Notes On Video

A good fluid head video tripod can be expensive; very expensive. Which is why I was intrigued by the Ravelli Tripods offered on Amazon. There are two "video" models; the Ravelli AVT Video Camera Tripod  [$78.39] and the Ravelli AVTP Professional 75mm Video Camera Tripod  [$146.89]. Even at that price, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the money without seeing one, but a friend just bought the Professional model, and I got to play with it for a bit. First impressions were quite positive. It seems to be solidly built; the legs are sturdy, and it's nicely machined and finished. The battleship gray finish is a little 50's in style, but it still looks nice. I guess I'd describe it as basic looking, but not cheap looking. There's some nice touches with dual handles and the quick release mounting plate has a lock and a latch. The bottom of the feet have an interesting rubber cover that adjusts to the surface it's placed on. The tripod comes in a light...

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous N E W - Y E A R!

Sony PMW-F3 vs Panasonic AG-AF100 Philip Bloom has received his production Panasonic AG-AF100, and has also had on loan for a week a pre-production PMW-F3. He clearly likes the PMW-F3 "This feels like a really meaty professional camera and if feels reassuringly expensive," but as he tweeted, there are other considerations: image is definitely cleaner with F3, but AF has the 1080p 60fps overcrank and is SO much cheaper. - Philip Bloom, Twitter Also, check out his comparison of field-of-view for both cameras with the same lens. PhilipBloom : Field of view comparison between the Panasonic AF-101 and Sony F3 PhilipBloom : Got a production Panasonic AF-101, hurrah and shooting with Sony F3k for first time today Camera Sales in Japan The 43rumors site has a chart showing the sales for DSLR cameras in Japan. The Canon EOS Kiss X4 (that's the T2i here in the states) has 13.6% of unit sales, while the 5D Mark II has just 1.6%. Does this mean anything? Probably ...

The figures are in for the year, and Toy Story 3 was not only top at the box office, it is also the highest-grossing animated film of all time (on an adjusted basis). It's also one of the best-reviewed movies of the year. It receives an almost perfect 99 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney ( DIS - news - people ) is also pushing the film for a Best Picture Oscar instead of just hoping for a Best Animated Feature win. The studio recently unveiled a clever line of "for your consideration" ads comparing Toy Story 3 to past Best Picture winners. Forbes : The Top-Earning Movies Of 2010 But it's not all good news; while the total box office remains high for the year, total attendance has fallen (the difference made up by increased revenue from 3D movies.) A full 8% of this year's box-office revenue, or about $850 million, came from the additional $3 to $4 a ticket that moviegoers paid to see films such as "Toy Story 3" and "Clash of the Titans...

The Consumer Electronics Show runs January 6 through 9th, and there should be something interesting announced by someone at the show. Last year Sony announced the HXR-NX5u and the HDR-AX2000 along with several consumer video cameras. It's also the time that Canon announced their updated consumer video cameras, as well as the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens. Neither company usually announces much pro-video gear at the show; though the HXR-NX5u is in Sony's professional range, and the EF 70-200mm is a pro-lens....which means you never can tell! The Canon Rumors site has a 5D Mark III rumor and they also separately report that Canon will announce some kind of camera - other than the point-and-shoots and consumer video cameras - at CES, though he's not sure what. He doesn't think it's the 5D Mark III, and I suspect he's right; unless Canon is feeling pressure from the Panasonic AG-AF100 , it would be unusual - and early - for them to announce the 5D Mark II...

I saw the Coen Brothers version of True Grit yesterday, and enjoyed it a lot. As I suspected, it was very similar to the John Wayne movie; the same characters, the same plot, and many of the same dialog lines. There were some differences in the story, but the plot was essentially the same. This movie seemed visually a lot richer and more detailed than the original - the locations looked more authentic and less like movie sets. Jeff Bridges was much harder to understand at points than John Wayne was, while Matt Damon's performance as LaBoeuf gave Bridges less chance to steal the entire movie. If you liked the original movie, or like westerns in general, you'll enjoy this movie. I do have one complaint though; I found the color grading of the movie somewhat annoying; a lot of it was very washed out. The Coen's seem to like to manipulate their movies - O Brother, Where Art Thou? was the first movie digitally graded and had a very yellow look, while their movie A Seri...

