HD For Indies

Conceptual Trends and Current Topics

D-Day invasion with 4 guys. Multi-pass compositing, greenscreen, CG, etc.

4 days of shooting, LOTS of compositing. All desktop tool doable.

Watch video, which shows how they did it.



Be inspired.

-mike

Labels: DIY, moviemaking

Mike Curtis on Indie Production and Self-Distribution at FreshDV

Matt's write-up:

Recently we had a chance to pick the brain of Mike Curtis (of HD For Indies) on the topics of Independent film production and self distribution. We discuss his take on alternative distribution options, what it takes to reach wide theatrical release, the importance of brand identity, when to aim at the direct to DVD option, DRM and rights management solutions, etc. Mike has some very strong opinions on the subject, and we found the conversation enlightening.

Follow the link at top to download from that page.

-mike

Labels: DIY, DRM, self distribution

...so I'm catching up with my good friend and ex-business partner Patrick Curry the other week - we worked together at frogdesign ten years ago, he was the mad web genius that was largely responsible for frog winning an ADDY Award for their website (I think he was about 19 at the time). Patrick is one of those massively technically talented but also highly creative folks most of us envy because they have such Mad Skillz. Except when they are one of your best friends for just that reason. We used to geek out on movie stuff loooooong into the night.

Projected reader intervention: "Whatever whatever Mike, tell me what's up with this $25,000 cash prize....and what do you mean by 'John Woo-esque?'"

OK OK, lets get to the meat of this matter. Patrick has been working at Midway in Chicago as a Senior Game Designer on the first game based on the work of, and with the direct involvement of, action movie legend John Woo. It is called Strangehold. It is...well hey, let me just ask Patrick - this is the email & chat based interview we did, my questions in italics, all bolding mine for emphasis:

Mike: What’s up with Stranglehold?

Patrick Curry: The most important thing to know is that Stranglehold is the first true John Woo game. We’ve teamed up with John Woo to bring his style of over the top action cinema into action game form. At this point I think it’s safe to say that we’ve nailed it. And, of course, we had to get Chow Yun-Fat to star in the game, since it’s based on the same characters from John Woo's "Hard-Boiled."

M: Cool - so who’s making it?

P: Midway is the publisher, and we at the Midway Chicago Studio are developing the game.

When’s the game coming out? What do I need to play it?

Stranglehold is coming out this fall for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. You’ll need a pretty beefy Windows PC to play it… I’m afraid I don’t have the minimum specs to share yet, but I can send them your way once I get them. As for the PS3 and 360 versions of the game, I highly recommend an HD TV and surround sound, but it will still work on a regular old TV.

At one point you mentioned you guys were trying to get a copy of the movie Hard Boiled included with the game - what ever became of that?

The Playstation 3 Collectors Edition comes will a full, remastered, high-def version of Hard-Boiled. The collectors editions will retail for $69.99, so for ten bucks more you get a whole movie! I believe this is the first time anyone has done this -- a game and a film on the same disc, not to mention an HD movie. So that’s pretty awesome.

Hard Boiled in HD? Schweet! OK, lets get to the juicy stuff - so what’s up with this contest? What's the deal?

The contest is to make the most John Woo-esque short film. It can be just about anything you want, so long as it’s not longer than two and a half minutes. The winners will be picked by John Woo himself, and the grand-prize winner gets $25,000 and a bunch of other cool swag.

"John Woo-esque." Love it. OK, so when’s the deadline?

The deadline is in less than a month, June 25th, so you need to get cracking on your short.

(Mike note: the contest had been under way already when Patrick and I had the discussion that lead to the obvious conclusion that I should be covering this. But hey - that's 2 1/2 weeks - Peter Jackson shot, posted, and delivered in 4K the 12 minute short Crossing The Line in that much time! You only need to make a MAXIMUM of 2 1/2 minutes, and deliver 320x240. You gonna let that punk upstage YOU? ; D )

Yikes, that is tight. What’s the submission format?

We’re doing the contest online via MySpace, so you need to submit a 320x240 clip in MPEG4 format (Divx, Xvid) at 30fps. Please compress it to be under 100 MB. I’d hang onto a higher-res version if you have it, but that’s what you have to submit to enter the contest.

OK, easy enough, what are the rules? How's this work?

