Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Chuck Obernesser] ” I didn’t know if teams had a special wavier or some type of permission “
Well, since they are semi-pro, the best you can hope for is that they only get semi-sued. 🙂 Kidding…no, there’s no waiver.
[Mark Suszko] ” a possible issue regarding if the venue itself has paid for the permission to play it. “
The venue may very well have rights to play the song, especially if they are a large professional venue used to doing things right. But that would apply to playing the track “wild” over the PA system, etc., it would not allow synchronization and inclusion in another production.
[Chuck Obernesser] “what if we recored a local band playing that song. “
That would be cheaper, sure, because you are not paying for rights to the original recording or the original performing artist. But you are still responsible for “publishing rights,” as Joe said. And they are a big chunk of the cost. Dolly Parton made more money when Whitney Houston recorded “I Will Always Love You” than she did off her own recording of the same song, because she wrote it. Years ago I was involved in a commercial production for a healthcare system that wanted to use James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” A band and sound-alike singer was hired to re-record the song to avoid the performance costs of the original track… but the publishing rights were still about $30K.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That’s gonna cost ’em. Big.
We almost exclusively do broadcast work, but one time a corporate client did want us to license a particular music track for use in a trade show video… the track was only a semi-popular (at best) song about 25 years ago, but they wanted it because it did fit the theme of their video.
This license was for playing in a trade show booth for one weekend.
The damage… $25,000.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yes, the old school tried-n-true focusing method is to full zoom in, focus, and then re-frame. That works. But the peaking functions help you keep a good focus during those times when you can’t zoom in and re-focus, when you have to adjust focus during an active shot.
That monitor looks ok. It’s not very expensive… but it’s not full HD either (it’s 600 lines). But it does have 1-to-1 pixel function. That means it will pop the picture up bigger so you are seeing it at actual full resolution (or at least see the center portion of the screen at fuzz res) so you can get a good focus.
I’ll note that with my camera (the C300) the focusing aids (peaking, histogram, magnification, etc.) do not show up on an external monitor, only on the camera’s LCD. Maybe yours works differently, I don’t know.
On another thing… you weren’t asking for any aesthetic input but I’ll give you a piece of unsolicited advice. I believe you have been (or have been planning to) shoot these veterans on a black limbo background. I saw a shot or two of these gentlemen, either on your website or some other (can’t remember exactly which). It seems to me that a lot more “character” of these fellows comes through when they are shot in their natural surroundings… in a kitchen chair at their table, or an easy chair in their living room, or on their porch or deck. At least to me, they’d look a lot more natural and like “real people” there rather than in a faux studio setting. Your talent might be a lot more comfortable that way as well. And as the final bonus… lighting will be much more forgiving and you don’t have to be so “studio perfect.” Just my two cents… that might not fit in at all with your master vision for this project, but I thought I’d mention it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Patrick…
I can’t speak exactly to the XF-100 because I haven’t used that camera… does it have “red line” peaking? That’s what some Canon cameras use.
If so, those red lines will appear around everything that is in sharp focus when “Peaking 1” is turned on. If you don’t see the lines around what you want to be sharp, you know you’ll have to adjust focus a bit. If the camera doesn’t have the actual “red line” feature, then the peaking is just emphasizing the sharp edges. It works the same, just not quite as easy to see as the red line version.
The histogram version is a little harder to explain… in fact, I can’t really. I know intuitively how to use it, but I can’t really put it in to words. It’s one of those things that if you play with it, it will be evident how it works to you… or it won’t. You’ll just have to try it.
The thing to keep in mind is to make sure your talent’s eyeballs are sharp… that’s the key. If the eyes are razor sharp, everything else can even be a little soft yet we perceive the scene as in focus. Conversely, if the eyes are soft it doesn’t matter what else is sharp, the scene will be perceived as out of focus.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I have no answer, but was actually curious enough to throw your clip on a timeline so I could measure it.
The lag seems to be four frames… or about 1/8th of a second at 30fps, or 1/6th of a second at 24fps. Yes, very noticeable.
I’m not surprised there is a lag via HDMI, which is not uncommon (although usually that’s only one or two frames). What is a little puzzling is that there is also a lag with the on-body LCD. That one is surprising.
It very well likely may be that it just “is what it is.” I’d also be interested in finding out what someone more learned than me would say about that.
Frankly, I wish Canon would not market so many of their cameras as cinema cameras, when they’re not… they’re DSLRs that just incidentally shoot video. In Canon’s words the 1D is ” a breakthrough in cinematography in a DSLR specifically designed for video.” Yeah, sorry Canon, it’s just not… even though I love your cameras. In a way it’s a little surprising that Canon takes that marketing path, when they do sell “real” cine cameras as well (and I shoot with one of them every day). Then again, I’m sure it helps them sell more camera bodies.
