August 27, 2006

EN: Fighting with HDV Compression Artifacts

I knew before I started shooting with HDV that I would face problems in postproduction when it comes to bluescreening and color correction. Just the amount of problem I would face was always in question. Well lets put it that way: If you are doing any filming and plan on doing ANY postproduction forget about HDV alltogether. I have never seen a worse quality movie under my fingertips and I deeply regret going HDV now. All resolution advantages go out the window if you do even the slightest bit of contrast or individual color correction and the image looks like it has been blown up from 160x120 badly compressed webmovie. The whole picture - even with a locked off camera that has minimal movement starts to shift and wobble. I do not understand how anyone would buy such a camera or even recommend it - especially for VJing where you almost always add coloring effects onto the picture. Its bad and if there is gain grain in the picture shots are almost absolutely unusable. Bluescreens have huge edges that even badly shoot DV footage can do better (and it bad there already). HDV is a a technology that can easely be skipped if you are in the market for a new camera get the Panasonic which has twice the compression data rate then the "normal" HDV cameras and hope that this gives you a bit more room. I fully understand now why professionals talk about "doing everything in camera" with HDV because the footage that you shoot is the footage that you get. I am introducing heavy graining to divert from the compression artifacts now and it has cost me 4 days to pull a decent bluescreen. If you have the choice between HDV and something uncompressed normal resolution go with the uncompressed normal resolution you will have better quality after all.

Posted by fALk at 12:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 19, 2006

EN:WallyWoods 22 Frames that always work

twentytwopanelsthatarealwaysrightbw.jpgI should have seen this before production. It makes a lot of sense. Wally Woods 22 Frames that always work are showing comic compositions - camera angle, distribution of contrast, depth and character exposition - that strangely are present in most comics and most films at that. Its the "easy" guide to comic strip creation and at that to making impacting emotional storytellling in pictures in general. Looking at the 600 loops I have so far reviewed in Kalkin: Revelation my inner gut must have told me to adhere to these "standard framings" before even looking at them - about 90% would go in one of the categories interestingly enough. Check it out in big poster sizes

Posted by fALk at 11:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 09, 2006

EN: Kalkin Revelation > Thanks to the Production Crew

Thanks again to everyone who helped during the production - since i am going down into postproduction stress disorder in the coming weeks and might forget the one or other name here is the fresh from the brain list of all the people who helped throughout. The absolute thanks go out to:

First of all Willow de la Roche for beeing a superb main actor, 2nd director, costume designer, make-up artist and a wonderful girlfriend :)

Kevin Lockwood for being a great first time actor/ part time parkour runner and absolutely helpfull throughout the production with making props being a part time camera assistant and running around best boy.

Michael Nangle for jumping in to do the Big Fish character on such short notice and playing it wonderfully.

My Mom and Grandma for making the delicious catering.

My Dad for organizing a magnitude of last minute things and letting me borrow some much needed equipment.

Sebastian Klemke for giving out his precious camera.

Björn Jüttner for being the natural fun Scriptgirl and superb aware helpful cameraassistent.

fRED Bordfeld for offering his flat for crazy shooting throughout the night, giving out his power generator, going location scouting with me and most of all being the injured parkour runner even running under pain.

Toas aka Butterfly Soulfire to lend us some kickass futuristic clothes.

Peter Przybyl for coming to the lab shoot as light and camera advisor.

Steffen Piech for fighting with the Bluescreen and beeing an extra.

Roman Pollack for second Bluescreen Fighter and camera assistent.

David Marschalsky for second camera and superb lighting during the race start/end shoot.

Sebastian Sadler for beeing a parkour runner under final semester test timestress.

Hilmi for also beeing a superb badass parkour runner.

Wonny for giving us lovely support in using the "Archiv" in Potsdam and the whole Archive crew.

Barbara Nowack for putting herself in the frontline to offer us access to a state owned laboratory

The poor guy from the greenhouse who spend a saturday night looking at 4 strangers moving a camera around and shouting "bitte".

Frau Kossack for convincing his boss that its ok for us to shoot at the "Speicherstadt" in Potsdam and her Boss for allowing us to go forward.

Oliver Keresztes for being the Registrar superstar that he is :)

Annett, Brina, Sünje, Shu and the other extras for making the film a little less "lonely".

The grumpy leftist at the house for letting us use their entrance in the Brunnenstraße in Berlin (after shouting at us).

The HFF Potsdam staff for giving out the cool CineFlow Light and the emergency HDV camera upfront.

THE WEATHER GOD. You are our hero clearing up the sky whenever we needed it.

Posted by fALk at 10:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 09, 2006

EN: Kalkin Revelation > Shooting til the End

It has been quite some experience and I can say I won´t do it again without a budget and under tight schedule and with an camera where its virtually impossible to tell if a picture is in focus. We had our last official day of shooting today -> keeping absolutely in schedule (which is amazing considering the weather was playing games all along, about every important person/location/equipment got rescheduled canceled or shortened just a day before it was needed. But it seems we have about 98% of all 360 shots done -> 10 hours of raw footage that needs sorting and checking and then get into postproduction - for which I only have have roughly one month left! From this point thanks goes out to ALL who helped out with small and big things over long periods and small periods of time - without you I couldn´t have done anything - you know who you all are. (I am a bit in a rush and don´t want to miss out anyone - a list of all names to follow soon ;)

Now some photos collected during the days - I wish I had more time to shoot more photos some cool locations are entirely missing (like the wonderful greenhouse) some photos are blurry as I was more concentrated on the filming side. I hope to post some actual moving footage soon as well. One thing for sure - the camera - a JVC made HDV camcorder (don´t even know the exact model) is absolute rubbish. Colors are missing (all looks a bit greyish except when under full sunlight), stuff is out of focus because a) the viewfinder AND the foldout screen are rubbish in resolution b) the focus assistent is the biggest joke since Jaz drives. The connection to the tripod was always unscrewing itself, especially when under time constrains -> like throughout the whole project. Generally the camera did not feel right -> but the footage seems to be of MUCH better quality in the end then anything I could have achieved with straight DV so I guess the trade offs aren´t too bad in the end. I am very thankful that I got the camera at all - Sebastian K. aka. viso.thek thats you. BTW I choosed to use this camera enthusiastically in the first place because it offers 720p at 25 fps - since this is going out of computers and projectors and will see lots of sfx and compositing and stuff I just don´t want to (ever) deal with fields (again).

If anyone has questions to ask about the production the equipment used, the actors, the makeup or whatever else fire off I try to answer them.

So here are some more photos.

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Posted by fALk at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack