Steve,

Thanks for sharing...fun stuff.

As strange as it sounds......I was looking for a bigger crowd..with a noisy background etc. that would give a person a feeling that this was a big, noisy nightclub. My guess is that a big, noisy, nightclub would not be easy to re-recreate.

Besides that, the angle of the shots, the sound, the dialogue and the action would give this viewer an impression that this was a multi-camera shot done by a more pro group.

Thanks for letting this rookie comment.

Take care.

hahaha... I just watched it again. Funny stuff.

HEY! A Northern Shorts film
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdk17rIeLFs

This is the first official item I shot with my A1. As with all projects there are things that one wishes turned out differently, but I am happy with the attempt.

The video quality is mediocre on Youtube compared to the original but it is not too bad.

Hope you guys and gals enjoy.

2 minutes, 12 seconds.

Jay

"Hey"

Pretty funny. I liked it. I also like that you get your camera and your out there in a hallway shooting a funny idea.
That's the way to do it.

Thanks Sean,

I wasn't sure if it was well recieved by those who have watched it from this post.

I hope to punch out more shorts in the future and improve each time. This one took about an hour to shoot.

Glad you liked it Sean.

Jay

two new video with canon A1
 

I try to play the first video with my camera Canon A1, preset 18, using my cat "lusi" as actor and then I went to the mountain (Bardonecchia -Italy) to try outdoor.
Now you could see them...here:

http://vimeo.com/367533

and other:


http://vimeo.com/360714

The First one: What kinda tripod are you using? it looks like its some sort of bolt action and it keeps sticking. Id suggest a new fluid tripod. Than maybe do some zooms while your panning. Great look and soundtrack though =)

The Second One: Maybe its my computer? but its really badly dropping frames. But i am on a Power Mac. BUt could be me. Nice shots.

Soft City Lights XH-A1 Web Project
 

Hey folks,

I've started a website at www.softcitylights.com that is basically mini-documentaries featuring Cincinnati based artists and musicians. I've put the first one online including a download in 720p. Check it out if you can and I'd love any feedback you might have. All shot with the XH-A1.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi Loren, in the first movie I used a Manfrotto 503hdv tripod, but I used it more fast and with no fluid moviments.
Thank you for your other comments.

walk-on style website & videos shot with my A1
 

I created this website for my buddy and shot four short video segments to overlay on four of the pages. http://www.inspectionadvantage.com/

I made a bracket to turn the cam 90 degrees, then shot him full-length on my greescreen in 30F. Footage was keyed with Keylight in After Effects, then I cleaned up the audio and made the alpha FLVs with Premiere Pro CS3. Flash was used to create the skin and set the FLVs to progressive download.

I coded everything by hand, but am really just a hack at HTML and CSS. I don't typically do websites except my own domains, but wanted to try out this "walk-on" style technique.

I'm finding that A1 footage keys very well and will offer this "walk-on" website service to my clients. The hardest part of the process is getting a good long take, since any editing at all would spoil the illusion. I don't have a prompter, but might have to invest in one if these videos prove successful.

Cheers,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions
Longmont, CO USA

I am currently working on a tutorial for this effect for fun. Have you considered having the person walking across the content. Most of the time when I talk to non film people they are more impressed with the video when the person is actually on top of content and then walks off. The key looks really good by the way :) The only add I can think of would be to use a shotgun mic to get rid of the lav mic to keep the clean look you have.

Hey Josh, thanks for the reply. I really think I'd need a cyc greenscreen to do someone walking. Just the static full-body shoot takes my whole 10'x20' muslin screen. Having to keep the talent a good 5' away from the screen (to avoid shadows) eats up most of the screen.

Have you seen any good tips (or sites) that deal with actual walking chroma keys? The "walk-on" vids I've seen lately by Rovion, etc. just pop-up, similar to mine. Some aren't even full-body.

If I get a bigger boom, I could sure hang my Rode hyper right down near the talent's head. That's a great idea.

Cheers,
Brian

I would love a tutorial on this. Anybody have one or know where I can find one?

