Has anyone ever ajusted the settings so the DVx100 lookes like the same film stock used in the Lord of the Rings. If so can you post a frame grab?

I've only seen brief clips of these films. But from what I've seen I would say that such color adjustments are done during some stage of post-production, not in a camera. I would also say that the DVX100's image adjustments are not really capable of those "looks".

The SDX900, the DVX100's big brother, is capable of approximating such in-camera color adjustments. I've seen it demonstrated. But it has a broader latitude and different color space than the DVX100.

But even so, it would be far more practical from a control and consistency perspective to do this in post.

LOTR had up to 9 unit of photography working at one time. The effects you are referring to are a combination of stock, lighting filters, lenses and extensive digital intermediate posting.

See American Cinematographer Archives for details.

iirc, those nine units were not working at the same location at the same time.

No, obviously not. Peter Jackson had a remote uplink switching system where he could see everything each unit was shooting. I think there were pics of it in the AC article.

The filmstock in Lord of the Rings seems brighter than other filmstocks there are a lot of highlights in daylight.

For exampe:

http://www.subreality.com/eomer/gallery/aragorn-03.jpg
http://www.laurelindorenan.com/Aragorn%20y%20Brego.jpg
http://www.laurelindorenan.com/AragornTTT.jpg
http://www.laurelindorenan.com/Faramir3.jpg
http://www.laurelindorenan.com/Eowyn%20Edoras.jpg
http://www.laurelindorenan.com/Sam%20y%20Frodo.jpg
http://www.laurelindorenan.com/Sam%20y%20FrodoTTT.jpg

Perhaps I'm not describing it correctly by saying there are a lot of highlights but it does seem to be brighter then other fillmstocks in natural light. I want to know if you can emmulate that look with the DVX100a.

You would have to do this in post as I think the lightness/glows in your highlight was probably done in post in LOTR as well. You can get a cheesy version of it with diffusion and other filters, but those often flatten contrast and don't retain the detail in the DV codec.

I would shoot cinegamma/cinematrix/fine detail, make VERY sure not to clip highlights at all, even to the point of underexposing by a 1 stop or so.

Then in post you want to retrieve detail from shadows (via gamma/levels/curves) without affect midtones. Then slightly blow out highlight and add subtle glow filter that allow you to adjuts parameters.

They key is this takes a lot of carefully shot footage since DV lacks the latitue of film and carefully done CC in post (preferably After Effect working in a 16 bit project.

See the articles here: http://www.theasc.com/magazine/index.htm

great link