HD For Indies

OK, I'm blogging while irritated, which is not recommended. Or actually, blogging whilst frustrated is a more accurate description, because I keep seeing the same problems over and over.

Kinda like my friends that lived in the house right after the sudden curve on Enfield. They dubbed their house "Casa Magneto" because drunken frat boy cars seemed drawn to end up in my friends' front yard about once a month, and bonus points if the car was upside-down after launching off the berm in the other neighbors yard Dukes of Hazzard style. They'd hear a screeeeeeeeeeeech....CRASH and pick up the phone, walk out on the yard dialling 9 and 1, waiting to see if anybody was hurt to dial the final digit. The fact that they had A System For It kinda informs you of the situation.

I feel like that today. Not that indie filmmakers are akin to drunken frat boys (thank God), but that's the situational metaphor that popped to mind, so I'm going with it.

I just sent yet another email off to a client that approached me after all the shooting had been done for a doc or feature, and capture had been done, and once again, the classic mistakes had all been made.

DISCLAIMER: If you're a client and you've made these mistakes, this isn't aimed at you in particular, there are many, many of you out there. I may be grouchy here, but I am trying to help. Details have been changed or merged on some of these to better make the point. That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger (Nietzsche). Mike's Corrollary: That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Want To Take A Nap.

It has long been said that most indies will gladly save a nickel Friday that costs them $20 on Monday, either because they don't know any better or simply don't have the $2 on Friday to prevent the $20 error on Monday. Add zeroes to amounts until it applies to you/your project.

So, even though this is potentially giving away some work, let me spell it out for folks out there, in no particular order:

1.) THOU SHALT NOT USE CINEFRAME MODE on Sony HDV cameras. EVV-ARR (that's "ever" with emphasis for the non-teenage literate out there). It looks bad, it isn't true 24p, there are Better Ways, even with that same camera. Somebody shot Cineframe to intercut with 720p24 and 720p60 in FCP - what a mess to resolve correctly (doable, but finicky & time consuming).

2.) If you want to "shoot a movie" on DV, shoot 24pA mode, or at least have only slightly bungled it and shot 24p. 30p is one of the worst frame rates to use. 24p doesn't compress as nicely as 24pA, therefore doesn't look as good. DV is already challenged enough, don't beat up the little bruised kid any further. The catch is in the capturing, which leads to Item 4 in a minute...

3.) If you want to "shoot a movie" on the DVX100/A/B, PLEASE shoot anamorphic. Anamorphic 24pA, to be precise. Having shot it letterboxed, or "Well, we'll just letterbox it and blow it up for the theatrical version!" is the usual self-pleased answer, not realizing they will have a grand total of 720x360 pixels to blow up to 1920x1080 - that's a threefold stretch vertically instead of 2.25 - congrats, you can reposition vertically, but you've thrown out 25% of your resolution - something you were already very thin on with the DV format. And even fewer if you want that 1.85:1 or 2.40:1 ultra-widescreen vibe. And plan for your festival HD uprez, and realize that bumping up DV to HD resolution looks several thousand light years not as good as having shot HD inthe first place, but that's a couple of other whole other long posts entirely....

Now, if you're going for regular 4:3 broadcast, skip the above. This only applies if you want a 16:9 deliverable.

4.) DO NOT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS EDITORIALLY HOLY capture 24p or 24pA as 29.97 "normal" DV if you want to "make a movie" and have a 24p master (which you probably do for more reasons than filmout). Easily 80% of the folks I talk to that shot on DVX100/A/B gladly and glibly capture all their footage INCORRECTLY at 29.97, which makes it a royal bitch to get to a 24p master. This happens with alarming frequency. It screws up your ability to make a 24p master, makes VFX harder, makes your DVDs look worse than they could, even if you're not going out to film. The fix? Go back and recapture all final selects again. UGH. Do it right the first time. EDIT - Jan Crittendon of Panasonic reached out to let me know that in my frothing fit I'd mis-stated the case - actually, technically, you DO capture at 29.97, but you're removing 3:2 pulldown and writing 24p do disc. My intent was to say end up with 24p footage on disc, not 29.97 for your timeline. Thanks Jan! Good eye.

