a "film" look with the Z1
 

from what I understand the Z1 has 24p. does this give it a film look similar to the dvx100? is it even possible to simultaneously have a film look and hd look?

if I'm trying to achieve a film look is the Z1 the right camera to use, assuming the dvx100 is not available?

thanks for your time.

For a better film look using the Z1 shot with CineFrame25 (rather than CineFrame24) as the temporal cadence is correct. I shot my last short using CineFrame25 converted to 24p on capture. See info on the CineFrame modes here: http://www.cineform.com/products/Son.../CineFrame.htm

For clarification -- no, the Z1 doesn't have 24p, nor does it do any sort of progressive scan at all. It is an interlaced camera.

It does offer some CineFrame effects to simulate progressive scan. The CineFrame 24 is awful, but CineFrame 25 does a nice job of simulating 25p (although at lower vertical resolution).

No, CF24 looks nothing filmlike. CineFrame 25 would give a temporal feel similar to a European DVX shooting 25p.

Yes, if you shoot with a 24P HD camera (such as the VariCam, CineAlta, or the new JVC HD100 or Panasonic HVX200). CineFrame 25 can give a similar look but it's less "HD" than the Z1 otherwise would be; CineFrame 25 cuts the vertical resolution down to where it's about the same vertical resolution as a PAL DVX (but still twice as much horizontal resolution).

Others may disagree vehemently, but I'd say no, definitely not. The right camera to use would be the SDX900 or SPX800, if you can afford a 2/3" camera -- they're the ultimate filmlook SD cameras. Or an XL2, with edge enhancement toned down a bit, and perhaps with color saturation tweaked up a bit. Or the JVC HD100, pending getting reports of its real-life image quality. All those cameras shoot pure progressive scan at 24 frames per second, meaning genuine film motion at full resolution. Presumably the HVX200 (when it's available) will offer the ultimate, as it'll have genuine 24p, the DVX's CineGamma functions, and 1080 resolution, and 4:2:2 color sampling, and a prosumer-level price point.

The Z1 is best used for what it's designed for and made for -- producing high-def interlaced footage. That's where that camera shines its brightest, that's where it's at its best, and that's where you're most likely to get the "wow" factor from it. Trying to use it for a purpose for which it wasn't designed will demand compromises and introduce limitations.

Barry,

How about CF30? What's its most useful purpose?

the following clip was 'filmed' handheld with a FX1E and is a 5th generation compression copy (30 megish)

http://s59.yousendit.com/d.php?id=1U...C43CCKGSI3VPGK


this may answer your question

CF30 is a pretty good simulation of 30p. None of the off-speed motion rendition of CF24; instead it offers an exact simulation of the motion of 30p. It's lower resolution (since it's only one field) but I've found that it seems less artifacty (i.e., it seems to help the MPEG compression out by being lower res).

I'm not a fan of 30p though, whether CF30 or genuine 30p. It's a very limited format. It can't be transferred to PAL 25p, it can't be transferred to film, it doesn't look like film frame rates, it's sort of a hybrid film/video look. Some people like it, and it's definitely more filmlike than 60i.

Are there any issues of shooting CF30 with a 1/30 shutter speed that you know?

More motion blur. :) Otherwise no other issues.

Two elements contribute to "film look" -- 24p and gamma. Cinetone (gamma change) gives more of a "film look" on the Z1 than Cineframe, in my opinion. I prefer shooting with Cinetone and rendering out 24p in the NLE. If you are really transferring to film, check out DV Film and their book.

The problem with Cinetone, either 1 or 2, is that even with Black Stretch on, it seems to crash the blacks. At first I thought that Cinetone was something like Dyna latitude or Dynamic Contrast Control. This is not the case. Cinetone basically kills any clipping but overall it seems to affect the pedestal and not just the midtones or highlights. For me it looks almost unusable. And in not enought (not low light), it is definitely unusable, either 1 or 2. I am wondering if pedestal needs to be raised to 7 IRE in the Z1 in order to use Cinetone.

YOU are totally correct. CineTone crushes mid- to low-levels and has no value at all. Especially, since does NOT really prevent clipping!

It is Sony's idea of what 1960's K64 looked like. No one would shoot with such a film stock today.

Thankfully, it looks like JVC has included a true Varicam Cinegamma for transfer to film.

