[Trevor Ward]

It’s the second episode. It’s about half way through. Mr. Ford is in Moreau’s office (actually the office of the President). You CAN’T miss it. Then, there is a scene where a presidential candidate and Sofie are in a lobby of a hotel or something to give an interview and the camera pans real quick to something upstairs and pans back. You can see it there too.

Now that I know this, I bet I could find it all over the place.

-tw

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

I do a lot of documentary work, either run and gun cinema verite style shooting or interviews. Using prime lenses don’t appeal to me much because they become restrictive in how I can compose my shots. I’d be forced to either move closer or further away, or constantly switching lenses. So for this reason mostly I’m interested in zoom lenses. Even if I have to purchase two different zooms: a short zoom, like a 14-50 and a longer zoom like a 50-150.

So excluding expensive prime lenses, and expensive ENG lenses, is my best bet SLR zooms?

Is there a resource somewhere that explains the different mounts and what kinds of lenses come on those mounts? PL, EF, EF-S, micro 4/3, 4/3, 2/3, etc.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

I’ve shot several documentaries and small budget and call sympathize with your limited budget. I will tell you from experience that the most important piece of equipment is what you use to capture sound. The 2nd most important thing is how you use light.

You don’t mention if this is walking and talking, cinema verite style shooting, or if it’s shooting interviews. With interviews, you can control light and sound much better.

1. Buy yourself a good shotgun mic and make sure it’s as close to the sound source as possible. If you afford the Sennheiser K6 shotgun with a windscreen (for windy conditions) then you’re off to a great start.
2. You don’t need extra filters or lenses. I’m not familiar with those cameras, but they don’t have interchangeable lenses, right?
3. Record in HDV.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

I had similar defects on an old 150 I used to own. However, that’s what I saw in the playback, the log&transfer AND the transcoded footage. It was useless (although the audio was still good). Long story short, I ended sending the camera back to Panasonic and they said there was a problem with the mother board or something and replaced the whole camera. However, I lost 3 cards’ worth of footage.

-tw

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Since you’re not worried about a TV signal, and only worried about a web output, I’d go with 25. If most of it is 25, then you have less work to do.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Paul,

Are you using this TV as an extra display (dual display setup) or are you using this TV as an output video monitor?

I’m wanting to expand my desktop on my 15 MBP and can’t figure out if there is any advantage or disadvantage of using a 23″ HDTV vs. a 23″ computer monitor. I do not own an MXO2 mini, but would consider it when I can afford it.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Jay, what did you end up doing?

I’m in the same boat. I’ve been editing on my 15″ MBP too long. Color doesn’t like it. I can’t afford a VIDEO monitor and MXO 2 Mini to do “proper” monitoring. I figure a 2nd monitor will at least make my working experience better.

But do I go with computer monitor or 1920×1080 HDTV? I figure if I go the TV route, I can later buy an mxo2 mini and then I’ve got either a screen OR a video monitor.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Great!

The reason why you didn’t need to scale up the video in the motion tab is that FCP kind of did that for you automatically, I’d bet. Look in the tab and check to see what scale factor it is. I bet it’s more than 100%.

You still needed to render unless you transcoded into the same codec as your timeline. Especially if you left it as a H.264 file. FCP doesn’t like H.264 files, whether they be .mov or .mp4.

As long as you found a workflow that works for you and gives you the results you were looking for.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Hmmm. I don’t know then. I know iMovie does that sort of thing, unless you uncheck an option box. I didn’t think FCP did that.

Have you tried logging your clips first, then doing a batch capture? Or are you using Capture Now?

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl

[Trevor Ward]

Here’s what I would do:

1. Continue like you have in terms of transcoding everything into a ProRes format. LT is fine, especially since your final delivery is web.
2. Create a timeline that is the native codec of your HD footage (1080p30 ProRes LT). Go ahead and drop your SD ProRes clips from the iPhone into the timeline.
3. Using the motion tab, scale the SD footage up to fill your screen (You can either fill to full width, thereby cropping some portion of the top and the bottom of your footage. Or you can scale to height, thereby leaving black bars on left and right side of screen. personal preference there. When you scale full width, the two downsides are that you crop top and bottom, and the scale factor increase, thereby increasing the fuzziness of your image.)

As far as upconverting, my own experience with trial and error is that just using the scale in the motion tab produces good results. Some filters do it, but I found some of them to do a inferior job. Make it easy on yourself.

-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl