Formats For Documentary Shoot

F

freeheels

Member
Hello all,
I am heading off in a few weeks to shoot another round of a documentary project I have been working on since 2005. This year I have switched over to the Gh2 (backup Gf1) from (the last 2 years) canon hv30 and hfs100. Before that I was shooting SD with various smaller 3chips. I have shot various video formats since the mid 80s - VHS, Hi-8, and switching to DV around 98 or 99. Most is outdoors/winter as I have done a number of backcountry ski projects. I completed one film on the current project comprising 2005-2008 in SD.

SO.... the deal is I am working on this documentary in S Siberia in the winter, in a remote location, much of it on skis or horse drawn sleds. Weight is a premium as is the ability to shoot stills and video with one camera as I am mostly a one man team (sometimes my translator can help but its not one of his many talents). This is the main reason for prompting the switch to HDSLR . I have had the Gh2 since dec 22 and am finding it different to work with but all in all excellent. I love the video quality as well as the stills (no more juggling cameras and picking the wrong one). The problem is what format to use. I shoot a lot of handheld, sometimes monopod with ski pole assist, and have purchased a halo rig this year as it is great to ski with. So lots of moving shots both by necessity and by choice. Footage will be combined (somehow) with the last 2 years of 108060i footage. I have to say I am really liking the P footage and the 720 is nice for motion both from me and for slomo (I will do a fair amount of this). The problem is that the 24P is really gorgeous and I have found that when shot carefully - minimal pans/zooms and steady - I can get some nice footage. Interior with the pany 20 is great for natural light.

So what my thinking is at the moment is to shoot 72060p when on the move and 108024p when I can set it up and be careful with my shots. The 720P with movement upreses to 1080 pretty well and is very smooth at 40%. I have seen some clips on the forum of deinterlaced 60i footage from Gh2s that looks quite good but my success has been (very) limited with that. I have read many discussions here on the merits of 1080i vs 720p but in my tests 60i does not slow nearly as well as 720p and since shooting p footage with the Gh2 the interlacing is now painful to watch. I have even considered picking up a HD700 but it would put me back in the realm of juggling cameras.

Is there a way to successfully combine these all in a finished product that keeps the quality of (particularly) the Gh footage? How about my older canon 60i ? Am I doomed to interlaced footage mixed into my final output :( ? My output will be DVD but also some large format screenings at film festivals and such.

I am using a dual core Mac with FC 6.06 (I will upgrade), and have been using FC log and transfer or clipwrap to convert avchd clips to prores 422. My kit right now is Gh2, Gf13, lx5, 14-140mm, 14-45mm, 20mm, and (on the way) Oly 9-18mm.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - there is a lot of very knowledgable people on this forum and I feel very much the hack here!

info on the project - http://www.freeheels.com/altai.asp
 
I have a similar predicament, and currently leaning towards making a first cut/ selection in a separate project, dv, hdv and avchd, for each type of footage and then transcoding to avid dnx codec (in your case prores) and combining all in a final 1080i project. I am also considering shooting 720p, deinterlacing and transcoding dv and hdv, and cutting everything in avid dnx 720p 25 (I am in pal land)
 
Hey
I'm a full time editor and have released a few documentaries with these types of issues, one of which was the winner of Slamdance in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Here are a couple suggestions. First of all, I'd def try to wind up with a progressive movie at the end of the day. People forgive interlaced when its all they see, but the jump back and forth between progressive and interlaced will be incredibly jarring to the audience and the interlaced parts will be perceived as sub par moments.

There are a couple of good tools for this. Compressor if you already have FCP is ok. Magic Bullet Frames http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-frames/ works great if your willing to spend the money. But for totally free and great quality, use JES Deinterlacer: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html a crucial tool in any editors pocket, works great. You could batch transcode all your media upfront, or individually go in and only do your final seq shots.

I too have a GH2, have had a GH1 and various others. I can't say id recommend shooting 72060p for anything other than desired slow mo effects later. It's not the same as interlaced, but there is still a jarring difference between 60p and 24p, where as eventual 30p and 24p not as much.

Just my opinion, i hope that helps.
 
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djrockadoo,
thanks for the great suggestions, I am checking the JES site now. I will run a few tests and see how it looks. The 72060P does not look as clean as the 108024P but (so far s I can tell) looks way better scaled up then the 24p does in any kind of (not carefully controlled) motion - follow shots, skiing, pans, and zooms. This is my biggest conundrum and one I have not settled on yet. It seems that final output as a DVD the project ends up being converted to 720X480 @ 29.97i, so wouldn't the differences between 720P and 108024P be crushed anyways?
 
libertas said:
I have a similar predicament, and currently leaning towards making a first cut/ selection in a separate project, dv, hdv and avchd, for each type of footage and then transcoding to avid dnx codec (in your case prores) and combining all in a final 1080i project. I am also considering shooting 720p, deinterlacing and transcoding dv and hdv, and cutting everything in avid dnx 720p 25 (I am in pal land)
Click to expand...

libertas - thanks for this - sounds like you have a similar mix of dastardly source files. I am lucky at this point to be at least all in the HD realm and done (I hope) with SD stuff.
 
Hey, no prob. Well what you have to think of is that at 1080p, editing at 720x480, you can safely zoom in 62.5 percent and still keep a native resolution full screen image going! Of course that doesn't take into account the codec and quality of glass by magnifying the details that much. On the GH1, 1080 24p was completely unusable. Based on my tests, on the GH2 this seems to be completely fixed. There is def macro blocking happening, same as 5d, which probably means you couldn't zoom in quite as much as i was saying, but its still damn good.

