GH1 Action Short / Field Test

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

FINAL VERSION/NEW TITLE updated 11/29/09
FILERO GRANDE vs. PIPA CHICA


GH1 ACTION FIGHT SCENE FIELD TEST


Early working title: "MACHETE vs. PIPE"
middle version of the cut
an early beginning, middle, end rough cut with some slapdash color grading:
"complete short"



the original partial version with raw footage and frame rate info is below in blue.

__________________________________________


GH1 ACTION FIGHT SCENE FIELD TEST
with STUNTMAN LOUIS GUTIERREZ and MARTIAL ARTIST JESSE CROUCH.

Putting this here in general discussion rather than under footage, because hopefully we'll address a range of topics as I try to "Soup to Nuts" a first GH1 short, and an action one to boot.

OK this is part 1 & 2 of however many it takes me to finish editing this / as I have time to post.

The standard def / smaller size embeds on Vimeo and Motion Box are more comparable to what I’m seeing on my computer screen watching my full quality CineForm version from my desktop. The web compression falls apart really bad full screen with all the motion blur / motion we’re throwing at it, adding it’s own mud (which is not really present in the source – check out the whip pan at 32 seconds, some skew but no mud, just motion blur). So .... the smaller size player handles the detail and motion more like the original.

PARTIAL VERSION WITH RAW FOOTAGE AND FRAME RATE INFO:




Again, the embed player at the embed size is comparable to what I see in the full quality version, full screen at home. The streaming web version blown up is awful.

On my scree at full quality, I'm not really seeing mud. I see some soft images and motion blur and some loss of image during movement like any lowish end rolling shutter camera, but I'm not seeing the macro blocking or clumping.

I am going to reshoot the first few opening shots today and insert them in. Reason being, we incorrectly shot with a shutter of 1/50 during our 60fps to be reverse telecined to 24. This is a mistake, you shouldn't go lower than 60 if your target frame rate is 24fps real time / reverse telecined. If you are shooting 60p for slowmo you should shoot with a shutter no lower than 1/120.

Anyway we shot 1/50th shutter and this forces the camera in to some kind of hack for the 60p. Either it forces the camera into a lower frame rate (presumably 30fps) / and or it drops half the resolution.

The good news - this is as bad as GH1 footage should ever look if you take the right approach to shooting (and remember we screwed up our shutter speeds / focus).

WHY THE HECK DID I SHOOT IN THESE DIFFERENT MODES IF I WANTED A FULL 24p PROJECT?
Sorry. If you haven't been following all the threads here you might be wondering why I'm trying to mix all these modes as evidenced by the following question posted later in the thread:

Really well done video. Action isn't exactly the easiest thing to try and pull off and you (and your team) created a well-shot, believable piece with some great cinematography. Very nice. And thanks too for going the extra mile and posting all of the info about your settings and workflow.

I was wondering why, when you wanted to create a final video in 24P, that you chose to shoot so much of the footage at 720 30P and 720 60P instead using the actual 24P mode at 1080? I get for the slo-mo part but didn't you force yourself into doing a lot of extra conversions to get 24P when the camera shoots 24P natively in the first place?

Thanks for the positive comments - just wait the scene goes nuts from here.

As for the why the different modes thing (and this is my bad for assuming people would know thism, so I'll ad it to the top of the thread) but it's been fairly well documented that while the GH1 has mightily conquered the skew issue (it's there but minimal) that DSLR cameras suffer from, it's introduced a new (probably worse issue) "Mud" or image clumping / macro blocking under extreme motion in the AVCHD modes. If I could shoot 108024 for everything I would be a happy camper. But theoritically it was impossible to do what I have done to the degree that I've done it - intense action shooting with the camera. In 1080 24 AVCHD the "mud issue is worst. In 720 60 AVCHD it's there but not as bad. In 720 30 MJPEG, it's not there. This is because the AVCHD modes are Long-GOP meaning the camera tries to only redraw the changing parts of the image. With too slow a bandrate it too much of the image changes between redraws and creates weird clumping. The Mjpeg is Intraframe - it takes 30 progressive indivudal pictures per secon redrawing the whole image every time. In AVCHD maybe the 60p has less mud because it's a smaller image to redraw with more samples? Dunno, but that's the way it works.
SO

• 1080 24 AVCHD - most resolution, best frame rate, most mud with too much movement.
• 720 60p AVCHD - less resolution, less mud, useable for most
• 720 30p MJPEG - less resolution, more compression artifacts, no mud

So the strategy for shooting intense action stuff suggests itself somewhat (provided a good frame rate conversion method can be implemented) and goes as follows:

• For wow resolution shots, look at that landscape, look at that whiskers on the character actors chin, gee what quality without too much movement - wow 'em with 1080 24p.
• For a scene with average movement, crossing to the fence and back, you can use 720 60p AVCHD. You've already established the "wow what quality!" feel with a few 1080 shots and this mode will serve you well
• But fling the camera around like a madman, and you must be in 720 30 MJPEG. To my eye there's a bit of line sharpening in the MJPEG mode, but it's minimal, can be minimalized further by reducing sharpening in camera, and won't be noticed if you're flinging the camera around like a madman. But for beauty shots use 1080 24, for compromise between beauty and motion use 720 60, for best motion in extreme circumstances use 720 30.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

From the "Mud" thread regarding the Action Short Field Test project (discussion move to this thread now)

That's messed up man! It looks so cool! You are the man JDS. Movement, grading, action, colorista, gun shots and a machete! This cam is gonna be awesome. Kholi, I think a support group should be started to deal with all the mad symptons of waiting and waiting and waiting. It's like waterboarding.

Jack Daniel Stanley - I wish I had an actor that looked like that around. He reminds me of Danny Trejo in a way. He is a keeper dood. hehe. I'm just jealous of the talent you got handy.

His name's Louis Gutierrez and he's Trejo's stunt double.
I go to an Austin Film Meetup group every Monday.
I stood up for three weeks saying I was looking for a "crazy stuntman" that would collaborate on a piece to showcase himself and test the GH1.
The 4th week Louis called me.

Well holy $%#$ no wonder. Haha... you lucked out my friend. I gotta get in on those meetings. Guess I'll have to move. Nice land my man.

Watched it again and it looks even better! Great test. Would you tell us where in the sequence is each format? Thanks for the piece, it starts showing how the camera + talent can work wonders.

Yes, the next "part" I put up will be followed by same footage with no CC at all and labelled with whatever I've written down / can remember / or can deduce about how it was shot.

The point of this field test BTW was to take the mud head on rather than run from it. The shoot was kind of halfway between just for fun and lets make a real finished product. In otherwords $10 was spent on it in total for two stunt machetes. If it came out great - cool. If mud killed us then lesson learned.

So far it's somewhere in between. Coming out very good and watchable with a few lessons learned on what not to do for next time. But all with work arounds to shoot anything you want with this camera.

John the new video has the raw footage at the end. Labelled with each shooting mode.

Great test, Jack! The footage looks really good. So, if I am to understand you correctly, you shot this test using all three formats? Can you go into your workflow a bit? I'm assuming you conformed the whole thing to 24P in the end, but I'd love to know the process of how you got there. Looking forward to part II!

I'll get into detail soon.

where do you get your sound fx from?

I have several extensive libraries. Hollwood SFX, Earshot SFX and Apple loops. I also download from the FREE SOUND PROJECT
http://www.freesound.org/

Very inspiring! Really great to see some action shots. Looking forward to seeing the next part!

Nice clip.. That dude and sure put on the mean bastard look; you wouldn't want running after you!
No sir - see the slow mo at the end of the new clips.

Is there a Vimeo or a 1080P to download? The problem with these small windowed embedded clips on any test, even a Hi-8 camcorder looks good from the down sample!

Jack, this is looking good, I'd love to see a couple of shots on Vimeo/QT download too if you get the chance.

