EXPORTING AND IMPORTING TO GET THE BEST LOOK FROM 24A soft film look

[bjornbiker]

I just finished filming for a mountain bike film. The full film was shot with a Panasonic DVX100a in the 24p advanced setting. I think I might have run into a problem though with the importing and then going to exporting "I NEED HELP"

- Editing in final cut pro hd

- My friend imported all my footage off his Sony HD camera, would this be a problem?

-Imported at 29p

The final result was a much sharper image then what the stalk footage looked like. I was hoping for a soft nice look not digital. Please help!!!!


Thanks

chainlinkproductions@telus.net

 

[VaricamLife]

The final result was a much sharper image then what the stalk footage looked like.

What did you view the raw footage on and what did you view the digitized footage on? Camera LCD vs Any kind of TV vs Computer vs Broadcast Monitor? They are all worlds apart. You need to view it off one thing to get a realistic comparison.

As for loading it off a different camera, no that wouldn't make a difference. Once its shot its shot. A different camera or VTR won't impact how it looks after being digitized by your NLE. Well dirty heads might, but that won't create the situation you're in.

Also, did you use any other settings on your DVX besides just 24p? Some kind of Cinema Gamma setting or equivalent (I'm not a camera guy so excuse me if the term there is off). Simply shooting in 24p will give you film like motion because of the frame rate but it won't give you a film like look of the material. You are afterall still shooting video (which means the color curve is a straight line rather than a curved one, which it is for film, or settings that are supposed to mimic film). In post though you can get your digitial video to look quite film like using the Nattress filters (not very expensive). I believe its one of the G Film sets (he seems to have changed the names though since I last used his stuff).

cheers.

 

[Duct Tape Films]

The sharpness probably had to do with the thin/thick setting. What was it set to on the camera? Thick looks softer on a television, and thin can sometimes look a little brash. The best stock FCP solution is flicker filter, which does about the same thing as the thick setting on the DVX, reducing "sharpness", essentially by thickening the skeleton's edges. An alternative plug in I use, which is fantastic for the DVX, but hardly ever mentioned is RE:Vision's Smooth Kit. It has a smart gaussian blur, along with "staircase suppress", which is even better than the flicker filter built into FCP.