Transfer to film?

[Zack Birlew]

Hey, I've thought about it a lot and I just don't know what to think. I'm wanting to do films, both short and feature, but I can't necessarily go out and buy a Varicam or rent a 35mm ARRI setup for an extended amount of time (much like the rest of you guys ^_^), so I'm happily stuck in the world of DV, which is coming somewhat close to film now with QUALITY HDV cameras on the way, but I pondered whether these cameras would actually be good for what I want to do. Yeah, yeah, I'm stuck with a GL1 for now, which has served its duties well thus far, but I'm thinking on film blowups here and this camera just wouldn't be able to work (the XL1S got away with it because of the interchangeable lense system for 28 Days Later). To me I see it as this, HDV= more resolution for film blowup, so I was all like "Yay!" when the Sony 3CCD HDV FX-1 cam was announced, but then I thought "Hmmmmm, will it work?" Because the JVC isn't compatible with DVFilm.com for blowups, but that's including other factors such as it being 1CCD and all. So what do you guys think about this?

[Mike Gannon]

16mm film will blow up to 35mm better than DV. The problem with DV, at least the DV everyone here is talking about, is that it is captured via 1/3" chips. The reason for the hype over the Sony is that theoreticaly, the HDV format's additional resolution will hold up better in a blow up especially with three CCDs rather than the one on the JVC.

Now if you are one of those people that must have 24 individual frames, then niether camera is for you. And I think you are going to wait a long time to get 24p out of any HD format south of $20,000. For that price, shoot quick, shoot smart, and shoot film.

[Barry Green]

DVFilm's problem with the JVC isn't that it's 1CCD, it's that it shoots at 30 progressive frames per second.

The Sony doesn't have that limitation. It shoots 60 fields per second, and lots of post houses have developed high-quality 60i->24P conversion algorithms for film transfers.

I'm sure we'll be seeing HDV film transfers very soon from the Sony.

[Anhar Miah]

I was also thinking about the possibility of "Home Cinema", with the current set of DLP and LCD HD (or 720 anyway) projectors, you could put on a very good show.

[Michael Struthers]

How will it transfer? Better than DV, not as good as super16mm.

By the way, for the price of the Sony Pro FX-1, you could rent a killer super16mm setup for 3 weeks to shoot your film.

[Zack Birlew]

Mike, that's just the thing, it's a 3 week limit if I rent, I don't want to have to worry about delays or anything like that with DV, I like to keep things simple =). Plus, I'd probably get too attached to the expensive film setups that I may never want to go back =D! But that can't be, especially on my budget. But I mean, Mini DV will work, no doubt about that, but do you think that HDV will make that much of a difference in our current situation?

[Gary McClurg]

Mike did you add in the cost of film, lab, prep and transfer to those rental costs.

[Michael Struthers]

Costs - of course I didn't add those in, I was just pointing out that the cost of a cam will get you partway home on a pro-looking production. Which is going to do more for your career?

Anyway, I'm sure the HDV pic will be better than DV and blow up better (1080i is good for this) and I imagine people will be shooting features with the Sony starting in January or so, so it's possible by next Sundance or Slamdance you could see the first HDV feature blowups.

But only if the script is goooooooood.

[Michael Struthers]

Also - I just saw November and it looked pretty decent, and that was shot on DV without an anamorphic adapter.

So figure native 16x9 with MUCH more resolution, and greatly improved uprezzing programs every six months, and it'll probably look as good or maybe better as say "Annivesary Party"...

[Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn]

What are all "those uprezzing" programs that appears every six months??

[Zack Birlew]

Is November out on video yet? I read the article on the making of it in American Cinematographer a while back. I was wondering how the results were.

[Heath McKnight]

The Chief Engineer at DVFilm says with the FX-1, it's more promising to blow up to film (60i converts to 24p MUCH easier than 30p).

heath

[Michael Struthers]

November is not out on video. It has a distribution deal and will be in select indie theaters.

[Daniel von Euw]

Here my thougths to transfer to film:

I think that the Canon XL-2 is better for that than the Sony FX-1.

If i take the XL-2 (Pal) with 25p mode i have 25 frames with a vertical resolution of 576 lines per frame.

If i take the FX-1 (Pal) with 1080i mode i have 50 fields with a vertical resolutuion of 540 lines per field.

No i think i can't throw the two fields together to become 25 frames with a vertical resolution of 1080 lines and transfer this frames to film. I think in need to interpolate one of the fields and that the second field give me no relevant information to do this interpolation better. And if this is so than i can also interpolate the 576 lines from canon.

I have seen the FX-1 to Fotokina in cologne and if you make a pan with normal speed the picture-quality goes down. Also an MPEG coded film ist in my opinion very bad for color-correction and other image manipulation.


Sorry for my very bad english. Hope you understood what i want mean.


regards
Daniel

[Heath McKnight]

You can use 24p conversion software, like DVFilm Maker and others, to convert both 60i and 50i footage to 24p.

heath