Commercials shot with XL2
 

Hey guys, I recently shot two ads using the XL2. I am really impressed with the camera. Check this link out and let me know what you think.
Thanks!

http://goroommating.com/go_movie_jack.htm
http://goroommating.com/go_movie_granny.htm

Please be advised that the ads are a bit twisted in humor.

Kevin,

So do tell.
Lighting secrets?
Camera settings?
Just you or a big crew?
Film lenses?
DO TELL!!!!

Cheers!

well, regarding the shoot. It was pretty small scale. we only had a skeleton crew to work with and you know what? The XL2 worked so great we didn't need any of the filters or even the manual lense we rented just in case.

I was especially impressed with the picture clarity and also the preset focus/zoom function on the camera. It made life a lot easier when operating.

Thanks for checking it out!

Kevin,

Funny commercials. Are those going to show on Canadian television? With the FCC cracking down and the "moral" revolution going on right now in the US, those could never be shown on regular television here.

FCC
 

Hey Tony,

Glad you like them. The are for sure pretty 'out there' in terms of level of moral acceptance. But in any case, these are meant to be internet commercials only, so that FCC thing is not our biggest concern. That's the beauty of it all. haha.

Thanks again for checking it out, please tell others about the link.

www.Goroommating.com

Kevin,

STOCK XL2?
 

Kevin,

Great look to the commercials! Just to confirm, you were simply using a stock XL2 with the 20x lens? No fliters or other add-ons?

Thanks for the samples!

Brandon

WOW!! Those look great.....They are pretty disturbing though, the 2nd one really...The first one reminds me of my college days......hahahha

They look great. What did you do in post? Very impressive.

excellent. i always like how creative people can tell/show something about the characters in the shots in a span of a few minutes. excellent work. was it 24p?

Kevin, both of these were great. I loved the quality of the shouts. The lighting in the second one was impressive. Also, the situations were really fun to watch. Thanks for shareing. Bob

some answers from me
 

Hey guys,

Thanks for checking it out and commenting on the spots. Your kind words are real encouragement to me and our team putting this stuff together.

Regarding the post/specs on these spots, it was 24p 2:3:3:2 shot with no filters, standard lense, and a little bit of cleanning up in Combustion. The footage quality was clean, so I really didn't have to do too much in terms of noise management in post. I think cannon has a really great thing going for them with this XL2.

Thanks again and please let me know where to check out some of your stuff done with the XL2.

Kevin,

Looked at them again and laughed harder the second time. It just makes me feel so proud that I own the same camera!

Nice Work Kevin.

I've seen people out here in Los Angeles with full film crews, 35 mm cams and full lighting rigs who couldn't get the lighting quality that you got. As ffar as setings, itt's obviously 24 p, but did you use the film grain setting on the camera or did you shoot it entirely clean but with the cine-curve setttings on.

Also, very funny.

Questtion: what did you use as light sources? They looked excelent.

best,
Drew

Great stuff buddy. Would love to know some of your camera settings ...

- Ray

replying drew
 

Hey Drew,

Thanks for the kind words regarding lighting, I am quite surprised to see that it worked out the way it did because the apartment had all white walls and ceilings, we really had to busy it up with props and furnitures to make it shootable. To answer your question, we used very simiple lights actually, just a couple of 4x4 kinos and some practicals on dimmers. Actually very textbook. I am happy to know that the camera was very subtle in gradation. It gave the lighting a nice 'falloff' which add to the depth.

Regarding camera settings, it's 24p, however when I thought about using the film grain and curves, I decided against it on this project since I was planning on colour correction in Combustion from the start. I think the grain and curves tools are excellent, but probably best used when you don't have a lot of time in post. I usually like to keep things as keep as I can in the footage.

Anyway, thanks again for checking it out. Your encouragement is much appreciated too.

Kevin,

Kevin, not to badger ya but does that mean that aside from 24p all the onboard settings were at default ? ( Knee, Black Stretch, Color Matrix, Color Gain, Coring , Setup Level, Master Pedestal etc etc )

- Ray

PS i'm really glad to see more asian-americans (if you're in US) working on a/v stuff. it's been 2long! we need moar!

replying ray
 

Hey man, no worries, yeah aside from the 24p, everything is default. It is only a choice made so that the post process can be controlled easier. Since that was the first time I used the camera, I wanted to see what the 'factory' setting offered. In the future I think I'll definitely play around more with the cine features. What do you think of the features though? Any tips to share?

