cinematography What DV does best

clive

clive

OK -- so I'm working on a project and for it I need to really understand what DV does best as a format, from a cinematographer's POV.

It's cheapness is a given.

What I'm really interested in, is what as a format it does really, really well -- in comparison with other formats.

So, for instance, it's inherently easier to focus -- it copes with movement better than HDV etc etc.

Any thoughts at all you have about the visual strengths of DV would be appreciated.

My current thoughts all relate to how well it handles natural light -- its inherent fitness for ENG purposes.

Thanks
Clive
 
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Will Vincent said:
Careful... that's the kind of (no offense) careless attitude that causes people to view DV as an inferior 'low-end' option. If lit properly, shots are composed well, etc... the quality will be there, perhaps not the same resolution, but hey, Blair Witch and Open Water got theatrical distribution, parts of BW, and all of OW were standard def DV.
By the way, I'm sure you meant the quality of the final image (as in resolution, scalability, etc) and not overall production quality -- But, no reason to give 'em any excuses to continue to believe that DV is just a 'cheap' format, because it certainly needent be.
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No offense taken! What I mean to say is, that if it's going to come down to a few thousand megapixels, and it's going to cost $1000 more to get them, I'd rather use that $1000 to buy a giant submarine sandwich, and make the crew eat it as their meal throughout the course of a weeks shoot, even if it's a little haggard by the end of it.

But I'm talking about working within Clive's idea. For $1000, quality of video isn't going to be "spectacular". And I'm not a DoP- if I'm shooting a sketch, as long as the jokes are funny, it really doesn't matter to me if you can see the freckles. But with a good DoP who can haggle over quality issues, it can free up the rest of the crew to make a good movie.

Even though the original Clerks was shot on film, if you see the Clerks X DVD, you can see the original cut. It looks ASS terrible (I love you, Kevin Smith). But it got picked up and given the studio handjob. Looking at DV, if you have decent quality image, let the post-production studios worry about resolution and scalability. In the end, whatever you shoot, if it gets sold (big time), it's going to be fixed up anyway. Let your DoP worry about on-set image- as a director, make sure that what the camera (regardless of image quality) is shooting is interesting.

But what Clive seems to be doing is just that- downgrading the quality of everything to it's bare essentials and focussing on a hit story. Personally, if I were him, I'd want to get a DoP like you on the project, who has something to prove about DV being a competitive format. That way, he won't have to worry (too much) about format, lol.
 
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But what Clive seems to be doing is just that- downgrading the quality of everything to it's bare essentials and focussing on a hit story. Personally, if I were him, I'd want to get a DoP like you on the project, who has something to prove about DV being a competitive format. That way, he won't have to worry (too much) about format, lol.
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That's exactly what I've done -- I'm working with a DOP who is as comfortable on film as he is on all the digital formats -- he's also keen to make a reputation as an innovator.

On a fundamental level I believe if you get the concept right, write a great script, bring on board incredibly talented actors and a small incredibly talented crew, the format you shoot on is irrelevant, providing it meets the base level of quality for it to be:

a) transferred to a 35mm print
b) acceptable for TV broadcast
c) acceptable for DVD production

There is enough evidence to proove that those benchmarks can just about be met on well shot DV -- even if they are easier to achieve on other formats.

Now, restricted to a $1000 budget, I KNOW I can bring the production in on budget if I shoot high quality DV -- if I shoot any other format, then I'm going to need to do more "ducking and diving" -- more deal cutting, in order to get the job done.

I have no doubt, if I set my mind to it, that I could shoot this feature on film and still hit budget, if I had to.

The risk is -- you only need one good-will deal to collapse and your budget flies out of the window or your project stalls for another six months. That's a huge risk because, as we all know, those kinds of deals fall through more often than not.

But Spatula's right, the whole point of this exercise is to overcome format issues by having OUTSTANDING content, because outstanding content is ALWAYS more important than format, is ALWAYS more important than budget, is ALWAYS more important than genre.

OOPs! Slipped into rant mode there for a moment -- do you get that I'm quite passionate about this?
 
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Clive, if you do any chroma-key shots, and you have any trouble keying them, I wish you'd contact me and let me have a few frames to work with. I've done 99% of my testing of my chroma-keyer on NTSC format and PAL uses a different chroma structure. If I had a realworld example, I may be able to iron out kinks. You'd be doing me a favor, so I'd be happy to help you out in return. Also, I would be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or give you whatever assurances you need that I would not distribute your work. I'm just not that kind of guy!
 
