FX1 Film Look (NOT Z1)

A

Arcwave

Well-known member
I own an FX1, and I am trying to find a way to get the best kind of filmlook that will work for the camera. I am totally aware that the only film options for the cam is the CF24, which I refuse to use. I'm not looking for any CF25 answers because obviously the FX1 doesn't have it, and it won't help me.. so can someone tell me what I need to do to achieve a 'film look' with the FX1? I'm aware that Vegas 6.0 can convert to 24P, and I'v tried, which resulted in bad motion blur that I couldn't use. Has anyone here (in this forum) actually done a shoot with the FX1 that actually looked somewhat like film?

I'm asking 'cause I need to make a short film by Christmas, and I'm drooling for a filmlook on my FX1 :)

Jesse
 
Simply because of all the rant reviews on NOT to use it. Also, when I shot with CF24 it made the image way too stroby and flickery.

Why do you ask? Surely you know that CF24 is a horrible film emulator. That is, if you know a way around the choppy look?

Jesse
 
dvfilm will deinterlace but and it's a big BUT I made some test on it and I much prefer the CF25 (not CF24) than the deinterlacing from DVfilm and there is a good explaination for that.

When DVfilm deinterlace it deinterlaces a compressed image with artifacts (some that you can't even see) and it make the all process of deinterlacing harder for the software and the result is not always very good. Sony in the camera use a similar process (interpolation) to deinterlace but uses what comes out of the CCD which at this stage is not compress yet, so it works on a nice clean image.

24p!!! Well let me tell that 24p is just the standard used by the cinema industry, so whether you are on 24p or 25p won't change anything to the picture itself. the cinema look can be achieved only by 3 things

1) you must use a 35 mm adapter because the 35 mm prime lenses will give you the depth of field and also the distortion that real cinema camera get.

2) you need to deinterlace (choose whatever you want DVfilm or CF24) but if you can get you hang on a z1 you will have the CF25 that is very good to my opinion(but surely you will find someone one this forum that will swear to you that CF25 is crap)

3) finaly, when you shoot use some nice lighting on your scene.(of course in post you can play with you color correction to give even more emotion to you scene)

here you go... I've now been working years on trying to get the cinema feel with camcorders and you can't get any better than this setup than that.

Also if you want a good real time software that doesn't require a card in your computer, use Edius Pro 3. it's a real pleasure...

Now my last advice, don't read too many post, they fight for details that only few can see. tell me what's the point of fighting over a still image and count the amount of artifacts...Have you ever seen someone pause a movie in theater to look at the still...

Trust me, even on star Wars I can find some ugly things if I start to look at it frame by frame but a film by definition is a sequence of moving images, otherwise I suggest to go for photography....
 
Dremmwel said:
Trust me, even on star Wars I can find some ugly things if I start to look at it frame by frame but a film by definition is a sequence of moving images, otherwise I suggest to go for photography....
Click to expand...

100% agree with you, Dremmwel.

To find the filmlike filmmaking setup with a camcorder I would like to suggest to do the following:
Take a few seconds from your favorite movie and try to recreate it with your camcorder. If you take one which hasn't got much action. Let say the actor is sitting in the kitchen and drinking coffee. In this case the 24fps motion rendering hasn't got to much to do with the filmlike feeling. The framing, colors and lights gives you what you are looking for.
 
SergejIvanovits said:
100% agree with you, Dremmwel.

To find the filmlike filmmaking setup with a camcorder I would like to suggest to do the following:
Take a few seconds from your favorite movie and try to recreate it with your camcorder. If you take one which hasn't got much action. Let say the actor is sitting in the kitchen and drinking coffee. In this case the 24fps motion rendering hasn't got to much to do with the filmlike feeling. The framing, colors and lights gives you what you are looking for.
Click to expand...


Yes thats basicly true. But dont forget the most given video give away. "Overexposure".
 
You want film look with an FX1? Just light carefully, and shoot CF30 or 60i and adaptively deinterlace it to 30p or 24p. Film look is attained by the overall production value of the project and the effort put into making each shot carefully composed.

Is CF24 crap? A lot of people refuse to use it, I don't mind it at all. Here are my standard reference clips that were shot about a YEAR ago in CF24, and I have more:
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/lunge.mov
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/svjFX1.mov
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/neckFX.mov
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/Eclipse/treehit.mov

Here's a CF30 clip
http://s94963366.onlinehome.us/FX/FLTHD.wmv

Good/bad it's up to you. Just remember that you could shoot it on SVHS and if the project was interesting enough, people would watch it.

-Spiff
 
MovieSwede said:
Yes thats basicly true. But dont forget the most given video give away. "Overexposure".
Click to expand...
Overexposure is a video problem. But you can work around it with planning the lightsetup. You just light up the dark part of the scene to reduce the contrast. You can block light and use extra light to reduce the contrast. I guess we can state that "overexposure" is the last "childillness".
 
Hey Spiff2,

Nice shots, could tell me what compositing software you are using for your special effects?

thx
 
ICED OUT! said:
get a camera that shoots 24p-
Click to expand...

It's a little too late for that now. I didn't really want a 24p cam at the time because they didnt display the good resolution as the FX1, so I was hoping if I ever wanted a 24p look (which is now) I could do it in post. Ill try DVFilm when I get the money :happy:
 
DVFilm seems to have mixed results though. I hear Magic Bullet may be better, but then again, it sounds more like the DVX 24p versus the XL2 24p debate. To some DVFilm looks better and to others, Magic Bullet looks better, and to others still the different solutions seem better, like Nattresse and Twixtor.

If I were buying now though, I'd go for Magic Bullet as it seems to be much more useful in more ways than simply 60i-24p conversion.
 
I have just purchased Natress and it's giving me some excellent results. The new version 2 has so many new tweeks you can make to the overall image. This is something my wife shot last week on an FX1. Just had a 2 minute play with the footage in Nattress. Yes you can do a lot better than this attempt at de interlace and playing with the gamma settings. And before any of you think I am nuts, I was going "weeeeeeeeee" to my 2 year old daughter!

http://www.steveshovlar.com/slide.mov

p.s what are the raios in pixels to get 16:9 ? I had to guess and got close but not exact. 640 X ??? is 16:9?
 
Arcwave said:
Simply because of all the rant reviews on NOT to use it. Also, when I shot with CF24 it made the image way too stroby and flickery.

Why do you ask? Surely you know that CF24 is a horrible film emulator. That is, if you know a way around the choppy look?

Jesse
Click to expand...

Aside from how condiscending that sounds, CF24 compared side by side to true 24 dosnt look much different, after I de-interlace many people have asked if I own a DVX. Cineframe24 only looks choppy on the lcd screen for me, I have no problem with it whats so ever.
 
How do I de-interlace? This could really help me!

Also, forgive me -I never meant to condescend anyone :embarasse

Jesse
 
How do I de-interlace? This could really help me!
Click to expand...

It depends on your software. You can do this in editing packages (FCP, Premiere, Vegas), compositing packages (After Effects, Motion), and dedicated de-interlacing tools / filters / plugins (DVfilm maker, Natress, Magic Bullet).

-Spiff
 
Cool. I currently own Premiere Pro and Vegas 6.0. Perhaps you can direct me to a tutorial on how this is done?

Jesse
 
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