Joshua Tree is beautiful.
Monday, February 22, 2010 at 12:22AM We had a blast at the TWiP Weekend Workshop in Joshua Tree this weekend. Just got home about an hour ago and finished uploading the video we cut Saturday Night and showed it to the rest of the gang on Sunday AM.
Frederick says, "If you don't shoot it, it never happened." Good advice to live by.
If you are wondering, the video is shot with a Canon 7D with a 70-200 2.8 and a Singh-Ray Vari ND on sticks and a 16-35 on a Glidecam 4000HD. Special thanks to Neil Looker for the loan of the Glidecam. It works quite well with the small light-wieght HDSLRs. The Vari ND really allows you to control the DOF even on a bright sunny day. By opening the aperture wide open you can minimize your DOF but you still have to control the amount of light hitting the sensor. In traditional photography you can just make your exposure shorter but in video you have to keep your exposure at approximately double your frame right.
HOWEVER... I followed a bit of advice I got listening to Shane Hurlbut on Red Centre. He shoots 30FPS at 1/40. Although I didn't shoot 30FPS I did try to slow the shutter down the 1/40 and I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the results.
Anyway, I had a great time although right now... I'm EXHAUSTED.
Sitting on the ground doing long lens work on the 7D with the essential Zacuto Z-Finder.
Reader Comments (6)
Hey Chris! Great video. Quick question - was that the color straight out of the camera, or was there a lot of coloring in post? Was looking at the amazing "pop" of some of the reds, and wondering if that's a quality of the camera, or something you played with in the edit bay.
"Edit Bay"... thats cute....
actually it was cut on my laptop in the hotel room late at night.
I shoot with a custom setting on the camera that yields a very pale drab look... then I go into Magic Bullet Looks from with in FCP and do the color correction there... I'm told if I call it "grading" instead of "color correction" that I can charge more... but then, I'm use to just grabbing the "chroma knob" on my TBC and making fixes there..
Cool - last question - is the vignetting from in-camera, or a post effect?
(sorry for all the questions - picking up a Rebel T2i and trying to see what I should expect. Your video looks real purty. :-) )
vignetting is post... I use Magic Bullet Looks because I can work on a project one clip at a time... Apple Color is a stupid export, import, export, open, round trip between FCP and Color...
what is the color correction of choice in the Premiere world...
I'ld love to have you come by someday and give me the low down... I'm in Oakland almost everyday.
I know its the same crap you do EVERY DAY traveling the world and beyond but hey... we are ex "Play-ers" right?
Hope you are well.
In the suite - there are a bunch of options. Premiere Pro has a bunch of color effects, similar to FCP - three-way, RGB curves, etc. In the new Mercury Engine, the great thing is they're real-time, all the time - no rendering preview files. You'll see some tutorials on AdobeTV soon on color correction/grading.
It's also possible to color in Photoshop these days - video clips go directly into Ps. Use adjustment layers, etc. The best part is there's no need to render the clips to get them back into Premiere - you just save and open the PSD file, and drop it on the timeline. Round-trip is easy as well - right-click, edit original, make changes in Ps, save file, switch back.
For more advanced work, AE includes Color Finesse, and there's easy round tripping (no import/export) between AE and Premiere as well.
I can definitely schedule some time to come down. Give me a shout! I'm scripting a short film called "Hyperspace" right now that I'm planning on shooting on the T2i.
BY all means, if there is anything I can do to help you out Karl, feel free to ask... I've been shooting video on the 5D and now 7D since the first month the 5D was released... there are definitely things to keep in mind...
Do you come to the SF office much? I spend most of my time RIGHT NEAR the Oakland side of the bridge... easy detour on your way.