Tai Chi DVD Shot with HVX today. Screen Grabs + Productions Stills! (56k too slow)

Cynic821

Cynic821

Carbonite Member
Hi everyone.

86th Street Studios was very happy to be doing our first shoot with the HVX200 today down at the world famouse Wushu Central in Santa Clara California. Master David Chang, acclaimed Wushu champion taught a Tai Chi beginners DVD today and we also got alot of Testamonial footage to throw on there as well as to why you should choose Tai Chi as a great excersise, stress reliever and all around life enhancer. To start here are some production stills taken with a kaka sony digital camera.


Outside of Wushu Central
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Me smiling like an idiot!
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Me wiring up a little bit before the class.
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My partner and our director on this project, Jordan caught making a face!
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Jordan again giving the settings a once over.
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And now some of the shots.

Here is a still from the first 30 minute long workout for beginners in Tai Chi. Master Chang truley is very skillfull and this workout may look simple, but being in amazing shape and having done this for more than 10 years he was working up a good sweat with this great workout!

(a quick tech note: All the Tai Chi teaching shoots were done with the stock lens @ 1080i 60i. All Testamonials and interview setups were done at 1080i 60i using a Redrock Micro M2 35mm adapter with a Nikon Zoom lense at about 70mm.)

Tai Chi Teaching Capture 1280 x 720 (original 1080i)
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Testamonial 1
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Testamonial 2
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Closing moments 1
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That is all, and after just getting the Redrock yesterday, the day before the shoot and using a Tamron lens we found on an old 35mm camera Jordan had, we tested its outdoor usage and we were pleasantly suprised with the added professional look it gave our production. Recommended to everyone using an HVX200 to pick up. The images it can create with this Tamron lense are great, i can only imagine a 500 dollar lense.

Comments welcome. as well as questions.

Edit: Yes my spelling is bad
 
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The fist picture screams HVX stock lens.

Did you use the M2 adapter? I see you are wearing the M hat. In the photos of the camera setup there is no M2. I say this because the two outside pictures (flower background) look alot like M2 stills... they look a tad soft. The last picture looks like good use of an M2, meaning it is not to soft and has nice dof. If this is all stock lens it should be more sharp then this. Also if this is M2 you needed to tweak the setup a bit more for those outside shots.

EDIT: Now I see that I must read all captions before I post! :( Sorry. It explains that the interview pics were M2. Feel free to send me a virtual b*tch slap. :)
 
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Virtual ***** slap withdrawled :) no need for that. Ya, the first shot is stock lense, all the dolly work was done without the M2, everything with the flowers in the background and when we interviewed master chang inside that was M2 as well as the captions state.

It is a little soft, but we didnt have an external monitor and we werent expecting to even have an M2 for this shoot, and when we got the M2, we werent expecting to even have a lens to put on it , but since its going to DVD only, we arent too concerned with its softness. But yes, it would have been nice to use the M2 for the actual demonstrations, but his moves arent predictable meaning a follow focus wouldd need tons of marks, and the lens we used was an f3.5
 
If this is a DVD for sale you have to look at the actual video being delivered and not so much on using cool tools to impress..who?? Master David Chang, won't be impressed that you used an M2 adapter with an old lens vs. having at least a decent backdrop and better lighting. It's production values that will sell DVD's. I have done hundreds of these kinds of productions and having the basic production values that a distributor will look for is vital. I can tell you for a fact that 99% of the distributors will shoot this production down when they see that backdrop...just food for thought. Good Luck.
 
Well, we shopped Tai Chi around in our suite at the VSDA show in vegas last month. Buyers from Fry's, Best Buy and others said fitness is in and they want it. I work for a distributor/publisher and they co-produced the shoot with me and my partner. Very little investment with a high profit return, and we wanted something that would allow us to use our new toys :) if we can call them that.

DVD publishing is kinda of our side business, we publish budget DVD's for around 7.99 to 12.99 of many special interest things including but not limited to Pro Wrestling (ECW, WWE guys etc...) Bike Week, sturges, things like that along with simple beginners fitness. Also one of the biggest Belly Dancing compilations that makes us huge money from Ross and the consumers are very happy with the price to quality ratio.

And Master Chang is a pro, he didnt know what an M2 was , but he knew what HD was and when he saw the footage he was excited.
 
I to am thrown off by the background, for me that makes it look way bad. I like the look of the Stock lens I dont think the M2 is for videos, beleive it or not, I do Winsor Pilates and the video look, and background make it for me :), I would love to see a clip..

Tell me about those lights and who's the dolly by, and about the Work flow.
 
The lights are a very simple smith victor setup kit. We wanted the kit one step up but it was out of stock at Calumet in SF, so we opted to just stay within our budget and get the less expensive lights.

