VDSLR Audio - how does it work for ENG/short doc ?

Spartacus

Spartacus

Veteran
Anyone doing ENG style shooting (lots of clips, time pressure, fast turnaround) with a VDSLR?
How does the 2way recording work out in postpro?
When I see the cryptic filenames of my HVX, how does this look comming from a H4n?
And if I imagine going through 100 clips from my VDSLR and searching for the corresponding clips from the Zoom I get the shivers...
For short film, people use the clap and write down the numbers from the Zoom, as I have read.
But as an one-man-army shooter without a big crew?

As I understand the PluralEyes software, you still have to tell it which clips to align, put them on the timeline, right?
Or do I just create folders with "Video_Scene_01" and "Audio_Scene_01" and PluralEyes does the rest...?

Makes this kind of shooting the Juicelink a must?

You can see I´m confused, hope to get some answers from you guys! Thanks!
 
thats one of the downfalls of shooting with a HD-DSLR. figure it out in post is the best explanation.

i've done a few projects on my own where i've been shooting a subject. easiest thing to do is to stick a big SD card in the zoom, some well juiced batteries and just let it record the whole time you're shooting. but make sure you keep any eye on the batteries, cause they can quick if you're using phantom power. and then sync with plural eyes in post. which involves dumping all the clips on the timeline and if there's one long clip of audio then it will keep it all on the same timeline. if there's more than one clip of additional audio it will make a new sequence for each one.
 
I don't think that VDSLR cameras have hit the point of practicality for ENG, run-and-gun shooting.

The double-system sound setup is a real hassle for the one-man-band, and if you don't really have time to log your takes then you're setting up one painful post process.

Because of the artifacting in the images (Jell-O vision), these cameras really need to be in shooting scnearios where every shot is carefully planned and executed. ENG does not typically afford the time to think every shot through. Though, that'll be a problem with any CMOS camera.
 
That´s what I feared.
Even though low DOF is cumbersome in run´n gun situations, many reality-based formats can profit from that edgy "filmlook" (aaaahhh, there still is no better word to describe it, or is there?).
Hmmm, with the firmware update for the 5D, maybe an external mixer w/ sound person and audio send via an G3 will become a viable setup?
Funny thing is, now with those kind of cheap VDSLRs (say t2i) you find out, what you always kinda took for granted (XLR Audio inputs to record sound along with the video), actually is a very pricey part of production...
Ißll have to look at the juicelink again, I guess...
 
Wrong tool for the job. Way wrong tool for the job. Blowing focus and having bad audio that you then have to sync in post -- bad.

Consider a GH1, so you can at least zoom and have autofocus. But the audio is still a problem. You could get a Rode videomic, and then you'd have a half-assed solution that wouldn't suck as much as it otherwise would. But it's still gonna be a lousy solution as compared to a proper video camera.
 
Man I would hate to have had to go through all of that using a VDSLR when I shot news. Alot of the times I had x number of stories that have to get shot in the next 2 hours. There is no time to sit and fiddle. Camera goes on the tripod, interview happens, b-roll, in the car and to the next.
 
just shot a fairly quick run-n-gun video, offloading and converting now. zoom h4 in my pocket(wearing my headphones of course) with wireless rx, tx on subject with b6 hidden. ran audio for the entire time, about 38 minutes. so i'll take that audio track and all of my video pieces and drop them in a timeline, let plural eyes sync while i grab some food, come back and then edit away(hopefully having done end of the day, but its not a rush.)

but if i were shooting with a video camera, it probably would have been half as easy, but i wouldn't have those awesome depth of field shots. and i knew what i would be shooting and what would be the problems. if it were breaking news, hmc150 all the way.

i've done sound for a few dslr shorts. i ran separate sound, but also used a G2 as a camera hop/guide track. later finding out they used majority of the guide track for one of the videos.

but i've been kinda worried about the future of film making, especially with these new $800 t2i models. its like people think just because they spent $800 on a camera that sound should be half as much, if not cheaper. its like a new "do it for cheaper" mentality spilled out amongst the film making community. but i'm the scenario will play out like this: person buys cheap camera, skimps on sound, shoots film, then in post realizes how important audio is, then hires sound guy for next shoot.
 
Well there are a number of folks doing this. THESE FOLKS are doing high end same-day-edit videos for weddings and the NFL all with Canon HDDSLR cameras. I also just finished post on four short docs done with the 5D MrkII, they had a longer timeline. And a friend just went off to Malaysia to do a commercial for some tech firm. His company also does a bunch of NFL spots all with the Canon cameras. So I don't think it is the "standard" by any means but folks are doing it and getting a good return because of the classier visuals and easy mobility of the cameras. You can post sync by matching audio tracks or slates. The Rode Video mic is being used a bunch to lay a guide track down on the camera and then sync to a "real" recording. Since all the media are files that have TOD metadata it's not that hard to find which goes to which. And you can use apps like Pruraleyes to semi automatically sync. Red Giant has an app in public beta that will transcode the video into ProRes and (if you want) a low bandwith proxy so you can edit on a laptop with minimal performance hit.
 
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