Michael Collier

At least talk to PWNY. I used them on my last film (and first film actually, all the rest were video) and they were very pleasant to work with. The only error on their part was charging tax when it was not applicable. With one email they corrected that. They are friendly and helpful, and my transfers look really good. That said, I UPSed my film to PWNY (and UPSed it from Media Distrabutors) and this is up to Alaska, so you know it probably went through canada (unless it hit one of the UPS night trips from Anchorage to their hubs). There was no fogging affect apparent. Now also keep in mind my relative inexperience with the whole lab proccess. I found nothing objectionable or in error with my work.

I was 11. I found my parents old RCA vhs camera (it was 1994) this thing was made in the early 80s, one of the first video cameras availible to the home markets. I took it and made 'Attack of the Killer Vaccuum Cleaner' next came a fake documentary of the making of appolo 13 (the set used for the lander was my parents mini-van) for elementary school. Then a million stupid shorts, then one on ancient rome for history class (I used a hockey vest laden with aluminum foil-cardboard for the uniform) After that I settled into doing snowboarding videos professionally (at 14) and eventually pitched a 30 minute weekly documentary for a camp I went too. That lasted 4 years and in the offtime I made more shorts and stuff. Now I am doing 4 or 5 shorts a year, and a few features every now and then. I love having projects in the works, so now I have two shorts in post, one feature waiting for release and another short in early pre-production, I am feeling good. Next year I move to LA to try and hang in the industry league (though I predict rising up to the ranks of Cinematographer will take at least a decade, and lots of growth and learning). oh, and I am right handed. (it was mentioned before that sometimes people attribute the work of the cinematographer to the director, this was true of me. I wanted to be a director until I got a copy of Kris Makewitz's book 'Cinematography' early in highschool and realized thats what I thought directing was, and what I wanted to do.)

Thanks david and mark. The letterbox was put in in post (actually its a layer I toggle on and off while cutting). I framed for 1.85, but transfered fullscreen so I could see everything. Even if I transfer the HD cut in 16x9 (cropping the top and bottom, rather than pillar boxing) I will still have 21 pixels of give up or down to reframe to 1.85 nothing big, but it can fix an actor who was slouching for a 3 second reaction moment. As for the slate...we had issues. All of my crew had little production experience, and no film experience. I had to teach them all to slate (and I don't even know all the standard procedures) so its not quite pro slating, but since I am also the editor its easy. I know when we were MOS or not without looking at the slate. Thanks for the comments. DVDs will be out to get a full review from everyone here, but I really value the feedback. If anyone has other comments I would love to hear them.

Be wary of transfering to mini-DV. I have heard of time code issues with that format. I am not sure the mechanics of it, but TC is not always correct on tape (TC can change each time you play the same clip by a few frames). if the TC is off, then it will be off in your EDL. If you ever want to do another HD transfer, or a negative cut, you may have issues with mini-DV. DVCAM alleviates this problem (I think thats the one difference between the two standards, though DVCAM might have a layer of redundancy mini-DV does not)

Hahaha, yeah well it could have done with more nudity. Even though its not that sort of movie, we could call it intermission and play a little jingle jangle song in the background. As for violence, yeah not much. The guy behind her is a stalker and still...not much violence. I guess I was trying for a slow thriller, hitchcock esque suspense, and marlin brando level acting....I really should have remade 'Cruel Intentions 2'. Oh well, screw the box office. As for the fill, thats downside of a skeleton crew. We had all 3 grips working on moving a set peice during that shot, so we had nobody to hold the bounce card (of which we had many). I did use a little fill in the following shots, though I was limited in how much was passable, since this first shot has none. By the way, all the reason for me relentlessly trying to pitch Alaska as a shooting destination is in frame 2. I love that location and it was found in 20 minutes of driving around my town.

I found my first time out the gate with telecine its much simpler to ask for 30fps. This will make the lab assume you shot at 29.97. Footage goes faster, so it takes less room on hard drive for the online, also quicker to capture, and when you import it to a 23.976 project you get a progressive frame, regardless of weather the format even recognizes progressive. It also gives a one-number incriment timecode add for every frame. To me with my limited experience it seems to be the best system. Is there any reason for doing a 24fps with pulldown telecine anymore? I mean with the ability to add pulldown in real time on NLE, I surely can't see a reason to do this. Any thoughts?

I made it through school on a telemarketers salary. Believe it or not, I was making more as a TSR than I am now as a photographer, or as I was working childcare or night stocking at best buy. I put less than 20 hours a week and made up to a 1000 a week. Its demanding and it takes a lot of effort to be good, but not much time. Other options include car sales. In general a sales jobs will pay well for little time and are flexible, depending on the orginization. A job will keep those loans down....also ramen. learn to love ramen.

Thanks for the insight Karl and Andy. There are scenes that I look at and wish I had more contrast. In shooting I guess a tendancy is to go for the safest option. Frame six is supposed to be a night scene. I underexposed a stop and lit with 1/2 CTB. In post it looks more like night if I bring it down further, but I wish I had added more contrast in the lighting (also more art direction on the location, our original location fell through.) That shot is just a quick reverse shot. The first shot of the main charecter does have more contrast in lighting. As for the underexposure on couch frames, the JPEG compressor on my computer tends to darken the images, not really sure how to fix that. Also a subtle hair light I had on frame 5 wasn't as strong as I had hoped. Light package was 2 arri 650 open face w chimeras, 2 arri 150 fressnel, 2 totas and an omni and a small grip package. Not much crew or time. As for the format, I really was looking for ease and cost, not quality. I plan to transfer on a spirit to D5HD from this offline cut, so thats when quality matters. The lab offered me a reduced rate on a DVCPRO-50, but in Anchorage it was hard to find a deck that could play them. Hard drive was complicated and costly. My best option was DVCAM, since I got the deck for free. I did have it transfered at 30fps, so I am cutting on a true 24p file, and my playback renders the 3:2:2:3 pulldown in realtime. When I do the HD transfer, I will have the tape transfered uncompressed to hard drive, and keep the tape as a master (no D5HD decks within 1000 miles of here...) Any other suggestions? I will learn the most from these kinds of comments.

Thanks for the tip. I went with pulling the lens off manually, or if I had finnished up a mag, I would pull the presure plate back and look at the gate with a light. It was something I had not considered too much prior to shooting. I just thought 'check the gate' and didn't imagine it would leave me on set feeling uneasy as to wheather I was doing it right. I need to re-read some of my books and find every possible technique to do this properly before my next film short. Yes I was going for a more naturalistic lighting approach for the outdoor scenes. Sometimes 'film lighting' is just too much for me. Even the inside scenes I tried not to go too extreme, its not that kind of story. As for the stock selection, I really didn't have much to go off of to make a good decision on stock. I viewed sample clips and found 200T to have the contrast I wanted. I felt like I should use one stock, so next time I shoot I have a wealth of knowledge of how 200T responds (since I had it all, uncorrected daylight, corrected daylight, hicon scenes, lo con, very VERY lowkey scenes etc.) I felt one stock would be more benefitial to my education. The whole point of this project was my desire to shoot film. I had never done it, and I considered getting a little film and shooting, but in the end I decided I can learn more by doing it in a narative setting than trying to shoot random clips. I love all the comments, I would be eager to hear more. Don't worry about being to critical.

Are you reshooting beerfest? sounds like a classic digital shot. Either that or train your actor long in advance and be prepared for several flubbed takes. Thats if you want it all to happen in a wide shot. You can also just show a med shot of him throwing the balls with corresponding CUs of the ping pong landing in the beer. Lots of shots like that can make for great pacing in edit.

I have always just projected a video image onto some diffusion. Sometimes I use actual video that I pixelate down to 4, 9 or 16 pixels, sometimes I just animate a few blocks of various colors and move them around a bit, then take it into an NLE and cut it up and mix it up so you get those natural 'Cuts' This seems to work for me because you get the light output you need (usually) and if the diffusion is big enough it makes the shadows move as they would do in real life. Downside is it takes some pre-production work to prep, and projector needs to be on hand. Upside it looks startling realistic and is very customizable.

