Noir Short Shot on HVX200

Timur Civan · February 12, 2007

Please Leave Feedback!!! Thank you in advance! This is a Repost of a thread that i accidentally put in the HVX200 Thread. Mods Feel free to delete the extra post in the hvx200 thread.

Here is the film. http://www.timurcivan.com/katrina/katrina_h264_HD.mov Its 200MB and is in HD 720P. Enjoy.

WORKFLOW:

Here is some information on the workflow we are using to shoot Katrina. First off we are using the HVX / SGproREV2/ Serious magic HD rack software combination. we are shooting 720/24P over 60P with a 2:3 pull down. The reason for this is that the HDrack software cannot capture 24pN.

Footage logging: While theoretically we can shoot without Cards, i opted to keep the camera with a P2 card inside. the reasoning is this. If the Fire wire cable should be disconnected for any reason, and the HD rack capture be interrupted, the P2 card will be capturing the shot and the take is not wasted. since its flash, who cares if it gets full. When it fills, i reformat after the end of the take, and continue recording. HD rack is a GREAt piece of software, and its full res 720P Monitor while sharp, has a 1/2 second lag, and doesnt display the full framerate, leading to the image being jerky. This was a major problem for me while operating the camera as i couldnt frame up while the actors moved, because of the lag. However, i had a lowresolution, 16:9 DVD player with me for framing purposes, and this quickly solved the problem. The HD rack monitor is SUPERB for Focusing however, its Razor sharp.

Camera/SGpro: The HVX is truly an EXCELLENT camera. we utilized The Variable framerates, the natural, rich lush look it provides and in combination with its high dynamic range, and great highlight handling it provided a very film like latitude with great definiton. Aram, Alex Depew, Steve Bowling and I lit the set very carefully. I made a plan to light the set until we could reach a proper exposure at F2.8 on my 35mm Canon FD lenses. The reason i settled on F2.8 is this. i have 5 primes. the slowest of the bunch are two lenses, both F2.8, probably closer to T3.0 - T3.5, I have not chekced, but they lose more than 2 stops of light. My theory is as follows, if you can light until your darkest (slowest) lens gets proper exposure to the camera, then you can interchange freely among the different lenses, without a disparity of wide ranging exposures in the footage.

On Bloody Mary (The last film i shot), some of the footage was VERY dark in comparison to the different setups in the same scene, because i used a slower F4 Wideangle lens as a wide shot to closeups shot with a 55mm F1.2. the CU's were about 3 stops brighter, and matching up the footage in post was difficult. ( thank you Zoe White (future ASC member for sure) for helping me realise this) Now if we had lit the scene to a point where the F4 lens had proper exposure, we could always close down the F1.2 lens, to compensate for added brightness ( or stop down the dvx iris to maintins the F1.2 super SHallow DOF instead). Also the added benefit is that the lenses get alot sharper when you stop down a bit, this is espacially evident in HD.

The SGpro Rev2 adapter is a hidden secret among 35 adapters. ITs the best 35 adapter that noone knows about. WAyne kinney, whom i have had an ongoing email conversation with for over a year, has kept me updated to all the advancements, and refinements hes been making in his design. Esssentially it breaks down like this. its a Spinning GG adapter, like the M2. Unlike the M2, it exhibits almost no vingetting, and because of a professionally designed, custom Achromatic Diopeter, it exhibits ZERO chroma Aberation, and No resolution loss on the edges of the frame. Also Waynes Secret weapon, the "magic GG" as he calls it. he wont tell me what he does to it. And quite frankly i dont care so long as it keeps putting out the image quality that it does. Pay attention to the quality of the Bokeh. it most closely resemebles 35mm Film, out of all the 35 adapters, including the Mini35. Its rich and solid, and doesnt allow the residual image to Ghost though creating a low quality look. This great piece of equiptment in combination with Great Canon FD lenses, provided us with a superb and fully controlabe camera setup. Because all my lenses are FD SSC lenses, and are spherical in build, they exhibit that distict charachteristic, found in most cinema lenses, the round disc of out of focus light. The fact that we matched the lenses in apeture helped meld the different charachteristics of the lenses together, and created in essence a "matched" set of Primes.

I am using:

Zesnar 16mm F2.8 Semi Fisheye

Canon FD 24mm F2.8

CAnon FD 35mm F2.0 SSC

Canon FD 50mm F1.4 SSC

Canon FD 55mm F1.2 SSC

Canon FD 125mm F2.5 SSC

Zesnar 200mm F 3.5

Now you may be askin why do i have a 50mm and a 55mm??? The reason is the two lenses have different looks, the 55mm has a bit of barrel distortion at full wide when focusd up close, this creates a very unique effect that i put to good use. also, since closing down to F1.4 is a possibility, the lens instantly gets much sharper, and still retains almost no light loss. Also, the Zesnar lenses are Russian made lenses, based on german designs. They are relativly inexpensive, but perform very well.

I conferred with aram bauman (the gaffer), that i wanted mostly hard back lighting with Semi Hard Keylights, and Soft fills. I was influenced by the looks of films like "Cape Fear" "Out Of Sight" "The Underneath" and "The Black Dalia". My art references were, Edward hoppers drab, lonely worlds, Cindy Sherman's nostalgic sarcasm, and some of my own tricks. While i didnt exactly copy any of these looks, i was very interested in incorporating my own art photographs into this. The hard, bright lights, and gels, to reference a kind of superreal that only works in Photgraphs, Theatre and Film. Its increadible how much disparity from reality the eye will tolerate so long as its beautiful.

Cole Webley · February 12, 2007

The stills look great. The thread doesn't work though, I would love to see it...hope you get that working. I am shooting two shorts in the next couple of months. We, too, were going to use the HVX with an adapter (most likely the M2 or P+S Technik because thats what we have available to us) but we recently had a Sony CineAlta F900 come into our possession, so we are going to shoot with that camera. Have you used it before? Anyways, try to get the URL to work so we can see it!

Timur Civan · February 23, 2007

The stills look great. The thread doesn't work though, I would love to see it...hope you get that working. I am shooting two shorts in the next couple of months. We, too, were going to use the HVX with an adapter (most likely the M2 or P+S Technik because thats what we have available to us) but we recently had a Sony CineAlta F900 come into our possession, so we are going to shoot with that camera. Have you used it before? Anyways, try to get the URL to work so we can see it!

Heres a working link!

http://www.desperatecomfort.com/katrina/katrina_h264_HD.mov

I unfortunatly have not shot with an F900..... i hope to soon though.

Just throw an extra couple of watts of light in the scene when using the HVX m2 combo. it s light hungry, especailly if you wanna stop down to get a littel deeper DOF. we were shooting this with 650's and 1K's as basic keys/backlights. and we were still a hair under exposed on the waveform. ( i know it sounds silly to thoes used to shooting on film. Complaing about needing 1k's to get exposure)