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Documentary Project with multiple formats question
Hi All,
I’m new here, and glad to be here. I saw a question a few threads down that kind of addressed a question I have, but I’d like to get more specific to my situation.
I’m currently in the final stages of pre-production on a documentary for a non profit organization. It involves handicap kids and their journey to China.
I secured the use of a Panasonic AG-DVX100A camera for the shoot. Now, here’s the issue. The B camera for the shoot is a regular Panasonic consumer mini-DV camera. Also, China is supposed to provide me professional shot footage of a few performances there. These performances with be standard 29.97 of course.
So, taking all of this into account, should I shoot all of my A camera footage with the DVX100A at 60i or 24P standard? I’m VERY worried about mixing the formats, because of the hassles during editing and potential cadence problems. Everyone I have talked to says that it isn’t worth the hassle in post. Just shoot 60i. The mixing of the formats seems to raise a lot of red flags with all the editors I have spoken to.
The end result for the doc is broadcast TV and eventually DVD.
There will be a lot of hand held footage, so I’m a little worried about strobe in 24P also.
But the look of 24P standard kicks ass. Basically, I’m tormented on how to proceed and am looking for advice. I’m wondering whether the look of shooting 60i could slightly hurt my chances of getting the doc broadcast.
Also, how viable of an option is shooting 60i and putting that Magic Bullet 24P filter on the footage before final output? Would it look alright or crap?
Any advice is TRULY appreciated. I’m pretty new at DV production. I’m a born and bred film junkie. This doc is a big chance for me.
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2 Replies
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Hi – I believe if you shoot in standard 24p, you will still capture and edit your footage with the DV-NTSC setting, which is a 29.97 timebase that will also work with 60i footage. If your using FCP to edit, check out Ken Stone’s Final Cut Pro website for more info. I was in China 3 months ago shooting inside a toy factory under horrible fluorescent lighting, and I used 30p with a DVX 100 – the footage looked fine under those conditions – not breathtaking but certainly usable for broadcast.
Good luck!
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I think the bigger concern might also be that CHINA is PAL country. So all of the broadcaster tapes you will be getting from them will be in PAL. You might want to shoot everything with a PAL DVX100 A B instead. THis depends on how much you are relying on the “other” footage.
PAL will pose an extra problem because it will need to be transcoded to NTSC, which you can do within FCP with Natress filters. http://www.natress.com
Caontat me off list and I can help you plan this shoot if you wish.
David Battistella
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https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_view_posts.cgi?forumid=83
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Peace and Love 🙂
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