Could there be a Marketing/Sales Edge in Using the Panasonic DVX-100?
by cliff
on
Sep 8, 2003 at 2:26:52 pm
Am in researching the next cam to get, and I am wondering what you think: could shooting in 24p give results that really distinguish you from the competition? Will clients - for events, wedings, training, corporate work - notice enoug of a difference to help justify me getting it?
Re: Could there be a Marketing/Sales Edge in Using the Panasonic DVX-100? by Rick Gerard on Sep 8, 2003 at 3:51:42 pm
With lots of respect to Leo and a serious case o'lust for one of his cameras – I think that the 24 P advantage in DV is negligible unless you’re planning to go directly to film with your product. Shooting 24p and keeping the entire postproduction chain in video using gear that is running at 29.97 fps with 3:2 pulldown introduced compensate for the frame rate difference will not improve the look of your DV footage. In fact, many post production tricks will be completely out of reach and there will be frames that you just won’t be able to cut cleanly together. When I used to shoot TV commercials on 35mm film most of the time we ran the cameras at 29.97 fps. In fact every commercial that I ever shot for J Walter Thompson (very big Add agency) and McCann Erickson (one of, if not the biggest) was shot at 29.97 so that the folks in post wouldn’t have to deal with 3:2 pull down motion artifacts. I was on the set of a Chevy truck commercial last week and they were shooting in 35 with a crew of about 60, (wind machines, bluescreen covering an entire intersection, a 12 story crane flying a 100’ X 200’ butterfly to control the light --- in other words, not a small budget shoot) and they were shooting 29.97 FPS, which, in effect, produces 30P footage. With all of the special effects they were going to do on this project it would have been nuts to add the 3:2 pulldown nightmare to the project.
I think Leo’s marketing advantage is more HD and variable frame rates than 24P. If you really want to push 24P and higher quality then I’d shoot with a native 16X9 Pal camera, do all of your post in PAL and then convert to NTSC for final output. You’ll end up with footage that has the equivalent of 1024 X 576 square pixel frame compared with an 864 X 480 frame for NTSC 16X9. That’s much closer to Leo’s 1280 X 720 resolution than you’d get with NTSC DV, not native 16X9 from the little Panasonic DVX-100.
I will one thing in defense of the DVX-100 though. I saw a side by side comparison with Sony’s PD 150 and it was a much, not a little, better camera as far as apparent resolution and dynamic color range. I didn’t like the 24P look at all, but then I never liked that look. If you compared the DVX-100 to the Iki HL-DV7AW there it fell far short of producing AMAZING pictures. It should have – because you can not really compare a 2/3 inch camera to a 1/3 inch camera when there’s about a $18,000 dollar difference in price. You’d have a lot more competitive advantage with a 2/3 inch camera (even a betacam) than you would matching a DVX-100 with an XL1 or a PD . . .
Re: Could there be a Marketing/Sales Edge in Using the Panasonic DVX-100? by Leo Ticheli on Sep 8, 2003 at 4:11:10 pm
Rick makes some very valid points, and many people do shoot film at 30 fps, but most do not for reasons that have nothing to do with going to film out. The major factor in the beauty of 24 fps is the 1/48 second exposure duration (with the 180° shutter) which provides just the right amount of motion blur for most dramatic presentations.
I also experimented with shooting 35 MM at 30 fps instead of 24, but found that the look was too much like video for my taste, so I returned to shooting at 24 for most, but certainly not all, scenes.
There it is actually; the matter of taste. Some people don’t like the look of 24p with the 3/2 pull-down on television. Remember, however, that every motion picture you see on TV is presented exactly in that fashion; shot at 24 fps and transferred with the pull-down for presentation. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, with youngsters like Rick preferring the 30 fps look. Also, many inexperienced shooters don’t know how to shoot at 24p; you’ve got to avoid panning too fast and watch your horizontal subject movement.
Rick’s suggestion of shooting and editing in PAL is also a very good idea. You have a few issues to deal with, such as the time changes, but it’s certainly a common and valid practice.