The dolly is a rental, again we were on a short budget and notice so the Cine Dolly from Rowe Cine wasnt going to be in in time. The rental dolly is industrial strength. Must have weighed atleast 50 pounds , and was able to turn, but we didnt want to lug even bigger rails that are curved for it to run on. The rental dolly for thursday through monday , (he was closed saturday and weekends are included) was cheap enough that we could just rent it and then buy the Cine Dolly for future use (which just came in the mail to the office here today!!)

Workflow is very simple with the Macbook Pro . All footage was shot in 1080i 60i and captured like that in FCP. Only some B roll outside was shot on P2 in the same format. THe workout itself wasnt done using the M2 , only the talking head interviews. I wish i could have blurred the background maybe with the M2 though with the harshness you guys are having on the studio background. The idea was to be able to travel to Master Changs studio and get a 1 on 1 lesson from the Sifu himself of Wushu and Tai Chi using your home DVD player. I didnt want to lul anyone to sleep with the original proposed outdoor set we would have had to find.

A background for the giant studio would have been very expensive, and we were already coming out of our own pockets over budget (just by a hundred or so) for a few things we needed.

FOr the mic, we settled on an Azden WXL-Pro i beleive it was. 170 bucks, and i am really happy with it for this purpose. I wouldnt use it for a movie, but for this kind of use it is outstanding. Minimal noise and very fine levels. I read someone mentioned it was too quiet, but on mine, it picks up great voice while minimizing the loud ambience we had to deal with (another reason we stayed in doors, along with powering all this stuff)

This DVD is already sold and will be in retail soon. The production was a TINY bit overkill, but not too much. I work in the retail publication and distribution business and package / subject is MUCH more important than content. Such as we already have a commitment from a few buyers for a substantial number of copies on their P.O.'s that we obtained at the VSDA convention.

Anyone not familiar with VSDA , especially if you are looking to get your stuff to retail, should really look into getting there if you are serious. THe suites are quite expensive and are only for serious business's like ourselves, but pass's can be obtained to visit our suites and shop your titles around. We made many great deals with new content providers just like yourselves to distribute their titles in various avenues. And there were 100's of other companies specializing in many different genres for DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray and so on. Girls Gone Wild was right next door to us ,LOL.

But seriously look into next years VSDA and if you do PM me and ill look foward to seeing you if you can make the trip to vegas. Along with the many many things i do here at my office job, all of us here are encouraged to find interesting content to publish. we have meetings with new ideas and things we think might work. Sales people then shop that to buyers to see what they want. THen we green light.

Youre investment capitol will most likely have to be your own or you will have to find some funding if you dont have it though. 99% of publishers will not fund your production , they will however , if interested, take your title in its final form. One of the peeves of all the companies with suites are the people shopping their product for distro. and we are interested, then we ask for a screener and they go into , "well if you like the idea, we will need 10,000$ to finish our project and we would like that up front" then they also want 40-50% royalties.

YOu wont get rich from retail, but building a library of great titles done at a realistic budget , (so there is a good enough profit to warrent the time spent on it) you can bring in some decent royalties to fund this expensive hobby we all love so much!

Im not a big wig for sure, but being in a small company , I have a great opprotunity here to learn the business side of things since everyone in the company (except sales people, who are located across the states) are here including the VP and the Founder.

Since DVD is our side business and growing very fast and well, we have the freedom to try out some new titles, and send them to different avenues. Budget, even close out titles are very profitable. Think of an audience and make something for them.

Software is our main business if anyone cared to know.

WHEW!!! any more questions? ill be glad to convert this topic to answering the very best i can for you guys from an inside view.
 
Dude, that sounds great! If you can sell that DVD with that backdrop I need to get busy!! How does your royality payments work out??
 
You need to read more carefully, 90% of retail in some genres is packaging. This DVD was sold a month before anything was filmed. You guys know whats up, knowledged creators, theres a difference with the normal consumer though than you guys. Royalties vary by title. Since this was co-produced with the publisher, we are getting a smaller royalty but some cash up front and equipment payments.

My situation is very specific since my day job is at my publisher, but im just trying to give you some info on it. :/
 
http://show.vsdahomeentertainment.com/videoshow/v42/index.cvn

video software dealers association.

suites i believe are around 5k. i didnt see any paperwork from our trip except the hotel bill O_O lol.

have to be booked a very long time in advance

Edit*

All the info can be had on the website, including all of the exhibitors and even a PDF form (for this last event, not valid for 2007 of course) to see what info is needed. If you are not a member of the VSDA group its about 500 bucks for one person to have an all access badge to every great event at the show. even the girls gone wild party you guys. :p

Be sure to venture everywhere on the site and spend 4 days in vegas next year for the show!

It was too much fun to tell you the truth. All expenses paid vacation for me and my girlfriend (we both work for the same company) but for 500 bucks plus flight ( if you plan well in advance then flight could be 100 1 way even from the east coast) stay at a holiday in off the strip and take a 5 dollar taxi to the show each day.
 
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ill try and post some footage once i finish the DVD today. Im still waiting on dvxhost.com to teach my ftp illiterate self on how to link footage uploaded :(
 
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