Comments on pics from my first ever film shoot? story below I got my film back from PWNY for 'Sleep' on tuesday, and after months of fretting over shutter problems and exposure problems I thought I might have, I get the footage back to find it looks miles better than I had hoped. Not a single shot had a mistake on it. Exposure always hit the mark, though I figured the one stop under for night scenes would be a little darker and the 2 2/3 stops over for the final scene was less bright than I thought it would be (a testament to how great the vision2 stock is) The colors are gorgeous. I would have never got images this good, even on the best HD camera with lots of grading. I would have needed to do much more light control and planned a less extreme look if it were HD. In the end it was a very positive experience. The only downside was the wait. I don't think I will offer to be scheduled late for a better price again. The few cents per foot I saved weren't worth the months of agony. The worst problem I had with the film was a hair in the gate on one take. Amazingly the hair fits about 3 pixels below the 1.85 matte, so I am safe there. It was hard to check the gate with a 10:1 zoom on the front most of the time, and it was my first time checking the gate. After enough checks and seeing nothing, you start to wonder if you really know what your looking for, but I guess I just kept my changing bag clean enough. I have started to sync the audio, which was another leap for me, having never needed to slow and pitch correct audio, or create a 24p timeline from 30fps video. All those were very simple to figure out though (I figured it out before searches on the premeire's help found the method.) I am very, very interested in hearing feedback from those who are much more advanced than I. Once I have a rough cut I will be asking to send DVDs out to certain people for their critique, and I will have a compressed version online for others to critique (DVDs and shipping is expensive) Above I have some screengrabs from the film. I would love any feedback you guys have to offer me. THese are ungraded except the wide shot on hillside. I shot that scene without correction, and plan to correct it in the final supervised HD transfer. This was a one-light so I graded it in premiere to approximate what I want it to look like. Info: Telecine: one-light to DVCAM Pictures: JPEG medium compression, native resolution, ungraded Film: 7217 Kodak Vision2 200T (short ends) Lens: 15-150 Angienuex (cp mount version, without dogleg); 6mm angie prime Camera: CP-16r Locations: Anchorage, Alaska: midtown and hillside, interiors

Sorry Nash, before I posted I read your whole post, but for some reason only the part about turning 1/60th into 1/30th effective shutter stuck out to me. I read it again and you said more or less what I said. Though I am not sure if most software can interpolate both feilds (ei, using both feilds but avereging them so it doesn't flicker, but still has the native 720x480 resolution at 30P) Composer might, as its much more advance than the stuff I usually use. I have less than 100 hours on composer, so I am not an expert at all of its features. DV Xpress 3.5 (which I have the most experience with after premiere) has de-interlace option and interpolate option, but the option only takes one feild and then fills the blanks by interpolating the space between each line of that feild. basicly if you shoot 1/250 shutter rate, the shutter is still 1/250, and the res is halved, though the interpolating makes it more like the resolution is halved and then that is up-ressed to the native resolution, if that makes sense. Most software I have used uses this method of interpolating. That algorythm applies weather you select interpolate or de-interlace. The only difference is if you slow-mo the footage, the software will split the feilds and treat them like 60p footage at 720x240 when de-interlace is clicked, and will treat the footage like 30p at 720x240 if interpolate is used (dropping the upper feild in DV). I could see composer comparing the interpolated feild with the actual feild, and going with the actual feild as long as the difference wasn't too extreme (indicating fast motion that) that would make it sort of like a frankenstien image. part feild one, part feild two, part interpolated pixels all made to look like a progressive frame. I am sure it looks good (its avid afterall), just interesting that it may be able to do that....I need to pick up composer now they sell it software only. Too bad premiere is so cheap and getting much better...I end up spending all my money on production these days.