By the way, you can avoid the problems associated with the pull-down when doing effects, but you’ll have to remove the pull-down, edit at 24p, and then re-insert the pull-down when you’re finished. For this reason, we often shoot green/blue screen material at 30p when the post budget is tight.
As a last note, even higher frame-rates have been tried, and the results have been disappointing; again, that 1/48 second exposure really does spark the imagination of the viewer. Well, most viewers!
Re: Could there be a Marketing/Sales Edge in Using the Panasonic DVX-100? by Rick Gerard on Sep 8, 2003 at 6:03:26 pm
[Leo Ticheli]"with youngsters like Rick"
Thanks, it has been a while since I was called a youngster... can I use this quote to turn in my AARP card???
BTW - most of the time when I shot at 30 fps (starting in October of 1969) we set the shutter to the between 235° and 180° which gave us an exposure time of 1/48 to 1/60. Some cameras have a fixed shutter, but most we used had shutters that you could adjust between at least 180° and 0° (Arri) with my favorite MOS camera being a modified Mitchell that would go from 260° to 0° and run from single frame (timelapse) to 150 FPS... We could do anything with that beast....except shoot sound. Those were the good old days. Film for 4¢ a foot and a first AC for $100/day....
Re: Could there be a Marketing/Sales Edge in Using the Panasonic DVX-100? by Greg Ball on Sep 8, 2003 at 8:35:29 pm
As far as a marketing/sales edge, it all depends on the technical saavy of your clients combines with what you can do with this footage to make it worthwhile.
Just because I've bought the best, most expensive, high tech, "can do everything" gourmet oven would do nothing to market my services as a gourmet cook, because I can't cook anything but scrambled eggs. I dought that clients would really appreciate the fact that my eggs were cooked on such an oven.
In other words, if your clients are demanding higher quality, and they're willing to book you based on quality, and they'll pay more, I say go for it. However, weddings and corporate folk are willing to sacrifice quality to save a few bucks. IMHO
Re: Could there be a Marketing/Sales Edge in Using the Panasonic DVX-100? by Tim Kolb on Sep 18, 2003 at 3:06:42 am
Hmmmm...
Lots of very valid inforamation here...a couple of points.
1. The Panasonic DVX-100 does seem to be a significantly better camera than the PD-150 in the tests I saw...I was shocked to be honest.
2. If you look at Adobe's new marketing clips...(somewhere on their website I think, or you can probably order a DVD...), they shot our interviews with a Sony 2/3" camera...either a 500 or 570, I didn't get a close peek. They shot the second unit stuff of us at our computers "working" with the Panasonic...it definitely has a look. Any rapid panning is judder-city however.
3. I think there is something to the whole elimination of the 60i "look" for a lot of people. We recently did a spot for a cel phone company that I shot outdoors on a sunny day...1/2 and a 1/4 Black Pro mist in the matte box to do away with a bit of the "crispness" so many people seem to loathe in video these days...
I got back and posted it on my laptop and finished it off on our DV Storm...it just needed something though... I applied Canopus RT filters:
Old Movie...all the contaimination off, slight grain <5, frame blending checked, no blur
Motion Blur...between 15 and 25 seems to work pretty well
Color Correction...season to taste, many people prefer their "faux film" to be slightly less saturated than video...to make it look as if it's "handling" the color better I guess...(?!?)
Anyway, the client came in and was sooooooo pleased... they had been a little leary of our outrageous pricing, but they saw the product and loved it.
They did ask me how it got to look so good as it just "looked like TV" in the field...they were there for the shoot. I threw an unaltered clip on the timeline and threw down the same clip with the Canopus filters on it and they were amazed... they thought the original footage looked like "home video" (which was a little offensive to me...those pictures rocked...).
Perception is everything. There was a commercial/fashion photographer who used to do seminars many years ago, his first name was Dean, but his last name escapes me. He loved telling stories of how things wouldn't go as planned and the client would come in and rave about how they loved the new "look" caused by copious rolls of mislabeled film....just as he's chewing out the assistant responsible for the image overhaul...
His favorite line was..."You know how you know you got it right?...You get a check."
Go with what seems right for the market.
TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Class On Demand Premiere Trainer
