A little slow motion test. This footage was shot on a DVX100 in 60i with a 1/500 shutter speed. The footage was converted to 60p footage then conformed to 24p to give it that special feel. I think the shutter speed might need to be tweaked a bit to get the right feel.
Man, who knew a Hi-Hat was the most useful thing ever invented?
Just in case there is any confusion, I am laying claim to the handy new phrase “Virtual Personal Day”. A Virtual Personal Day, or VPD is a day which you are physically at work, but mentally unable to contribute anything meaningful.
I was participating in a discussion about lenses on a forum, and I whipped out a few photos to show off the virtues of the Canon 85mm 1.8. These are not supposed to be awesome photos, just to represent the lens.
Here is a new clip using my new homemade dolly, based on the P+S Technik Skater Mini. While not as cool as the real thing, it seems to do a pretty good job. It is also vastly cheaper. The shots switch between the DVX100A standard lens, and the Century Optics .7X Wide Angle Adapter. I threw in a 360, but as you can see, I did not attempt to light the scene to avoid me obscuring the lights as I moved the camera.
Click here to listen to the dialog test. The clip contains three takes of the same short dialog recorded with various recording chains. I did not apply any EQ, effects, filters, etc to this clip. I only used a little gain to attempt to match levels between clips to make it easier to compare them. I have not identified the recording chains in the clip, to give folks a chance to listen and form an opinion about what sounds good and what does not. I will identify each clip later. Here they are in no particular order.
Chain “A”: Neumann KM84i running directly to the DVX100A mic preamp.
Chain “B”: Neumann KM84i running into a Neve 1272 mic preamp, and the line level output of the preamp connected to the DVX100A line in.
Chain “C”: Neumann KM84i running into a Neve 1272 mic preamp (same gain settings as Chain “B”) and the line level output of a Digidesign HD192 .
To keep the variables down, the Protools recording was also performed at 48/16. To give you an idea of the relative cost of the setups, the KM84i is probably a $600 mic, and is probably fairly similar to a mid/high end dialogue mic. The Neve 1272 preamp runs aroun 600$ a channel, and is universally considered to be excellent. It is probably not the first choice for field recording, as I would guess the pros normally shoot for something more “accurate”, where the Neve is considered “warm”, or “big”. The HD192 interface costs as much as a DVX100A, and it is no good without a Protools system, so you are looking at >10K for that. I think you could replace the HD192 with a high quality DAT and get the same results.
This is the first compositing test with FX. It shows before and after footage for your amusement.
A test dolly shot featuring the Monkeychicken, hence “Dolly Chicken”. The dolly works pretty well, but you can’t really move it AND pan and tilt the camera at the same time. At least I can’t. Oh, I threw a focus pull in for good measure.
The demo is available for download here You will need Quicktime 7 to view this. Windows users try out the Quicktime 7 Preview
