9 posts tagged “tech”

No tapes to review the past few days, so I began to download clips from tapes I have already reviewed. In the past, I have tried to break clips up at a fine level, but here I find myself choosing longer excerpts. I think this is in part because I have become more adept at creating and using subclips in Final Cut. I have also had some experiences where I wish I had maintained the integrity of a particular interview, shot, or scene even though my intent was to use just a few seconds.

I am thinking about backups, too. I have a Time Machine drive formatted on-site, but want an off-site backup as well. Initially I thought that Jungle Disk would be one response, but the wireless connection on the Mac Pro is so wonky, I'm not sure I would ever be able to complete a transfer, or download the software. So, until I get that solved, I am thinking about a drive that I keep at the office most of the time.

I started reviewing my interview footage yesterday and I have a few early thoughts on what I've watched.

• Subjects who like to talk are good. You have listen to much more than you will need, but you're also more likely to get good material (I also have to say that some of the less relevant discussion I've heard in these first few tapes is as much a product of the questions I asked as it is a product of subject answers).
• More than before, even, I wish I had had a DP to work with. I undoubtedly would have done more set-ups with individual subjects, and would have ended up catching some little things that slipped by last summer, lack the reflections off of the glasses of one of my better interviews. Having written that, the video generally looks good. Rich, vibrant colors and clear images.
• Sound quality is excellent. Buying a field mixer before the shoot was obviously a good investment, as was the sound workshop I attended at the Northwest Film Center and this little tool.

As I've alluded to in other posts on the comics documentary, I've cobbled together a crew for the summer from students, recent grads, and Anne-Marie. Mostly, this has been to help with interviews; while you can be a one person crew working with digital media, it isn't the best way to work, at least not for me. However, I've also been asking folks to help with logging tape, an essential, but tedious job.

Logging tape entails providing useful descriptions for every shot on a tape, usually including information like time code, angle, and subject. Getting this done is helpful for a number of reasons. Once you have a tape logged, subsequent viewings can be devoted to evaluating quality and content. A log lets you see at a glance what's on a tape. It makes it possible to fish out specific kinds of footage without having to actually watch an entire tape. It can guide the creation of a batch list for downloading footage. I'm sure that there are people who work without logging their tape, but I can't imagine not doing it, especially not on a project where you're going to be working with hours and hours of material (I generally don't create a tape log for events like this weekend's 48 Hour Film Project, but that's a time issue, and we usually don't have much more than an hour of tape to work with in any event).

I've been asking members of the crew to log tapes, and with some mixed success. Not surprisingly, no one is eager to do this job, but most have been game when asked directly. The main limiter I've discovered is that most don't have access to miniDV cameras, and certainly not to miniDV decks. All but one person has informed me that they only have access to hard drive-based cameras, or everyone they know just uses the video function on their digital still cameras. One person told me that he's never had a miniDV machine, only hard drive based ones.

I have wide control and access to a couple of camcorders from the university, but not enough to keep everyone working simultaneously. I guess that miniDV became outmoded at the consumer level without me really noticing.

I've written previously about how budgetary limits have compelled me to be my own director of photography on the comics documentary. This is not an entirely bad thing, it forces me to do work that makes me a better filmmaker, but last week I got a sharp reminder as to why it's preferable to work with a photographer.

My camera, a Panasonic DVX100a, has a set of "scene files" which allows you to use and save different combinations of settings for color, detail, frame rate, etc. I think I've been reliable about checking that the scene file setting is correct before we begin shooting. However, last Friday, for various reasons, things were moving slow and we were behind schedule, and clearly checking the scene file dial simply slipped my mind. When I changed tapes during one of the interviews, I noticed that the dial had moved, which will happen sometimes when I put the camera back in its bag (hence, the need to check). Unfortunately, we weren't in a location that set off any alarm bells about how the image looked on the LCD screen - muted colors, no real dark areas, s stable camera and subject - and it wasn't until I actually saw the dial that I realized what had happened.

I haven't looked at the tape yet, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to smooth out or finesse the differences in footage during editing and post-production without too much trouble. Fortunately, even though I haven't tested this yet, my understanding is that Final Cut Pro makes it relatively easy to work with different kinds of video (here, I'm looking at needing to work with 24PA and 60i). In retrospect, I probably should have kept the "wrong" scene file for the rest of the interview, but my first impulse was to change it back to where it should have been and that's what I did. This will make it easier to integrate the second half with the rest of my footage, but poses a new challenge of how to reconcile the look within the interview.

