Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Daniel Stone] “We work with a lot of agencies who hire us based on ‘buzz words’ beaten into them by the industry: Avid, Varicam, Cinealta, 10-bit Uncompressed, Smoke, Flame, etc.”
That is sooo funny, Daniel, and so true. We work almost exclusively for agencies, too… but I think I have a bit of an advantage over you, in that I’m betting I live in a much smaller market. Here, the ad wizards (there are probably a dozen or so agencies we work for) not only don’t know what words like Cinealta or Smoke mean, they don’t even know the words in order to ask for them…. fortunately. OCCASSIONALY I’ll get the “I’ve heard of Avid, do you edit on that?” question… but I will usually squash it with a “Well, it’s like Avid” comment.
Fortunately also, we are basically the only game in town for high-end production. Well, there is one other house (actually bigger and older… and more expensive), but they don’t own their own 35mm gear and primarily shoot 16mm, and we won’t touch that anymore (sold all my 16mm gear)… if a client doesn’t want 35mm I’ll talk them into HD easily. Again, it helps that our clients aren’t too lingo savvy. But we do good work for them, keeping them happy with effective advertising.
And… I wasn’t trying to win you over to the XLH1, I never thought I would do that… (just like there are tons of Varicam lovers out there, but I doubt I will ever be one, it only takes one bad experiece to sour you)… I just didn’t want anyone else to think my beloved XLH1 is a piece of junk without giving it a fair shot themselves.
Keep shooting! It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t on the screen…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[David Mack] “It doesn’t work with Audition?!?!!”
Like Alex I’ve never been able to get it to work with Audition either (even with Xena ASIO properly selected).
When I inquired of tech support at the company that built my system I was told something like, “Hmmm, I think it should do that. Probably. Hmmm, I dunno. Maybe not.” Very helpful, guys.
It’s a pain in the butt and I wish it were corrected (and will accept any sugguestions on how do to do), but frankly that is so far down on my list of “Xena Issues” and hoops that I have to jump through that I haven’t worried too much about it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Totally agreed.
Trust Leo, he knows what he is talking about… and has probably been using light meters since the day they invented sprocket holes (not trying to date you, Leo… I’m not far behind).
Yes, light meters are useful for setting a scene, but for setting exposure for HDV? No way.
I’ve found that on a video set a meter’s most useful feature is so the DP can look cool walking around taking readings and impressing the client.
I have a meter that’s worth more than I paid for my first car, but it almost never comes out of its case unless we are shooting 35mm… it’s virtually worthless on a video set (and I’m using spot-on accurate cine lenses).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yup, you have pegged our setup almost exactly (although I’ve certainly never spent $35K on a single prime, not even half that, actually).
I’m a BIG believer in that it all comes down to your eyeballs, that should be the final judge. You’ll see reviews from all kind of gearheads analyzing the most minutae of data… this camera is better than that one or such, because of some tiny bit of data… but in the end, that doesn’t matter. Numbers mean nothing… does it look good to your eyeball, or doesn’t it? That’s the ONLY thing that matters.
I try very hard to only wear a cinematographer’s hat, and to wear the “computer geek” hat as little as possible (especially since I’m not one). As Tim Kolb once reminded me, “technique comes before technology in the dictionary,” and it should in practice, too.
After shooting 35mm for so long (and still do, pretty often), I’m as surprised as anyone that HDV can look as good as it does. There are plenty of HD shooters that will whine and complain about HDV, long GOP, heavy compression… etc., but when shot RIGHT I think HDV gives an incredible bang for the buck, and I have never begrudged buying our P+S Technik converter or our primes for one second (part of my rationale when we bit the bullet to buy the Panavision-housed Leitz primes was that we could use them on our 35mm cameras, but frankly we never have).
People might talk to death inferior specs on HDV… but I’ve seen our footage projected on a 60foot screen at a local cineplex via their Christie DLP digital projector… and I must say it looked just about as good as the movie I’d seen in the same theater a week before (and frankly looked BETTER than the film I saw there a week later).
Now, all that being said… we shoot almost nothing but television commercials, and most everything we do winds up on the boob tube (and we always capture footage via HD-SDI as full HD, never as HDV for editing). But I would not hesitate for one second to shoot a bigger project with the XLH1 (in fact, planning a low-budget feature even as we speak)… although in that case I would probably record pure HD-SDI uncompressed straight to drive (1Beyond or Kinor 10bit 4:4:4 1864 Mb/s drives) rather than to MiniDV tape. Geez, now I’M being a gear head… must revert to my own advice: “If it looks good, do it.”
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Try Kaye Lights, at kayelites.com or kayelights.com. Decent folks.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Daniel Stone] “I rented the camera despite all the bad reviews”
Well, just to come to its defense… I guess we’re just reading different things, as I’ve hardly ever read even one word of bad press about the XLH1. I LOVE this camera.
I strongly suspect that you either got a total lemon of a camera (hey, it happens), or the rental house had it set up VERY weirdly (and there are a LOT of potential things to tweak).
I can’t imagine what is going on with your funky 3:2 pulldown issues. Mine performs and looks perfect. And I’m an old film guy who is used to shooting 35mm and watchin it telecined… maybe I got lucky with my camera, my pulldown looks perfect… no stutter, no judder…
I can’t really speak to the stock lens… we never use it (I think it has been on the camera body maybe twice). We use real prime cine lenses (via P+S Technik DoF lens converter) and good glass REALLY makes the difference. Then again, a single good prime can easily cost more than the camera body (and if you need a case full, that really adds up), but you get what you pay for.