Perhaps it's unusable by old standards, but look at all the new DVD releases, be that film source or video source. The way they are color graded nowadays is that there are hardly any shadows left to look at. Most of the shadows areas are nearly black. I have to pump the CRT's/Plasma's brightness or gamma quite a bit up in order to see anything in the shadows of the latest Hollywood DVD releases. Compare that to Cinetone 1 or even 2 on Z1, and Z1's video with Cinetone looks with way too much detail in shadows and almost no blacks. Everything from Z1 lacks contrast if you calibrate your monitor to Hollywood's DVD's and try to watch Z1 material afterwards. And I'm not even speaking of Black Stretch. Try watching video shot with that on a monitor that was calibrated according to THX suggestions - the video will look completely dull.

So no, Z1's Cinetone doesn't kill shadows, it just tries to match them closer to what you see on popular video releases these days. Perhaps Hollywood does such high contrast DVD's because of the poor contrast abilities of many plasma/projection/lcd TV's? I don't know.

I now almost always use Cinetone 1 when shooting outdoors. The question remains though: Do I increase contrast even more afterwards in NLE for the final output, or do I leave it alone? I'm afraid that if I leave it as Z1 captured it, it will look dull on TV's that are calibrated to the latest trends.

I was at the DV Expo East in July and got a Sony HDV Demo DVD "Sony HDV for Professionals is Here", prepared by Douglas Spotted Eagle (I'm assuming). While everything in the Titles 1 through 3 color- and contrast-wise looks just like what I normally shoot with with Z1, the Title 4 with a final demo montage looks very different. There was definitely some color grading work applied and what I noticed the most is that contrast was also increased, so all the shadows areas look even darker on the same shots that looked normal in Titles 1 through 3. I don't know who did that enhancement for Title 4 montage, but sure it needed to be mentioned that it wasn't just shot with HVR-Z1, but that it was also further enhanced. It definitely has a different, darker and crisper look on the same footage.

So I'm guessing that the high contrast video is "in" (just like digital audio maximizing beyond belief has been "in" for a few years already in music recording industry). And if you want to be "in" with your videos, I guess you gotta make sure to nearly kill all your shadow detail.

One of the extreme examples of killed shadows that comes to mind is the Region 1 "Van Helsing" DVD. Pump up the brightness on your monitor and there's still not much there to see. I realize that it's a dark film, but even in the ballroom scenes, there's hardly any shadow details at all. More and more commercial releases seem to have that crushed look these days.

I really do like to view the medium contrast video on quality CRT monitors with lower brightness/higher contrast levels set up. But it seems that nowadays you have to master your image so it's suitable for a new generation of monitors, that usually suffer from low contrast. Therefore you pump it up in your final product.

Am I wrong on all this? After all, ultra high contrast seems to be the latest "film look" coming out from Hollywood, which is a complete opposite of the film look that people here are talking about (high level of detail in shadows, etc.). Aren't we all supposed to follow Hollywood in that trend if we want to achieve the "look"?

You almost answered your own question. First off, the way to watch Hollywood movies as intended by the director/producer is not by the monitor you own but by the projected image on the big screen, in other words, the release print !!!!!!!!!!!

Second, a video producer does not rely on how an image is produced on a plasma monitor, an LCD screen or the latest high technology consumer monitor sold by your local video store but by oscilloscopes, which are the only way which you can tell if your image is calibrated to view for the general public on ANYTHING including BROADCAST. If you do not understand this, go back to VIDEO ENGINEERING 101.

Yes, but what most people here are trying to achieve is the "film look" that is displayed on video monitor and not in the theatre. In the theatre film print, yes I see all the details and gradations. But why do they crush blacks during the DVD mastering? And if they do that why shouldn't we do it as well. They set the standards, they gave us a crappy 24p with pulldown look, and many of us (not me though) followed like sheep and now shoot everything in 24p, wich still doesn't look like real film, no matter what you do to it. CCD produced image will never look like film. Just look at digital still cameras and the images they produce. While some of them are excellent, it still doesn't look like film. So with videocameras, you might as well take the advantage of 50i or 60i (or 50p/60p if you can do that), which produces a far better and natural result than 24p/25p/30p. If you really want a film look - shoot on real film. It's as simple as that.

Guess what? If you're a smart producer, after using all your fancy oscilloscopes, you would go out and test your final output on any kind of display equipment currently available to consumer, to make sure that your product looks good. After all, those are the kinds of displays that your production will be viewed at, and if you ignore that, then I'd feel sorry for you. Theory is theory, oscilloscopes are oscilloscopes, but sometimes you just have to go out and see what the masses are gonna see.