The lesson here for me is that one of the practical reasons for working with a photographer is that that person will have nothing to worry about except the camera, making it less likely that something like this will happen. But, to tweak a cliche about teaching, you have to work with the production you have, not the one you wish you had.

This past weekend Anne-Marie and I went to work on the comics documentary. We shot footage of 24-Hour Comic Day at Cosmic Monkey Comics in northeast Portland. We came away with three hours of tape, including about one and a half hour of time-lapse footage from over night. You can read more about the weekend, including links to an archived live blog of the event, on my production blog for the film.

Because I don't really have a crew or group of collaborators lined up yet, I've had to act as my own director of photography, which is not something I like to do, but which I recognize is a good thing. It makes me a better director, and expands my skill set. Over the weekend, in particular, I got some more practical experience with the Fig Rig, including seeing how easy it is to work when fully hooked up for sound (the answer: quite easy). Anne-Marie and I talked about trying to coordinate me on the camera and her with the mic while moving with the rig, but we decided there wasn't good enough reason, especially since we may have ended up looking like fools!

The week or so before, like many an independent filmmaker these days, I agonized over frame rates and aspect ratios. My deliberations over frame rates are partially available in comments to this post on Susan Ee's blog. In the end, I decided to shoot in the DVX 100a's “24p Advanced mode.” The reason is partially aesthetic, I do like the softer more organic look and feel of progressive video better than I do interlaced, at least for “film” projects. Is 24p “better” than 30p? No. Yes. Depends.

In a truly digital world, I'd probably choose 30p. It simplifies shooting and editing, while retaining much of the analog aesthetic of 24p. However, it is the remote possibility of wide-ish theatrical distribution that tipped the balance to 24p Advanced. From just about everything I've read, the biggest downside to choosing 30p is that it is virtually impossible to get a decent transfer to film with such footage, and, indeed, most shops don't even offer it as an option.

Of course, interval recording is not possible in 24p on the DVX100a, only in 30p or 60i. I shot the time-lapse footage in 30p. Hmmm. As I write that, maybe 60i would have been the better choice, but I wanted to minimize the disparity in appearance between the regular shots and the interval recording.

I did play with warming up 60i as the primary shooting mode, but applying “Cine” settings in that mode tended to just produce muddy looking video. And that brought me back around to 24p as the only way to preserve the transfer-to-film possibility.

Theatrical presentation is also a primary reason for thinking about aspect ratio. For better or worse, my camera's native 4:3 signifies “TV” or “video” not “cinema” or “film.” Unlike the 24p choice, I have my own reasons for wanting a widescreen look for this project.

The film is fundamentally about the city of Portland, and cities are cinematic, either in look, e.g., skylines, or in subject, e.g., the young and hip. Furthermore, as comics and movies are increasingly integrated, it seems like a natural choice.

The question is how to get the widescreen look.

I have two in-camera options: “squeeze” mode and letterboxing. Squeeze mode essentially stretches the 4:3 image into a 16:9 image. Letterboxing adds black bars to the top and bottom of the image.

There are two issues with squeeze mode. One is a loss of resolution (as I understand it, at the center of the image, resolution remains high, but as you move away from the center, the stretching results in lower resolution). The other is the LCD monitor on the camera lacks a widescreen setting, so the image you see while shooting is distorted. An appropriate external monitor can fix this, but I find that cumbersome on documentaries.

With letterboxing you sacrifice pixels for the black bars. In addition, the bars become part of the image on the tape. Effects and filters added in editing and post-production will apply to those bars as well as to the rest of the recorded image.

What I am trying to do is shoot in 4:3, but “protect” for widescreen, that is, letterboxing in post-production. Essentially this is the same as what happens in camera, except that you retain full use of your CCDs for recording “real” information. In addition, the masking you apply in post-production is independent of your recorded footage, which means that transitions, etc. will only apply to what's between the letterboxing.

The trick here is leaving enough room at the top and bottom of each shot to accommodate the masking. However, I will be able to reposition the image when needed, another reason to shoot a “full” image rather than using the in-camera letterboxing.

Like shooting in 24p, shooting in 4:3 will make for easier “blow up” or “up rezing” to film or HD.

One thing I've learned from trying to research these questions is that there are no hard and fast answers. For every person who cautions against, say, squeeze mode due to the loss of resolution there is another who will tell you about the project they just worked on where this was no big deal, even after a transfer to film or HD. My choices are fundamentally conservative in the sense of wanting to conserve options for different formats for distribution and presentation styles.

