making my short films look like theatres

scottshackrock wrote on 6/3/2004, 10:18 PM
you know how you watch TV, say a sitcom, and it looks like a tv sitcom.
and you watch saved by the bell - and it looks like it always has in the early 90s. then you get that special zach and kelly get married 3 part episode and it looks amazingly better - almost like a movie.
then you watch the news, and it looks like it's live - on the news.
and you watch a movie on HBO, and it looks like "a movie" - mass awesome.

Are there effects/tricks to make my video (shot with my 1 CCD sony miniDV camera) look anything like a movie does in the theatre? I know lighting while shooting is huge, etc. But after all of that, how can I get that (i suppose...) "film?" look? I've read and re-read some posts on this forum, but am now really sure WHAT anyone is talking about. I kinda need something from the begininng i guess?

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 6/3/2004, 10:44 PM
There is a reasonably in-depth tutorial on the Sundance site, http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/help/kb
Jetdv has a script that he offers that provides a lot of these steps.
You can also use the Magic Bullet film looks that come with Vegas 5, although I think you can do pretty much as well with the plugs in Vegas, especially if you use some of the plugs from Zenote.'
It's lighting, it's cadence, it's colorset, it's framing...
Start with using Pan/crop to create a 16:9 setting, that goes a long way to creating the "film-like look."
Phil_A wrote on 6/4/2004, 2:13 AM
Though all of these shows are distributed (and broadcast) as video, some of them were shot on film, transfered to video, edited, and then broadcast*. It looks like video, because it was shot on video... or... it looks like film, because it was shot on film.

There are many techniques that can be used to get video to look like film (some are pretty convincing) all of which require a serious combination of software and inginuity.

* interesting note: In the mid-1980s, a lot of sitcoms were shot on film and then transfered to Laserdisc for non-linear editing.
scottshackrock wrote on 6/4/2004, 9:02 AM
hmm...interesting. So If I Pan/CROP to 16:9, when I MIXDOWN (or render down, whatever)..do I render as a mpeg-2 16:9 or just normal NTSC?

Also, can you give me some links to Jetdv script(s)?

and to let you know, I will output all of my projects to DVD.

I also want to get into making 5.1 mixes - but at the moment I'm using my studio computer (I do audio recording locally every other day at least), so my soundcard isn't really made to do 5.1 mixing...hmm but I'm looking into that if you have tips on that too. haha.
scottshackrock wrote on 6/6/2004, 8:41 AM
what if i say please? haha.
cyanide149 wrote on 6/6/2004, 9:59 AM
You could have tried it both ways by now.