Recording Format/Frame Rate - Documentary Footage

E

emart

Member
This topic has undoubtedly been covered before. Please excuse my lack of thorough research as time is very short.

I'm a couple of weeks away from a two-week series of interviews for a documentary project, and just this week decided on the HVX. It is important that the footage we shoot for this project ends up being as marketable as possible to TV networks like TLC, History, PBS etc., understanding that we are using a lesser camera system (than would normally be ideal) for aquisition due to financial constraints. A familiar story I'm sure.

I have received advice to shoot in DVCPRO HD, 720p/30p for this project. Is this good advice?

The idea of native recording or pn (are they the same thing?) seems attractive, but I'm completely in the dark about whether this will create substantial difficulty in post.

I'm learning fast but I'm not nearly educated enough to judge the value of this advice. Barry Green's book is in the mail but doesn't get here until Friday.

I would very much appreciate some input.

As always, thanks to everybody for sharing their wisdom.
 
Since you don't need variable framerates (which are only available in 720) for interviews, I would shoot 1080.

You can downrez from there in post to target whatever delivery method is needed, but you'll have the full 1080 resolution in case you need it. The only downside is that recording 1080/30P takes up much more storage than 720/30PN.
 
I'm shooting a doc in 1080 / 30. A bit of a problem right now with storage on the longer interviews, but it will give great flex in the future. (16Gb are right around the corner)


G.
 
Umm, if you're shooting a doc for network distro, why wouldn't you shoot 24p? What's the advantage of 30P? It always looks funny to me. If you have the budget for the P2's or firestore, 1080pA24 is the way to go, otherwise, 720pn is great.
 
In my case the deliverables demand that it is shot this way... I would love to be a Maverick and say no, but they are cutting the cheque that makes the whole thing possible.

G.
 
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