Hopefully I will post one in the next week :p One thing to keep in mind is that you only need the area around the tallent to still be on the green screen. You can do a garbage mat around the non green screen bits to get rid of it. I did a very quick and dirty test yesterday using Ultra for the first time. Just filmed and keyed with a rinkled green screen. Will try and do a full body walk on with my 10'*15' screen next.

For fun you can check out the first time I tried to do a green screen with a bedsheet and some home depot lights and a GL2

http://www.simplethoughtproductions....een-chromakey/

Short movie "Refuse" (2007) with Canon A1
 

This is my new short movie for test, it is called "Refuse".
I used 1080/25f , shutter 1/50, gain 0, preset n.18 (Panalook).
I recorded it in Turin town - Italy
Please, tell me all indications and toughts about it, thank you.

you could see iy here:

http://www.vimeo.com/460153

I don't get it, but that's probably because I don't understand what she said at the very end. lol. What did she say?

I get it, the tv only shows garbage. One big comment would be to not touch the zoom. Find your shot, hit record and then don't even think about zooming. Feels too cheesy.

Ok, Jerrod she said:"but it is (TV), that is stinking so bad!".
So the Steve's idea is true; thank you Steve for your comment; I'll try in the future.
Bye bye Luca Ghione

this is great, can we see next episode?

A Winter Day - nature captured with XH-A1
 

Hi all,

I have my XH-A1 for some time now but haven't had the time to shoot some more serious footage. Last week I finally took some time and shot some nature images in my backyard.

I used the CP17 preset in available light. It was shot at 4 pm-ish what resulted in some nice magic hour sunlight in some of the shots.
No adapter was used and no color correction.
I used an old photo tripod (waiting for a new one to arrive) which wasn't stable enough for some shots.

I rendered out 2 versions.
720p (38MB): http://www.binaryconcepts.nl/xha1/a_winter_day-720p.wmv

480p (15 MB): http://www.binaryconcepts.nl/xha1/a_winter_day-480p.wmv

I would appreciate your comments.

Regards, Andre.

Pretty nice. I would recommend trying to lock down your tripod more for when you do a rack focus, ore make use of the button on the side of the camera where it will do a rack focus at the touch of a button, either method still requires a locked down camera to prevent the shake that I saw. Overall very nice and relaxing. I would have preferred more shots with the sun on the leaves that created interesting shadows and really showed the frost melting. Good work :)

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the remarks.
Yes, as I don't have a follow focus unit yet, the rack focus was done manually and that shook the tripod. I had some more footage with rack focus action but those had really bad shake (it was cold and my hands started shaking...) so I had to leave them out.

In my next short I will definitely pay more attention to that.

Sounds good. I will be waiting for em.

"Dayvan Cowboy" by Boards of Canada. Shot at Castle Point, New Zealand - Canon XH-A1
 

Hey everyone. I'm really new to posting to The Digital Video Information Network forum. Please forgive me if I make a mistake :p

Just want to post a link to this site to show you my recent 'experimental music video', as taken with the Canon XH-A1. Backing music is by Boards of Canada - using "Dayvan Cowboy".

My aim in creating this short clip was to experiment with the zoom pre-sets, panning on the tripod, manual exposure control with f.stops, sticking to 1/50th shutter, and the CineGamma 2 setting. It was also a test to see how well my computer and Adobe Prem Pro 2 would with with HD footage.

I hope you like! I still only have under a month of experience with this camera under my belt, so I'd really like your own feedback, tips, comments. Yeah... Thanks very much :D

- Andrew

Vimeo link: http://www.vimeo.com/468432

(When playing this Vimeo video, hit (Full Screen) in the bottom right of the picture - this will play the video in High-Def. Alternatively, you may download the 147MB, 4min clip by clicking the link at the bottom right of the Vimeo page. HD video will download as high quality, 1280x720p MP4 video)

What a beautiful place! Just a personal preference, but the jerkyness of the pans and zooms were a little distracting for me in a place that seemed so peaceful, calm and idylic. Colors and sharpness of the picture were very nice.

