Nikon SLRs for Digital 35mm cinema

filmscheduling

filmscheduling

To make my next short, instead of shooting with a pricey >$20k HDCAM, I can buy a $1700 Nikon D2H.

It will be shot in 8FPS and then sped up in post to 24FPS. No location sound - the camera is going to be loud. Of course, the actors will have to move 3x more slowly - or not – but I’m interested in exploring that space. In post I could also do some interpolation and use stylized color grading or filters to achieve a unique look for the film.

Shooting in 2240x1448 or even 1504x1000 is easily better resolution than DVCPRO HD (1280x720 at 24FPS.) Blast the frames into Final Cut Pro HD and that is that. If I shoot in raw mode (3008x2000), and a postproduction house is nice to me then I could even finish on 2K at 2048x1556 and generate a nice 35mm filmout!

The D2H specs say that there's a 40 frame buffer, making for 5 seconds of shooting at 8FPS. This doesn't bother me as I've made films with windup Bolexes that have a max of 10secs per shot. However, I came across this interesting piece of information. (The writer is talking about the D70 but I'm sure it also applies to the D2H)

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d70.htm

"Nikon pulls some clever tricks with file writing so at JPG NORMAL and with a fast enough card you can shoot continuously till the card fills up since it writes as fast as it shoots... the camera-indicated buffer says one thing while the very clever writing schemes are working in the background with the correct cards. The dynamic buffering schemes are smarter than our ability to try to measure them the way we used to with all the previous static-buffer cameras, so just enjoy."

Pretty cool! Also - my shoot I'm not lugging around a huge, expensive camera. I'd normally prefer a gaffer to provide decent lighting. But if it's just me and a few actors, I could make my film practically anywhere - "tourists" don't normally require shooting permits.

For a 7-9min short I’m pretty excited about this approach. My last short was done in a traditional S16mm->HD->35mm filmout approach, so I’m interested in trying a less expensive method.

Thoughts?? Someone tell me why I’m nuts.. :cool:
 
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Speeding up in post won't work too well I'm afraid. Unless you have your actors move at 1/3 their normal speed it will look like your actors are moving i3x faster than normal.
 
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I would say that obviously we all want to be able to record high end HD with SLR's unfortunately 8fps is not going to cut it no matter how you go about it.

I am about to go the s16 > HD > ? route. Was the filmmout most expensive? Any place I find wants around $200/min. Thats as expensive as the whole rest of the process put together.
 
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Shaw: I love your tagline, "to avoid criticism, do nothing".

From what I've seen on the festival circuit "normal" short films hardly ever win. I'm going to play with the temporal dimension to achieve a unique look. It can range from stop motion to a simple speedup from 8-->24. I want to join the temporal dimension with color and blur the line with animation. The film is going to be massively post processed but that's what we have Photoshop, Final Cut, Motion, After Effects, etc. for.

P
 
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Wideshot: It's not going to cut it no matter how I go about it? Damn, all the animators in the world are going to be upset.. :cool:

Re filmout: Expect to pay at least $3k for a 35mm filmout (for a project up to 10 minutes). If you have a good relationship with the lab (or you simply beg and plead) you can get a deal but I've never heard of anything below $2k for a short.

Feature films pay around $40k for a filmout.

I did a 35mm filmout for Combustible Chef . At every fest so far it's been the only short that bothered to finish on 35! Watching it on 35 at the fests has been nice but if you don't need to spend that $, why bother? It can go into so many other things..

Overall I feel that it's not really worth it - unless you want to screen in old school European film fests w/ out digital projection (Berlin, etc.) Practically all the shorts and features I saw at slamdance/sundance were digitally projected except for the studio financed ones. Let the distributor pay for filmout :cool:
 
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? 8fps for live action won't spread to 24fps in post and look natural. There are severe limitations on how much you can go from undercrank to normal fps. 18fps is pretty hard to make into 24fps. Now obtaining normal fps from overcranking is relatively easy, much like how starting with high def and going to standard def works easily, but standard def to high def is nowhere near the quality.

Do a test. Post it here, prove me wrong.
 
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filmscheduling said:
At every fest so far it's been the only short that bothered to finish on 35!
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Really? All the fests I've been to have had plenty of shorts on 35mm.
 
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Which fests? At Slamdance/Sundance I saw almost entirely HD finished films. (Shot on 16mm/35mm/whatever but exhibited in HD).

In Seattle there was an IFP short budgeted at >$100K, I assume this included 35mm finish, but the short didn't make it into Slamdance/Sundance :( , I just don't think it's cost effective to finish on 35mm. (I'm saying this after going through the process of finishing my last short on 35mm and helping produce another feature in 1999 that was finished on 35mm, and seeing plenty of other shorts/features succeed on the fest circuit (at least in terms of awards etc.) with HD finishes.
 
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From what I understand from your posts, your not looking to get conventional live action footage. The idea you are proposing is more akin to pixelation. I think it would look pretty interesting.
Your going to need to capture to a laptop with a big hard driver, otherwise your not going to get much filming done.
 
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It will be shot in 8FPS and then sped up in post to 24FPS. No location sound - the camera is going to be loud. Of course, the actors will have to move 3x more slowly - or not – but I’m interested in exploring that space. In post I could also do some interpolation and use stylized color grading or filters to achieve a unique look for the film.
Click to expand...

Do it. :yes:

I'd love to see how that works out. Even if the actors were able to magically move consistently at exactly 1/3 speed, I bet it would still look super-creepy when viewed "normally" at 24.

The over-exagerated movement that most people tend to do, when faking a slow-mo, would be almost frightening or alien when returned to a simulated "normal".

_______

Dang! This is such an interesting idea!

I'll have some leftover S-8 cartridges at my next film, in a two weeks. My camera can only get down to 12fps, but I'll have the actors do some of the scenes afterwards at half-speed to try this out.

:cool:
 
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Before I had thought you were trying to acheive natural 24fps with 8fps somehow, but now I see you are going completely for the effect of doing it in this way. could be interesting!
 
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Here is what an IATSE DP friend of mine had to say: "Yes, the future of electronic cinematography will be the marriage of the 35 digi still camera and the HD camera. Panavision's new HD camera has a chip about the size of a 35mm frame. It is getting closer. My hope is that the HD makers take some of the simplicity and durability and bring it to HD. That is my main criticism of the HD cameras. They are just a little too finicky and not as solid as film camera. "
 
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