D90 film scene rehearsal

[Matthew Bennett]

D90 as a 'sketching' tool... great!

This is a rehearsal (hour one, very rough blocking/reading) for a scene I'm shooting in the next weeks.

The great thing is that I shot this in an extremely dark room, with available practical light, and it still looks decent in SD. Also I was able to shot a lot very quickly, lightly, without any intensive processing afterwards.

The d90 is a great way to 'sketch' a dramatic scene... block, sketch the lens, etc..

Also, if I may ask, posters, please don't judge the scene as its just SOOO rough at this point ...

But, as I'm in my research phase here, what do you generally think of these actors against each other?

http://www.qmediasolutions.com/guest/CAMERA_TESTS/P_DAY_test_prt2_h264.mov

[Andrew Brinkhaus]

Looks very much like a first light pass on some S16. Incredible look for being natural light. What was your process for setting up LV before shooting?

[John Sandel]

Looks very much like a first light pass on some S16 … What was your process for setting up LV before shooting?

Agreed. Do tell.

[ZazaCast]

Very nice... and while you're answering questions...what did you capture sound with?
(I only caught your reflection in the window)

[Arrik]

Hey looks great. The actors worked for me. The loved the "were going to have to fight scene." That's in-camera sound, no?

I know you asked not to comment on the images, but I havent heard much talk on the horizontal banding or waves or whatever you wanna call it that is apparent with the d90 (and can be seen in some of your shots).

On another thread someone mentioned it happens to them on all artificial light. For me, its only apparent when there are florescent lights or television. Is there already a thread that talks about this that you can point me to, or provide your thoughts on it. Is this a problem that cant be worked around? I usually trial and error the AE-L until its passable but it never goes away entirely.

Sorry to hijack.

[Matthew Bennett]

Hi,

As far as the AE-L setup, I didn't do any tricks at all.. I just let the camera have it's way. I was on manual, and my white balance was full sunlight, hence the color casts. I'm liking the tungsten look from this camera.
So I just let it expose to it's will, and then locked it. I'm not into 'tricking' the camera, 'cause my fear of the jpeg compression overrides my need to control ISO and shutter speed.

All the sound was synced from a DVX recording 24p to tape, off in the corner, I had a wireless lav on each actor. But the echoey, air conditioned (couldn't turn it off) room and lav mics were such crap that it pretty much sounds like the d90's internal mic. I'm going with a nice sennheiser shotgun for the next iteration.. even a great boom is meaningless without a technically flawless operator, though, as we all know..

The horizontal banding was due to a little compact florescent we turned on at some point just to add a little definition to their faces. The room had practical tungsten spots (very dim.. I could barely see in this room it was so dark) which provide even light, but as soon as we turned on that wee florescent, the banding began.

The D90 cannot shoot with any florescent light without the banding. Probably not a good idea to use kino's with this camera, I guess?

THANK's for the comments, always welcome!

[el presidente]

Hi..
I posted about the "banding"..I live in the uk and ANY lighting apart from sunlight does it..I can get rid of it but its not very scientific...if you move the camera around the area you are exposing to you can see the banding.... if you are patient you see it will stop for a brief moment(Maybe the slight movement around a constantly lit area creates minute changes in framerate) and it finds my 50th of a second....or something like that..try it. it wont hurt...or maybe it will and that means you are doing it wrong!

I hope that makes sense.

[Andrew Brinkhaus]

I wonder if this could be done with a small flourescent of some kind to automatically find and lock in a 1/50 shutter speed. Battery powered flourescent lights are available at Home Depot, would be quick and portable if so...

[Arrik]

Thanks for the info guys. I figured so much but needed that confirmation. Surprised Kholi hasn't got this info up in his sticky. What a slacker :)

As far as the sound, I only thought it was the internal because of the echoey sound but like you said, its just a rehearsal. Pretty damn good for a rehearsal, banding or not.

Andrew, if you figure something out, please follow up. I'll keep experimenting myself.

[kfrogg]

Matthew - This stuff is wonderful! After a week with my own, I agree -- the D90 is an awesome scene sketch tool.

It is heartbreaking to think this kind of color rendention in low light is virtually unavailable for "regular" use. The jello-cam effect -- even with moderate moves on decent sticks -- makes it a deal-killer.

BUT I STILL LOVE THIS CAMERA!

[anthonyt]

WOW now thats amazing shot !!! i love the earlier dialogue. BRR got to get myself this d90 once its in malaysia !

[fahreza]

it's not in malaysia yet?
and yeah, love the shots. i think i finally know what jello effects look like, i haven't noticed them before. still, i think with stabilization and all, we can get around it...

[rawfa]

As you have asked not to comment on the scene yet I will restrict my comments to the looks. It looks freaking amazing!!! Any chance you can post an HD version just for comparisons sake?

[anthonyt]

it's not in malaysia yet?
and yeah, love the shots. i think i finally know what jello effects look like, i haven't noticed them before. still, i think with stabilization and all, we can get around it...

no not just yet should be by this week onwards will waiting for the shops to stock them up. Theres no much jello in this one trust me, i mean compared to most !

[anthonyt]

hey matt just sent you a pm :)

[fahreza]

no not just yet should be by this week onwards will waiting for the shops to stock them up. Theres no much jello in this one trust me, i mean compared to most !

i guess it's just my amateur eyes, i've seen the clips on vimeo but this is the first one i noticed. well, i have to admit it is a bit discouraging but what the heck.
we just got them in shops here in jakarta and am currently trying to convince a friend to buy it. he's not interested in the video but am sure if he sees these fantastic shots, he'll buy one for sure...

[anthonyt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZFKVYBKbOs - just added some color grading. Will take it down if Matt doesn't allow. anyway just wanted to see how d90's vid would look like after the post

[rawfa]

People need to start forgetting youtube. Use vimeo, broham.

[rawfa]

The more I look at quality footage from the D90 the madder I get with Nikon for not going that extra mile to make this a touch down.

[anthonyt]

if it was HD i would definitely use vimeo ! sorry

[rawfa]

No problemo, Tony. Lets see if we can get Matt to show us an hd version.

[kevm14]

People need to start forgetting youtube. Use vimeo, broham.

Try appending &fmt=18 to the URL. Less compression.

[anthonyt]

never knew there was a trick to that. yeah would love to play with the RAW ! Matt could you please ? :) :)

[Matthew Bennett]

I didn't cut in HD, I processed all my raw clips to SD first before cutting a frame..

I could post a short AVI clip of it if you really want to play around with it... I'll do that in the next day or so..

[anthonyt]

Alright please do ! if it no one told me it was a d90 i would have thought it was a RED or some 16 or 35mm. LIL rolling u got there and neat cam style handling. Love those kind to the most !

[rawfa]

Matthew, I've noticed that some of the audio is out of sync. Is this due to being a rough cut or are you having some sort of technical issue with sound synching D90 footage?