Hey everyone,

I am a director of photography in Toronto. Our company 4lanes Productions recently teamed up with Aquila Media and shot a feature with 3 HD10Us that were generously lent to us by JVC.

We are now cutting it and working on the sound(thanks to the support of LumiereHD). We put together a clip though on our site. Hope you guys will check it out. Would love to hear comments/criticism.

http://www.4lanes.com/reel_house.htm

take care!

Kevin,

Kevin: great work, pretty cool! :)

Love the lighting.

How did you prevent the exposure in "fire in the couch" scene from shifting?

Also: is it me or blacks actually look grayish in your clip?

Once again - great production, congratulations!

Kevin, it's awesome!

It looks like you have some great characters...and it looks like film to me! If you didn't tell me it was a HD10u...I'd have thought it was film or HD 24p.

Anyone else think so? The scene with the fire really opens up the movie...takes it away from talking heads. Great job finding things to mix it up and keep it visually appealing.

Is the tune from a local artist? Could you bullet point equipment list? Light, filters anything special you used to get the movie made with HD10u?

Thanks for posting!

Murph

Fantastic!
everything they said, my favorite part is where the red boots walk past , really shows the power of the HD10.

My question involves zoom, the only scene that didnt look ultra sharp was when they were all around the table, was that the only shot that wasnt zoomed? Ive noticed with mine I have to zoom to the clean up the picture.

Again looks great.

Excellent.
Despite the obvious reduction from the 720p original, it's still easy enough to discern that this is as good as anything coming from a major production studio.
This is the sort of material that will gag the detractors of the HD10.

With this clip, you've shown what CAN be achieved with this groundbreaking camcorder.....

BTW, the blacks looked black on my colour balanced screen.

Thanks so much for all of your comments and compliments. I've been reading up on some of the stuff you guys have been doing with HDV and I am happy to see that there are others out there willing to experiment and try new things.

Here's some specific replies to your questions/comments:

Alex: The fire scene was a bit of a risk to take for us, we did some tests with the camera before hand and found that if the flash was quick enough, the camera does respond okay, meaning the exposure doesn't open up and close with lag. We were pleasantly surprised with the results since it didn't give us any of this verticle green flare that sometimes happen with this camera. The blacks are made black in the correction, so maybe it is the monitor or the compression on the net that gives it that grayish tone.

Christopher: The tune is actually a song by Radiohead. We just used it to piece this "visual compulation" type trailer together for the mean time. In terms of equipment, we didn't use anything special in terms of filters or lights. We really just did our best we can softening and shaping the lights like we would normally do with film. We did rely heavily on monitoring the lighting on an HD monitor on set, but that's pretty standard in all shots I guess. We did however treated it a bit in post in Combustion, but again just normal stuff like contrast, colour correction... but if you have some specific questions, feel free to ask me. :)

Mark: I know what you are saying about the wide setting on that lense. It does make things more flat/less sharp. We tried to punch in a little whenever we can too. I find that having a bit less depth of field always help in any format, well, especially this one.

Steve: Thanks for the compliments. I am truly flattered by your praise. I think that this format does have a future, especially well some of the quirks in the camera itself is fixed. Hopefully the new version can be more 'professional' and things will be even better.

Again, thanks so much for all your comments. Please keep me up to date with your projects!

Kevin,

In my view, the debate is over.....the camera produces great images. If anyone else talks sh*t about this camera I'm going to have a fit!

QUESTION:
I'm getting ready to shoot a short film with it, and I really need to get a handle on the lighting for it. I've got this homemade kit (home depot) and I'm considering buying about $1000 worth of lights. Can you guys point me in the direction where you think I need to go? I really like the lighting in your post Kevin, so any details on lighting would be HUGELY appreciated.

Also, are you posting on Mac or PC? If Mac - are you using LumiereHD? Oh, and I have noticed that "green" streak on my footage as well. It seems to show up on extreme bright areas like chrome bumpers and the like.

By the way Kevin, I was in Toronto last month...darn, we could have hooked up and traded HD10u tips. It's about a 9 hour drive there from Boston...I've got an HD10u, so we could maybe hookup if sometime. I still don't know anyone in Boston with an HD10u besides 1-2 people.

Murph

Hi Chris,

What's up? Regarding lighting, we used a lot of kinos on our set simply because of how we could shape this very soft light. It also provided a nice big source to pick up highlights and eye reflections. If I may, I would like to suggest you spending the $1000 on renting lights for the duration of the shoot rather than buying because you would be able to get a lot more tools this way to shape and control lighting, which in my opinion is the most important aspect of getting a great look from lighting. The type of lighting fixtures can often be interchangable.

We are cutting on Mac with LumiereHD. It works great.

It would be great to hook up when you are in Toronto next or I'm down in Boston. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

Oh, if any of you would like to see the clip on a TV monitor, I'd be happy to send over my reel on a DVD.

Kevin that would be cool...please send it to me! You meant via mail right?

Willow Studios
c/o Christopher Murphy
66 Willow Road
East Kingston, NH 03827

Kevin,

Excellent demo piece! I'm was enthralled with the close-up shot of the guy taking a hit on the "cigarette". Very nice! Was that shot with the standard lens?

Did you guys have any problems with Chroma noise at all? Corrected in post I would assume if you did right?

Thanks for the contribution. Makes me want to take my hobby camera up to the next level.

In my view, the debate is over.....the camera produces great images. If anyone else talks sh*t about this camera I'm going to have a fit!

You said it!

Troy

Troy,

Thanks for your compliments. We shot the film with the standard lense. It probably would have been interesting to experiment with adaptors but we ran out of time back in April so we just went with it.

Chroma noise is apparent with this format, but it was something that we could hide with proper lighting and post (contrast).