In the course of a few days, I was able to put together rough assemblies for all but the opening of one of the scenes for 5 Cups of Coffee. I am blocked on the opening for a scene in one of the character's living room (as always, check the 5 Cups blog for details on the production). The room is a mess, and the basic idea is to begin the scene with a montage of shots of the mess. For some reason, I haven't been able to find the right entry into this segment, or if I do get a notion for where to start, where to go next is not so obvious. At some point, I'll just have to start experimenting, but with the rest of the film so far I've had clear visual maps to work from. I've never really tried to use the browser in Final Cut Express as a storyboarding tool, but unless I get some other kind of inspiration in the next few days, I'll start playing with clips in that way to generate some ideas. The nice thing about the shots I have to work with for the montage is that they are all fairly static images and the thumbnails pretty well represent the full content of each clip.

This Saturday is the last day on the shooting schedule. So far nothing in the footage has been so bad or unsolvable that we've been moved to reshoot, and I hope that it stays that way. Given the no budget, all volunteer character of this project, it will take a pretty serious set of flaws to prompt a reshoot. I just can't see imposing more demands on people who have already been generous with their time and talent. At the same time, if something does come up wrong, I think that I'll be able to call all the necessary people back into work. Knock on wood, though.

Last night we shot footage for an evening scene at the main character's apartment. We were racing against the sun and eventually had to make use of our one halogen lamp to light the scene. Mostly, it was just really hot in the apartment. After closing the door and windows, and turning off the fan, what was a pretty comfortable place quickly became like a boiler room. Still, we managed to work well. This was the first scene where we were coordinating shots with the an answering machine and I think we managed to get the timing right. I am concerned about the lighting. We seemed to pushing the limits of the DVX 100A's low light capabilities, but hopefully we just made it before it got too bad. Even though we're shooting in 24P mode, I don't mind a few video tells here and there. Indeed, the cool tone we've chosen to use for the film already leans more in the direction of a video-look than a film look (stereotypically, film is considered to be inherently "warmer" than video; I'm not sure I buy this - both media can be made to look a variety ways - but you're always playing with potential audience expectations when producing a work of cinema).

As implied at th beginning of this entry, working in the heat underscored for me how dependent Maren and I have been on the skill and good graces of friends and contacts to get this project off the ground and in production. Kerry, David, and Katey, not to mention Katey's finacee, Brian, who was just along for the ride, all stuck it out and gave their best in less than ideal conditions. No one is getting paid. The artistic process is its own reward here, and that seems just cool with everyone. I am very grateful for that.

As was the case on Saturday when we had the audio session, I very specifically packed my still camera to get photos of last night's shoot. And, also like Saturday, I completely forgot about it once I got on location. So, no new photos. Maren was taking pictures, so maybe we'll have some updates for the stills album.

At the end of last week, I put together three rough assemblies of the coffee house footage we shot in the first week of production. After talking over the different versions with Maren and Kerry, I spent some more time over the weekend refining the favored cut. We are trying to strike a balance in this scene between evoking the space of the coffee house as an active, public place and focusing on the drama between the principal characters. For me editing is where a film starts to become real. All the ideas you've had begin to take concrete form (though not always in ways intended). I would say that my approach to this project has been to treat everything, from script to taped footage, as raw material for transformation in editing. Until I began looking at the unedited footage and deciding what to download into Final Cut Express, I had not realized how similar looking at material for a scripted film would be to documentary work. In documentary work, I fully expect not to know what I've really got until I play it back. I anticipated that on a scripted, fictional project, there would be more predictability. And in a broad sense, there has been, but at a micro-level it is not much different from a documentary. Little changes in an actor's face, for example, that went unnoticed during the shoot, are more apparent in reviewing footage. I've selected certain takes, and made certain cuts, on the basis of details like this, details that I was largely unaware of while shooting on location.

The other major activity over the weekend was audio recording. As you can read here, answering machines are important "characters" in the script. We recorded the messages left on machines out at Maren's on Saturday. The toughest part here was getting the machines set up, and then thanks to Kerry, a borrowed Snowball mic, and the usual intuitive ease of Apple software, the session went well. I mixed up one of the tracks over the weekend and will do the others before Saturday's shoot.

The lighter lifting we did for the film this weekend was to pick up some more props for the coming shoot. You can read more about the production design and designers for 5 Cups of Coffee here.

I downloaded clips from the footage we have so far. My main motivation for doing this was to get at least some of the material saved somewhere else besides the tape, but it was also to get editing underway, at least on a conceptual level. One thing I've noticed is that clips tend to look darker on my PowerBook's screen than on other monitors. Because I know this, I know better than to just start messing with brightness and contrast, but it does make it tough to judge whether and in what ways I need to go about lightening up clips that end up in the timeline.