Victor From NC_ Airborne!
 

Hello community! Here is a little about myself: I'm 27; Married have a little 11 month old boy, and one more on the way! I serve in the United States Army. I get to jump out of Airplanes and get paid for it!!! Been in for 9 years, served in Fort Hood TX (best country...I mean state in the U.S) Republic of South Korea, Fort Irwin CA, Survived an long year in Mosul Iraq, and currently in Fort Bragg NC. I like playing with my son, making wife happy, RC Trucks, and of course Digital Media.
- I own a Canon XL1, which I got a great deal on, $900. I haven't had any problems with it and currently use it for Media work at my church, Calvary Assembly of God, doing announcements and skits etc. People say a XL1 is out dated, but for my budget this is a big deal for me.
- I usually ask people “Hey Dude! If you won the lottery and never had to worry about money, ever in your life! What would you do for a living?"
People usually think and give different answers of professions or dreams. Then I continue by saying “then why don't you do that? What is holding you back? How big is the risk to your dream?
- Which leads me to this (sorry I already lost the people with ADD) I want to be involved with media, editing, shooting. I want to work for a well respected media department such as NBC, Disney etc. and eventually an actor in shows or movies. The media portion (shooting editing) would be a stepping stone to my ultimate goal, because in life, Networking and good impressions are better that Gold.
- I am doing Media as a hobby right now so when I do get an opportunity to sharpen my skills with school and training, I already have a foundation to build on.
Now these are the questions I have right off the bat! Please help me as best you can as I will do the same. (all ?’s are for use with my Canon XL1 using manual mode, edited with Adobe Premiere and some Adobe After Effects)
1. How can I get that “commercial” look? Is it in editing or certain camera settings with specific lighting. I am currently using regular Flood light style bought from Home Depot, they get really bright
2.I understand Servicing the camera is very expensive (at least for me) would it be possible for me to load the new firmware unto it or is it much too complex, my computer level is a 7
3.Is there a program or disk I can purchase with allot of Commercial type music as I will be trying to make professional commercials.
4.I have a problem with Sound, I usually try to get creative and shoot in different places. I shot a clip of someone speaking next to a tank. Well, when I edited the project all my other scenes sounded good as they were filmed in doors with no one around. The clip looks good other than the 2 that were filmed next to the tank the change in sound is drastic. How can I shut out backround noise?
Well, that’s about me, I’m excited to learn and to fail, as when you fail you get better and by the way things are going, I am a foreseen expert!

First of all welcome aboard and AIRBORNE ALL THE WAY Brother. E/2/503rd infantry ABN 173rd ABN Bde. 1968-1971. Once AIRBORNE ALWAYS AIRBORNE!

Anyway in answer to some of you questions.

First for music,most music used in commericals is either written for it or they buy the rights to use it which is very expensive. There are however many royalty free sites out there that offer music for a small feeBUT you don't have to pay for the rights. You can use it as much as you want.
As for upgrading the firmware in the camera, nope not something you can do. They do that so you have to send it in and then they get to make money :-) sorry!
As for sound, welcome to the world of audio a whole different world in and of it's own.
Outside you either need to have the talent mic'd with a couple of lavs OR use a shotgun on a boom. A shotgun has an effective range of a couple of feet and both can be affected by wind and other outside elements causing noise behind the voice.

OOOPS gotta run someone just came to my door with some tapes.
Later bro!

Don

Thanks for response Paratrooper!

ok back to it. to get that 'commerical' look you need a few things.
1) a big set
2) a lot of lighting
3)a lighting director (not a necessity but nice to have)
4) a film camera
5) lots of film
6) lots of money to get all of that

OK so I'm pullin' your ripcord a little but it sounds like what you're going for is a film look and while there are many different ways to achieve it with video the best way to get it is to shoot film.
Now having said that, I and many others have shot numerous TV comericals on video. The look is dependent on what you are trying to achieve for the finished product.
Anyway, I got an early Tee time tomorrow so it's out the door for me. Til next time, keep the air in you chute and land feet first!
Don

is there a feature on this website were I can get emailed if someone responds to my thread?

Welcome to the site! For sound effects (including commercial music, and everything else) I use Digital juices "SoundFX III" It hgas around 15-25 30 second clips used for commercial spots, under around 20 genres doing the math thats around 400 bits! Also, an XL1 is still a great camera, if you're not bothered by HD, I happen to be heavily annoyed with the way my SD projects look, and the way my friend's HD projects look. Also, as far as lighting goes, camera postioning, and settings go, they have a bigger effect on your video than editing hands down. It's like a sound clip, you can turn frequencies down naturally, but you cannot naturally add frequencies, (i.e. if I were to completely take out the frequency 200 in my audio clip, I wouldn't be able to get that frequency when I edit it, no matter what I do to it.) So when you're shooting, pretend that you won't be able to edit it, consider editing a surpriing luxury, try your best to get the look you want with your settings, and lighting, and positioning on the RAW footage.

