HVX feature wrapped

HDkilledFILM.

HDkilledFILM.

Burnin' down the House
Hey all, just thought that I'd drop in and say that I just shot my first feature on an HVX200. My impressions of the camera are so much clearer now after the intense two week shoot then when i first recieved the camera. The camera performs very, very well in locked down situations but has problems when handheld. The motion can sometimes be a bit much and focusing with the camera is hard on the fly. The motion problem is no where near as bad as with the sony but still not in the league of super 16. All that aside I'll never shoot film again, I'm in the edit now and I'm amazed at the amouts of set ups we were able to pull with our schedual and the quality of the footage. The grain issue I just can't see, it's a non issue for me, light well and you don't have the problem, but oh well. I'll post some stills soon, and a link to the site, sorry for the ramble. -rock-adam
 
Congrats Adam, that's awesome.
I know from having done my own features, it's amazing how much you learn by shooting your own feature length project. I plan to shoot one this summer.

Did you use any kind of shoulder brace for the handheld?

Best of luck with your project. What's the genre? I look forward to seeing some stills.

Richard
 
the feature is horror thriller, I'm working on the website and trailer right now. I'm unsure what to do copywrite wise right now so I'm waiting on a call back from my lawyer before putting anything up. I have the script copywritten but I don't know how to copywright the actual footage, I've only ever worked on projects for other people so............ ugh.
 
I love horror movies.
You need to fill out copyright form PA. It's the same form for all performing arts related creations (script, TV show, film). go to www.copyright.gov for more info.

I'm curious, you said some of the handheld was a problem. Did you use any kind of shoulder brace?
 
I used a monopod (glidecam 4000), I should be more specific, the hand held wasnt the problem when making fast moves with the hvx off the x or y axis you get motion blur. It's not unusable but it is rather soft. All the tripod moves on the x and y seem fine. I can't complain, this camera by far looks like it could be the camera to use for my next feature, especially since I just got my M2 adapter (three days after the end of the shoot lol). The cameras got the filmic qualities that I wanted from it and is most robust in its color reproduction. I'm even thinking of buying a second just to make shooting a little faster. The P2 cards rock. You need to have more than 1 though lol. Don't expect to shoot a feature with one card, even at 720p native. I shoot with 2 4 gig cards @ 1080i24PA and was still dumping at least 40% of the time. It's good though I just think I'll be investing in more and larger cards when the price comes down. All in all it kills the sony z1 for me, the image just looks more like film. Say what you want about the codec and the resolution differences we all know it comes down to look and for me the panny just kills the sony. I've seen some good JVC stuff but if you loved the DVX then why go JVC? I'll I'm saying is I'm a happy customer.-rock-adam
 
Adam,

Imagine what it will feel like a year from now and a couple more features under the belt.

As far as that motion blurry stuff, check your shutter speed, you can tighten that up and resolve some of the bulrriness, of course too much and it turns to stutter. So learning a new tool is always a challange.

I just bought a Mac, not a Mac Book, I didn't want to give up the PCMCIA slot just yet and by the time I really have a clue, that interface will be resolved. I have to say though I feel like a total MAC Moron. I am pretty skilled at the PC but the MAC Operation is not intuitive to the PC trained. I know I will get it but just like you, I will learn over ervy attempt and I will get better with every attempt.

Not making any judgement here but didn't Rodriguez say that your first 15 films were going to be more learning lessons or something like that?

Anyhow keep up the hard work. Will we see you at NAB?

We will have the HVX Stars, Barry Green and Jarred Land, in our booth along with other similar celebs. ;-)

Best,

jan
 
I agree with robert on alot and yes it was a major lession in film making. The film has gained intrest from a few people without even a trailer, I was able to show people rushes on set through my power book (awsome) with a rough color correction in between takes (thank you P2 (thank you jan!)). Through this the film has been promised a 5.1 dolby digital sound mix and we secured some finishing money. If there is anyone who knows anything about flame please contact me as I am looking into having the film scrubbed a bit. Scott Hull from Pig Destroyer fame is also scoring the film (which should kick butt) for fans of ambient music. All in all I'm really impressed with what we were able to get out of the camera and the finished product will be amazingly more than I could have dreamed. For those considdering the camera buy the M2 you will be blown away! I wish i had that on the film but alas. I might make it out to NAB but I'm saving my money to go to Sundance (lol) just kidding....... Anyway I sware I'll have some stills up asap. Oh and P.S. it's weird how when we were in preproduction we had no backers with money looking to help out at all but now that it's in the can they seem to be coming out of the wood work, I guess thats the business for ya-cheers-adam
 
It is a strange thing how once you've shot a feature people are more forthcoming with support - we had the same thing. Before we had nothing, now we've got a cinema release in Autumn, we're mastering with a Davinci2k. It starts to get interesting.

And weirdly, we've got a distributor wanting to put our next 'yet to be shot' feature in cinemas before they've even read the script!
 
Congratulations on the shoot. I will also be shooting a feature this summer and plan on a 17 day shoot, including 2 days off (maybe 3). I'm curious about your workflow and the shoot in general.

Did you use the PCMCIA on the PowerBook or transfer via Firewire from the camera?
How many reels did you average each day and how many for the entire shoot?
How many hours did you shoot for each day?
How many batteries did you go through each day?
Did you use the PowerBook as a monitor (large Log & Capture window) for setting up shots/focusing?
For this horror movie did you have a lot of night or dark shots? If so, any issues with that?
How are you backing up/archiving the reels? DVD-R, extra hard drive?

