more professional look

[windog]

I have a Pd 170, if you adjust the WHITE BALANCE and set the GAIN at 0. you can get a broadcast camera look. not sure about the film look though.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

i wish i had white balance. that would be sooo nice. iguess i could use colored filters for effects, or does color toning work w/o too much quality loss in post?

[windog]

your better doingit in post in case you dont want it, there should be no/ little quality loss.

[BrownCowStudios]

your better doingit in post in case you dont want it, there should be no/ little quality loss.

There is quality loss through any post processing (though minimal). Unless you render out uncompressed every time, you will lose quality compressing each time to DV. Ideally, you could do all post processing in uncompressed, and then for the final export out to tape, render it out in the DV codec.

[bretoncrackers]

using a steadicam and framing your shots will result in one thing. A well framed, very steady movie, but it will still look like a home movie. If you want to achieve the elusive "film look", shoot on film. if you want to come close to it, i have a few suggestions.

- when lighting scenes, use as the least amount of light required for a good shot, it will reduce depth of field (in layman's terms, your background will be blurry, with your subject nice and sharp)

- shoot with your camera a bit further back, with the camera zoomed in somewhat (easier to achieve depth of field look at longer focal lengths)

- if you're shooting pal, dont worry about changing frame rates, 25 fps is close enough, if ur shooting ntsc, put your raw footage into your editor, export at 24 fps, import it again with your timeline at 25 fps or 29.97 (depending on your format) and start editing.

[bretoncrackers]

Something else i have been working on recently is shooting through an slr camera. You'll find a few posts on dvforum.com and such about that sort of thing, but the advantage is that it looks almost EXACTLY like you're shooting on film. Plus, you get to use 35 mm lenses, which allow for rack focusing (where the camera is focused on something in the background and then quickly focuses to something closer to the camera, or vice versa). if you want to try this out, go to www.marlathemovie.com, they have a tutorial on how to build one of these slr boxes. Mine's a bit different from theirs, cuz i shoot parallel to the slr, and i find it works better. If you have ne questions about this sort of device, feel free to msg me, its probably the greatest single thing (software or equipment) that has improved my films.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

hey man that sounds super awesome. its a dead link tho. i'd like some more info.

[UFProductions]

Will the prosess of creating such a device render the SLR useless for regular photography, or is it simply an attachment? That sounds f'ing awesome, I'd love some more info.

[bretoncrackers]

www.marlathemovie.com

that should work. There's a downloadable brochure on how they made theirs. The slr wont exactly be rendered useless, but it would be a pain in the a** to keep attaching it and putting certain parts back on. The thing is, you dont need a working camera, you're using the slr for the lens mount and focusing screen and thats it. You could find a non-working slr on ebay and use that for under 30 dollars (i got mine for 25).

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dof/index5.htm that one there would be easier if you want to always use the camera.. also its smaller, the only thing u need to break is an old cd player (which i have plenty of) and, a lens cap, the lens will be able to be taken on and off easily. i tried it out and it looks great, but it wasnt cropped right becaues i need the macro attachment. (also the cd u use spins so no scratches and dust or anything on the cd will be noticeable.

[bretoncrackers]

the problem with building that one is that the cd has to move, and because it's moving you can never achive perfect focus, it might be near perfect, but never perfect. The cd is the focusing screen, and the frosted side must be a certain focal length from the lens but since it's always moving, the method is flawed. Ive tried it before, and it looks alright, but the aspect of moving parts is what turns me off, too much of a hassle.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

oh i see what you mean. the only problem with the other one is, you cant mount it on a tripod or whatever, unless you make an attachment. also, i have 2 slr's, but neither have a removeable veiwfinder, so i would have to buy a new camera, and also buy a focus screen without any focus marks on it. i'll give it a try some day perhaps.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

ok i found an amazing new technique. it replicates bleach bypass. before you do color corrections and what not, duplicate all your video onto teh track above it. disable the eye to turn off the top layer. work with the bottom layer and do color corrections to meet your needs on the bottom layer. then re-enable the top layer, so it looks like it originally did, then one one clip on the top track, make it black and white, then change the blending mode to "multiply" or in premiere use the multiply key. copy these onto every clip in the top track. then go through and on any low lit clips, turn the opacity down on the top track for that clip, or in premiere turn down the key opacity. there u have a nicely contrasted and toned image. it really helps, even without any color correction to get rid of the cheap video look slightly. i imagine this effect would work great if you have a 3ccd camera, or especially a mini35 slr attachment.

[Clarence]

Sound is an issue with videos also. Almost every consumer camera on the market has a built in feature called AGC, or Automatic Gain Control circuit. This controls the audio levels in the camera so that nothing is too loud or soft. Sounds good, but it isn't.

If you're filming dialouge, and the person who's talking pauses, AGC decides that it's too soft and cranks up the volume so that all you can here is the camera motor and background noise. Then, when the person continues talking, it's WAY too loud, so it turns it back down. So, there is a noticable increase and decrease in audio levels, which is very annoying. Another scenario is if you're filming dialouge and a car passes by. AGC turns the audio way down, so that you can here everything BUT the dialouge.

Manufacturers include this in cameras because it's cheap. It costs them under $1. Manual Audio Level control would require some knobs to tweak it, which would cost more for them. Sadly, there is no way to bypass AGC unless you manually tweak that audio level in post, and it still will sound crappy.

Notable consumer cameras that don't have AGC: Canon Optura Xi, SonyTRV950, Panasonic DV953.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

yea, i'm not going to worry about that because i'm using a laptop now to record all my audio sepreately, but i know what you are talking about. i just have to get my hands on a nice mic, and a usb mic preamp...

[reflexive_cinematics]

ok i found an amazing new technique. it replicates bleach bypass.

it really helps, even without any color correction to get rid of the cheap video look slightly. i imagine this effect would work great if you have a 3ccd camera, or especially a mini35 slr attachment.

Do you have any screen shots of this technique? I'm curious to see what this looks like but am a little confused on the method.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

ok, these screenshots arent great, but i have a crappy camera, i'm sure it would look much nicer if it were from a nice camera. the top picture is the color corrected and bleach bypassed shot, the middle is the only color corrected, and the bottom is the original.

[UFProductions]

That looks real nice. I wouldn't call it a film look, but certainly better than straight out video, it does have a more professional look to it. (Based on the stills.)

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

well yea, but if you wanted the film look, i wolud imagine using this process along with a slr camera attachment, and a nice 3ccd camera, it would be pretty darn close.

[reflexive_cinematics]

yeah, definately... Look good

[windog]

i thought the image stable was not digital? (i have a SONY PD170)

[crossfire]

Im not sure that theres ONE film look, as long as it looks like it wasnt shot on a DV cam then it has a film look, some of the stuff here is just a different look, that does though make it look a lot better, and mroe professional but im not quite sure theyre films looks specifically.

[crossfire]

Im not sure that theres ONE film look, as long as it looks like it wasnt shot on a DV cam then it has a film look, some of the stuff here is just a different look, that does though make it look a lot better, and mroe professional but im not quite sure theyre films looks specifically.

[iCEbLuEORbitZ]

yea, that is true. there is no way to get a true film look unless you get the depth of field, quailty, and true frame rate that film all has. Color correction and other effects just give it a unique, non-home-video look.