To PAL or not to PAL
 

Hey guys!

So here's the story. I'm a frustrated screenwriter that's tired of waiting for stuff to happen with studios. I have always wanted to direct and I have a few full length features and a few shorts that I want to shoot. I was thinking about shooting the shorts in NTSC with my 'lil GL1 and maybe shooting my features with a PAL XL1s.

Now here's my question, since money is a huge consideration, is PAL really something I should shoot for? It means I'm going to have to get another four grand or so together to get my first feature lenght off the ground. My other option is to shoot my feature with the Sony and the GL1 in NTSC and just take my chances in post.

Am I just looking for major trouble in post if I go with the latter or what?

(I'm thinking about eventually transferring to 35mm, but currently, it's cheaper to FilmLook the whole thing and project digitally.)

Thanks in advance!

If you use the Search function I'm sure you'll find quite a few threads dealing with this subject; it comes up at least once every few months. In fact I think we just had one of those lengthy discussions at:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1024

In my opinion, shooting PAL (in North America) to get close to 24p is an entirely unneccesary and expensive hassle. I'd recommend spending your energy and capital on lighting your scenes carefully, on planning your shots and scenes extremely carefully, on getting committed talent and, most of all, getting a very good story to tell.

I agree with Ken. Save your money. Or better yet, find out who is going to transfer the video to film and ask what they recommend. There is a good article in "RES" magazine this month that talks about this exactily. They have listings of transfer houses and what they charge and what formats they like and so on. They all do NTSC and PAL and some prefer NTSC. Be prepared for the average $400.00 per minute charge and ask them what they like best. Different houses like different things so you would benifit greatly by finding one you like (or fairly close to you) and asking for their recommendations before you buy more equipment. Then you can rent equipment if you need something different or spend the money on post.

Prediction
 

hi there,

I just made a new shortfilm with which I try to apply for filmschool in Germany.

The task was to make a 5 min short about some "confrontation" - no dialogue were allowed.

the version which is online is about 7 min long and a little different from the original one, but anyway I like to hear your thoughts about it.

the direct link: http://www.neo-modus.com/stuntpeople/flatcoin/prediction_dirscut.avi

it is about 20MB and compressed with Divx411.

a long making of articel you'll find at my page.. guess you just have to click the homepage butten at the button, but anyway: http://www.flatcoin.com .. there read in the "Prediction" section.

thanks for all your thoughts, bye and have a nice day :)

Ulrik

Hey there Ulrik!

It was a nice movie to watch, very well done. I especially
like the touch when he lit the fire! One thing I did not quite
follow was the guy out in the field.... It was not clear to
me who he was or what he was doing there. I think the
story was pretty well! Thanks for sharing.

Oh... perhaps I didn't follow it as well as I could have,
I am at work currently with some things on my mind...

Good luck!

thanks .. the guy in the field was the death himself :)

Ulrik

DV Screening
 

My critically acclaimed documentary "Outwitting Hitler" will be screened at the Holocaust museum in Washington on April 1st & 2nd. For more information, including a clip from the film, go to www.ushmm.org and click on 'spring 2002 film series' I will be introducing the film and answering questions afterwards.

Gonna check it out Chris! Oh.. the direct URL to your page is:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/publicprograms/programs/films02/outwitting.htm

Just as an FYI, Chris Ward's docu was shot with a Canon XL1, GL1 and also a Sony PD150, and aired nationwide on Showtime last April. It's a powerful piece, and worthy of being made into a feature film, in my opinion. Be sure to check it out!

CBS 9/11 docu from 11 March 2002
 

Just curious how many of you saw this last Sunday:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/9_11/project.shtml

I time-shifted it to VHS but haven't seen it yet. By all reports it's a stunning piece of work. Shot on a pair of Sony PD150's. I'm waiting for a quiet time next week when I can sit down and watch it.

I did see it and it was, indeed, quite a piece of work. How these brothers managed to keep their mental focus to get their footage was amazing to me. Equally impressive was the editing work required to weave the footage into a compelling story. A true masterpiece.

CBS broadcast the show in what appeared to be 16:9, with the exception of the firemans' tribute at the end of thee program. I wonder if these fellow shot their footage in 16:9 or if this was manipulated to HD.

Also, I thought I saw that one of the cams looked like a PD150 but I caught the shadow of the other cam which looked more like an ENG cam. Maybe a DSR300? Either way, the footage all looked pretty good...in terms of image quality, that is.

You unfortunately need the Realaudio plugin and NOTHING from "REAL Networks" will ever be put on my machine. The amout of spam and intrusive software they put out is ridiculous. If only there was a Quicktime version somewhere. Does anybody know of other places to view this?

I'll ask Chris what rights he has (remember that Showtime is involved to some degree here)... I would be happy to offer server space for a streaming trailer, or something along those lines, in Quicktime format, if my serverchief Jeff doesn't mind too much. But this ulimately is a legal question revolving around distribution rights, I think.

Thank you so much. I understand the whole rights issue, it's such a pain.

right about rights
 

Showtime has the rights so there won't be any other clips unless they put one on their website, which is unlikely. We are working on a DVD version that will hopefully come out next year. In the meantime, the screening will have to do.