Notes On Video

Dermot Shane of Sepia Films was VFX Supervisor on a small film “ A Shine of Rainbows ,” that has already won a few awards in the festival circuit, and is being released in Canada on April 9th, and the USA on April 21. He put together a shot list based on the trailer that shows just some of the effects work done on “small” movies these days. In total there were 150+ VFX shots that were all completed within ten days of picture lock. We started pre-viz in Avid DS Nitris , cut in Avid Media Composer , and ran VFX concurrent with editorial, using a DS Nitris as the main hub between vfx and editorial. All of the final comps were done in DS Nitris, with some from elements prepared in Nuke , and Maya , but over half of the VFX shots were completely done in DS Nitris. We had three DS's working on VFX near the end of the show, and moving seamlessly between DS and editorial's Avid's. The assembly, DI and full color grade was done completely in DS with the advantage of being ...

Somewhere, in some bag, I have a Contour HD camera... But can I find it? nope.

-noun 1. A camera with a large mattebox. 2. A camera or piece of equipment that doesn't look professional or impressive. -Idioms 3. That DSLR rig passes the Keifer Test -Origin 4. Kiefer Sutherland accidentally coined the phrase “The Keifer Test” when he remarked that he needed a big mattebox to act. ( Millimeter Dec 1, 2008)

It's Friday!! So here's something fun! I'm not a huge fan of those in-ear headphones for the iPhone - though I use them now and again - so most of the time I'm using "regular" headphones, which makes it interesting when I'm talking to someone on the phone. You hold the phone up like it's a weird shaped microphone; it's just not cool. Now Sony has announced some inexpensive ($40) headphones that have a built in mic and inline control too. Cool! DR-V150iP Tailor-made for DJs, the dual-purpose DR-V150ipP delivers crisp, commanding sound when you’re mixing pumping club beats. Away from dance floor, it delivers equally commanding sonic performance with your iPod or iPhone. Deep bass and generous power handling are assured by the 30mm ferrite driver. There’s a large adjustable headband for fatigue-free wear during the longest DJ set, while reversible earcups allow convenient ‘single-sided’ monitoring when you’re behind the decks. An in-line remot...

George Bray at geobray.com has posted a "How To" recipe for building a transcoder to process live and on-demand streams to create MPEG-4 files for HTTP Live Streaming. It's for OS X (either Xserve's or MacPro's suggested.) geobray.com : Live TV Streaming to iPhone with HTTP

What will be happening at NAB? Who knows, this is all I can guess at right now: Canon Canon will talk about their 4:2:2 MPEG2 camera, though whether they'll be showing it - or announcing a ship date and price - is anybodies guess. I'm guessing there will be an announcement, but it won't ship for another month or two. If they don't zero in on a date at NAB, then why do the preannounce stuff back in January? That makes little sense unless the real reason for the announcement back then was that they were trying to stop current Canon users from jumping to the Sony NXCAM. I'll let the Internet Conspiracy Theorists munch on that one for a while... Canon DSLRs - there won't be any new camera (and no video camera using the DSLR chips either) but Canon will probably devote a bit of effort to promoting DSLR's at NAB. Just seems natural they would. Avid Avid may announce a new version, that's what someone has hinted. Look for better interoperability betwee...

This Friday ticket prices for 3D movies are going up an average of 8.3%, IMAX tickets up 10% and regular movies up 4%. At one AMC theater in New York, the price for a family of four to see a 3-D screening of Dreamworks Animation's "How to Train your Dragon" this Friday will be $63 before popcorn, soda or candy. I told you I am a 3D skeptic , didn't I? Closer to home: Adult ticket prices for 3-D movies will jump to $15.50 from $13.50 at one theater operated by AMC near Boston. [...]the price hikes reflect a growing belief among theater owners that consumers are "hungry" for 3-D content and are willing to pay more for an enhanced movie-going experience.

There must be something in the air - or maybe it was that freakingly magical Photoshop Context-Aware fill demo - but I'm really getting amped up for the announcement of Adobe CS 5 (and this is someone who only uses Photoshop and Illustrator from CS2 right now!) I haven't been using Premiere Pro since version 1, but now with all this Mercury Playback Engine chatter, I'm getting intrigued. Not only will it accelerate effects and playback, but H.264 compression as well. Now that would be something to get excited about. Unfortunately, it seems you need a particular kind of graphics card to get it to work. The word at last night's Boston Final Cut Pro User's Group meeting was that Mac users should be looking at the nVIDIA FX4800 . A nice piece of hardware that sells for $1,400, though if I want to get that, I'm going to have to replace my decidedly aged Mac Pro. This upgrade could cost me an arm and two legs! Adobe says that support for other cards will be ...

