The Twenty-Third Letter - Scene 10
 

We recently wrapped production on The Twenty-Third Letter trailer. We put the XLH1 through it's paces and in different production scenarios.

I chose to show off Scene 10 because it has many different production qualities that hopefully many on these boards would find interesting. Low light. 3x SD lens on some shots. Jib arm shots. Special visual effects. Color correction. Etc. We also had a blast shooting this scene in downtown L.A.

You can view the Quicktime versions here:

http://starwaypictures.blogspot.com/...-scene-10.html

With a little luck I can offer WMV versions later today or tomorrow.

There are some noticable compression artifacts introduced by H264. It's always a tradeoff between picture quality and file size.

That is freakin awesome. how did you get 24 fps , in camera or did you shoot 60i and convert in post?

We shot the film in 24F. Imported the footage and converted it to DVCProHD.

Looks very professional, Robert. Really nice job. Just one thing, the cut at 24 seconds seemed forced to me and a little disorienting mainly because I didn't really see the point of it given that you already established the scene.

Great stuff...

Steve beat me to it. At 24 seconds into the clip, I would've let it stay at the two shot until the wider shot at 30, unless the performance is a composite of different shots, in which case an insert of onlookers or something like that could help mix and match the different pieces while keeping lip synch.

Color
 

I took the liberty to take a shot at some color work for one of the shots in your scene...

http://www.js-films.com/test/noncc.jpg
http://www.js-films.com/test/cc.jpg

I tried to keep the greenish cast of your original, while getting rid of the milkish bluish shadows. What do you think?

I think the problem might be that in the shot prior to the reverse we see her inhale to deliver the next line and when we cut there's a pause. I was trying to slow down her delivery a bit.

I'm going to work on it some more to see if I can smooth it out. It seems to be bothering everyone.

Nice. Thank you.

The problem in the edit at that point is that you're breaking the axis (at least that's what we call it in spanish). In the shot prior she's on the left and he's on the right, and the next shot their position is reversed. Visually, you should keep continuity of each actor's position onscreen unless you use some sort of transition shot or insert to pull it off. When they walk away it works because you're revealing the rest of the scene so the attention is diverted, but when they're static it doesn't.

By the way, love the hidden detail of the cardboard betacam tape box.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2933/11cc6jc.jpg
I was just testing something and it would've turned our better if I had the uncompressed file but I still think it's pretty good.

Great work!

Q: What do you gain by converting to DVCproHD?

Q2: Is the whole clip shot with 20x Stock lens and 3x Wide SD?

Small Q: Is it 2,35:1 format?

A1: DVCProHD is much better codec to edit with. I think of HDV as an aquisition medium only. Plus FCP is optimized to work with DVCProHD.

A2: The bulk of it is the 20x lens. The opening shot and the close-up shot of the detective looking at the body is the 3x Wide.

A3: 2.35:1 baby! My favorite aspect ratio. My home theater enthusiast buddies HATE that I letterbox everything. But, oh well.

So the film is captured to/from cassettes (and not HD-SDI)?

And I must ask you, how did you do the wall? Is it done on location? Is it greenscreen?

Really nice work!

All captured to tape (HDV). Exported via Firewire using DVHSCapture and then converted to DVCProHD via MPEG Streamclip.

The wall was done in post. It was a matte painting added to the original wall with all foreground elements (actors) rotoscoped.

When you export from FCP (to film-out), which codec do you use?

Whatever codec the transfer house requires. There's a good chance they'd be just fine with DVCProHD, but for final grades they might want to do, you could possibly export to 10bit Uncompressed if you had a giant 1 TB firewire drive. This way final changes for film out could be made without degrading the footage further.

Maybe off-topic, but do you guys know if it's possible to export tiff-sequenses from FCP5?

Still progressive?
 

I've found the answer, for my question (File > Export > QT Converstion > Image Sequence > Options > TIFF, 25fps, Best Depth (Compression: None), size 1920x1080, 72dpi, rgb, 8bit).

Will I still have it as progressive if captured after your recomendations, Barlow?

If you shot 25F it should be as progressive as the original material.

Yeah it is (25fps). I've captured through HDVxDV and exported in Streamclip to DVCproHD or JPEG (not decided yet). Really nice footage! Only problem; disc space. How large files should it be? For example; 100% quality in DVCproHD, size 1920x1080 what should it end up in per minute?

A little less than 1 GB per min.

quick fix for the screen direction problem at 24 secs...flip that shot horizontally...that'll put her on the correct side of the screen...no finessing needed. Since there's no text in the scene to show you've done so, this shoudl work just fine. Nice piece...can't wait to see the finished project.

Impressive... I was looking for some film footage and here it is. Very stunning, that makes me want to save money (which would be useless anyway for now...).

Bravo!

and now that I look at it again, a cutaway would work better than flipping as flipping would feel just as weird since we are looking at their backs in the second.

Robert-

I have to ask, as your footage doesn't seem to have what I would consider as one of the signature picture elements of this camera, that being significant visible Chromatic abberation or color fringing and softness specifically as you get further from the center of the frame. Virtually every clip I've seen, except yours, shows this issue pretty quickly. Your footage appears remarkably sharp and clean in neutral contrast areas right out to the edge of the frame, there are a few high contrast areas that show the CA, but again at a level that is quite below other clips. I've played with XLH1 only once, and I saw the problem immediately.

Can you explain what is going on? Do you know what F-stops were used in this clip? Is there some magic CA correcting software I'm unaware of? Did you just get a lucky camera?

Sorry to harass. I've recently come into a chunk of cash allowing me to go HD, and this one issue has bugged me from the beginning about this camera, your footage has given me hope. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

(BTW...fabulous work..inspirational to see this quality of a project being done on this camera by a member of our boards.

