Just wondering what postproduction process BBC TopGear goes through.

They seem to achieve this very filmic look. It's definitely very stylistic.
(You will only know what I’m talking about, if you have watched the show)

I watched an outtake programme which showed the raw footage, and it definitely looked like video.

I personally think it’s on of the best shows that the BBC produces. It’s so beautifully shot and edited.
The link below shows some gradient effects that have been added.
Anyone work on the programme, or know the secrets behind how it achieves this look? (Not necessarily the gradient bit)

http://www.macgregorcorp.com/topgear/topgear.htm

(I've stolen this link from another post)

P.S I know this is somewhat similar to "The Office" thread.

Yeah I like the look too. I'd thought they must be using graduated filters like 'Cokin', or maybe matte box grads. They will also colour correct it to give it that saturated contrasty look I bet.

I rather like the show too. I don't know for sure, but it looks like vignetting. Something you could easily do with a bad lens, a filter or color grading software. What do you think?

I’m beginning to doubt myself about the vide thing.
If you look in the credits, it has "video editors" and "film editors" surely they wont be shooting on film. Any ideas?

There are defiantly some effects on it. They seem to achieve these very vibrant colourful looks.
I know that they have been trailing XD Cam. So it must be video. I also think that they have been shooting HD too.
Keep the ideas coming..

Digibeta!

Robin

Looks deinterlaced to me as there is quite a lot of large aliasing on edges.

Thanks Robin, for that insightful reply. lol

Keep the ideas coming.
Ok, so far......they are shooting Digibeta, interlacing and using grad filters.

Robin, would you like to elaborate on your view?

Cummon, someone must have somthing to say.......

I think they're using secondary color correction on the sky. It's kind of like adding a graduated filter in post, except that it won't affect foreground elements like a graduated filter would.

After a lot of digging around I still cannot figure exactly what they do (aside from the grad effect). Although I think I have narrowed the software/hardware down. I'm awaing a definite response from the BBC's post production house, but I think they are using Discreet Logics Fire suite. This would explain how they manage to shoot these reports so quickly and get the high end look on a very tight schedule.

Now I would be interested in knowing whether they shoot in progressive scan or deinterlace afterwards. They have some very sharp images. As far as I know they shoot the reports with Sony PDW530P's now which do 25p.

Thanks for all your efforts Simon. Lets hope the beeb get back to you.
I don’t know anything about Discreet Logic, but I shall endeavour to research it fully.

Btw, what post house edit the show?

The look of the sky might come from using a circular polarizing filter on the camera.

For sure they must be using polorisers to get the contrast that they do on the skies. Although they do also use grads added in post of various tints.

Richard, I think that the BBC does the editing and post production for the show in house. Although I am trying to confirm. Annoyingly my video missed the end credits on the last show as I was intending to find out if any camera people were listed as many cameramen have their own personal websites. It might have been possible to track someone down who has worked on the show.

I really want to find out how they do what they do. There are even people in Australia who have caught the show when they have been over here and commented on how brilliant the picture looks on the car reports!

I presume you read this (http://www.bbcresources.com/about/archive/040818.mailbox.html)

Ooh wow. Didn't see that. Although I am aware of The Mailbox. The local TV news is read from there and I believe anyone is free to go into the building and watch them through the glass.

They show the program too on DUtch television. The program is funny (a little bit on the English side; they hate all non-english cars besides the mercedes, BMW and toyota), but the footage is AMAZING. I was watching the show the other day and it really has this quality film look. I don't think they have shot it with 33 mm, cause if you watch closely, including the detailed zoom ins and outs and images while driving the car and the changing persepctions, evrything that is shot has that film look which show that it is IMPOSIBLE they have shot on film. It sooo llooks like it. I am jalous. I am googlin on it right now. I hope they shot it with a gl2 or dvx or something.

As far as I know they shoot with XDCAMs. I'm trying to contact the people who make it to find out once and for all.

Regarding their hate of cars, I think you'll find that they also love Ferrari's, Porsche's, that new Holden etc. :-)) In fact it would be very hard for them not to like non English cars because there is now only one totally English car maker left! For the record they hate Rover's.

Hello everyone.

Those screen caps where done by me. I am long trying to get this amazing video quality.

Now, for all i know, the shoot in Betacam digital, in 16.9 and then deinterlace the images.


Now, they use polarazing filters (you can notice this sometimes in pans...) , BUT, i am almost sure that gradients are done in post.


Now since all i have is a dvx100 and vegas, i can get "similar" results in terms of color correction and gradients. However, even recording in progressive mode, their images look a LOT better, without noise, and amazing definition. After all, they are working with around 20 times more buget than any of us can do.

