Via Film Flap comes a few tips on filmmaking without a video camera. Seems like a good exercise even if your camcorder is in perfect working order.

Lighting is critical to being able to record the best image possible working around the limitations of your particular camera. Working in interiors you can use cheaper work lights on an indie budget but moving outdoors requires a completely different set of tools. HMI lights are pricey and expensive to rent. Enter the reflector and indie filmmakers best friend! ASC has a great little article on utilizing reflectors. Check it out.

Augmenting available daylight with reflectors requires planning and staging according to the arc of the sun throughout the day. Burum offers, “When the studios used to have their large backlots, they oriented their streets so that they were built running north and south. As far back as the silent-film days, they’d always try to shoot toward the south, because that way they’d always have a consistent backlight and would be able to use reflectors to fill and model the actors’ faces. Reflectors were positioned on the actors in exactly the same way you’d use lamps on a stage.

“You never want to plan your shoot for a whole day at a location that runs east or west, because you’ll only have half a day of consistent light. If you have a street running north and south, in the morning the west side of the street is lit and the east side is in shadow. If you choose to shoot in shadow, you’d start out in the morning shooting east. When the sun starts to flip over, you’d begin to turn around, shooting south into backlight; then, as the sun begins to set in the west, you’d shoot toward the west.

Titus Films blog has released the first in a six-part series on How to Tape a Live Concert. The first post deals with Securing Permission, The Venue, and Camera and Microphone Placement. The tips seem to be well-thought out so far, I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

You might be thinking, “Oh come on, it’s not that hard to film a live concert… I’ll just round up 4 friends, smuggle in 4 small camcorders, position them around the audience, sync our watches to 11:00pm and then hit record… post the video on YouTube and embed it in my blog (hey, wanna check out my blog?) and I’m on my way to Internet stardom, right?� Not so fast, there, grasshopper. Planning your project, no matter what you’re shooting, is the most important part of a live event–especially in a fast-paced one-take event like a concert.

One topic that seems to crop up a lot lately is the subject of sensor artifacts in CMOS-based camcorders. The “Rolling Shutter Skew” phenomenon in particular is a primary concern…it is present to some extent in CMOS-equipped camcorders from cheap consumer models all the way up to the SI-2K and RED One digital cinema cameras.

In a detailed writeup at DVXuser, Barry Green discusses the different image artifacts of the two technologies and how to address them. He has also included video examples of common CMOS artifacts like Rolling Shutter Skew, Partial Exposure, and CCD’s own issue with Smear. So if you aren’t sure what the big deal is with these artifacts, head on over and start reading. Great stuff.

Chris and Trish Meyer have shared another After Effects Tips and Tricks column at Artbeats, this one on Integrating your text into an underlying surface through the use of various Blend Modes, Luminance Mapping, and Displacement Maps. Handy tips. Here’s a snippet:

“Although modes provide a nice start, after a great initial impression you start to realize that the text, logo, or other image still has clean, sharp outlines - hardly realistic if you’re trying to create a more world-weary look. The next step is having the layer underneath appear to erode or displace the image on top. Both tricks are easier to control if you create layers for your “heroâ€? image and the texture underneath that are the same size (normally, the size of your video frame) – this avoids scaling and alignment errors that may occur with some effects. In After Effects, you can do this by creating “pre-compsâ€? (nested preliminary compositions) for these layers. The erosion trick requires making a copy of your bottom layer, and placing it on top of your hero layer (our text in these examples). In After Effects, use this copy as a luminance matte for the text; other programs have effects that allow you to use one layer as an alpha channel for another. If the result is too faint, apply a Levels effect to the copy on top, and play around with its white and black points plus gamma to make the matted text as opaque or as eroded as you want. This technique is particularly good at making text appear to be worn away from the raised surfaces of the layer underneath.”

Steven Spielberg has resisted the urgings of friend George Lucas to shoot Indiana Jones 4 digitally, and jokes that he is the last holdout in Hollywood still cutting film negative.

“Producer and friend George Lucas tried at length to convince Spielberg to film the movie digitally but Steven resisted. He joked that he is the last person in Hollywood still cutting the film negatives, and that he learned from the greats and they all worked that way. He says that he has still never used an Avid to edit, and won’t do so until Tintin.

Steven gushed about how a film frame is alive with movement and film grain and that digital video is “too perfect.â€? Lucas tried to convince Steven that they could add the film grain to the digital image, which Spielberg found totally amusing because doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? And wouldn’t it just be easier to shoot the whole thing on film.”

So there you have it. Not only does one of the most prolific active directors choose to shoot film, he insists on editing the “old fashioned” way as well. And when Indy 4 hits theaters, I believe it will serve as a reminder that format choices matter little in the hands of a talented professional.

Casio is developing a six-megapixel CMOS digital still camera which is capable of snagging 60 frames per second bursts of 6MP images. It can also shoot VGA video at a blazing 300 fps. It is said to be equipped with a 12x zoom, 2.8″ LCD, EVF, and sensor-shift image stabilization.

Noticed this over at HD4NDS, it’s a spot for Halo 3 that takes an amazingly low-key approach, but the result is perfect. Love it.

