FreshDV Film School [54:00m]: Download

FreshDV had the opportunity recently to speak with Jerome Courshon on the marketing and distribution of movies and films. Jerome offers a full course in the “Secrets of Distribution” . If you are a filmmaker of any kind you owe it to your crew, your cast and yourself to watch this segment. From contracts, residuals, and pitfalls to avoid Jerome covers the 101 basics of film distribution and helps prepare you for what you need to know once the ink dries on the DVDs. In Jerome’s words:

So you’ve taken the Sisyphean journey and made a movie, maybe your first. Congratulations! Now what? What do you do to ensure the final step of your filmmaking journey, getting distribution? What is the ‘correct’? strategy to take? Is there even one??

The answer is a resounding YES. Whether you’ve just finished your final cut or are already on the film festival circuit or EVEN if you’ve been turned down by distributors already there is a strategy for successfully getting Movie Distribution that MOST producers & directors do not know. Consequently, most filmmakers give up after spending a year or two spinning their wheels, with only the inner satisfaction of having made the movie.
Continue reading ‘FreshDV Film School: Distribution 101′

This article is part of a series of tests FreshDV conducted with the Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1. Thanks to Miami rental house and Sony dealer Midtown Video for providing a XDCAM EX camera. And thanks to DSC Labs for providing test chart patterns. You can read more about ours and others experiences with this camera here.

If you read FreshDV daily, you already know that we are testing a Sony XDCAM EX1 this weekend, courtesy of Midtown Video. It’s a beautiful camera that makes incredible images, I have been very impressed with it’s performance. For the most part, this one lives up to the hype.

That being said, we all know that every camera has an achilles heel. That’s just the way it works…engineering is all about tradeoffs. And the XDCAM EX1 is no exception. As the EX uses CMOS as it’s imaging tech, it is subject to rolling shutter artifacts. We recently talked about how rolling shutter artifacts are cropping up in Red Digital Cinema footage…and I noted the same issues are evident in EX1 footage shot this evening. Right-click the download link below for a half-resolution example of this strobe artifact. It was shot on the EX1 @ f/1.9, 1/48, 9dB gain at 1080/24p HQ (XDCAM35/VBR). Selecting higher shutter speeds doesn’t help, in fact the artifact becomes even more apparent. 1/32 shutter doesn’t fix it either. So it’s definitely an issue to be aware of in your production work…perhaps the EX is not the best solution for a fashion show or wedding reception…or police car strobes.

UPDATE: Quite a few people wrote in to tell me that the issue reportedly goes away when the electronic shutter is turned off. So I tested the camera with a flash in all the different formats, shutter ON vs shutter OFF. Here are two studio test framegrabs that show this issue less prominent but still present in 1080/24p footage with the shutter mode toggled off. The downloads are full-resolution frames exported from FCP timeline as jpeg-12. I haven’t spent much time digging into the footage, but the camera looks to be catching probably 40% or 50% of the flashes mid-roll. Small flashes that don’t light the whole frame slip through more easily it seems. So maybe 1 out of every 2 don’t appear to get caught.

 EX1 Rolling Shutter Strobe Artifact [0:10m]: Download
 HQ 1080/24p @ 1/48 electronic shutter: Download
 HQ 1080/24p w/ electronic shutter off: Download

(Focus on this shot is off a touch, and I’m shooting through tree branches. Not perfect. But it clearly shows the issue I’m talking about)

Thanks again to both DSC Labs and Midtown Video for making this EX1 test series possible. Stay tuned here or at our EX1 link page for more test results.

Thanks to the professionals at Midtown Video, FreshDV has an XDCAM EX1 camcorder in hand for a few days. We are shooting with DSC Labs test patterns and performing a variety of camera tests. We’ll also be using the camera with two hot 35mm adapters…the Letus Extreme and the brand new Cinevate Brevis Flip module.

My question to FreshDV readers is, what exactly are you interested in learning about the EX1 and the adapters?
Please post in the comments below or e-mail me (Matt) directly with questions and comments. Thanks, and stay tuned for our findings!
(UPDATE BELOW)
Continue reading ‘FreshDV Readers: What do you want to know about the XDCAM EX1?’

