TV Commercial Shot with HPX 500 and Canon Digiprimes

jazzx

jazzx

Well-known member
Hello all, here are some sceen grabs from a TV Commercial I Produced and Directed. We shot with the full set of Canon FJS HD Digiprimes


Footage was edited on Premiere and color corrected on Apple Color.

It's my first TV Broadcasted commercial and I'm quite pleased with the result all in all it was a very useful experience.

All shot 720p 25pn due to some slo-mo shots

Let me know what you think!

1
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2
1209224714.jpg
 
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This #$!@ is awesome. How come no one has posted anything on this yet? It looks great dude!!! Those master primes must be sweet. You've made me realize.
 
Lovely. The last shot seems to have some cine-like gamma effect. A polarizer may have helped immensely - the skies would be bluer and less blown-out.
 
Hm, I don´t like to comment by seeing only stills, but besides Nr.9 these shots still look very videoish/untreated to my eye.
Not that I need a MagicBullet look on everything, but on commercials shot on video, I prefer a more post-processed look.
Shot Nr.5 with the blown out sky also shows some strange blue line (chromatic aberation?) on the rim of the open window, slightly less visible in Nr.3...
Did you use any lighting or reflectors at all?

The story (as far as I can tell) and the actors seem great though, so please post the final clip soon!
 
Thanks everyone for the remarks, sky was overcast, unfortunately we needed some more filters which did not actually get in the end and with the DP we chose to at least blow the sky and keep everything else with shadows/highlights/midtones. There actually was a porarizer on I think.

Lighting was used almost everywhere (BIG HMI's, reflectors, Small Kinos, the car was fully rigged as well)

Some of the shots are with pouring rain (last one included) though not visible always, unfortunately due to budget constraints shooting could not be postponed and this TVC was more about the story so its more than acceptable, although I admit, I too don't like the blown out sky, I learned a lot and it'll be much better next time.

The Canon Primes were great to use.

I'll upload video soon.
 
I think the blown out sky is fine. Your DP exposed well. And besides, those grads look very unatural - especially with a varied and hilly horizon.
 
Hmmm. The sky really was ugly that day, I must say, even where it's not blown out. It may have been worth it to re-compose the shots not to feature the sky as much. Well, as long as the story was told I guess that's what really matters.
 
Ok it seems to me that something is wrong with these stills. After looking at them for a while it seems as if they have been re rendered to the dvcpro codec many times or the sharpness as cranked up really high or a combination of both. There seems to be some sort of chroma blur going on also. I don't think you were going for a film look but this seems to be an extreme example of video look. Can anyone else jump in and make some honest statements.

After a little more time I think it might be saturation that is standing out to me.
 
Ok here's another one,

This time exported TIFF from timeline and then (unfortunately the conversion seems to destroy the image) converted to jpg:

1211204304.jpg


All color correction was done in uncompressed.

I want to upload video, but the best thing I can do is rapidshare, do you want it?
 
Thanks for sharing.

One technical question to everybody who has watched this clip.

The scene where everybody is running, the sky is looks quite hot to me along with proper exposure on the subjects.

What is the best way to deal with this?

Shoot with a camera which has more dymanic range?

Shoot at a different time of day?

I ask this because I thought the HPX-500 would handle the highlights a bit better than is shown in this clip.

Anytime the sky is shown, the camera seems to be struggling.

And this this is with added lighting.

Just looking for some thoughts...
 
I thought it was pretty solid. The faces are correctly exposed though that opening sequence does seem a little too blown out to me. What was your knee setting? What was the light set up for those cars shots?

Last shot was great.

Bassman2003 said:
Thanks for sharing.

One technical question to everybody who has watched this clip.

The scene where everybody is running, the sky is looks quite hot to me along with proper exposure on the subjects.

What is the best way to deal with this?

Shoot with a camera which has more dymanic range?

Shoot at a different time of day?

I ask this because I thought the HPX-500 would handle the highlights a bit better than is shown in this clip.

Anytime the sky is shown, the camera seems to be struggling.

And this this is with added lighting.

Just looking for some thoughts...
Click to expand...

Well the HPX is one camera that has a great dynamic range. This is why I asked the questions above. But that is one ugly sky to shoot in, tends to cause blowouts.

On the shot with the first guy on the windscreen, his face is hot compared to the car guy. If the car guy couldnt be lit anymore then the exterior guy should have been flagged and some lighting / flags to key him.

Overall if I had limited resource and this is what I saw, I would have underexposed his face a little and lifted skin tones in color.
 
Just looks like motion blur on the action. If you look at the the car seat he is in lower left, its in focus.
 
Thanks for the comments, they really are appreciated!

The clip has its mistakes, however I did realize that there's a limit to what you can get with this camera and this is quite apparent in the wide shots...The sensor just isn't able to resolve that much and I'm not so sure about the dynamic range, I think maybe it isn't enough for me anymore.
I think the HPX is quite a handy camera and can do quite a lot, but I'm thinking of going Varicam, or maybe 16mm film next time, to see what I can get.

However the commercial went very well and response from average viewers had only good things to mention, which is quite reassuring since the whole concept is 95% my own.

I cannot watch it anymore to be honest, because I know I can do better than that and I'm not speaking about the HPX which performed absolutely flawlessly...

Thanks again for the comments (the critical ones too) and keep it coming!
 
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