Here’s a quick reminder that FreshDV is hosting a Live Streaming Audio Podcast tonight, Tuesday the 9th! You can listen online from the FreshTV page. We’ll also be posting a call-in telephone number on that page, and we’ll be taking calls and questions on the air. So tune and call in tonight at 9:30 PM Central time. That’s 10:30pm on the East Coast and 7:30pm on the West Coast. We’re at GMT -6 for all the international crowd.

One of the topics we’ll address is methods of cine-style shooting (with Digital Video) and current news and events in the world of 35mm lens adapters. Brian Valente of Redrock Micro will also be on hand for a segment to give an update on their gear in development and take a few questions. We would also be happy to answer specific questions or comments on our recent Follow Focus and Matte Box video reviews, as well as the 1st AC Tutorial series.

 Cinevate Brevis 35mm Adapter Setup Tutorial [11:36m]: Download

The advent of affordable 35mm Lens Adapter systems have brought a new level of creative control to digital filmmakers. With that comes a new level of complexity…lens adapters can be confusing and sometimes downright difficult to configure with your camera. The crew here at FreshDV tends to be visual learners, so we thought we’d help shed a little light on the subject with a 35mm adapter video tutorial series. To that end, here is an 11 minute video that covers the basic setup and configuration of a Cinevate Brevis 35mm Adapter. We demonstrate this using the Brevis on a HVX200 mounted on Zacuto rods and baseplate. However the steps shown also apply to Z1U, HD100, and other common camcorder users. You don’t even need a 15mm rod system, though I highly recommend using one with 35mm adapters in general. Z1U users should note that they will need an additional spacer to get optimal backfocus with the Brevis (which sometimes necessitates a longer rod system).

We specifically address:
*Basic parts/component identification.
*Positioning and mounting the adjustable Brevis support bracket on 15mm rods.
*Mounting the Brevis assembly to camera/rods.
*Adjusting/leveling the diffuser image plane to match the camcorder.
*Setting camcorder zoom and backfocus on adapter screen (Hint for HVX users: start at around Z75 zoom).

Continue reading ‘How To Setup and Configure the Brevis 35mm Adapter’

Nathan Snyder of owyheesound has an interesting writeup on using old anamorphic projector lenses to squeeze true widescreen images out of a cheap DV camera without losing valuable vertical resolution by cropping/letterboxing.

“Put simply an anamorphic lens can squeeze a wide image to fit onto a typical format like 4:3 mini-DV cameras…A cheap and easy way to get experience using an anamorphic lens is to use readily available anamorphic projector lenses. Though these lenses were not designed to be used for cameras they can none the less be easily modified to be used with a camera. These projector lenses have the same basic abilities as the original Cinemascope lenses.”

A very do-it-yourself solution that might help eke a little extra filmmaking mileage out of great 4:3 SD cameras like the DVX100.

 Understanding Depth of Field - A Practical Primer [19:26m]: Download

Depth-of-Field. In simple terms DOF can be defined as “the distance in front of and beyond the subject that appears to be in focus.” Seems simple, right? But the myriad factors that contribute to a composition’s Depth of Field are often misunderstood (and frequently overly-simplified), leaving many filmmakers and photographers with a false understanding of the physics at play. And it goes without saying that when you educate yourself on the factors that contribute to DOF, you gain a greater level of control over your images, whether you are a cinematographer or photographer, professional or novice. A grasp of the basics of DOF become even more essential when shooting with a 35mm lens adapter system for video cameras.

That is why I am pleased to present the following 20 minute primer on the subject of Depth of Field, filled with practical illustrations and explanations of the physics at work in a lens, and simple examples that will help elevate your understanding of the subject. It thoroughly covers the topics of aperture size, focal length, camera-to-subject distance, circle of confusion (CoC), hyperfocal distance, and infinity focus. I believe that you’ll find it a very informative and approachable explanation of a somewhat arcane and confusing topic.
Continue reading ‘Video Tutorial: Understanding Depth of Field’

Ripple Training has a great video tutorial up on creating non-standard codecs and format presets in Apple Compressor (direct MOV link). So you could purchase a Flip4Mac WMV export license, and then use Compressor to do the heavy lifting. It’s worth noting that a cheaper WMV export option exists, but it does require a Windows PC and some duct-tape.

Via Film Flap comes this EXCELLENT do it yourself resource, a video blog called Creativity To Spare. The videos dig right into how to build a number of useful and valuable rigs, like this simple DIY Teleprompter, constructed of a laptop and sheet of glass (there’s even links to free prompting software for both Mac and Windows). The instructor Chris Bailey is careful to include detailed parts lists and demonstrates the final product. This is great stuff for those who enjoy building their own gear, or perhaps if you need something for one time only and can’t get a rental.

Ripple Training has a short and sweet video tutorial on how to save commonly used filters and groups of effects as Favorites for later re-use. Doubtless this is used by many FCP editors…I personally have found it to be extremely handy. However, I wasn’t aware that you can also save motion keyframes as a Motion Favorite, which can then be re-applied to clips or text on demand. Very cool, and very useful.