Sci-fi short shot with HV20

skinnyboy

skinnyboy

Active member
Howdy,

I have my first narrative movie shot with my HV20!
We did it for the 48 Hour Film Festival here in Greensboro, NC.

24p - yes, I added the pulldown step to my 48 hour workload. Smart? Sure, why not. We made it in on time.

http://actcasual.com/fait/fait.html

It's about a 70mb download. The movie is 5 minutes (but the last minute is credits). The first ten seconds or so gives the genre (Sci-fi) and elements we had to use, then the movie starts for real after that.

Let me know what you think. I can take it...

Peace
 
That was pretty darn good for a 48 hour film!

Was the handheld stuff done with any kind of stabilizer? Did you use any lights? It all looks slightly under exposed - but that is probably the best way to go with an HV20 and only like 24 hours to shoot! Or maybe my laptop is slightly dark.

When the shot of the co worker goes to black and white, it seems to go in stages instead of gradually. Was that intentional or is that the compression scheme kicking in?

Good job. How was it received by the audience?
 
Thanks!

The handheld was with a cheap stabilizer I made based on the "$14 steadycam" design, but with my own tweaks.
I used some lights, but mostly went with available light. I wanted it to look a bit gloomy, but I also hoped to have time to color correct (I didn't).
The transition to b/w was done at the last possible second so I just picked 3 spots in the clip and decreased saturation a little more each one. Not the smoothest way to do it, but I had no time.

It was received well - but it was projected poorly (partly my fault for the way I exported it, but mostly because the projector sucked). Some folks had trouble following it.
I've only heard positive feedback so far, which is nice. I see plenty of problems, but at the same time I'm very happy with it.
You can't complain too much when you have a solid movie in 48 Hours.
 
I've been thinkning about doing the 14 dollar steady cam thing - my HV20 is just too shakey in my hand even at full wide.

Nothing like a bad projector. The problem is very few festivals actually have HD projectors - actually hardly any of them do. I figure you must have exported to DVD and downrezed the whole thing. A lot of them just use a projector from Staples from about 5 years ago. ;)

Sure - it's not a perfect movie but man you did it in 48 hours - that's really cool. I keep missing the 48 hour fest here in Portland.
 
The $14 rig is worth it - I was amazed how smooth that long shot ended up near the end when the main character runs out and starts emoting under the trees. I had to go down a couple steps and I was sure I ruined every shot when I did, but I can't even tell where the steps are when I watch it.

The 48 Hour is a blast, as long as you do it with people you get along with.

I did, in fact, downrez to DVD. So, it looked soft.
 
it is good...

I think you could tighten up the editing a bit


Edit the end again and consider reshooting some footage to use when you are working on the pcb (electronic) scene maybe just solder an old mobo or something

smoke is always goodl :D


All in all I give you a solid A
 
We actually really wanted to tighten up the editing, but couldn't because we were just barely at the 4 minute minimum mark.

We'll tweak it a bit before we do anything else with it.. thanks for the smoke idea.
 
The heartbeat was from Soundtrack in Final Cut Studio 2. That was probably the easiest part of the whole thing, but very effective.
 
Effective yes...as I told you in another forum....that made my chest hurt..lol. Once again great job (Especially for a 48 hour shot...).
 
yeah, good job! one of the best shorts i've seen online, 48 hours or not. the acting was good, a rarity. where did you find that ambient tension noise for the background?...i like that.
 
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What did you use in conjunction with the hv20? Any 35mm adapter? The canon widescreen lens? The film looks great! Also, in the section where your main character finds out his coworker is dead and is outside milling about...did you create that blurry effect shooting or in post in FCP?

What did you do for sound. I'm been looking at mics and I'm a bit confused on what to use although the rodeo video mic has been mentioned often. You had a boompole operator. Did you have the mic connected to the hv20 or did you record sound separately on a separate device?

Also, you mentioned a "$14 handheld stabilizer"..do you have a link to what you mean? If it's a do yourself set up, do you have an example. Any images would be helpful or the very least a suggestion on what to use. Did you make use of a tripod? If so, any particular model?

As far as editing was concerned...did you use FCP Studio 2? What was your workflow for pulldown removal? Did you use compressor 3?

I have a macbook pro core 2 duo 2.33 and FCP Studio 2.

In a nutshell, a rundown of equipment would be fantastic. Thanks.

Again, nice job. You've inspired me. My buddy is sending me a couple of scripts and once we refine them a bit, we will be shooting them over a couple of weekends.
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Waspfactory - the ambient tension noise was done by our composer, Joshua West.
In pretty much one take as we were running out of time.
http://www.joshuawestmusic.com/

Thanks for the compliments. I'll pass your kudos along to the cast. I like to cast people that can act - makes my life as a director much easier. The lead is my production partner - he acts, I direct, we both produce. Though our next short he may direct and I may star. That'll be interesting...
 
ncyshooter:
I have the WD-H43 wide angle adapter and that's it as far as the camera goes.