Kevin,

replying Yi Fong
 

Hey,

Thanks. I am currently working in Canada. I think there are a lot of great asian-canadian/american filmmakers around too, we're definitely out there, I just hope that Asian parents encourage their kids a bit more into the arts since it is still a trend to go into law, medicine, computers... you know what I mean. Something I do like about film nowadays is that it really getting more tightknitt as a global community. Forums are great this way.

Anyway, tell me a bit more about yourself and what you do in Boston. Thanks.

Kevin,

just a hack... =D. and yeah i'm one of those "going into computers" types but have a very "bad" tendency towards moviemaking. there's always been a stigma but we'll see what happens.

Wow. I think those look great. I have been hunting for something done "right" as far as production value with this camera. Did you use plugin color correctors or just manual? Did you have to do much contrast adjustment in post?

I'm still torn on what camera to get, but I keep leaning toward the XL2.

Thanks.

Hi Kevin,

Nice stuff.

What are you used to working with? Film, DV, Beta? I'm rather inexperienced and have only shot DV with my Optura Xi. The company I work for is strictly Beta SP and my boss is going to rent an XL2 for a shoot next week and I was wondering what he will think being a die hard Beta SP guy.

I like the low like effects on both shots. Now my question is, was this low light effect? :)...What was the lense exposure (Fstop) and what was the total light output hitting the lense? I always use a light metter to get a 5.6 Fs from all the light sources turned on at the same time (with the XL1).

Thanks

replying Brian
 

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your kind words on the work. Regarding the colouring of the spots, we did everything 'stock' on the camera and then played with it a bit in post via Combustion.

To my pleasant surprise, the colours and contrast came out extremely acurate from the camera so colouring actually wasn't as involved as some of the projects I've shot with other cameras including the DVX100 and the JVD HD10u.

The XL2 is a very impressive camera in terms of everything being really solid and well thought out. I especially liked the added controls over focus and zoom presets, it made maintaining focus and setting up shots very simple.

Thanks again and I hope this helps in your descision process.

Kevin,


<Wow. I think those look great. I have been hunting for something done "right" as far as production value with this camera. Did you use plugin color correctors or just manual? Did you have to do much contrast adjustment in post?

I'm still torn on what camera to get, but I keep leaning toward the XL2.

Thanks.>

Replying Dave
 

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the compliments.

I have shot with all kinds of media. Film by far is still the holygrail of course since lattitude and depth of field is still incomparable to video of any kind.

In terms of BETA SP, I've done quite a bit with that, mostly documentaries though. It is a very nice medium still I think if the editing facilities are still all in BETA SP. However the one major difference between that and newer cameras like XL2 is the progressive scan function. Being able to shoot 24p or even 30p does add a lot if you are doing anything that requires a 'filmic' look.

Since I always find that good lighting is universal for all formats, and camera size and weight really isn't an issue if you are dealing with a good crew, it really does come down to the characteristics of the camera with framerate and resolution.

I think that if your boss started adopting to progressive/widescreen stuff, he would for sure like the XL2 since it does give a lot of nice options in that side of things.

Thanks again.

Kevin,

Replying Alain
 

Hey Alain,

The location we were shooting in had A LOT of white walls. It was pretty hard to bring in big lights even if we wanted to so we shot in an around T4.0 with the meter rated at 250ISO.

I am quite pleased with how the camera handled the shadow areas actually, compared to the DVX100, I didn't see as much 'shadow noise' dancing around in dark areas.

When you do your metering, what ISO do you use?

Thanks,

Kevin,

My guess would be to stick with iso 250 which appears to work pretty well in your case. I usually set my Minolta digital meter to iso 400. It seems that this settings matches my monitor. These meters are made to work with film setups so it's a little hard to get them to work perfectly with video.


Greetings

OMG now that is a great spot! BOTH of them!!!! OMG awesome