My first shoot with the XL2
 

I needed to practice using my nice new camera. I hadn’t shot a single second of footage with the XL2 so I came up with a little promo trailer. We shot this in one day

Check out the trailer, it is in the ”Downloads” section of our website.
http://www.theshadowasset.com/

So far I love this camera. It has such an amazing picture quality for SD. I just have to remember to turn off the image stabilizer when on a tripod. I had a nice crane shot that was a little jumpy because I forgot to turn the switch off.

It performs way better than I expected with night and dark footage. This really helps give a good film style look. I can't wait to start to use this on the big production.

I read in the forum somewhere that the XL2 has trouble handling bright red. I don't know exactly what they are talking about. To test this for the trailer I shot a very bright red subject and it seemed to come out just fine. It seem to have sharp detail and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Mabey it has somthing to do with broadcast color. I don't have to worry about that.

All in all I like the performance better than the DVX I borrowed a few months back. It doesn't even compare.


Misfire Productions

http://www.theshadowasset.com/

WOW! I think your footage looks great! I love the trailer... the "it involves guns" line was great. I would watch this movie in a heart beat. And the web site... it is so well done, and you haven't even started shooting yet. Keep up the good work. I believe you will have somthing entertaining and marketable when you are done.

PS - who did the site? And what if any filters did you use on the XL2?

I designed the website. I’m doing an iron-man with this movie. I’m pretty much am doing every job there is.

I didn't use any FX filters. The only filter I used was an extra ND filter to cut the light intensity down for the daytime shots. Everything else was done in post with magic bullet and the stock color corrector in Premiere.

looking cool. Your site was slow, but the web layout was nice.
is that original music? reminds ,me alittle of a john woo film of a beat takeshi film in some way. Nice james bond reverse shot with her in her bikini bottoms (cheeky?)
anyway, deffintly looks cool, keep up the good work!!
(good job on the cars btw, I could never do this as I drive an 88 k-car, it just wouldn't look cool!)

I had trouble with the Windows Media Player version. It was distorted because of the playlist info. The clip showed at about half the height it should with the width being normal. The QT version played fine.

As for the clip itself, it looks very cool. What settings did you use on the XL2 as a base for Magic Bullet? Can you post a before/after clip? I would be interested in seeing what Magic Bullet did. I keep hearing about it on the forums. What I don't know is how much it changes the overall look. Is it a big change or mostly a subtle one?

Good luck with the project. If it lives up to the teaser it will do well.

Colin

oh, i didn't mention it, but the windows media player version did not work . I watched the quicktime version. So you might want to look at the windows media file.

Wes,

In fact, the raw tsateaser.wmv file looks fine to me. So I suggest that you review the width & height params in the teasertrailer_wm.html page.

Awesome trailer and web site! Very nice look! Can you tell us more about the camera parameters, such as Gamma, Knee, Black, Color Matrix, Coring, that were used on the trailer. Were any of the presets published in DVinfo/XL2 used?

Ken W.

Ken,

I think from reading Wes' earlier post that the XL2 was used without too many settings. Magic Bullet was used for the look. I am hoping Wes can show some before and after clips.

Colin

It's nice to see people not be afraid to continue to use the XL2 for these kinds of projects.

Nsx
 

Who's NSX is that?

I’m not sure why anyone would be having trouble with the windows media file. I have played it on many different computers and it plays just fine. In fact I just tested it now and it is fine. The only thing that would make a difference is you have to be running the latest version of windows media player. I have seen issues arise when someone is running version 9. Perhaps this is the issue.

As for the camera settings, I used the Technicolor preset available on this site.

I will post some before and after shots shortly.

Oh yea, the website was probably moving slow because I got hit with 113 people within one hour. That’s a lot of bandwidth.

teaser
 

Wesley,

It Was a terrific Promo!! Now, where did you scrounge up the prop guns, Or were they props?

I am going to havce to get out now and try out the technacolor presets, looks great.

I too want to see the movie!!!

Color effect compassison
 

I created a clip that shows the differences between the three color effects I used.

http://www.theshadowasset.com/compare.wmv

The first segment, the car footage. I used the stock color corrector in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5. You can really see how screwed up the white balance was on the camera. I didn’t have time to do a pass through the tunnel just to white balance. I figured I would fix it in post. Premier really saved that footage.

Next the close-up on my actress face. First is the un-altered footage. The second pass I brought the footage into After Effects and used a modified Magic Bullet preset. I used the preset called Berlin then changed a few parameters to give a little different effect. Magic Bullet really performs well with dimly lit footage.

The next segment, the pool footage. I used Adobe's Proc-Amp effect to really blow out the contrast and brightness.

The guns are airsoft guns. They are so realistic It is insane. Wait till you see them actually shoot in the movie.

I did a screen test with the full special effects and I had almost everyone think I used real guns.

Wes,

I tried the windows media version on different PCs. All PCs have WM version 10. I found that it is the browser that makes the difference. IE works OK while Mozilla Firefox has the squashed display. Perhaps that's what others are seeing.

Thanks for sharing the Technicolor preset reference, other tips and the compare video. It all helps us to learn more.

Ken W.