HV20 + M2 (SciFi.com BSG Competition)

Phil H.

Phil H.

Active member
Hi Everyone,

When I first got the HV20 I shot this 4 minute short for a competition that the SciFi Channel was having. The winner of the competition will be aired on the SciFi Channel during an episode of season 4 Battlestar Galactica. Regardless of whether or not my short wins, it was a lot of fun to make.

Check it out:

http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=128571

Cheers,
Phil
 
Cool. It would be nice see some uncompressed footage so we can actually see the quality of the material. With all the compression is barely looks HD at all.
But the short, lighting etc are great! Good luck!
 
That was really well done! It's impressive to see what can be done with an inexpensive camera and talent. How did you find the sensitivity of the HV20 combined with the M2? What scene settings did you use?
Congrats!
 
Hi Everyone. Thanks for all the great comments. Here are some notes about this shoot that I posted over on the HV20.com forum:

I used a 1" spacer tube bt my achromat and adapter. I shot in cinema mode and HDV 24pf mode. I locked exposure wide open at F2.0 with a 1/48th shutter. I always run with Zebras at 70%, but it's really really hard to light bright enough to get them to show up indoors while using an adapter.

I never converter the footage to 23.976 FPS. I left it at 29.97 since the winner gets to go on air. *crosses fingers*. The workflow was simple. I captured at 29.97 into Premiere. Edited. Exported a .mov with animation compressor 1440x1080(1.33). CC'd in AE with Color Finesse. Then resized into a 4:3 720x480(0.9) comp. Exported a .mov at 640x480 with H.264 compressor.

Oh yeah, we recorded audio with pro audio gear into a DVX100B then had to synch sound in post... like I did back in the days of film. What a nightmare that was!

The problem with recording audio via the HV20 1/8" mini-jack is that it's an unbalanced connection and is prone to "interference". For example: we were using dimmers for the lights and even though the HV20 was running on battery power and had no wires attached except the one running from the mixer (also on battery power and connected to a boom/shotgun mic), there was a horrible buzzing sound in the audio when the dimmers were dimmed. My audio guy said that's typical of dimmers and unbalanced audio connections.

So, again, the HV20 has limitations, but if you learn to work around them, it's just a tool like any other camera. Learn to use it and you can still tell great stories.

I used a 150w practical in an overhead hanging lamp, 2 600w lights on the ground hitting the tent walls and a 600w light with 36"x36" light box as the key light. I also used the wall lights to bounce into the actors with a white board.

Ok, I mentioned the low light of the HV20 was a problem, especially with an adapter. Well, here are some stills so you can see what I mean. I was wide open on both the HV20 and my Nikon lenses the whole time. My DVX and HVX have way better low light and wouldn't have needed such drastic brightness adjustment:

BSGccCOMPARISON.jpg


Here are links to full size examples of the 2 above pics:
http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsgstuff/BSGnoCC.jpg
http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsgstuff/BSGwithCC.jpg

Here's a link to a less compressed version of the video. SciFi.com compressed teh hell out of it for the flash interface:
http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsg/TheRing.mov
 
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Thanks for the info Phil. When you say: "My DVX and HVX have way better low light and wouldn't have needed such drastic gamma boosting", I would be interested to see (or further explanation) how the HVX holds up better in low light shots, especially potential macro blocking issues as a comparison. This would depend on your HVX scene settings, and likely best results if shot 1080pA24 in lieu of 720. Exporting uncompressed to AE and using Color Finesse has yielded impressive result, considering the low light HDV source. You sure have a nice post process going on and, in my opinion, the result looks great. I hope you reach your goal, win/get to air your entry. :beer:
 
Great job!

Why did you choose to shoot with the HV20 instead of the other cameras?
 
Phil H. said:
Hi Everyone,

When I first got the HV20 I shot this 4 minute short for a competition that the SciFi Channel was having. The winner of the competition will be aired on the SciFi Channel during an episode of season 4 Battlestar Galactica. Regardless of whether or not my short wins, it was a lot of fun to make.

Check it out:

http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=128571

Cheers,
Phil
Click to expand...


Nice work Phil!

What was your exact M2 set up? Which package did you use?
 
Thanks again for the great comments!

I chose to use the HV20 over the HVX200 because... umm... honestly it was because I didn't have the HVX200 at the time. It was a recent purchase. I will continue to use the HV20 for certain projects though and have. I recently shot a commercial with it that will air on MTV. I'll post that here too when it's done if anyone is interested. Why the HV20 over the HVX200? Because I can. The HV20 looks great. Don't be fooled.

As for a comparison of low light levels, Barry Green posted an example of the DVX vs the HV20. The images clearly show the HV20 is much darker.
 
My M2 setup? I have pretty much every accessory Redrock makes. I'm hard mounted and use Nikon lenses.
 