Hope you can answer those ?'s. Look forward to seeing you trailer or even some shot clips.
 
flmmkr said:
Congratulations on the shoot. I will also be shooting a feature this summer and plan on a 17 day shoot, including 2 days off (maybe 3). I'm curious about your workflow and the shoot in general.

Did you use the PCMCIA on the PowerBook or transfer via Firewire from the camera?
How many reels did you average each day and how many for the entire shoot?
How many hours did you shoot for each day?
How many batteries did you go through each day?
Did you use the PowerBook as a monitor (large Log & Capture window) for setting up shots/focusing?
For this horror movie did you have a lot of night or dark shots? If so, any issues with that?
How are you backing up/archiving the reels? DVD-R, extra hard drive?

Hope you can answer those ?'s. Look forward to seeing you trailer or even some shot clips.
Click to expand...

Yes we put the P2 directly into the power book via the PCMCIA slot so we could keep the PB away from the camera (recording noise). We shot around 570min of footage in 14 days so if you broke that down that was about 50 min or so a day which was amazing for me since I'm used to having like 3 reels a day on my minima (15 min lol). 2 batterys a day but we were cycling them on the charger. we only had a three man crew so if you had a PA you could send them to do that and save some time. I couldnt get my PB to work with the log and capture through FCP so no capture now (kept crashing). My PB is 1.67 ghz with a gig of ram, might be the external HD which caused the crashing, I dont know....... The entire movie was shot one key lighting about 85% at night and yes it looks great and no I didnt have a problem. I had two external HD's on set and kept backing up every day so no problem there. I'm about 1/3 done with the cut so the film might be done about three weeks after it wrapped, and I'm a slow editor. Thanks for all the kind words and support guys I feel the love :love4:
 
How many hours were your days, 12 hours? How many times did you go through batteries each day? Basically, if not recharging on set, how many batteries would you have needed.

When you say you kept backing up every day do you mean you backed up those two HD's to something else or backed up the PowerBook's HD to those two HD's? I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out the best set workflow for my feature.

Right now I plan on offloading the P2 cards directly to a MacBook Pro via firewire after both 4GB cards fill up. Of course that would change if the Duel System ExpressCard-PCMCIA adapter comes out before August.

I also plan on having the camera connected to the MBP and running FCP in Log & Capture mode (large window) to check focus whenever possible. And that could change if I decide to get a field monitor like the Panasonic 17". Thinking real hard about that one.

So far I was thinking that every night I would transfer the MXF files from the MBP to a 2.5TB GRAID Pro after that day's shoot and eventually burn to DVD-R's for archive purposes. I'm wondering if it would be better to dump the MXF files to 500GB hard drives (twice for redundancy, which means possibly 4 500GB HD's just for archiving) and store those in a firesafe. That would certainly save me A LOT of time.

Also, can you tell us the premise of your movie?
 
flmmkr said:
How many hours were your days, 12 hours? How many times did you go through batteries each day? Basically, if not recharging on set, how many batteries would you have needed.

When you say you kept backing up every day do you mean you backed up those two HD's to something else or backed up the PowerBook's HD to those two HD's? I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out the best set workflow for my feature.

Right now I plan on offloading the P2 cards directly to a MacBook Pro via firewire after both 4GB cards fill up. Of course that would change if the Duel System ExpressCard-PCMCIA adapter comes out before August.

I also plan on having the camera connected to the MBP and running FCP in Log & Capture mode (large window) to check focus whenever possible. And that could change if I decide to get a field monitor like the Panasonic 17". Thinking real hard about that one.

So far I was thinking that every night I would transfer the MXF files from the MBP to a 2.5TB GRAID Pro after that day's shoot and eventually burn to DVD-R's for archive purposes. I'm wondering if it would be better to dump the MXF files to 500GB hard drives (twice for redundancy, which means possibly 4 500GB HD's just for archiving) and store those in a firesafe. That would certainly save me A LOT of time.

Also, can you tell us the premise of your movie?
Click to expand...

Well we worked 16-18hr days and even had a couple 24 hr days, days and nights and sleep were irrelivant. The film centers around one mans struggle to locate a woman who he tried to help get away from a possessive ex. The man was beaten into a coma for his efforts and spends the film dealing with his spotty past and his struggle to locate the woman with whom he shares a dark secret. The lead actor was also the producer/ all around PA and the sfx guy was also the sound recordist/ mixer/ make up/ grip/ gaffer/ PA. And I shot/ directed/ gripped/ gaffed/ PAed and wrote and am editing the film. We were only able to shoot so much because of the nature of the film (although we had 40 actors and 27 loactions we schedualed the hell out of the film and preproduction set us up to get the production streamlined. I would advise buying the 17" panny monitor, focusing from my PB was not usefull becuase of the noise it produced and the rastor seemed blurry. I would also advise buying the M2 and using a 50 mm lens on it, I've had some really great results pulling focus this way (as have alot of other people I'm sure) and it really, really improves the feel and look of the images. I'd go with portable drives like the 500gigs (we bought the maxtor 1 tb and it kicked butt) they save you the time of having to go to one location to back up and you can back up in between takes if you have a dedicated editor/ PA on set. Also I was saying about having more than 1 card to do your project, having 4 4 gig cards would be the best situation for me as you could fill up and then dump. If your going 720 PN then thats 20 min, dump, switch cards shoot, with about a min lag instead of the ten plus it takes to dump and save. I don't know if anyone else had this problem yet as I havent checked the forums while shooting but my PB crashed a ton when ejecting the cards from the PB. Might be better to go fire wire if your going to only have two cards on set anyway. Sorry again for the ramble-rock-adam
 
That's great! Thanks for the info! The list of equipment to acquire for this shoot just keeps growing and growing. Oh well, you gotta do what you gottaa do right?
 
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