camera/software advice for kids show

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vj_jasper

Active member
here is my first attempt to give proper advice to a Director about what cameras are required to film a kids show. her main imperative is (amongst other things) nice bokeh backgrounds.

about the show.. ten kids, there's lots of movement, and some documentary style film work along with studio and greenscreen.

there is a Sony ex1 already for the project, that is my camera..

rather than pay extra hire for gear, the Director would like to purchase two more cameras; perhaps an EX3 and Red One camera.

35mm adapter system: Letus Extreme and/or Brevis 35 (whichever displays the least barrel distortion without use of zoom)..

the reason i include a Red One camera in the list is because of the camera's ability to film at 4096 resolution. the Director has already explained how often the DoP will not do an extreme close up enough. so, with the extra resolution, there will be considerable advantage of re-framing.

i presume the most convenient editing solution would be a new Mac Pro with FCP.
Magic Bullet used for grading duties.
Twixtor for re-timing,
Boris Final Effects

Raid work drive system 5 Terabytes
Raid main storage drive system 20 Terabytes


the Director's main imperative is that "Selective Focus" film techniques be used.

much of the show being filmed in the mid afternoon light,
so i think perhaps the best way is to ensure Matte Boxes are available for all cameras, with a proper set of ND filters each.

Nikon PL Lenses,
Manfrotto tripods
Steadicam
Tripod-Mountable Portable Crane

so, i hope that is a sensible amount of advice for a kids show.

the Director is being encouraged by production company to film on Beta tape, like most usual shows with the large stations.

my advice is the EX cameras and Red One will both film direct to memory card, and this saves a lot of work for footage archival purposes.

my question here at DVXuser is:

would the footage from the Red One, Ex1 and Ex3 all play nicely together on the same timeline?

have i made some errors of judgment in terms of the camera choice?
 
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I see no reason to shoot beta. You'll master to digibeta later but no need to go into it limited.
You mentioned filming it a couple of times. I'd not introduce film at all.
FCP is a very logical solution if mixing red, and Ex cameras.
 
thankyou for the reply. :-)

great to know that the footage will co-inhabit the same timeline.

how about matching shots;
if there are three DP's, and they agree on the same f-stop before pressing record.. i wonder what the results would be if the cameras used were EX1, EX3, and a Red One...
and whether the 'look' of each camera would be disconcerting?

perhaps it would be better to use three sony EX1's, each with a Letus Extreme (or Cinevate Brevis) and set of Nikon Prime Lens?

the in-camera "settings" can easily be passed between cameras, and hopefully resulting in a very consistent "look" to the footage. im not sure how important that would be.
 
You can all WB on the same spot and you can always create a color effect to match and apply as needed. If it's live switched, you can shade on the spot but today I find I color create more than color correct. Already being there doing it, I don't waist time worrying about it.
 
so true. individual footage items each have their own set of requirements.

the show production is around 3 months..
allows for some post production work.. however much i guess depends on the speed of the system and workflow.

the actual 'look-and-feel' for part of the show is somewhat akin to a recent music video clip "electric feel".
 
Is the IDEA that each of the cameras looks different, for stylistic reasons? If not, I simply don't understand why you'd give yourself the headache of shooting different formats like that. Match the cameras.

Likewise, I just don't understand your primary logic behind the RED. It would be a lot cheaper and more effective to replace the DP with someone who knows how to shoot like you want than to rent an excessive amount of camera to work around that guy's refusal to shoot as directed. Where is the sense in that?

I guess I just don't understand the economics of your situation at all (or your relationship to the project). Those camera packages are going to cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy. What's the justification in not renting, again? How long are you going to be shooting for? Is the director also the show creator, or producer? Is she made of money?

Sounds to me like you're going about a lot of things backwards here. For starters, "kids show" could mean a dozen things, all very different stylistically. Not really much to go by in your description.