Sweet, point taken.
Thank-you!

Just wanting to check, jerkyness as in the time-laspe sections inbetween the smooth pans/zooms? I understand that - yup.
I need to invest in a proper fluid-head tripod otherwise, for the general, real-time panning sections.

Thanks again Jim.

Andrew,

Nice job. I left some comments on you vimeo channel. I agree with Jim on the smoother pans but the handheld shots also helped give it an edgy look. Maybe a combo of both.

RC car shoot, First Cuts
 

My brother is associated with a company that makes high performance radio controlled vehicles and we did a shoot together to show some rough bashing of his products. these are the first cuts put together, I've still got a long way to go with it, working on graphic titles and different transitions, also some of the shots in the video will not be used in the final. let me know what you think of it so far.

thanks!

http://www.vimeo.com/474972

It is not easy to film fast RC Cars. But if they are standing on place - use a tripod to film it. Unstable pictures never looks good.
Always try to go low with the camera and let the car comin into picture - not get out. Try to show really performance - not only flying and damages.
Look at my old "just for fun" video.
www.arkdelfina.neostrada.pl/emaxx.wmv

yeah i know what you mean. i used a tripod for a lot of the shots but unfortunately it was tripod meant for still cameras. so that made it quite difficult.

and i showed a lot of the speed shots and the damage because it's for my brothers company to see the limits of the cars and what they can/can't handle.

thanks for the comments.

Funeral...
 

My wife's 98-year-old grandmother died last week, and the funeral was Saturday. Because my father-in-law is ill, I took my A-1 so he could see his mother's ceremony by video.

No, this wasn't any cinematic triumph by any means -- I had just gotten the camera back from servicing by Canon and they default all the settings and I was so rushed I didn't set it up right, it's noisy, dark, blah blah blah.

BUT -- my two daughters learned their great-grandma's favorite song the night before the funeral and sang it, and I like watching them so much, I figured I might treat you guys to it, too:

http://www.mostlymagic.tv/as_time_goes_by.mov

(Pardon the forgotten lyrics of one of my girls, they had never heard of this song...!)

After the funeral, the guy from the mortuary asked me for my card and if I was available for other funerals. No, I don't do funerals for anyone other than a relative, but it made me think there must be a business in there for someone.

great lyrics and comp

How did you manage audio?

There was a mic, a PA system there, and I used a radio mic attachment to tap into their sound unit, via the headphones out, so sound came in pretty well.

woxy.com presents Jukebox The Ghost
 

Just got a second video up that can be viewed here:

http://www.vimeo.com/607291/

Was shot in the lounge of woxy.com on January 10th. It's a bit more straightforward than the first SCL video. Will eventually get the 720p HD and iPod versions on softcitylights.com

As always, would appreciate any feedback.

Working on these little projects is really getting me familiar with XH-A1 and I'm loving it more and more everyday.

Cheers!
Kevin

Wedding Highlights Clip
 

I am very VERY new to this but this was a wedding that we photographed a few days ago. We could not get on the stage at all, not allowed so had to make the best of what we had, and our main job was the photography, they at the last minute wanted some video.

www.kyserphoto.com/Highlights.mov

always open for ideas to make it better.
Denny

Surfing Clips in Rhode Island, 1/10/08
 

a couple clips from surfing a few days ago in RI. my local beach. cold and small but still quite fun. i only got a chance to shoot for about 5 minutes because i was in the water the rest of the time....

http://www.vimeo.com/613390

i hate uploading to video sites.... :-(

You surfed here in RI? Wow I didn`t know it was possible ;) How are you liking your A1? Not many locals use it or have used one.

yeah RI is actually my true home, and a great place to surf if you know where and when to look. I'm just in Boston for school. still on break!

i love the A1, it's really a fantastic camera and i'm learning more and more with it everyday.

by locals, who are you referring to? local film makers?

I dont see a wire or mic, how did you get that audio voices?