I wrote up some initial thoughts on the Great Camera Shootout last night, but having slept on it, I thought I'd take another stab at it, as a few more observations/thoughts/wishes occurred to me: Standard Disclaimer Firstly, I think it's a tremendous effort and I'm really glad they did it. Any comments I make here aren't meant to detract from the overall value of the piece. Yes, it could have been shorter, they could have added other cameras, they could have done this, they could have done that, yada, yada, yada, it doesn't matter. It is still a great experiment and my hat's off to them for getting it done! Thanks guys. And now, having said that... More Cameras I'm sure everyone will be suggesting cameras they wished were included. Why not a RED? Why not a...? You can't do everything. But I personally wish they'd done a "traditional" video camera - like the Sony EX1 or the Panasonic AG-HVX200A - just to round things out. Ther...

Apple has released another software update for their Pro apps . Run Software Update to download and install it: Final Cut Pro Fixes an issue with clip duration when removing reverse speed. Fixes an issue with the Log and Capture window that could prevent the window from closing. Fixes an issue with HDV to Apple ProRes capture via FireWire creating a QuickTime movie with no extension in the Finder. Cinema Tools Fixes an issue with importing telecine logs. Motion Fixes stability issues when using Motion on computers with limited graphics or system memory. Addresses issues with filters returning rendered results at lower quality. Fixes an issue with the Checkerboard generator rendering incorrectly in 3D. Corrects an image corruption problem when rendering complex projects in 32-bit float after applying a motion blur. Fixes issues with aspect ratios of shapes in projects created by choosing File > Import as Project. Improves the rendering precision of intersecting obj...

3-D is a distracting, annoying, anti-realistic, juvenile abomination to use as an excuse for higher prices. - Roger Ebert

The first part of the three-part "Great Camera Shootout 2010" is up at Zacuto's website, and it's well worth watching (and over 30 minutes long!). All of the shots were taken with Kodak 5217 and Fuji 8553 film, Canon's 5D, 7D and 1D mk4, Nikon's D3s and Panasonic's GH1. In the first episode they ran three tests of dynamic range and latitude. For those that want to get straight into it, jump to about 8:00 where they show the first test: a High Key scene. The second test is a Low Key scene, and lastly they shot a 13-stop latitude chart. The film showed all the steps, while the 5D managed 10.5 steps, 7D ~11, 1D 11, D3s 11, and the GH1 has 9. The chart test result is interesting because with the actual shots there seemed to be a general like for the 5D over the 7D, which just goes to show that charts don't always equate to real world results. So as expected, the digital cameras don't have the latitude of film, but it's closer than most people...

The HXR-NX5U has been in people hands for several weeks, and there's been a few reports of problems, most notably with a Buffer Overflow problem that occurs during recording. Not only does it interrupt the camera - and often hang it for several minutes - but it can also corrupt the card(s) and lose your clips ( which makes tape suddenly look good again .) As with any report on the Internet, it's been difficult to isolate or quantify the issue, but at least two people on the DVInfo.net forum have reported this problem. One user actually had both his camera, and the FMU unit replaced by Sony, and still had the problem. Interestingly, it seems to be occurring only when doing dual recording (to SD cards and the FMU). Marshall Levy has been in contact with Sony, and is looking to gather information, specifically: If you have had this problem with the following: SDHC (HD) only SDHC (HD) AND FMU128 (HD) SDHC (HD) AND FMU (SD) Also note if you're recording in LPCM or Dolb...

Zacuto, makers of various DSLR accessories, got together an impressive bunch of people to conduct a DSLR vs film shoot-off. The participants included: Jens Bogehegn (Executive Producer), Robert Primes ASC (Director or Photography), Philip Bloom (DP), Ryan Emerson (Colorist), Steve Weiss (Web Series Director). The first part of the series was supposed to by up at 2PM (CST), but they are running a bit late....seems they under-estimated their render time!!! And it looks like there's a lot of interest; their server seems to be a bit intermittent at the moment. Probably all those DSLR video fans hitting reload, reload, reload. In the mean time, the Trailer is pretty cool: UPDATE: clearly they had some problems and their server seemed to be down most of the evening, but the first part is up now here : Shootout