Is that a suggestion or an insult? Please clarify. On a final note, I've seen way too much "professional" video work that made me want to puke. All kinds of atrocities I've seen, including dull images, severe compression problems, sound issues, scaling and field artifacts and many more, which can normally be avoided with some little brains and common sense applied to the workflow. If those professionals are using VIDEO ENGINEERING 101 or, God forbid, maybe even 102, as their only user's manual, without being in touch with reality and not learning anything new in practice, then your advice/insult is pointless. I'm not a real video professional, but I'm proud of my audio and video work (with many happy and returning clients), first of all because I set high standards, and try to achieve them by any means possible. If some real professional says here that "Method A" is the wrong way, but "Method B" is the only right way to do things, I'll go with "Method A" if that is the only thing that will contribute to my high production values. I'm open minded. I just wish that everybody on this forum was open minded too. I'm not trying to insult anybody, but just stating what I often see here: "professionals" looking down at "amateurs", dismissing everything constructive that the "amateur" might say. Oh well...

I think we should remember we are only talking about "faking it" -- this isn't film but I want to fake it on DVD to make it look like film.

I went to the DV Film class on shooting video for transfer to film a few weeks ago. I wanted to work out the best workflow for myself. The point they make is to send them unprocessed video. The film will naturally give it the "film look." If you send them Cinetone, it will only get darker -- too dark. We watched some very good 35mm film from digital cameras, including the Z1.

I changed plans on shooting a feature in Cinetone to just shooting straight 60i and then giving it the look I want in post for the DVD. If the DVD is accepted at a top notch film festival or a distributor picks it up, remove the post changes and send them the 20 min. reels the way they want for film transfer. (Personally, I plan on using "Ultimate S" and "Reel Packs" in Vegas because they are just Vegas effects which can be tweaked and are easy to apply and remove.)

So I guess I've come full circle back to something an old video producer told me, "Shoot the best video you can and do the effects in post."

Rusland, the 24p of a CCD gives the same motion characteristics as film. It's not about dynamic range, resolution, saturation, it's only about the motion characteristics...
If you say '24p doesn't even look like real film!' I think - in my opinion - you are giving a kind of wrong impression about it. The final image won't look like film, maybe, but the motion characteristiscs will be exactly the same, as it is set out to do.

Mathieu,
could you please clarify this? Motion characteristic is but a small bit of the "film look." Show an audience good depth of field at 60i and show them a bit of 24p with no DOF, chances are very likely that they'll choose the 60i over 24p. Depth of field, gamma, color characteristics, and motion blur are all part of the film look, but I'd hardly be able to agree that 24p alone is the film look.
FWIW, we've had two winners of reasonably large/respectable film festivals using our Ultimate S/Filmlooks tools (created by David Jimerson) and both those films were shot at 60i, converted to 24p in one case, and converted to 30p in the other. Both had good DOF, great color characteristics, and smooth contrasts.

That's what I meant.
If he said: 24p doesn't look like film, then it sounds a little bit as 24p is the whole 'filmlook' thing, but 24p is only one function of the filmlook, naming the motion characteristics, and in that, it DOES look like film, but that is not counting DOF, resolution, saturation,... You see what I mean?
If you say: 24p doesn't look like film, wel hell yes, but you are ignoring all those other factors.
So I think that claim ('24p doesn't look like film') is giving a wrong impression. 24p DOES look like film, but only in motion characteristics, and not all the rest.

Put that way, I certainly agree. Overall, I'm probably too sensitive to the fact that 24p on 1/3 chip cams sucks (IMO) and I'm also very sensitive to the constant assertion that shooting 24p is all you need to do to get a "film look." Cadence and motion blur are such a small part overall of a film-like look, that "all the rest" really needs to virtually always be part of the discussion, from my point of view. Merely delivering on film goes a long way to killing the "video" look whether shot at 24p or 60i. Then again, what do I know? Only one project I've ever shot/edited was transferred to film. :>)

This is a constant battle, and the way I try to describe it is: there's the film look, and there's the "movie" look, and they're not the same.

Lighting and composition and depth of field have *nothing* to do with the "film look", and everything to do with the "movie look".

The "film look" means: does it look like it was shot on film? The "movie look" means: does it look like a movie?

For clarification, I offer the example of 8mm and Super8mm home movies. There are hundreds of miles of 8mm and Super8mm film footage, all of it shot with lousy handheld techniques and infinite depth of field and no lighting whatsoever; yet it all looks like FILM. Because it *is* film. It's kind of tough for film not to look like film, right? But none of it looks anything like a "movie".

The "film look" is a vital component of the "movie look", but it is not in and of itself enough. The "film look" involves cadence, blur, grain, and gamma. The "movie look" involves composition, lighting, camera movement, and perhaps depth-of-field. Plus the "film look", because movies are shot & shown on film.