The blurry effect was done in Final Cut - I just shortened the time to 90%. Mostly to get us to the 4 minute minimum mark.

Sound - I have an Oktava MK012 (hypercardiod cap) that I run through a Mackie 1202-VLZ3 mixer. Great combo - for about $500 I get clean, loud sound. I feed the signal from the Mackie into the HV20, and have someone running sound off the Mackie.

Cheap stabilizer:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/

except I did not drill through metal - I screw a flange on the bottom to hold the weight on, and bought a Manfroto tripod head, which I attached to another flange on the top through some plywood.

Tripod: SunPak 7500 Pro (it was at Circuit City - less than $100) - not the best, but works fine for now.

Final Cut Studio 2. I used Compressor to do the pulldown (and took a nap while it did it).

Hope that helps.

Also - I've built a dolly, crane and a bunch of sandbags using instructions in this book:
http://www.dvcamerarigs.com/
Well worth the $40 for the book!


Definitely get out there and make movies!
 
Very nice short movie, especially given the time frame that you had to work on it. You have a very good cast also. The only thing that can be improved is the DOF at some scenes :laugh: By the way, can you show us some of your setup? I like the $14 stabilizer also and am thinking about buying one because I don't have the time and the skills to make one :laugh:
 
Lovefilm,

Can you give me an example of where I could have improved DOF?
Always trying to get better...

I'll try to get some shots of my setup one of these days - I'm in the middle of a paid edit right now though.
 
Thanks for the information Skinnyboy. A few followup questions. What were your settings for the camera for the shoot?

For example: 24p, cinema mode, 1/48 shutter, 0 gain, etc.

In compressor 3, what settings did you use?
I have used the settings put forth in another thread for Compressor 3 and have found the playback of the imported footage in final cut pro produces a lot of drop frames. I followed the compressor to output to high quality pro res and imported it into final cut pro. Do you have a step by step workflow in compressor and final cut that has been troublefree? If so, please elaborate.

Regarding sound. I took a look at the mackie, etc online. You must have had some lengthy cables to makes this setup work. I doubt you had someone running around with you while holding the mackie board. :) What cables did you use running from the mackie to the camera and the mackie to the mic?

Thanks! If I can get this basic but important info, I can use it as a foundation to proceed with the project unencumbered by the setup and just focus on the script, directing, etc.
 
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NYCShooter,

Lots of questions, lots of answers:

24p, Cine mode, 1/48 shutter and no gain (at least I'm pretty sure I avoided gain)

Compressor 3: to export for online, I use the preset "H.264 300kb Streaming", but I tweaked it a bit: double-click on the preset and change the pixel aspect (under the "Geometry" tab - second from Right) to some form of 16x9, either manually in the aspect ratio area, or by selecting from the drop down.
Under the "Encoder" tab (second from Left) you can change your video settings - the most important one is the frame rate - I find that around 2000 gives good quality and small size.
Once you have settings you like - save it with a new name and you always have a quick way to get that output.

If I'm going to DVD, I just use one of the presets for DVD.

Cables - yeah - you need at least a 30' mic cable for the boom. The Mackie sits about 10 feet away from the camera, with about a 14' cable and actually we did have someone running around holding it for the handheld shots. It's got a neat little handle on it that makes it perfect for that. You need a cable wrangler making sure no one trips/the cables don't get caught, but we figured it out in about 2 takes.
Having video of that would have been pretty funny, though - camera, sound, boom and cable wrangler all clumped together following the actor.

For the dolly shots, it sits nicely on the dolly.

To make it more complicated (yet simpler for us), I bought a cheap portable DVD player (7" LCD - about $75 at Circuit City) that I use as a field monitor for crane shots. However, we discovered that it's perfect for the sound guy to use to monitor the levels on the camera without bothering the DP, so we use it for just about every shot. He can also monitor the boom position in the frame (well, hopefully NOT in the frame) and that leaves one less thing for the DP to worry about.

I guess I really ought to get all my gear out and takes some shots of it for folks to see...
once this project is done I'll be able to do that.
Someone remind me in about a week :-)
 
Skinnyboy,

So you edit first in FCP and then you export your footage to compressor to remove the pulldown? I thought one was supposed to capture the footage in FCP then export to compressor, take out the pulldown, then import the pulldown free 24p footage back into FCP to edit. Suffice to say, I'm confused.

The dvd player as monitor is a great idea. I'm guessing you just used the av input to plug it into the camera. How did you view it though on the dvd player in order to enable its use as a monitor.

Looking forward to the pics of the equipment used. Thanks again for taking the time to spell things out. So much time will be saved.
 
skinnyboy said:
Lovefilm,

Can you give me an example of where I could have improved DOF?
Always trying to get better...

I'll try to get some shots of my setup one of these days - I'm in the middle of a paid edit right now though.
Click to expand...

I just deleted the file so I can't go back and check but I remember the scene where the main character ran out of the door and was showing emotion. I thought You could use a 35mm adapter to get better DOF on that scene.
 
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