Chris Hurd at DVInfo.net has written another article about the prototype camcorder that Canon showed back in January . He's also added more photographs. This promises to be an exciting camera with it's 4:2:2 MPEG2 compression. With this quality compression, could it rival Sony's EX-1 cameras, or will it compete with the NX5U class? There are reports it will have 1/3" chips, rather than the 1/2" in the EX1, so it's hard to know. Will it be priced like the EX1 or the NX5U? There's also a question whether it will be CMOS or CCD (Canon's current professional camcorders are CCD based.) The prototype in the pictures is a wooden prototype, which suggests the camera may be more than a month or two away. Everyone's expecting more details at NAB, though it might not be available then. DVInfo.net: Canon’s Next Cam — Photos from SFO SuperMeet, Pt. 1

This sneak peek of the Content-Aware fill in Photoshop was posted at Jack Nack's blog . This goes beyond awesome and clear into magic. Will this be in CS5, or does "future version" mean CS5+? What about Premiere? This would be an amazing feature for Premiere as well. Suddenly I'm excited about CS5...(though I don't have my hopes up for it in Premiere.) UPDATE: A friend suggested that video would be harder for them to process, and sure, that's true. But video is really a sequence of still frames, so you can think about it as just editing a single frame, and then doing it again...and again. If worst comes to worst, you could edit the sequence in Photoshop if you had to. But to work well, you'd want it to take into account what the previous frame looked like, so editing in Photoshop probably won't be the answer. But if they can do this kind of magic, I don't think it would be that much harder to make it work on a sequence!

According to Amazon, the new book From Still to Motion: A photographer's guide to creating video with your DSLR is in stock... but may require an extra 1-2 days to process . Sounds to me like it's not quite in stock, or maybe there's high demand. You can Pre-order/Order from Amazon.com for $31.49 (the book should be out any day now...): From Still to Motion: A photographer's guide to creating video with your DSLR (Voices That Matter)

I've been editing an interview with someone that said "um" after just about every sentence. As soon as you noticed him doing it, it became very annoying. I noticed it while I was recording the interview, but I wasn't in a situation where I could stop and suggest to them that they try and avoid doing it. Managing talent that is reluctant or nervous about appearing on camera can be a tricky thing and making suggestions like that can just end up throwing them off even more. So I just let it go, hopeful that I could fix it in post. That was probably a mistake too, because there were a lot of them: Cuts for first 30 seconds Cutting out ums, ahhs and other verbal tics can be a real hassle. Not just because you have to get in there with the razer blade and slice away - and hope the audio matches up - but also because you have to do something about the video. If you're lucky and it only happens now and again, you can use a couple of cutaways. In some cases you can d...

Of particular note : Adobe Mercury Engine (hardware acceleration using graphic cards), and Adobe Story (a script writing application)... While it will be formerly announced on April 12th, it isn't expected to ship until about a month later. UPDATED: Added ship date and description of Mercury Engine and Story .

Alister Chapman has updated his post about problems with aliasing with Canon's DSLRs, noting that he's seeing aliasing in shots made by Philip Bloom: I’ve been shot down in flames on other forums for saying that this is a problem, but if even the experts can’t deal with it then what hope does everyone else have? I would love to have the option of shooting with the shallow DoF that the Canon’s offer, but not at the expense of having to avoid any kind of texture. And Philip Johnston joins in , though he notes that most people watching video on the web aren't going to see most of the issues, though he doesn't think that's good enough reason to overlook the problems: Can I suggest the watching punter would not be aware of such issues but then do we need to see a further drop in standards as television today in the UK is swamped with poorly produced DV footage.

James Cameron reportedly has a deal with Fox that " any time my movies make over a billion dollars I can leave the crap trailers off the DVD. " I don't mind trailers - sometimes I like to watch them. What annoys me are the discs that won't let you hit menu or the chapter jump and quickly get past the trailers if you're not in the mood to watch them.

The Lightroom 3 beta 2 is out, and you can find it here: AdobeLabs, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 A blog post at The Lightroom Queen blog lists the changes in this release , particularly it's new video handling and tethering (which works with several Canon and Nikon DSLRs.): Video Management Videos can be tagged, rated, filtered, added to collections, saved in smart collections, and managed just like the rest of your photos. The little video camera icon identifies the videos and shows the length. Double clicking on the video, or clicking on the icon, will launch the video in your default video software. Video support does not include editing within LR – that’s not its job. Tethering Limited set of certified cameras to start with, but more will be added. The officially supported list is: Canon 1Ds Mk2*, 1D Mk3, 1Ds Mk3, 1D Mk4, 5D*, 5D Mark II, EOS 40D, 450D, 500D, EOS 7D, EOS 1000D, Nikon D3, D3X, D3s, D300, D300s, D5000, D700, D90. Other Canon cameras may also already wo...

