Commercials shot with XL2

[Raymond Schlogel]

Kevin, not to badger ya but does that mean that aside from 24p all the onboard settings were at default ? ( Knee, Black Stretch, Color Matrix, Color Gain, Coring , Setup Level, Master Pedestal etc etc )

- Ray

[Yi Fong Yu]

PS i'm really glad to see more asian-americans (if you're in US) working on a/v stuff. it's been 2long! we need moar!

[Kevin C. W. Wong]

Hey man, no worries, yeah aside from the 24p, everything is default. It is only a choice made so that the post process can be controlled easier. Since that was the first time I used the camera, I wanted to see what the 'factory' setting offered. In the future I think I'll definitely play around more with the cine features. What do you think of the features though? Any tips to share?

Kevin,

[Kevin C. W. Wong]

Hey,

Thanks. I am currently working in Canada. I think there are a lot of great asian-canadian/american filmmakers around too, we're definitely out there, I just hope that Asian parents encourage their kids a bit more into the arts since it is still a trend to go into law, medicine, computers... you know what I mean. Something I do like about film nowadays is that it really getting more tightknitt as a global community. Forums are great this way.

Anyway, tell me a bit more about yourself and what you do in Boston. Thanks.

Kevin,

[Yi Fong Yu]

just a hack... =D. and yeah i'm one of those "going into computers" types but have a very "bad" tendency towards moviemaking. there's always been a stigma but we'll see what happens.

[Brian Sveum]

Wow. I think those look great. I have been hunting for something done "right" as far as production value with this camera. Did you use plugin color correctors or just manual? Did you have to do much contrast adjustment in post?

I'm still torn on what camera to get, but I keep leaning toward the XL2.

Thanks.

[Dave Perry]

Hi Kevin,

Nice stuff.

What are you used to working with? Film, DV, Beta? I'm rather inexperienced and have only shot DV with my Optura Xi. The company I work for is strictly Beta SP and my boss is going to rent an XL2 for a shoot next week and I was wondering what he will think being a die hard Beta SP guy.

[Alain Aguilar]

I like the low like effects on both shots. Now my question is, was this low light effect? :)...What was the lense exposure (Fstop) and what was the total light output hitting the lense? I always use a light metter to get a 5.6 Fs from all the light sources turned on at the same time (with the XL1).

Thanks

[Kevin C. W. Wong]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your kind words on the work. Regarding the colouring of the spots, we did everything 'stock' on the camera and then played with it a bit in post via Combustion.

To my pleasant surprise, the colours and contrast came out extremely acurate from the camera so colouring actually wasn't as involved as some of the projects I've shot with other cameras including the DVX100 and the JVD HD10u.

The XL2 is a very impressive camera in terms of everything being really solid and well thought out. I especially liked the added controls over focus and zoom presets, it made maintaining focus and setting up shots very simple.

Thanks again and I hope this helps in your descision process.

Kevin,


<Wow. I think those look great. I have been hunting for something done "right" as far as production value with this camera. Did you use plugin color correctors or just manual? Did you have to do much contrast adjustment in post?

I'm still torn on what camera to get, but I keep leaning toward the XL2.

Thanks.>

[Kevin C. W. Wong]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the compliments.

I have shot with all kinds of media. Film by far is still the holygrail of course since lattitude and depth of field is still incomparable to video of any kind.

In terms of BETA SP, I've done quite a bit with that, mostly documentaries though. It is a very nice medium still I think if the editing facilities are still all in BETA SP. However the one major difference between that and newer cameras like XL2 is the progressive scan function. Being able to shoot 24p or even 30p does add a lot if you are doing anything that requires a 'filmic' look.

Since I always find that good lighting is universal for all formats, and camera size and weight really isn't an issue if you are dealing with a good crew, it really does come down to the characteristics of the camera with framerate and resolution.

I think that if your boss started adopting to progressive/widescreen stuff, he would for sure like the XL2 since it does give a lot of nice options in that side of things.

Thanks again.

Kevin,

[Kevin C. W. Wong]

Hey Alain,

The location we were shooting in had A LOT of white walls. It was pretty hard to bring in big lights even if we wanted to so we shot in an around T4.0 with the meter rated at 250ISO.

I am quite pleased with how the camera handled the shadow areas actually, compared to the DVX100, I didn't see as much 'shadow noise' dancing around in dark areas.

When you do your metering, what ISO do you use?

Thanks,

Kevin,

[Alain Aguilar]

My guess would be to stick with iso 250 which appears to work pretty well in your case. I usually set my Minolta digital meter to iso 400. It seems that this settings matches my monitor. These meters are made to work with film setups so it's a little hard to get them to work perfectly with video.


Greetings

[Obin Olson]

OMG now that is a great spot! BOTH of them!!!! OMG awesome