In The Band - DVX100, HVX200, Varicam

Jonathan_Healey

Jonathan_Healey

Well-known member
Click to view "In The Band"

Hi everyone. I've been out of the DVX100User.com loop for quite some time; however, it's great to see some of the advancements over the past few years. Especially, the ones involving the 35mm adapters and their components.

I purchased the original DVX100 when it launched, and was creating lots of short form packages about music. Mostly for National Lampoon's AV Squad as well as some feature length concert DVDs - All of which I shared in this particular forum. This reminds me, I shot and edited a feature length doc, called "Wetlands Preserved: The Story Of An Activist Nightclub," using the DVX100 and the anamorphic adapter lens in 2004. The film took Best Documentary at the Ashville film festival, this year, and recently screened at SXSW. The best part, though, was its premiere at NYC's Ziegfeld Theater.

I'm currently working on a new project that I wanted to share with you folks. "In The Band" gives viewers an inside look at rock and roll from load-in to load-out. I've placed a link to the 5-segments, below, that make up the 44-minute program. Here's some info as to how it was created:

Cameras
• 5 DVX100 cameras, a mix of 100, 100A and 100B types were used for multicam concert footage
• 1 HVX200 (camera that shows close-ups of guitarist) was used for multicam also - In SD
• 1 Panasonic Varicam was placed on a jib and shot in SD
• Unfortunately, each camera was set to something different like 29.97 NDF, and 23.98 DF, or 24 NDF, etc (ugh!)
• 1 DVX100A was used for interviews with 1 600W ARRI and Chimera for key light and 1 100w Lowell for backlight/hair light
• 1 DVX100 and the HVX200 were used to shoot stand-ups and b-roll

Audio
• Concert audio is temporary. It's an untreated soundboard recording provided by the band
• Interview and b-roll audio is a mix of wireless lavs and boom/shotgun recordings

Post
Getting all the footage into 1-timeline was challenging. I used Shake to separate and replace fields on some of the 29.97 footage in order to to fake a pulldown cadence that Cinema Tools could use to reverse telecine to 23.98. I eventually got every bit of footage to play in a 23.98 timeline flawlessly without any video loss. I chose 23.98 since that's the what the majority of the cameras used as their fps.

• The concert multicam was edited with Final Cut Pro
• I did not use their multicam function - I have my own method I find works better for me.
• After editing the entire concert the band and I reviewed for best song choices
• The TV show was then also edited with FCP
• Color correction was done in FCP
• The band didn't like the background in one of the interviews so I was forced to cheat a DOF
• DOF was created by rotoscoping the subjects with Commotion and applying TrueCamera Blur to the background
• Back in FCP, I applied a beauty treatment as well as some vignetting
• Motion graphics were create in AE as well as some of the flashier transitions.
• Compression for web delivery via Sorenson Squeeze and Flash On2 codec

I don't wanna seem like I'm blustering on and on about the project but I thought this might answer some common questions which may or may not follow the usual, "Check out my clip," posts.

"In The Band"

Enjoy!
 
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that was really tight man, loved it! specially the show intro. Very very interesting.
 
Wow. Very cool. I was pleasantly surprised to see Gov’t Mule as the band! I dig the intro sequence. Was the 3d animation with the 2d elements (for the intro) done in after effects using 3d layers or was it done using a 3d package like 3d studio?

A couple of nit picks – some of the backgrounds behind the musicians during their interviews seem a little too blurred for my taste. I personally would back the blur off a little, some of them seem a little “glowie” when cut to from the hostess, which appears fairly sharp. I understand that this may be the client’s choice, though.

Also, I think the hostess may be a little out of water, so to speak, in that she seems to not really know about the band, in a way. But maybe that’s just me being a deeper music fan than most, if you get my meaning.

I love backstage footage and behind the scenes stuff with band members (sound check, etc.) so I might like to see more of that, but again, I’m big into music and that may not appeal to a larger audience.

I love the crane shots and the whole overall look of the graphics and colors (lighting etc.). I love the music video segment too. Again, my criticisms are probably nitpicks, but I thought I would throw them out there as feedback…



Great job.
 
Your comments are pretty much right on. I think one way to solve the glowy/blurry contrast between the host and band, as well as the "out of water" persona is to cut her from the interviews and leave her for the stand-ups only. This is something I've been toying with. I generally like doc-style interviews for so than seeing an interviewer.

The thing about the background is this: Haynes needs to be blurred as it is per the band's request. So, the other guys get blurred merely to match. Now, the beatuy treatment is whole other beast. I'm toying with the idea of removing it; however, it really darkens things up and doesn't hid the faux DOF as well.

The motion graphics were created in AE7.

Coincidentally, I produced and edited their music video. It's 16mm mixed with tons of photos and archival video.

Thanks for the response!
 
Well, both of those ideas seem like suitable solutions to me. I totally understand having the constraints of someone you’re working for. I could see you maybe adding the beauty treatment or some sort of glow to the interviewer/hostess and having that work better. I do like the idea of her just becoming a hostess, though, and letting the guys in the band just speak in interludes without her. That’s my personal preference…it seems like it would isolate the band sections in some sort of way as being truly about the band only. Then let her introduce the segments with little tidbits of info or teasers. I really liked her in the empty auditorium kind of setting the stage for things to come…

I like the idea of making the in concert footage crisp and keeping or even increasing the stylistic look of the interviews to separate the two more. So that the interviews feel like even more of a cut away from the in-concert footage – a very decisive look and feel break, if you will. Maybe that would solve all of the concern with blur etc.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, these are nitpicks, and really, the program looks great!
 
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