ElementFilm
Active member
I completed cinematography for my first feature film using the DVX 100a in Scene File 6. I have a few questions that have me freaking out a bit as I'm in post.
1.) I used 'Squeeze' Mode instead of 'Letterbox' and here's why: I knew I needed to go widescreen and couldn't afford the 16x9 adapter.
So, all my research led me to believe that the 'Letterbox' mode just puts black bars on the top and bottom of the normal 4:3 (which you can add those in post anyway), so that seems stupid. But most importantly, you are then wasting part of the ccd to make the full image.
The 'Squeeze' mode, after "anamorphic" is applied in Final Cut Pro and the black bars are added has utilized the whole ccd of the cam, thus giving you the best looking image. Now, I am getting my a** kicked a little because some shots I'd really love to re-frame. Could I have re-framed with the letterbox mode, or are those black bars on top and bottom permanent? Or should I have gone just 4x3 normal and masked the monitors to give me guidelines? Is that image not as good as the Squeeze image? I just wanted to go for image quality overall and it seemed knowing that I was going widescreen this was the answer. What do you think, did I make the wrong choice? However, as an option I have noticed that you always shoot more than what shows up on any tv in final format (underscan...) This is not just looking at the "image safe area" but also when editing I'm hooked up to both a professional CRT and a consumer 14" tv. So I do have some room to move things around a bit (usually about 10-15 in the motion/center tab in final cut. Has anyone messed with pushing the image in (using "scale") and then being able to move around even more. How much image quality am I losing if I resize up to about 105%??
2.) This is the one that really, really, really has me freaking out. I shot this whole movie in one room. The way it looked by itself was terrible, skin tones, room colors, etc... Because of the nature of the film we wanted a warmer dirtier look, not this clean video look. So my cinematographer used a Coral 1 filter the whole film, which we all thought did look a lot better in context. But now, I'm seeing that the image is way way way too red. So, when I go to color correct and pull out the red, or even de-saturate the image, it seems I'm losing a lot of quality. I'm getting the pixelation all over the place. Is there something with the use of a filter like this that is causing all this quality loss? I mean, I shot the screen test just in some room without filters and it looks way way sharper. What's going on? Did this filter screw me? His explanation or rational at the time was that I could always pull it way back in post if I didn't like it. He even said that I could basically delete it in post by color correcting the coral 1 out (pulling lots of red and a bit of green and pushing blue), but again, did I kill my image sharpness and quality by doing this?? It just seems I don't even get clean lines.
1.) I used 'Squeeze' Mode instead of 'Letterbox' and here's why: I knew I needed to go widescreen and couldn't afford the 16x9 adapter.
So, all my research led me to believe that the 'Letterbox' mode just puts black bars on the top and bottom of the normal 4:3 (which you can add those in post anyway), so that seems stupid. But most importantly, you are then wasting part of the ccd to make the full image.
The 'Squeeze' mode, after "anamorphic" is applied in Final Cut Pro and the black bars are added has utilized the whole ccd of the cam, thus giving you the best looking image. Now, I am getting my a** kicked a little because some shots I'd really love to re-frame. Could I have re-framed with the letterbox mode, or are those black bars on top and bottom permanent? Or should I have gone just 4x3 normal and masked the monitors to give me guidelines? Is that image not as good as the Squeeze image? I just wanted to go for image quality overall and it seemed knowing that I was going widescreen this was the answer. What do you think, did I make the wrong choice? However, as an option I have noticed that you always shoot more than what shows up on any tv in final format (underscan...) This is not just looking at the "image safe area" but also when editing I'm hooked up to both a professional CRT and a consumer 14" tv. So I do have some room to move things around a bit (usually about 10-15 in the motion/center tab in final cut. Has anyone messed with pushing the image in (using "scale") and then being able to move around even more. How much image quality am I losing if I resize up to about 105%??
2.) This is the one that really, really, really has me freaking out. I shot this whole movie in one room. The way it looked by itself was terrible, skin tones, room colors, etc... Because of the nature of the film we wanted a warmer dirtier look, not this clean video look. So my cinematographer used a Coral 1 filter the whole film, which we all thought did look a lot better in context. But now, I'm seeing that the image is way way way too red. So, when I go to color correct and pull out the red, or even de-saturate the image, it seems I'm losing a lot of quality. I'm getting the pixelation all over the place. Is there something with the use of a filter like this that is causing all this quality loss? I mean, I shot the screen test just in some room without filters and it looks way way sharper. What's going on? Did this filter screw me? His explanation or rational at the time was that I could always pull it way back in post if I didn't like it. He even said that I could basically delete it in post by color correcting the coral 1 out (pulling lots of red and a bit of green and pushing blue), but again, did I kill my image sharpness and quality by doing this?? It just seems I don't even get clean lines.