Links in first post for download. Again though the smaller window is more representative than the blown up HD one - too much motion for the compression to handle. You can download the new 200mb file though. It's comparable to the full quality NeoScene I'm watching at from my desktop - comparable but not nearly as good.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Reserved for workflow.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Reserved for Tips / lessons learned.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Reserved for gear.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Reserved for BTS gallery.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Reserved for retired clips.

 

[Hunter Hampton]

Cool stuff!

 

[Martti Ekstrand]

Awesome! Great job! Eagerly waiting for the sequel!
And the extra effort of adding notes to the raw footage is really generous of you.

 

[Mike@AF]

Awesome! Reminds me of El Mariachi.

Do you notice the jittery movement on some of the pans and tracking shots? It's not jello I'm noticing. It's jittery like there's missing frames. Is it just that you need to be more careful with camera movements or is this caused by something else?

 

[ROne]

Good stuff, could be out of a QT flick. (meant as a compliment.)

This stuttering/dropping frames is popping up in a few threads in differing forums, and I've witnessed it on my own PAL GH1. It appears that the 720/50 mode suffers from the frame rate not being sustained - almost like the 50fps trade-off on fast shots is frame drop, whereas the 1080/25 trade-off is compression artefacting. Either way it happens on my camera during fast pans.

 

[pailes]

I want to buy this camera and I could live with the "mud" thing, but this dropping frames issue in the PAL version is a total showstopper

 

[AdrianF]

Thanks for showing the raw footage, it shows what a great look you can achieve in camera. The only stuttering I'm seeing I think is from my connection?
Plenty of fast pans and camera movement and still looking good.

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Thanks Hunter and Martuu :beer:

Awesome! Reminds me of El Mariachi.

Do you notice the jittery movement on some of the pans and tracking shots? It's not jello I'm noticing. It's jittery like there's missing frames. Is it just that you need to be more careful with camera movements or is this caused by something else?

Good stuff, could be out of a QT flick. (meant as a compliment.)

This stuttering/dropping frames is popping up in a few threads in differing forums, and I've witnessed it on my own PAL GH1. It appears that the 720/50 mode suffers from the frame rate not being sustained - almost like the 50fps trade-off on fast shots is frame drop, whereas the 1080/25 trade-off is compression artefacting. Either way it happens on my camera during fast pans.

I want to buy this camera and I could live with the "mud" thing, but this dropping frames issue in the PAL version is a total showstopper

Thanks for showing the raw footage, it shows what a great look you can achieve in camera. The only stuttering I'm seeing I think is from my connection?
Plenty of fast pans and camera movement and still looking good.

There's no stuttering here other than what's normal for 24p. Remeber 2 things:
1) the ASC rule book says that to pan properly in 24p without stuttering you need to take 11 seconds to complete your pan.
2) People complained of strobing when the the DVX came out - until Barry Green put one on a tipod next to a 16mm film camera that is. Same strobing. The DVX had strobing BECAUSE it so accurately represented the framerate / motion of film. 24 samples a second is not enough to not have strobing at some framerates.

Now a possible 3rd issue - the software I was using which has since been fixed but was initially buggy, was not removing the pulldown correctly from the 60p and it was very, very jittery.

Each camera can have it's own "special sauce" / needs for the way pull down should be implemented. So there's a good chance that strobing people are seeing is because either it's supposed to be there (when minimal) or because pulldown has not been removed (when aggregious), or thirdly due to bad web streaming (when REALLY bad). Could be the camera. But those are 3 things to keep in mind.

But again. When played at non streaming normal motion, there's no stutter or strobing in my footage other than what would be appropriate for 24fps on any format, even less so actually I would say since our shutter speed was too low and tha offsets stutter.

I'll imbed the standard def version here of pts. 1 & 2 - maybe it will play smoother for those with slower connections. And remember you can download the source file from links in the first post

Also if it's jittery. Press pause, let it fully load. Drag the bar back. Press Play. Maybe that will help.
SD version:

 

[timbook2]

First of all thanks for the invite here, AWESOME footage! well shot, cut and exciting!

