D800 and D600 Interview Footage

Thanks! I used the standard picture control.

Ugh Bill, I know! : ) I noticed it afterwards and have no idea what I was thinking leaving that cable out!

Anything you guys would recommend to make it better? This is part of a documentary I am working on and could use all the advice I can get!

Thanks again!!
 
I would just use one camera angle during the interviews. I know it is done sometimes but I like one angle and no camera moving around in the interview.
 
jcotter said:
Thanks! I used the standard picture control.

Ugh Bill, I know! : ) I noticed it afterwards and have no idea what I was thinking leaving that cable out!

Anything you guys would recommend to make it better? This is part of a documentary I am working on and could use all the advice I can get!

Thanks again!!
Click to expand...

Judging from my first impression of the movie I found the bright yellow color distracting on the D800 shots of the man talking. I think moving the yellows a little towards orange and desaturating the yellows a little would help, since I happen to find great joy in grading D600/D800 footage I did a quick example using Colorista for Adobe:



I enjoyed the establishing shot at 0:26 very much, until, the stabilization artifacts kick in. Considering the shot has a rather long duration I think it would work out good if you ended the shot a little earlier, before the artifacts appear.
 
Here's my 10c. More action, less talking head. Lots more action.

Lose the wide talking head. Lose the dissolves, find a way to make cuts work. You've got some nice shots, you just need more of them to make a tighter edit. Good luck with it.
 
I like it :). I do think the outdoor shots could be graded to add some color, b/c they look almost desaturated as they are right now.

I think you're cutting picture a little early in your transitions. It can be a little distracting having the fade happening while he's still talking.

Hope that's a little helpful ;).
 
jcotter said:
Thanks! I used the standard picture control.

Ugh Bill, I know! : ) I noticed it afterwards and have no idea what I was thinking leaving that cable out!

Anything you guys would recommend to make it better? This is part of a documentary I am working on and could use all the advice I can get!

Thanks again!!
Click to expand...


Lose the dissolves, very distracting. Should be just straight cuts.

The sliding wide shot is very distracting, if using two angles keep the camera still.

Separate the talent from the background more, too close.

Need to hide the mic cable, unprofessional.

Overall I like the project and think you have a great story, I would lose the wide shots and use the close ups, maybe even punch in the close ups more in certain shots to give the impression of different framing. Keep the action going. Keep filming, experience is everything!
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!

Stranden I agree I noticed when I first saw the D800 closeup that it had a whole lot of yellow with the wall and his jacket. I hadnt thought about trying to change that. I'll also see about shortening up that bridge shot to get rid of that blur that shows at the end.

I kinda like the dissolves when it goes from indoors to outside, but I didnt notice until you guys mentioned it the last min is just dissolve, dissolve, dissolve!

Bobby are you saying I shouldnt cut while he is still mid-sentence, maybe I should be waiting until there is a pause in his speech to make the cut?

I think the wide angle shots on a slider work better with the outdoors interviews. Redington is a company that is interested in sponsoring my film, that is why this interview has a Redington hat and he is seated fairly close into a Redington display, also the reason for the wide shot to show the Redington gear behind him. Otherwise it probably would have been done quite a bit different. I'll get another interview teaser up later on that is done outdoors and see if you guys like the wide slider shot any better with that.
 
L cuts (where picture cuts before the sound) are usutally straight cuts, not dissolves. Dissolves ususally denote a change on a more quantum level, like going back in time to ones childhood, going to another country, seeing someone's thoughts or memories. So combining dissolves, L cuts and factual dialogue usually doesn't work well b/c while the disolve is taking us to another world the dialoge keeps nailed down to the world of the outgoing clip.

Hope that makes sense. I do think dissolving on a pause could help the situation. BTW, I'd love to hear other people's comments on this :).
 
A couple thoughts to help your interview setups:

1) Create some distance between your subject and the back ground. This way the light can fall off gradually and be less distracting. It also looks less cluttered.
2) Tuck your "A" camera right next to your interviewer, on access with his/her eyeline.
 
Jcotter, thanks for posting this. Enjoyed the video and perhaps would have liked to see more b-roll. Maybe you could have a segment, or even start the piece with a 15 second segment of a guy reeling in fish with the backdrop of the scenery and run this without any talking/voiceover. Just an idea.

You seem to be of a small minority that have used the D800 as well as the D600. Could you perhaps talk a bit about the differences between the two cameras beyond what we already know (no aperture change in live view/black box around hdmi video out). I have a D600 and am somewhat disappointed with the video quality. I'm considering a switch to the D800, but am not entirely clear on whether it'll actually be significantly better (again because there doesn't seem to be any comparisons between the two cameras).
 
eolian said:
You perhaps talk a bit about the differences between the two cameras beyond what we already know (no aperture change in live view/black box around hdmi video out). I have a D600 and am somewhat disappointed with the video quality. I'm considering a switch to the D800, but am not entirely clear on whether it'll actually be significantly better (again because there doesn't seem to be any comparisons between the two cameras).
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I'm not jcotter, however, I did buy the D600 over the D800 as well. Except for a little bit more visible moire and the live view and monitor issue(which is to be addressed?) there really ain't much of any difference at all. I only speak from experience having used the D800 in one project as a B-cam. The D600 have a significantly wider image, as its using a larger portion of the sensor in video mode and has a little bit more of Kodak skin tones to my eyes(which can be addressed if you don't like), there is no significant contrast difference between the two cameras, and it should be very each to match them to each other although having different sensors. Also, I am certain there is no visible difference in resolution at all!

Sorry for addressing a post meant to another user, I just feel there's a lot of unnecessary negativity against the D600 on this forum which make it sound like a worse camera than it is.
 
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