HV20 + M2 (SciFi.com BSG Competition)

[Phil H.]

Hi Everyone,

When I first got the HV20 I shot this 4 minute short for a competition that the SciFi Channel was having. The winner of the competition will be aired on the SciFi Channel during an episode of season 4 Battlestar Galactica. Regardless of whether or not my short wins, it was a lot of fun to make.

Check it out:

http://video.syfy.com/player/?id=128571

Cheers,
Phil

[cybercrash]

Damn, that was really quite good. It was damn close to BSG-quality! :D

[cybercrash]

I would love to know what your experience with your HV20/M2 setup was. Obviously the image is pretty good, how was it in low light? How much vignetting is there? Any issues?

[Phil H.]

Hi. Thanks for the great comments.

The low light was horrible. I had to flood every shot with so much light and I was still a few stops underexposed. I don't think I'll ever shoot with the HV20 with a 35mm adapter indoors ever again. I shot a commercial recently and used the HV20 + M2. It turned out great, but it was shot entirely outdoors.

Vignetting is not a problem if you use a spacer tube. I didn't have a spacer tube for the BSG shoot, so you might notice a little vignetting. For the commercial I shot, I got a spacer tube and was able to zoom in past the vignetting no problem.

[Dodgy Nick]

That was amazing Phil well done. Dang, we have so many talented people on here, it's very comforting to know that you all chose the HV20 as your weapon of choice!

[cybercrash]

Hi. Thanks for the great comments.

The low light was horrible. I had to flood every shot with so much light and I was still a few stops underexposed. I don't think I'll ever shoot with the HV20 with a 35mm adapter indoors ever again. I shot a commercial recently and used the HV20 + M2. It turned out great, but it was shot entirely outdoors.

Vignetting is not a problem if you use a spacer tube. I didn't have a spacer tube for the BSG shoot, so you might notice a little vignetting. For the commercial I shot, I got a spacer tube and was able to zoom in past the vignetting no problem.

I think a long enough spacer tube (say around 10cm) would eliminate vignetting altogether, right? I have an HV20 ordered and thus far have been shooting with the Sony PDX 10-P and for this camera I solved all vignetting I had with the Letus35A with a long enough spacer tube. Hope it'll work for the HV20 as well.

BTW I want more details, what was the post production process? What were the camera settings? Did you shoot in Cine Mode? etc...

[Mark Dog2]

it looked fantasic phill really DAMN, id like to know what was your indoor lighting setup what did you use phill ??? also like to know your setting as well and be great if you could give us a full resolution dowloadable version phil that be real GREAT :)

peace n luv

Mark Dog 2

[Anx]

You did a spectacular job! After watching your submission I thought "Damn that was awesome, I wonder what he's competing against!". I watched all the other submissions, and I have to say I'm looking forward to watching yours again on TV when you win... :)

Do you have an high-quality version of it anywhere (hv20info perhaps)? At web resolution it looks like the HV20 resolution is perfect, but does it mesh well at full resolution with everything? Also, did you do it at 60i or 24p?

[Phil H.]

That was amazing Phil well done. Dang, we have so many talented people on here, it's very comforting to know that you all chose the HV20 as your weapon of choice!

Thanks. The HV20 has its place. It has a few limitations, but honestly, for HDV it's great! I would never buy a more expensive HDV camera. I would buy more HV20s if I wanted to multiple HDV camera shoots. I own an HVX200, but sometimes I don't always feel like dealing with the P2 workflow.

It's funny... I get a lot of interesting comments when people see my $900 HV20 with my M2, Kessler Crane and $4k Satchler tripod. Hehe. :hv20-smilie84:

[Phil H.]

I think a long enough spacer tube (say around 10cm) would eliminate vignetting altogether, right? I have an HV20 ordered and thus far have been shooting with the Sony PDX 10-P and for this camera I solved all vignetting I had with the Letus35A with a long enough spacer tube. Hope it'll work for the HV20 as well.