An article at CNET about "Transmedia" makes for an interesting follow-on to Raymond De Felitta's latest " Blogging City Island " piece, which detailed how to generate interest from both distributors, and then audiences. Except that was mainly the old way through movie festivals. Transmedia takes generating "buzz" to the next level: ...when you are taking a single story and distributing components of that single story through a wide array of media. When you collect those pieces of the media, it tells the [whole] story...When [you have] a text message and a video clip on YouTube, and a toy, or even a movie, when those things add up to a larger single story, that's a transmedia experience. Or is it? Do I really want to get involved in something that requires seeing a movie AND doing a bunch of other things to get the larger story? I'm sure people will experiment with it; the idea of a story being told through separate and different media elemen...

Seems I might have missed an episode of the Blogging City Island series at Salon.com as they say they are at part 6, and I thought that we were at five! But no matter. Whether it's part V or VI, these have definitely been worth reading. Director Raymond De Felitta's series covers the adventures of making the movie " City Island ," which went into limited release last week. In the latest episode he talks about what happened after the movie wrapped; the process of trying to find a distributor and getting " buzz ." This part was written just before the movie was released, so the author doesn't know how it was received, though he remains optimistic no matter what: A long journey -- and as I write this (on Thursday before we open), I don't know its outcome. But you do. And whatever it may be, I hope you feel like giving the movie 90 minutes of your life. I truly believe you won't wish for your time or money back. And I truly don't wish for the...

Back in the late 80's I was hanging out at Sommerville Community Access Television, and learning to edit video tape on  3/4" U-matic  equipment using three decks and a switcher. Having previously tried to edit 8mm video using a camera and a playback deck, it was quite a step-up for me. Then one of the staff got a job at a company called Avid. We were told that Avid was working on something called "non-linear editing." One day some months later, I went out to see a demo of the Avid software and I was blown away. Even though the video being played back on the screen was low resolution - not even SD resolution, let alone what we see when we edit HD these days - and even though their product was aimed at film editing, it was obvious that this was the future of video/film editing. Being able to randomly access your content, apply transitions and review your work almost immediately - and then change it just as quickly - was astounding. Going back to the "old way...

According to what appears to be an early press release drop at dpnow.com , beta 2 of Adobe's Lightroom 3 adds "the ability to import and manage video files from DSLR cameras for a streamlined workflow." I'm wondering what that means.... You can download the beta here (though it's unclear which version you get right now.)

The Intuit Focus is a pretty cool looking wired follow-focus unit that uses a notched rubber belt (and small drive unit) to control focus on DLSR lenses. There's a demo video at Viemo . Unfortunately, I can't find an actual website for the company/developer (there's just an email address on the Vimeo page.) A post on a forum suggested the price was going to be around 2,000 pounds. I think the idea is awesome, but the price makes it unlikely I'll get one... Red Rock Micro is also working on a wireless follow-focus that (they hope) will cost about $500. They have a preview web page . Check also this interview from Cinema 5D which sounds exciting...with a caveat: " fingers crossed everything will come together ".

Nathan Beaman at Final Cut User has instructions on how to get the new Canon Final Cut Pro plugin to work with the new Canon T2i/550D (surprisingly, it doesn't right now, even though it was released after that camera.)

I went down to check out the Panasonic 3D tour yesterday. Panasonic had taken over a store in the Copley Mall for three days (today is the last day in Boston) and had a series of walls set up with different technologies arranged on shelves or on the walls themselves. The first wall on the right-hand side had still cameras, the second video cameras, and the third had a 3D television set. I went straight for that one. Let me say up front that I'm a bit of a 3D skeptic. I've seen 3D movies a couple of times at Omni theaters, and I have the 3D DVD of Coraline , but I haven't seen Avatar . Though I've found these examples of 3D intriguing, I'm not sure I want to watch it all the time. Or even most of the time. In a way, it always seemed a bit more like a theme park ride than something I want to do regularly. The first demo TV was out in the open and evidently the fluorescent lighting in the store was effecting the glasses; every now and again there was a very notice...

Given that the HXR-NX5U list price is $4950, though it's selling for $3,999, I think many were surprised that the HDR-AX2000 has been selling at it's list price of $3,499.99. Well, finally Amazon is offering a discount!  Right now you can get it for $3,468.47 - that's right, a savings of $31.52! Amazon :  Sony HDR-AX2000 Handycam camcorder