Well, I didn't actually say:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my view, the debate is over.....the camera produces great images. If anyone else talks sh*t about this camera I'm going to have a fit!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But I do agree that it CAN be a great camera to use, much like many camera's and formats out there, it all goes back to the 'tried and true' methods of lighting and production design.

Thanks again. Talk soon.

Kevin,

Kevin,

Actually that quote was from someone else in this thread. I just tacked it on the end of my question to you. :)

Take care.

Troy

Very nice lighting work Kevin.

I missed the part of the discussion where lighting of the couch fire was discussed.

How did you prevent the fire from looking green?

Thanks,

Ed Hill
Atlanta

Great work! This is the best demo yet of the versatility and ability of the HD-10U.
I'd love to see the finished film. What are your plans for releasing it?
And that song by Radiohead is entitled "No Surprises," from their cd "OK, Computer." It's a cool song, and the cd has a lot more cool tunes.

Ed you asked...

I missed the part of the discussion where lighting of the couch fire was discussed.

How did you prevent the fire from looking green?

Kevin's response above...

The fire scene was a bit of a risk to take for us, we did some tests with the camera before hand and found that if the flash was quick enough, the camera does respond okay, meaning the exposure doesn't open up and close with lag. We were pleasantly surprised with the results since it didn't give us any of this verticle green flare that sometimes happen with this camera. The blacks are made black in the correction, so maybe it is the monitor or the compression on the net that gives it that grayish tone.

Troy

Great looking stuff!

Question, do you guys shoot primarily with HD10s? Were the other items on your demo reel also shot with the HD10?

Thanks, it is great to see other people getting such good results out of this camcorder.

Regards,

Ben

Hi Ben,

Our company shoots with all types of formats. In the past year and a half we've been experimenting with HDV because we find it reminds us of how when miniDV first came out, there was a period of 'adventurous' folks like us trying it out and really testing the potential of the format. The guys I work with have always been about doing something new, something different and this is just another example of this 'habit' we have.

Other pieces on our site are mostly film actually, but I must say that video have come a long way in the past little while.

Anyway, thanks for your compliments and yes it is great to see others out there trying new things and breaking new grounds with new technology.

Kevin,

To Kevin:

I really liked this!

Question:

Any thoughts of 35mm blow-up? (surely this would like great, considering miniDV blow-ups, {aka Open Waters ;) })

Also how did you get that last bit of the girl smoking (the shallow DOF , check out her shoulders, very nice)

and also any conversion to 24P or is it 30P ?

Thanks!

Oh gosh i really hope HDV surives.

Hey Anhar,

Thanks for your kind words on the piece.

We are planning to have a 35mm blowup soon, but of course we haven't had much info on it yet since we are still working on the offiline. We probably will be converting it to 24p after the online but most of that area of things are still up in the air. I'll let you know more about it when we get to that stage.

Regarding the shot with the girl smoking. We shot that particular shot with a telephoto adaptor attached to the lens. It was really quite amazing since it gave it a bit of a highlight glow, thus helping to sell the narrow depth of field.

I find that inherently, the HD10u in HD mode has less dept of field than most other cameras in its 'class' ie. DVX100. Perhaps it is the 16x9 CCD. So if there is enough room to place the camera back away from the subject, we can usually get a pretty narrow depth of field look with it.

Anyway, thanks again.

Kevin,

The movie looks great, but the Radiohead music was a bit distracting...cause I knew it wasn't original. I'm sure you just used that as a temporary solution, though. How did you record the dialogue?

Glenn,

Yeah, I know what you're saying about the song. It is definitely way too well known. Fortunately, our composer will fix that problem soon. :)

Regarding sound, we did some tests with the HD10u with plugging a mixer into the camera, it didn't work out since there seem to be a hum. Also there is no control over tne input level so we just went back to the usual, and in my opinion, better way to do sound which is externally. In our case we used a DAT. Worked out great. In terms of syncing, we just went old school with a regular slate.

How do you guys find the camera/format?

Kevin,

For what it is worth, I much prefer source music to a score. It just helps me relate to the picture more, and it is less distracting.

Thus, I loved the radiohead music. Since it was a b-side I didn't immediately know it was radiohead, but it sounded a lot like their stuff. That is the perfect kind of song to use.

I think this is one of the reasons I always enjoy watching Sopranos.

I guess the exception is if you have a period piece or a genre where source music wouldn't apply or would seem out of place. Or if you are really good friends with John Williams :)

Of course, the biggest obstacle to this for most small production companies is licensing fees.

Anyway, this is way off topic, so I'll shut up now.

Oh yeah, I agree about the built-in sound system on the HD10. We tried running a nice Mic directly into the HD10, but the AGC hurts and it means a mixer is useless. Everything was also a bit tinny.

I mean, I wouldn't mind the AGC so much if it actually worked; what the heck is the point of an AGC if it always adjusts the levels so you consistently get levels above 0db? The AGC definitely adjusts things WAY too much on the hot side.

Also, does ANYONE know how to change the recording monitoring volume on the HD10? We monitor with headphones, but it seems there is no way to adjust the monitoring volume at all; we were having problems with feedback because the headphone volume during recording was so hot. We tried changing the playback volume but that didn't change the recording volume. Note that I am not talking about changing the recording/input levels, I'm just talking about changing the headphone volume during recording.

Hi Kevin,
Thanks for posting your clip, looks good. Just a note that if you're going to be doing much color correction, try to render it out at 10 bit uncompressed in FCP for your master. I experimented with this quite a bit and found that doing a 10 bit uncompressed online as opposed to 8 bit resulted in significantly less noise being generated in the picture, especially if you're going to be saturating the colors quite a bit, as tends to be needed with HD1OU footage.

I hope this helps,

Paul