[Bob Cole]

[Andy Mees] “not the most overused … that crown surely has to go to the dissolve.”

Very funny. And of course you are right.

But let’s not be ungrateful to the greatest gift to editors since sprocketed film. For many an under-budgeted project, dissolves can be the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

And while they are sort of cheesy-looking, morphs can be very appropriate in certain cases, like home improvement shows about people transforming their ugly kitchens into showplaces. (I’m curious: Has anybody ever seen a morph in a “real” movie?)

Thanks for all the leads. I’ll check them out, while hoping I won’t have to morph very much.

— BC

[Bob Cole]

Interesting challenge!

I’m assuming that you’re selling more than the window itself — that you want to tell the customers that their beautiful window/door will give them a terrific view of outside. So you need to be able to show correct exposure of the window frame, while holding detail in the exterior. And, because most windows are vertical, and video has a horizontal frame, you’ll be seeing more than just the window, and you don’t want all that area to be dark and depressing.

You may have to rent a big daylight source to put inside the room.

Good luck and let us know what works.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Frantic] “a movie house that only take widescreen”

First, make sure of that assumption. If the movie house plays your movie off a DVD then the DVD player’s automatic mode may well play your 4:3 spot correctly, i.e. so that it appears in the middle of the screen, with nothing projected on the side “columns.” This is the highest quality solution.

Otherwise it gets more complicated. I haven’t done this yet in FCP so others should guide you on this, but if you are creating an NTSC flavor “16:9” DVD-R, you will be making an anamorphic 720×480 pixel image, either with black columns on left and right, or blowing up your 4:3 to fill the wider frame.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Pat McGowan] “If the HPX500 images look anywhere near as good as the HDX900 then the camera will be a winner.”

True, Pat. But from what I’ve heard, the HPX500 won’t record the new AVC-Intra codec. Being able to use the most efficient codecs is going to be a big factor. Please tell me I’m misinformed about that.

The reason I’m so anxious to get the best comprssion algorithm has to do with the P2 workflow: shoot, offload, erase, shoot…. I’m at least going to wait until the cards are big enough, and the compression algorithm robust enough, so that I can load up for the day, shoot at maximum quality, and do all the downloading once, after the day’s shooting. I am not even sure I’d want to erase the cards after I’ve downloaded them, until there is confirmation that no data has been corrupted. It happens! Call me nervous, but call me again for the next job.

The extra slot for the fifth P2 card, & the AVC-Intra codec, will make the 2000 more of an all-day camera. Or I could just forget this 500 vs 2000 debate, get an XDCAM, and have archival storage from the start…. “I think I’d better think it through again.”

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[AlexHuber69] “Are you building these?? If not, might contact you off board if you don’t mind to get some tips for do-it-yourselfers.”

ditto.

Good COW article?

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

No, it doesn’t.

I thought that when a 2/3″ true HD camcorder came out for about $20K, I would jump (sell my Sony Z1 and buy the 2/3″). The 500 looks especially appealing: I’d stretch my budget and buy it, if it seemed as if it would do everything I needed for the next five years. It falls short of that. The 2000 seems just about perfect, but unaffordable.

I agree about the depth of field problem and low light insensitivity of the smaller cameras (at least my Z1). But for the money, I’m probably sticking, hoping that competition will soon drive even more value into the $20K arena.

Chris, I agree and disagree with your observations about size. True, the small form factor is a definite plus in certain situations, but I don’t think that people really care whether you have a shoulder-mount camcorder anymore. In the iPod age, small is cool. And when you see shots of little cameras on various network news magazines, you realize that acceptance is pretty broad.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Pat Ford] “the noise was caused by the dimmer acting on the mini-plug cord.”

You folks probably already know about this one, but in the spirit of sharing, I’ve had another problem with dimmers (and I think my dimmers are pretty well-made, by Magic Gadgets).

I got a buzz from using a dimmer, even with balanced ables, isolating the light fixtures’ wires from the mic cables, camera on battery…. I even changed audio to wireless, before I realized I was hearing the dimmed filament in the lighting instrument. So I changed bulbs — no difference. My particular lamps wanted all power or nothing.

There are lots of alternatives to outboard dimmers: scrims, added diffusion, moving the light back, or, best of all, using dimmable fluorescents (Kino Diva, in my case) instead of tungsten.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Ty Ford] “two fixtures with 650 W lamps”

Try:
lower wattage bulbs
scrims
diffusion
place lights further away

Dimmers on tungsten fixtures can be a problem, in my experience. In very quiet settings where I have to record people talking, dimmers can create a buzz on the sound track. I think my “Magic Gadgets” dimmers are well-made, but the dimmed tungsten filaments can generate a buzz on the sound track, even if I run the camera and audio on batteries and am religious about not crossing mic and power cables.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Jim Calahan] “have the crew cheat on a night shoot by subtracting 12 hours when they sync multiple cameras.”

Or you could tell the concert people they have to start at 10 am, not 10 pm.

— Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks Dennis for the explanation of honeycombs. The only thing I can say to Walken in favor of fabric grids is (1) they’re easier for small-crew location work, and (2) nothing says “We’ve wrapped!” like the sound of the Velcro’d fabric grids getting ripped off the Chimeras.

But thanks to Dennis’s explanation, I know more about where I’d want to use a honeycomb grid in place of fabric.

— Bob C