Lattitude I also find to be more on the “great” side rather than the “horrible”… although I will admit the “factory default” settings aren’t ideal. We spent quite a bit of time tweaking the 30 or so adjustible paramenters until we finally got a picture that knocked our socks off.
As for the 24f 1080 firewire issues with FCP… that’s a definite one. But I point the finger squarely at Mac, not Canon (although it’s a non-issue for me, as we are a Premire Pro 2 house). At any rate, I’d certainly capture via HD-SDI rather than firewire, if at all possible.
I definitely do not see the XLH1 as a “newsgathering” camera by any means. It can be a great production tool. Our footage has been used in television commercials ranging from local to national spots… and we’ve seamlessly intercut the footage with Panavision-shot 35mm as well.
All in all, although the XLH1 is definitely one of the more expensive HDV cameras (heck, it might be THE most expensive)… I think it’s a bargain. I’d buy another one at twice the price. Literally.
But hey, to each his own…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well… I can’t speak to the quality of the instruments, although they LOOK ok. They are virtually identical to those also sold by another company.
I just have an issue with the VERY deceptive descriptions they give. They are taking advantage of the fact that most people are unable to use HMIs as they are generally large and very expensive… so the “masses” don’t know many technical (or financial) details about them.
The thing is, they throw up deceptive numbers, for example calling one unit the “ALZO 800.” Now, anywhere ELSE in the lighting world, and istrument with an “800” in the model number would likely mean 800 watts, and that’s what they would like for you to believe. But it’s NOT an 800 watt HMI. If you COULD buy and 800 HMI head for $234, well, I’ll take a truck full. It’s actually a 140 watt instrument. I’m thinking they hope you don’t notice (or that many people won’t know better) that it is actually the EQUIVALENT of 800 watts of TUNGSTEN light.
I’m not saying it’s a bad instrument, just saying that I think they would have you believe that it is five times as powerful as it actually is.
Their “2000,” is actually 420w. Pretty big difference if you were to compare it to an actual 2K HMI.
I think they are counting on the fact that people who are not used to buying and using HMIs don’t realize that a 2000w HMI is going to be at least a few thousand dollars, not a few hundred.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hey Bob….
Sorry I can’t speak exactly to your Z1 since I shoot Canon XLH1… but maybe you can apply the same theory.
We don’t power our camera with the l’il Canon batteries, we power it with A/B bricks. Canon makes a goldmount adapter that attaches to the back of the camera, which allows usage of bricks and converts the voltage down to 7.2 for the camera’s usage. And yes, like most goldmounts, it has the Anton Bauer “power tap.” I’ve never used it to power a lighting instrument, but I do use it to power a teleprompter on occassion.
I don’t know if the Z1 has a similar goldmount adapter available, but if so, that’d be one solution. Yes, it would add size and weight to the little Z1, but that might not be a bad thing… and I think you would enjoy having the extra power, too. One full-sized A/B brick will power my camera AND P+S Technik converter AND teleprompter all day and more (even though I always travel with at least three batteries I have NEVER exhaused even one).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hey Todd (fellow Todd, that is)…
Not to highjack this post, but this seems an appropriate place to ask in light of your last post…
As a network series shooter, can you shed some light on why the decision is made to shoot some television shows on 16mm these days instead of 35mm? That’s something I’ve wondered about for years. I doubt it’s really cost, on a big network show I bet they spend more on craft services than they do on filmstock. And I doubt it’s a size/weight thing, as there are plenty very compact 35mm cameras (and plenty of big 16mm ones).
Is it now that filmstocks are so good that 35mm is considered overkill? Or is it that the inherent greater DoF of 16mm is more suited to the TV screen? Or is it an aesthetic look, that sometimes 35mm looks too slick for a particular subject?
I’ve not bothered to look up which other shows shoot S16mm, but your show looks great. I can’t say that about 16mm shows of years past though… catch a rerun of Walker Texas Ranger sometime… doesn’t look nearly as good as 35mm. And there was an NBC show of a few years back called “Working” (remember that? that’s the problem, NOBODY does..ha), which was a S16mm multi-camera sitcom shot on stage… and it just looked gawd awful.
I’ve just always wondered what makes that decision, when the project is at a high enough level that it’s probably not a financial one…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I can’t speak to the Final Cut issues (we’re a PremierePro2 house), but as for the rest….
Glutton for punishment? Oh my, why? I LOVE the H1 and have been using one since the first day they rolled out the door. It’s actually probably my favorite out of countless cameras that I have bought through the years…. DV, 16mm, 35mm, HDV, HD… etc etc
But anywho, digress…
You said the footage looked jerky through the viewfinder? Does it also look jerky when you playback?…viewed through a real monitor? I’m betting not. It’s just one of the little pecularities of 24fps in many of the small HDV cams. If you watch the “live” signal (either via viewfinder or an external monitor) it will often look a bit stuttery… but playback recorded footage and it generally looks perfectly fine.
In reality your eyeball could probably not discern any difference in 2:3 and 2:3:3:2… the distinction is really only important if you are planning on doing a real film-out of your project. 2:3 is generally a safe bet though.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com