Local Police Dept. Commercial shot on DVX100A

[Guest]

Hi guys!

We just finished two 20" commercials for the local police dept. in Chihuahua, México. Everything except the last scene was shot using a DVX100A (24P using a custom scene file) fitted with a CAVISION Mattebox + Lee Circular Polarizer (ext shots). Last scene was shot a few months ago on a DSR-300.

Both were shot in under 4 hours and post'd (FCP4+AFX) in about 5, had to be on the air by the next day. No lighting, just available light. First commercial was color corrected in FCP, second was color corrected using Color Finesse under AFX 6.0. SA Color Finesse did a much better job (noticeable on a prod monitor), we forced internal 16bit processing which does help a little (dithering) even though DV is 8bit.


http://www.comdig.net/segarza/SegGenFin2.mov

http://www.comdig.net/segarza/CdSeg.mov


Would love to get your comments


Regards,
Salvador

[Neil Rowe]

very well done, much better than any local police commercial ive seen before. i liked the use of the silhouettes aginst the sunset/rise? . the second one did have a more stylized color correction.

[Taylor Moore]

Bonita Amigo, Magnifico...
Really great, i grew up in Mexico and had the misfortune of spending a night in a Jail in Mexico...you don't want to screw with these guys...and that's what your spots convey.

Great framing on the shots...great job.

[Guest]

thanks...we shot those at sunset, we were not planning on color correcting for that first commercial, but color temp drops quickly during sunset and we couldn't keep up white balancing every 5 mins or so :P so we had to match the shots, and while doing that we threw in a couple of stylized touches

[Taylor Moore]

hey Salvador...are you going to become a member...you've got alot to offer.

we forced internal 16bit processing which does help a little (dithering) even though DV is 8bit.

is this function in AE..where? I only have AE 5.5...

[Neil Rowe]

its in AE 5.5 pro bundle, i find that the issue is that even if you force the rendering in 16 bit color space, you can end up with alot of gradient banding when (if you are at all)you output back to 8 bit dv.. thats where somthing like magic bullet makes a big difference.. it can render in a much higher color space, and then output in 8 bit without banding or other artifacts

[Segarza]

By forcing 16 bit processing I simply meant we setup the project in AFX as 16bpc even though footage orginated in a native 8bit format.
AFX usually defaults to 8bpc when you create a new project (option-click the 8bpc "status button" on the project window to toggle). This will force capable plugins to work at 16bpc. Better accuracy, less rounding errors and as a result less banding, etc. It has its limits tho, since eventually it will come back to a 8bpc color space.

thanks again guys for your kind comments
Salvador

[Segarza]

For gradients I highly recommend using the "Ramp" plugin included under Effects>Render. It has a Ramp Scatter parameter which really helps reduce banding, increases noise tho, which is exactly what dithering does.

Salvador

[Taylor Moore]

thanks again guys for your kind comments

Comments well deserved, great to have you on board DVXuser
Keep the spots and great info coming... 8)

[Neil Rowe]

bah.. im not at my studio right now.. i cant think of where it is, since i never use it, but i think its under composition settings, or right when you set the project up, it should be in the options box that pops up i think. sorry i cant remember right now.. ill look when i get on that pc tonight. * although for some reason i vaguely remeber having to go under the file menu to set the option. who knows..? frustrating ..wish i was there so i could tell you now . ..ok i see it has been solved already. cool , and thanks salvador