As I sit in the Philadelphia airport mindlessly dawdling on my iPhone I decided to do a little blogging in a last ditch effort to keep the synapses in my brain firing. The delays have now stretched longer than the intro credits on 5minute indie film project. As I sit watching my ADD rapidly migrate from one distracted moment to the next, I ponder the meaning of life, the ramblings of philosophers bygone, and of course the ramifications of the ongoing WGA strike. It was then that I retreated to a site I had not visited in a long time Sam and Jim go to Hollywood. This is a podcast series by two guys who successfully broke into mainstream Hollywood as writers after selling their businesses in Minnesota and moving out west. They have a great sense if humor and an insiders view to the strike and the inner workings of the industry. Check them out I’m sure you will enjoy them and if you don’t I’ll chalk it up to an excessive amount of jet lag.

Jonny Lee, the creator of the $14 Steadicam and other unique indie-tastic solutions has come up with a Virtual Reality proof of concept program that works with a Wii Remote and sensor bar. It has obvious implications in the gaming world, particulary on the Wii platform. However, I see this as a potential tool for 3D artists and compositors. The ability to simple jog your head left or right to view and navigate around objects in a comp might be very useful. Here’s hoping someone picks up the torch and runs with this idea. You can download the software at Jonny’s site. Video embedded below.
Continue reading ‘Head Tracking for VR Displays with the WiiRemote’

The whole production crew of NBC’s Scrubs helps with a surprise proposal. I got a kick out of Zach Braff running the boom mic. Video below.
Continue reading ‘Engaged on the Set of Scrubs’

We here at FreshDV would like to take a moment and wish our North American and International readers a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo, Glædelig Jul, Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches Neues Jahr, Buon Natale or Buone Feste Natalizie, Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto, Srozhdestovm Kristovim, Joyeux Noël, Mele Kalikimaka, …..

We’re thankful for another fantastic year here at FreshDV, and look forward to many new developments and fresh content in the coming year. Thanks to all our sponsors and those who provided gear for reviews and tutorials. And of course thanks to you for reading, watching, and listening. Stay tuned at this space, the best is yet to come.

Kendal’s Update:
May all your productions be glitch free, diva free and highly profitable!! May you make many new friends who will stick with you for a lifetime! May all electronics function virus free and enjoy a long revenue producing lifespan! Merry Christmas God, bless everyone of ya’ll!!!

Thanks to a tip from Joel Peregrine, I just ran across the Modo Steady 585 multi-purpose device from Manfrotto. This thing is a very unique little stabilizer/tripod/gizmo for sub-2 lb camcorders. It weighs just over a lb and supports up to 1.7lb max capacity. You can use it as a “gliding” stabilizer (reminds me of the Steadicam Merlin), a chest brace, and in low and high tripod modes. There is a video of the Modo in action at modo.manfrotto.com.

Guess what killer camcorder weighs 1.2 lbs? Yup. The $689.95 Canon HV20. To enhance the gliding effect, pick up the Schneider Optics .55x Wide Angle Adapter. The lens weighs just 4.8 oz and can be reversed and used as a fisheye. Sweet! You’ll just need a 58mm-43mm ring to adapt it to the HV20.

A slightly cheaper (and much heavier at 1.1 lbs) option is Canon’s WDH43 0.7x WA lens for the HV20. Note that you would be technically overloading the Modo Steady device with this lens on the HV20. Since the lens reportedly weighs over a pound, I am unsure if it would work at all with the Modo Steady + HV20.

The sweet little 24p Canon HV20 has been called the Camcorder of the Year by Camcorderinfo. More importantly, it has been lauded by consumers and professional users alike as a powerful little filmmaking package. We’ve talked about the camera quite a bit here at FreshDV in the past year.

And while it’s a day late to get in time for Christmas, you can pick up the Canon HV20 for $689.95 at B&H, and they’ll throw in Free UPS Next Business Day shipping. B&H is also including a training DVD on the camera and a $25 B&H Gift Card. Sweet!

