New show airing - shot with DVX100

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dashwood

Well-known member
I just finished working on a new show that has recently premiered for the Outoor Life Channel. It is called "Urban Nites" and is a 13 part documentary series airing Saturday nights at 11PM EST and Sundays at 10PM EST. Those of you in Canada can view OLN on your local cable and ExpressVu digital satellite. In the US, OLN is also available on DSS/DirectTV - but I think the US schedule different.

The show was shot with 3 DVX100 cameras almost entirely at night. We used the "high" gamma setting, "cine" matrix, 3200K preset and normal 24P mode. Post was handled entirely on FCP 4.0.1 (treated as 29.97 source) including colour correction. We mastered back to DVCAM on a DSR-11 deck and dubbed to D-Beta for broadcast.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Tim Dashwood
www.timdashwood.com

http://www.peacepoint.tv/urban.html
http://www.montrealmirror.com/meat/film4.html
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

I will keep an eye out for it
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

FYI: On DirecTV there's just bull fighting scheduled for both those times, and TiVo doesn't pick up any show called "Urban Nites" over the next two weeks.

Any idea when they air it down here?
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

Hi dashwood, out of curiosity, why shoot in 24p if you treated the source as 29.97 in FCP4? Wouldn't it have been better to shoot in 30p instead? Especially if you know your final dub is on DigiBeta. Was it solely for the look?
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

Yes. We used 24P simply for aesthetics. We chose to edit in 29.97 sequences, always taking care not to make an edit on the pulldown frame. We literally started post on June 14 - the same day FCP4 was released - so we decided to use a workflow we were comfortable with. I was concerned that cutting in 23.98 on FCP4 may have caused some unforseen problems with mastering and mixing. I had already cut a short film in FCP3 with DVX material (available on www.timdashwood.com) so I knew we wouldn't have any sync problems.

As for SirAllen's question on US air times.... I really don't know since I don't have a DSS. The U.S. and CAN schedules for the network seem to be different. Try looking into http://www.tsn.ca/oln/Schedule.asp?Channel=OLN&ShowDate=Sep 21 2003&TZ=0
You'll notice on the Canadian schedule that the Bull Riding is listed for midnight, so maybe Urban Nites airs a couple of hours earlier on Direct and Dish network. I couldn't find a US schedule on their website.

Crazy digital channels!

Tim
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

When we did our low-light tests we found that the high gamma had a much better response in the 10-50 IRE range than the others. This was advantageous to us because we were shooting in conditions that generally would always require a stop around f2. When I colour corrected the footage, I was able to increase the mids by up to 2-stops (with a bit of added grain), bring the whites down a bit into broadcast safe, and crush the blacks back down to maintain contrast. I would compare the resultant look to that of Kodak's Vision 500 stock.
We tested the CINE gamma setting, but because of its lack of a knee in the curve, the hot-spots (like neon lights, street lamps, etc) looks like they just fell flat. After much research, I came to the conclusion that the CINE gamma setting is designed for shooting material intended for blow-up to film. This allows a flat response, letting the film-stock do its own work responding to the image. The CINE gamma setting does not seem to be documented very well in the user manual, but you should check out the American Cinematographer article with the curves. I think it was in March or April issue.

Tim Dashwood

http://www.timdashwood.com
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

You mentioned that it was almost entirely shot at night...what did you all use for lights? 1k's, 2k's on board lights, etc?
 
Re: New show airing - shot with DVX100

???
I thought I had responded to this a month ago, but it didn't get posted for some reason.

Anyway... We used available light when possible (street lighting, window displays, etc.) and then always filled with battery powered Kino flos that the P.A.s carried off camera. We were generally full open and the kinos provided enough light for our subjects, but we sometimes switched to 1/24th shutter speed to gain a stop.

F.Y.I. Urban Nites is now airing at 10:30AM Mondays thru Thursdays, and 11PM Saturdays on OLN (Canada.)

Also, watch out for a Ford F-150 "Rethink" infomercial that I worked on recently. The 'A' camera for the shoot was the Sony HDW-F900 24P HD and we had 5 DVX-100s shooting 2nd unit. The challenge for me was to match the DVXs (using 5600K preset) to the F900 as closely as possible. The final tweaks were made in a tape-to-tape colour correction session.
I don't know when or where it is airing, but you'll know you're watching it when you see the trucks in a hanger, on a drag strip and in a quarry.


Tim
 
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