45' spot made on XL H1
 

One of trends for Vagabond footwear collection AW06 is Horror/Film Noir movies. At the same time as we shot stills for the AD-campaign, I shot footage for a spot, internet film and instore video. So this is low-budget. The location was a Film Noir setting, a wharehouse in Clerkenwell/London. Our creative idea for both stills and film is to make a pastich of the cliche and genre.

Mostly shot handheld and steadi. For lighting we had two 1.2kw HMI and a Dedoset. All shot in 25f and default setting, (I had shot at gamma 2 if I had more light). In post (FCP) I used Nattress Bleach Bypass (love that one!). The sound design is still under progress, the score is produced for the spot. Resized to 848x480 compressed in h.264.

Have a look at

http://media.dvinfo.net/xlh1/AW06_Spot_45_848x480.mov

Enjoy (I hope ;-) Comments appreciated!

I love the look! But I'm confused by the interlace artifacts, given that you shot in a progressive-like mode. Did you add interlacing in the workflow?

Best,
Christopher

Thanks for your comment Christopher!

I did not add interlacing "by hand". As FCP5 don't have real support for Canons 25f, I think FCP interlace at import. Or? It may also be in the h.264 resize (exported directly from QT), since I don't find any artifacts on the master (please give me an example of the artifacts you see, so I know what to look for).

More comments! ;-)

The interlacing is very apparent on my computer, especially the text overlays, but it's also in the video. Perhaps the upper lower fields were reversed in one of the conversion steps.

Best,
Christopher

Thanks for your input. I will have a close look in what happened with overlays, it is far more obvious in the resize, but still appear in full size. Thanks for your "argus eyes". /J

New and improved!
 

Without artifacts.

What did you do to fix the problem??

Thanks!

Yep, the interlace problem has been fixed.

Best,
Christopher

I've used Nattress smart deinterlace filter (thank you Graeme) at final export. The problem is mainly in the overlays. When I send it to film-out, the post house will have text and film in seperate FCP files.

I will post new clip in a week or two. I have recaptured the whole, into motion JPEG and currently working with the overlays (done my homework so to speak...).

Well done.. nice horror homage to film noir :)

I like the style of the girl with her BIG EYES and the dark eye shadow well done :)

JOey Dee

Thank Joey!

After some trial & error, i've loaded a new version of the spot. I've captured it all over, in motionJPEG A @75%. It's edited in DVCproHD. All slowmos and fasts are done in Shake (real nice smooth slowmos in the new version). All overlays are done in separate sequence (fcp5) and exported in to motionJPEG - so now it's pure 25f (or p).

Resized to 960x540, compressed in h.264.

Have a look at

http://media.dvinfo.net/xlh1/Vagabon...64_960X540.mov

And if you are interested how we use new media on the website have a look at

www.vagabond.com

The spot will be aired in theaters in September, but without any film-out. Some Theaters in Sweden showing all their films in MPEG4 1280x720 since summer... Would be nice to see the XL H1 performance on film, but anyway, can't wait to see it live.