720p in cinemas?

Sam Davies said:
great replies guys, thanks.

720p is definitely what I'll be shooting in to take advantage of all the HVX coolness.

So what you're saying is that if I'm careful with my shooting and do a decent colour grade all should be fine? yay!
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Hi Sam,

I've shot 7 features and countless other projects using an HVX in a variety of configurations and formats. 1-SD (DVCPro50), 3-720PN24, 3-1080P24. Basicallly, you can make any of these look good on a film-out, with varying degrees of crispness. You haven't mentioned why you are wanting to shoot 720 vs 1080. Is it for a specific grain/noise pattern that 720 provides, or are you planning crazy-long takes for which the added run-time of the 720PN is better suited? I disagree with posters that say you cannot tell a difference. You can. That plus the 20% or so of added resolution of 1080 over 720 gives the post production team a bit more resolution to work with as they tweak the edit. For my two cents, I would not shoot another foot of 720 for a feature project unless there was a motivating reason (style of speed). It used to be that 720 helped with the workflow since you could get 10min on a 4g card, and it requires so fewer GB of Hard Disk space for the project backups. However, in the 2 years the HVX has been in service, HD cost per GB has come down 60-80% so that's not really a meaningful savings anymore.

That said, on features I will still drop the HVX down to 720PN for off-speed shots (over/under-cranked), and uprez that result into a 1080 timeline in post with the rest of the footage...it still comes out looking great.

Cheers,
Paul
 
...Um... Obama Girl is shot on dirt cheap SD video (interlaced at that!) and was seen by over 5 milion people on YouTube alone...

"You NO worry about resolution, you worry about the content"
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
...Um... Obama Girl is shot on dirt cheap SD video (interlaced at that!) and was seen by over 5 milion people on YouTube alone...

"You NO worry about resolution, you worry about the content"
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YouTube's resolution isn't even half that of SD cameras -- that's a completely different ball game.
 
I thought the point of this was to explore if there is a quality difference between shooting 720 vs 1080 on the HVX for a planned theatrical release. Most people that have done that -myself included- will tell you that yes, there is a difference. Can you get acceptable results with 720P or even SD...why yes. Especially if the character of that resolution/format is integrated into the "look" the DP is striving to establish for the film. But it's not possible to shoot lower-res (SD or 720) footage and have it resolve as well as 1080, it is a perceptible difference, particularly on a 40' screen.

Also, if you are shooting a low budget feature (most likely if you are using an HVX), you will be moving really fast from setup-to-setup, and you will not have a fully professional experienced crew. A problem with the image may get missed occasionally. Things like a piece of dolly track creeping in the bottom of the frame, or a light stand's leg or the boom op, or some other flaw that was missed. Try as we might, when cranking through setups mistakes can happen. That's where "fix it in post" becomes out savior. For those types of problems, its a easy thing for the editor to slightly expand the shot (say by 5%) and reframe the offending bogie out. That's a case where having that extra 20% resolution to start with really is a great thing.

There is a reason the indie-filmmaking world is going crazy over the potential of a reasonably priced cam like the Red One with a 4k image. Resolution and latitude ROCK.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
...Um... Obama Girl is shot on dirt cheap SD video (interlaced at that!) and was seen by over 5 milion people on YouTube alone...

"You NO worry about resolution, you worry about the content"
Click to expand...

Patrick,
I have to disagree with you. Your comment was not really relevant to a discussion of 720p for theatrical release. That said, it's the DPs job to worry about all things related to the image. Feature filmmaking is a team sport and if we sign up for a project, particularly one as epic as feature shooting, its because we are won over by the potential of the script, and the ability of the director to direct, and by the realistic plan/budget production has to execute the project, and perhaps also by the ability of any attached talent to act. Likewise, we are hired for our ability to deliver the highest quality image that supports and aligns with the director's vision. The fact that there are alternate forms of getting your projects seen by lots of people does not negate that. The technical decisions made for a project destined for YouTube are going to be quite different from a project that may undergo a $150k+ film-out for theatrical release.
 
Paul, indeed, my coment isn't much relevant to the discussion. It's just as i was preping for yet another instalment of the Obama Girl (which i just shoot so i can't take credit for its success) i'm thinking that this silly video shot on dirt cheap camera will most likely be seen by more people then past few music videos i shot (HD cameras with lenses and expensive lighting) put together... Hell, at 5,000,000 probably then all the other high-end productions i have shot... In such context, hope you can understand that in my view converstaion about the resolution isn't that important.
 
Don't know if this helps, but I recently saw WRONG TURN 2.

The story is based around A reality show, and the people shooting the reality show are using a HVX, and when they actually cut to shots "within" the reality show, it was HVX footage. The rest of the film was shot on 35mm, I believe.

I thought the HVX held up quite well when it cut together with film.
 
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Actually come to think of it.. Wrong turn 2 will be going direct to DVD, not theatre. But yeah, it has HVX footage intercut will film.
Good for side to side comparison in the same scene.
 
David Lynch's Inland Empire was shot totally on DV, and that was a successful film-out. I'm sure 720/24pN will look great!
 
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