View Full Version : Xl2 B&w


David H. Castillo
January 15th, 2008, 01:48 PM
I have been experimenting with new styles of lighting and a different editing pace. A couple of weeks ago I was taking head shots of Jesus Fuerte, I mentioned to him my side projects and he jumped onboard this piece. I got BBP's in-house editor, Robert Brazius to donate his valuable time. I would like to share with you some of the specs.


Acquisition

Cameras Canon XL2 with EF-XL adapters
Lens EF 50mm and EF 24-200mm
F stop F4

Camera Setting
24p 1/48
Gama Cine
Knee set to middle
Black middle
Set up level -1
everything else set to factory

Audio
Sennheiser ME-66 shotgun mic on A camera
on board mic on B camera

Lighting
Photoflex 1k Octdome
Arri 1k fresnel w/diffusion
Arri 650 fresnel w/diffusion
White bounce

Post
FCP
NTSC timeline
De-saturated, de-interlaced image
Levels Corrected for web and broadcast
Lowered contrast -4 web
Exported Self contained uncompressed 10 bit 4.2.2 quicktime a 4.5 GB file

Compressing video for the web is like sending water from a firehose to a straw. The crisp details, shadow gradations and perfect highlight blooms all there in the broadcast monitor; then you look at the web compressed version and it just makes you want cry. Well, though my tears and working with a technical director, I have modified my lighting over time and I have a better understanding of how the end medium we look.

A rough guide to follow the duration time was from a web commercial job. The maximum throughput is the end users modem speed and the file size is figured so that the movie will download and play fast and smooth.

Duration Maximum Throughput File size must be below
178sec 56K 973
112K 1946
256K 4450
384K 6675
512K 8900
768K 13350

Compressor
Type H.264 Quicktime 7
Frame rate 15fps
Key Frame 75 frames
Data rate automatic
Pixel aspect ratio: NTSC CCIR 601/DV (16:9)
Hinted streaming
Audio Encoder AAC, Stereo (L R), 32.000 kHz
Dimensions 480x279
End size 3.9MB Quicktime movie

The finial product
Jesus Fuerte
http://www.bluebarnpictures.com/blog/

Cheers

David H Castillo
Director of Photography
Blue Barn Pictures, INC