Once and for all...!
 

Hi,

Next Wednesday, I will be filming a short which will be shown online as well as theater projected for festivals.

The short will be very dark and "shadowy" (noir like) What should my camera be set to in order to receive the sharpest, noiseless picture while shooting in 24p. Do you recommend any presets? I also plan on color correcting in (apple) Color.. I have a 4 light tungsten kit in addition. I have had my A1 a year now and have tweaked it quite a bit. However I still am getting a some what grainy picture no matter what.. I will be conducting major lighting test with my A1 tomorrow to try to get everything just right.

Please respond as soon as possible.

I can not afford to have crappy picture for this project!

Thanks

P.S.

Hears some example of the work I've done in the past!

Creepy Clown Productions's videos on Vimeo

HDV Noir
 

I shoot lots of Noir with my A1.
I shoot everything with fairly simple camera settings (trucolor-ish). I've found a few tricks to making this look good:

1. Have enough light where it's supposed to be. If you want deep shadows, edgy lighting, etc, make sure the parts of the frame that ARE lit are lit brightly enough.

2. Expose your images such that you don't have to brighten in post. Pull down the darks. Other post tricks include a touch of soft focus and adding (a tiny amount of) film grain to diffuse the artifacts.

3. Avoid expanses of flat color. I've found that putting some texture on those dark walls gives the compressor something to think about, which masks a lot of the compression artifacts that HDV creates.

My favorite: meet with your production designer and do a couple test shots with similar lighting and similar materials/textures in frame.

My $0.02

Much better to capture well exposed images and darken in post!

You said it, Cole. Having enough light ensures a clean image.