop, (not using a P2 store...i didn't do it, so i don't know) you can't just drag the file from the P2 card onto the harddrive, final cut won't recognize the file. Simple fix though. Stick the card into the proper slot, let the computer recognize it. Open final cut pro. (make sure it is version 5.04 or it won't work, free download at the apple site if you have version 5) In the browser window, right click and go to import-->Panasonic P2 card. That will open a small window which shows you the files on the card, along with a thumbnail, pick the files you want, and click import. This does two things. One: brings the file into final cut pro. Two: Brings the ACTUAL file onto whereever you specified the scratch disk to be. So, two birds with one stone. Because i have fairly extensive background with the DVX, the HVX was very familar to me as well. The controls buttons are all in similar, if not the same positions, and i felt the menu button and menu maneuvering keys were much better layed out than on the DVX. It took very little time for me to become familirized with the camera and get rockin with it. I tested some slow motion stuff, but we didn't shoot any for the film itself, so i don't have too much say, except that the small amount i did shoot looked damn good for digital slow mo. I didn't shoot any undercranked fast motion footage. Getting back to the image quality. I feel the color rendition was pretty good, if you rated film at 10, and DV from the DVX at say....i don't know, 4. Then i feel this camera is probably around a 7-8. It has a much higher lattitude than DV, holds the blacks and highlights much better. We did a fair amount of dolly work, and i found that the image stayed smooth and fluid, and it doesn't get jittery like i've found the DVX to be when you start to move it around. I have never shot any other high def cameras, so i can't compare that. I guess my closing notes would be this: This camera is good. I think it's very good. As with any shoot, if you light it well, and adjust the settings properly, it will give very very nice images. If you skip those steps, and just let it go...well, you get as much out as you put in. I found it a faster workflow that shooting on film, yet slower than DV, and for the tiny budget we had, i am extremely pleased with the camera. I believe it fills a niche very well in the market, for those who wish to shoot high quality production values, yet are very limited by budget. I would always pick 16/super16 over this camera if given the chance....but...well we all know how that goes. A great piece of gear, and I am glad i was able to shoot with it. Below is link to a still from the shoot (960x540 jpeg). If you guys and gals have any questions, comments or any experiences you've had with the camera, i'd love to hear. adios! http://server5.pictiger.com/img/161633/mov.../screenshot.jpg

Hi, I shot a short film this past fall using an SR1. I used those red lines as guides and we matted the image in post. For shots where i had missed the mark a bit, it was a breeze to adjust the image up and down a bit. Agreed though with the previous post, how come not super 16? for our shoot we simply had no access to one at all, and our showcasing venue (not theatrical) didn't absolutely require that extra negative space, so we were ok losing a bit of negative to get the aspect ratio we wanted. good luck! Steve

Promist eh? Thanks for the tip! Steve

Hey all, i am shooting a short film (well, video i should say) soon and i am interested in using some softening filters. I guess my main concern is ending up with a filter that is too soft, that really blurs things up. What i am looking for is sometthing that will take blown out highlights, and seep them out into their surroundings a bit. A have a specific shot in mind where i really want to try this out. I have the main character in profile, very close to the camera, so just his face is in view. He is in a classroom and he is getting made fun of by all of his classmates because they don't buy that he wants to be a pro football player when we grows up. In reality, he doesn't want to do it at all anyways, so here he is at the front of the class, really undergoing some serious stress. The teacher tries to help him by telling the class to settle down and be nice, but she just doesn't help at all. So i want to create a feeling where we see his anxiety very clearly and we also see the teacher behind him, but i want her to be in silhouette in front of the window, and i want the window to be blown out and have those highlights sort of melting into her, so that she is just sort of this nondescript character who seems very far away and detached. I am hoping to be able to shoot on the new Panasonic HVX. Do you guys have any suggestions for what softening filters ( or any other technique) that i might use for this shot? thanks, Steve

Hey guys, I am shooting a small student film in seattle the first weekend in march, and a friend is shooting a small film in denver over the same weekend. the budget just does't allow the use of film....which is a real shame. Does anyone know if there are any rental houses that have acquired the panasonic HVX yet? on a related question, i assume that some houses have HDV cameras....does anyone know how well an HDV camera stacks up against the DVX? Thanks, Steve

Of course we can't forget the one thing zooms can do that primes can't....an in shot zoom :D i love the feel a zoom can give (though must be used carefully) a la Munich, or the classic (to me at least) Army of Darkness "building a new mechanical hand" scnene :) Steve "Groovy" - Ash

