7D Feature - MANDIE and the CHEROKEE TREASURE

Kholi! What's up?! Coming back to DVXUser after a long project is kind of like a family reunion of sorts. The temp is rising and you can already tell Summer is coming on in ATL... so try not to miss it too much! When I was shooting in NC last month I kept thinking "No way I could shoot in Atlanta in July without this camera seriously overheating." Heh.


Jared: thanks for linking your video. It's nice to see those sweet metal stairs getting put to good use. We're going to have ever so much fun removing those blasted blue power cable runs from our footage. The mine was a great location and is run by some REALLY great folks.
 
Did you used some ND's ? Which ones ? Footage looks very very good.Like film especially when 2 women hug each other,you used 1/50 shutter speed all the time ?
 
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That trailer is flipping amazing and inspiring at to what dslr's are capable of in talented hands.

Will this screen in a theater or is it for DVD distro only?

Cheers.
 
bwwd said:
Did you used some ND's ? Which ones ?
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I've noticed some debate on the subject of quality regarding variable ND's, and for this project I purchased the 67mm Fader ND made by Lightcraft. Before I share my experience I will admit that I have seen perfectly acceptable footage online from people using this filter.

I took a significant hit in sharpness and noticed a yellow shift in the color giving the image a warmer look than the same color temperature settings without the ND on. The color shift was not unexpected, and I compensated for it easily enough, but the softening that I'm getting makes it useless on a zoom. I will test it on a prime soon to compare. I'd expect it to perform marginally better, but not nearly enough.

I didn't expect such a drastic softening of the image. I was not trying to use the ND filter in order to create a shallower depth of field, but rather for its more common purpose of stopping down an overly bright image once I'd hit the extent of my F-stop range with the lens. I can post screen caps if anyone is interested, but I don't have any footage from the same scene without the ND to compare to. I was shooting ISO 100 at something like F18 or F20 with the ND on... which isn't a range I'd expect such softening in.

I ended up using the filter on only ONE exterior scene and then deciding not to risk further use until I had time to do more extensive testing. It just didn't dawn on me to do extensive testing with an ND.

I like the idea of the variable ND, but I'm more likely to just sell it and pick up some normal 4x4 ND filters for the matte box instead.

bwwd said:
Footage looks very very good.Like film especially when 2 women hug each other,you used 1/50 shutter speed all the time ?
Click to expand...

I was locked in at 1/50 pretty much the entire shoot... until it dawned on me that I likely screwed up due to the main light source for interiors and night shots being magnetic ballast HMI's. Sure enough, if I scrub through the footage at high speed (say, 4x) I can see a slight "rolling" effect from the shutter being every so slightly out of sync with the HMI's. After noticing that I switched over to 1/60, which proved a much safer choice. I never noticed any issues at 1/50 or 1/60 when using my flourescents, though I rarely used them.
 
UPDATE:
This movie was released to DVD in October and the third film in the series will start filming in a few days. It's going to be a mix of Canon 7D and (mostly) Panasonic AF100. Updates will be placed in the AF100 forum (assuming my camera arrives before the end of January... otherwise this becomes another 100% 7D film!)

For anyone interested, the entire feature (shot on 7D) passed technical evaluation over at Technicolor. Our int'l distributor requires that we pass inspection with Technicolor before they take a film to market. The only problems they found were a couple of instances of rolling shutter when a train we shot on hit a bump in the tracks, leading to a fairly obvious jitter in the footage. Overall, they found fewer problems with the 7D footage than with the feature we previously shot on the HVX200+RedRock M2.
 
Wow your footage on new trailer came out really nice,shot on 0:41 looks great :)

Ahh my only complaint is the sound (and maybe use of kit lens too much,shots with 50mm looked much better), its too soft,gentle, picture looks too good for this type of sound "quality" i think,new mic maybe would help.
 
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I bought these films the other day and am highly impressed! Quick question that may be slightly off topic... What mic/mic combo was used in this?

Thanks so much!
 
Mic info:
Mandie and the Secret Tunnel: Sennheiser ME66 recorded into the HVX200
Mandie and the Cherokee Treasure: Sennheiser ME66 recorded into an Edirol R-44
Mandie and the Forgotten Christmas: Sennheiser ME66 and ME67 recorded into AF100
 
Thanks so much for the quick response Owen! Have you ever worked with the Azden SGM-2X? If so, how does it compare, if at all, to the ME66?

Thanks again!
 
I haven't worked with the Azden... I bought the ME66 for my first big projects in 2003 and have only added the ME67 to my kit since then. I am by no means an expert in the sound department. I just continue to use a killer boom op (he keeps that mic within an inch of my frame) along with the pair of mics that have served us well thus far, while realizing we could certainly make good use of better gear once the budget allows!

I did try to throw some of the sennheiser G2 wireless lavs into the mix a year or two ago. That did not go well. We got all sorts of interference.
 
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