XL1S and Mini35 as used on Seinfeld AmEx spot

[Charles Papert]

From John Steele:

<,lol, just been on the amex site to take a look at these, they were brilliant. You really got the best from the XL1 charles it looked awesome. Was it frame mode or filmlooked in post? What about grading/colour correction was there much done to it?

John.>>

Frame mode, John, the DP and I are very fond of that look as well as the skin tones produced by the XL1 and would rather shoot with it than the DVX100. As far as color correction, there wasn't much done that we can tell, in fact we wish they had done more. I would have matched shots between multiple cameras a bit better, brought the gamma down overall and there are a few shots where the color is a bit funky. It's a good thing we took the time to capture a decent image when we shot. We generally cheated the white balance with a gel pack held in front of the lens to get the proper color rendition, but sometimes when the fur was flying it was hard to keep constant.Particularly as the XL1 loses it's white balance settings when you switch batteries while using a Mini35 setup, which is deeply annoying.

And for those who have been trying to check out the article--it's back up again at the XL1 Watchdog. Thanks again, Chris.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

I realize this thread has been around for a while but only recently did I take the opportunity to thouroughly read it and boy was it exciting!

Charles - Excellent detail and coverage on the AmEx spot.

Chris - Thanks for providing such a great and informative place for all of us!

[John Hudson]

Great job Charles. Looks like alot of fun on that one. Question? Was Patrick Warburton (I think thats the voice of Superman?) on set while filming or was a stand in used and the voice over done in post?

[Josh Bass]

Charles, when you say "cheat the white balanc", in which direction did you go? Toward red or away from it? Using what type of gel?

[Charles Papert]

John:

Patrick was not on set, there was a stand-in actor. I'm not even sure if Patrick had been cast when we shot the piece.

Josh, if I remember correctly we generally used a 1/4 blue and an 1/8 plusgreen or variations around there to shift the image more towards the orange/magenta side of things. I find almost all video cameras favor green, especially Sonys, as the green component has something to do with perceived sharpness, and most will render a more flattering skintone if a bit of green is removed from the image. I have since found that the phase shift in the XL1s menu does a pretty good job of this instead of the gelling (but you still need to gel through blue).

[James Emory]

Charles, did anybody ever tell you that you look like Jason Patrick? Well, you do.

[Charles Papert]

Not so much with the Jason Patrick! I've gotten Jon Favreau a lot (somewhere in here) though.

[James Emory]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

Not so much with the Jason Patrick! I've gotten Jon Favreau a lot (somewhere in here) though.

Wwwould you believe.......Gregory Harrison?

www.gregoryharrison.ws

[Charles Papert]

Not in a while, but I've heard that one too.

James, I hope you haven't been mulling it over for the past 15 months...lying in bed every night, "damn! WHO does that Papert guy look like again? It's on the tip of my tongue..."

I was thinking about responding to this somewhere around December 2006 to keep consistent with your pattern, but I couldn't hold out.

[James Emory]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

James, I hope you haven't been mulling it over for the past 15 months...lying in bed every night, "damn! WHO does that Papert guy look like again? It's on the tip of my tongue..."

That Charles sure is funny!! LOL!!

Actually, I was showing someone those pictures from your shoot and had just seen a show with Gregory in it and I said that looks like Charles Papert. What a coincidence! I'm bad about doing that with alot of people that look like celebrities. I guess I'd be a good casting agent.