Hope to hear what the real answer is as well….
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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BTW, Patrick, nice website.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Just couple of things…
First, just some semantics. There’s no such thing as a “head light.” I think you are talking about your back light, but that term could equally apply to a key light. It’s no big deal of course (and we have made-up or just-plain-wrong terms for things here all the time), but if you ever have to work with a different assistant or gaffer and ask them to adjust the “head light” they’re gonna look at you like you have lobsters crawling out of your ears.
It’s a “back light” (or occasionally a “hair light” or a “rim light”). Diffusing it could help with a bald head. Also, with a bald man or white-haired man or woman it can be helpful just to trim or flag it down so that it’s not so much blasting their heads, but mostly on the shoulders so it gets good separation there, and some of the light bleeds up onto the top-of-head area. You also don’t have to put it absolutely-directly behind them, but can move it a bit to the left or right to give a nice effect (usually in the opposite direction from your key light). Even far enough that it gives a little bit of splash on the side of the face can be a very nice look.
As for your shotgun, micing from below can work, but I’d usually only do that in a pinch… and even then it sounds like your mic is a fair bit farther from the talent that I’d usually prefer. You’ll generally get much better results booming from above rather than below, and you can mic much closer that way as well. If your talent could reach up at about a 45° angle with not quite an extended arm and touch the tip of the mic, that’s usually considered pretty good placement (although I try to mic just a big closer than that if I can). When micing from above, avoid the mistake that a lot of people make by pointing the thing right at the talent’s head. You’ll get getter results aiming at the neck, sort of base-of-the-throat area.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well I think that shows pretty clearly that the day-for-night filter does not give an actual day-for-night look. It might give you a leg up as a starting point for the actual color grading, but I’m not sure if they would really help or not actually.
I haven’t used it in a long time, but this thread got me curious enough to look at it again…
I just threw up a still frame and applied the Magic Bullet LOOKS filter using their day-for-night preset (the settings they actually call “Days of Night”) to see what it looked like.
Keep in mind this was not shot for day-for-night, so it’s not even remotely lit like I would if I was purposely doing day-for-night. Also, I didn’t tweak any of the myriad Magic Bullet settings (there are tons), as I wanted to see just what the default look would be. The default is, in my opinion, very heavy handed, but is a starting point and shows what it can do.
Here’s the result…
Not good by a long shot, but I think it shows that with a correctly lit scene and with the right tweaking of the post filtration, that you probably aren’t gaining anything by doing in-camera filtration.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Joseph W. Bourke] ” is anybody buying one pass 3/4 inch tape these days?”
Hey Joe if you find a someone who wants it, lemme know! We have unopened cases of unused virgin BetaSP stock just taking up valuable studio shelf real estate on our stage… a fair bit of DVcam, too.
I keep saying “We’ll use this someday…” although I can’t remember the last time the Beta racks were even turned on, and no one has requested a physical dub (let alone NTSC) in just years now.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, that’s going to be tricky. You’ll probably get various pieces of advice in here regarding ways to “fake it,” matting and inserting your screen in post. But I’m assuming that you want to and/or for some reason have to do it practically and really shoot a real screen.
Of course the “right” way to do this is to shoot with a camera with a “clearscan” mode, where you dial in an exact shutter speed to perfectly sync with the TV scanning. Unfortunately this is one of those cases where videographers who use DSLRs have to admit that they are using a tool that is primarily a still camera that just incidentally can shoot video. Ergo, the 5D, being a still camera, does not have a clearscan mode.
The first thing to do will be just to play with your shutter speed (that’s shutter speed, not frame rate). Heck, try it at a normal shutter speed in your first test… you might get lucky and have scanning minimal enough that it is acceptable. If/when it proves not, then start trying all the nearest adjacent shutter speeds. You might find one that looks good enough (which will probably be a slightly slower shutter speed). Don’t veer off the norm too much, you’ll want to stay as close as possible to a “normal” shutter speed that still works (“normal” being one over twice the frame rate).
If that doesn’t work and you don’t have any people/animals/machinery in the shot that would give away incorrect motion speed, there is something else you can try. You can produce special content for playback on the TV that runs slower than normal speed. Content running at 50% speed would be a good start, although 25% might work even better. When you shoot this, you can set your shutter speed quite slow and eliminate the lines. Then in post you speed the footage back up by the appropriate amount to get back to “normal” speed. With the right combination you can eliminate the scan lines, though it may bear a fair little bit of testing. Again, you just can’t (easily) have anything in the scene (such as a moving person) that would give away that you’re viewing a non-normal-speed shot.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
