[Todd Terry]

Here’s an even weirder thing we just noticed…

When, under “Build,” “Format” is changed from “Blu-ray” to “DVD,” then Encore does recognize the recorder and can burn a DVD. It’s just that when we change it to “Blu-ray” (what we need), that “None Found” shows up under the recorder selection.

Grrrrrrrrrr!

Help appreciated…

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Nice!…. I need to get some of those bags.

Seriously, for shipping we really depend on Federal Express.

We used to do tons of dub shipping via UPS, until about a decade ago when the drivers went to strike for a couple of weeks and we had to switch to FedEx. We’ve never looked back.

FedEx has probably handled about a zillion dubs for us. Their people are so good that once when we were closed one day, our regular driver Marty actually brought a package to my house (“Y’all were closed but this was priority and I thought you might need it”).

I’ve never had a package lost or delayed with FedEx, except once during a particularly brutal winter when the Memphis airport was in the middle of a blizzard.

When shooting on location we ship gear by FedEx as well in numerous Pelican cases. I fly with my primes in hand as carry-on (I never check the lenses as baggage… they are far more valuable than any other piece of equipment and never leave my sight) but everything else is FedExed. We ship cases “Hold at FedEx” and send them to the location nearest the destination airport, hotel, or shoot location. They can be a fair bit more expensive than shipping by other methods, but I always know exactly where my stuff is at any moment, and it always arrives.

My one gripe is with their shipping software. FedEx feels the need to update it or come out with a completely new version every few months it seems… and their “improvements” invariably result in something that is clunkier, more complicated, and difficult to use. Ten years ago the FedEx shipping software could be operated by a third-grader and worked flawlessly and effortlessly. Now, not so much.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Yeah, I think that’s going to be one of those cases where the 5D proves to be the wrong tool for the job. A “regular” video camera would likely result in a much cleaner key in that instance.

I’m not sure even high-end software such as Ultimatte would be able to nicely handle such extremely soft key edges… but it might. Keep in mind though that it’s not cheap, and the plug-in itself might be more costly than even the editing software itself. For example the Ultimatte AdvantEdge software (for FCP, Premiere, After Effects, Avid, etc.) goes for well over a thousand bucks… actually I think it’s more in the $1300-$1400 range these days. Pretty hefty change for a plug-in, but well worth it if you do tons of greenscreen.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well I’m a BIG proponent of big-sensor cameras and DoF converters… because I like being able to control DoF and get it shallow when I need it.

But you have just discovered one of the big problems with doing so… when doing blue or greenscreen work and any kind of compositing, the super shallow DoFs can make keying very difficult.

If you encounter a similar situation in the future, your best bet is to try to make the depth of field much deeper so you have good clean edges (exactly the opposite of what you might be trying to do in noncompositing shooting, where you’re trying to get shallow DoFs).

Do that by either stopping the camera down as much as possible (you will probably have to have a much brighter set, crank up the light)… or shoot with a smaller-sensored camera. This is one of the cases that a little 1/3″ camera might be very preferable over your big-sensor camera.

Some really kickass keying (such as Ultimatte) might be able to handle the fuzzy edges pretty well, but in those cases especially you’ll have to make sure your key lighting is absolutely perfect with no green spill at all.

Film purists looked askance at Lucas for shooting the last Star Wars movies with a 2/3″ camera rather than a big-sensor camera (such as the Panavision Genesis) or with real 35mm film… but those movies were so composite heavy that I’m sure betting it made doing all the matte work easier since the depths-of-field were much deeper.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I shoot in a quite a few hospitals and other health care facilities… and I’m heavily dependent on HMI lighting there, since so many of the spaces are very large, or so often the spaces I need to shoot in have large windows.

You have a tungsten package already… it’s not huge, but it’s decent and could likely cover most average hospital-type settings in a medium-sized or smaller environment. Because of that, if I were you I might consider throwing some of the rest of my dough into daylight equipment. You’re not going to be able to buy a new HMI arsenal with what you have left… but if you shopped around and got lucky you could probably pick up a decent used 1200w HMI and maybe one smaller daylight instrument. Or maybe a couple of Joker-Bugs with not too many miles on them if you got really lucky, maybe a 800w Joker and a 400w. Those would serve you very well for environments that already have a lot (or some) daylight… no more wrestling with color temps, gelling tungsten instruments, or covering windows.

Actually… my first inclination would be to make sure you have all the grip equipment you need… C-stands, bounce cards, grip heads, sandbags, arms, cutters, flags, maybe at least one 4×4 frame, etc. But you said your purchase has already included a lot of grip equipment, so maybe you are already covered in those areas. If so, then I’d consider some daylight instruments.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Francois, if you can improve your lighting, I bet you will be happier with your end product.

I’d suggest you haunt the Cinematography or Lighting Design forums for a while, see if you can’t learn some things that will improve the lighting plot.

