1st 1:45 of new feature using HD100's popular settings

Matthew McKane · October 25th, 2006, 01:15 AM

Haha right on man.

George David · October 25th, 2006, 04:58 PM

Ron, thank you very much. As of right now, I color corrected that footage to make it a little better.

Drew, I have to say I'm very ignorant and even anti-35mm adapters until I saw a shot a few minutes ago from a Letus35 device. I was absolutely floored. That's the kind of look I want for my films. HD is beautiful but it's very clean. I like a little grain and shallow DOF. I'm sold on the 35mm adapters as of today.

Alan Larsen · October 25th, 2006, 10:20 PM

well done george, very effective editing and I love the shot with the candle and the title that comes up. The sound effects gave it a realism. I was wondering what your detail level set at. I've been experimenting with many levels and am going to start shooting a WW2 short soon so I am always curious about what people are using. Good job

George David · October 26th, 2006, 10:55 AM

Thanks Alan - that's nice of you. I keep the detail level between -7 and -5. For wide landscape shots, I like to go -3 but I don't think I did that with the shots here. Barlow Elton (DVinfo member and XLH1 expert) and I shot a landscape shot a while back with -3 detail level connected via component to his Kona card and I think that was the best performance I've seen my HD100 has done.

Maat Vansloot · October 27th, 2006, 09:32 PM

I think your trailer looks great! I have a question for anybody and everybody about using diffrent scene files while shooting. Is it better to plan out how you want your shots to look in preproduction and then set your camera setting differently for each differentl "look" you want?

Or would it be a better strategy to use something like Paolo's TruColor for everthing and then do your coloring (and effects-- contrast, wash out, monochrome, etc.) in post?

If you were working on a low to not-quite-as-low budget feature shot on film, would you have that much opportunity to use many kinds of film stock/neg processing variables? Wouldn't such a project be shot with one or maybe two types of film stock (because you couldn't afford to leave around all those short ends) and all the processing done generically by some huge lab like DuArt or whomever?

In other words-- my plan has always been to shoot everything with basically the same film settings. Sure, I'll make shutter, ND, iris, white balance, gain and perhaps different frame/resolution changes (for slo-mo, etc), but I actually thought it would be best to keep the camera settings pretty consistant throughout.

Is it really better to be fussing about with your Red Rotation, Gamma setting, and White Paint (for examples) between almost every shot?

What happens if in post-production you need to use that one scene-- the one shot with that treasured, bizarre, camera scene file-- in a totally different context because the script/story massively changed after production wrapped?

George David · October 28th, 2006, 12:05 AM

Maat, you have very valid points there. IMHO, I think it's always better to shoot as clean as posssible and tweak in post. Part of my thinking and habit are coming from the DV world that it's better to film using in-camera settings to get the best quality possible. But we've seen from so many films that HDV is quite robust with color correction.

With my project, I have the luxury to experiment with the scene files because of how the script is structured. The whole movie and it's "look" are already somewhat edited in my head.

However, I make a little change in the storyline and that whole plan blows up.

October 25th, 2006, 01:15 AM	#16
Matthew McKane New Boot Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Orange County, CA Posts: 16	Haha right on man.

October 25th, 2006, 04:58 PM	#17
George David Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Utah Posts: 150	Ron, thank you very much. As of right now, I color corrected that footage to make it a little better. Drew, I have to say I'm very ignorant and even anti-35mm adapters until I saw a shot a few minutes ago from a Letus35 device. I was absolutely floored. That's the kind of look I want for my films. HD is beautiful but it's very clean. I like a little grain and shallow DOF. I'm sold on the 35mm adapters as of today.

October 25th, 2006, 10:20 PM	#18
Alan Larsen Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Upland Posts: 28	well done george, very effective editing and I love the shot with the candle and the title that comes up. The sound effects gave it a realism. I was wondering what your detail level set at. I've been experimenting with many levels and am going to start shooting a WW2 short soon so I am always curious about what people are using. Good job

October 26th, 2006, 10:55 AM	#19
George David Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Utah Posts: 150	Thanks Alan - that's nice of you. I keep the detail level between -7 and -5. For wide landscape shots, I like to go -3 but I don't think I did that with the shots here. Barlow Elton (DVinfo member and XLH1 expert) and I shot a landscape shot a while back with -3 detail level connected via component to his Kona card and I think that was the best performance I've seen my HD100 has done.

October 27th, 2006, 09:32 PM	#20
Maat Vansloot Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: San Francisco, USA Posts: 52	I think your trailer looks great! I have a question for anybody and everybody about using diffrent scene files while shooting. Is it better to plan out how you want your shots to look in preproduction and then set your camera setting differently for each differentl "look" you want? Or would it be a better strategy to use something like Paolo's TruColor for everthing and then do your coloring (and effects-- contrast, wash out, monochrome, etc.) in post? If you were working on a low to not-quite-as-low budget feature shot on film, would you have that much opportunity to use many kinds of film stock/neg processing variables? Wouldn't such a project be shot with one or maybe two types of film stock (because you couldn't afford to leave around all those short ends) and all the processing done generically by some huge lab like DuArt or whomever? In other words-- my plan has always been to shoot everything with basically the same film settings. Sure, I'll make shutter, ND, iris, white balance, gain and perhaps different frame/resolution changes (for slo-mo, etc), but I actually thought it would be best to keep the camera settings pretty consistant throughout. Is it really better to be fussing about with your Red Rotation, Gamma setting, and White Paint (for examples) between almost every shot? What happens if in post-production you need to use that one scene-- the one shot with that treasured, bizarre, camera scene file-- in a totally different context because the script/story massively changed after production wrapped?

October 28th, 2006, 12:05 AM	#21
George David Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Utah Posts: 150	Maat, you have very valid points there. IMHO, I think it's always better to shoot as clean as posssible and tweak in post. Part of my thinking and habit are coming from the DV world that it's better to film using in-camera settings to get the best quality possible. But we've seen from so many films that HDV is quite robust with color correction. With my project, I have the luxury to experiment with the scene files because of how the script is structured. The whole movie and it's "look" are already somewhat edited in my head. However, I make a little change in the storyline and that whole plan blows up.