Hey, I was a gaffer on a small DV project and we shot a scene in a movie theater. All we did is set up a 2ft kino bank, gelled 1/2 CTB, pointing at the audience (it was a relatively tight shot...maybe ten people were visible) and then i stood on a chair and twisted a broom in front of the light. To add some oomph to the scene. i placed a 650 arri fresnel backlighting our two main characters, and flagged it off the rest of the actors. took ten minutes to set up, and it created a very nice believable movie effect, as well as subltly focusing the attention on our main characters. Steve

Major B, just to let you know, i left a long post about this very same topic that you posted under the lighting forum, you can check out my response there, i posted a few links to a few stills from a VFX film i shot this past fall. Cheers! Steve

I'd like to add my thoughts on the volitile subject...mac vs PC. i own both a MacG5 and a custum built PC running AMD's 64 bit 4800+. The PC is two years newer and obviously runs faster than the mac. But i love both, and each machine is useful for different things. I do all of my multimedia/video editing/ compositing on the mac, and i use my PC for 3D VFX creation, and of course...games :D both machines are sweet, and though i used to argue one over the other, its really a silly debate. just depends on what you need your machine to do, and if you are in a collabrative group of people, what are they running? Steve

Ben, Sounds like a tough little shoot! I am student filmmaker myself and have only dabble in greenscreen/CGi/compositing. However, i can say a few things. Move the camera as much as you want, crane it, dolly it, handhold it whatever. If the story calls for it (and i love a big moving camera myself) then by all means let it rip. I shot a short film this past fall with two distinct scenes. One was liveaction and i composited in a CGI creature. the other was all against bluescreen, with just an actress for our live action. Both scenes turned out great, and there were/are (still working on parts) two of us to do ALL of the post. Everything you read says "use 3D matchmoving software to create a virtual camera for CG" while this in theory is nice...i had absolutely NO luck with it. so i used the next best tools i could, my eyeballs. For all of my CG stuff i just brought in the shot, made a camera in my 3D package, and mathced it by eye. Then i used after effects to hone it to perfection. a little bit of photoshop, and little bit more after effects, and any 2D work was done as well. I shot the whole film handheld so it was super shaky. Basically what it comes down to is this, you shoot it however, but make sure to keep a dialogue running with your compositor(s). They should be able to make just about anything work, and don't let them say they need a bigger budget. They may have to do lots of keyframing (and i mean LOTS....hundreds, thousands of key frames) but given enough time, and some creative-outside- of-the-box thinking, literally anythign is possible. As far as shooting the greenscreen itself, keep the talen far enough away from the screen as possible, and light them however you need to for the scene. Light the screen as even as possible, and my personal prefence is to light it about a stop darker than the foreground, though some will say light it a stop brighter. I hope this helps, i'm intrigued by the idea of this film. Later this afternoon i'll post some stills from my film. oooops, forgot to talk about empty plates. Basically what that means is that you shoot a pass with the talent in frame doing their thing. then (or before, doesn't matter) shoot the EXACT same shot as before, just with no talent. What this gives the compositors is a plate to work with the doesn't have any actors in it. What THAT means for them, is that they can maniplute, change, work with and do whatever they want to the foreground plate (the one with the actors in it) and not have to worry about the background (because in a single plate, the talent physically hides the background from the camera). does that make sense? however...shooting a blank plate against greenscreen is useless. Thats the whole point of greenscreen. when y ou shoot against a screen, you are getting a plate that is CLEAN in the area around the talent/set so the CG or something else can be added in. There is no need to do two passes of a green screen shot. Secondlly, in order for multliple passes to really work, and be worth the effort, is if they are exactly the same. so that means either locked off camera, or motion control. you can try to jerry rig it...but it wont' be that great...and not really worth it. One more note, when shooting the talent against the screen, have someone put a grid of markers (crosses of gaff tape work fine) in an even pattern (1 meter square perhaps) this gives a reference for what is going on with the spatial relation of the shot. also, if possible, have some other objects that are green painted (like a stick or a pole or a box) at various depths through the scene, so that the compostiors/CG artists can have a great reference as to the spatial sense of the scene. Hope this all makes sense, hard to explain with just words. Keep me posted, also, this may be totally a hair brained idea, but i wold be delighted in some way to actually help out with this film, it sounds really intriguing and interesting. I may live in the states, but thats what the internet is for right? :) Regardless, good luck! Steve Lamb http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3950/still13we.jpg http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/7291/still23cn.jpg http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3351/still32fv.jpg links to three pics from my film, they are in order from the "reveal" shot of machine. like a storyboard. Steve Lamb

