Scott Squires

Pelican also makes a case that has a softcase that fits inside (1520?). That way you can carry on the flight and then just carry the softcase in the field if you wish. DVX and basics fit (batteries, tapes) but if you want large mic and other items then you'll want something larger.

I think Panasonic has a list of authorized dealers so you should check to avoid buying a gray market camera (without US warranty) or to avoid a scam.

You want to match the live action as much as possible. Lens and lighting should take their cues from the live action. (i.e. match) Camera moves are difficult unless you use motion control or are doing a post move on composte. You can do a foreroudn minature for some scenes but it's fairly limited. Pan and tilt have to be on nodal. Locked off camera is the way to go to keep it simple. Lining up - Record as much info from the live action as possible including tilt, distance and lens. depends on your camera. If it will hold a clip near the ground glass then cut a print. Other options are to make a tracing of an enlarged frame onto acetate. Mount this in front of the camera for a guide. At the very least makea blowup of a still and eyeball it. Scale - is the miniature moving? Does it have water or fire? If so you'll want to make as large as reasonable and to overcrank (shoot at faster fps for making the scale right). Formulas are in the ASC manual and probably online. If there's nothing moving to give away scale then it's an issue of a size that provides sufficent detail but still can be dealt with. If there's a commercial scale that's close use that. That will provide a llot of materials/parts already made. (i.e. dollhouse scale, o-scale model railroad, etc)

QuickTime Animation codec is lossless. If it's set to best quality there's no loss. It does this by noting consecutive pixels that are the same. Huge savings on pure graphics and other things, not so much with live footage but still better than none. Animation is 8bit 4:4:4:4 (if set to millions with alpha). In order to playback realtime on your system it's likely you'll need to convert to another codec (either hardware supported codec if decklink card handles it or a DV format as you mentioned). It's also possibel to edit a proxy in one codec and then apply the final cuts to the real footage still in animation form. Much depends on the final requires. If you're going to dump back to video DVD or MiniDV tape then animation for editing probably isn't worth it. If you're planning to go to film then it will making a difference.

The lower priced panasonic cameras don't provide timecode from DVX100 recorded material, at least not in a way that FCP can see it.

There's no quality loss with another, cheaper camera. Be aware though some low end cameras don't support timecode. If you're using something like FCP without timecode means that you can't log and batch capture. Most Sony's work fine but some other brands don't.

If the focal length is that critical a directors finder or camera on the set/location is the way to go. For communication pursposes simple drawings work fine, especially if you don't have to sell anybody.

Probably good to work on your terms. To display high shutter speed shoot the same things as blur but higfher sutter speed. other things would be a fountain or splashing water.

Stop motion- Shoot a stuffed animal, coke can, toy car moving on a table top. Move them a small amount each frame. Roll a snake out of clay and and animate it as an inchworm. Shoot yourself (with timer) or someone else in a room. Take a fraction of a step forward each frame or lay down and move between each frame up and over a bed. Shoot someone when they jump in the air. Have them take a step forward and jump again. Person will seem to be floating. Blur- Set slow shutter speed and photograph someone running, riding a bike or jumping. Use your imagination.

Handbrake works fine. Typical output is MPEG-4 Quicktime. It's free to download.

DVX outputs standard 60i even for 24p since it's adding pulldonw in the camera. Any NTSC devices will work with it.

Check with Spy Post in San Francisco. You can do some color correction in post but you have the greatest range to do it when it's being telecined. The full dynamic range of the film is available at that stage and subtle color changes can be done. Once it's digitized, especially in an 8 bit color space you've lost some of the information, making it difficult if not impossibel to obtain the same results in pure digital post. Most color negative isn't as consistent as you would hope, isn't as free of color shifts as you would hope and doesn't usually have the right richness when just dumped directly. This is especially true if you hoping to obtain a specific 'look' as in many commercials and other content.

Lumikey is tough, especially if you're trying to match dalight plates. I would seriously consider whether it's worth doing this process just to put actors in that might not be able to make it to a local location. The amount of time and work (shooting plates, greenscreen, matching lighting, compositing, etc) and the final results (difficult to make convincing even when done) may end up diminishing your final film. The amount of work and the limitation of greenscreen are not to be taken lightly.