First all-manual camera workout

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Escribano

Posts: 6416
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

First all-manual camera workout

This is just as important to me as the guitar so I want some viewer feedback on an embryonic "cinematic" style of filming I am developing. My equipment is very expensive BUT it is all down to technique in the end - just like flamenco, but with a lot more buttons. I hope to make this my next profession one day.

This is my first all manual workout i.e. no auto exposure, no auto white balance or auto focus, no auto shutter. Oh, and no tripod. Tripods cause all sorts of grief in public and are illegal without a permit in most places.

Just two minutes of your time and comments are appreciated. Thanks.

http://www.vimeo.com/6158949

Note: this should be viewable in full-screen HD (click bottom right) and the music is by a good buddy at Microsoft

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 11:56:47

mrMagenta

Posts: 942
Joined: Oct. 25 2006
From: Sweden

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

I like it! I'm not a filmmaker, but I do love good looking footage. Very nice exposure, focus and framing. My monitor is crap so I can't be sure what I'm seeing represents the colors and luminance of your film very good, but from what I see It looks great. My single concern is that the hues are bent quite a bit and watching it for a long time would build up a sort of heavy feel.

Sadly vimeo is lagging on my computer so I only see the motion well between bursts of frame drops. Is this shot at 24 frames/sec? Movement (while not lagging) looks nice! All in all you've captured a very attractive cinematic feel. :)

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 12:48:15

Escribano

Posts: 6416
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to mrMagenta)

quote:

My single concern is that the hues are bent quite a bit and watching it for a long time would build up a sort of heavy feel.

Yeah, I should have added that I was testing a post-production effect that needs taming and my monitor is not calibrated yet, so thanks for the astute observation.

You can try it on YouTube if that helps.

quote:

is this shot at 24 frames/sec?

24fps is really not relevant until you go from video to film - it's a bit of a sales gimmick for the few indie makers who will ever actually go to film, but this was shot at 50fps (interlaced PAL) then deinterlaced in post i.e. ends up as 25fps progressive. "El Guitarrero" was shot at true 24fps progressive.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 13:02:54

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

wow the colours and definition is amazing...i couldnt tell it was handheld...the colours are out of this world..a bit more vibrant then real life...u can change that to whatever ...what amazes me is that if you did add effects...theres absoluteley no traces of it...no noise ...nothing

what did you do to it in post production ?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 13:34:53

Escribano

Posts: 6416
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Florian)

quote:

i couldnt tell it was handheld

what did you do to it in post production ?

Best money I spent was on the shoulder mount and post-production was with a custom tweak of a Magic Bullet Looks filter in Final Cut Studio. Needs to be pulled back a bit though.

This 2 minute clip took about 1 hour to render to 720 HD!

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 13:41:28

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

i wish you succes in pursuing this professionaly, i think you should, i am sure you will have it

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 13:44:21

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Florian)

quote:

This 2 minute clip took about 1 hour to render to 720 HD!

wow..yeah videos take a ridicoulosly long time...also depends on your computer and software i soposse... i use ProCoder 3...its sopossed to cut time in two...or are you talking about transfering it from the cam to the computer ? does that take a long time ?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 13:50:10

Escribano

Posts: 6416
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Florian)

quote:

are you talking about transfering it from the cam to the computer ? does that take a long time ?

No, that is real-time on my rig. I meant rendering HD with the effects, colour grading etc. when I have finished the edit.

A feature film would take 90 hours or more. No big deal, as that's last thing you do and you just leave it to cook.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 14:01:44

Florian

Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

quote:

No, that is real-time on my rig. I meant rendering HD with the effects, colour grading etc. when I have finished the edit.

A feature film would take 90 hours or more. No big deal, as that's last thing you do and you just leave it to cook.

yeah it only sucks when u cant make up your mind on effects and wanna experiment.

cause of my inexperience...i spent about 300 hours doing that (waiting for rendering mostly) and 200 dvds ( to see how it looked on the tv) only to go right back to the start to very very litlle effects...i should have known its just like audio...the more you do to it the more quality you lose and the more noise u get

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 14:05:02

cathulu

Posts: 950
Joined: Dec. 15 2006
From: Vancouver, Canukistan

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

OK, my favourite shot was the guy at around the first 6 second mark. I liked the pregnant expectation. During the set-up of the balloon, there was a guy who looked a bit confused - you pulled away from him, I would have liked if you pulled in. But the shot was fleeting and was gone quickly.

I thought the starting shot was poor with people sitting on their bums, I think the ending should have been the start, with the truck pulling-up and all these people thronging around wondering what is going to happen.

I like the way you edited the balloon filling.

I didn't see any problems with the manual processing.

There was no sound, I think it would be better with the sound in the mix, although I understand this was not your focus.

Nice work. Cheers!

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 19 2009 18:21:58

edguerin

Posts: 1589
Joined: Dec. 24 2007
From: Siegburg, Alemania

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

Great work! I really liked the way you caught the atmosphere.

I noticed an effect (I'm not sure what it's called) that reminded my of the over-emphasis of contours when using unsharp-masking in digital photography. Am I nitpicking or is this avoidable?

Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px

Attachment (1)

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 20 2009 2:14:20

Ron.M

Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

Simon,
Unfortunately I'm getting jerky movement/frame dropping too, on both vimeo and youtube so it's kinda hard to assess.

The colours are certainly very good, but sometimes I felt the focus was not quite broadcast standard....maybe it's a depth of field thing...or maybe it's a resolution problem in my video card or monitor?..I dunno very much about photography.

To go off at a tangent (as usual), I was testing a Plasma HD TV and accidentally ended up on a channel showing an episode of "The Prisoner". (Number 6 and all that..)

I remember talking to you a couple of years back about that "Technicolor" look, with the vivid matt sheets of colour that we both liked.

Having been to Portmerion (where the series was filmed) I recognised some of the locations and could confirm that the film portrayal was very much more "larger than life", compared to my 35mm holiday snapshots (Pentax).

Looking carefully, I could see that they were getting a lot of that effect by very careful and skilled lighting technicians taking care of the smallest detail with fill-ins and diffused spots etc.
Also, I noticed that they kept the sets very "clean" (image wise), with nothing so much as a tiny leaf accidentally blowing along the ground during the take.

A lot of the 60's style stuff seems to be done like this and athough it has that sort of "unreal" and slightly "plastic" look, I kinda like it!

cheers,

Ron

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 20 2009 2:24:12

gerundino63

Posts: 1743
Joined: Jul. 11 2003
From: The Netherlands

RE: First all-manual camera workout (in reply to Escribano)

Hi Simon,

Exelent job! I only know about making foto's, ( starting with an old East-German Camera) I gues doing everything by hand on a video camera is even more difficut!
Very nice colours, they splash from your screen You really captured th special evening light/atmosfere.
I wached it a few times without the music, and the video still looked as a movie.
Never boring.

I noticed you filmed the first part against the light, and the last part too.
Maybe it makes the video even more lively if you make a inbetween shot also against the light. ( just a thought )

Peter

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Aug. 20 2009 2:46:13