24p Mini DV on the way!

[Nathan Gifford]

If you get TechTV they had an interesting take on all this. The future state of Holloywood will be to get away from film altogether and send the product by satellite to your neighborhood theatre (or theater).

I think that may take a while as Hollywood would have to invest *heavily* in new state-of-the-art hardware. Such high end cams are extremely expensive, though it drops the cost of production dramatically.

So I guess the real question is, is the new Panasonic offering harbinger of change from 30 fps to 24?

Nathan Gifford

[Bill Ravens]

TA-DAAAAAA!!

[Adam Lawrence]

I would be interested in the 24p camera by panosonic, ill be at NAB 2002 and
be looking into buying one there if i am impressed with the image quality.

I agree that lighting is key for shooting good video or film.

I am doing some experiments using the XL1 with lighting and achived
very good quality video shooting frame mode and convertingto 24frames
rather than 30 in post. Im using frame mode and get a image almost
identical to film. its all in the lighting.

but its also the un video like mood you get to achive a serious feel to your
story....

check out this link:

www.shincthemovie.com

check out the trailer....
this is a good example of really good lighting and staging.....but
it still looks like video for some reason...like they didnt shoot in frame mode
using the XL1....(this was shot with an XL1)

I can show examples of my experiments if anyone is interested in seeing the
film quality i achieved with DV.

[Joe Redifer]

Hey _redone_ I'm not sure I can read whatever foreign language that site is in (Italian?) so I can't find anything to download.

But I am interested in the technique that you use to convert 30fps Frame Mode into 24fps material. How do you do it? I would like to play with this method.

[Adam Lawrence]

umm im not sure what site your looking at
thus i dont think i posted a URL.

but yeah ill post some samples on my server....

basically i shoot my footage in frame mode 30p
and take i tinto after effects for color correction and
some cinelook.....

then i change the after effect settings to play at 24p frame rate.

then i render the scene...
when you output make sure the timeline is set back to 30fps
or is already set...

the reason for this is i found i get a real sharp motion with 30fps
output..so i tried 24p and it looks more...realistic maybe..

anyway ill have some samples at

www.agentorangeclothing.com/sample1.jpg
www.agentorangeclothing.com/sample2.jpg


this will show the difference between before and after..
before post and after post..

thanks..

[Rob Lohman]

The trailer is @
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/produccion/SHInc.%20trailer%20v1.0.avi

Extra movies of the making of:
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/postproduccion/f1shinc2.avi
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/mkof/mkof008.avi
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/mkof/mkof009.avi
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/mkof/mkof010.avi
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/mkof/mkof016.avi
http://shincthemovie.quepunto.net/images/mkof/mkof017.avi

easy to find Joe, even if you do not understand the language!

i agree we should wait and see on this one...but just a few things to remember. someone said up above there have been issues with panasonic cameras....the only things that negatives on the mx 3000 is the the low lighting lux (very bad) and like the gl 1, trv 900, it has a 1/4 chip. other than that, it's the first 3 ccd that has truely trivaled the canons color's and feel.

but with this new cam, it's 1/3, and has low lighting specs to match the sony's. also, the only feature to be a real plus for the pd- 150 is the xlr/phantom power, witch this one will have. i'm a former sound studio dude, so i know how to appreciate the true xlr, not going through an 1/8th of an inch adapter like on the xl1.

what i've wanted is a ultra compact 1/3 chip because i'm about to do ALOT of traveling, and carrying the xl 1 in my prota brace bag has gotten very old...not meant for solo adventures airport after airport, especially if your alone. i was waiting to see if the gl 1 was going to up grade, but this panasonic sounds like the solution, even without the 24p.

i can't wait...

[Adam Lawrence]

ahh

joe-

didnt know you were looking for schinc site...thought you meant
something else..but the guy up top posted some links.

if anyone wants to check out alot of big films made with DV
go to

http://www.nextwavefilms.com/ulbp/bullfront.html

I wish there was a way to get a hold of some of these
since some of them are independent.
but some of their sites have trailers and such..

about steve soderburg in chris' email...yes, content is king, but the image quality (i'm a major film buff, and just shot a feature on 16mm) is very important, at least for a lot of folks...the feel of it all can take us to another platue...imagine the Godfather films on mini dv. still a great story, but half of it was the beautiful film look they produced...i'm not saying the 24p will take care of all that, but it's a pretty decent step in that direction.

and for those who say the video look will always suck, i suggest you look at the dream sequences in Dancer In the Dark...true, he replaced the lense of the pd 100's with custom made lenses for each (and he used 100 cameras...check out the link:)

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2000-09-01/screens_set4.html

[Charles Papert]

Here's some new info on the Panasonic 24p MiniDV camera...not too shabby looking!

Looking forward to seeing it at NAB tomorrow, I'm sure Chris and others of us will be posting a "first look" shortly.

[Charles Papert]

Sorry kids, forgot the link...


http://www.panasonic.co.jp/bsd/sales_o/dvworld/html/ag-dvx100.html

http://www.panasonic.co.jp/bsd/sales_o/wallpaper/wall_dvx100.jpg

[Ken Tanaka]

Very interesting. It's a -much- smaller design than I expected. The page's text reads a bit like a design wish list rather than a production spec. I wonder what it will sell for and when it will be available. I suppose those questions will be answered after the Vegas show.

