The P3 Update Magazine Blog

By Gordon Meyer
P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com

Here’s a quickie on a very cool product category I’m checking out – the new breed of pocket camcorders.  A company called Pure Digital Products came out with one of the first models in this product category – a camera roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes.  And here’s one of the best features.  You can buy these puppies for under $200.

I’ve been playing with their Flip Ultra HD (www.theflip.com/) and like much of what I see.  This camera shoots a native 720p picture and can store up to 2 hours worth of footage in its internal storage.  It comes with its own editing and distribution software called FlipShare, which is preloaded onto the camera in both PC and Mac versions.  

The camera itself is tripod compatible and has HDMI and USB connectors along with a built-in mic and digital zoom lens.  The bundled software also does a great job of pulling individual frames to use as still photos.  The video files it generates are in the MP4 format so you should be able to drop the footage into any number of industry standard editing programs if you don’t want to use their bundled software (and for professional applications you probably won’t since this is a very consumer and YouTube oriented product).

Here’s the thing.  Cameras like the Flip Ultra HD will never replace professional gear or even pro-sumer gear as a tool for any kind of principle photography.   There’s no place to plug in an external microphone; the lens is small and has a very limited zoom range; and, as stated above, the only ports on the camera are an HDMI connector so you can plug the camera directly into an HDTV (or HD editing system) and a USB connector. Be aware than on a PC, the bundled FlipShare software requires a couple of gig of RAM and a very fast processor.  If you’re running an older computer, although the software will load, the video will be WAY out of sync with the sound, making editing a major chore.

The Flip Ultra HD and its counterparts were made specifically for the consumer market as an easy way to shoot edit and post videos to places like YouTube.   But because of their ultra compact size (you can easily fit one onside your shirt pocket), they’re great for location managers, screen tests and B-roll footage.  Savvy publicists and marketing execs can use these puppies to create on-set publicity footage that can be posted online with a minimum of fuss.  All in all a useful tool.

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By Gordon Meyer
P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com

I’ve always been fond of trade shows like DV Expo.  They’re good places to get up to date on new technology and industry trends, not to mention an interesting place to do some networking.  In fact, I met the esteemed Sally Kemper at last year’s DV Expo, leading to my current association with P3 Update.

I attended this year’s Expo anticipating a good deal of productivity both for my editorial and production agendas.  I couldn’t tell you if this year’s change of venue from the Burbank Marriott to the Pasadena Convention Center influenced attendance and exhibitor participation, but it did appear to me that this year’s Expo was smaller than in years past.

There were two things that really stood out for me about this year’s Expo.  One was the growing emphasis by camera manufacturers on the new breed of (relatively) low cost HD cameras.  Sony, Panasonic and JVC were all there in force showing off lines of HD cameras with pretty damn good picture quality and pricing starting well under $10,000.

What I find especially useful about these cameras over the HDV cameras that started coming out just a few years ago is the way so many of them now employ solid state memory technology like SD cards or P2 modules and record their video on QuickTime files, ready to drop right into edit systems like Final Cut Pro.  Just a few years ago when I produced a DVD launch event for Think Film, just rendering all those hours of video into my editor’s Avid system took the better part of a day at a fairly hefty hourly rate.  I love being able to save all that time (and money) by being able to just drop the files directly into an editing program.

Now I’m involved in a production where the line producer wants to use studio-grade HD cameras instead of these much less expensive ones.  Based on the output I’ve seen so far, I think it would be hard, if not impossible, for most consumers to be able to tell the difference on a simple interview show between the kind of footage shot on something like a JVC GY-HM100 and a studio grade camera.

Of course for the show I’m consulting on, there’s more involved in selecting a camera than just price and resolution.   We need something that will both generate network-caliber picture quality and enable us to sync up for a multi-camera shoot with live switching, a line cut and ISO footage.  That quest continues and I’ll keep you up to speed on what we find in our research.