I think Top Gear is by far the best that TV is doing now with images.

Here i give you images of my personal tv show:

www.macgregorcorp.com/testdrive/td.htm

Any comments will be nice!

Also, i think when they record the interiors, ie; jeremy clarkson driven a car, they used to shot with sony pd150. i do not know what they are doing this year.

Those are some pretty good shots you have been getting. As far as Top Gear goes, I'm pretty sure, given the press releases from Sony, that they use the PDW-530P camera. This camera has exceptionally high signal to noise ratio.

Umm, but, if that camera records at 25p, why do they deinterlace footage?

I can definitely confirm that they have been using the Sony PDW-530P XD cams. It has been heavily documented in "The Producer"

Miguel, they aren’t using 150's anymore for interiors, they seem to be using smaller 3 chip cameras, like the DXC-C33/C33P that can actually produce over 850 TV lines!!

BTW, and Top Gear starts on BBC2 in about 15 mins :P

Keep those ideas coming. Simon, I’m eagerly awaiting any news.

Check this new images. These are captured images from one dvd, just as they come, in true 16:9.

On the first one (inside tv studio) they use interlaced video. Look at the girl´s face.

Now, the 2nd one, since the logo is CGI, it is true progresive.

But now, the 3rd and 4th screen caps, you can see perfectly that they have been under a deinterlaced software inorder to get progresive images. Why would they do that since the sony records on 25p?

http://www.macgregorcorp.com/try/try.htm

Miguel, those look really good! Is this your own footage? It looks really promising, and I'd love to see a clip of it, and hear more about how you did it.

Well, i don´t know if i can post movies in this forum.

Anyway, this is what i am doing right now in this moment, so it is not over at all.

(very small quicktimes)

www.macgregorcorp.com/dvinfo/in.mov
www.macgregorcorp.com/dvinfo/regalito.mov
www.macgregorcorp.com/dvinfo/buenatoma.mov
www.macgregorcorp.com/dvinfo/nino.mov

All shot two days ago with dvx100e. Not very proud because it has a lot noise when watching in the tv.

Amazing stuff!! Those clips really do look like Top Gear. Have you posted these here before and am I just finding these for the first time, cause I love em. I'd say you were on the right track with the filming style, and the low contrast worked very well. Have you tried secondary color correction on the sky?

Miguel, what kind of camera mount are you using to shoot the cars when moving along the road?

Hello, here is my desktop right now.
www.macgregorcorp.com/dvinfo/clipboard01.jpg

As you see, the first 3 layers of vegas are for the gradients. It takes very long time to render but they need to be there.

One problem that i encount is that i cannot color correct the gradients and the image at the same time, so every level adjust must be done on each layer, and i would get different restults if i worked with the whole resulting image.

To shot this clips i just put a manfrotto 501 tripod on the trunk of a car, and i use sony glasstron to see what i am recording. It is very simple but very efficient.

Soon i will be making a camara car with an old renault fuego. ;-D

Here, an example of a finished video:
www.macgregorcorp.com/dvinfo/x5.mov

Bye!

Miguel, that was excellent!

How long do the shoots take you to complete? I noticed that you even had the shutter speed the same as the top gear guys too. Which speed were you using? 1/60?

Have you got a website with an index to all your clips and stills?

Same shutter speed? ummmmm, as long as cars move fast, i try to use a fast shutter speed, ie: 250 or 500

Miguel, some fantastic shots there. Some fabulous locations too.

A few of you links seem to be broken.

<<<-- Originally posted by Richard Lewis : Miguel, some fantastic shots there. Some fabulous locations too.

A few of you links seem to be broken. -->>>

Thanks! Which ones are broken?

The picture of your desktop, and the example of a finished video.

The second one may just be down to this computer.

It works fine. Thanks!

Does anyone has an answer to the fields question?

You will NEVER get that BBC loook with a 5000 dollar camera. YOu need 15000 more for the pdw cam they use in their shows. I think there must be a way to get that quality. The PDW is a 3 ccd like the canon xl2 or the dvx and both have 25 fps so mmm.


PDW-530P Key Features

OPTICAL DISC RECORDING on 23GB Media
DVCAM / IMX (50MB/s) Format Recording
True 16:9 Widescreen PowerHAD EX 3-CCD Block, Switchable for 4:3
Advanced 12-bit A/D Conversion
Sensitivity of f11 at 2000 Lux (3200°K)
Resolution 800TVL (16:9), 850TVL (4:3)
10 second "Loop Recording" buffer
Sony B4 2/3" Lens mount
IEEE-1394 'Firewire' (out only) & DVCAM output from MPEG IMX playback
25P shooting mode for "film look"
25P Progressive Scan shooting for a "Film Look"
All PAL XDCAM Camcorders offer a 25P mode, or progressive scan shooting, which is specifically designed to provide a filmic feel. Just as with a film camera, rapid pans or zooms will cause blurring - so much the same discipline in composition is required as with a film camera shooting at 24 frames per second. Independent experts, such as cameraman Ged Yeates, have said 25P is ideal for providing a filmic look on TV drama shoots with a tight budget.