I see nothing that really disturbs me but I am not a pixelpeeper by profession :2vrolijk_08:

The artifacts I see are quite ok IMO and I can only state that good content makes up for any quality-lacking. I have no doubts the GH1 can be used to shoot exceptional footage.

As I see it even action footage with quick movements is possible...
I am in PAL world here and have not had dropouts or frame jumping once, after I learned how to import and transcode the "PRIVATE" folder into FCP and transcode to ProRes.

Since then I am really wondering when I will use the HVX next....so far the GH1 is my prime tool at the moment.

*edit*

downloaded the file to see it better: absolutely none of the blocking stuff from the other thread. even the fast pan @ the pool, back and forth: perfect motion blur with no disturbances!!! also the fast pan at the wooden fence: no artifacts that disturb me and I went frame to frame and looked hard. Maybe I need a course in pixelpeeping but I see nothing that tells me the GH1 is not capable of shooting action stuff.

 

[Mark Harris]

Hey Jack,

Thanks for putting this together.

Even the 720 QT looks pretty bad on my HDTVs, regarding pixelation and blocking. But I assume it's just compression stuff. How does an uncompressed one read on your biggest TV?

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Thanks Timbook.

Hey Jack,

Thanks for putting this together.

Even the 720 QT looks pretty bad on my HDTVs, regarding pixelation and blocking. But I assume it's just compression stuff. How does an uncompressed one read on your biggest TV?

Mark, I've been editing on my 1080 21". Afte the reshoot of the openning shots this afternoon I'll throw it on the 46" for you and report some time this weekend.

Maybe I will try uploading 10 second intervals of ProRes or DVCproHD that people can download. What high qual codec would be most Windows / Mac friendly?

As for the 1080 21" monitor, which I'm sittin pretty close to, I would say it's almost ... almost on par with Rekindled if that gives you any frame of reference , since that was a 720 shot flick with lots of focus, sharpness and shooting errors, as opposed to RPDM or A Little Mouth to Feed with their super sharpness. We screwed up a lot in shooting and were trying to do it in worst case scenarios. Right now, I think ... think for Model Photographer, Constance, Cold Calls, it would be a fine camera, for Bourne Identity it would not be the best choice, you could get through it, and it would look better than what we did if you avoid our mistakes, but it would not be the best - not as good as the sub 1K Panny, Samsung, and Canon camcorders I think. But for more sedentary character drama - and I don't mean talking heads, I mean with normal blockoking (Hitchcock's Rope comes to mind for some reason) I think ... think this would kill much more expensive cams.

 

[Mark Harris]

Hmmm, might require a trip to Texas...

Thanks Timbook.



Mark, I've been editing on my 1080 21". Afte the reshoot of the openning shots this afternoon I'll throw it on the 46" for you and report some time this weekend.

Maybe I will try uploading 10 second intervals of ProRes or DVCproHD that people can download. What high qual codec would be most Windows / Mac friendly?

As for the 1080 21" monitor, which I'm sittin pretty close to, I would say it's almost ... almost on par with Rekindled if that gives you any frame of reference , since that was a 720 shot flick with lots of focus, sharpness and shooting errors, as opposed to RPDM or A Little Mouth to Feed with their super sharpness. We screwed up a lot in shooting and were trying to do it in worst case scenarios. Right now, I think ... think for Model Photographer, Constance, Cold Calls, it would be a fine camera, for Bourne Identity it would not be the best choice, you could get through it, and it would look better than what we did if you avoid our mistakes, but it would not be the best - not as good as the sub 1K Panny, Samsung, and Canon camcorders I think. But for more sedentary character drama - and I don't mean talking heads, I mean with normal blockoking (Hitchcock's Rope comes to mind for some reason) I think ... think this would kill much more expensive cams.

 

[androoow]

looks more filmic than this... http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/publicenemies/ ( the film clip especially ) this just looks like bad early 80's ultravox videos!!

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Something is wrong with the Public Enemies clip. You can see that same clip in the trailer and it looks different / right. Also the QT player shows gray, not black at the beginning and end of the clip.