Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Thanks? I guess?”
To my eyes your avatar picture looks younger compared to your forum host picture, and I thought you did it on purpose.
– Don
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[Greg Barker] “Is the best format (without using direct HDSDI capture) for green screen going to be 1080p 30 and then upconverted to ProRes 422 HQ as was suggested?”
Yes, but if you know for sure that the green screen stuff you’re about to shoot is going to be mixed with interlaced HDV material from your Z1U then I would do a test first (if time permits) to see if shooting interlaced with the EX will do the job for you. It all depends on the particular project. You have to decide if it’s worth your while to de-interlace the Z1U footage to match the progressive green screen footage from the EX. Folks have be shooting interlaced green screen for years with good results. You probably know as well as anyone that lighting is more important than anything else when it’s time to pull a good key.
You can also choose to shoot progressive green screen, convert to Pro Res for pulling the keys, then use a good interlacing plugin before output to match the Z1U stuff. It all depends on how you like to work and how much time you can afford to spend in post. What most FCP/EX folks are doing these days is to edit the clips in their native codec but changing the render codec to Pro Res which is an option in the sequence setup menu. This way you have the best of both worlds and the least amount of cross converting.
[Greg Barker] “Also, I would really appreciate any “avoid this scenario if possible” or “this generally works well” with regard to mixing formats in the timeline.”
These days with the multi-format timeline capabilities of FCP 6 you can mix just about anything together successfully. FCP will conform the different formats to the sequence settings. The only time I’ve seen FCP get it wrong is when I copied a 720p EX sequence and pasted it into a DV NTSC timeline. Some of the EX clips were overcranked slo mo stuff and it got the aspect ratio wrong for just those few clips. The quick solution was to export a DV NTSC .mov file directly from the 720p timeline using the Export using Quicktime Conversion option.
– Don
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[Michael Pruitt-Bruun] “will fcp treat the clips as generic MOV files regardless of camera settings? “
Everything the EX shoots is converted to MOV format for editing in FCP. However, I wouldn’t presume to catagorize the MOV files as “generic” because in order to view and edit EX files in FCP you must have these minimum requirements present on the computer doing the actual edit:
Mac OS v.10.4.11
Quicktime Player v.7.3.1
FCP v.6.0.2If you want the editing computer to actually import and re-wrap the native .mp4 files to .mov files then you also need these minimum requirements:
Sony FAM driver (so the computer sees the camera or card as an attached device)
Sony Transfer Tool v.2.5.1 (to import and re-wrap the clips for FCP)
Sony Clip Browser v.1.0 (not necessary for editing but still an important tool to have)The above Sony stuff is free and available at the Sony web site.
– Don
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[Michael Shive] ” know that the EX-3 can handle interchangeable lenses but which ones will fit? Can anyone provide good recommendations on what lenses to buy (macro, standard, telephoto) “
Since the stock lens for the EX3 is a Fuji you can go to the Fujinon web site and have a look at what else is available to screw on to the camera without the need for a 35mm adapter:
https://www.fujinon.com/Broadcast/ProductCategory.aspx?cat=27
[Michael Shive] “Also, I’ve watched Phillip Bloom’s reviews of the EX-3 and Letus Extreme 35mm adapter and am wondering what the advantage of the Letus Extreme is if you can have interchangeable lenses already. Is it just to open the camera up to a wider variety of lenses that will fit? “
Not really. To drastically over-simplify the principle of how 35mm adpaters work, the objective is to reproduce the look of 35mm film. Products like the Letus Extreme have a large mirror inside it that the picture from the lens is focused on. The larger the picture the shallower the depth of field for a given focal length. In essence, the mirror becomes the camera’s imager. With this setup you can have the camera’s zoom set to full wide and still have a very shallow DOF. This is impossible to achieve with the camera alone, even with a good HD lens. The camera then simply records the image on the mirror. It all has to do with imager size and keeping the iris open far as possible.
[Michael Shive] “price is not a big concern. “
It will be. You can spend over a hundred grand for a set of Cooke Primes.
The resident prime lens guru here at the COW is Todd Terry. He’s unique in that he not only knows a great deal about prime lenses but he’s also willing to talk at length about the subject. If you can wait until the next Creative COW Magazine is published before you purchase anything expensive Todd will have an article in there about primes: what they are and how to use them, which ones to buy for various shooting needs etc. Definitely a read worth waiting for.
– Don
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[Michael Pruitt-Bruun] “how different will these files be when it comes time to import them into an fcp timeline that will be mostly populated by p2 derived files, and perhaps other tape-based hdv files? “
I’m not an Avid person but with FCP 6 different video formats now live happily in the same timeline. How it works is:
You create a sequence for the video format you have the most clips of. In your case it would be some flavor of DVCPRO HD since the majority of the footage comes from P2. Drop your XCDAM clips into the timeline along side everything else and FCP will conform the clips to match the sequence settings. Depending on the speed of the editing system all the various clip formats can be edited unrendered right up to the end of the edit.
Beforehand, native EX .mp4 files can even be re-wrapped to MOV format on another computer and the converted files can then be transferred to the editing station via portable FW or even USB drives. The fastest way to transfer from SxS Pro memory card to hard drive is to do the initial transfer using the Express 34 slot of a Macbook Pro. I can transfer an hour’s worth of video shot at the highest quality EX setting in about 5-6 minutes. A windows laptop with an Express slot is probably similar although I’ve never had the opportunity to test one.
– Don
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Keeping this thread on topic then, I have to point out that I’ve never seen you looking so…….young, Jeremy.
– Don
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Thanks, Raf. I’ll check out the “fit within dimensions” thing and see if that gets rid of the the pillarboxing as well.
– Don
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Hi Diego,
Welcome to Creative COW.
The fact that you’re editing in a 23.976 timeline leads me to believe that your footage is progressive (24p) and not interlaced. If your sequence settings are DV NTSC Anamorphic the default field dominance setting for the sequence will, however, be interlaced. Go to the Browser and in the field dominance column for the sequence it’s most likely set to “lower”. Right or control-click in the column and choose “none” from the pop-up menu. If you already have down-converted-from-HD progressive clips in that sequence you’ll have to make sure that all their field dominance settings are set to “none” as well. Changing the field dominance setting for the sequence alone will not clean things up unless all the clips within the sequence also are flagged as progressive. Just assume that anything imported into a DV NTSC project will default to interlaced and that you have to check everything and change to a field dominance setting of “none” as part of your workflow.
See that cleans everything up in FCP.
– Don
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No Prob. I don’t get it either. But, whatever works. Now, as long as it holds after you actually deliver it to someone.
– Don
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I see what you mean. I just did a test and exported a 5 sec. 4:3 320×240 clip using FCP>export using QT Conversion. Opened the clip with QT Player and the pillarbox bars were there.
Here’s the fix (maybe):
Open your 320×240 clip in QT Player. Hit Cmd J to open the properties window. Highlight the video track and uncheck “Preserve Aspect Ratio.” Now highlight the box where it says 320 and type in 315. The black bars disappear. Highlight 315 and type 320 back in. Black bars still gone? Me too.
– Don