If you want the option to convert to film, then 25P is again a good option – PAL Camcorders are specifically sold in the US market for this reason. Vertical definition is 20% higher with PAL than NTSC, while slowing 25P to 24P is relatively straightforward (with pitch correction for audio in post-production). Scott Saunders' The Technical Writer, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Independent Film Festival 2003, was shot with a PAL version of the MPEG IMX MSW-900P Camcorder – a tape-based forerunner of the XDCAM PDW-530P – and converted to 35mm for theatrical distribution.


Price £21650 (ex. VAT) £25438.75 (inc. VAT)
€32578.70 (ex. VAT) €38279.97 (inc. VAT)
$39986.68 (ex. VAT) Please note:

HOla MIguel,

Eres un fenomeno de Madrid. Eres mejor que Almodovar macho!
ME gusta el programa de coches del BBC y su forma de grabar las cosas pero tu estilo de grabacion y edicion es muy , pero muy similar al original. Claro que los effectos del coche y todo necesita mas tiempo y quizas podrias intentar usar un sequenciador en vez de las opciones de audio que te da VEgas. Usa Cubase sx que es la ostia. Cone ste programa puedes mejorar el audio y editarlo hasta que te caigan las bolas al suelo. MIra a ver si puedes jugar con plug-ins VST (reverb, emuladores de tubo, echo, EQ, etc etc).

COn un shutter speed de 250 (buena falta hace con imagenes movidas) lo tienes bien grabado. NO usarias paletas de color en la grabacion(colour cards) para crear ese efecto natural que tienes aparte de usar efectos en lapost produccion.



Suerte .


NOw in English, otherwise I wll be banned.

I said that his work was amazing and that if he used cubase sx to add more effects and stuff, he would be the next steven speilberg of cars in spain.

Really brilliant footage Miguel. Especially with the camera you have. What's your background?

Yes, as reported in The Producer, Top Gear are testing out the 530, but for the most part my deeply undercover contacts tell me it is still mostly shot on Digi Beta, with some DVCam. Then Resolution (a post house in Soho) grade everything in Symphony (with the film stock grade plug ins) and apply a film effect - de-interlace, crush all the blacks, saturate the colours and vignette the edges which gives it that 'filmic' look. It's not something you can do easily - they have a great colourist there, and work mostly off a tried and tested template - tweaking as they go.

Thanks Karel!

At least now we know that the do in fact deinterlace the footage. I do find this odd however as they would obtain a lot better image if they used the progressive mode available to them on the DB camera. That's the one drawback of their pictures is that sharp edges suffer from quite harsh aliasing sometimes.

I'm going to double check on the de-interlace.

Cool. Keep us informed.

I don't think it is interlaced. IT is 25 fps second material. If you lok at the fat sections (fast cars racing on a racetack), you see lesss blurr/motion than those hollywood car movies.

And those interlace-artifacts (typical of pal or ntsc footage) can be seen on some of the pics posted earlier.

No, we were wondering if they DEinterlace in post or if they shoot the footage using a 25p progressive camera.

Watching the show last night they seem to have added some form of ultra slow motion camera to their equipment.

Yeah Simon, I noticed that too. Super slow motion shots of the tyres, fantastic stuff. I wonder how they are doing that. I had heard about some cameras that can record at really high frame rates for short bursts, I can’t remember the details off hand.

BBC, ever the innovators.

Hehe! They probably read these forums, realised we were closing in on their techniques and felt they had to move the goalposts!

After asking around, I have the definitive info now from someone working as a camera asst on the show!

I'm just waiting to hear from him giving permission to reproduce his email here, and then you'll have it!

A couple of surprises...

Nice Karel! Looking forward to it!

COOL Karel,

I can't wait to hear more about this. It is interesting stuff.

Hey, what a fantastic thread this is turning out to be, and it was all started by meeeeeeee. :D

Looking forward to the info Karel.

Richard,

You deserve a nice kiss from santa clause in Christmas!!!!!!!

Yay!! lol

Karel, you’re taking your time with this very exciting info "A couple of surprises..." Cummon, you can't leave us like this.

REPLY, REPLY, REPLY!!