24P is absolutely vital for the film look. It is the single most significant breakthrough for video filmmakers since the introduction of the video camera itself. It does not make your footage look like a "movie." But it does go a long, long way towards making your footage look like it was shot on film. It is the single most defining characteristic between the "video" look and the "film" look.

Great points, Barry. I rarely consider the technical difference between cadence and DOF when talking about "film look." I probably should make that more clear when discussing this. That said, I'd assert most folks here are going for the "movie-look" vs "film look," which is why I suppose I rarely comment on cadence vs appearance.

24p is indeed a great breakthrough at that level, it's certainly enabled many things to be done that couldn't be affordably or reasonably done before.

Not sure of the logic on show here, because if 24P is absolutely vital for the film look and if STD8mm and SUPER8mm look like film, then you are surely aware that the bulk of STD8mm is projected at 16fps and SUPER8mm is projected at 18fps.
In fact over the many years I have telecined both 8mm formats at 16.67 fps on a 3 blade shutter so that PAL 50i scoops it up without any flicker --- I have never had one single complaint about the frame rate. So film look does not have to be 24p

Movies dont need to be shot on 24p either looky here; all Todd AO (30p)

Oklahoma (1955)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956), United Artists
South Pacific (1958), 20th Century Fox
Porgy and Bess (1959), MGM
Can Can (1960), 20th Century Fox
The Alamo (1960), United Artists
Cleopatra (1963), 20th Century Fox
The Sound of Music (1965), 20th Century Fox
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), 20th Century Fox
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), 20th Century Fox
Doctor Dolittle (1967), 20th Century Fox
Star (1968), 20th Century Fox
Hello Dolly (1969), 20th Century Fox
Airport (1970), Universal Pictures
Baraka (1992)

I think it's fair to say that 99.99999999994% of the movies that have ever been released have been shot at 24fps. Of those that have seen the inside of a theater, the percentage is probably higher. There may be some exceptions here and there, but that in no way invalidates the main rule. For example: fish do not fly. Someone can point out a "flying fish" but that doesn't mean "oh, I'm wrong, fish do fly..."; instead that just means that there's an exception to the rule, but in no way invalidates the rule.

Yes much Super8 was shot at other than 24fps, and most if not all 8mm was shot at other than 24fps. The logic on show there was that the film look is not dependent on DOF or lighting or camerawork.

24p makes video footage look more like it's been shot on film than any other aspect. No matter what you shoot on 60i, it would look more filmlike if you'd shot it at 24p. Film, and the look that we associate with film, is shot at 24fps, because the overwhelmingly vast majority of film that any of us has ever seen has all been shot at 24 frames per second.

I'm not saying 24p is "superior" to 60i, or anything like that. I'm just saying that 24p is a vital component of the "film look" because film is shot at 24fps. Sure there are exceptions, and like almost all exceptions, they're basically irrelevant to an understanding of the core issues.

But what about contrast settings?
 

OK, this is all nice. However, I didn't say that 24p doesn't look like film, I said that 24p shot with videocamera doesn't look like film. Yes the frame rate moves like film, but I can always spot the difference between the real film originated 24p and video originated 24p. It's just not the same look, for better or worse. Perhaps transfering it to 35mm and back to video will make it look better, but without that there's just no comparison.

I've seen some 24p programming from big networks for things like reality type documentaries and even talking heads and I'm thinking - why do they pretend? What's the point? All they achieve is jerkiness of pulldown, but the picture's texture still looks like video.

I've seen on a few occasions the well shot footage from DVX100 and XL2 at 24p, and it looked like a very very nice video shot at 24p. I love the movie look, but these under $10k cameras just don't quite cut it. I think HVR-Z1 at 50i or 60i with good DOF composition looks more like film (even counting the fact that it's 50/60 interlaced) than some other native 24p cameras. By the way, I think that natively the ancient Sony DCR-VX1000E (PAL) gave the best film look on video. The picture of VX1000E has such an amazing texture (not the resolution increase, but somehow more 3-dimentional).

However, my initial question was: What do we do with the contrast for final DVD mastering?

Douglas, if you did that "Sony HDV For Professionals Is Here" promo DVD, what did you do to the Title 4, which is a final 2 minute montage? It looks very different from the rest of the same exact footage. Besides some color tweaks, the blacks are also deeper than on the original footage in Titles 1, 2 and 3. I would love to know, if it's not a secret, what settings you applied (at least approximately). It does look crisper than the unmodified Z1 footage. Thanks.

