ProLost has posted a video tutorial on making wire pull blood squibs indie-style. Simple, cheap, and very effective. There is also a thread on the Rebel’s Guide forum with a detailed realistic blood recipe.

As some of you may know, the FreshDV team gathered in Chicago this last week to put some filmmaking gear by top manufacturers under scrutiny. After 5 long days of extensive testing we managed to find some very interesting results. Lighting kits, follow focus units, matte boxes, and much much more. We will be posting extensive written reviews as well as complete video coverage via our FreshDV Podcast. Just a quick shoutout to some sponsors who provided us with some much needed support gear even though we didn’t directly test their gear. Special thanks to our friend Bruce Allen for providing us with his light meter. Special thanks to Fletcher Chicago for providing us with a Zeiss 85mm PL lens to test our gear on. Zeiss also helped us by providing us with a set of their ZF primes to test gear on as well. Below are some pics from the week. Thanks to the following manufacturers who provided us with gear: Continue reading ‘A Very Tired FreshDV Team :)’

Panasonic announced today that 16 GB P2 cards are now shipping, with a 32 GB option to be available by the year’s end. The 16GB cards are listed at $900 from Panasonic. The 32GB card MSRP will be $1,800.

(Via Camcorderinfo)

UPDATE:
According to Panasonic Dealer Specialized Communications there has been a delay, go figure, and the 16GB cards will not be shipped until sometime in middle July. Once again Panasonic proves to be working from behind the schedule on their P2 development. For one I would like to see them bring technology to market at a promised date.

Here’s a quick reminder that Kendal and I will be hosting the first official FreshTV Live Webcast tonight at 9:00 PM US Central Time. That’d be GMT -6 for the international crowd. We’re going to be showing some of the gear we’ve been working with lately, talking a bit about current news and developments, and will start taking questions live at 9:30.

Simply go to www.freshdv.com/freshtv/ and ensure that you have Adobe Flash 9 installed for your web browser. Then just tune in a few minutes prior to 9pm and catch the live feed.

You can ask questions or just say “hey” via the chat box on the FreshTV page, via e-mail (use kendal@freshdv.com) and also via SMS text message. If you have any questions or comments about the gear we are demonstrating, just ask. If there’s something cool you’ve heard of that we haven’t mentioned, let us know and we’ll take a look at it. This would also be a good time to ask any nagging questions about the products we covered in depth at the NAB Expo.

See you at 9:00!

UPDATE: Thanks to all who tuned in for the great questions and comments. You feedback is also much appreciated. Apologies for over-running our scheduled 10pm end time, the comments were just too good to cut off so soon. Stay tuned for the next live event.

Barry Green has a long and detailed article on how best to control the exposure on the very powerful, yet most-manual-controls-lacking Canon HV20 HDV camcorder. The problem is that the HV20 has all the controls you need, but won’t allow manual control over every feature without some hoops to jump through.

“…you can usually only manually set either Shutter Speed or Aperture, and whichever of those you set, it will set the other three parameters as it sees fit. If you put the camera in Aperture Priority mode (also called “Avâ€?), you can manually dial in the aperture you want to use, but the camera will decide what shutter speed and what level of neutral density filter to employ. This leaves you with the potential that the shutter speed may (and frequently will) change away from the desired 1/48th shutter speed. Or, you could select Shutter Priority mode (also called “Tvâ€?) and force the shutter to always operate at 1/48th; the camera will then change the aperture and neutral density filter as it sees fit, and (worse) it can start putting automatic electronic gain into your image, without you even knowing! And when it adds gain, it can add a lot of gain, up to 27dB of gain. The result is a surprisingly noisy, grainy picture, not at all what you’d want when you set out to capture 24fps 1080 high-def footage!
Continue reading ‘Tips and Tricks for Manually Controlling the Canon HV20′

I see over at HD For Indies that Blackmagic has added more format support options for the Intensity card series, including support for the Canon HV20 camcorder. They can also transcode to ProRes 422 in realtime. Download the latest drivers here.

Videoguys has the HDMI Intensity card series listed at $245 and $345, respectively. B&H has them for $249 and $331.

Spotted this one over at Ticklebooth. In a tongue-in-cheek nod to Disney’s oft-noted abuse of copyright terms, Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University has created a instructional video on Fair Use. Funny, and informative. You can download the video in MP4 format from the Stanford page, or watch the Youtube version below.
Continue reading ‘A Fair(y) Use Tale - Copyright Primer from Disney Movies’

Raylight recently announced support for OS X. Among the features listed:

” Raylight for Mac puts MXF files from the P2 Card straight into Final Cut Pro!