The other thing that stood out for me was the increased visibility of 3D technology, especially in the conference sections.  As one of the guest speakers pointed out, 3D technology has actually been around since the late 19th century and the stereoscope.  While there were highly visible revivals of 3D motion pictures in the 1950’s and 1980’s, these turned out to be short-lived fads.  Yet hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in digital 3D technology from the production and exhibition side.  Panasonic is expected to showcase a line of 3D-ready flat screen TVs at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show featuring footage from James Cameron’s “Avatar,” a film that many in the industry think will do for 3D what “Star Wars” did for Dolby Surround Sound 30 years ago and what a half century earlier “The Jazz Singer” did for synchronized sound.

All I know is that it’s an intriguing technology and if used well can dramatically contribute to the art of cinematic storytelling.  I also know that, for now, the added costs of equipment rental and post make 3D an unlikely part of any of the projects I currently have on my production slate.  But that could easily change over the next few years.

Meanwhile, I saw a few intriguing products at DV Expo that I plan to check out and report on here.  Stay tuned.

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• Light the green or blue chromo screen backdrop and the foreground talent separately.
• Before you begin lighting a green or blue chromo screen sequence, you need to know exactly what the backdrop will become. If possible, have an editing system on set so that you can simulate your composites, so that you are able to see if your foreground lighting fits in with the backdrop image that will replace the chromo background.
• Make sure the shadows of the key light fall in the same direction as the backdrop, and that the quality of the lighting, color temperature and the angle of the lighting are in harmony. If your chromo will eventually be replaced with a muted soft landscape, your foreground subject needs soft lighting. If your backdrop will become a harsh desert, you foreground subjects need hard lighting. There is no bigger give away that the backdrop was fake, then if your foreground subject shadows and background subject shadows are moving in polar opposite directions to each other.
• Green or blue chromo screens are not exactly conducive to motivating actor imagination that they are on an exotic location, so do try show talent the intended backdrop image, so that their performance is motivated to the intended location.
• Use a green or blue chromo screen location with the largest backdrop surface your budget allows. I understand you may not have the “Iron Man” green screen budget, but remember that small chromo screens equal big problems, as small chromo screen restrict lensing options, ie how wide you can shot before your talent is not juxtaposed against a chromo backdrop, and as a result you end up shooting off your set.
• The green or blue chromo backdrop should be lit with a shadow-less, even as possible quality.
• Do not over light the green or blue screen. The more light you have on the chromo, the more chance you have for the green or blue color of the backdrop reflecting spill light onto the actors, thus compromising a clean composite.
• It is preferable to underexpose your green screen up to one stop darker to avoid green spill light. With blue screen you have to be carefull as underexposed blue goes black. So rule of thumb for me is green screen 1 stop under the camera exposure, blue screen at camera exposure.
• Keep the talent as far away from the green or blue screen backdrop as possible, this again will help ensure that you have the least amount of unnecessary chromo spill light seeping onto the reflection angles of the talents faces or bodies.
• I either use space lights or tungsten nine lights through 1/4 grid cloth to light green screens evenly.
• I primarily use four -point lighting approach for the foreground talent for chroma screen work, key light, fill light, and two back light cross keys to ensure the cleanest composites and separation from the chroma screen. I position the cross key back lights at 45% angle from both sides. I keep the backlights anywhere from a 1/2 a stop under exposure to a 1/2 a stop over exposure.
• Another great trick is to use 1/8 magenta gels on your backlight for green screen and 1/8 yellow gel for blue screens, as these are the respective complementary colors of the potential chroma color spill.
• Another good reason to keep talent as far away from the chromo screen backdrop as possible, is to avoid the talent casting shadows on the chromo screen.
• If you have to paint your chroma color on the floor, keep it as spotless as possible by not having crew walking on the floor unnecessarily, or if they have to, provide surgical socks for crew to walk in.
• Is green or blue better for composites? Because green has a brighter color channel then blue, and blue when underexposed tends to have more noise then green, green is the color of my chose if possible for green/blue screen work. That being said, blonde hair is easier to key against blue screen backdrops. However, with today’s software composite packages, either green or blue will do the job. Therefore, a second important criteria to consider in your decision is wardrobe. If you are dealing with primarily blue wardrobe the of course a green screen backdrop makes more sense and visa versa.
• If you’re shooting in a 16:9 aspect ratio, you could set the camera to a 4:3 aspect ratio for chromo screen work, unless your framing something that will fill the entire frame horizontally. This will ensure you have the most resolution possible. Also feel free to crop in a little tighter then the final frame will be, as you will always benefit in resolution if you gather more information and are able to reduce the size in the composite.
• Another trick to squeeze the maximum amount of resolution into your cameras gathering of information process, is to tilt the camera 90 degrees for shots of standing people, thus utilizing a lot more horizontal information into your subject, that you will later be able to reduce in size in the composite.
• Color temperature i.e. shooting green screen with Tungsten or HMI is not a huge consideration. Again what is of most important is to treat the background and subject separately.
• Do not forget to add some effects and texture to sell the trick. If the background is garden, have for example a cucalorous which is organic wooden shaped cut-out in front of your key light source, to simulate the effect of the sun moving through branches and leaves.
• A good green paint for excellent composites is Rosco’s Ultimate Chroma Key, but today’s software is so sophisticated you will be able to extract good composites with almost any chromo paint.
• Ensure that you do not have reflective and shiny props like jewelry or earrings when you doing chromo screen work, or you will need to become a rotoscope export in post.

