Movie Spec Trailer – Footage Sizzle Reel – DVX200 v1.81

Jason R. Johnston

Jason R. Johnston

Well-known member
I was asked to shoot some footage for a spec teaser trailer for a proposed feature over the weekend (this past Friday and Saturday nights). While uploading the circle takes to the filmmakers I decided to cut some of it together as a little sizzle reel. This is simply a 480p SD render. The whole thing was shot 1080/23.97p 200-I. I needed to both over and undercrank. One or two bits were sped up in post for effect. But, this whole thing was fairly unorganized so I had to bring some law to the set. Once things got organized, we were able to proceed and got things knocked out relatively quickly. Party sequence was shot Saturday night, the hotel sequence was shot Friday night. I had a wedding Saturday morning to photograph and I must have had 2 hours of sleep in total. Fun weekend. I made up for it yesterday...then I edited what you are about to see. I haven't seen anyone do anything properly movie-ish with this camera and I know it's perfectly capable, especially after the 1.81 update. The video is MOS.


I donated me, my gear and my time to make this for no money and I'm the author of this footage and a producer for this particular project. The video is not for distribution outside of this thread. Wait for the proper teaser trailer in a few weeks. Thanks.
 
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I'm going to write about my experience on this past shoot as a field review of my DVX200 as I've had it since May and we've been through enough together I think I can offer an honest opinion about working with it thus far. Hint: it's been a pleasure.

Is there anything anyone would like to know about the camera still? Something I can touch on in my write-up? Let me know here, please. Thanks.
 
Hello Jason,
I'm using my DVX200 mainly with fast moving subjects. Dancer, Sport,... And therefore it would be nice to hear your autofocus experience. What setting do you use? I have really troubles to keep a dancer in focus. I have tried to adjust the focus speed ect. but frankly, it does not help much.
Hope to hear something from you!
Thank you.
Cheers!
gufi
 
Excalibur said:
Hello Jason,
I'm using my DVX200 mainly with fast moving subjects. Dancer, Sport,... And therefore it would be nice to hear your autofocus experience. What setting do you use? I have really troubles to keep a dancer in focus. I have tried to adjust the focus speed ect. but frankly, it does not help much.
Hope to hear something from you!
Thank you.
Cheers!
gufi
Click to expand...

I have never used auto focus, especially with fast-moving subjects! But, it does seem like something to test. EDIT: I have used it! I once had to video myself by myself...so because i couldn't nail focus on myself from 10 feet away from the focus ring, I set it to auto and I looked on my little external SmallHD monitor that I was fine. That's the only time I've ever flipped the switch to AF.

Maybe adjust the focus mode? I think I would want to use the Area mode for a dancer and keep her in the same area of the frame the whole time.
 
@jason:
well, I do not have a focuspuller. I'm a one man show on site. And if I enter a competition nobody knows what they will show us. Therefore you do not know what your subject will do in the next second, steppin toward you or on the side, bigger jump or more smooth...
That's why I'm using autofocus. I have no time for adjusting focus (on the varizoom remote). And the 200 is loosing the focus even in area mode. Suddenly it goes from subjects face to the wall 6m behind. Tat's why I asked if someone has its own experience with autofocus. With my AG-AC130A I never run in such problems.........
 
Excalibur said:
@jason:
well, I do not have a focuspuller. I'm a one man show on site.
Click to expand...

me too

on this show I was both the entire g&e and camera departments. cheap and good, but not fast. lol

That's a shame about the autofocus, but again I have no use for it as I manually focus everything (except that one time i was in front of the camera)...even fast-moving reality work. That's just how I was brought up. I don't want the camera telling me what should be in focus or else I'll get the wall 6m behind the intended subject. :/

If the lens is too far away (like mounted on a jib) or if it would have a terrible effect to touch the lens (on a steadicam so no touching or it'll bob the entire sled) then I'll use a remote focus solution (expensive) or, on one show I had to run a steadicam but we didn't have a remote ff system so i simply exposed for f8 or f10 as much as I could, set focus for 6-10 feet from camera and then tried to keep the action within that plane.

But manual focus is second nature to me...I've been shooting sports since 1993 and continue to keep in practice. I figure if I can keep a football in focus at night then I can certainly shoot two people talking at a table and keep the subject's eyes in focus when he leans to and away from camera.

So, I really can't help with the autofocus issue, except that I could do some tests just to see what my results would be. I know shooting dancers is hard and I know you don't have enough light to get a deeper depth of field (or you really want a shallow dof which would be insane for fast-moving subjects lol) so I'll see what I can come up with.