BTW I want more details, what was the post production process? What were the camera settings? Did you shoot in Cine Mode? etc...

I have a 1" spacer tube bt my achromat and adapter. I shot in cinema mode and HDV 24pf mode. I locked exposure wide open at F2.0 with a 1/48th shutter. I always run with Zebras at 70%, but it's really really hard to light bright enough to get them to show up indoors while using an adapter.

I never converter the footage to 23.976 FPS. I left it at 29.97 since the winner gets to go on air. *crosses fingers*. The workflow was simple. I captured at 29.97 into Premiere. Edited. Exported a .mov with animation compressor 1440x1080(1.33). CC'd in AE with Color Finesse. Then resized into a 4:3 720x480(0.9) comp. Exported a .mov at 640x480 with H.264 compressor.

Oh yeah, we recorded audio with pro audio gear into a DVX100B then had to synch sound in post... like I did back in the days of film. What a nightmare that was!

The problem with recording audio via the HV20 1/8" mini-jack is that it's an unbalanced connection and is prone to "interference". For example: we were using dimmers for the lights and even though the HV20 was running on battery power and had no wires attached except the one running from the mixer (also on battery power and connected to a boom/shotgun mic), there was a horrible buzzing sound in the audio when the dimmers were dimmed. My audio guy said that's typical of dimmers and unbalanced audio connections.

So, again, the HV20 has limitations, but if you learn to work around them, the tools can still help you tell a great story.

[Phil H.]

it looked fantasic phill really DAMN, id like to know what was your indoor lighting setup what did you use phill ??? also like to know your setting as well and be great if you could give us a full resolution dowloadable version phil that be real GREAT :)

peace n luv

Mark Dog 2

Thanks! I used a 150w practical in an overhead hanging lamp, 2 600w lights on the ground hitting the tent walls and a 600w light with 36"x36" light box as the key light. I also used the wall lights to bounce into the actors with a white board.

Ok, I mentioned the low light of the HV20 was a problem, especially with an adapter. Well, here are some stills so you can see what I mean. I was wide open on both the HV20 and my Nikon lenses the whole time. My DVX and HVX have way better low light and wouldn't have needed such drastic gamma boosting:

http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsgstuff/BSGccCOMPARISON.jpg

Here are links to full size examples of the 2 above pics:

http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsgstuff/BSGnoCC.jpg
http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsgstuff/BSGwithCC.jpg

[Emanuel]

Is it possible a higher resolution video version, please?

Thanks.

[Phil H.]

You did a spectacular job! After watching your submission I thought "Damn that was awesome, I wonder what he's competing against!". I watched all the other submissions, and I have to say I'm looking forward to watching yours again on TV when you win... :)

Do you have an high-quality version of it anywhere (hv20info perhaps)? At web resolution it looks like the HV20 resolution is perfect, but does it mesh well at full resolution with everything? Also, did you do it at 60i or 24p?

Thanks so much! I'd love to see mine on make it on air. Here's a link to a better resolution quicktime version. SciFi.com compressed the hell out of it for that Flash video interface:

http://www.rhinomotion.com/bsg/TheRing.mov

[framecut]

Hi Phil,

This blew me away (I'm also a big BSG fan!). Many people I talk to keep saying "Yeah, but who would SERIOUSLY want to work with a toy camera?"

Either way Phil, incredible job with that 'toy'

- Lucas


Hi Everyone,

When I first got the HV20 I shot this 4 minute short for a competition that the SciFi Channel was having. The winner of the competition will be aired on the SciFi Channel during an episode of season 4 Battlestar Galactica. Regardless of whether or not my short wins, it was a lot of fun to make.

Check it out:

http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=128571

Cheers,
Phil

[ForwardLooker]

Wow that was really good cinematography. great work:hv20-smilie77:

[Mal]

Great job; NICELY DONE!