Thanks very much for sharing this, Charles!

[Justin Chin]

I read through as much of the posts I could stomach. Most of these points are brought up time and time again. Some very good discussion but I think one thing is missing in this thread.

24p isn't the only (and not the most effective) way to make some "look" like film. And in fact it's the last thing I would want the camera development world to focus on. The most glaring difference between the look of film and video is the way video and film treat depth of field.

Video looks like video because of the fairly small chips that receive the image. Because of that video has a much wider depth of field. Very thing is turns out crisp and sharp (in film world lingo "high contrast). 35mm film has a shallower depth of field. The great advantage of that is that it softens the background (or foreground) while keeping your desired subject in focus and separated from the "noise" of the background or foreground elements.

(of course there are tricks around this, but these are all tricks and don't always work in every circumstance and are still just tricks)

So the best thing that camera makers can do is to work on developing larger chip blocks (like in digital still cameras) that can spit out the frame rate and put on a tape or HD medium. I'd rather see a high frame rate like 60p. It's mesmerizing looking at HD on a large screen.

If you want to see the difference take a look at this site and this adapter:

www.mini35.com

Check out the examples.

I just bought one of these (they are very expensive more than the xl1 rig itself) and the image just blows any video camera out of the water. It's amazing.

Some people don't notice the difference, I do. I like the things I want in focus to be in focus and the less important things softer and out of focus. I want to be able to play with the depth of field in 3 dimensions and create a beautiful image. Not just capture crisp high contrast relativity.

This is what makes many great photographs so artistic - the painterly softness of the different subjects in the frame.

Okay, now you can flame away.

[Charles Papert]

Justin:

This whole debate has come into my sights again very recently as I am prepping a feature which was originally slated for Super 16 and has now moved to some sort of digital for eventual output to 35mm.

I've met with some of the houses that do the film-out and screened their demos of formats ranging from DV to HD. Certainly one of the factors that I am taking note of is the depth-of-field characteristic, and how it affects the footage. There is no question that it is a powerful tool in the 35mm world that is largely absent in DV and only partially available in the 2/3" formats. Often the decision is made on digital to use a telephoto focal length in an attempt to achieve shallow focus; to me that is a significant decision and should not be made lightly. Often telephoto has a way of distancing us from the action at hand, making us feel outside the dynamic. If that is a desirable aesthetic, then it's all good--but sometimes it may not be, and there's no way to throw the background out on a 1/3" chip at a medium to wide angle. The Mini 35 is an interesting solution and I look forward to seeing its second generation at NAB.



Now, that said, I am going to throw my two cents on this incredibly subjective issue. I feel that frame rate has a much more significant effect on the viewer in cueing a narrative "film-esque" response than depth of field. I would submit "Citizen Kane" as an example of extreme depth in an unquestionably cinematic piece of work. Gregg Tolland labored with split diopters and minimum apertures to achieve an extensive depth of field that is available to every XL1 owner just by turning on the camera. Would those same shots feel as cinematic if they were shot on DV (with a standard lens) vs 35? I'm voting no on that one. Would a 24 fps motion characteristic close the gap? For me, yes. As another related argument, 16mm and HD have roughly similarly depth of field characteristics, and I feel there is still a world of difference between them.

I see the arguments on this issue falling essentially into two camps: old school and new school. I have not yet heard anyone who shoots and works with film consider 24p to be less desirable than 60i, and I have seen a majority of those who work in the digital and computer worlds decry it as unnecessary and a step backwards.

The real question is what will the public respond to, and can they tell the difference. Years of watching movies shot on film vs the evening news and reality programming shot on video have conditioned the viewers into responding differently to the mediums--and my conviction is that it is largely the frame rate that separates the two (even if the video footage is nicely lit and composed). If that dynamic changes in the future, and I have a strong hunch that future generations will embrace a higher frame rate without prejudice, I can generously imagine 24 fps media eventually being considered hopelessly old-fashioned and jerky.

Justin, I admit I have not seen 60i HD projected yet, only 24p HD transferred to 35mm. I'm actually not exceptionally fond of some of the motion artifacts that 24p delivers, it doesn't quite resemble footage that originated on 35mm negative in that regard, and its hard to say why. I do however have issues with the clarity of HD when it comes to storytelling; it's a serious challenge on a makeup level and extra pains must be taken to make actors look as good as we are used to seeing them (video has never been as flattering to skintones as film, and HD brings new meaning to the phrase "warts and all"!) For nature films and travelogues, the kind of the things that Imax has succeeded at, I can see great use for projected 60i HD--the sense of immediacy can only inform that sort of product. For transporting the audience away from reality, for now I'm convinced it requires a lesser frame rate.

Sorry, my two cents seems to have grown into at least a buck fifty...!

[Charles Papert]

Sorry, was about to edit one little bit of that and hit the post button too early...

When I suggested that a 24 frame rate would "close the gap" between footage from Citizen Kane shot on 35mm vs DV, I meant to say it would begin to close the gap, not succeed in doing it all the way. DV ain't 35mm, no way no how!