The Twenty-Third Letter - Scene 10
 

We recently wrapped production on The Twenty-Third Letter trailer. We put the XLH1 through it's paces and in different production scenarios.

I chose to show off Scene 10 because it has many different production qualities that hopefully many on these boards would find interesting. Low light. 3x SD lens on some shots. Jib arm shots. Special visual effects. Color correction. Etc. We also had a blast shooting this scene in downtown L.A.

You can view the Quicktime versions here:

http://starwaypictures.blogspot.com/...-scene-10.html

With a little luck I can offer WMV versions later today or tomorrow.

There are some noticable compression artifacts introduced by H264. It's always a tradeoff between picture quality and file size.

That is freakin awesome. how did you get 24 fps , in camera or did you shoot 60i and convert in post?

We shot the film in 24F. Imported the footage and converted it to DVCProHD.

Looks very professional, Robert. Really nice job. Just one thing, the cut at 24 seconds seemed forced to me and a little disorienting mainly because I didn't really see the point of it given that you already established the scene.

Great stuff...

Steve beat me to it. At 24 seconds into the clip, I would've let it stay at the two shot until the wider shot at 30, unless the performance is a composite of different shots, in which case an insert of onlookers or something like that could help mix and match the different pieces while keeping lip synch.

Color
 

I took the liberty to take a shot at some color work for one of the shots in your scene...

http://www.js-films.com/test/noncc.jpg
http://www.js-films.com/test/cc.jpg

I tried to keep the greenish cast of your original, while getting rid of the milkish bluish shadows. What do you think?

I think the problem might be that in the shot prior to the reverse we see her inhale to deliver the next line and when we cut there's a pause. I was trying to slow down her delivery a bit.

I'm going to work on it some more to see if I can smooth it out. It seems to be bothering everyone.

Nice. Thank you.

The problem in the edit at that point is that you're breaking the axis (at least that's what we call it in spanish). In the shot prior she's on the left and he's on the right, and the next shot their position is reversed. Visually, you should keep continuity of each actor's position onscreen unless you use some sort of transition shot or insert to pull it off. When they walk away it works because you're revealing the rest of the scene so the attention is diverted, but when they're static it doesn't.

By the way, love the hidden detail of the cardboard betacam tape box.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2933/11cc6jc.jpg
I was just testing something and it would've turned our better if I had the uncompressed file but I still think it's pretty good.

Great work!

Q: What do you gain by converting to DVCproHD?

Q2: Is the whole clip shot with 20x Stock lens and 3x Wide SD?

Small Q: Is it 2,35:1 format?

A1: DVCProHD is much better codec to edit with. I think of HDV as an aquisition medium only. Plus FCP is optimized to work with DVCProHD.

A2: The bulk of it is the 20x lens. The opening shot and the close-up shot of the detective looking at the body is the 3x Wide.

A3: 2.35:1 baby! My favorite aspect ratio. My home theater enthusiast buddies HATE that I letterbox everything. But, oh well.

So the film is captured to/from cassettes (and not HD-SDI)?

And I must ask you, how did you do the wall? Is it done on location? Is it greenscreen?

Really nice work!

All captured to tape (HDV). Exported via Firewire using DVHSCapture and then converted to DVCProHD via MPEG Streamclip.

The wall was done in post. It was a matte painting added to the original wall with all foreground elements (actors) rotoscoped.

When you export from FCP (to film-out), which codec do you use?