Finally, it’s not shipping free but the Sony XDCAM EX1 is another killer camera package that pros are snapping up. You can get yours at B&H for $6699 (just in time to claim it on this year’s tax return). We’ve been tracking the buzz on the EX camcorder since it was announced. Oh, you should also know that Sony is offering an 8GB SxS media card rebate (PDF) along with the XDCAM EX1 purchase. There is also another rebate offer (PDF) with the EX, this one for Sony microphones and accessories like the $3400 LMD-9050 LCD Monitor with HD-SDI.

All B&H purchases made via those links helps to support FreshDV. But we really do like the HV20 and EX1. Honest.

Sony’s whole-lotta-not-much camera in “professional” shoulder-configuration camouflage is in stock at B&H for $1600. Just in time for Christmas, kids!

We mentioned the paper launch back in August when real specs and numbers seemed shaky. Unfortunately, those specs don’t seem to have improved in the ensuing months. The HD1000U is still an uuuugly, underpowered 4 lux behemoth that looks walks and talks like a pro shoulder camera, but doesn’t even include basics like XLR or full-size cassettes. To be fair, I suppose there may be a place for this model in some applications (particularly considering the price point). However, I personally feel the camera has been basically crippled out of the gate and (with the exception of DVCAM) doesn’t include any real tools or features that shooters demand.

Are we missing the boat here? Where do you see this camera taking hold in the industry, if at all?

UPDATE: Apparently no DVCAM.

The Canon DW-100 is an external USB DVD burner for PC and Mac systems that offers a unique twist…it can burn video directly from a camcorder without a computer. Details are a bit sketchy at this time, but in theory this means you could hook your AVCHD, H.264, or other difficult-to-edit-format consumer camcorder directly to the burner and author standard DVDs painlessly. Nice. As Gizmodo says…

“The DW-100 takes high-def AVCHD video from your camcorder and burns it to DVD without a computer. It’s hard to argue with that. It can also function as an external burner for any PC or Mac computer. If this works like it should, and Canon markets it properly, a device like this could do well in the current home movie market. It is expected to release in March 2008, but no price has been set.”

(Link via Anthony Ajit)

Post Production Standards has two great posts up with recommendations on naming clips for Visual Effects and turnover. They advocate using version numbers rather than dates for sequences, and outline a simple method for naming VFX shots that is extensible and easy to understand. Simple, yet effective info.

One of my complaints with Letus 35mm lens adapters has been the lack of a rod support system from the company. Granted, you can use adapters like the Letus Extreme with other manufacturer rod systems, but I always took issue with that. Well it seems that Letus listened to the community, and they have now announced their own Rod Support System. At first glance it looks like a thoughtful design, so I’m excited to hear how it works in practice. The system appears to be quite adjustable, and seems to provide plenty of riser room for the tall flip offset. You can order them at the Letus site, MSRP is just under $400.

“It features a quick release camera plate that can be adjusted both side to side and back and forth. An 80mm solid aluminum tripod mounting block that can also be easily adjusted back and forth for balancing loads. Two 90mm camera riser supports to adjust camera height as needed. The Letus35 Extreme support bracket is also included with the package along with an upgraded custom milled thumb screw.

The complete package rides on 30cm or 45cm silver anodized aluminum rods. Additional rods such as our 15cm accessory rods can be added with our red anodized couplers. Note, the image shown is with the 30cm rods with 15cm rods added via the couplers.”

For those that want even MORE adjustability and features, Zacuto has created a few configurations designed for the offset Letus adapters.

You know you want it. It’s Western Digital’s new 2.5″ notebook hard drive with a whopping 320GB of space, priced at a cool $200. Yeah, it only rotates at 5400 RPM, but what do you expect? It’s only 2007 after all! And they’ll have a 7200 RPM option out before you can say “Dang. I just upgraded my system with the 5400 RPM version and now I hate my life.” Here’s how to swap the drive in your Macbook or Macbook Pro with this new drive (or any other 2.5″ drive) using Leopard’s Time Machine.

It’s the perfect surveillance tool for striking writers behind closed negotiation room doors…the Wireless Pen Camera! Q would be proud.