Even a small space in an apartment and a minimal lighting kit can give beautiful images… if you use them correctly. You say you are “diffusing” the instruments, but my guess is that you are not diffusing them enough, or in the right way. There are plenty of high-dollar solutions for this (purchasing large soft intruments, softboxes, or Kinoflos), but there are also plenty of ways to do this on the cheap. Bouncing your light into or shooting them through white umbrellas will probably be the easiest/fastest/cheapest way to get nice soft diffuse light that shouldn’t be too harsh on your subjects. Lots of people use big Chimera softboxes, but if you are on a budget Photoflex makes very good boxes that are much cheaper. Or hit eBay and search “softbox” under Photographic Lighting and Equipment. I’ve seen boxes there for as little as $20. You can buy diffusion material in big expensive rolls (Lee 250 or 251 are favorites), or you can go to a fabric store and buy frosted shower curtain material for only a couple of bucks a yard (just don’t get it TOO close to your instruments). Also, bounce light. You don’t need expensive reflectors. The biggest pros in the business use “bounce cards,” which are simply 4×4 sheets of white foamcore. You can buy slightly smaller versions at a hobby or office supply store for a couple of bucks.

You admit your lighting in your present setup is not good… and I think that’s the key and the place to start. Great images rarely come from poor lighting. Improve that, and I think you will be happy.

Good luck!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

It can be very difficult to convince clients to spend more on production… and you see a lot of clients who are simply ignorant to the value of it. We know of many local clients who will spend tens of thousands of dollars on airtime, but don’t see any flaws in their $200 commercial.

A local car dealer in our market (one of the biggest in the nation, before they went belly up) regularly spent about $60,000 a month on media… but aired crappy cheapo commercials.

I think part of it starts with education. We try to convince clients that that should be investing at least 20% (more, if they can) of their media budget in the production side. If they’ve only got $30,000 for a budget, they still need to put at least $6,000 of that into production. It can be a hard sell, but it can be done, especially with smarter clients.

The argument is, you’re spending a lot of money to get your message out. Why are you shelling out buckets of dough to put out a bad message?

Some clients have a hard time grasping that such a “huge” chunk goes into the production side (we of course contend it’s not a huge percentage at all). That’s usually when we whip out our “Superbowl Analogy.” There have been several several instances of advertisers airing a one-time-only spot in the Superbowl. They probably spent about $2M for the airtime. Some spent several million on the production. They understood the value of the message being good.

In the end though, some just can’t be convinced. There are always those that think cheaper is better… and for some of those you just can’t win. My advice would be, as your build your business, try your best to gravitate to those clients who do appreciate the quality of your work. Those who don’t will eventually get weeded out as you no longer need them as clients.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Don’t apologize for the long post, Francois… more details are always better than too few.

I don’t have many solutions, but might be able to shed just a little light on your situation…

Firstly, today’s super-small palmcorders can be notoriously difficult to focus (especially manually, and it seems especially Canons). I have the precedessor little HV20 that I bought just for fun… and while otherwise a great little camera for the money, it is maddenly difficult to focus.

However, usually autofocus does work pretty darn good.

I would suggest firstly that you try to improve your lighting situations, if possible. The better illuminated a scene is, the better the camera’s autofocus system will work. If the scene is dim, if the gain has to be kicked up or the shutter speed slowed just to get an acceptable image, the autofocus is going to find that situation a challenge to nail sharp images.

[Francois Arsenault] “how is it possible for the LCD to show a focused picture when the captured footage is clearly out of focus?”

At least this part of your quandry is very easy. The simple answer is, the footage is not in focus, it just appears to be in the viewfinder. This is because virtually all viewfinders, especially in small cameras (either eyepieces or flip-out screens) are very very low resolution. I don’t know the exact specs, but I’m betting your viewfinder shows only 200 lines of resolution or so. Ergo, a semi-soft image can look just as sharp as one that is perfectly in focus. It’s similar to when you might look at HD footage on a standard-def monitor. What might appear to be razor sharp could actually be fairly soft when viewed on a real HD monitor.

And actually, that’s going to be your best bet… a location monitor. Forget about trying to use the viewfinder for eyeball focusing, they are fairly useless for that (and not just your camera, but most any viewfinder). You need a decent HD monitor on location if you eyeball focus. And be wary of the little LCD TTF monitors that say they are HD… most of them simply can accept an HD signal, but are not really displaying an HD picture. Many of them are only displaying about 400-500 lines, so look at the actual technical specs very carefully should you buy one.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I would ask, what type of work do you do most (and what’s most profitable)? Or what area of your business do you most wish to grow?

The only real problem that I have with “post production consultant” is that it doesn’t sound very hands-on… which of course editing is very much hands-on. “Post production consultant” sounds a bit more like a guy who shows up in a suit and wants to “take a meeting” to discuss how to better help your production… rather than someone who gets in there and gets his hands dirty.

Maybe that’s just me… there are far wiser brains in this forum that will probably chime in…

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hear! Hear! to Roger Corman…

I always really liked the guy. Not because of his movies, but because of his lets-get-this-done attitude.

My next door neighbor Ed, who is a fine semi-retired actor with many TV shows and features to his credit, acted in a couple of Corman’s films in his early days. Ed is an endless source of crazy stories of those days.

Aside from making movies, not everyone knows that Corman was also in them on occasion… and not a bad actor (“Silence of the Lambs”, anyone?).

And my six-degrees-of-separation personal connection to him… before I was a wannabe director I was a wannabe actor. My thankless roles in bad TV shows and Lifetime movies led to my present career on the other side of the camera. Which all started 21 years ago when I stepped on stage for the first time in my first role… that of the evil dentist (a role made famous by Steve Martin) in a really excellent production of “Little Shop of Horrors.” I even got to ride a cool vintage (and finicky) motorcycle on stage in my first entrance. So, in a way I must thank Roger for my present career. Or at least the path to it.

Go Roger.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com