Short Film 24pa squeeze mode or 4x3

Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I have a friend that's a talented shooter that uses squeeze -- just likes noyt having to deal with it in post and that's fine...

Very good post as usual; and really - I am not disagreeing. I guess I'm just like your friend you mention above!

:thumbsup:
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
So for DVD or WEB - given that its easy to put tape on the LCD for framing - I dare ya to throw out any advantage to using squeeze over stretching in post other than it saves a few mouse clicks ... come on ... I double dog dare ya

Because when you shoot squeeze, and blow up to 1080p, you get that look like you are sitting in the front row of the movie theater and everything looks kinda blurred! It's an artistic choice! :D
 
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Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Anamorphic is a BAD idea for a doc. It's just not run and gun at all.

Squeeze and anamorphic won't edit togethert that well unless you are only using squueze for closeups and anamorphic for wideshots or something.

Did you read barry's book or my gizzilion page long post?

Since squeeze is the worst thing you could do for a filmout - not sure what to tell you. YOu shouldn't have used the ananomrphic either. Should have shot stock and blown up just like MurderBall or Supersize me, or even NOvember which won the cinematography award at sundance.

And unless your doc is all interviews you wouldn't want to use the anamorphic -- that would just be crazy to try and follow someone around -- crazy.

You might go ahead and switch to teh EASIEST to work with THE MOST FLEXIBLE IN POST and THE CLEANES STARTING POINT FOR FILM BLOW UP (other than anamorphic which is not feasible for a doc and won't edit well with your squeeze) so what mode am I talking about ? what's:
  1. the easiest to shoot with ....
  2. the most flexible in post ....
  3. the cleanest starting point for blow up other than the anamorphic ...
this is a quiz ... anyone ? bueller? bueller?
Thanks for your response. Like I said, the film is interviews, archival footage and reenactments. I don't anticipate run and gun situations - it's a doc about recent history. I'm trying to decide what to switch to for the interviews. You're saying 4 X 3 if we understand the framing implications, correct? When you say anamorphic does not edit well with squeez, do you mean that the resolution difference is so noticeable, it will look like a mistake, or is it more technical? Finally, what about shooting the reenactments (where there will be much more control) with the anamorphic ? Yes, I did read Barry's book - except for the footnote... which i just discovered.
 
ayoj said:
Thanks for your response. Like I said, the film is interviews, archival footage and reenactments. I don't anticipate run and gun situations - it's a doc about recent history. I'm trying to decide what to switch to for the interviews. You're saying 4 X 3 if we understand the framing implications, correct?
yep, just stick one of these on
http://www.aspectcorrect.com/
or
turn your letterbox on -- put gaph tape over where the bars are, then turn the letterbox off.
or
just shoot letterbox.
ayoj said:
When you say anamorphic does not edit well with squeeze, do you mean that the resolution difference is so noticeable, it will look like a mistake, or is it more technical?
it would look noticebly sharper. -- I'm just parotting barry here from another thread, but yes. You could do stuff like anamorphic for everything except closeups then use squeeze or stretch in post (a question I asked him about) so that you could get a shallower depth of field and soften things up for the actors faces.
ayoj said:
Finally, what about shooting the reenactments (where there will be much more control) with the anamorphic ? Yes, I did read Barry's book - except for the footnote... which i just discovered.
That's a good strategy, doing something like that, so when you do the dramatizations you bump up the quality a bit saying -- look doesn'this look sharper or fancier or less like low resolution video -- makes the interviews and such nitty gritty and the reenactments more produced ... or somthing like that.

So yes that's good strategy doing something like that IMHO where one element is squeeze and another element is ananmorphic vs. trying to use multiple ways of shooting within one elemeny like trying edit interviews togethet that are shot squeeze and anamorphic, for example.
 
Many thanks. Just a couple more queries, if you don't mind. All of the interviews so far have been interior. A number of them will be shot outside - a subliminal storytelling choice for certain key players, and also to show off the incredible Bermuda scenery - where there will be lots of room to get that shallow DOF even with the anamorphic. If I went to anamorphic/letterbox for the exterior location interviews, would that still be a bad choice in terms of editing together?
And, finally, do you know how squeeze footage will stand up to being uprezzed to HD before a film transfer?
It's entirely possible, but expensive, for me to reshoot key interviews with letterbox but I would want to avoid that. So what are the implications of uprezing squeeeze footage and then doing the filmout transfer?
 
ayoj said:
Many thanks. Just a couple more queries, if you don't mind. All of the interviews so far have been interior. A number of them will be shot outside - a subliminal storytelling choice for certain key players, and also to show off the incredible Bermuda scenery - where there will be lots of room to get that shallow DOF even with the anamorphic. If I went to anamorphic/letterbox for the exterior location interviews, would that still be a bad choice in terms of editing together?
would just be guessing ... most of what I've said is quoting Barry Green when he said in another thread that squeeze and anamorphic wouldn't edit together verywell. It's still doing using it strategically though so if it's different it might look on purpose. I wouldn't use it if you want shallow depth of field outside though. If you wanted to see every leaf, then I would say go for it, but otherwise I would shoot 4:3 for stretching in post.
ayoj said:
And, finally, do you know how squeeze footage will stand up to being uprezzed to HD before a film transfer?
It's entirely possible, but expensive, for me to reshoot key interviews with letterbox but I would want to avoid that. So what are the implications of uprezing squeeeze footage and then doing the filmout transfer?
I don't know ... all I know is that it's supposed to be of lesser or slightly lesser quality once you are blowing up to HD as opposed to starting from 4:3. I definately don't think you are screwed since you are doing a DOC, however. I'm not sure if anyone can answer this last question -- maybe Barry GReen -- I would PM him if I were you.
 
Great. Thanks for your time. I'm going to run some tests on all of this before continuing... will let everyone know the results.
 
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