It's the holidays! Time for some Do-It-Yourself projects! How to make a rockwool acoustic panel A short how-to-video on Vimeo on making acoustic panels with rockwool and costing about 1/4 the cost of professional panels. I just wish the music in the background wasn't so in the foreground. Vimeo : How to make a rockwool acoustic panel How to build a dolly "Well, I know I'm not the first to do this, but I won't be the last. What follows is my Dad and I building a skateboard dolly. It came out great. For around $100 here is what we came up with... " mike.miller.producer: Skateboard Dolly Build A Panasonic AG-AF101/AG-AF100 test shot We had the opportunity to make a test shoot with Panasonics new AG-AF101 in order to see what this baby can do. We shot on a cold and snowy hamburg day in an old, dark factory with a small crew. We had about six hours of shooting and a hell of a time! 101 Images - AG-AF101 from Saubere Filme on Vimeo . An...

Sebastian Wiegärtner shot this corporate film for pralinen-pieger.de on the Canon 7D using Canon 24-70 mm 2.8 and Canon 100 mm 2.8 L IS macro lenses and the Kessler Pocket Dolly Traveller 2.0 and Manfrotto 504 HD w/ 546 GBK legs. Shot in 720p / 50fps and graded in Apple Color , with additional exposure adjustments in Magic Bullet Looks . Looks like the holidays to me!! Image Film Chocolate Manufacture from Sebastian Wiegärtner on Vimeo .

Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI 5" Monitor Review Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape reviews the new Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI 5 " Monitor: If you're a camcorder or DSLR user shooting video you likely already know of and understand the advantages of a small HDMI monitor. The LCD50 will be found attractive because of its small size and low weight, its modest price – just over $500 at B&H – and range of attractive features. The Luminous Landscape : Marshall V-LCD50 HDMI Monitor Redrock Micro NANO Running Man Rig Review Eric Koretz at The Image Hunter reviews the new light-weight Running Man rigs from Redrock: The video definitely wouldn’t have been as stable if I didn’t have that Nano. The Running Man handheld rig is quick to build, stable when using and easy to pack away. It fills a need that is surprisingly hard to create in hand held rigs. The Image Hunter : Redrock Micro NANO Running Man Rig B & H : Redrock Mico Nano - RunnningMan [$439.95] In...

Amazon says the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2  [ $998.19 ] is temporarily out of stock, but Engadget reckons that some are turning up in the hands of lucky buyers... Engadget : Panasonic's Lumix GH2 now shipping in America

How to Speed up rendering in Final Cut Pro In Red Giant QuickTip 26 :, Apple Certified Master Trainer, Simon Walker, shows you how to speed up rendering on the Final Cut Pro timeline. RedGiantSoftware:  Red Giant QuickTip 26: Faster Rendering in Final Cut Pro Comparing the Sony PMW-F3 to the Canon 5D Mark II Fxguide has some video that compares these two cameras, and demonstrates that the F3 has less rolling shutter, and doesn't have the artifacts you can get from the 5D because of it's line-skipping algorithm (the 5D has to go from the high-resolution sensor image down to a 1920 x 1080 image very quickly, so it uses a fairly crude algorithm to do it. This can cause moire patterns in fine details.) Some commentors think that the cameras shouldn't be compared because they aren't in the same price range, but that's wrong; independent and some big-studio filmmakers are using the 5D Mark II (just see Canon's recent television add) and the F3 is going after...

