Show Your Work 2002

[Chris Ward]

We originally were going to shoot this documentary about a heroic gay LA policewoman in PAL with a Sony dsr-250, however, when we couldn't get the equipment in time we switched to a NTSC Canon XL1S. We just shot for two weeks and got outstanding results. More shooting to come...

[Chris Hurd]

Pleeeeze keep us advised on this, Chris... given your established track record, I can't wait to see how it turns out. If you have any production stills and/or commentary, I'll be happy to give you some pages on the Watchdog, if you want it showcased.

[Chris Hurd]

Transplanted from a different location on the Community. If I did everything right, then all previous threads with their posts are now here intact. The only change is its listing order on the main forum page. Thanks,

[Barbara Lowry]

The Mini 35 Digital adapter (for the XL-1 and XL-1S to accept 35mm film lenses while maintaining all of the lens's characteristics) is being used more and more.

A Budweiser spot is being shot out on the west coast and two shorts were just completed. One of them was shot by Matt Phillips, DP from Ontario who sent an unsolicited testimonial to ZGC today. See what he says (www.zgc.com) about using the Mini 35 Digital adapter with his XL-1 as well as the other equipment/accessories he used to shoot his short film "Dying Like Ophelia."

[Rob Lohman]

I've posted an interesting article (I hope :) in
the other forum Let's Talk About Movies, the
post is titled "el mariachi / desperado (& a bit
on se7en)" and talks about cheap movie making
styles.

Enjoy!

[Don Williamson]

I just finished playing some uncompressed Final Cut Pro movie clips (made with my XL1) I burned on CD on a brand new Apple iMac at the local Apple Store (in Tysons Corner, VA). This is the just announced 800 mhz iMac with the DVD burner and "floating" LCD monitor. I was quite impressed! The iMac played the clips beautifully. The 15" LCD display, equivalent to a 17" crt is one of the best I've seen. It's amazingly bright and sharp. In my opinion it outperformed the 17" Apple LCD display and also the 22" Cinema Display. In fact, It seemed to play my clips as well as the dual 800 PowerMac Tower! You probably could use DVD Studio Pro on this machine, along with Final Cut Pro and a firewire video hard drive. Talk about DV for the masses!!

[Don Williamson]

I just finished playing some uncompressed Final Cut Pro movie clips (made with my XL1) I burned on CD on a brand new Apple iMac at the local Apple Store (in Tysons Corner, VA). This is the just announced 800 mhz iMac with the DVD burner and "floating" LCD monitor. I was quite impressed! The iMac played the clips beautifully. The 15" LCD display, equivalent to a 17" crt is one of the best I've seen. It's amazingly bright and sharp. In my opinion it outperformed the 17" Apple LCD display and also the 22" Cinema Display. In fact, It seemed to play my clips as well as the dual 800 PowerMac Tower! You probably could use DVD Studio Pro on this machine, along with Final Cut Pro and a firewire video hard drive. Talk about DV for the masses!!

[Bill Ravens]

one small point......DV is compressed. About 5:1

[Steve Kim]

FILM SHOT ON A CANON XL-1
From: Corey Flynn - www.film4Him.com
Date: 31 Oct 2001
Time: 01:53:50
Remote Name: 65.115.192.234


Comments
My film "Woman at the Well" was shot completely on a Canon XL-1 ... it's a cool camera and the only thing is that the stock lense is a little bit of a pain to deal with. Of course a better choice for something buying a new camera would be the Canon XL-1S, with a bit more lines of resolution and a better lense for the same price as the XL-1 when they first came out that's what I would go for. If you want to check out the film check out the below link some time after Friday Nov. 2nd and you can watch it on ifilm.com ...

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3699,2405180,00.html

[Don Williamson]

I've been under the impression (misimpression?) that mini dv video in the form of a Final Cut Pro self contained movie is, in fact, uncompressed. When I burn video footage on a CD I can only get 3 minutes of video on a 700 mb CD. When the video is output to mini dv tape, however, it is compressed 5:1. Surely one can't be editing their dv footage in compressed form. Am I missing something here? If it is compressed in FCP self contained movie form, that means uncompressed would give you less than a minute of video on a CD!

[Bill Ravens]

My understanding is that mini-DV is, by definition, compressed 5 to 1. The avi wrapper is a means to decompress the data for display. Anytime data is written to DV format, however it is compressed. I don't beleive there are any desktop systems that are capable of playing truly uncompressed video because the data rates are too high for the hard drive to handle. That's why people spend the big bucks on SCSI RAID devices.

Bill is right about the compression ratio of DV. It originates at 5:1. On a DV based NLE, you have no control over how that 5:1 compressed video is handled. It's at 5:1 going in, and it's at 5:1 coming out. If you digitize the same footage into a non DV-based system (i.e. SDI or analog input), you can control the compression ratio, even take it in "uncompressed." But the final quality will never be any better than the original compressed video. Consider this analog analogy: You shoot something with a consumer VHS camcorder, dub the footage to Beta, and edit in Beta. The final product, even though it's on Beta, will never look any better than the original VHS. The example may be a bit extreme and oversimplified, but that's roughly how it works. DV format compression is perfectly fine, though and it is "broadcast quality," even though it compressed. I hope this helps.

Bill S.

[Mike Butler]

I love stories about hpw XL1's save the day. Sort of ratifies what I have been nagging about all along. Dump your Betacams, boys and girls, we are gonna free the world!

[Michael Dontigney]

I'm confused... What does her sexual orientation have to do with anything? If she wasn't gay she wouldn't have been heroic? Do gay people have a harder time doing something heroic, and if so.. why?

[Adrian Douglas]

This is a forum about Dv, lets keep the politics out of it ay? What does it matter the why's or what for's of a project, it just matters that it's being shot in DV and more importantly an XL1. Chris is a guy who's experience we can all benefit from so lets keep the question to DV issues.