DVX 100A 24p Letterbox 4:3, Canon XL-2 24p 16:9

R

RobertFaust

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I have a shoot scheduled for tomorrow to acquire additional footage for a documentary.

Apparently everything so far has been shot on the DVX 100A in "24P, letterbox 4:3."

I'm told the movie will eventually be converted to film.

I shoot with an XL-2. I had planned to shoot in 24p, 16:9, 2:3:3:2.

The producer, who is admittedly not technically savvy, is concerned that the two formats will not be compatible.

Does anyone here have experience with both cameras? Will this work? Or does anyone have any suggestions as to which settings on the XL-2 will be comparable to how they shot with the DVX?

Thank you very much for your time and suggestions!
 
They'll be compatible in the sense you'll be able to use them together. They'll just have to crop the DVX footage.

Two pieces of missing information -- what it's being cut on, and what pulldown was used to shoot the DVX footage -- standard (2:3) or advanced (2:3:3:2)? This will only matter if it's being cut on FCP or older versions of Premiere, but in those cases, it will mean some extra work if the DVX footage was shot with 2:3.
 
I didn't think to ask what it is being cut on, but I can find out. The producer's DP told her that the pulldown was automatically taken care of in the DVX simply by choosing Letterbox 4:3.

I have no experience with the DVX, but the manual for the XL-2 says that if the footage is to be transferred to film at a later time I should be set at 2:3:3:2.

This producer wants to integrate my footage with the least amount of effort to make it match what has already been shot, as they are trying to meet a deadline for Cannes.

I really appreciate the insight. Thank you very much.

If anyone else has any ideas, I'm happy to hear them!

~Rob
 
I think the producer probably got signals crossed there -- I can't imagine that the DP said that, unless the DP doesn't really know the camera. The aspect ratio doesn't have anything to do with pulldown.

Shooting letterbox 4:3 produces a picture which looks like 16:9, but it's acually not 16:9 -- it's 4:3 with black bars on the top and the bottom, which are permanent parts of the picture. In order to match with the XL2's 16:9 footage, the letterbox footage will have to be cropped and then uprezzed to 16:9. This is straightforward, and any prosumer-level or better NLE (Avid, Vegas, Premiere, FCP) should be able to do this with no problem.

Now, apparently the footage from the DVX is already shot, so it's 4:3 letterbox and that's that; you have to deal with it as is. But if there's more to shoot with the DVX, and it's a DVX100A or DVX100B, then shoot squeeze, not letterbox. Then, there won't need to be any cropping.

But all this applies to any framerate, any pulldown. The framerate/pulldon and the aspect ratio have nothing to do with each other.

As far as the pulldown, the XL2 manual is kind of correct, but also misleading. If you're going to transfer to film, you should edit in 24p, and if you're going to edit in 24p, you should use advanced (2:3:3:2) pulldown.

That's automatic -- if you're going to edit in 24p, use 2:3:3:2. It's the most efficient pulldown for that purpose, and in fact it was devised specifically for editing in 24p.

But, like I said above, several NLEs can remove standard (2:3) pulldown automatically as well, so it's not a lost cause if you want to edit in 24p and shot with standard pulldown. Then, you can still transfer to film just the same as if you had shot with 2:3:3:2. So, if the DVX material was shot with 2:3 pulldown, it should still be OK.
 
youll have to crop the dvx to match a bit cause dvx letterbox doesnt crop to 16:9 all the way. If so far the dvx stuff has been shot in normal 24p not 24pa you should be shooting with the 2:3 pulldown if your not going to film theres no reason to shoot 24pa and have to remove the pulldown from the dvx footage to edit it all.
 
JZalutsky said:
if your not going to film theres no reason to shoot 24pa and have to remove the pulldown from the dvx footage to edit it all.
Click to expand...

Not true. If you have 24p footage, you should edit in 24p. And if you're editing in 24p, then you should should shoot 24pA.

Match your timeline to the timebase of your footage. Otherwise, your results have a good chance of being less than ideal.
 
I don't think the DP's wires are crossed, so much as the Producer's. She admitted she had little technical knowledge, so she was passing on information as best she could. (The DP was tied up all day, that's why I didn't just talk to her directly.)

Here's what I ended up doing:

24p, 2:3 pulldown, 4:3 aspect ratio. I then framed everything as if it were 16:9 (using handy little strips of gaffer's tape in my viewfinder).

They're editing on FCP and I told them to just set a crop to match their original footage. One crop setting should work for all my framing.

Thanks a lot for all the feedback. The shoot went great, and I'm psyched about the footage I got.

The Doc is called "Beer Wars" which they are cutting now to try to make the deadline for Cannes. I'm told the footage I shot will most likely be at the end of the doc because it is the culmination of a big project at my good friend Sam Calagione's Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, DE.

Be sure to check it out when it's finished!

Thanks again, everyone!

~Rob
 
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