Where they too all at 60i or did they learn not to shoot at 30i as time progressed to shoot at that rate?

all those you listed were done in 60i regular SONY DV cameras. Bamboozled was done with 1 3chip VX1000, and about 10 other 1chip Sony handycams placed all over the set to get differnt shots. it took them 20 seconds to roll & slate all cameras before they yelled action! Open Water was done with a PD150 and a VX2000, sold to lionsgate for $2.4 million...made about $40 million. Tadpole....I'm not sure.

- ShannonRawls.com

Tadpole was shot on pd150 in PAL.

I don't think Tadpole was shot in PAL. It believe it was NTSC. 28 Days later was PAL. You can tell by the frame rate being a bit slower.

Here is a website that lists many DV shot movies & which camera was used:

www.nextwavefilms.com/ulbp/bullfront.html

Unfortunately they stopped updating it 5/02.

Tadpole used Pal version Pd150s. They say so on www.indigent.net (The production company)

Open water used NTSC 60i;

www.moviemaker.com/hop/vol4/04/digital.html

Bamboozled shot in pal:

www.popmatters.com/film/interviews/lee-spike.html

<<<-- Originally posted by Jed Williamson :
Bamboozled shot in pal:

www.popmatters.com/film/interviews/lee-spike.html -->>>

I stand corrected.

- Shannon W. Rawls

As I recall, there is an excellent discussion of the process on the directors commentary of TADPOLE. All of the shortcuts, and shortcomings of the process. The extraordinary money that had to be spent to make it 'look good'. It's a good study.

I think some things are being mixed up. Usually it is called 30p and
60i. As in 30 frames per second and 60 fields per second (which
is 30 frames per second with a time difference between the two
halves). There is only one HDV camera that can do 60 frames per
second, everything else records at 30 frames per second in either
interlaced (60i) or progressive (30p)

It's also interesting that at some point Indigent made a switch and all its latest films have all been shot with DVXs. Including, I believe, the one that showed at Sundance this year by Steve Buscemi, Lonesome Jim. And of course last year's cinematography winner November.

I looked at the indigent site, and it appears in some cases they're using PAL DVXs at 25p.

I'm curious about Tadpole, but Open Water looks just like a cheap version of Jaws.

Tadpole is worth a look. Watch the movie straight through, then with the directors commentary. They really explain what problems they had with each scene, how they did a workaround... it's a film course for guerrilla filmmaking in DV.

(And if I am not mistaken, it might just be John Ritters last film??)

"Cheap Version of Jaws" = major bucks, my friend.

Either you have a gimmick, or you have 20 million in star power working for cheap "Tadpole". That's the only way to get a minidv movie distributed anymore. Better to shoot film, if you are swinging for the fence.