·       With compositing, shoot progressive [frames] rather than interlaced [fields] to get the cleanest edge and highest resolution.Weather you go green or blue, I trust these tips will get you though your chromo day very successfully. If you have further questions please don’t hesitate to contact me personally through my site at www.daronkeet.com

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By Gordon Meyer

P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com

Phone expenses, especially when you’re on location, can quickly become a big expense.  I found a very cool way of dealing with this through of all things an infomercial.   But it’s one that really delivers on its promises.  Meet the MagicJack (www.magicjack.com).

This is a palm-sized gizmo that attaches to the USB 2.0 port of any Windows PC or Intel-based Mac.  As long as your computer is online with a high speed Internet connection, you can plug any standard land line phone into the MagicJack and you’re off and running with unlimited local and domestic long distance calls, directory assistance, voice mail, call waiting and caller ID.   They even offer a free conference call service, which is way cool in my book.

As for voice mail, they don’t just email you a notification that you’ve got a voice mail in your in-box, they email you a WAV file with the voice message itself.  Nice!

$40 buys you the MagicJack itself and your first year of unlimited service.  After that, it’s only $20 a year.  Want international calling? They offer very competitive rates like France (where my brother lives) for about 2 cents a minute calling to land lines.

It gets better though.  Because the MagicJack is such a compact little gizmo, you can take it on the road with you and use it anywhere in the world that you can get a broadband signal.  I selected a Beverly Hills phone number for my MagicJack. 

Windows and Mac software are already pre-loaded on the MagicJack and self-install on your computer the first time you use it.  This took several minutes on my computer, but it’s pretty much a one time operation.  Once it’s set up, including the selection of a phone number in what ever major city and state in the US that you want, it’s pretty transparent to use.  Plus you can use it anywhere in the world that has high speed Internet.

The next time I go visit my brother in Paris, I can take my MagicJack with me and either attach it to the USB port of his computer or to my own laptop and make free phone calls back to the US.  The people I call will see my Beverly Hills phone number on their caller ID and can call me at that number, even though I’m halfway around the world.  If the computer is off, it just goes to voice mail.  There’s even an option to automatically forward incoming calls to the phone number of your choice, like your cell or office.

Sound quality is clean and comparable to what I used to experience with Vonage, which uses a similar VoIP (Voice over IP) technology.

You do have to connect a regular telephone to the MagicJack, which is potentially cumbersome on location.  And it will only work when the computer it’s connected to is on and online.  But for $20 a year, it’s a great way to take your phone with you without worrying about per minute charges or lost cell signals. 

And if you’re someone who travels abroad, it can save you a huge amount of money compared to the price of international roaming on your cell or even pre-paid international phone cards.

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