(and I even had to fire up IE which I hardly ever do, as both Firefox or Opera wouldn't play the clip)

[mik]

you didn't change gamma. you've changed the gain (auto levels?) and you've got overexposed areas (the nose in the 2 images). artefacts on black too. there is no way to fix those underexposed images in 8 bit. you need more lights.

it's a nice movie, just be careful. good luck!

edit: this is as much as you can recover but it'll be full of blue channel artefacts.

[Michael Hackney]

Wow. Easily the best looking work I've seen with the HV20 yet. I love the color correction you did on this. Did you only use color finesse in AE? Did you use a wide or telephoto lenses?

[Michael Hackney]

Great job; NICELY DONE!

(and I even had to fire up IE which I hardly ever do, as both Firefox or Opera wouldn't play the clip)

Plays fine in my Firefox, maybe you're missing some plug-ins.

[Michael Hackney]

you didn't change gamma. you've changed the gain (auto levels?) and you've got overexposed areas (the nose in the 2 images). artefacts on black too. there is no way to fix those underexposed images in 8 bit. you need more lights.

it's a nice movie, just be careful. good luck!

edit: this is as much as you can recover but it'll be full of blue channel artefacts.

You can achieve an "overexposed" look by raising the gamma, no just the gain.
You can get the image to look brighter with the changing of several different parameters. I think the overexposed look works with the shot and I like how it was done. It doesn't seem like he came to get it by accident, but because he somewhat wanted it that way. You can also change the bit depth of your composition in AE to be higher than 8bit or in Premiere Pro by importing the footage into a 10bit project. That way you can render out with more color information through the larger bit depth project when done.

[SalaTar]

wow ..thats all I can say

[Phil H.]

I only used Color Finesse in AE to do color correction. I did boost gamma and gain and many other parameters in CF. I can post all the CF settings if anyone is interested.

I should also point out that I shot a commercial that will air on MTV with the HV20+M2 as well. I'll post it here soon.

[Phil H.]

With this BSG project I was going for a gritty look (similar to the real show), so underexposing didn't bother me. I knew I could boost it in AE with CF to achieve my desired look. The real show also over exposes, or cc's into overexposure all the time. So, I had fun trying to get something like what they do while still trying to make it my own.

[mik]

You can achieve an "overexposed" look by raising the gamma, no just the gain. You can also change the bit depth of your composition in AE to be higher than 8bit or in Premiere Pro by importing the footage into a 10bit project. That way you can render out with more color information through the larger bit depth project when done.

first gamma can't overexpose.

second that 10bit idea made me laugh a lot. why stop at 10bit? why not go 12 or 32bit? it'll be just like film!!!

all i've said is that the filmed look shouldn't match final look. under or overexposed footage can't be restored in DV.

[Michael Hackney]

first gamma can't overexpose.

second that 10bit idea made me laugh a lot. why stop at 10bit? why not go 12 or 32bit? it'll be just like film!!!

all i've said is that the filmed look shouldn't match final look. under or overexposed footage can't be restored in DV.

Exactly, why stop at 10bit, I dunno why that came to mind first. I know what you mean though.

[tkmslee]

I only used Color Finesse in AE to do color correction. I did boost gamma and gain and many other parameters in CF. I can post all the CF settings if anyone is interested.

I should also point out that I shot a commercial that will air on MTV with the HV20+M2 as well. I'll post it here soon.

I'd love to see that commercial. Do you think the light loss is due more to the HV20 or M2 adapter?

[Halsu]

under or overexposed footage can't be restored in DV.

Not perfectly, but underexposure can be worked with well enough in many cases - i'd rather underexpose 2 stops and bring it up in post than overexpose 1/2 stops - video overexposure can not be fixed at all (regardless of the bit depth, BTW ;-).

Anyway, technically it would have been better to use gain in camera - it's most probably higher bit depth at that point, and uncompressed, so you get less artifacts than when doing it in post.