Ruslan, the fallacy here is idea that "film" has a single contrast ratio - different stocks have very different characteristics. You cannot make the contrast ratio of "video" resemble that of "film", although you could make it more film like by tweaking certain aspects that tend to occur across a number of film stocks.

However almost all (as Barry said 99.9r) fils have a 24fps frame rate, so AS SOON as you shoot video in 24p (or convert it to 24p from 50i/60i or indeed 50p or 60p) it will seem to resemble film to most viewers. Back in the early nineties I used to make my student films shot on S-VHS look more film like using the strobe filter on the old Sony FXE 120, turned up to the highest rate, which basically just dropped a single field. In colour it looked pretty bad but in Black and white it was pretty convincing. Sure it's still easy to spot video that's been de-interlaced to resemble video, but if film footage that had been shot at 50/60fps wasthen transferred to interlaced video maintaining the frame rate, would you recognise it as film?

But I'm completely with you on the old VX1000Es. I love those cameras - cranky, unreliable, terrible audio, but they definitely had a certain something to them. The PD170s are less grainy and sharper, but still...

Dylan, what I'm really trying to achive is not the film look, but the general look of what you see on your TV today, be that film or video originated. I don't care for 24p, I do everything in 50i or 60i. Only for my motion DVD menus I choose 25p or 30p, because it's less of a pain in the ass to work with in After Effects.

So in a word, I'd like my productions to look (at least on some occasions) like the latest "look" in video. Not to be cheesy, but take a look at discs 3 and 4 of "The Lord Of The Rings" extended edition (any of the three sets). There is a lot of amateur video footage, along with professionally shot interviews. Everything was mastered in post to have the really deep blacks. That's just one of the examples. There are several latest DVD's that have that look, be that from film or video. I'm sure it's best to shoot with as much details in shadows area as possible, but my question still stands open: do we nearly kill the shadows in the post to achieve the latest look? Thanks.

Ruslan: I really think you need to adjust your monitor(s). No one has expressed here nor I have seen myself the "problem" you are experiencing with seeing Hollywood movies with the "crushed blacks". The contrast rendition of a film projected image may not be the same as to what you see in the small screen but, no, your super crushed blacks may not be a problem of the movies transferred to DVD but of your particular TV displays or even of your DVD player(s). Some DVD players have their own 'pedestal' set incorrectly and they offer the user a way to adjust it. I would consult the manual of your TV and/or DVD player.

I believe....that it was black stretch with CineGamma applied. I can ask...but frankly, I'd not seen this question until someone pointed out that you'd not gotten an answer. I also believe it was underexposed by a full stop, and then pushed in post.

Augusto, I have a few different types of monitors and several various DVD players, including the PC versions, and I have the same results. I just watched bits of Region 2 PAL version of the latest "Prime Suspect". They made dark areas so black that even if I pump the brightness and gamma on Panasonic plasma all the way up, those areas are pitch black. Then they have some interviews and that looks like a normal dull, unprocessed, digital video, just like the one coming out of Z1 if you do nothing in post. By "dull" I mean that it looks dull if you adjust your monitor so you can see details in dark areas better on latest DVD releases. Perhaps most other people's TV's have AGC turned on, if they don't see this issue. I prefer not to use TV's AGC feature.

So that's my whole point. If I have a TV adjusted to my normal liking, the Z1 footage, be that HD or downconverted to SD, looks fantastic, almost photographic at times. But if I try to re-adjust the TV to the modern high contrast DVD's so I can see what's going on in dark areas, then the Z1's footage looks very dull at those settings. I doesn't matter if I do a normal exposure or underexpose, doesn't make much difference. So that's why I was asking if it's now almost mandatory to increase contrast dramatically in post-production (so we could match the same general look of video or film-on-video that's popular today).

Douglas, thanks for the answer. So, you're saying that it was not you who did the color grading of the final 2 minute montage? Because it does use some of the same exact footage as in Titles 1-3, but looks better (and darker) than in those titles.

I still think you are doing something wrong down the line or the discs you have gotten from that region 2 are not transferred correctly. It has happened since the days of Laserdiscs.

I have not experienced what you are describing, at least for the stuff I see here in the U.S. The rules of the game are still are still the same. Black is black, either 0 or 7.5 IRE.

I asked, and the answer is that it's the same footage, as you pointed out, but it's not remembered what was done. No, I didn't do that footage. I had to pull the DVD vid back out just to remember what it was. :-)
Sorry I don't have more/better/good info for you.