As far as camera settings, I work with an XL1 also, if your doing an interview, or a piece with little to no movement by the camera or your subject, AF (automatic focus) will never be as good as your hand manually focusing the lens (as long as you have a good eye for it). With interviews, lighting is one of the most important things. For a basic, simple setup you need what's called a "three-point" setup. Here's a diagram: http://www.tcf.ua.edu/tvcritgallery/...t+lighting.jpg

It's a small picture but it gives you a basic idea of a good lighting setup, if possible have this kind of lighting in all shoots (unless your going for something different) this is the best setup for accurately, and pleasantly lighting up your subject.

As far as your camera settings, you almost always want to keep your shutter speed on 1/60th (your shutter speed should be around twice the amount of your frames per second) Not sure about yours, but mI don't think we can change our fps on the XL1, at least I don't know how, but you can change your shutter speed, so try and keep it on 1/60th. And as far as your lighting gain goes, depending on your lighting situation, the closer you can get it to 0db, the better (its more natural) but try and not go above 9db because then it gets a bit fuzzy.

hope I helped! Any more questions let me know I'll be gladd to help! now to answer your question:

I use a VX2000, and a XL1, unfortunately Vegas 6, I don't have the coin to upgrade to 8, I'm also looking to get a Canon HV30, that should get me well started in the HD world for cheap. I have a BOXX editing computer which is VERRRYYY NIIIIICE, but I really want to switch to FCP studio, and eventually edit on a mac but that's several thousands down the road, and it's great seeing fayettenam, I mean fayetteville people on here! thanks for serving, and I'm joining the ROTC at ECU next year, and going into the ARMY, and eventually pursuing a criminal justice career, doing video on the side!

thanks for the respond on my question for lighting, hope rotc goes good for you.

Victor.


I can't lay claim to any affinity for jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. That's what they have doors and seatbelts for, to keep people inside. I along with childhood friends ruined ankle joints jumping out of trees when we got stuck high. That and the wimp factor kept me from ever trying it. However I have ridden with and taken a few images of civilian skydivers so I have a little insight into the joy of that adventure if not the less pleasant side of things where you have had to go.

Of the older standard definition cameras, the XL1 image was the most filmic to me when used by good hands.

If you are wanting to do some post-production enhancements, there are two articles right here at dvinfo which you may find helpful. Because you have NTSC and 60i video and 24 frames per second film over there things are a little less easy than they are for us in PAL TV lands.


Here's the web addresses for the articles :-

Filmlook via Adobe After Effects, Part One: Motion Clarity
A "CineAlta look-alike" tutorial about color timing and motion clarity modifications in post-production through Adobe After Effects, by Daniel Broadway.

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/filmlook/broadway1.php

Filmlook via Adobe After Effects, Part Two: Color Saturation
Daniel Broadway's step-by-step guide to simulating 35mm motion picture color saturation in post-production Adobe After Effects.

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/filmlook/broadway2.php


You may find identifying the second clip you lay over the first in the colour saturation method is difficult. I found I made errors in laying the final effect on the wrong clip. You can practice first with identical clips, one a copy of the other but with two separate filenames so you can know for the future which one drops where.

Take notice of the better brains than mine you will encounter here soon enough.

In meantime, welcome to the obsession.

oh yeah dont forget to go Airborne!

Hey Bob thank you for the references! they will help!

I'm hoping to :D

Labor day is good

Hi Victor,
welcome on board:
hope you'll STAY on board, at least for a while...

I don't know exactly what you mean by "commercial look", but you can try with Magic Bullet Looks by Red Giant Software. It's a wonderful little toy. A lot of pros, and one con: a bit pricey.

Bunches. Check out Ebay (do a search under "royalty-free music"). You get what you pay for, of course, but in most cases those very cheap collections will do the job.

You can't, as simple as that.
Well, you can try to lower it somewhat, fiddling with a good noise reduction software (iZotope RX comes to mind, but again: it's rather expensive)
The easy, low-cost alternative is to slowly fade in your noisy audio segment before the actual "tank" video segment.

All the best

Vasco

thanks for response and have paid attention to your advice, by the way, can you get an email sent to your email when someone responds to a thread you started?

Victor, what you are looking for is called "Thread Subscription", and when you write a post, you see that in the additional options below the text box you write in.
You may choose "Instant notification" to have an email sent to the email account you specified when signing up for dvinfo, immediately when someone post after you.

You can change your settings in the "Controls" in the main menu.