Unfortunately, HV20 seems to rather slow down the shutter to 1/25 or 1/24 than use gain in film mode. Would have been better the other way, first use up gain until +9dB, THEN start slowing shutter speed (this would also be more film like - there's a lot of grain in fast film stocks too, so gain doesn't hurt).

When shooting 50i or 60i, the shutter speed stays at 1/50 or 1/60* respectively, but one needs to de-interlace in post.

*(in US model it's *probably* 1/30, i have a PAL cam, so i can't test)

[24Peter]

Oh yeah, we recorded audio with pro audio gear into a DVX100B then had to synch sound in post... like I did back in the days of film. What a nightmare that was!

The problem with recording audio via the HV20 1/8" mini-jack is that it's an unbalanced connection and is prone to "interference". For example: we were using dimmers for the lights and even though the HV20 was running on battery power and had no wires attached except the one running from the mixer (also on battery power and connected to a boom/shotgun mic), there was a horrible buzzing sound in the audio when the dimmers were dimmed. My audio guy said that's typical of dimmers and unbalanced audio connections.

So, again, the HV20 has limitations, but if you learn to work around them, the tools can still help you tell a great story.

Well I'll echo what everyone else has said: this footage looks amazing. I did hear both the M2 and Letus 35mm adapter are light hogs. It looks like the Brevis is the way to go.

On the audio thing, get a Beachtek DXA-2s and you'll have two balanced XLR input into your HV20 - no need for the DVX100
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/335809-REG/Beachtek_DXA2S_DXA_2S_Dual_XLR.html

Great job again Phil. This is real filmmaking!

[mik]

for $100 there are battery powered mixers with phantom, eq, clip bars and 5 balanced xlr inputs (2 with mic preamp). you won't be able to screw the mixer to the camera :) but it'll be much better.

edit: and that dimmer buzz is caused by the fact that dimmers use a pwm method to dim the lights. meaning that the light is flashed on/off but the eye doesn't see the flash, it sees a dimmer light. that frequency is causing a rather strong magnetic field that's picked-up by the mic cables and converted into sound (buzz). i'm not sure if balanced xlr will solve the problem completely, if not use strongly shielded audio cables. dimmers are to be avoided since the flashing might be seen on the recorded video. if you need to dim the lights buy reflectors with those folding trapezoid panels.

[ForwardLooker]

for $100 there are battery powered mixers with phantom, eq, clip bars and 5 balanced xlr inputs (2 with mic preamp). you won't be able to screw the mixer to the camera :) but it'll be much better.

mik, can you post a link to one of these mixers?

thanks

[mik]

sure, i used Behringer UBB1002, liked it so much i got one for myself.

edit: a note about this mixer. when battery powered it'll put 18v phantom. all mics i've tried worked ok, and from what i know almost all will work on a minimum 12v. since we're on sound here, i've got another cheap behringer tool, a mini equalizer FBQ800. it's not battery powered but i'll analyse the sound and allow you to adjust clipping on each frequency instead of the whole range.

[24Peter]

http://www.videodirect.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=FMX32&Category_Code=AZMIX
Not as cheap as the Behringer but a little more portable.

[Erik Bien]

FWIW,

I have a very picky audio engineer friend (the mixing board he just got rid of on eBay sold for almost $25K, used) who bought the Behringer for "non-critical' use, and was surprised to find it nearly the equal of his Mackie field mixer (which sells for several times as much). As he explained it to me, Behringer these days is a bit like RODE or Blue in the microphone world: mimicking high-end products with almost-as-good copycats at much lower prices.

Azden, on the other hand is like Kryptonite to every audio pro I've ever asked.

[Frank]

That was...really great!

Just one thing (not being a BSG viewer): is "frack" a regular part of the show's lingo?
It was a little distracting to me.

Overall, brilliant and inspiring.

[mik]

if portable is what you need perhaps a recorder like Edirol R-09 or Zoom H4 is the way to go. you could actually create more than stereo sound in combination with an external recorder.

