XL2's Great-Great Grandfather's Footage

[Rogue Crew]

This outstanding footage was shot on an XM1, the Euro (British, anyway) cousin of the Canon GL1. The images are beautiful even for the newest cam, let alone from the XL2's great-great grandfather. It just goes to show.......something. :P

Here's the link: (try the Large version)

http://www.the-silencer.co.uk/

And a link to DVInfo where they are discssing it:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35737&highlight=the+sil encer

[David Jimerson]

That is a truly excellent avatar. ;D

[Neil Rowe]

hmm i dont know, ..imho the all but a couple shots (the guy working the heavybag for one) look very "made for TV" videoish.. despite the nice color correction and aspect ratio. there just seems to be no "atmosphere" in all but those couple shots. the images appear pretty clean though -albiet the totally blown out sky and lack of any appreciable selective focus.
all in all it looks like an interesting "VAN DAMM" clone. .. throw in some popcorn and id rent it. :)

[baremis]

muito ruim! in brazil we call it barbecue!

[Rogue Crew]

Hey Neil, how come you changed your user name? Nobody will recognize ya!

[Neil Rowe]

you did ;)
..and its ok if im only recognized by smart people.

[SimonMW]

"hmm i dont know, ..imho the all but a couple shots (the guy working the heavybag for one) look very "made for TV" videoish.. despite the nice color "

With the budget we had, made for tv is the only real look we can hope to realistically achieve. So I would take that as a compliment ;D Now if you had said "it looks like it was made by a 5 year old kid" it would be a different matter ;)

!those couple shots. the images appear pretty clean though -albiet the totally blown out sky and lack of any appreciable selective focus. "

I'm not sure what overblown sky you are talking about. When we were shooting in the scrapyard the clouds were such that there was no detail to the sky even looking with the naked eye. It was chucking it down with drizzly rain and was quite foggy. But we had to shoot that day otherwise the scene would never get done. The final movie will have subtle artificial grads added. As for selective focus, in close ups if you look we did. Not for wideshots. Much of my action stuff is done with Glidecam. The XM1 doesn't have a shallow DoF, and I believe it is overrated anyway. In other scenes we seperated actors from the backgrounds in other ways such as smoke diffusion or light.

"all in all it looks like an interesting "VAN DAMM" clone. .. throw in some popcorn and id rent it."

Yep, and that's all it was ever meant to be (although more of a Sammo Hung style of film, not the horrible quick cut 'can't see what is going on' Van Damme style). On some other forums we have had people saying that it reminds them of an old cheap eighties action movie. They tried to be derogatory with those comments, but that's EXACTLY what the movie is trying to be! But of course with a bit more thought put into the cinematography, sound etc.

[Policar]

That was really solid stuff, but if the first words of your post describe the footage as "outstanding" you'll set up some pretty high expectations.

The resolution was good, especially considering the cam you used, and the 25fps frame mode looks pretty good, although not really like 24p. I can't say I love the diffuse "film look," especially in the outdoor scenes (over saturated), but indoors it looks quite good and I like the lighting design quite a bit.

As for the blown out highlights, they weren't too bad at all. The forest scenes were major offenders, but even with film forest skies always look awfully white. Return of the Jedi is an offender, and Alexander has COMPLETELY blown out skies during its forest battle.

In the other shot, the shallower DOF blurred the lines between sky and background, at least preventing chromatic abberation and sharp edges. Given what you had to work with, I don't think it could have been exposed much better.

Very very nice, probably the best footage I've seen from a gl1, but people here will get really anal about "film look" and 24p, and this still looks just like video, but well thought out and shot video. (Then again, so does 90% of the stuff I've seen from the DVX look like video, and not always this well shot!)

[Guest]

Thanks. Though I must mention that it wasn't me who said it looked outstanding! I came into this discussion only after I saw the site had been linked to from here.

Really I am not trying to make the movie look like film. I'm going for a 'film feel' or rather a 'high end look'. I don't believe that video, even with 24P, can look totally like film. Although some people are fooled which is cool.

The frame mode on the XM1 is odd. It doesn't look film, nor does it look entirely like video. It has a nice look. I'll be able to experiment more with true 24P though when I get my XDCAM.

[Jaime Valles]

I thought it was incredible! Great composition, excellent color, and very well edited together. I would love to see the whole thing. Very slick look, indeed... and with a GL1!!! Really goes to show that the camera is just a tool. The person using the camera is the important part. Well done!