Try a place that sells short ends. Ask for the shortest length of film they have in any stock. Or see if they can cut 50 feet off a short end for say double the normal per foot price? most will not sell less than 200 feet (which would only be $35 or so) but if they will make a deal on cutting some off some you might get it for $17. either way that is pretty cheap. Also on ebay theres a guy who sells I think 10 foot lengths for starting at a dollar, but I am not sure how reliable he is. Practice loading in stages. load in light with eyes open, then load in light with eyes closed, then load in a bag. At each stage practice it until the motions become muscle memory, then move to the next step. By the time you get to the bag, it will be second nature, and be less prone to mistakes during actual production. also, be detail oriented. On my first film I was trying to pay very careful attention to the film and treating it properly, so much so that on one reel I forgot to pull the core addaptor off (somehow it didn't click when it came off with the core) not a big deal but it left me searching the cans looking for that damn adaptor. Good news though with no experience at all first time out I was able to load the mag, thread the camera and expose the takes with absolutley no problems at all.

They need to change their project to a 23.97 timeline. That should solve all their sync issues. 3:2 pulldown doesn't apply since the software assumes its 29.97. Alternativley they could (in premiere pro) right click the footage and click "Interpret Footage..." and set it to 23.97, though its easier to work with a native timeline.

This is not entirely correct. Most editing machines have the ability to recognize feilds, not frames. When you slowmo some automatically split the two and then begin the feild doubling. Some require you to manually tell it to do it. Thats what premiere calls it. When you click that (right click clip, click video settings, click 'always deinterlace'. at no point does a slowmo effect on any NLE I know of or have used actually combine the feilds into one (making an effective 1/30th sec exposure as you put it.) Rather what is happening to his footage is the effect of playing an interlaced frame to TV and not keeping the pace up. Since each frame has two feilds, the TV will play one, then the next. If it sees the same frame twice, it will still play feild 1 then feild 2. The result is a stagger in motion (you call it strobe, but thats not an accurate discription, since actually you will see feild 1,2,1,2,3,4,3,4. essentially moving you forward 1/60th, forward 1/60, then back 1/30th then forward 1/60th then forward 1/60th then back 1/30th...if that makes sense to you) I suspect that is the 'strobe' you are seeing. My favorite slow mo look (and I swear its not because of films 24fps, it was after lots of testing with snowboarding movies in my youth, before I knew much about 24p) is to take 30i and slow it by 40%, effectivley splitting each feild so you get 60fps played at 24fps. then add a 2:3:3:2 pulldown and not only do you get super-slow video, but the frame duplication isn't offensive, because instead of duplicating frames in an awquard fassion, its stretched using a pulldown cadence most audiences are used to seeing (and at this point there is no motion difference between film shot at 60fps and telecined at 24fps) An interesting note: if you slow mo interlaced footage, you thereby cut the resolution in half, but turn the project into a progressive frame (since half the resolution goes to one frame, half to the other)

I have one that might sell the producers on it: Shoot HD, produce the finnished cut in SD. Then 5 years down the road when HD is even bigger and the station wants to switch to all HD programming, you can turn to your client and say 'We'll sell you the HD masters....for a price'. They might be able to see a second payment of 25% of the original production price or more with that method. Thats all dependant on the TV station that is airing the show. If its local in a small market odds are slim, but in national basic cable channels with HD partner channels you may stand a good chance. Post houses add upcharges for HD, even though your taking up the same NLE for the same amount of time (more storage obviously, all other overhead is identicle) and for a TV series, as long as the production company retains some rights to original material, then legaly they can sell the HD version for a higher price than the SD. Producers will always put more weight to future gross than the quality of the video, so that approach might put it in their interest, especially if cost is there hang up ('it looks great' is a terrible flip to the objection 'it costs too much')

If its absolutley never going to be in HD, then shooting DVCPRO-50 would look better, but marginally. I think you might find a few months or years down the road an oppourtunity to show it HD and may kick yourself for not shooting HD. If festival submission is definatley in the cards I would recomend HD. Most every film fest that has digital projection can accept HD tapes for the screening. In my mind that seems like a requirement, since you'll be competeing with people who shot HD and film, so showing an SD movie directly after those would look soft by comparison (even if its sharp SD) Either way if you shoot DVCPRO-50 or DVCPRO-HD, edit in its native format and only downconvert when you make the DVD. Downconverting earlier will loose data that might be needed for the mastering phase. Festival submissions usually can be done on DVD for their consideration, and if accepted you can follow up with the HD copy for the actual screening.