[Galleddrim]

That was...really great!

Just one thing (not being a BSG viewer): is "frack" a regular part of the show's lingo?
It was a little distracting to me.

Overall, brilliant and inspiring.

1) If you are not a BSG viewer you don't know what a gem you're missing.

2) "Frak" is BSG lingo and the obscenity of the future (a bone for VM fans). In this particular clip for some reason I did find it distracting too, as if it was thrown in there just because it's obligatory in a BSG film, but in the show you get used to it.

3) Great looking footage! It really got the "look" of the show down.

[jondabach]

Hey Phil,

How do you get the aspect ratio to stay the same. I'm having a bit of a problem in premiere when I import the hv20 at 16X9 and then want to burn a dvd, it gets stretched on the television. How do you force the bars on? Also, what's your workflow for getting it onto a dvd? Do you just take the project straight into encore from premiere?

[Michael Hackney]

Hey Phil,

How do you get the aspect ratio to stay the same. I'm having a bit of a problem in premiere when I import the hv20 at 16X9 and then want to burn a dvd, it gets stretched on the television. How do you force the bars on? Also, what's your workflow for getting it onto a dvd? Do you just take the project straight into encore from premiere?

I normally just export the file to mpeg2 using adobe media encoder. Then import that file and export it to dvd (using the export to dvd within premiere).
I found that if I try to burn an hdv file to dvd I get the top and bottom cropped of, since it's not a 720x480 frame size, so I first convert it to mpeg2 or mpeg2dvd, you'll see those options in the export menus.

[jondabach]

Just curious...anybody ever try exporting to an HD master tape to screen on a big screen at a movie theater? Or, better yet, print to film?

[Phil H.]

Hey Phil,

How do you get the aspect ratio to stay the same. I'm having a bit of a problem in premiere when I import the hv20 at 16X9 and then want to burn a dvd, it gets stretched on the television. How do you force the bars on? Also, what's your workflow for getting it onto a dvd? Do you just take the project straight into encore from premiere?


Here's what I do: I export 1440x1080 (1.33 aspect). Then do cc in AE. Then I resize it into a 720x480 (0.9) non-letterboxed comp. Make sure background is black, then export to a regular Microsoft DV NTSC avi movie, which is 720x480 (0.9). At that point, it goes right into Encore and then onto DVD, no problem.

[Techguy]

Phil,

First of all I want to say what an absolutely fantastic job you did on your BSG submission. And although it's great to see that you used an HV20, in truth the piece has a tremendous look and direction that captures the BSG mode precisely. Even though I'm not a die-hard BSG fan, the skill involved in that is very clear!

I do have a question, for you, or for any of the others on here. Can you tell me what you used to do the star-glowing transitions between scenes? It looks like an additive dissolve in some ways, but there are star patterns and a slight zoom before going to white ??

Great job!

TG

[Ian-T]

Techguy, I guess it depends on the NLE you are using but for example in Vegas they have that glow transition as a preset. You can just drag and drop it on your timeline and from there you can set it to how fast you want it to transition to the next scene. Not sure about the star patterns though.

[Techguy]

Hi Ian -

I've actually tried all the transitions I can find in the major NLE's, but this one seems very different. In addition to what appears to be an additive dissolve to white, it appears to 1st magnify, then freeze on a frame, and then create kind of a vortex effect with artifacts almost like a starburst filter would do...

[Phil H.]

Hi, thanks for the compliments. The transition is an effect in After Effects called CC Light Burst.

[Techguy]

Again, great job Phil, and thanks -


Hi, thanks for the compliments. The transition is an effect in After Effects called CC Light Burst.

[David]

That's really great Phil. Where are you located?

[JRJ Photo]

Nice work, but the music changes were a bit jarring.

[Lightloch]

Very nicely done!

[Bif]

Just about the best one of these I've seen. The mood created by your cinematography really matched the look of the show.

Great job!