5.) If you or your crew did screw up and shot 24p, 24pA, and 60i on your various tapes instead of just the intended 24pA during the shoot, label the tapes as what they are so you don't make the editor or asst. editor want to kill you. And then capture them correctly. Look at the captured footage to make sure it is right.

6.) If you are "making your own movie" and aren't a TRULY experienced editor, or sat down and had at least a 30 minute SOBER conversation with someone who is an editor about the exact and precise specifics of your project, odds are at LEAST 90% that you will screw up video capture sufficiently that someone else will have to come back and redo it ALL to get a proper 24p master done later on. Log your tapes properly too while you're at it. RTFM on that one. And get a real editor if at all humanly possible - it is what they do for a living.

I'm switching over to Q&A mode now, from a draft I'd never finished/published, and I was in a nicer mood. These aren't all "do not do's" but are still useful/informative I think.

7.) Question:I want to shoot my documentary fiilm on the HVX-200 out in the middle of nowhere and my budget is tight. Tell me how to do this without running over budget. I also don't have much crew."

Answer: You've hosed yourself most likely. If you're shooting a doc that doesn't lend itself to a small amount of footage shot each day, and ESPECIALLY if you need to shoot a lot of footage each day, the HVX200 doesn't lend itself well for that if you want to shoot HD remotely with small crew. For narrative projects with few and shorter takes, it can be a great solution if you have AC power and a backup solution or a P2 Store (the portable hard drive for offloading) - see this article for more on P2 workflows in the field. But with no AC power and needing to shoot a lot of footage, You Are In Trouble.

The HVX200 is a nice camera for a lot of reasons - I like the color on it, the Final Cut workflow is pretty good (still some rough edges), the over/undercrank ability is super sweet and easy to use, the flexibility of modes is great - DV, DVCPRO50, 720p, 1080p, 1080i - all good stuff. BUT...the P2 cards are the weak link - they are VERY pricey and small in capacity and you have to dump the data somewhere before you can reuse them, and this is what will kill a small doc shoot - you need too many cards, or too much extra gear (P2 Store is a good option though, or multiple P2 Stores, when are they putting a 160-200GB drive in that sucker? NAB I hope?), and the real killer - too many man hours tied up in managing all that stuff if you're a small crew. You also almost certainly need AC power as well, and in the boonies that can be a dealbreaker.

There are other options worth looking at. Email me about consultation.

Lesson to learn: tools that are great for one job aren't necessarily great for another. "I have a bucket of nails and my favorite shiny lovely screwdriver. Crap."

8.) Question:I want to shoot JVC GY-HD250 (because I can buy it cheap) to cut with my letterboxed DVX100 footage in Final Cut. I like that it shoots 60fps progressive that I can use for overcranking, and I like the idea of FireWire ingest. My post house suggests bumping it all to another tape format for ingest for HD conform and uprezzing with a Teranex for the DV footage, but I can't afford that.

Whew! OK, let's break down the many issues here:

-AFAIK, the JVC GY-HD250 isn't supported by Final Cut at this time for native FireWire ingest at 60p- anecdotally I'm hearing that 24p and 30p capture work, but I don't have a rock solid confirm on that. 60p is almost certainly out from what I'm hearing, but again I don't have a gospel answer on that one. Lesson here: Be SURE that not only does your camera choice make sense, but that your post options are as expected and affordable It is ALL to easy to pick the "wrong" format for your NLE or post workflow and end up spending more in post than you would have in production if you'd picked the "right" camera for the job. Dubbing to higher end HD tape formats has gotta be what, $75+ per tape? On a doc, that'd be lethal to the budget - shoulda bought/rented a different camera with a proven post workflow and saved money over the "I think this'll be cheap and good" approach.

