APRIL 29 - PLUGGING AWAY
Okay.... not much to report these last few days....
Worked on video fixes at Mag North. The Panasonic DVX100A, the camera we used, had some issues. Overall, the image was great but I had various concerns during production and in post, we have come across a few major problems.
Is it the camera, the tapes or something else..... I don't know.
As for production, we wanted to shoot with an aspect ratio of 16x9. Y'know, very close to what you see most of the time at the cinema or for instance "West Wing". But with most cameras out there, they shoot 4x3, TV aspect ratio. They have 16x9 settings, but for the most part, all they do is MASK out the space outside of the 16x9. So you are still recording those black bars and using up space on the tape to store the information for the black letter box. That sucks. So we had planned on shooting 'anamorphic'. A special lens adapter that stretches the 16x9 image to 4x3, thereby using the entire space on the tape for each frame for the 16x9 image. Did that make sense? If not ask me a question.
Well the problem we then came across was the wide angle. Since we were shooting within my 120 year old house, getting far away from the subject to get a wide shot was very difficult as we were limited by the walls. I know, if I was committed to the project, I would have moved the walls in my house. So to compensate, we wanted to use a wide angle adapter that would give us wider shots than the standard lens. Now here comes the stupid part. The wide adapter and the anamorphic are not compatible, meaning they don't fit together. So we had to chose one or the other.
After much debate with the DP Kiarash Sadigh and the producers, we went with the wide angle. Bummer. But I think we made the right choice. I've included a picture of his DOP-ness Kiarash and I with the camera. I look like a deer stunned by the headlights.... go ahead mock me....
The other crazy thing was, the monitor and onboard screen for the DVX100, does NOT show the entire image being captured. Not a huge problem, but c'mon, show the entire frame.
During post though, we noticed a collection of digital hits, or dropouts on the tapes. When played on other decks, the tapes play less reliably than when played back from the camera they have been recorded on. I digitized into Final Cut Pro from a DVCAM deck and regretted NOT digitizing from the camera. So long story short, after trying more than 5 different decks to correct some of these digital hits and dropouts, we decided to redig problem shots from the camera. That got rid of MOST of the issues. Lesson learned.
Of course it could have been 'dirty heads', but we cleaned the heads regularly. I don't have an answer.
Okay... boring blog today for the most part.... except for the techies. But that is one aspect of what I have been dealing with this past week. Fixing frames at a time, getting rid of 'digital problems'. C'est la vie.
On the PLUS side... this week my house is getting painted..... I'm high on fumes but it's looking good. YIPPEE.
Worked on video fixes at Mag North. The Panasonic DVX100A, the camera we used, had some issues. Overall, the image was great but I had various concerns during production and in post, we have come across a few major problems.
Is it the camera, the tapes or something else..... I don't know.As for production, we wanted to shoot with an aspect ratio of 16x9. Y'know, very close to what you see most of the time at the cinema or for instance "West Wing". But with most cameras out there, they shoot 4x3, TV aspect ratio. They have 16x9 settings, but for the most part, all they do is MASK out the space outside of the 16x9. So you are still recording those black bars and using up space on the tape to store the information for the black letter box. That sucks. So we had planned on shooting 'anamorphic'. A special lens adapter that stretches the 16x9 image to 4x3, thereby using the entire space on the tape for each frame for the 16x9 image. Did that make sense? If not ask me a question.
Well the problem we then came across was the wide angle. Since we were shooting within my 120 year old house, getting far away from the subject to get a wide shot was very difficult as we were limited by the walls. I know, if I was committed to the project, I would have moved the walls in my house. So to compensate, we wanted to use a wide angle adapter that would give us wider shots than the standard lens. Now here comes the stupid part. The wide adapter and the anamorphic are not compatible, meaning they don't fit together. So we had to chose one or the other.
After much debate with the DP Kiarash Sadigh and the producers, we went with the wide angle. Bummer. But I think we made the right choice. I've included a picture of his DOP-ness Kiarash and I with the camera. I look like a deer stunned by the headlights.... go ahead mock me....The other crazy thing was, the monitor and onboard screen for the DVX100, does NOT show the entire image being captured. Not a huge problem, but c'mon, show the entire frame.
During post though, we noticed a collection of digital hits, or dropouts on the tapes. When played on other decks, the tapes play less reliably than when played back from the camera they have been recorded on. I digitized into Final Cut Pro from a DVCAM deck and regretted NOT digitizing from the camera. So long story short, after trying more than 5 different decks to correct some of these digital hits and dropouts, we decided to redig problem shots from the camera. That got rid of MOST of the issues. Lesson learned.
Of course it could have been 'dirty heads', but we cleaned the heads regularly. I don't have an answer.
Okay... boring blog today for the most part.... except for the techies. But that is one aspect of what I have been dealing with this past week. Fixing frames at a time, getting rid of 'digital problems'. C'est la vie.
On the PLUS side... this week my house is getting painted..... I'm high on fumes but it's looking good. YIPPEE.
posted by Brett Sullivan at 2:37 PM
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