Well all the usual fine-print legal stuff. The website is the best place for all that: http://www.myspace.com/strangleholdgame

Yeah Yeah whatever great. So what do you get if you WIN?

John Woo himself is going to select the big winner. That person gets $25,000. As the John Woo Selected winner you also get your film shown on Spike TV, a trip for two to Chicago to interview with Spike and a chance to geek it up with us at Midway, a framed Hard Boiled poster signed by John Woo, a copy of Stranglehold, and a free cell-phone for six months.

It’s quite a haul.

On top of that there’s a $1,000 audience prize voted on by people visiting the Stranglehold website. That also comes with the cell phone, a copy of Stranglehold, and a signed poster.

Nice! Who thought this madness up?

Our really-clever marketing folks thought it up. We’re doing a game with John Woo after all, so it was a really natural fit. John’s super psyched about it, since he’s all about supporting up and coming film-makers. And of course we think it’s cool as hell because it’s not every day you can get someone like John Woo to watch your short films. I’m still bummed I can’t enter. :-(

(Mike insert - and this I know to be true - Patrick is a hard core movie geek, even took a bunch of film classes at UT, and lets just say that Patrick is the Right Kind of People to be working on a John Woo game.)

OK, but so who are these preliminary judges?

Ah good question! A panel of folks will do the initial judging and narrow the entries down to the top ten. They will include some of John Woo’s associates, people here at Midway, and a group of people from MySpace. They will narrow down the top ten entries and then John will select from there. The top 10 will also go online July 9th when voting starts for the audience award winner. The entries will be judged on three criteria: 40% quality, 40% homage to John Woo and 20% creativity.

---end interview---

So this does definitely sound promisng - $25K and a bunch of swag for a 2 1/2 minute short - that's a reasonable ROI for the risk involved to produce an entry. I've been hearing about other contests to edit together a music video, or make such and such company a promo, and I felt it was kind of lame and manipulative and not-quite-right - "Hey, do all this work that we'll massively benefit from and we'll give you some skittles & beer!" Uncool. This I can get behind, in part because I know some of the folks involved, but also because the reward is, well, rewarding, and commensurate to the effort.

And in the end, it is just a promotional contest, so it isn't as if they are going to be milking your work to death - plus you get a decent chunk of change if you win. And at the end of the day, if you don't win, you don't get the audience award, you don't even get in the top ten shown on the site....how much fun could you have putting together a Woo inspired short anyway? I saw the Grindhouse trailer competition stuff, they clearly had a blast making it.

This just reeks of an HVX200 job to me - use that overcrank, folks! Since it'll end up on Spike, which AFAIK only offers standard def, you might as well shoot DVCPRO50 for 24p and DVCPRO HD 720p60 for the slomo and use FCP 6's Open Format Timeline to edit those together (or whatever, why not 720p for everything if you have enough P2 cards?). Too bad Red isn't out and full featured - 120fps 720p would be, well....The Killer. Ahem.

And probably hit it up with some Optical Flow action to slow it down even more, using After Effects CS3 or Shake. They want it as a 30fps file, not 24fps, so grit your teeth and export at 30fps even though shooting at 24 will feel right (and help the slowdown factor). Tell yourself that when you win, you'll send them a Digibeta with proper 3:2 pulldown added to your 24p masterpiece.

Real bullet hits (well, not REAL, but practical squibs) are best, but digital squibbing is the new greenscreen I hear. Go back, watch all the old Woo movies, distill the essence, then come up with something new enough to be fresh (a shot for shot remake of the table flipping, pistol in air scene is NOT going to win, I betcha), but a fresh twist that hits all the notes in a pleasing but not pedantic way is what I'D guess would have the best chances for success.

I'm picturing people going further and doing wire work with roto removal to accentuate the dual guns a' blazin' leaping hang time.

The big deal is that it needs to be John Woo-esque - an homage, not a parody. Think about it - John Woo wants to find a new indie filmmaker that makes something he likes and feels represents his style - so do it with a straight face, deep thought, otherwise I'll have to go all flock of white doves on your belittling *ss. Go back and look at the George Lucas Star Wars Fan Film competition - make something that appeals to Woo, not just you.

So think about your plot, make sure it is under 2 1/2 minutes, master it to a decent SD format at least (DVCPRO 50 or ProRes, anyone?), don't forget to sprinkle some luv on it in Color (or After Effects, or combustion, or use Colorista or Magic Bullet Looks; or a Pablo or Quantel if you have access). Make it look as good, as real, as professional, and as John Woo as you can.

Woo Hoo! This'll be fun. I wish I had the time to make one. So go out and start writing and start shooting this weekend.

I'd love to hear everyone's ideas on best tools, best John Woo homage moments to recreate (be it composition, shooting style (gun or camera), plot elements, etc.) - post away using the Comment link below!

I thought this was a cool enough deal I wrangled an ad sale to them, so you'll get a chance to be reminded of what you should be doing in your spare time up at the top of the site for the next few weeks or so until the contest is over.

For indie moviemakers and want-to-be's, isn't this a prime opportunity to get out there and practice your skills? Grab your thoroughly dog-eared copy of the DV Rebel's Guide (you DO have a dog earred copy, RIGHT?) and get busy! REAL indies can produce in a hurry...and the clock is ticking towards this Deadline....and hmmm...wouldn't THAT be a good title?

-mike

UPDATE Friday

Seriously, this is the perfect DV Rebel's Guide project - Stu has chapters specifically on weapons, muzzle flashes, bullet hits, filming with guns in public places (without getting arrested or scaring people), etc.

Also, you can see some HD trailers of the Stranglehold game on this site, just search for Stranglehold in the search field (no direct links possible, durn it).

-m

Labels: contest, DIY, Production

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

ProLost: New Look

Stu Maschwitz, the brains behind the original Magic Bullet and more recently Colorista, couldn't help himself but to talk a little bit about the next version of Magic Bullet that is due to be demo'd at NAB.

Some tidbits of interest from his blog post with commentary, his in italics, mine in plain

Rather than a regular plug-in with a ton of sliders, Magic Bullet Looks features a standalone application with its own UI.


Hmm....I'm not sure about that, I'll have to see it in action. So much of what needs to be done gets done on THAT shot rather than applying a look. Stu gets workflow, so I'll have to trust him on this one until I can see it.

Interjection: I'd emailed Stu to talk about this, and he replied back:
Stu said:
I totally hear you -- the standalone UI is a double edged sword, but we're working to make it as non-modal as possible, and when you see the UI you'll understand why there was no other way.

Like the previous Look Suite, this tool isn't meant to be a color corrector in and of itself. The classic use would be Colorista followed by Magic Bullet Looks. You'd use MBL as a kind of LUT over your corrections. That way all the shots in a sequence have the consistent look but their own shot-by-shot corrections underneath. So there will be at least one mode of working where MBL will be somewhat fire-and-forget.

-Stu

That is certainly an interesting concept - Colorista for the tweaky tweaky color balancing, then MBL for applying a look. One key detail will be how the architecture in your app works - does it do Colorista in 32 bit floating point, then return results as what? Hopefully at LEAST a 10 bit space, not 8 bit RGB before THAT result gets sent to the next plugin (MBL). I don't know all the details on how exactly that works in each app, but it can make a substantial difference in the final quality results.

Back to quoting his blog entry...

Called Looks Builder, this application is launched when you apply the Look Suite 3 plug-in in After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Avid, or Motion.

I like that modularity, and the ability to use same looks in all those apps (don't forget Premiere Pro is coming to Macs this year)

Within Looks Builder, you build and edit looks using Look Tools; modular mini-effects for things like bleach bypass, gradient filters, and film stock simulation. All of these tools work in realtime and can be tweaked and edited in context. All processing is done in floating-point color.

Floating point GOOD, preservation of >100 IRE better - Stu tipped me to this in my own workflow issues, so I'm guessing he'll handle it right, or as rightly as the software & APIs allow him to do so.

With over 30 Look Tools to assemble however you like, you can create an infinite variety of Looks.Or choose a preset. Pop open the Looks Theater to see 100 different preset looks applied to your image (not a canned thumbnail) in realtime.

This bodes well for him "getting it" the way I want it to work.

Magic Bullet Looks was designed to be easy and fun to use, but it's powerful enough for pros too. Filters and exposure adjustments work in real-world units. Color corrections obey industry standards. Cineon film scans and digital cinema images, such as those from the Panavision Genesis camera, are interpreted correctly and can be converted to video or left in their native color spaces. The same look that you develop on an Avid rough cut in video color space can later be applied to a 35mm scan.

BINGO. If he's supporting Panalog, that bodes very, VERY well that he'll be handling a lot of other high end things I want to be able to do (Viper balanced LUT?). And all this with hardware acceleration on an 8 core Mac Pro with a good GPU? Bwahahahahhahaaa.....the POWER! Now, if he could just get secondaries in Colorista...

-mike

Labels: Adobe, After Effects, Apple, Avid, DIY, FCP, Final Cut, Genesis, NAB, NLE, plugin, post, software

Reel-Stream Mods the HVX200 at FresHDV

I found the info via FresHDV, so I'm linking to his coverage, I don't have time to do my own research on this one:

Today ReelStreem, famous for their Andromeda modification for the DVX100, announced that they would infact be offering a modified HVX200.


Go read all the specs over there.

Mike's Analysis: I'm glad they're doing this, I like their hacker mentality. Getting the full 4:4:4 RGB output is a good thing. Getting uncompressed output is a GREAT thing.

No pricing info that I've seen yet, but some issues/concerns:

-it is only a 960x540 pixelshifted imager - the claimed 2K resolution is scaled up, WAY scaled up - and not directly comparable to what is traditionally considered a 2K imager
-8, 10, 12, or 14 bit color depths - excellent to have all the options, but the crucial question is this - is the imager (which they aren't modifying from the HVX) capable of such subtlety?
-I like that they are essentially doing RAW capture off the sensor - a lot of the advantges that the Red One and SI-2K camera are doing.
-I'm a bit concerned about service/support since it is coming from such a small company - I'd rent one, I'd be cautious about purchasing one unless for a very specific project
-I love the indie DIY can-do attitude of this!
-"Up to 86dB" for dynamic range - hmmm....that's better than a lot of other stuff out there, and under what circumstances, etc. For comparison, folks have been excited about Red's claimed 66dB range.
-and you have to be tethered to a computer, specifically an Intel Mac running their software
-for some circumstances, this could be great - such as greenscreen
-the ability to work with the uncompressed source will help in a lot of ways, increased dynamic range one of them
-the data backup logistics for field shooting are even more complex than for P2 cards - if recording to a laptop, remember you can't bus power removable drives without AC power (no power over FireWire, even on "bus powered" drives - power only flows when laptop connected to AC power) EDIT - somebody corrected me and said USB 2.0 drives DO get power on a Powerbook - I don't have a bus powered USB 2.0 drive to check on my MacBook, somebody confirm FireWire/USB 2.0 power to bus powered drive WITHOUT AC power attached for me, OK?
-and oh yeah - you're still stuck with the original lens, which as Adam Wilt pointed out after our Texas HD Shootout last year, is well matched to the resolutions you can actually record with the HVX200 - the observed optical resolution was not anywhere near what these guys are planning on recording, and the lens has a lot to do with that. From Adam's
DV Magazine Texas Shootout! article:

"The HVX200 shoots both 1080- and 720-line formats, and it's sharper in 1080. While its resolution is only 540 x 540 (TV lines per picture height horizontally x TV lines vertically), the 1080-line recording preserves more of that resolution. 720p recording uses 960 samples/scanline, so filtering for recording causes detail near 540 TVl/ph to be diminished, whereas 1280-sample recording in 1080-line modes has a cutoff at 720 TVl/ph. 1080-line images show no graying-out of detail at all--the images retain considerable contrast at 540 lines, simply switching into aliasing at that point. "

-I'd gladly review one if they'd send it my way, however

-mike

Labels: cameras, DIY, low end

What is RocketIndie? (FAQ) - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking

I mentioned during my Sundance coverage that my friend Jarred Land, who owns/runs dvxuser.com and reduser.net, has started a new service - RocketIndie.com.

What is it? It is a means of self distribution of any disc based media - movies, music, training, whatever.

They charge no markup on your content, they make up their end on shipping with a reasonable shipping/handling fee.

Check out the FAQ on their site.

They don't officially launch for a couple more weeks, so give'em a little time/space in the meantime.

It sounds like a pretty good deal, I'm considering using it for some of my own stuff. The only thing I don't see (yet) that I'd like to is an option for faster delivery services.

-mike

Labels: distribution, DIY, online content service