• It allows instant, direct editing of MXF files in FCP, or any video application on the Mac.
• It turns the Quicktime Player into a P2 Card Viewer.*
• It supports ALL HVX200 modes and frame rates for both Euro and US model cameras.*
• It will run on G5, G4 or Intel Macs.” (VIA DVfilm.com)

Raylight for OS X is currently available for the price of $95 from DVfilm.com Currently timecode and metadata are unsupported in version 1.0 but DVfilm says that will be remedied in version 1.1 along with support for some additional pulldown conversions. According to DVfilm 1.1 will be offered as a free upgrade to verion 1.0 users. Any FreshDV readers who have any experience with this software feel free to drop some feedback on it.

Steve Mullen outlines a workaround that will enable Sony V1U camcorder users to edit 24p footage in Final Cut Pro or Avid. It’s a multi-step hack (“Step 17: Sacrifice a chicken”), but until either NLE delivers support for Sony’s wacky new cadence it will have to do.

Digital Media Network has begun a new three-part article series on Professional tapeless formats and codecs.

“…where to begin? Flash memory, hard drive or optical disc? Long GOP, wavelet or intra-frame codecs? The answer is of course never straight forward, any choice of format is invariably (or at least should be) a weighing up of Pros and Cons in concert with the particular needs and nature of the production being served. There is no “Bestâ€? format, only the “Bestâ€? format for the production you’re making and the way you like to work. In this light we present a detailing of some of the key pros and cons of the popular and on-the-horizon tape-less formats to make your next choice a more informed one.”

(Via Digital Camcorder News)

Fox’s “On The Lot” television series has been plagued with problems from the get-go. Right now it’s doubtful they will return for another season. But does it have to be that way? Cinematical doesn’t think so, and has a very insightful list of 7 ways “The Lot” could be salvaged.

(Via Scott Simmons)

Creative Cow has a “Wisdom of the Cow” writeup on Apple’s new ProRes codec. They kick things off by explaining what ProRes is not, and then go into what the codec actually offers. Very detailed, and they cover many of the grey areas in what people do/don’t know about this new codec.

(Via Camcorderinfo)

A quick reminder that FreshDV will be hosting a FreshTV live video webcast on this coming Wednesday. We’ll be showing a few cool tools we’re working with and will start taking questions and comments live at 9:30pm CST.

1. Bookmark www.freshdv.com/freshtv/.
2. Ensure you have Adobe Flash 9 installed for your browser of choice.
3. Tune in at 9:00 PM Central Time on Wednesday June 13, 2007.

 HD Expo Chicago 2007 Video Podcast [13:46m]: Download

High Def Expo Chicago was held last week at Navy Pier downtown. FreshDV’s Kendal Miller was on the scene, and got to see some amazing products and solutions demonstrated. In the spirit of our previous extensive NAB Expo coverage we bring you this as a video podcast. Click the Download link above or watch via our FreshDV iTunes Podcast Feed. This 13-minute segment covers the following:

*An interview with Kristin Petrovich, CEO of HD Expo.
*Hands-on demonstration of incredible chromakey technology from Reflecmedia. This is amazing, you have to see it to believe it.
*Video of and details/summary of the capabilities of the Sony F-23 CineAlta camera and SRW1 Transport.
*Details on JVC’s $3500 HZ-CA13U 16mm/35mm PL lens adapter and which mounts directly to the HD100/200/250U cameras. JVC is making some amazing claims about light loss (or lack thereof), and with the image flip option available on the latest JVC camcorders this certainly sounds like an incredible solution for digital filmmakers.

Some questions that this coverage raised for me…has anyone used the JVC lens adapter to date? I’d be interested to read a review of that unit. Also, the Sony F23 rep claimed that it has 13 stops of dynamic range…has that been tested independently? He also mentions color capabilities exceeding ITU spec, which then transfer to film. Would love to hear commentary on that.

Coinciding with the release of the video game Stranglehold, there is a short action film contest with a nice little cachet of prizes and the opportunity to impress John Woo (good luck with that). It looks like a fantastic opportunity for underrated filmmakers to get noticed and paid. Unfortunately, the June 25th deadline means you’ve got less than a month to get it done. I’ve got a feeling that a lot of Indies will be doing a quick script re-write and picking up a few scenes for their partially-finished film project. HD For Indies has all the details.