Phil H. said:
Hi Everyone. Thanks for all the great comments. Here are some notes about this shoot that I posted over on the HV20.com forum:

I used a 1" spacer tube bt my achromat and adapter. I shot in cinema mode and HDV 24pf mode. I locked exposure wide open at F2.0 with a 1/48th shutter. I always run with Zebras at 70%, but it's really really hard to light bright enough to get them to show up indoors while using an adapter.

I never converter the footage to 23.976 FPS. I left it at 29.97 since the winner gets to go on air. *crosses fingers*. The workflow was simple. I captured at 29.97 into Premiere. Edited. Exported a .mov with animation compressor 1440x1080(1.33). CC'd in AE with Color Finesse. Then resized into a 4:3 720x480(0.9) comp. Exported a .mov at 640x480 with H.264 compressor.

Oh yeah, we recorded audio with pro audio gear into a DVX100B then had to synch sound in post... like I did back in the days of film. What a nightmare that was!

The problem with recording audio via the HV20 1/8" mini-jack is that it's an unbalanced connection and is prone to "interference". For example: we were using dimmers for the lights and even though the HV20 was running on battery power and had no wires attached except the one running from the mixer (also on battery power and connected to a boom/shotgun mic), there was a horrible buzzing sound in the audio when the dimmers were dimmed. My audio guy said that's typical of dimmers and unbalanced audio connections.

So, again, the HV20 has limitations, but if you learn to work around them, it's just a tool like any other camera. Learn to use it and you can still tell great stories.

I used a 150w practical in an overhead hanging lamp, 2 600w lights on the ground hitting the tent walls and a 600w light with 36"x36" light box as the key light. I also used the wall lights to bounce into the actors with a white board.

Ok, I mentioned the low light of the HV20 was a problem, especially with an adapter. Well, here are some stills so you can see what I mean. I was wide open on both the HV20 and my Nikon lenses the whole time. My DVX and HVX have way better low light and wouldn't have needed such drastic gamma boosting:

BSGccCOMPARISON.jpg
Click to expand...

That looks great! The grittiness really lends to the mood -- very nice work!
 
Thanks David and Ian! Gritty was my objective, for the scenes inside the tent anyway. Sometimes the BSG show itself is even more gritty than what I did! I love that show. It takes all kinds of risks and makes wildly creative choices. It's very inspiring.
 
Looks really great.
I'd like to know though how the heck did you manage to boost the gamma so much without getting any unwanted grain?
 
Phil H.,

This thing looks great - you got good things from the HV20. On the writing side, the entire "frack" situation is unfortunate and I'm sorry to see your short perpetuating it further. It's jarring. "Shut up" works just as nicely and doesn't dress your entire narrative down.

e
 
rawfa said:
Looks really great.
I'd like to know though how the heck did you manage to boost the gamma so much without getting any unwanted grain?
Click to expand...

Hi rawfa,

I boosted gamma a little in the mid tones and boosted gain in the mid tones quite a bit. Color Finesse is really great because it gives you really fine control over the highlights, mid-tones, and darks independently of each other.
 
overlandfilms said:
Phil H.,

This thing looks great - you got good things from the HV20. On the writing side, the entire "frack" situation is unfortunate and I'm sorry to see your short perpetuating it further. It's jarring. "Shut up" works just as nicely and doesn't dress your entire narrative down.

e
Click to expand...

Hi Erik. Thanks for the compliment.

I was wondering, does "frack" bother you because it's a euphemism of a word that's considered distasteful?

Does the euphemism itself bother you because it sounds awkward?

Would you prefer the actual f-word used or just leave out the f-word and the euphemism altogether to keep it more tasteful?

For myself, I don't mind harsh language when used in a clever way that supports the moment in a story. However, blatant or excessive use for "shock factor" isn't necessarily my cup of tea. Obviously, I was trying to remain true to the show and I think that a strong word such as the f-word or it's euphemism was appropriate and meaningful in this case, although I will agree it wasn't necessary. In my short story it does supports a deep burning emotion that escapes the character despite herself and her love for the man. She's not really herself because deep down she's dealing with a lot of emotion about the man she loves, the baby inside her and a sneaking suspicion that she isn't who she thinks she is...

Either way, I do appreciate your feedback and respect your preference for not wanting the use of the word "frack".

Peace.
 
wow... this was a really great piece to show off your filmmaking skills and the HV20. I'm interested in how you would like to light these scenes if you had money for more lights. Would you overlight and then darken in post rather than shooting dark and having to gamma up. I just finished shooting some interior horror type scenes with the HVX200 and we probably wouldn't have had enough light if we had used an adapter on those shots. Any tips lighting wise for those adapter users shooting darker scenes?
 
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