I haven't seen tests on the codec quality difference between 72060p and 108024p on the GH2. Im willing to bet the difference is fairly imperceptible, and the world of hurt your getting into by shooting all the dif formats in my opinion isn't worth it, particularly for an SD output.

Id say go 1080 24p all the way!
 
I would love to go 1080 24P but a lot of the shooting is non tripod run and gun, on skis, on horse..... not to mention wanting to do a fair bit of slomo, which all my tests show to be painful in 24p. Thanks though, good advice and I have another week to test further... now all I need is some more batteries
 
If you're shooting lot's of motion and don't have the option to shoot 50p, then shoot 50i and convert to 50p in post. The res hit will be unnoticeable if you are delivering to DVD.

Run and Gun ski/horse is similar to me shooting on a jetski on the ocean. Very fast action switch to higher shutter speed for sharp blur free frames at the expense of a little strobing. 24/25p will judder anyway on fast camera movements.

I shoot high motion sports handheld in HD and deliver 640 x360 25p for vimeo, i've not found a better way yet. I use mercalli on every clip i shoot, otherwise my audiance throws up. Check my website for examples, not perfect, but content is king in my game and i on get one chance at the shot.
 
Thanks Rambooc1
it would be 60i/p here but same principal. How do you convert your i to p?

Also I googled mercalli - I had not seen that software before - your right, lots of judder in 24p without lots of attention to movements. Do you ever mix 25p and 50i/p?
 
freeheels said:
Thanks Rambooc1
it would be 60i/p here but same principal. How do you convert your i to p?

Also I googled mercalli - I had not seen that software before - your right, lots of judder in 24p without lots of attention to movements. Do you ever mix 25p and 50i/p?
Click to expand...

I convert 50i to 50p in Vegas by setting the project properties as in the attachment below and render out to Cineform or Canopus HQX and re-import, then add any 25p clips and edit from there. (disable resample of all clips under clip properties before editing)

Vegas handles all this stuff really well and won't alter speed of the 50/25p footage unless you change it on the time line. If you use Mercalli at this point it's important to render out the 50p separately a second time as 50p again without the 25p clips on the timeline, or the stabilizing effect will not work.

If i'm delivering to a hard drive to play on a Hardware Media Player like WD media player, i export as 50p and retain nice smooth motion on the progressive scan LCD TV. Otherwise export 25p for web stuff. With 50p conversion, the option is always there to do smooth slowmo on any clip if needed.

This workflow and camera setting is different than what is used for the static beauty filmic videos that most here do, because of the extreme motion, out of control shooting platform and need to stabilize in post.

50i to 50p.JPG
 
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"I too have a GH2, have had a GH1 and various others. I can't say id recommend shooting 72060p for anything other than desired slow mo effects later. It's not the same as interlaced, but there is still a jarring difference between 60p and 24p, where as eventual 30p and 24p not as much. "

So would you recommend shooting 24p with the gh2 and finishing everything in a 1080p24 or 25?
 
I am heading off in a few weeks to shoot another round of a documentary project I have been working on since 2005. This year I have switched over to the Gh2 (backup Gf1) from (the last 2 years) canon hv30 and hfs100. Before that I was shooting SD with various smaller 3chips. I have shot various video formats since the mid 80s - VHS, Hi-8, and switching to DV around 98 or 99. Most is outdoors/winter as I have done a number of backcountry ski projects. I completed one film on the current project comprising 2005-2008 in SD.
Click to expand...

How much of the SD and HDV footage will you be using in the project. Will it be a small amount or equal with what you plan on shooting on this trip? If you are making a DVD as final delivery, could you make this 24p, or is there a reason for not doing this ie.. the backbone of most footage in the doc will be NTSC frame rates? If you think you could end up making a 24p master, then I would base the choice you make on shooting frame rate around that. Maybe as suggested shoot everything apart from the high motion stuff, at 24p and live with a few of the compromises you will have to make with some of the older footage.
These kind of things are such a complex issue and only you know the footage that you already have, how that will likely be used and how much material you hope to get out of the next trip.
 
How much of the SD and HDV footage will you be using in the project. Will it be a small amount or equal with what you plan on shooting on this trip?

I am thankfully done with SD as it is all used in a film completed in 2008. Since then I have been using all HD but, alas, it is in different formats. The last 2 years I have shot all canon HDV60i (looks pretty good but interlaced). Interestingly, this footage seems to handle motion better then the GH2 108060i

If you are making a DVD as final delivery, could you make this 24p, or is there a reason for not doing this ie.. the backbone of most footage in the doc will be NTSC frame rates? If you think you could end up making a 24p master, then I would base the choice you make on shooting frame rate around that. Maybe as suggested shoot everything apart from the high motion stuff, at 24p and live with a few of the compromises you will have to make with some of the older footage.

This seems like a good solution. I do have quite a bit of 60i (HDV) stuff but, depending on shooting conditions this year, I can reshoot a bit and try and bulk up on 24p footage. The big question I have is what to shoot a lot of the motion stuff in. 720 60P handles it well but then has to be up scaled and 108060i does not handle it as well but needs less scaling. 24p, from what I have seen so far, does not handle camera motion well at all and is not to good for aggressive subject motion either.

These kind of things are such a complex issue

this is becoming more apparent the more i dig into it:Drogar-Evil(DBG):

and only you know the footage that you already have, how that will likely be used and how much material you hope to get out of the next trip.

I am hoping to keep as many options open as possible
 
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