[Bob Cole]

Natural light would be a mistake, because over the course of the hours it will take you to do the animation, it will change too much.

At the same time, duplicating an “actual” bright sunny day might be garish, with deep shadows. It sounds as though you want the “feel” of a bright sunny day, i.e. an upbeat, sunny, summery mood, which in Hollywood involves silks and HMIs. That could mean either frontal lighting, or heavy backlighting with lots of fill. Just avoid “high noon” lighting — i.e. keep the lighting sources lower.

I’d experiment, if I were you, with whatever instruments you can afford. I’m guessing that for the bright mood you seek, you’ll want is to have one big but lightly-diffused key from near the camera and a sharply-focussed hairlight to make the characters stand out from the background. Just avoid multiple keys, as the shadows will make for a very inauthentic mood. If all you afford for the key is a bunch of broads, pump them all through a big silk.

You didn’t say why you disliked the other videos, but whatever they did – don’t do that.

bob c

[Bob Cole]

[Michael Palmer] “start exploring some picture profile settings”

Tell us more! I’ve just started exploring Picture Profiles – fascinating. There are quite a few blog posts on the subject online – do you have any recommendations as to where to start?

Another aspect of the 24p issue: most of our output is for the web. I assume that another benefit of shooting 24p as opposed to a higher framerate is that you can achieve a higher picture quality for a given data rate, if you have fewer frames to produce every second.

Thanks.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

I believe you’re totally missing the intent of the DP here, Robin. It’s a “clean look” which emphasizes the product and what it can do for the viewer – it is not about making nice portraits of the individuals.

[Bob Cole]

Squeaky clean! The background matches so perfectly with the webpage color that I’m pretty sure it was keyed in. There is a nice white wrap on the faces. Could it have been shot against a white background that was then luma keyed? With a garbage matte on the faces, to keep needed foreground detail?

As to Robin’s comment, I’m getting a little sick of this Apple-perfection, to tell the truth. The Cult of Sparseness is wearing thin. It’s sort of funny – for years the “grunge” look was everywhere. This too shall pass.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thank you John. I don’t understand 24PsF, despite having just read the Wikipedia article on it. But as long as I don’t have trouble monitoring the 24P image on my monitor, and as long as I’m not recording to an external device, can I just ignore this setting? I’ve left it at the default, which is 60i.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

An odd experience with ShotPut Pro, and I wonder whether anyone else has had a similar one. Yesterday, I tried several times to transfer an SxS card, using ShotPut Pro. It kept getting stuck at the point where it said 5 minutes remained. I used Sony’s Clip Browser ver. 2.6 to do the transfer, one hard drive at a time. Then I tried ShotPut Pro again – and it froze at the 5 minute mark – but I went out to dinner, and when I came back, it was finished. So all is well, sort of.

Should I be concerned? The one thing I didn’t think to try was a restart of the MacBook Pro.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

Thanks Danny. I don’t think I would’ve figured that out without your pointer. How’d you come up with that ?

[Bob Cole]

Very, very nice. I found the word “lawnmower” a bit off-putting, but the tone of the music fit the images.

Full of beautiful shots and editing – very evocative. I especially like the way you integrated TL and regular footage. I’ve always found the foreground of TL landscapes distracting because it looks so frenetic, but the Joshua trees are much more stable, and their TL movement looks almost real-time against the stars.

Two questions, if I may: in the TL centered around 1:40, did you use a consistent exposure? Are you aware of the Little Bramper program, which allows exposure adjustment for changing lighting conditions? And in the TL around 2:10, was that motion control or did you do a tilt-down in post, from a fixed angle? If the latter, it looked much better than most that I’ve seen.

Thanks for sharing.

Bob C

[Bob Cole]

[Ron Pestes] “Also, media that works is not cheap. I have had several errors on SD cards and so has my partner with his EX-1. SXS seems to be the only reliable card and they ARE expensive. “

Roger that. I’ve never had a problem with SxS cards, while I have had one problem with an SD card. Many people do fine with SD cards, but it only takes one blown shoot to more than pay for a set of SxS cards.

[Bob Cole]

This is too late for your shoot, but there are a number of websites which specialize in timelapse; google timescapes and openmoco. I’m about to test one solution, and will know more in a few days. Reply if you are still interested.

Good luck – sorry I didn’t see your post until now. You may have had more luck in the DSLR forums here, too.

Bob C