vx2100+letus35 music video WIP
 

hi everyone. just wanted to share a work in progress of a music video shot using a sony vx2100 with a letus35 using 50mm and 28mm canon fd lenses.

here is the raw unfiltered footage (magic bullet will be added for the final output), cropped to 2.35:1:
http://www.infinite-studios.com/movi...mily_235x1.mov

we just shot the outdoor portraits and candids over the weekend, as well as background plates for our cg shots. we will have another shoot with the female interest in the next couple of weeks (still casting).

i was going to wait until everything was done, but then thought that it might be fun to share the experience.

i forgot to mention that we overlit for magic bullet. here is the first pass with magic bullet:
http://www.infinite-studios.com/movi..._Sharp_24p.mov

for some reason, it does not work streaming with safari, but it works if you download, then play. quicktime 6 or better.

That's blazin A.J.! You've done the Letus and its core of owners proud!

they sound a lot like hot hot heat

cool song

edit: by the way, how deep is the depth of field on the 28mm?

edit #2: Go Canada!

thanks for the positive comments, guys!

yeah, they are a really really good band, and i would not be surprised if they make it big. they are based in san diego, so i really must ask them what's with the canadian flag. ;-P

the dof on the 28mm is much thicker than the 50, but it was a bit of a pain to use because it was a full stop darker than the 50. we had a 250, a bunch of 100s and a 500watt light source. the 500 was too much, and the gels we had made no difference (we were shooting with ghetto home depot lights, so no french doors), so we did not use it at all. we also used a bunch of torch-style lamps as fills.i wanted to shoot the wide shot with a fast 18, 20 or 24, but i did not win any of my ebay bids for those lenses. :-/

Awesome, thanks for sharing that. That aspect ratio seems to work really well, and the MB treatment has got a good glow to it. Inspiring to see the Letus35 at work!

AJ,

I cruised around your site a bunch, great stuff. What post-processing stuff did you do to create the look in doftest.mov? I like the vignetting and the colors. Also, was the lens flare real or enhanced, as the car (well, SUV) drives up?

Thanks and keep it up!

hi bill, and thanks! i used magic bullet for that one. i don't remember the values for the vignetting, but they are up there (nearly maxed out, i believe). i am not sure which look suite preset i used, however. if i can find the fcp file, i'll let you know.

the lens flare is real. this was my very first time using the letus35, so i was not zoomed in enough, and that's probably why there's a bunch of distortion on the lens flare. i'm guessing it would've looked much better if i had it set up properly.

also note that i flipped the image vertically, but not horizontally, so the car is driving on the left side of the road... hehehe. noob mistakes.

Hehe

I liked the lens flare, and that there was so much of it. I actually didn't notice the car being on the wrong side of the road; it just looked like a narrow street to me!

Thanks for the info; I'll play with Magic Bullet to see what I get as well.

Thanks for posting this, I'm hoping to start filming my musc video with similar lenses soon so this gives me a good idea of what to expect.

It looks good, also nice to see what Magic Bullet can do -
I noticed that you used two different lenses, that is a nice touch, did you attempt the 100mm, 85mm or even the 135mm? I am interested to see these shots as well.
Good jobs!

hi mandy. i only used the 28 and the 50. the 35-105mm zoom lens i had lost too much light at f3.5. i wanted to try other lenses, but like i said, i lost out my bids on ebay... damn you ebay!!!! ;-P

What is the speed of your lenses? I'm not surprised that f3.5 won't work, but I'm hoping to be able to use the letus35a indoors without significant added light (besides existing practicals). I'm not worried about my f1.4 50mm working, but it is hard to find fast wide lenses for anywhere near an affordable price. Heck, I haven't even seen wide lenses with anything better than f2.0! Have you tried the f3.5 zoom outdoors in bright light?

I like the video enough to put forth a critique if you want to hear negative issues, if not then don't listen to this:

The guitar solo did not LOOK like it was synced-up. Was it?

Your lights weren't too bad overall, especially considering home depot as your supplier. I think you understand the basics and I kind of liked the hard sources after you used magic bullet. It seemed to match a "look". I think your only big problem was that the key on the singer was too close. The intensity ramped up to much when he moved close to the microphone. I think he was genuinely overexposed by a full stop when he was close. Perhaps you could have bounced the key off the back wall to tone it down and diffuse it a bit? Maybe the 500w light would be okay if it was bounced.

As a disclaimer, please don't feel bad about "issue" comments. I'm not saying I could do better, just trying to help with what I see.

Except for the lighting ratio being off on the singer, I am very excited by seeing the quality of the shoot. I have a VX2000 so I am very encouraged. I think my Letus35a is being shipped as I type this message.

I think the 28mm was more than wide enough. Maybe a bit more would work, but I like the lack of barrel distortion. I think the .7x screw-on WA adapter I currently use is not even as wide as that shot and it has more distortion.

My other question, besides the speed of your lenses, is a confirmation that you used 16:9 mode on the VX2100. I was not bothered by any lack of resolution in your video, so I may try shooting that way with my camera. I have been concerned that I might lose too much resolution. You don't have a Century Optics anamorphic adapter, do you?

hi marcus, and thanks for the comments! i'm also having a very very difficult time finding fast canon fd lenses. anyone in dvinfo-land using the letus with the nikon mount? if so, is it easier to find fast lenses for the nikon version?

re: footage of the f3.5 zoom in outdoor light, i do have some footage. you can find it here:
http://www.infinite-studios.com/movies/letusclip.mov
it was a bright day but the sun was fading (peeking in and out of cloud cover).

re: synch, yeah, some shots still need to be tightened up. for part of the solo, the band actually reversed the audio track of the guitar, so they were not able to play it for me. there are also a couple of shots where the synch is not perfect, and i will be tightening these up in the next edit. i am also going to be taking away a lot of the shots to include the new footage we shot (the band outdoors, with cg elements currently being added) and more footage we have yet to shoot (a female actress).

re: the lighting, yup i wasn't 100% happy with it, but it's not bad. i did not know how far to blow them out to compensate for magic bullet, but i guess we went too far. i really wish we had some french doors and darker gels to better diffuse the key. good idea with bouncing the 500 as a key instead of the 250 straight up... i wonder if that would have been better.

as for your last question, i shot in 16x9 with no anamorphic adapter. i used a varizoom 7" 16:9 tft monitor cropped to 2.35:1, matted in fcp and cropped in quicktime pro.