I previously mentioned that Aaron Williams has been tweeting color grading tips. Clearly the effort aroused some attention, as he is now blogging the tips with more detail (and graphics) The latest tip concerns using RGB Parade to make simple color adjustments. AaronWilliams.tv

Amazon's Deal-of-the-Da y today is $20 off the Roku XDS Streaming Player . $79.99 Roku allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV. Watch over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Hulu Plus and more. Listen to music on Pandora, or listen to your own iTunes playlists. Watch major sports, news, or original Internet programming. Amazon: Deal of the Day

Stillmotion Photo + Cinema was hired by Canon Canada to make an advertisement about a new service they are offering where they will turn a photo into an oil painting (using real oils and real artists!) Interesting . But what I found particularly interesting is the making-of-video. I actually like it better than the commercial! ...we wanted to bring the viewer into the scene where they are hammering on the deck but to do that we had to get very low to the ground where the action was. one of the things i like most about the cinevate atlas30 is the ability to shoot underslung. we actually removed the legs and just rested the end blocks on apple boxes so that we can quickly go between standard and underslung mode throughout both shoot days. There's a blog post explaining how the project was planned and shot, working with a slider, etc. There's some nice shots in there... canon artworks behind the scenes from stillmotion on Vimeo . Stillmotion blog : Artworks By Canon...

...here comes the Mac Apple Store . It's been reported that the Final Cut Pro download site will close on January 6th...that's the same day that the Mac Apple Store opens, so I don't think you can take that as an indication that Apple is abandoning Final Cut !

Noise Industries has released a free update to FxFactory, 2.5.3 . This update adds two new effects; an Analog TV filter which adds scan lines, distortion and the curve of an analog tube TV to footage, while the Channel Switch transition  emulates a channel switch on an analog TV. PHYX Stylist is a new set of filter effects that includes Skin Light (for adjusting skin tones) as well as Fog Generator , Cathode Ray (emulates night vision, old or damaged televisions and electronic rifle scopes), Haze Removal and Sparkle Star (photographic star filter) All work with After Effects , Final Cut , Final Cut Expres s and Motion . Video demos : Analog TV , Channel Switch & P HYX Stylist . Noise Industries

Creative COW DSLR Video Podcast Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman have started a podcast on DSLR Video. You can download it from iTunes . CreativeCow : Creative COW DSLR Video Podcast DSLRs for Digital Cinema DP, effects cinematographer and VFX supervisor Dave Stump talks about how he thinks HDSLRs fit into the film cinemtographers toolkit. He's neither totally for or against them, seeing both the advantages and disadvantages: It obeys a really old axiom, that when the only tool you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you know only one kind of camera, then every job you do looks like a job for that camera. But ultimately, what we learned from CAS is that every camera has its strengths and weaknesses. If you let the job tell you which camera to use, rather than just your knowledge of only one camera, then you are ultimately doing the greatest service to your producer. Creative COW : DSLRs for Digital Cinema: Their Potential, Your Responsibility Dian...

Philip Bloom has run a few short movie challenges over the last few months, and now he has an end-of-year competition that even has some prizes. You have until December 31st to produce a video no longer than 5 minutes that reflects what this year has meant to you. More Details: The biggest and best “weekend/ holiday challenge” so far…PRIZES TOO!

Singular Software has launched the DualEyes for OS X public beta program. Winner of TV Technology's 2010 Mario Award for its breakthrough technology, DualEyes is a standalone application for the automatic synchronization of video and audio clips in dual-system audio production. Designed to work alongside any video editing application, DualEyes is streamlined to accomplish the task of replacing in-camera scratch audio with separately recorded high-quality audio. The DualEyes for OS X public beta program is available for Mac OS X 10.5 and later, and can be downloaded here: http://www.singularsoftware.com/downloads.html . My review of the PC version can be found here: DualEyes for Windows

Here's a follow on from the question earlier in the week dealing with Flip footage that was in a Final Cut Express sequence set to DV-NTSC 32 kHz Anamorphic (I suggested he change the sequence to Apple Intermediate Codec 720p 30)... I didn't know I could change existing sequence settings - huge revelation! Thank you. So I changed the settings to Apple Intermediate Codec 720p 30. Then my sequence, which had the video filling the frame, changed to look like this: So you can imagine I'm like, "Whu?" Maybe a different setting? Or...? A test export looks great, and is 1280 x 720! But I can't afford to start from scratch at this point. Recommendations? -CW I'm not sure if there's a quick way to change it (i.e. change everything with a click of a button.) I feel like someone once told me about doing that, but I can't remember how; though it might have been in Final Cut Pro ! The slightly easy way to do it is this in the sequence; double...