New Guy Here....

Cunseeded Pat

Cunseeded Pat

New member
What’s up everybody, I’m new to the actual physical parts of filming. (I have been a writer for marketing company, who shot commercials, music videos, ad campaigns etc, for the past 10 years) Just recently decided to go on my own and indie with everything, Film, Music, etc. I shot a couple of few hour music videos with a DVX100B stock, without the use of lighting due to the areas of the videos. After shooting the videos, I realized I left way too much headroom in most of my shots (rookie mistake).

Bynoe – The Boogeyman (shot in 4 hours)
http://vimeo.com/3515292

Jace & Paulie Gwap - Suicidal Dreamin (shot in 12 hours)
http://vimeo.com/3514912


Saigon – What A Life (shot in 6 hours)
http://vimeo.com/3515020

Hot Rod – Pop Somethin (shot in 45 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4gP9MgIo8I


im going to be shooting a slew of promotional videos for local and mainstream artists, and gonna attempt to shoot one of the features I have completed. I’m looking to upgrade my current gear, from 2 DVX100B’s to 1 HVX200a, a Brevis35 nikon mount (I have a 50mm 1.8 lens that I would probably use). What I’m looking for is a little help on some recommendations for a tripod and lighting. I have a Kessler 8ft crane, im thinking of selling it to get this…
http://www.amazon.com/Indy-Jib-Camera-Crane-Boom/dp/B001L9K8CE
has anyone ever used this? Any help you guys could provide me with will be highly appreciated.



Thanks

Pat
 
Personally, I'd get the extension for the Kessler before I'd go with that set up, if you're wanting a 12 foot reach, that is. Too many cranes with a side mount like that tend to weaken with a heavier load (remember law of physics/leverage, and the more weight you throw on the end with adapters, lenses, rails, etc. the more you have to offset with weights), I've seen those side mounts tweak, hard to keep a straight line on the horizon, etc.

Upgrade your Kessler.

I've not looked at your work yet, but try zooming in on the footage (depending on how clean you shot it, you may be able to get away with as much as a 25% zoom, with little to no visual resolution loss), and then you can reframe to get rid of all the headroom.

When shooting HD, I love shooting in 1080 for a 720 project, because then I've got all kinds of extra room in post to zoom in on the footage, adding motivating camera movements that weren't there before, etc.
 
i agree with Norm and think you would be much better off with an extension for your kessler and the weight bar extension as well. then you have flexibility with an 8 foot or a 12 foot crane.
I have this setup and it works for me. the 12 foot is solid. The other issue is what kind of sticks are you sitting the 12 footer on.
 
Norm Sanders said:
Personally, I'd get the extension for the Kessler before I'd go with that set up, if you're wanting a 12 foot reach, that is. Too many cranes with a side mount like that tend to weaken with a heavier load (remember law of physics/leverage, and the more weight you throw on the end with adapters, lenses, rails, etc. the more you have to offset with weights), I've seen those side mounts tweak, hard to keep a straight line on the horizon, etc.

Upgrade your Kessler.

I've not looked at your work yet, but try zooming in on the footage (depending on how clean you shot it, you may be able to get away with as much as a 25% zoom, with little to no visual resolution loss), and then you can reframe to get rid of all the headroom.

When shooting HD, I love shooting in 1080 for a 720 project, because then I've got all kinds of extra room in post to zoom in on the footage, adding motivating camera movements that weren't there before, etc.
Click to expand...

i was thinking of upgrading the Kessler, but the heavy duty tripod I had was misplaced during a move a few months ago, so now I would need the K-Pod system they have which after getting lighting and all accessories would be a little out of budget. I ran across that crane on Amazon and it caught my eye because of the stand/tripod it comes with. I understand what your saying about the side mount though thanks for that.

I went back and looked at my work this morning after reading your zoom comment and I think I was standing to far back and overused the zoom to much on my shots; they seem very low res. for such a good cam, even in the sunlight. Like I said I’m an extreme rookie when it comes to the physical skill of filming (shooting) so just the slightest thing like the zoom comment will help me from making that mistake again. Thanks.

I really don’t know much about post. I never really was that interested. I was strictly a writer. I would sit in on some shoots with the director, and then they would send me rough drafts for approval so I never got into the editing. I’m starting to learn slowly, I’ve been taking random footage and just messing around with it. The cutting and splicing I find simple because it’s similar to mixing music. Ill keep that in mind. I appreciate the info you gave.
 
For the tripod, I'd highly recommend looking for a used one then on Craigslist, Ebay, etc. While their MONSTER tripod is nice (I've got one of theirs - total package with 12 set up, etc. ran me about $2K), I'm sure you can find other heavy duty tripods more than acceptable enough. They may be scratched & not pretty, etc., but people will judge you more by your final image than they will the condition your tripod under the crane is in.

As far as zooming, I don't understand how physically zooming with your camera is going to change resolution. It won't. You MAY get more noise, if you zoom all the way in, because as you do you lose a little extra light within the camera (i.e. less light can get in through the lens when at max zoom), so if you already had poor lighting, then I can see your camera picking up a little more noise as it continues to cut down light getting in throguh the lens.

Zooming, in fact, can be a GREAT thing, if you don't have a DOF adapter, and want to give things a more filmic look. Test things out. For example, place your subject farther away from their background. Now set your camera much farther away than you normally would (i.e. across the street, 20-30 feet away, etc.), then zoom ALL the way in with your camera (assuming your camera only has optical zoom - NEVER use digital zoom or you WILL have resolution issues) and continue to tweak the placement of your camera until you have the desired framing you want (i.e. head/eyes just hitting the top 1/3 of the screen, etc.). Leave room for bars/cropping, if you're shooting in 4:3/full screen.

Next, place something closer to the camera now (betwen the camera & the subject) so that it's in the foreground. If you watch CSI Miami, you'll see they almost ALWAYS have stuff in the foreground, whether it's branches, a wall, anything ... it breaks things up further by giving extra Depth of Field (DOF), as it's blurred and out of focus because it's so close (always try to use manual focus, with focus assist if you need, keeping your SUBJECT sharp, and everything else out of focus), helps to further fill & dress your frame, etc.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Now, what I MEANT about zooming, was doing so in post production. I cut on Sony's Vegas Pro, not sure what you use ... but all pro NLE's have the ability to pan, crop, zoom in on your footage. Here's where you have to be careful about zoom, because if you're zooming in too closely, then you will start to see resolution issues, no different than if you zoom in too much on a JPEG image, etc. You can ALWAYS zoom in at least about 10% with no noticeable difference, and depending on the quality of footage sometimes as much as 25%. Doing so will allow you to reframe your subjects some as needed.

For my LossFest entry (banner below), we shot it in 1080P, even though we were gonig to output to 720P. So not only did I automatically have the difference of 1080 to 720 to be able to zoom, but if I desperately needed, I could still go that extra 10-25% into the 720 (i.e. so I'd be zooming into the equivelent of 648pixels (10%), etc.).

Anyway, if you watch the film you'll see subtle pans, pushes, dolly movements, etc. that were never there in actual production, but I added them all in post.

Hopefully some of the above comes in useful for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top