Barry

Robert, wow.. amazing job... well done mate... I have even downloaded the clip, i loved the crane shot and the over shot when u see the girl on the ground with the music...

So what does that mean, u shot in 24f which i get (did you use any kind of lense)? Also impored the footage (im guessing to FCP or AVID or Premier) and converted to DVCProHD? What is that? and how do you do that with what program and what is the benefit of it? Does it change your footage to HD? is that even possible?

Great job and i bookmarked your site.. well done...

Joey Dee

I'm also extremely impressed. I think when the XH A1 comes out, I'm going to splurge and get it. It unfortunately won't have the viability of lenses that the H1 has, but with the looks of 24f, and the same core imaging system, it should be one hell of a camera for the price!

Thanks for the post!

Hi Barry. I'm glad you enjoyed the clip. That's why I do it.

I personally think the CA issue wrt to the stock 20x lens is a little out of proportion with reality. I don't think we did anything special with the shoot. We did use a lot of neutral density filters to control the amount of light entering the lens. This allowed us to open the iris as much as possible so that we could get a shallower depth-of-field and additional shadow detail.

Also, keep in mind that there are three shots in that clip that used the Canon 3x SD lens. Remember, this is the same lens everyone said was useless on the H1. We made a custom preset specifically for that lens with detail turned up slightly to compensate for the lens' inherent softness.

We are looking forward to buying the new Canon 6x lens once it's available. Same wide angle field of view as the 3x but with the same sharpness as the 20x. It will make a great addition to our set of lenses (20x, 16x SD manual, 3x).

I did not use any software to fix CA. However, there is a FCP plugin from River Rock Studios called "Bad Lens" that can help fixing agregious problems. But I haven't applied to any shots in my project so far.

We edited the project using Final Cut. However, we captured the footage using DVHSCap (free from Apple's website). We then converted that captured .M2T files to DVCProHD using MPEGStreamclip (also free from Apple). Final Cut is optimized for DVCProHD and it cuts and posts nicely. I think the conversion from HDV to DVCProHD softens the image a little, though.

The whole project was shot 1080 24f(p).

I've used a lot of cameras since being an early adopter of DV back in the day. I've even had the opportunity to use the Sony F900. But I have to say that I think the Canon XLH1 is my favorite camera so far.

I'm sure the G1 and A1 are equally impressive.

You mentioned your workflow of capturing over firewire using DVHSCapture, and then converting to converting to DVProHD using MPEG Streamclip. As I'll probably be using the A1 or G1 in the future, can you outline this process a little more, or know of a tutorial that does? With the quality of your output, I'm very interested. Also what is DVHSCapture, I did a quick search, and google just pointed me back to this forum where you mentioned it :P

Go to this address and download FireWire SDK 20 for Mac OS X (DMG). In it are the two mini apps you'll need (VirtualDVHS and MPEGStreamclip).

the http://developer.apple.com/sdk/

You might try searching some of the forums at XLCinema.com for some workflow solutions similar to what I did.

http://www.xlcinema.com/cinematic/sh...vhs+streamclip

The A1 and G1 will probably give you the same picture quality as the H1. I can't testify as to the quality of the fixed lens. But the CCDs and processors are the same. So I see no reason why you wouldn't get similar image quality results.

But remember. There's no substitute for a good cinematographer.

Cool, thanks for the info. Also, I curious as to your opinion on using a camera like the H1 with stock and additional lenses in comparison to getting a 35mm adapter for film lenses. I built my own, and plan on using it with the A1 when it's out, but I think with the size of the CCD's and lenses, you can get a similar look just using the lenses for the H1, or am I wrong?

Just trying to find a film like solution that yields the most optimum results for the least amount of money and difficulty.

Also, just as a non-image sidenote... whoever the sound artists are (composer(s), engineer(s), foley), they did and excellent job... I'd love to see and hear the entire film!

I think controlling DOF is a bit overrated. That's not to say that I don't want some control of DOF on certain shots. And on rare occassion there are times when I really want very shallow DOF. But, ultimately, I think using stock/standard Canon lenses are perfectly acceptable 90% of the time.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the 35mm adapters. I think they're very finicky to use and the results are often iffy or the DOF of so shallow that achieving critical focus is impossible (kinda like DOF characteristics of 65mm at wide open).

Composter = Megatrax

Sound design and foley = your truly.

OK, that's it! I'm quitting school and moving to LA so I can beg and plead to be an intern for you!!!! ;)

I wasn't a big fan of 35mm adapters either and it took me 2 years to eventually get off the fence. The Letus35XL is really a great testament to where this technology has come. (you can find some test footage of mine in the Letus35 area of dvinfo)

I think it just comes down to a focus-puller with a sharp eye and an HD monitor.

I do have to admit, with the advent of the "35mm look", most amature film makers like myself are overusing it, which I can say I've already found in my own work. It will probably be awhile before the usage of adapters like the M2 or the Letus35 matures, and is used as a tool rather than a perminent attachment. Also, as CCD's get larger, allowing for easier access to shallow dof, there probably won't be too much of a need for 35mm adapters... although this is only an assumption as I am by far no expert in this.

Ultimately, the REDONE will be the ideal "35mm look" Ultra-HD camera if it delivers on its promises (as far as DOF is concerned). For now I think 35mm adapters on 1/3" HD cameras is a bit of stop gap measure.

We've decided not to be beta testers by using Red on our upcoming feature film. So we're going with dual XLH1's feeding into uncompressed HD-SDI capture stations (rolled around on a customized Magliner). We'll have one Letus35XL and a couple primes on set for those select few shots where shallow DOF is a must. Otherwise, we'll be using primarily the 20x and the 6x lenses.