The right recording format for a homegrown movie?

ingvarai wrote on 5/20/2009, 4:50 AM
I spent several days shooting, now I have ~300 clips (footages). Mostly outtdoor, it is a movie, with my family memebers as actors.
When editing is done in Vegas, I hope this move will give a "movie feeling", with music and action.

I shot all in 1920x1080 50i (PAL). Did I do it right?
Should I have chosen 25p? Should I have switched to one of the "Cinema" presets, "Cinema gamma presets" or is it smarter to do this correction in Vegas?
Do I really want the "cinema look" and the 25p judder? I do want it to be a movie, not a TV documentary. But to be on the safe side, I thought 50i was the best, believeing that it is possible to apply a cinema feeling to interlaced video material i post production, but not possible to go the other way.

ingvarai

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/20/2009, 4:55 AM
> I thought 50i was the best, believeing that it is possible to apply a cinema feeling to interlaced video material i post production, but not possible to go the other way.

The answer, of course, is subjective but this is exactly what I would have done. You can play with cinema looks later and convert to 25p or even 24p as needed but by shooting 50i you have what I believe to be, the most flexible workflow.

~jr
farss wrote on 5/20/2009, 5:22 AM
Do you imagine if you shot and projected film at 50fps it would make it look like video?
You're worrying about the wrong issues, watch a movie, watch a good TV doco. Many TV docos are shot on film. The main difference is in the lighting.

Bob.

ingvarai wrote on 5/20/2009, 6:35 AM
> You're worrying about the wrong issues

Actually I am not worrying about so much. As you understand, I am relatively new to this. When the camera has so many "Cinema" settings and when filter exist who alter [degrade?] the video quality and all of this is called "Cinema" or "Movie" I thought that many people must find a use for this, one way or another.
I am perfectly happy with the plain video look, myself. Still people use these filters and settings.

So my question boils down to:
Did I choose the right format, considering I (or others) later might want a "Cinema" look applied to the final result. To what extent I myself will be interested in this, is another question. It will be interesting to know if anyone here really do such things. Make their videos look like cinema, that is.

ingvarai
farss wrote on 5/20/2009, 7:05 AM
"It will be interesting to know if anyone here really do such things."

Yes, sure. What you're asking is a huge topic though. My best advice if you're just starting out is stick to any camera's factory defaults and you cannot go too far wrong. Make you first movie, learn a lot about the process. Get all that under control before you worry about messing around too much with camera settings. Without a lot of expensive gear and time it's very easy to make a complete mess that cannot be fixed in post. Remember that when a movie with a budget is shot there's people assigned to each task. This is not just to pad out the budget it's so there's less risk of human error.
Trying to do everything is the stuff disasters are made of and when you're imposing on family and friends nothing makes them walk away faster than you blowing a shot because you messed up a camera setting.

so yes, what you did was wise. Shooting 25p raises certain issues that you need to consider when you're shooting. Using cine gamma settings also has issues that you need to consider when shooting. You should try all these things to learn how to use them. The time to do this is on your time, not with talent in front of the camera. Test, test, try and learn. Remember as you push a camera more, lighting can become more critical, getting correct exposure is even more critical.

Bob.
ingvarai wrote on 5/20/2009, 7:21 AM
>The time to do this is on your time, not with talent in front of the camera. Test, test, try and learn
A very good advice, I have learnt it is a good advice, the hard way.
I also discovered that I have to turn off the auto focus, which I previously considered reliable (my consumer camcorder).

ingvarai