Commercial shoot with the HD100
 

Hi everyone,
We are going to be shooting three national / international toy commercials with the hd 100 running 24P, mini 35 adapter and nice primes, and the Wafian HR-1 recorder here in a Hollywood soundstage May 1st through the 8th.

As our DIT and consultant we are using Paolo Ciccone (of the famous Paolo settings...http://www.paolociccone.com ), which has been nice enough to make himeself available to us during the shoot.

We have allready shot a full test of this setup last month with great results.
Has anyone finished a job utilizing the Wafian recorder in post using the 10 bit Prospect HD format?
What is the visual benefit of the 10 bit process?
We were having problems distinguishing between 8 and 10 bit footage on our SDI monitor...



Thanks.
Ben Jehoshua
Creative Director
Image Line Productions
www.imagelinemedia.com

Here's the rough test we shot last month
www.imagelinemedia.com/rescue06

Ben - You will see the benefit of the 10bit codec in post production if you decide to do any digital color grading or post effects.

Thanks
 

I hope so, although we ran a test with this setup and I was hard pressed to see the difference between 8 and 10 bits... I was wondering if it is worth it investing $2K in the Prospect HD format.

ben jehoshua
www.imagelinemedia.com

Difference between recording mediums
 

Hi everybody,
We are getting near to our shoot, I was wondering if anybody here had experience with the HDV RACK from serious magic, we've used it successfuly on our test, but sometimes it recorded one frame clips. We intend to use it on our set as video assist for our director, running a duplicated signal to four locations on the soundstage.

Ben Jehoshua
www.imagelinemedia.com

I've used it successfully. The only time I had incidents of single frames or small clips was when using a poor or perhaps damaged firewire cable. HDV Rack seems to be sensitive to cables and length so I can only advise using quality cables of the proper length.

After watching your test, your actress has that squeezy, cuddly, smile down so well it made me want to go get a hug from someone.

The picture looks great!

Well a great test of 8-bit/10-bit differences lies in graphics/fx or the mentioned above color correction.

The most simple example is this:

Make a full screen gradient from one solid color on one side to pure white or black on the other.

An 8-bit render will usually show stepping (banding) from one shade to another.

A 10-bit render will show a completely smooth transition for the entire picture.

Commercial Shoot
 

Thanks Warren! although the actress is actually my partner, Brad's wife... We're using kids for the actual commercial.
The picture looks really great on an uncompressed monitor preview.
We just shot a first tape for a documentary we're doing about a dance company in Hollywood here and Paolo's settings looks amazing both for that and the documentary.

Ben Jehoshua
www.imagelinemedia.com

8 vs 10 bit
 

Thanks, Mark, didn't think of doing the gradiant test, I will do it and check the output, although it's more difficult without having an NTSC preview to discern noticable banding, I believe.
Have you or anyone had experiece with the Prospect HD connected to the AJA board with real time preview?

Ben Jehoshua
www.imagelinemedia.com

Three Commercials on the HD100
 

Hi Everybody!
I'm happy to report that we have used and abused the HD100 with the Mini35 adapter and Cook lenses, going into the Wafian recorder. The footage turned out amazing, so much so that my client, while mouth still agape from the fact that the cut was done on the soundstage, kept asking me who the transfer guy was.
I will post some great footage tomorrow, hope it helps folks make up their mind about buying this camera.
Paolo Ciccone came down to LA and helped us graciously with DIT work and ran the Wafian recorder for us, it was a pleasure all around for everybody, and the picture, well, I still can't get over it.

Cheers,

Ben Jehoshua
Creative Director
Image Line Productions
www.imagelinemedia.com

There's practically no visible difference between 8 bit and 10 bit with no processing, because even with 8 bits the "steps" are close enough together that you just can't see the transitions between them. If you do any post processing, however, you run the risk of moving some of the "steps" further apart to the point where you can tell the difference, resulting in color banding.

If you've got the disk space and processing power to burn, just go ahead and record 10 bits. It can't hurt.

Ben, it was a blast to see the HD100 coupled with such amazing gear. Here is a picture of the camera with the Mini35 and the HUGE Cooke lens, held buy our camera operator and gear meister Mako: http://www.paolociccone.com/images/HD100-cooke.jpg

Can't wait to see the footage! That is quite the setup.

What is that, some sort of insane telephoto lens? The only lens I've ever seen that big is this 40x zoom I saw a sports broadcaster using on their high tight shot.

Stephan,

Them's the sort of big macho lenses you see on a 35mm movie set. And it sho do look like sumtun' on the 100.

I had a newspaper photographer friend tell me once, that he carried a huge telephoto lens off his belt because the ladies seemed to find a fella with that kind of lens attractive. Said he seldom used it, just for show. Something about relating the size of his lens to .........., uh, don't think I'll go there.

All seriousness aside though, sure wish my HD100 looked like that. I also can't wait to see some footage. Gotta know these guys actually used it.

Gary Morris McBeath
SaltAire Cinema Productions