I am split on my opinion on whether or not the ASC should make more categories for awards. On the one hand I feel like so many awards are given out by so many groups, that who needs more awards? It like the extreme pretige that comes with winning just "Best Cinematography" you know? At the same time, it is hard to judge something like Batman or Geisha against something like Kong, where one is entierly (or almost completely at least) live action, with no DI, while Kong has seems to have been shot almost entirely against blue screen and went through a DI. Apples and oranges. A tough debate, and I guess in the end I'd rather the ASC just keep one award for feature films, not split into genres or technologies. In the end, if you do a nearly all CG film, shouldn't you be trying to make it look as good and real as possible? I do think that it would be nice to give an award for very short form work, IE music videos and TV commericals. A field that seems to be ignored completely as far as cinematography goes. As for the nominations themselves, i haven't seen Geisha yet (though i will tonight) nor have i seen brokeback. However, i am surprised at Kong, i did really enjoy the show, and thought that most of it looked great. But there were scenes were the live action and the CG did not composite well and looked corny as hell. I have nothing against CG and indeed, and teaching myself how to do it and composite it. But i feel like the DP's job should to oversee the FINAL image of the film. Not just the capturing of the initial image. Granted, the DP is not going to sit there and do/oversee all of the compositing. A sticky little connundrum. Anyways, I think there may be other films slightly more deserving of the award. Just my 2 cents. Steve

Thanks for the input on lens sharpness, hopefully soon i can get my hands on a film camera for a day and give it a try to see the difference first hand. thanks! Steve PS does anyone know the "why" of why that is? the lamens termsn light properties and physics involved? im just curious now, come from a scientist family:)

Hey Guys, reading this thread makes me wonder if i have found the problem to some of the stuff i have shot recently. I tend to shoot on the slowest film i think my light will let me, but this also means that i am opening up to usually around 2.0, sometimes even 1.3. I can't tell you off the top of my head what lenses i used, but it was for a Super16 SR2. The final image was a bit soft, and i wonder, could me shooting so open be the cause? in all of your opions, for 16mm is there a noticalbe difference in sharpness between shooting at 1.3/2 and 2.8/4? Thanks for your input. Steve

Tim, I read that this little deal Kodak has is only for working cinematographers. I am a film student, i love cinematography, and i plan to shoot film (for student projects and beyond). What do you think Kodak would say to me if i asked them about this deal? It sounds fantastic, and not only that, it really sounds like a great learning tool to help see the difference between stocks etc. Secondly, who would i talk to about it? I am VERY interested and any help would be fantastic. Thanks! Steve

Howdy, I am not personally looking to buy this, but for anyone with half an interest, i can give testimonial to the fact that these systems work great (though i have not worked with this specific one). I have used them, and seen them used many times, very smooth action, very precise, works great with DV and lightweight 16mm cameras. Even used a Super16 SR2 on one. As long as the gear is in good shape, the asking price for this seems very good too. Hope this helps! Steve

Hey Guys, have to put my two cents in. First off, i think Jack Black could prove to be an excellent choice. I think he is brilliant as a comedian, and we are in a day and age where several brilliant comedians have turned in fantastic dramatic roles. Jimy Carrey anybody?? So i think it's great to give Jack a chance to do something that is not totally off the wall funny. Secondly, I think the remake is happening because PJ freaking loves King Kong, and from what i have seen on the LOTR special DVD's, the whole reason he started making movies was to make his version of king kong. After the success of LOTR, what studio is going say no to Peter Jackson? The CGI doesn't look spectacular in the trailors, and i hope that they fix it up some (especially in the jungle with Kong and the Trex) but i still think it looks cool. And also, to me, the CG will be acceptable to me because the WHOLE movie is going to have that look to it, and that CG is going to take me away to this fantasy island. so yeah. cool. Plus, i am getting into CGI myself, so i don't have a deep down dislike of it, i just hate it when it is either misused, or done poorly. Anyways, rambling now, can't wait to see the film. Steve

Hey, I ended up getting a 400' roll of 7285 because the director was very excited about the idea of reversal, and he loves to shoot lots, so we were both happy. The shoot was this past weekend. We had a disaster the first day when we shot on film, but made up for it in flying colors on the second day. Shooting on an Arri S, MOS, what happened the first day was that the film was loaded too tight in the loop (we think) and because of that, the camera tore some perfs, and jammed. We heard it, and checked it, but somehow didn't catch it, everything felt all right in the changing bag. So we put her back together and kept shooting the rest of the day (not hearing anything out of the ordinary). When my AC went to to download, we found to our horror that the film hadn't rolled an inch. THe whole day was for nothing. On the plus side, we saved about 350' of the film to use later. We rallyed the next day, and shot it all digital (including reshooting the dream sequences) and we were all VERY happy with what we got, and we did two days worth of shooting in literally the exact amount of time we had originally scheduled to shoot one. So lesson learned, not too much money burned, and in the end, a final product the director and i are happy about. I'll post a few screen shots on this thread within a couple of days. Thanks for all your input, much appreciated! Steve

Mike, I agree with much of what you said. having said that, i feel like our production slips through many of those practical problems you discussed. We have a fair amount of turnaround time for shippling/processing/transferring film, so that is not an issue. I believe i will be using Yale Labs as i saw on their website they do reversal, and i have worked with them before with much success. The final output will be MiniDV, so cost difference is not critical between neg and pos stock (though i know there is a small difference in purchasing price and processing fees ). The classroom scene is set in a medium/large room, and as you said, i have no access to any kind of large lights. However, the reason i still think i can pull it off is that the classroom scene is very stylized (spelling? sheesh) so that in essence we have a girl sitting in the front row shmoozing over the professor. Our basic lighting scheme is to throw spots on each actor, and use tungsten 100W or 200W (or bigger) bulbs hung from china balls to just barely fill in the background. With the small lighting kit we have, i think that i can get a good exposure for each of the characters and i feel the scene will work because those two characters are the only ones we are going to see anyways. As for color correction, i won't be able to oversee the transfer, so i'll have to trust the lab to do their best, and hopefully i won't have do to much in post. just some minor tweaks. So having said all that, i still think that shooting 100T reversal is going to work practically for us. On a side note, it turns out we do have the budget for a 400' roll, so using the 7285 is once again possible. My thoughts about these scenes now are, by the time we get through the telecine and onto MiniDV, am i going to see any real noticalbe difference between reversal and negative stock? I've never had an oprotunity to test them side by side, so i am just going by what i've read/heard. I think that for the cost, and because i've never tried it, i definetly won't be cross-processing. if i could test it out first perhaps... Now that you have more facts from me, what do you think? i feel it is possible and i'd like to do it, but do you think i am just being stubborn now? :) Thanks for your input! Steve

I did some more looking, and it looks like the 7285 only comes in 400' rolls, which is too much for our short student film. I can only purhcase 200' of film. the kodachrome 40 comes on daylight 100' spools which is what i'd need (two of them to be exact), in your opioin, how does this film stack up to the 7285? are there any labs that process it? i read it uses a different developement process. K-14 i believe. How well would this film hold up in the telecine? If you think the koda 40 is not the best choice, then i'll probably just go with vision2 100T, and perhaps push it one stop? I think i will have access to Apple's Shake 4.0 to do some color correction digitally, so I hope i am not thinking about all this too hard now...though im not a big fan of the "fix it in post mentality". Anywho, I read some other threads, it looks like fuji doesn't make any reversal film for 16mm eh? bummer. Thanks for your help, Steve

Thanks for the input so far, i think using words like milky etc was a poor choice. I do want deep black and saturated colors, when i said milky, what i meant was that i wanted lots of diffusion in front of the lens, so that the scene had a soft flowying texture to it, and the colors bled into each other some, with perhaps some overblown highlights. The colors themselves though i want rich and vibrant. Difficutl to achieve is ok with me, i feel like a good challenge is good. As long as im not asking for the impossible:) We are shooting several people outdoor just after the sun rise, so that we get some pretty nice bright light on them coming in from a very low angle (although it might snow on us too, so who knows!) We are also shooting indoors in a large classroom. We are shooting the ext first, so i can match the feel of whatever ext lighting we end up with for the int shoot. I think i like the idea of using Ecktrchome 100D, though im afraid after putting on an 80A filter for the Int, i won't have enough light. Are there any reversal stocks that are a bit faster than that? and then to make sure i have this right, cross processing is where you process reversal film as negative correct? what exactly does that do to the image? Regardless of what softening filter i use, is there anything i need to make sure and do exposure wise to shoot for cross processing? Thanks for all your input guys, much appreciated Steve

Hey, I am shooting a dreamy outdoor sequence soon, (i posted in the film stock thread about this sequence as well) and the weather here is turning towards winter a bit earlier than usual. The possibility of it snowing on us is very real, and if so, the director still likes the idea of a snowy scene. so the question is, any tips for shooting snow? I would like to be able to pick up some detail in the snow, but i don't want to blow out the talents skintones. thanks for your help! Steve

Hey all, I am shooting two short dream sequences soon, and had some questions about stock choice. We are shooting normal 16mm, one scene is outdoor early monring, and the other is a medium size college lecture hall. The director wants a very silky look, , a little blown out, kind of milky. I want to see the shots share a mixture of the silky, creamy look, but i also want to see very deep saturated colors in the rest of the image. I was playing with the idea of using reversal, kodachrome 40, but i have heard that reversal stock doesn't come across as well during telecine. any thoughts on that? also, i am thinking about using some kind of softening filter, either a real filter, or some kind of screen material, any tips for that? (sorry i know this is a stock post) and then along with that, would the film stock matter as far as picking up that softened look? any suggestions there? Thanks for your help! Steve