CAMERA AND SOUND

I'm shooting a music video that I will edit in FCS. What would be a good HD consumer friendly camera to rent. Also will I need any special playback method for the song so it syncs with the same song that I'll lay on the audio track?

We were just talking about this over in another thread: These days it's possible to get some fairly remarkable looks out of really cheap camera gear using just what comes in the Final Cut Studio box. There's a short film out now, "White Red Panic," that's gained a lot of attention for (a) looking really great and (b) being shot on a $600 Canon HV20 consumer HDV camera.

If you're willing to spend some time in Color perfecting your grade and your look, you might be better off just buying one of these ? I think only the HV30 is available through retail channels now ? than renting anything.

The trade-off is workflow. When you shoot 24p on these cameras, you have to capture as 60i and remove the pulldown manually before editing. And there are several ways to work with HDV that will frustrate and annoy you, and a few that are a breeze, so you have to be sure you get it right before starting to cut.

If you want fewer trade-offs, pretty much everybody swears by the HVX200.

I like the HVX200. I'm reading up on the HVX200. It sounds great.
What do they rent for?
Also, I don't have a clue about all the recording formats (DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO-HD).

What does that mean?

All I want is a HD video in 16.9. What should I record in? What settings should I import with?

Thanks so much

EB

Unfortunately, those aren't easy questions, Eric. There's no one-true-format any more. Once upon a time, if you wanted to shoot HD you shot on HDCAM and captured uncompressed and that was that. But those days are over. You could, depending on your budget, shoot anything from HDV all the way up to Red.

DVCPRO HD will probably be easiest to work with for somebody who doesn't have a ton of experience. Most of the other formats (yes, including HDV and Red) all have very particular workflow requirements. You might be best off if you shot on DVCPRO HD tape, as the tapeless P2 workflow has its own set of gotchas.

If you're new at this ? and I don't mean this as a dig, you just kinda sound like you might be starting out ? you might consider shooting your first music video on DV. No, you won't get the same look you'd get out of a midrange HD camcorder, but it'll let you go through the process from start to finish and get a feel for the work involved.

As for how much the HVX200 costs to rent, I've seen packages go for around $250 a day.

Another question I have is progressive v interlace.

Which one gives more of a film look?

"Film look" means a lot more than frame rate. Shooting at 24p with a 1/48 shutter is required, but in order to get that cinematic look you'll also need to pay close attention to lighting and depth of field, not to mention color grading in post.

Hey Eric,

I agree with Jeff...DVCPRO-HD is a good choice. The HVX-200 provides stunning images as well - would rent this one if available.

Regarding Jeff's comments about consumer cams producing great images...gotta agree again...and again I gotta push Magic Bullet Looks for the Post Work.

I have an older Sony HDR-HC1 HDV camera (paid $1200.00 for it):



Love this $%#&ing camera. When there's plenty of light this camera rocks. I took some footage of my son fighting Darth Vader at Disney MGM's Star Wars Weekend into After Effects and applied MBL & frames to it & tweaked it a bit. Have you ever seen that Armour All Car Polish commercial with Tony Stewart where he stares at his shiney polished car and nothing could distract him? I found myself doing the same thing at my monitor. I could NOT believe what I was looking at. I honestly thought I had converted the 1080i footage to as close to a film look as I have ever seen on a computer. I am trying to locate that project. I think I deleted it when I cleaned off my Golf Channel computer when I left in April. I will try to post before & after frames.

As I mentioned to you in another thread...Magic Bullet Suite makes the crappiest footage look like an art piece. That is no lie. Best bundle of software (along side of the Trapcode Suite) I have ever had the pleasure of using.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I agree Joey, I too am having a love affair with MBL, it is so fun to use as well.

Dan

Thank you all for the tutorial. I will use the Panasonic HVX200 and shoot in DVCPRO50 using mini DV tape. And yes, I am new to the technology. But that has never stopped me before. The only way I learn is by trial and error. I look forward to the challenge.

So should I shoot in 720p 24p on the HVX200 and then choose that same setting DVCPRO50 720 24 in Final Cut to import via firewire?

Also what do these other options mean? ( 25p, 30p, 50p, 60p)

Extremely grateful for the lesson, and probably not my last question

Eric

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DVCPRO50 using mini DV tape

why? that WONT give you HD and the dvcproHD/P2 workflow is SOOOOO fast and easy. way simpler than tape - IMHO

720p24 is pretty much the defacto approach for filmlook. but keep in mind, progressive and 24frames presents you with the infamous "judders" on fast camera moves and pans. if your camera will mostly be locked down OR if your camera moves will be super quick - none of that matters.

i'll add another vote for magic bullet looks. that is some fun, FUN stuff! and can take poorly shot amatureish crap and make it look really cool - like it was planned that way from the start.

i LOVE the hvx200 but be careful with it. its notoriously grainy especially in low light. if your rental house has it, ask for the hvx200A, its an upgrade to the 200 and is WAY better in low light.

Why won't that give me HD? Because it's 720p?

DVCPRO 50 is not a high-definition format. It's a standard-definition format. If you want to shoot DVCPRO, and you want high-definition, you must use DVCPRO HD.

SO do I shoot in 720 or 1080?

either one is fine. depends on client deliverable expectation and your machines horsepower/post production deadlines.

my feeling is that if you have to ask, 720 is fine. 1080 is just bigger.

"If you want to shoot DVCPRO, and you want high-definition, you must use DVCPRO HD."

Can I record to mini DV tapes?

Where can I read up on DVCPROHD/P2 workflows?

Just get this

[www.callboxlive.com]

Michael Horton
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What consumers call "Mini DV," old farts tend to call "DV-S." It's an old habit. Sony's Betacam tapes came in S and L sizes; the S size was used in cameras, because it allowed the recorders to be physically smaller and less heavy. The L size was used in tape decks for mastering, because the large tapes could hold a whole hour-long program.

DV ? in the generic sense, encompassing DV, DVCAM and DVCPRO ? comes in three different tape sizes: S, being the little tapes you see by the cash register in the 7-11 now; M, being the most common size for DVCPRO and DVCAM cameras; and L, being the DV equivalent of the Betacam program-length L tape.

DV and HDV record to DV-S tapes; DVCPRO only uses M- and L-size tapes. DVCPRO tapes are nominally color-coded, like Sony's tapes, but that rarely works out in practice. DVCPRO25 tapes are supposed to have a yellow lid, DVCPRO50 tapes a blue lid and DVCPRO HD tapes a red lid, but since you can record any of those formats to any of those tapes, what you see in the real world is an unlabeled yellow-lidded tape sitting on a shelf in the equipment room with absolutely no way of knowing whether it's DVCPRO25, DVCPRO50 or DVCPRO HD except by loading it up and playing it.

These days, DVCPRO tape is starting to become less popular among independent DOPs. It's still universally used for news, but indies are starting to adopt the P2 solid-state recording format. A P2 card is roughly the size and shape of a business card, and they come in a variety of capacities. They're trickier to use than tape. They're faster, since you can copy the footage off more quickly than real time. But since they're so expensive relative to tape ? a one-hour DVCPRO tape costs about $15 ? you have to reuse them, which means coming up with a good system for archiving your footage, preferably before you start shooting. If you don't have enough cards to shoot for a whole day, you basically have to have some on-set way ? like a laptop with a G-RAID mini ? of dumping the P2 cards and reformatting them so they can go back in the camera. It's not unusual for this to be a whole separate person who wrangles the data on-set while the DOP is running the camera.

Be aware that the HVX200 series has a recorder built into it, but it only records in standard definition. You'll have to use the P2 cards if you rent that camera. If your rental comes with two eight-gig cards (pretty much the standard) you'll be able to shoot for about an hour before you're all full up. So build in some system for dumping and recycling P2 cards into your budget.

>I will use the Panasonic HVX200 and shoot in DVCPRO50 using mini DV tape.

Mini DV doesn't carry Dvcpro50. As the guys have mentioned, if you want to shoot HD, you need to go at 720 or 1080. The file sizes for 720 is similar to Dv50, and 1080 is around twice that size (100mb/s). You'll have to shoot onto P2. You'll need more reading up on the workflows and format (depending on which camera and format you choose) or you'll be running into problems later on (storage, P2 or firestore, etc).



www.strypesinpost.com

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Jeff Harrell
DVCPRO only uses M- and L-size tapes

This is true in a certain sense but DVCPRO25 and DVCPRO50 can use "S" tapes, DVCPRO100 can't as far as I know.
But this was a great explanation!

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]