HVX200 for commercial filmmaking

A

Abohisham

Carbonite Member
Hi all

Please guide me because I'm about to start my business.

I've got HVX200, and I'm seriously interested in making a living using it to make full feature movies and TV shows. But I'm confused about the best codec to output for DVD, VHS and Satellite broadcast.

I currently have a windows workstation with 1 GB RAM. But I'm thinking to have Mac Book Pro with FCP to capture and edit full feature HD movies and TV shows on that laptop, could it handle that? Also planning to have a FireStore for HD recording from the camera.

Just a little guidance from you will help me a lot.

You may say: Feature films are way beyond HVX200, but as I said, my final media is DVD, VHS and Satellite, no theaters.

Thank you in advance.
 
Feature films aren't WAY beyond the HVX200. Some will disagree with me on this but I think the HVX200 can get quality on par with fairly good Super 16mm. I forget who said it but I remember several seeing the HVx200 after a projection test and saying it looked like very good Super 16mm from the early 90s (recent Kodak stocks however have pushed Super 16mm's lattitude to new levels however which are a few stops beyond what the HVX200 can do). Anyway, the point is that there were lots of indie films shot Super 16mm back in the day and there's no reason why similar types of films can't be shot HVX now. Hell, I've seen enough stuff from film school to know that someone who's talented with the HVX200 can make it look a lot better than 16mm if their not as well trained in film (a recent film festival I saw demonstrated this further).

Now, if you've got more cash, RED would of course be a better alternative for a feature than the HVX200 as would some of the bigger boys but, if you could afford a Genesis, you wouldn't even be asking about this stuff here. The point is that the HVX200 is "good enough" especially if you just plan to put it on DVD. Just look at Barry's thread to see all the feature films (not just indie films but REAL movies) which have used the HVX for some shots. Hell, the DVX100 can still produce amazing results for DVD.

As for codecs, I can't help you with VHS because, as far as I'm concerned, it's dead to me. For DVD it all depends on what kind of MPEG encoder you can afford. Get the best possible and then use as high a bitrate as you can for the movie while still trying to fit it all on a DVD. It'll take some trial and error (I was in your position two years ago when I started my business). I have no idea for Satellite. I dont' know what the standards are so I can't help you. For digital projection and web distribution, I usually go with 720p Quicktime and Window's Media Player files.
 
Equipping yourself for shooting and editing DVCPro HD at both 1080 and 720p does not require too much horse power by todays standards. You definitely want to have plenty of hard drive space, but beyond that, you can get by nicely with what I use for instance .... a PC laptop Intel Core 2 - Duo processor w/ 2 gigs of ram and 256mb graphic card. I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and I like it.

For standard definition work, shooting DVCPro 50 will give you great results.

For shooting feature work, I would definitely recommend you invest in quality sound gear and lighting gear as well. I would also recommend that you invest a good deal of time and research into learning about the fundamental components of quality feature audio and video acquisition, lighting, staging and camera movement. Check out Hollywood Camerawork DVD and the Sound for Film and Television DVD that Barry Green and Matt Gettemeier put out.
 
making a living using it to make full feature movies and TV shows
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its sounds to me (based on the nature of your question) that you're not quite ready to jump into a career... things to consider:

- hvx's are being used for various feature work all the time. anyone who tells you otherwise is just being a snot.

- firestore: not really the best option unless you KNOW that youre going to have single takes longer than an 8 or 16 gig p2 card will hold. there is a lot of debate about the reliability of a firestore. some have had bad experience. some have had good. i have one and its never given me any problems. but if i have a choice i would DEFINITELY choose p2 cards over a firestore. SO, unless you are pretty sure youre going to have frequent situations where you press record and roll for 16 or more minutes at a time - reconsider the firestore idea.

- computer: 1 gig ram will work, but not super well. i have an old mac g4 powerbook 1.0ghz with 2 gigs of ram. it works GREAT for p2 capture in the field and works well for basic "cuts and dissolves" editing. but anything involving graphics or encoding is crazy slow - but thats a situation of an out of date processor. nothing to do with ram. that machine is 5+ years old. so ANY modern day mac will edit dvcproHD content just fine. the ONLY drawback to a macbook pro is that it has an expresscard slot instead of a pcmcia slot. so you'll have to either capture straight from your camera via firewire (which takes your camera down while you transfer) or get a duel adapter to attach the p2 card to the expresscard port.

my suggestion to you is to get two matched size p2 cards (that way offload time wont be out of line with shooting time) a macbook pro and the duel adapter. thats pretty much the de facto standard for mobile mac hd production

then of course there is as others have said - considerations of light sound and grip gear. and of course practice ; )
 
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Yeah I wouldn't exactly say shooting movies for DVD is an easy career move. It's very hard working making money through film and video work at all.

We're on a corporate road trip now doing virtual tour videos, not glamorous work but getting paid, and this kind of work is a lot more common and easy to get. I don't need to convince a studio I can make a quality feature that will sell to audiences. I just convince a business I can make a pro video for them that will help their sales / marketing department, and there a lot more companies that can afford this type of work than there are people buying features for distribution, even on DVD...
 
Wow, you guys really love to give help and advice. I can't thank you enough.

Thank you sooooo much :thumbsup:

I found all of your answers were grate. I benefited a lot from them.

I've already boat some lighting kits, mics, blue screen. But still I need the base of all feature movies: the script, and of course actors :).

Last thing please: where to find some features made with HVX200? or courses on DVD or online on how to use this camera for professional production? Please if you know it would be a grate help from you.

But at the end, and as wgzn said, practicing is the key. Most answers are hidden there.

Thanks again
 
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