XDCAM EX

I had a comment from Jean-marc Lonfils asking why I switch to Gamma2 when test shooting for « Bird Of Prey ».
I said in my past post that is was because of a more contrasty picture, but that was a shortcut that the knowledge of Jean-marc pointed out.

In fact, he is right in his comment : The Gamma 2 curve is « less contrasted » and more smooth, to handle the full video range without going to high in the highlights.

The fact is that the test shot was done in a car, on a sunny day, with a lot of back-light. Using this gamma curve help to get more detail in the middle of the contrast range. That ends in having darker black, brighter hightligts, and in this kind of shoot, a more « contrast » look with a lot of information in the middle.

I hope this is clear…

Just remember that, with a video camera, you have to get the maximum amount of information when shooting to be able to make the look you want in post. Don’t try to achieve your look on set if you have to go in the extreme. Don’t burn, don’t crush. Even if your DoP say it’s looking flat, just show him what it will look like in post. Change the contrast, the color or other things in the monitor or in a dedicated picture profile, then switch bah to your settings for shooting.

Here is the gamma curve explanation from the manual, as a reference :

This is some more footage, all stack together, with special green and glow filter. You also have the comments from the team

This covers almost everything we’ve done during the day, from inside and outside of the car with a tripod, inside and outside « hand-held ». I put the base filter on the full sequence so some shoot may be too dark or too bright. This is just for showing the director what can be done.

As a reminder, everyhting was shot with the Sony PMW-EX1, in 1080@25p. Matrix is Cine but without any level change. Gamma curve is Cine2, which gives the more contrast.

Most of the shot (if not all) are around wide open iris with a ND1 filter. As in the previou post, some pictures are too bright, burned. We will have to be very careful next time. Having a 24″ monitor via HD-Link HD-SDI to DVI will help on this.

I noticed some « artifacts » on the H264 export when having horizontal lines, like the one on the car or on a truck on the first scene. This is not the case on the 1080p footage. This may be because of the loss of resolution, going from 1092×1080 to 600×360.

Download the file here.

Check here.

Check here.

Check here.

A friend of mine, Matthieu Morandeau, is working on his next short movie : Bird of Prey. I’m a kind of technical assistant, and i’m also providing the Sony PMW-EX1 camera and most of the technical stuffs.

We shot on saturday, in Paris, in front of the Chateau de Vincennes. It was sunny, with some clouds passing by. As we were experimenting, there is a lot of footage too bright. A lot of burned pictures. The camera assistant, Jean-Marc will have to be really carefull. Hopefuly we will have a 24″ monitor on set. This will make it simple to pose than viewing on the small Ex1 LCD (which is really good indeed) with the sun in the eyes. I will also have to provide something to help viewing on it.

We will also have to be careful with the focal distance. Shooting in a car is hard as it’s small. Sometime we don’t have enough space and even at the far as we can we can’t get a sharp image on the subject.

After test shooting I had some time trying to achieve the look Matthieu wants on his movie. He wants something like ‘Virgin suicide’ from Sofia Coppola. As I still have to watch the movie again, I just remember the look is versy contrasted, greenish, close to a bleach bypass, but really soft.

Whatever, these are some test footage. It’s all H264 encoded, 600×360, 1500kbps.

Check here if the online link does not appear.

This is a first cut of what was shoot at Notre Dame de Paris, Paris, France.

This is all shoot with the Sony PMW-EX1, 1080@25p, shutter ‘off’ (1/25), handheld, no gain, full open iris (1.9) most of the time. It is a cut timeline without any grading (yet).

Check it out as H264 movie !

I went there on the 26 of December 2007. I got some testing of the Sony PMW-EX1 in low light. The cathedral is very dark inside and the light comes from spotlights on the walls, sculpture or paintings and candles. It was shot without gain, full open (1.9), with a picture profile where I raise a little bit the backs (as read on the dvinfo forum) and a gamma curve « cine4″ (I’ll check that I’m not sure anymore). This settings gives like an extra stop without adding too much grain.

By the end I came accross a little girl trying to light a candle. This is the shoot I put here. It’s H264 based. The base MP4 from the EX1 is 560Mo so I won’t put it here. Ask me if you want it.

I hope to have time to put all the shot I made this day in a small movie, Phils Bloom’s way

Get the file here or us the « online streaming » here.

Comments welcome.