New Music Video Shot with 35mm Adapter

Stephen Pipe · July 23rd, 2006, 06:51 AM

I would agree Soeren the lighting just adds to the quality of the film, you need a nice sharp image to start with.

Which means a great adapter and someone who knows how to use it, and Nick certanily has a great adapter and definatley knows how to use it.

Great work Nick, as usual.

Wayne Kinney · July 23rd, 2006, 07:48 AM

Yes, Nick recently updated his adapter, and the sharpness increase comes from the new achromat and lens configuration he is using.

Nicholas Bartleet · July 23rd, 2006, 08:44 AM

Hi guys, well here is a pic of my current setup externally, on the shoot.

http://www.pixelloft.com/images/fatal_shoot/fatal1.jpg
http://www.pixelloft.com/images/fatal_shoot/fatal2.jpg
http://www.pixelloft.com/images/fatal_shoot/fatal3.jpg

I have my gg 10cm away from the camera lens, and am using an achro with a fl of about 130. I also have a shroud, which is machined from aluminium, which stops the focus knob being knocked accidentally once it is setup. I check focus on the gg with the camera lcd, and using the expanded focus function before ever shot. I deinterlace everything in combustion, and used a fast shutter speed becuase i new a lot of it was going to be slowed down, so the minimum i could get away with would have been about double 60... i gues... 120. I also wanted to accentuate the movement in the performance parts, so went with a fast shutter for this too.

Color grading is perhaps one of the most creative, and challenging stages.... taking something from a rather bland (usually fairly orange) look, and making it come to life by drawing colors out, or tinting shadows and matching every shot in a sequence etc. HDV is a heavy compression, and you have to be very careful how you grade it if you dont want it to fall apart. You can grade something in 10 different ways to achieve much the same look, and often only one way will yeild the results without the hdv compression becoming a problem.

1 really good trick to use, if you are using hdv, and it is underexposed a little, and you have to push it a little further than you would like, maybe bumping the gama curve a little higher than normal. When you start to see the compression blocks, use a film grain filter. The grain filter will obliterate the mpeg noise, and make a much nicer more even filmic grain where the noise was. There were several shots i had to use this technique, and it works very well indeed. What would you prefer a nice film grain or mpeg noise. Also, this noise becuase it is much finer, will be much harder to distinguish than mpeg would on a tv.

Focussing is definatly a real art form, and something which i have still a lot to learn, especially when you have a moving camera on a dolly or jib for example. The sharper the rig, the easier it is to focus, and tell when something is in focus, and i have definatly noticed that with this last piece.

Fianlly, there are lost of things which i had the time to do with this piece that i havn't with previous. I did a lot of cleaning up, removing tripods from the corner of a shot, or removing unsightly birthmarks from a characters skin, or even straightening shots which were not perfect becuase of the constraints of the shoot. All this helps wih the highly polished look, and although subliminal is quite important.

Any more questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks again guys.

Nick

Greg Bates · July 23rd, 2006, 09:29 AM

Looks good as usual Nick.

David Delaney · July 23rd, 2006, 12:32 PM

Great setup Nick, very professional.
It looks alot like the M2...am I wrong?

Nicholas Bartleet · July 24th, 2006, 06:10 AM

Hi David,

Thanks for the comments.

Someone asked this question on the Redrock forum recently, and the guys at redrock quickly took credit for my hard work, however fortunatly, a good friend of mine set them straight. I was using my first adapter, well before redrock had released theirs or indeed their guide. All of my designs have been very different. I started out using a static gg, the a gg (made from glass) which was being propelled by a motor in the center. This was a great design, but was too fragile. I then built a design based around a bearing, with a gg in the center. Worked really well and refined this design several times before realising its few limitations, and then went back to my original idea, which by now, wayne kinney had refined tremendously. He helped me with several of the mechanical and gg elements of my adapter, to which i owe him credit.

I would guess that the only similarity between my adapter and the m2, would be the fact that it has a gg with a motor propelling it from the center. The distances, lens configuration, and lens quality, and indeed the design and quality of all the other components are clearly very different, becuase when i built it and refined it over the last few years, i didn't have to worry about retail costs or margins etc. Allmost all of the components inside my adapter, and indeed the connecting tube and carry handle etc are machined specifically for this adapter from high quality aluminium, and the features such as shroud to protect the focusing ring from being knocked, are all really nice features, which just make it a very practical design. Also, it has been made to work specifically with my camera, the FX1, and i'm sure becuase it doesn't have to work with a wide envelope of different cameras, does benefit it greatly. This is the 5th generation of my adapter. A lot of blood sweat and tears have gone into getting it to this stage, so i dont like to draw similarities between my adapter and anyone elses, however it definatly bears more similarities to the SGPro then the M2.

I hope this answers your question. Thanks Again, Nick

Soeren Mueller · July 25th, 2006, 01:54 AM

Then it's time to sell it in quantities, Nick! :-D

No ok.. but it sound's a little like you're implying that the (new?) SGPro is of higher build quality / optical quality than the M2... just curious.

Nicholas Bartleet · July 25th, 2006, 05:03 AM

Unfortunatly Soeren, my adapter would not be commercially viable given the current market. Many of the components are too expensive to buy or have made, and it would therefore not be compettative with the other adapters.

Regarding the M2, although Redrock have clearly shown they are happy to make statements about my adapter design without knowledge of the facts, I couldn't possibly make such an assumption, becuase i have never actually used an M2. The clips on their website look good, and i'm sure it is a very high quality build.

I was only drawing a parellel between elements of my adapter and the sgpro, becuase wayne has provided me with insight and several components which now reside within my adapter.

Having said this, I can certainly vouch for the quality of the components used in the SGPro as i have worked with wayne in parelell regarding many of these parts. This is why you will probably see elements of my adapter design in the sgpro and vica versa.

Thanks, Nick

Alex Chong · July 25th, 2006, 05:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicholas Bartleet

Unfortunatly Soeren, my adapter would not be commercially viable given the current market. Many of the components are too expensive to buy or have made, and it would therefore not be compettative with the other adapters.

Regarding the M2, although Redrock have clearly shown they are happy to make statements about my adapter design without knowledge of the facts, I couldn't possibly make such an assumption, becuase i have never actually used an M2. The clips on their website look good, and i'm sure it is a very high quality build.

I was only drawing a parellel between elements of my adapter and the sgpro, becuase wayne has provided me with insight and several components which now reside within my adapter.

Having said this, I can certainly vouch for the quality of the components used in the SGPro as i have worked with wayne in parelell regarding many of these parts. This is why you will probably see elements of my adapter design in the sgpro and vica versa.

Thanks, Nick

Hi Nic,

Is your image flipped during shooting or in post? I have to admit, the quality of the videos are excellent. Just a few questions and I hope you can answer them.

1. Are the vibrant colors a result of post production?
2. The clarity and sharpness of the videos are a result of your HDV camera or your GG? as I noticed alot of consumer camcorder do not get nearly the quality you got out of the video. I hardly see grains in your video.
3. How important is lighting in shooting shots like the one you did?

Thanks

Nicholas Bartleet · July 25th, 2006, 06:11 AM

Hi Alex,

The colors are certainly due to some careful color correction. Supressing colors in order to provide greater contrast is often as important as saturating a specific color, in giving a vibrant look.

The sharpness is down to HD and having very nice quality lenses both in the the adapter and on it.

The lighting is really key. If you have a badly lit shot.... of which i had 1 on this shoot, it is often very difficult if not impossible to lift it to a useable state let alone make it look good. There is nothing very clever about my lighting, its very simple 3 point variations usually. As im sure every DOP does, I have developed my own way of lighting which i like, and the more i shoot, the simpler it becomes to determin where lights should be positioned, and what output, or level of diffusion is required.

Nick

Alex Chong · July 25th, 2006, 10:14 AM

Hi Nic,

Thanks for the info. The color and lightling I can handle. But I definitely have to get the HDV camcorder. I really like the sharpness of the image. Which lens did you use for this setup?

Thanks

Nicho Gram · July 25th, 2006, 04:14 PM

neat --

How are the horizontal flares achieved? I'vee heard some people using filters but I like the way yours look. The Punch Drunk Love style flares...

Andy Gordon · July 25th, 2006, 11:15 PM

nice work Nick, I'm also curious how you do the lens flare.

also regarding 50% slomo, I do that a lot in Vegas which does interpolate deinterlace to make two fields into frames. Would you say Joe's filters produce better res than interpolation? Or basically the same?

I've been considering trying to make 50% slowmo using smart deinterlacer but I think it would look undercranked on areas without much movement since it would effectively be showing the same set of lines twice... Plus it just seems to introduce a load of artefacts when I've tried it in the past.

Nicho Gram · July 26th, 2006, 09:38 PM

And I'm aware that in PDL the flares are somewhat the result of the film being shot anamorphic, and I suppose they can be done in Knoll light factory as well, but yours look like they may have been done in camera;do you or anyone else know how this is achieved?

Nicholas Bartleet · July 27th, 2006, 03:32 AM

Sorry about that.... took a while to get back on here to answer your questions.

Those arn't flares if you look at them, they are the result of using a 2 point star filter. The one i use is a 2 point cooke filter, glued onto a 4 x 4 black plastic insert, which i can slide into my matte box. You can get a 4x4 one from the london filter co, but they arn't cheap.

With regards to deinterlacing, and slowmotion, i have no comments or sugguestions really other than the new beta Fieldblender in Joes filters is a very good and simple way of producing the slowmotion without loosing much in the way of detail. It was also very good from a workflow point of view, becuase it didn't require any keyframes to be set.... just set up the filter perameters, and drop onto the clip. And contrary to many slowmo plugins, the clips in and out points could be adjusted without having to remove the filter or re-keyframe the clip.

As you can see, the slowmotion is really nice. Everything else was deinterlaced in combustion, because it seemed to produce the best results.

Hope this helps, Nick

July 23rd, 2006, 07:48 AM	#17
Wayne Kinney Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Brighton, East Sussex, UK Posts: 938	Yes, Nick recently updated his adapter, and the sharpness increase comes from the new achromat and lens configuration he is using. __________________ Thanks, Wayne.

July 23rd, 2006, 06:51 AM	#16
Stephen Pipe Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: London Posts: 49	I would agree Soeren the lighting just adds to the quality of the film, you need a nice sharp image to start with. Which means a great adapter and someone who knows how to use it, and Nick certanily has a great adapter and definatley knows how to use it. Great work Nick, as usual.

July 23rd, 2006, 08:44 AM	#18
Nicholas Bartleet Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: upton uk Posts: 104	Hi guys, well here is a pic of my current setup externally, on the shoot. http://www.pixelloft.com/images/fatal_shoot/fatal1.jpg http://www.pixelloft.com/images/fatal_shoot/fatal2.jpg http://www.pixelloft.com/images/fatal_shoot/fatal3.jpg I have my gg 10cm away from the camera lens, and am using an achro with a fl of about 130. I also have a shroud, which is machined from aluminium, which stops the focus knob being knocked accidentally once it is setup. I check focus on the gg with the camera lcd, and using the expanded focus function before ever shot. I deinterlace everything in combustion, and used a fast shutter speed becuase i new a lot of it was going to be slowed down, so the minimum i could get away with would have been about double 60... i gues... 120. I also wanted to accentuate the movement in the performance parts, so went with a fast shutter for this too. Color grading is perhaps one of the most creative, and challenging stages.... taking something from a rather bland (usually fairly orange) look, and making it come to life by drawing colors out, or tinting shadows and matching every shot in a sequence etc. HDV is a heavy compression, and you have to be very careful how you grade it if you dont want it to fall apart. You can grade something in 10 different ways to achieve much the same look, and often only one way will yeild the results without the hdv compression becoming a problem. 1 really good trick to use, if you are using hdv, and it is underexposed a little, and you have to push it a little further than you would like, maybe bumping the gama curve a little higher than normal. When you start to see the compression blocks, use a film grain filter. The grain filter will obliterate the mpeg noise, and make a much nicer more even filmic grain where the noise was. There were several shots i had to use this technique, and it works very well indeed. What would you prefer a nice film grain or mpeg noise. Also, this noise becuase it is much finer, will be much harder to distinguish than mpeg would on a tv. Focussing is definatly a real art form, and something which i have still a lot to learn, especially when you have a moving camera on a dolly or jib for example. The sharper the rig, the easier it is to focus, and tell when something is in focus, and i have definatly noticed that with this last piece. Fianlly, there are lost of things which i had the time to do with this piece that i havn't with previous. I did a lot of cleaning up, removing tripods from the corner of a shot, or removing unsightly birthmarks from a characters skin, or even straightening shots which were not perfect becuase of the constraints of the shoot. All this helps wih the highly polished look, and although subliminal is quite important. Any more questions, feel free to ask. Thanks again guys. Nick

July 23rd, 2006, 09:29 AM	#19
Greg Bates Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 186	Looks good as usual Nick.

July 23rd, 2006, 12:32 PM	#20
David Delaney Trustee Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Niagara Ontario Canada Posts: 1,121	Great setup Nick, very professional. It looks alot like the M2...am I wrong?

July 24th, 2006, 06:10 AM	#21
Nicholas Bartleet Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: upton uk Posts: 104	Hi David, Thanks for the comments. Someone asked this question on the Redrock forum recently, and the guys at redrock quickly took credit for my hard work, however fortunatly, a good friend of mine set them straight. I was using my first adapter, well before redrock had released theirs or indeed their guide. All of my designs have been very different. I started out using a static gg, the a gg (made from glass) which was being propelled by a motor in the center. This was a great design, but was too fragile. I then built a design based around a bearing, with a gg in the center. Worked really well and refined this design several times before realising its few limitations, and then went back to my original idea, which by now, wayne kinney had refined tremendously. He helped me with several of the mechanical and gg elements of my adapter, to which i owe him credit. I would guess that the only similarity between my adapter and the m2, would be the fact that it has a gg with a motor propelling it from the center. The distances, lens configuration, and lens quality, and indeed the design and quality of all the other components are clearly very different, becuase when i built it and refined it over the last few years, i didn't have to worry about retail costs or margins etc. Allmost all of the components inside my adapter, and indeed the connecting tube and carry handle etc are machined specifically for this adapter from high quality aluminium, and the features such as shroud to protect the focusing ring from being knocked, are all really nice features, which just make it a very practical design. Also, it has been made to work specifically with my camera, the FX1, and i'm sure becuase it doesn't have to work with a wide envelope of different cameras, does benefit it greatly. This is the 5th generation of my adapter. A lot of blood sweat and tears have gone into getting it to this stage, so i dont like to draw similarities between my adapter and anyone elses, however it definatly bears more similarities to the SGPro then the M2. I hope this answers your question. Thanks Again, Nick

July 25th, 2006, 01:54 AM	#22
Soeren Mueller Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Düsseldorf, Germany / Denver, CO Posts: 137	Then it's time to sell it in quantities, Nick! :-D No ok.. but it sound's a little like you're implying that the (new?) SGPro is of higher build quality / optical quality than the M2... just curious.

July 25th, 2006, 05:03 AM	#23
Nicholas Bartleet Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: upton uk Posts: 104	Unfortunatly Soeren, my adapter would not be commercially viable given the current market. Many of the components are too expensive to buy or have made, and it would therefore not be compettative with the other adapters. Regarding the M2, although Redrock have clearly shown they are happy to make statements about my adapter design without knowledge of the facts, I couldn't possibly make such an assumption, becuase i have never actually used an M2. The clips on their website look good, and i'm sure it is a very high quality build. I was only drawing a parellel between elements of my adapter and the sgpro, becuase wayne has provided me with insight and several components which now reside within my adapter. Having said this, I can certainly vouch for the quality of the components used in the SGPro as i have worked with wayne in parelell regarding many of these parts. This is why you will probably see elements of my adapter design in the sgpro and vica versa. Thanks, Nick

July 25th, 2006, 06:11 AM	#25
Nicholas Bartleet Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: upton uk Posts: 104	Hi Alex, The colors are certainly due to some careful color correction. Supressing colors in order to provide greater contrast is often as important as saturating a specific color, in giving a vibrant look. The sharpness is down to HD and having very nice quality lenses both in the the adapter and on it. The lighting is really key. If you have a badly lit shot.... of which i had 1 on this shoot, it is often very difficult if not impossible to lift it to a useable state let alone make it look good. There is nothing very clever about my lighting, its very simple 3 point variations usually. As im sure every DOP does, I have developed my own way of lighting which i like, and the more i shoot, the simpler it becomes to determin where lights should be positioned, and what output, or level of diffusion is required. Nick

July 25th, 2006, 10:14 AM	#26
Alex Chong Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Brunei Posts: 140	Hi Nic, Thanks for the info. The color and lightling I can handle. But I definitely have to get the HDV camcorder. I really like the sharpness of the image. Which lens did you use for this setup? Thanks

July 25th, 2006, 04:14 PM	#27
Nicho Gram New Boot Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Baltimore MARYLAND Posts: 11	neat -- How are the horizontal flares achieved? I'vee heard some people using filters but I like the way yours look. The Punch Drunk Love style flares...

July 25th, 2006, 11:15 PM	#28
Andy Gordon Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Perth WA Posts: 103	nice work Nick, I'm also curious how you do the lens flare. also regarding 50% slomo, I do that a lot in Vegas which does interpolate deinterlace to make two fields into frames. Would you say Joe's filters produce better res than interpolation? Or basically the same? I've been considering trying to make 50% slowmo using smart deinterlacer but I think it would look undercranked on areas without much movement since it would effectively be showing the same set of lines twice... Plus it just seems to introduce a load of artefacts when I've tried it in the past.

July 26th, 2006, 09:38 PM	#29
Nicho Gram New Boot Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Baltimore MARYLAND Posts: 11	And I'm aware that in PDL the flares are somewhat the result of the film being shot anamorphic, and I suppose they can be done in Knoll light factory as well, but yours look like they may have been done in camera;do you or anyone else know how this is achieved?

July 27th, 2006, 03:32 AM	#30
Nicholas Bartleet Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: upton uk Posts: 104	Sorry about that.... took a while to get back on here to answer your questions. Those arn't flares if you look at them, they are the result of using a 2 point star filter. The one i use is a 2 point cooke filter, glued onto a 4 x 4 black plastic insert, which i can slide into my matte box. You can get a 4x4 one from the london filter co, but they arn't cheap. With regards to deinterlacing, and slowmotion, i have no comments or sugguestions really other than the new beta Fieldblender in Joes filters is a very good and simple way of producing the slowmotion without loosing much in the way of detail. It was also very good from a workflow point of view, becuase it didn't require any keyframes to be set.... just set up the filter perameters, and drop onto the clip. And contrary to many slowmo plugins, the clips in and out points could be adjusted without having to remove the filter or re-keyframe the clip. As you can see, the slowmotion is really nice. Everything else was deinterlaced in combustion, because it seemed to produce the best results. Hope this helps, Nick