[Richard Herd]

Ideally, you can have someone available on set to copy and verify the footage. This will add an additional person to the shoot.

[Richard Herd]

Watchin’ the Heston video, and they’re really good.

You might want to consider a jib/dolly combo gadget to execute niftier shoots. But otherwise this does a great job of doing what it should do: promote the band, although in the wide shot the drummer is hidden.

[Richard Herd]

[Richard Herd]

Just thought of another connotation of “soft” in photography–not sure if this is what you’re after, but “soft” can mean soft focus, like the soft-focus close up shots in movies like “Casablanca.” For such a look, filters on the lens provide the most efficient and repeatable method.

In my opinion, the ag-hvx200 can use a good dose of filtering, btw. (Personally, I find the sharp focus to be an overly sharp image picking up pock marks, laugh lines, and other so-called flaws in the skin that film-grain appears to hide. Not having any blurring filters, I end up applying a blur node via an additive node in Apple Color, where the other branch of the additive node is run of the mill color correction.)

[Richard Herd]

Well…you heard of it now. 🙂

Here’s the exact series of observations:
1. The mic would have a crackle or wouldn’t work
2. Switched XLR cables no crackle constantly worked.
3. Carefully observed the XLR cable and on the cable that didn’t work, on the female end, there was an extra “O-ring” fixed to the rubber insulation that made the female end too short. Whereas, the mic that did work, the extra “o-ring” was not present.

I’ve been recording audio and playing music myself for 21 years, now 37 started recording my bands during high school on various 4 track and 8 track equipment. As well as engineering live high-end productions for a local megachurch. And this too was the first time I had ever noticed such a thing. My friend James–a very well accomplished singer, songwriter, and enginer has been performing and recording for longer than that, and it was the first time he’d observed something like that. He made the observation on set, and when he showed me, we just kind-of wrinkled our brows and said, “Huh?”

But I assure you the observation was accurate. I don’t have the cable handy at the moment, but will take photos when I get the chance.

[Richard Herd]

Sounds right to me.

Does the mic need a battery?

My audio engineer friend, James, observed a problem: There are two types of XLR cables. One has a “deep seat” and another has a “shallow seat.” Be certain that the mic and the cable have the same “seating.” (If my memory is correct, the problem was on the mic-end not the camera-input, although we didn’t actually splice the mic cable to test.)

[Richard Herd]

I use my lekonic constantly when shooting DVCPRO HD on my panny ag-hvx200 because I find that the problem is contrast ratio and not necessarily “intensity” of the light source. In other words, the relationship between a 2.8 and 4 is the same relationship as an 8 and 11, so I use my lightmeter meticulously to achieve the exact contrast ratio the shot demands.

Nothing like a good experiment though: Set the 1K and meter it, set your camera aperture accordingly. Set the 650 until you achieve a corresponding contrast ratio. Shoot it, color correct, export to a deliverable, and see what you get.

[Richard Herd]

Thanks guys!

[Richard Herd]

Thanks!

[Richard Herd]

Not speaking from experience here, but … if you’re trying to print an HD sequence to a miniDV tape, then that poses a real problem. MiniDV is okay with 48k 16-bit audio, so that could be why it’s showing up.

Just a thought: Export the sequence using compressor to DV codec, then re-import the spot, and open the DV spot in a DV timeline, print to tape, see what happens.