We just finished a quick one-minute filmout to 35mm to see what our screen test would look like on the big screen. And was it ever eye-opening.

First - I am very impressed with the quality of the image from the XL-2 and stock 20x lens. I wish it had been in better focus, but the image held up very nicely.

Second - there are a host of issues to be aware of with doing post work and maintaining a healthy workflow. In future I will edit in FCP and then do any grading or post work with either Shake or AfterEffects. The resulting footage will be saved in a lossless intermediary format ready for film out or conversion to DVD. This will also include conforming our footage to academy framing (1.85 instead of 1.77).

Third - I can hardly wait to have more material to test out and to see our work on the big screen again. It is quite addictive.

That's good news to hear and confirms some "feelings" I and other
people had (about the XL2's resolution etc.).

Can you tell us with what settings you shot at? I assume it was
24p in 16:9 etc. Did you use any gamma curves etc. in the camera?

Thanks!

We shot at 25p (PAL) in 16:9 and left it at 1.77 aspect ratio. This was cropped by the projector to allow for sound track down the left hand side of the frame and the projected image ended up at 1.85 (academy).

Originally shot during the day, we did a lot of post work to do day for night. I had originally done the work to look decent on television, but was surprised to see what had been very deeply saturated and dark go rather lighter and desaturated in the film out. I've recreated the subjective look in AfterEffects to possibly create a reference that I can correct for and try out in a future film out.

I'll have to double check, but I am pretty sure we had black stretch and white knee on for our shooting.

The night shooting looked fantastic on film with no colour correction at all.

Hi Chris,

You wrote: "In future I will edit in FCP and then do any grading or post work with either Shake or AfterEffects. "

why, did you get any problems with color grading in FCP?

I'm more comfortable in Shake or AE - I've not actually managed to learn FCP's colour grading tools yet. Plus I see adding gradients, masks and other post effects to our footage. Maybe this is all achievable in FCP - but for cropping, racking and getting the final frame I think some other package would be easier. I'd be interested to learn FCP's options though...