Television Show shot on Sony HVR-Z1U

R

RealBean

New member
I shot a television show using the Sony HVR-Z1U HD cameras. Please check it out and let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome.

www.CompletingKaden.com - Click on ENTER SITE and go to the Episodes page.

Season 2 was a shot a year later, after the cast, crew, and I critiqued ourselves, thus Season 2 is MUCH BETTER than Season 1.

All constructive critism welcome - how can we improve???

THANKS!
 
well...

lighting was flat and there was too much of it. the funeral scene was sooo bright. try to light more sparsely overall. or at least create some contrast and shadows. did you shoot this 24p? it looks like 60i video rather than film. audio was way off. the scene in the locker room or whatever was all echo. did you use onboard mics? for a room like that, try throwing down blankets on the floor, walls, ceiling, anywhere out of frame to kill it and use a lav on wide shots where you cant get a boom in close enough. i won't go into the acting because is suspect you are looking for production quality comments but with that said, not great acting. the shot of the running water that pulls out to reveal the girl was pretty cool but made no sense in the trailer. i felt it was put there only because it looks cool. some of the camera moves were pretty cool but the lockoffs were kinda boring. my rule of thumb is, if i don't have interesting stuff happening in the background, then i move the camera during the shot. example, when the swo guys are standing in front of the lockers, that shot is boring. if you did a slight dolly movement, or shot from a better angle, it would have been much better.

overall, it is more bad than good. hate to slam but you posted for opinions and i assume you hoped for honesty. keep at it. watch some movies and really study the way things are lit and framed, the way the camera moves, etc.
 
Thanks for the input.

In reply to your many helpful suggestions...

First off, no we did not shoot in 24p (Sony HVR-Z1U cameras can't), it was all shot in 60i and we had no intentions of making it look like film (at least for this series).

Second, please explain what you mean by "audio was way off"...did you mean it was out of sync, or were you referring to the locker room scene?

In regards to the locker room scene, we used a boom mic while filming. However, it is possible that the internal mic is what was used for the trailer...but in the final version of the actual episode, we used audio from the boom mic. Either way, it does have a huge echo to it, and the room was very tall, narror, and completely concrete. Thank you though for the suggestions with the blankets on the floors, etc...That is a great idea and would definately work wonders (do keep in mind that in that specific scenario, we were filming in a public Jr. High school bathroom, :smile: )

Please expound on the acting, as I would love to know why you feel the acting wasn't very good.

By your comment about the shot pulling out of the running water to reveal the woman, I'm assuming that the only thing you watched was the trailer, I would recommend that you watch Episode 2.5 (it's free, don't worry), as that shot plays a very significant roll in the life of one of the supporting characters.

I totally agree with you in regards to the constant movement in background or in the camera....we realized that after the first season, but were not able to completely get that mindset across to all of our volunteer camera operators.

I do thank you for the comments and suggestions, and I greatly appreciate your input. And, I don't take offense to them, as this is the first "real" production I've ever worked on and have learned almost completely by experience and some from a few extremely experienced and well-educated people, but I've never had formal training.

I would encourage you to watch either Episode 2.1, 2.2, or 2.5 and give your feedback on one of those. I would also love to hear what you have to say about the quality of acting. (Episodes 2.3 and 2.4 aren't the greatest, so if you have limited time, you can skip over those two, :smile: )

Thanks!
 
yeah, only really watched the trailer. why not shoot 24? i know the z1 doesn't do true 24p but it does have a decent quasi24 setting. for a dramatic tv type thing, i would shoot 24. i don't know what to say about the acting other than it was bad. the performances were just not believable. i'm assuming you would put the best scenes in the trailer and based on that, i wouldn't watch the show. i know good actors are hard to find. even in hollywood, a mecca of aspiring actors, i have gone through 300 people to find one decent actor.

when i said the audio was off, i meant the quality, not the sync. it's also hard to find a sound mixer who doesn't suck. a good sound mixer will let you know when the room is too live, or if an actor needs to speak up, or if a car is driving by in the distance, etc. a bad sound mixer will point a mic and won't care what the result is. unfortunately when your budget is low, you will end up with more bad guys than good. the solution is to educate yourself and monitor your sound guy's work. if it sucks, fix it before you shoot and don't just let it slide. you can't fix a live room like that in post.

you seemed slightly defensive in your reply. this is all just my opinion. however, in my experience on this board, no response is worse than a bad one. people love to criticize here as it really helps all of us grow as filmmakers. they will also blow you up when you do something brilliant. but when you get nothing, it means people just don't care. that's bad.

so take it with a grain of salt. if people are loving it and you are making lots of money then i stand corrected. but you probably wouldn't be fishing for criticism if that were the case. i know i wouldn't. :-)
 
Sorry if I sounded defensive at all, I really do appreciate the feedback and you have given some great pointers which will help me to improve future work. :)

About the 24p, you're right, the Z1U doesn't have true 24p, and it does have the CineFrame 24 feature, but you're also right when you say it's decent, it isn't the best.

About the trailer - normally, you're right, you would want to put the best scenes in the trailer. But, in our case, the specific trailer which is on the site does not have the best scenes, simply because it was put together half-way through production with little prep. time just to get something up there, and I haven't been able to work on any new trailers since then, since I've been busy editing episodes to try and meet television network deadlines.

Thanks for feedback and I would highly encourage any other feedback from you or from anyone else.

However...in regards to the acting, I wouldn't base any opinions on acting off of the trailer that's on our site, if you have time, I'd encourage you to watch an episode (or part of one) and then offer input on the acting. If you watch the episode and still think it's bad acting...well...that's fair game. :)
 
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