HVX Filmout Report

I missed this thread earlier. Very informative and inspiring. What was the reason for sticking to 720P insted of 1080? Is it only to get the frame rate variation or does it have some thing to do with picture quality?
 
Yuval Shrem said:
Well, not really.

When shooting HD for film-out purposes, you really don't want any grain or noise, since the grain is already added as you transfer back to film. If you have grain in the HD video and then transfer to film, you will have two grain patterns on top of each other. this is also why when digitally processing a source originated in film (For visual effects or color correction) you will want to remove the grain (noise reduction) before transferring back to film. With video noise it is the same. If you have a noise pattern (as film-like as it may look) when transferring to film you will have both the noise pattern of the video source AND the grain pattern of the film on to which the video is transfered. That is exactly what I saw at the first HVX200Film-out test in LA. This is also why the "overly clean" HD footage of the F900 and other high-end HD cameras looks good in film-out.
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I totally disagree. At ILM and all the other high end effects houses I've worked we do a very careful job of matching the grain of the source. Scanners and filmout equipment run at such high resolution that the grain of the camera original film is very apparent and needs to be carefully maintained. Print film stocks, the ones used for filmout of digital files have about 1/100th the amount of grain as camera stocks. Print stocks have an ASA of less than 10. If you want something to look like it was shot with a movie camera a little noise is necessary. The print stock won't give it to you. Believe me I go to film dailies of digital shots every day of my life. If something doesn't have grain it stands out like a sore thumb. Noise also gives the impression of greater bandwidth. If there's no noise banding immediately becomes an issue in high dynamic range film projection. Especially for things that were shot at 4:2:2 or below. For the Star Wars EP2 and ep3 we added grain to most shots.
I'm sure the day will come where totally plastic clean images become stylish. Today I really don't want my film to look like a soap opera. I'm not saying you should use the cheepo grain in your editing package. Most of those look like garbage. But somebody recently posted some stills from a project that was regrained in Shake and it looked wonderful.
Best Wishes,
Sam
 
SamEdwards said:
I totally disagree. At ILM and all the other high end effects houses I've worked we do a very careful job of matching the grain of the source. Scanners and filmout equipment run at such high resolution that the grain of the camera original film is very apparent and needs to be carefully maintained. Print film stocks, the ones used for filmout of digital files have about 1/100th the amount of grain as camera stocks. Print stocks have an ASA of less than 10. If you want something to look like it was shot with a movie camera a little noise is necessary. The print stock won't give it to you. Believe me I go to film dailies of digital shots every day of my life. If something doesn't have grain it stands out like a sore thumb. Noise also gives the impression of greater bandwidth. If there's no noise banding immediately becomes an issue in high dynamic range film projection. Especially for things that were shot at 4:2:2 or below. For the Star Wars EP2 and ep3 we added grain to most shots.
I'm sure the day will come where totally plastic clean images become stylish. Today I really don't want my film to look like a soap opera. I'm not saying you should use the cheepo grain in your editing package. Most of those look like garbage. But somebody recently posted some stills from a project that was regrained in Shake and it looked wonderful.
Best Wishes,
Sam
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Some film recorders use camera stock, that's what we use at DVFilm. We get a "normal" amount of film grain, even if the source material is video or CGI, same as if it were shot on film. So its "regrained by Kodak" and it looks great.
 
Thanks for that clarification, MVB.

Has your process changed significantly in the past year? We ran a test (DV material shot on a DVX) going to 35mm slides, using your house, and we were all mightily impressed. You do great work.

Also, do you have a recommendation of optimal in-camera (for film-out) settings when shooting the HVX at 720pa?

Thanks!
 
dvxStephen said:
We ran a test (DV material shot on a DVX) going to 35mm slides, using your house, and we were all mightily impressed.
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I use to go to RGB, a lab in Hollywood and you could buy motion picture film to shoot in your 35mm still camera.

It was a great way to go to a location and see what it would look like with different stocks.

Do you remember the cost of the slides.
 
No, about the work that motivated your film out test.

Did you made it? how was it?
 
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Sorry if I misunderstood, but I think that you made a filmout test in order to know how to make a long feature, or not?
So, if it is true, I want to know about that work, how was it?
If it is not true, have you made new test in blow up to 35?
New settings, etc.

Thanks
 
Again - i am confused - the opening message in this thread states the results of the test and the settings I closed on. We used those settings to shoot "American Standard" which is in the last stages of post now.
 
smelni said:
Again - i am confused - the opening message in this thread states the results of the test and the settings I closed on. We used those settings to shoot "American Standard" which is in the last stages of post now.
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That's the answer I asked about: you did a test in order to shoot "American Standard" based in the test's results, ok?

Thanks!
 
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