-Next issue - intercutting with 4:3 DV. While you CAN just drop footage on an FCP timeline and mix sizes, codecs, frame rates, and aspect ratios, it has to render, and that is slooowwwww, even on fast modern boxes. And it'll render to the existing timeline's settings, converting your HD to SD if that is what the timeline is. Plus, there are other issues if you've shot letterboxed (mistake # 4 above) and want to intercut HD. There are ways around or to deal with these problem with minimal time and expense and quality sacrifice...available to my clients (See? I'm only SLIGHTLY evil....)

-Issue after that - conforming this mixed timeline to an HD master - because the 24p mode on the JVC is delivered as 2:2:2:4 cadence on a 60p stream, it is damn hard to extract to cut with a regular 24p timeline. The client's post house, an entity I've heard of from across the country, was suggesting an expensive and time consuming solution requiring dubbing ALL tapes to another tape format. I had a software based solution that wouldn't require that.

Other related issue - how to make deliverables - if an SD 4:3 and an HD 16:9 are requested, then how do you optimally prepare each deliverable? How do you conform to the HD version without expensive tape dubbing, uprezzing the DV footage using a Teranex, etc.? I have solutions for all this, and I've done it before. All it takes it some proper prior planning and some relatively inexpensive computer time...and the knowledge to drive it all.

If you're having trouble figuring out how you're going to conform or deliver to HD, especially from a mix of SD & HD acquired footage, I have extremely high quality, affordable solutions for you that don't require a lot of time on traditional "heavy iron" at a post house. As Stu Maschwitz of The Orphanage put it so well in his book on indie post, desktop tools can offer BETTER quality than the high end post facility tools, they just aren't as fast. You just have to know how to use them well.

Lesson to learn: look at your ENTIRE production process and costs in their entirety. It is all too easy to change a solid plan and think you'll be saving money, and end up hosing the production or the budget.

9.) Question, phrased in many different ways: "Will you work on deferral?/Will you take less money if I give you a better credit on the film?

Answer: Let me explain - almost all of my clients are making independent content. I don't do commercials, I don't do industrials, mostly indie content. There are so many independent films out there being made, by so many earnest, well intentioned people, that will never even recoup their hard costs, let alone sell for enough profit to pay full residuals. Everyone thinks that their film will be different, and sadly, regrettably only a slim few will be correct in that assessment. Look at the recent SXSW, for example - over 3000 films were submitted, they ran roughly 100 or so, and of those, if you take out the ones that already had distribution before they got there, and just look at the ones that truly walked into the festival seeking full size theatrical distribution...the number will be dishearteningly low. Probably fewer than can be counted on one hand. So based on those odds, I really can't.

The same thing applies for film credits - it doesn't behoove me to do so. I've had more than one discussion with clients where we walk through a whole range of options, often including them suggesting they edit the film themselves when they've never edited before, and want me to defer my fees "until we get distribution." I wish I could, but if I did, I'd go broke Waiting For That Day. Especially for self-edited films. Not to be mean, but that bumped up credit that is supposed to help me out? Everyone in the business knows what Executive Producer means these days, and if it is on a small film that wasn't acquired, how exactly does that help me? I'm uncomfortable claiming a title I didn't earn. I do what I do, no more, no less.

10.) Question, again phrased many different ways: "Will you just answer me this ONE more question for free? Then this one? Then this one? Then this one? (Repeat ad infinitum) or more bluntly "Will you spend lots of time on my project for free? It is a REALLY good project. C'mon, you know the answer already, just TELL me!"

Answer: I'll try and calm down and be nice on this answer, and it similarly applies above - answering questions is what I do for a living. I don't work at a post house or a rental house or have another business where this is a sideline - consulting is my living. Unlike working professionals who share information with peers freely because it isn't going to affect their business (and I do help out my friends and peers frequently), I can't afford to spend time answering all the questions that come in, especially without charging. I'd be at it all day. And moreso, answering questions, especially well, thoroughly, and accurately, takes time, even if it is just finding a link to something I wrote in the past. If you can't find it easily, I probably can't either.

Also, stating "I have no budget/I'm a student" does not change anything on my end about my time availability nor effort required to answer.

