D90 - 60-second spot

[Michael Carter]

This was my first real workout with the D90 - 60 second spot for web, will likely be edited for local broadcast at some point.

I intended to shoot this with a DVX, but took the D90 to play with it. Of the 49 or so shots in this video, 35 are from the D90 - the crane shots are the DVX.

I learned a ton about using this thing while "under fire". (One thing I learned is a I need a bigger monitor and a follow focus on it!) Some of this was shot in extreeeeeme low light, all D90 shots were handheld on a fig rig. Client is beyond thrilled.

Lenses: Mostly Vivitar 28mm 2.5 and Nikkor Series E 100mm 2.8; a few with a Nikon 80-200 2.8AF zoom, Maybe a couple shots with a Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF.

DVX was just stock, on an 8-ft Kessler crane with a 7" remote LCD.

I wrote & performed the music in ProTools; drums written with Strike. Guitars were a Jazzmaster clone-thing, a G&L USA Strat, A Gibson J45 Acoustic, and a Fender P90 bass. Amp sim was a Line 6 Plugin.

Here's the link:
http://www.zounds-sounds.com/

Thanks to everyone who posted those manual-shooting tricks here!!!! You guys made the D90 really useable for me.

[gwales]

That's terrific - I can see you put a lot of work in syncing up the audio to your footage. Very nicely done.

Visually, it's certainly good enough for the subject, with a nice mix of shots, and not too jumpy ( I hate fast cuts, but I'm an old fart).

[Michael Carter]

thanks - the fast cuts were driven by one necessity... didn't want any parental drama if one kid got more screen time kinda stuff.

I've tried synching audio by bringing quicktime into ProTools, but my G5 isn't fast enough for the video to run usefully. For this, I laid down just the drum beat and started a rough edit. I took a microphone and used FCP's voiceover feature and made audible "notes", like "1-2-3-4-STOP", "drum break", etc. - which I could slide around on the timeline. Export the edit out as a WAV or AIFF, import into PT and add audio changes. Since I always export from the start of the movie & the start of the PT project, everything stayed aligned. Did that back & forth several times as I dialed the audio in.

I love FCP and after effects, but ProTools is really the thing for me, I'm a happy camper when I'm immersed in it.

[Zim]

Nice job