16mm to match dvx?

J

joshtownsend

Well-known member
I'm shooting an action short with a the dvx and I was thinking about trying to match some slo-mo 16mm shots with dvx footage. Anybody think it'll work? Any suggestions? The scenes gonna be a long hand to hand fight between two people shot indoors. I have this Bolex h-16 sitting around and I really want to do some slo motion stuff.

Thanks

Josh Townsend
www.loyaltythemovie.com
empty bottle, loaded gun productions
 
Well, since you don't know exactly what your 16mil footage is going to look like until you get it telecine'd, I would suggest setting the DVX up the way you want, and then doing Color correction and anything else needed in post to both the 16 mil footage and the DVX footage. If you tweak both a little, I think you could get the desired look. As for the in-camera settings, I would try and get them looking as close to the final product as you can (of course viewing on a production monitor). A fast shutter speed (the "saving private ryan effect) might be a cool thing to use, since you will have the slow motion mixed in, it would give the footage a nice motion contrast, and add to the fast paced/high energy of the scene. Just my 2 cents
 
The challenge will be matching the grain structure. Ideally you'd want to use something like 7245 for the ultra-tight grain structure... or maybe even 7285, that's an idea... but using such slow-speed stocks means you'll need a *lot* more light for the film footage. Compound that with the notion that when you're running at higher frame rates you need even more light...

... if you're trying to intercut the footage together, meaning shooting simultaneously, you'll probably have to use some hefty ND on the DVX, or a faster film stock in the Bolex, and the faster film stock will mean more grain. The good news is, grain can be added to the DVX footage in post with no hassles. I've shot film and DVX and matched them up pretty well before, but I wasn't trying to match slow-mo film with raw DVX... if you don't mind the grainy look, I bet you can get them to match pretty well.
 
thanks for the replies. I think I'm gonna do a Brian De Palma style, everything is in slo-motion for a minute or so. That way I don't have to intercut the two footage. I hoping I can color correct and digitally mess with the 16mm footage so that part of the film isn't totally wierd looking.

Agian thanks a bunch, especially for the film stock suggestions.

Josh
www.loyaltythemovie.com
 
Like the guys baove I'd also say to use a slow Vision 2 film stock with ND on the DVX (which is how I like to shoot anyway to reduce depth of field.) If you have to add grain to the DVX footage a trick I used once to match video footage to 16mm is to shoot like 20 or 30 seconds of just blackness on the film camera (either close the iris all of the way or put on the lens cap) Take that black footage, put it above the video footage in the timeline and mess with the opacity of it so that it is almost compleatly seethrough and bairly even visable. It will make the video layer underneath it look like it has the grain structure of the film footage.
 
That's a great idea about shooting black and sticking it on another track. Not sure if I'm gonna use it, but it's a neat trick to stick in the back of my brain. Thanks.
 
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