Cheers!
 
I use my most manual focus
but, if necessary, turn it on AREA MODE
and the LCD touch with a sharp image to be
then short time became the AF camera
temporarily
but basically remains MF
 
JRJphoto said:
I'm going to write about my experience on this past shoot as a field review of my DVX200 as I've had it since May and we've been through enough together I think I can offer an honest opinion about working with it thus far. Hint: it's been a pleasure.

Is there anything anyone would like to know about the camera still? Something I can touch on in my write-up? Let me know here, please. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I know you are busy, but wondering if you have the opportunity to share some of your experiences with the DVX200 during the shooting. You have some great footage and I know you push the camera to the limit.
 
Design Media Consultants said:
I know you are busy, but wondering if you have the opportunity to share some of your experiences with the DVX200 during the shooting. You have some great footage and I know you push the camera to the limit.
Click to expand...

Sure. The post just before yours has a link back to my blog with a complete write up, though I stopped doing that after this thread to share my thoughts directly in this forum.
 
MF is great when the action is pre-planned, and actors do as they're told. However, when I have to film fast/sporadically moving people, MF becomes really challenging to me.
Even though I've been using manual lenses for years with my mirror-less Sony@, I still don't fully understand the way MF ring works. One time rotation to the right gets the focus right, another time it messes things up.
Whats the pattern? Left = closer, right = further?
 
Nicklas said:
MF is great when the action is pre-planned, and actors do as they're told. However, when I have to film fast/sporadically moving people, MF becomes really challenging to me.
Even though I've been using manual lenses for years with my mirror-less Sony@, I still don't fully understand the way MF ring works. One time rotation to the right gets the focus right, another time it messes things up.
Whats the pattern? Left = closer, right = further?
Click to expand...

Manual focus is great all the time. :D

In response to the direction of the focus racking question: facing away from the camera body (in operator position), the correct method is nearer to lens = clockwise rotation of focus ring. Proper cinema, video, and better stills lenses, have distance markings confirming what direction to pull in or to. Some manufacturers are backwards, which is why we don’t like Nikon, for example.

Some cameras, like my Fuji X100F, are able to give you an option on what direction to rack focus for near/far or far/near. This is due to electronic control rather than mechanical. DVX200’s focus ring pulls in the correct direction for video.
 
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JR, I'm sorry I feel stupid asking twice, but I just can't understand this part --> "facing away from the camera body (in operator position), the correct method is nearer to lens = clockwise rotation of focus ring. "

Let's imagine this is me - O,
S - is my moving subject I'm supposed to film,
------------- - distance in feet

O --- S (which way should I turn the ring to focus on the subject?)

O ------------- S (which way should I turn the ring to focus on the subject?)
 
JRJphoto said:
Manual focus is great all the time. :D

In response to the direction of the focus racking question: facing away from the camera body (in operator position), the correct method is nearer to lens = clockwise rotation of focus ring. Proper cinema, video, and better stills lenses, have distance markings confirming what direction to pull in or to. Some manufacturers are backwards, which is why we don’t like Nikon, for example.

Some cameras, like my Fuji X100F, are able to give you an option on what direction to rack focus for near/far or far/near. This is due to electronic control rather than mechanical. DVX200’s focus ring pulls in the correct direction for video.
Click to expand...

I find it odd that the DVX200 lets you set the iris ring direction (via menu), but not the other rings. I'm pretty sure they're all fly-by-wire.
 
Jason,

Nice job and teaser, I can appreciate the difficulty of your shoot working right on the threshold of the DVX's low light abilities, this can be tough to do!

Thanks for sharing, looks like a fun project, I hope it moves forward, keep us posted!

Regards - Mike
 
LGb732881d-1c38-403d-80d6-234d9ec5bbac.jpg

See the focus markings? Facing the lens markings you would rotate the ring up to focus closer, or down to focus to infinity. If you are at the operator’s position (on the smart side of the body) you will be facing down the lens, which is going away from the body. Looking down the lens from the body, the ring rotates clockwiseto focus on nearer objects. Facing the body from the end of the lens where the filters go, the ring rotates counter-clockwise to do the same thing. Because we dont use a camera from the filter side, we ignore that last part and only observe from operator position. This is the correct behavior for cine/video lenses.

The fun part is people growing up with Nikon and other lenses that focus with opposite mechanics are learning incorrectly for cine/video.

DSC_5128-28-ais-950.jpg

Note how the distance markings runnin the opposite dirextionnof the Canon cine lens above.

So it depends on the lens, but the proper way is the way described above.
 
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