If only I had my tax return!

Ok, my story on our film commision airs on monday (landed an interview with 'flags of our fathers' location director) and the graphics guy needs to make a plasma graphic. I tried to explain what edge flashing and roll outs look like, but I am not sure he got it. If anyone has footage of that handy please PM me or reply here, I want to give those to him to either use directly in the graphic or replicate it in post. Ideal footage would have those effect on a black background (don't know if anyone would have that around, but if you do let me know) I know its a strange request. I was able to show him a few examples, but if I can show him more variety it would be even better. Thanks.

Michaels tips will work for you, especially for DVD release. Keep in mind though that VFX work and color correction esp. is much harder when your working in mini-DV. I would recomend DVCPRO-50 if you know it will never project theatrically, in festival or be bumped up to a blu-ray DVD in the future. If either of those are even remotley possible, then go with DVCPRO-HD. Either of those options still leave you with the need for offloading the cards every so often. With a computer on, that proccess takes a little longer than changing a mag. If you plan in advance you can download every time you wrap a setup (and hope you don't fill the card before the set up is done with) that way it can download while you work. You will need a laptop on set though. Some laptops can accept the P2 cards directly into their PCMIA slots, if the slots in question are 32-bit. If not you can download it over firewire, with the card in the camera. This makes setting the camera for the next shot difficult, maybe a good time to focus on lighting. You'll have to look hard at weather you have the resources and time to work with the P2. If you had 2 4gig cards it would be no problem (one can download faster than you'd typically fill them up). But mini-DV is lackluster, no matter the original source. Its fine for TV if you don't do much color correcion or post, but as you add more demands of your video, it falls appart quickly. Its always best to capture as much information as you can and loose it along the post path, rather than through it all out from the get-go. Plus with the HVX if you want to use their multi-frame rate feature, you'd need P2.

I sort of enjoy those kinds of big challenges and steep odds. It really makes your mind think and work hard to get great results. Its hard to say what I would have done in that situation, since I don't know what sort of equipment you did have availible, or time and budget constraints. Sounds like you did a good job w. Bouncing off ceilings and walls seems like the most versatile solution to a lot of problems. I would have asked for a trip to wally-world with 50 bucks. Its a bit cheap, but theres all kinds of solutions at a walmart or homedepot. Home-made silks, floppys, flags, nets, etc are all availible there for cheap. They don't look pretty, and don't always function like real equipment, but you can get very creative with little money out there. I would love to see a screen shot of what you got. Sounds like a fun challange.

Check out Pro-8mm for good prices. They usually sell 50 foot carts for 30 bucks, including proccessing. They split theirs off of fresh 35mm stock (so I hear) so they have most modern stocks availible in 8mm. I have 5 cartons of 250D, just looking forward to shooting it. Since your talking about snow (I assume snowboarding, something of that nature) you'd do well to pick up a 100T or a 50D stock, and you will get little grain, if thats what your after. I figure in snow you'll have either direct sun or overcast with lots of bounce, so theoretically either should be sensative enough for your needs.

If your really worried just shoot it at 18 or 12fps. Personally I have had no problem with shooting LCDs with video (29.97 and 24p) so it should not be an issue.

You could always go to a rental house, set up a black background and do a bunch of 'lens tests' of course really you'd just be using different lenses to record different lens flares. Move the light around, get different lenghts and positions of flares, then compsite those into the effect. My fear with practicle is always timing. Its the note that triggers the color, which means the note has to hit at the right time. Doing it in camera not only limits your choices for how it looks, but also the timing of it (which will affect editting choices) After Effects can do a bunch of stuff, and theres enough there to make it look practicle while maintaining the benifits of doing it in post. By the way, the glass at a 45 reminded me of a video I made in 7th grade. Turned my brother into a ghost with that trick. Good times. Anyway good luck.