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Hunter Hampton

Hunter Hampton

Carbonite Member
720p Version now up! (Vimeo): http://vimeo.com/1461330


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Well, I received a call recently about doing a last minute shoot. My RED is currently in Canada on rental with a friend for the weekend, but I had a dvx/sgpro rig from the last doc I shot in Rwanda. So I accepted the offer and we put this together in about a day and I cut and timed it the next. This is from teaser #1 of 4.

It was love/hate working with a mini-dv camera/ 35mm adapter rig after being used to Red. What worked for this project in particular however, was the quick rendering, extremely small and inexperienced crew and particularly, the strait out of camera gritty feel. (all of the vintteing you see is intentional and/or done in post)

I converted the cut to a 720p 10-bit for color timing and I will have a 720p link up shortly. I think you will surprised (as I was) how nice the dvx footage looks at 720p. This film was made for a local church btw. (seriously)
 
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Thanks- I was very surprised to see how well the footage turned out.

I really felt like I came full circle on this one, renting a dvx100 from film school years ago and climbing up the format/project ladder to RED and now shooting again with the dvx100. It was a blast using it- It felt so disposable (can I say that?)
 
Wow...it looks superb. you're really talented man. I'm tottaly impressed and ashamed that i can't get such images from my EX1 and you managed this with a little DVX. Back to learning the craft.

Technical question: Does it help to convert to 720p 10 bit from such a low rez material ? I mean if the information is not there in the first place what's the advantage ? What program do you use for the up-rez (I'm totally new to editing)

Cheers!
 
Thanks for the comments- dont be ashamed- just keep shooting.

Gogu said:
Technical question: Does it help to convert to 720p 10 bit from such a low rez material ? I mean if the information is not there in the first place what's the advantage ? What program do you use for the up-rez (I'm totally new to editing)

Cheers!
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Thats a good question. The dvx100 has offset image sensors (like the hvx200) so the footage is captured at a higher resolution that just SD, and than it is processed and recorded to mini-dv. Upconversion to 10-bit HD (or even higher is done often for putting the final touches on a project, usually before a film print or when you are going to be compressing a film. I upconverted it 720p 10-bit for color timing, the whole image smooths out a bit and you dont run into serious color-banding when pushing the image. I just used final cut to upconvert. I ran the footage through cinematools to remove the pulldown, than dropped the whole SD sequence inside of a custom 720p 10-bit timeline in fcp, than proceeded to color and apply effects. It works great if you do the right steps.
 
Wow, man. I really dig the look of this! Any chance you'd be willing to share a little how you did the color grading? It's an area I could definitely use some help in.
Thanks!
 
eustace said:
Wow, man. I really dig the look of this! Any chance you'd be willing to share a little how you did the color grading? It's an area I could definitely use some help in.
Thanks!
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I would love to share. Here is what I have learned to do (and I am by no means a master, people do this different ways, its an art- this is just the way I like to go about it in FCP):

Start with a consistent "clean" image in-camera to begin with:

-try your best to maintain consistent proper exposures
-set the master pedistal so that the blacks are just barely hitting black (you can check this on a waveform, I usually set mine a bit higher than black)
-lower the detail/sharpening levels (oversharpening screams home-video look)
-find a neutral color pallet set-up (dont over or under saturate colors in camera)
-dont keep on white balancing, unless your light has drastically changed

The following steps should be taken at 10-bit or higher depth to minimize artifacts and banding.

Color-correct 1st

-set your black and white levels and try to match them from shot to shot
-I like to push my midtones to create more middle range to play with
-apply any contrast or curves
-if there are any inconsistencies in color balance from shot to shot, you can fix them now
-set your saturation levels

Grade 2nd

After you have consistently scenes, you can now have fun with the image, I start with fcp's 3-way color wheels. Depending on the mood of the piece, I put a certain color (tint) into the blacks and than usually a complementing color into the mid's and to a lesser effect into the whites. A little of this goes a long way. Sometimes (as in this case) I used other tools to put color in to the picture, by playing with RGB channels and layering.

Than I move onto effects and create vignettes (I like G. Natress filters for this)

Thats pretty much it, just take baby steps and layer filters until you get an image your happy with.

My inspiration for the color scheme on this project in particular, was what you see when looking through "BLUE BLOCKER" Aviator glasses.
 
Car3o said:
did you shoot squeeze or regular?
and you say custom, what changes did you make to the timeline?
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Squeeze.

I went to audio/video settings and made a new sequence setting with 1280x720 square pixels, and I set the codec to Prores High-quality 10-bit at 100%. (you could also set it to uncompressed 10-bit, but I didn't want to take up that much drive space for the master)
 
Excellent cinematography. Goes to show you it has much more to do with the skill of the carpenter than the choice of hammer.
 
Thanks so much for the help! I'm excited to try some of that stuff out now.

Couple quick questions though, if you get a chance: When you start with color correcting, are you using the 3-way color corrector in FCP, or just when you move on to grading? And when you say you push the midtones, do you mean pushing them back to the mids if they're dropping into the shadows or highlights? (Sorry, I'm kind of a newbie in this area.)

Thanks again.

p.s. - I took a look at your website: Very cool stuff!
 
Gracias, Hunter. I reviewed some of your other films too and you've definitely got the touch with the camera. I really enjoyed the story of Good Sam... very moving. Besides my wilderness adventure flicks, I'd like to do some short films along those lines... positive, touching movies with an emotional tug. We need more of that stuff.
 
eustace said:
When you start with color correcting, are you using the 3-way color corrector in FCP, or just when you move on to grading? And when you say you push the midtones, do you mean pushing them back to the mids if they're dropping into the shadows or highlights? (Sorry, I'm kind of a newbie in this area.)

Thanks again.

p.s. - I took a look at your website: Very cool stuff!
Click to expand...

Yes thats exactly right- sometimes I push them to around 60-65 for a brighter look. You can use the same 3-way for grading, just go back to it when your done correcting.:)
 
Gogu said:
What are offset image sensors ?
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Each RGB CCD is offset by about 1/2 of a pixel each direction. Panasonic does this in almost every single camera they make (even in the new varicam with fullraster 1080p sensors) It smooths out aliasing and ends up giving you a sharper cleaner image. It's the same technology that allows the hvx200 to record real HD with lower pixel count ccds.
 
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