How do you make mini dv look more crisp and film like?

G

gp.productions

Member
Hello, I am new on DVXuser! Just want to say hello to everyone and this is an amazing forum! I apologize if some one has already asked a simliar question but, I am the DP for my film III classes final film and i am shooting on the DVX100b and I am also still new to the dvx's in general. I have done a couple of shoots and i am afraid that the quality of the video is looking very mini-dvish even though our scene's were lit really well. I will greatly appreciate any feedback people could give me to make this video not look i shot it on mini dv.
Thanks alot! :)
-Georgia
 
gp.productions said:
make this video not look i shot it on mini dv.
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I'm not exactly sure what you mean by make it not look like DV? Changing from DV tape to hard disk (eg Firestore, or NLE capture) shouldn't alter the look.

If you mean make it not look like "video" and more like "film," then you could try several different things. The best resource would be to read Barry Green's DVX book. But here are a few things to try:

1) Shoot in 24p, instead of 60i (more film-like cadence)

2) Use a Cine-Gamma color setting

3) Use a 35mm lens adaptor (to decrease the DOF)

4) Use dolly instead of zoom.

5) Fluid-head tripod, good lighting and audio.

Give that a try to start out and see if it is what you are looking for.
 
oh I am def doing all those things... except for the 35mm lens adaptor.. l dont have the money for that.. but the image quality is still bugging me. For some reason i thought i would be able to get much closer to a more dvc pro look. maybe i have been looking at this footage for too long.. bah! thanks for the input anyways. when ever i get a rough cut from our editor i will see if i can post it up somewhere so you all can take a look and give me some more input. :)
thanks
-Georgia
 
You should also be able to enhance the look in post, too. You can do wonders with color correction and grading.
 
gp.productions said:
more dvc pro look.
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Do you mean DVC Pro, or 2/3" CCD camera, look? For instance, when shooting SD on the HVX200, although crisper, the DVCPro 50 footage, didn't look any more "filmic" to me than the DV tape footage (talking about 4:3 SD only). Whereas, a 2/3" CCD camera, with DVC Pro, will definitely have less DOF, than a 1/3" (eg DVX100B).
 
1) Learn to light

2) Learn to light

3) Learn to light

Every other suggestion regarding imaging in post will first begin here. Right now I'm in the process of shooting a very simple still photo of a bottle of Bombay Sapphire and a martini glass. VERY simple theme. I've been tweaking the lighting for about and hour and a half now....

Learn to light...
 
gp.productions said:
except for the 35mm lens adaptor.. l dont have the money for that..
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There are a lot of different guerilla-type ways to decrease DOF. Barry's got some ideas in his book. But off the top of my head, you could throw on some ND filters and open the iris up, and shoot from a distance on a long-zoom, and that should decrease the DOF some more.

I concur with MattC. Perhaps, the single-most important thing to do is to light properly!

And the most important thing for getting the "film" look, more than anything else discussed so far, is a really expensive matte-box. LOL :grin:
 
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im sorry i am horrible at trying to articulate myself... I think "film like" was a bad choice of words. I guess essentially what im trying to say is that the image i was getting looked great on the lcd screen when i was recording, but when we were watching it all back on a monitor it looked alot more griddy, and grainy than what i thought i was getting.
 
10% 24p
5% DOF
5% Gamma
25% camera movement
10% Widescreen
45% Lighting

My opinion on what makes up the film look.
 
Well, to answer your newly formed question...

Lighting....

Seriously, I don't own a DVX, but if your dealing with gain noise (like ANY 1/3" camera) then you're probably not using enough light. Try using much more light - even if shooting a dark scene. Mind your latitude, use ND filters if you want, and then once you captured clean images, make the scene dark in post.
 
I don't know if this is the BEST way, but it's the workflow I've adopted because of all the things I've tried, this seems to yield the best results. But please, if anyone knows a better way, speak up!
 
gp.productions said:
im sorry i am horrible at trying to articulate myself... I think "film like" was a bad choice of words. I guess essentially what im trying to say is that the image i was getting looked great on the lcd screen when i was recording, but when we were watching it all back on a monitor it looked alot more griddy, and grainy than what i thought i was getting.
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Hi, never trust the DVX's LCD screen, it always looks better than what you actually get.
And some hints from what I've learned by doing and reading:
1. You can work on your scene file settings. I lowered detail a bit (+2) and raised master ped to +3, that cuts away some of that mini-dv look, also matrix= norm 2 softens a bit, without having to go to cinema gamma or matrix.
2. Good lighting - aperture never below f 2,8 (no gain obiously as it makes for graininess), clever use of natural light sources.
3. Shallow depth of field by zooming in and lowering aperture (Z99, f2,8 is what Barry Green recommends - even lesser zoom can help if the background is at a good distance behind your object and you have the sharpness range before and not behind your object).
 
I think perhaps, the "missing" characteristic of your miniDV images is simply the following: resolution, colorimetry, dynamic range. When you're used to watching 35mm films, or even 35mm film transferred to DVD, there's a "crispness" to the image that a $3,500 camera simply cannot mimic faithfully. That "crispness" is the aggregate effect of much-improved resolution, color rendition, and exposure latitude.
 
Put a Hollywood movie in your DVD player, turn the sound off and just watch. Look all around the image and see the details. Lighting is the biggest part of a nice-looking image, so pay attention to where highlights are hitting the image. How are shadows falling?

Even sound can change the way the image feels. If you're hearing a lot of electronic noise (from a bad mic setup), it will make the image feel cheap.

Best thing you can do is find an image that you like, study it, and practice replicating it.
 
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