Hi everyone,

Just wanted to announce that we have a new music video from Madina Lake and directed by Dori Oskowitz in association with Oasis Production Services (http://www.oasisproductionservices.com/index.htm) called "Here I stand". It was completely shot with SI cameras, and is now playing on MTV2,. It can also be viewed online at:

http://www.mtv2.com/#videoPremiere/1563998

Check it out!

Looking good, any idea what lenses?

Congratulation.
But when i try to see it online, on the screen there is a loop "Copyrights restrict us playing this video outside US". :(

Congratulation.
But when i try to see it online, on the screen there is a loop "Copyrights restrict us playing this video outside US". :(

How strange, works fine down under and we're outside the US, well sort of :)

Thanks for posting.

I'm in the USA, but apparently Windows media player v11 doesn't play WMV9? I just see the green dog telling me to download WM player 9...

I'd like to see this thing darnit.

yeah, won't play on my wmp9 on my Mac nor on my wmp10 or 11 on my PC. I'd love to see this too!

Sorry, again, distribution rights . . . i.e., I can't pirate it for you!

This is quite frustrating, and the MTV2 people need to know that a lot of people can't view their stuff.

Looking good, any idea what lenses?

The Mini was outfitted with the B4 mount and a Canon HD 18x7.8 Cine lens supplied by Sim Video here in Los Angeles. The video was shot on location in North Carolina.

Jim Hays
Oasis Production Services

Just a theory...

MTV is partners with Microsoft on their music service.
Maybe there was some special requirements by MS on
the media MTV distributes.

...once again, just a crazy, off the wall idea. I have no proof.

Well, the files are tied to a Microsoft based DRM scheme, so that's why Windows Media Player 9 is required.

Gave it a try and it does not work in XP either
even though the machine is fully updated and
on a cable line.

Seems like the DRM is working like a charm.
I had no chance of stealing the content. :)

It requires IE and flash activated . . . there's also a DRM download that IE should prompt you for before it plays.

It won't work in Mozilla or any other browser . . . again, I know this sucks, this is not my choice on how things should be presented, but for those who were interested, we thought that at least announcing that there was a music video out there on MTV2 was something we should do, both for our customers who shot the video, and for those wanting to see more "commercial" footage.

yeah, won't play on my wmp9 on my Mac nor on my wmp10 or 11 on my PC. I'd love to see this too!

You can view the file in wmp11. Right click the upper most bar of wmp, then choose Tools -> Options-> Privacy and set on "Download usage rights automatically when I play or sync a file".

it wouldnt let me view it so i went and googled it.. is this the video??

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/video/showVideo.aspx?fileID=2691

Ah...thanks for the link.

The pics look very good. I'm a drummer so the edits where the drummer is off throw me a bit...but that's most music videos.

The music video looks great. Congratulations!
My question is more about the camera.
At 1:39 ~ 1:41 (a guy handed a girl a piece of paper or something)
the rolling shutter skew is more obvious than I would expected, considering the pan speed is not very fast. For me it's totally acceptable as is, but I'm wondering if it could be further reduced. Maybe clock the chip faster or implement a mechanical shutter?
I heard it would be bad when doing camera tracking for CGI works though. Has anyone tested it with this camera?

The pan speed is not what I would consider slow either . . . but the biggest factor in that shot is the focal length of the lens (it's a very long shot).

Rolling shutter skew is really a factor of the angular momentum of the shot, i.e., how many degrees of the FOV you cover in a given amount of time. So for a very long lens with a narrow FOV, a small angular turn of the camera is going to cover a very long arc of movement in the frame. Or to put it a little simpler, with a long lens a small turn is going to pan through a lot of material, meaning that material is going to be traveling very fast through the frame, and as a result you're going to get more skew. So a wider angle lens is going to exhibit less rolling shutter skew than a longer lens.

Another factor in that shot is the frame-rate they were running the camera at. They were using a new mode in the camera cropped for 2.39:1, they didn't use a "normal" 16:9 2K mode and crop that in post. As a result, we had not finished all the clock settings on that mode at the time, so it wasn't clocked as high as it could have been . . . that would have reduced the rolling shutter as well.

Finally you have a lot of nice vertical subject matter in that shot with which to judge the rolling shutter against . . . I actually never even noticed this effect until you pointed it out, and I've seen the music video a good number of times now.

We have other movement shots on our website gallery, so you can get a good feel for what the rolling shutter is like. Also this camera was used for special effects shots on Mutant Chronicles and Spoon, and they have not complained at all about rolling shutter skew. In fact for Spoon we have a great panning shot of a power-plant control station where the guys at Atomic VFX composited and tracked a number of elements into the shot.

You can see that shot progression here:

http://siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Gallery/Powerplant_Bluescreen.wmv

Also there is "Blood:A Butcher's Tale" that is in post right now, and their movie is all green-screen, Sin-City style with lots of compositing . . . and they again have also not reported problems with rolling shutter skew.

So suffice to say, no, I do not see rolling shutter skew being a problem for special effects except in the worst-possible cases, i.e., swish-pans on lots of vertical-oriented material with a long lens. Also really bad vibrations can cause the skew to become visible as well (since you're basically jittering the camera back and forth quite a bit from it's center of gravity, causing a lot of angular momentum in the frame).

Roadrunner Records, the record label, has posted both Quicktime and Windows versions of "Here I Stand" on Madina Lake's video page. Please follow the link below for viewing.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/artists/MadinaLake/video.aspx

There have been complications with getting a hi-res version of the video to post on our website. We'll keep you posted as this develops.

We also worked on a video for the Dresden Dolls with our SI-2K Mini, "Shores of California". It was shot exclusively with the Mini on Venice Beach, here in Los Angeles, and provides a great contrast against the Madina Lake video. Please enjoy and let us know if you have any questions about either video!

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/artists/DresdenDolls/video.aspx


- Heather Hays
Oasis Production Services

Thanks for posting those. I really like the look of the Madina Lake video.
Nice work.

Thank you for the reply, Jason.
I wouldn't notice it either if I wasn't looking for it. I'm considering buying one of the SI-2K in the future so it's always good for me to know what it can or can't do.
The color grading looks very cool in those videos. It shows that there's very much you can do with the high dynamic range and 10-bit color depth of the raw output.