Kindly, respectfully, there are forums out there where you can get free advice, although the quality of that advice varies wildly. When in doubt, pray to Google, but YMMV. It never hurts to ask, but if I (or someone else) says no thanks I/we/they don't have time, please respect that. Asking nicely up front appreciated as well. Nothing turns my generosity of soul sour more lately than folks complaining, repeatedly, that I won't help them out for free. Sigh.

OK, that's a lame Item 10, and isn't really something to really avoid (nor is #9), but that rounds it out to a nice round 10, and lists need 10 items according to the advice I read on the Interweb tubes. But back to the general point:

It is not your fault that you didn't know before you started. But it IS quite arguably your fault that you didn't ask and find out before you started shooting.

Addenda - stating "I just want to make my movie/I'm the creative, I don't want to focus on the tech" is an excuse...and not a valid one. Stating you don't want to be an auto mechaic doesn't fix your blown engine, nor excuse you from never having changed or checked the oil before it blew.

I could probably whip out another 20 (or 50) tips like this, but it boils down to planning and research.

The key to making a successful indie project, AFTER you have a great script and good actors and DoP and all that other stuff, is to plan, Plan, PLAN it to death. Then have contingencies, preferably what I like to call graceful contingencies - so that if the big goal isn't met, it isn't an all or nothing deal, you can just slide down one rung on the ladder rather than fall all the way to the bottom. And how do you do that? You plan. You research. You ask questions. LOTS of questions. If you don't know, or don't have someone willing to spend a lot of time helping you figure it out who does know, find folks who do. Maybe even hire a consultant, but that isn't the only way.

OK, end of rant, apologies for the rude tone, but it had to be said.

-mike

ADDENDA: Commenters have said CineFrame24 is troublesome but CineFrame 25 & 30 are OK....but you're still tossing res, and I'd rather use a better software deinterlacer like Nattress' anyway for better results. I still don't like it.

When I say capture as 24 fps, I'm shorthanding to mean 23.976 fps. But that doesn't matter really, as the inexpensive cameras can't do 24.000 fps, they always do 23.976 anyway. Higher end production gear can do either, but if you're working with those and get it wrong...you REALLY should have known better.

When I mention shooting 24p as opposed to 24pA, 24pA is by FAR the preferable. when I mentioned capturing 24p as 23.976 not 29.97 fps, I was thinking of a particular project where we recaptured via SDI - FireWire based 24p capture is a different thing as someone noted in the comments, but it can be captured that way.

As for 60fps out of the HD250, 24 & 30 are claimed to work just like the 100/110, so that shouldn't be a problem. 60fps, however, is claimed to have same frame flags as DVCPRO HD and be capturable over component analog. That statement does NOT make sense to me, since a.) where are the flags on an analog signal as compared to HD-SDI, and b.) the patterns are different - one uses 2:3:3:2, the other uses 2:2:2:4. Anybody clarify that for me?

Tuesday update - just talked to the editor on one of these challenged projects - more on self-edited films:

One of my clients discussed how the filmmaker editted the film himself, capturing 24p as 29.97, and because timecode was giving him trouble he turned off abort on timecode break and just captured entire tapes as individual files...thus guaranteeing cadence breaks and making it impossible to correctly capture the footage.

This is the post production equivalent of snapping the key off in the lock then liberally applying superglue all over it.

Now that the footage has already been captured and edited as 29.97, it would almost be an entirely manual process to rebuild the edit correctly as 24p and still maintain best possible quality. There are fixes to get it to be 24p, but so far all involve quality losses due to either DV recompression, >100IRE highlight clipping, or both.

The fillmmaker also shot letterboxed not anamorphic as his coup de grace.

So if you'd like some help avoiding these and other other problems, or just want to know how to save money, make your movie look better, and stay flexible in your options, get in touch - mike [at] hdforindies [dot] com.

-mike

PS - another short way of summarizing a lot of this - never commit to a camera until you have a known, proven, MATCHES EXACTLY way to post that footage. If you need to change NLE package or camera for some reason, make sure you still have a working match.

Labels: DIY, NLE, original, post, tips