There's no such thing as a Nikon PL lens. :)
 
thanks..

yes the show will film on three EX3's.

if it seems like i am inexperienced at these sort of things, that is because i am.
heh, would prefer not to trumpet this fact, however i am more of a 'video artist' rather than a cameraman, etc..
the main thing is to be honest and keep the communication lines clear.

thankfully, a sensible solution was achieved.
 
the Director's main imperative is that "Selective Focus" film techniques be used
Click to expand...

How do you plan to achieve this with the EX3? Not saying it isnt possible to get decent results. Personally in the same boat I would have used 3 HPX500s, this will give you much better results considering the Directors "main" imperative.
 
Get the Red one to shoot wide, crop in post how you wish. EX-1 matches really good to it from what I have seen. I think the EX-1 looks better than the Red when the Red is in 2k mode. In 4K Red smokes it.

The big money is in high quality kid shows not cheaply shot kid shows. Get a couple Red's if you can swing it and a couple hand held EX-1's to run around with them.

You'll be amazed what you can do with a close up crop on a kids face from a very wide shot.

FCP will play nice with them together.
 
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for a future production, the Red One will be an essential.

to begin with, Sony gear for now..

most sensible to deal with any framing issues,
to quote mr spice:

"cheaper and more effective to replace the DP with someone who knows how to shoot like you want than to rent an excessive amount of camera to work around that guy's refusal to shoot as directed. Where is the sense in that?"
thanks, that is so true.
re/ question of resources, the show is like one or two million,
with two major companies funding the series.

filming time 13 weeks
2 days each week.

the Director is comfortable with Sony gear, that's a great place to start.

to address the question about Selective Focus filming..
Letus Extreme with a set of Prime Lens, Tiffany Pro-Mist #2, Mattebox, ND Filters for each of the EX3's should achieve the required "bokeh backgrounds".

or, Cinevate Brevis.
need to find out the best option for the project..

after reading a thread about the EX oversensitivity to Infrared Spectrum Light,
all the EX3's will need IR filters on them if Tungsten lights are in the studio.
 
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and then, there is the question:

can the Sony EX Cinealta Cameras achieve Selective Focus?
i would say yes, and with a requisite amount of space between camera and subject,
Bolex-like 16mm selective focus with bokeh backgrounds already quite achievable.
 
You can do it... we shot a film for the Army recently on a pair of EX3s. It didn't look like cinema, but it looked professional and solid. Shallow depth of field was there when we chose to have it.

Likewise, we considered other formats like RED, but the added expense just wasn't justifiable, especially when you get into post. Everyone wants to shoot RED all the time for everything, but it's just not practical sometimes.

Glad you worked it all out. I figured out an earlier confusion, also: you meant PL = Prime Lenses, but actually there's another cinema-type lens mount called PL, and that's what I thought you meant.
 
talking of Lenses, i really do enjoy the EX1's fujinon lens.

so, the Director is uber-keen to know how much Selective Focus is available,
without the use of add-ons.

to somehow illustrate, i began making Bokeh examples today..
http://previewtopia.net/idea/telecine/ex1_selective_2.png
http://previewtopia.net/idea/telecine/ex1_selective_focus_1a.png
i admit, there's a range of issues with my technique..

really the purpose is only to help the professional DP's be aware of actually how much bokeh background is required. because until this point, they film with absolutely everything in focus.


i should mention the other "aspect" of the show in regards to videography:

the kids are filming their own "phone video diaries"

my suggestion is that rather than use real video-phones,
they would get really good results with a Lumix TZ5.
at least to have some amount of quality to begin with is always a good thing?

perhaps a canon HV-20 for each of the kids would be preferable,
with a sennheiser wireless mic set..
kids shows are great, and yet muffled sound is a factor to avoid
at every point.. the talent really needs to project, and come across.

footage from the kids would go through some post-production work,
perhaps doing slo-mo.

to see how Lumix footage responds to post,
i started a colour grade test with footage from a TZ1, 848 by 480,
using magic bullet and fairly basic speed changing via premiere cs3:
http://previewtopia.net/idea/telecine/surf_telecine_4_websize.mov
http://previewtopia.net/idea/telecine/surf_telecine_2_rt1_websize.mov




 
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