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LOC, I think the HVX200 is a solid choice, unless a better model appears before you get your tax return. It also records DV50 (4:2:2 SD), which has double the chroma resolution of DV25 (4:1:1). The only catch is the lack of interchangeable lenses, but that's an expensive option that I may never excercise. It also offers excellent control of it's luminance response curves. For the price, I don't think you can beat it.

Not that you were asking for my opinion, but I have a bad habit of offering opinions without solicitation.
 
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Clive, if you do any chroma-key shots, and you have any trouble keying them, I wish you'd contact me and let me have a few frames to work with. I've done 99% of my testing of my chroma-keyer on NTSC format and PAL uses a different chroma structure. If I had a realworld example, I may be able to iron out kinks. You'd be doing me a favor, so I'd be happy to help you out in return. Also, I would be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or give you whatever assurances you need that I would not distribute your work. I'm just not that kind of guy!
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Thanks for that.

In an early incarnation of this project -- pre-blog, we were planning to do the entire film chroma-key, vectorise the results in After Effects and then export the whole project at full HD -- an entirely doable process.

The only thing that stopped us, wasn't the technical process or budget consideration (it would have made it easier to achieve) -- it was just that neither of us wanted to do a studio shoot.

I'm 95% sure we won't be chroma-keying, but if we do, I WILL take you up on your offer -- you know I rate your software very highly.
 
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oakstreetphotovideo said:
I've done 99% of my testing of my chroma-keyer on NTSC format and PAL uses a different chroma structure. If I had a realworld example, I may be able to iron out kinks. You'd be doing me a favor, so I'd be happy to help you out in return. Also, I would be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or give you whatever assurances you need that I would not distribute your work. I'm just not that kind of guy!
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If you need PAL greenscreen footage, I can provide you with some I did for our movie 'JENSEITS'.
 
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freezer, I an always use test footage; especially "foreign" formats, like PAL. You need only send me 1 second of video, but it must be native (DV) format, with no additional compression. If it's not in the same format someone would use for editing, then it doesn't work for my testing. I'm sure you understand, since you seem to be a pretty knowledgable guy.

You can e-mail, store on a web-site for me to download, or I'll give you an FTP site you can use to upload. My e-mail address, for this stuff, is support@oakstreetsoftware.com.

Thank you, in advance.
 
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oakstreetphotovideo said:
freezer, I an always use test footage; especially "foreign" formats, like PAL. You need only send me 1 second of video, but it must be native (DV) format, with no additional compression. If it's not in the same format someone would use for editing, then it doesn't work for my testing. I'm sure you understand, since you seem to be a pretty knowledgable guy.
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As I have the full rights to this footage and some other might be interested in it, I post it here for the members. Clips are 4 seconds each.

Greenscreen-DV PAL (4:2:0), directly from the cam (RAR compressed)
Greenscreen PAL (HuffYUV 4:4:4), but deinterlaced, denoised, sharpend and chromasampled (RAR compressed) - use the HuffYUV 2.1.1 Codec. Processing was done with AviSynth.

For those not familiar with PAL: it is 720x576 running at 25 fps.
 
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We should probably start a new thread, but thanks for the test. It's a great test of my vector keyer, because of the loose hair. Do you want to see the result?
pal_test_out.jpg
 
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This comment is not off-topic ...

The official word on chroma-keying DV is that there isn't enough chroma resolution in DV to pull a decent key. I'm not going to tell anyone this key is perfect, nor will I say it's as good as you could get if you had more chroma information. However, this is an example of what can be done, if you are determined to make something work, and you're committed to retaining as much quality as possible in each step of the process.

As has already been said, by Knightly, and others, DV can do the job, if you don't listen to all the people who say it can't be done. When I started playing with chroma-keying, I was using an S-VHS camera and digitizing with an analog to DV capture box. Therefore, I was getting the limitations of analog *and* DV compression. I did go buy a DV camcorder, but I refused to accept that I had to spend $25K on a 4:2:2 video camera just to pull a key. So I set about writing my own software, with the specific goal of making the most of the low chroma resolution by analyzing the luminance data, which is much higher resolution.

I'm not going to jump on a pedestal and shout that DV (especially mini-DV 25Mbps) is king, but knowledge, skill, determination and commitment are the key to an excellent production; not the medium on which it is recorded.
 
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I've just started watching Spike Lee's Bamboozled -- It's incredibly depressing -- it's been shot so incredibly badly.

I was hoping to find some innovative, clever uses of DV, instead all I can see are a catalogue of "things you should never do with DV." -- Maybe one shot in twenty is acceptable visually.

Not only is the camera work technically poor -- the script and the performances are patchy at best.

Let's hope Lars Von Trier did better with the Idiots.
 
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