Blog -> Cameras and Camera Tests
So as I said before, when we decided to change up the whole film and how we’re going to do it, we started doing some experiments with various cameras for various parts of the film. All in all, we will be shooting on many cameras, the correct camera for the situation, give or take. For instance, there are some interview portions. We’ve experimented with both an HVX and with the new Canon 7D.
Canon 7D DSLR
Personally, I like the look we’re getting out of the 7D for this kind of stuff. It’s pretty natural, and the camera’s low-light capabilities mean you can often shoot only with practicals. The shot to the left uses:
- Cannon 28-70mm zoom 2.8, here stopped I think to about 4.0
- ISO 640
- 1/48 shutter
- Only the light you see in the room; light from the window and the lamp on his desk
The shot is slightly washed out in post to give it more of the look I want. I think it looks pretty natural and more cinematic than a standard video camera. It’s got a bit of softness, and combined with the wash out in post, it looks like maybe shot on not the best stock in the world. I’m actually adding some grain on top of it too, give it a little more character.
I hear a lot of talk about aliasing with the 7D. I guess I just don’t know what to look for, or maybe only use it in conditions that hide the issue, but I don’t really see it a lot. Meaning, the image I see is pretty pleasing to my eye, and not full of strange or ugly artifacts like aliasing, macro-blocking, etc.
Here are a couple more grabs from the 7D. These are from some interview segments we’re using to raise awareness of the film, and by design under better conditions:
I think this looks perfectly nice, except for the wee bit of focus issue I had due to the shallow DOF. In this case, I had let the camera auto-expose. The shot still came out beautifully clean, but you can see a little soft as I try to find the mark. When seen small it’s not an issue, but at full res noticeable.
But for my money, this is completely acceptable for interview shots, and probably most CU and medium shots. I think where the compression really shows its weakness is in wide shots, where there might just be way too much detail for the codec to deal with in a nice way. But my general philosophy these days is to use whatever camera works for the shot. If I intended on shooting a film with the 7D, and shooting it like a “normal” film, meaning trying to make the cinematography look nice, etc. then I would likely keep an HVX or something similar on set as well, to get the shots the 7D can’t. But in general, I know what I want out of this camera: low-light capability, low-profile, inconspicuous shooting, use of Canon lenses. And those things it delivers just fine.
Now look at this shot of our actress Leah, also being interviewed. She’s pretty yellow, because I screwed up and used a crappy light on her that wasn’t even 3200K. Pitfalls of this camera’s light sensitivity. You’re tempted to grab any old Ikea light you find laying around. Just make sure it’s not going to bite you in the ass.
But another thing I’ve heard a lot about the 7D is that the compression makes color-correcting very difficult. I guess this is probably true for heavy color-correction, which I’m generally not a fan of anyway, unless it serves a purpose in the film. I mean, my film EVIE is severely cc-ed, but it’s actually integral to the story.
In this case though, I was able to bring her back from the clutches of Jaundice and make her look pretty human again. It’s a pretty light cc with just the FCP three-wheel color corrector, but does the job, saves the shot, and makes it usable.
So all in all, I am pretty happy with the 7D and what it will bring to this shoot. I am also planning on shooting a short on it in January.
To my mind, any filmmaker just starting out who wants to make “films,” primarily his/her own work, and not client work for broadcast, etc. should get one of these DSLRs. This one, the 5D, the Panasonic GH1. They give a much closer approximation of a cinematic look than any video prosumer video camera out there right now. And the limitations are much less of a big deal on an “film” shoot than they would be on an event shoot say, or a TV reality show shoot, anywhere where you need all of the conveniences of a conventional video camera. Combine the look they give with the stupidly low price they give it for and I think these things make the perfect tool for a beginning filmmaker. The only real beef I have with this camera is lack of monitoring. With say, an HVX, I’m used to shooting with the camera cradled in my arm, and looking down at the LCD. An articulating LCD and focus-assist would make this thing a dream. I guess the GH1 has a flip-out LCD…anyway, I know there are monitors we can get for this camera, but honestly, the minute you start tacking gear on top of it, the camera starts losing exactly what its best at – stealth. Not a problem on set I suppose, but for stealing those scenes I wrote to take place at the UN…
All Right, the fun stuff!
Surveillance Cameras
Okay, that’s all well and good about the 7D. Sure it’s useful in some situations and could be a good camera for shooting your stuff and making it look pretty good. But on THE LOST CHILDREN, we’re stepping up our game. That’s right, we’re going all out with the…surveillance camera.
Steve, our art director actually had some of these little wireless remote surveillance cameras. The stuff that guy has just laying around will boggle your mind. If you meet him, ask him about the bag of babies hanging by the front door.
Anyway, in some of the scenes, we wanted to see what a surveillance camera would see. So instead of trying to muck it up in post, we went for the real deal. These things have an awesome murkiness to the image, and you can add jumpiness and static to them just by interrupting the signal. Whenever I’d pass my iPhone near the receiver, I would get a little more fuzz and zigzag pattern in the video. Just like the iPhone mysteriously messes with my car radio, I guess. Yes, the iPhone likes to intimidate lesser electronics.
These cameras don’t record themselves, but they do have RCA outputs, so that you can record to say, a DVX as a deck, thus adding to the delicious image degredation they provide.
iPod Nano
The next thing we wanted to do was simulate a situation where someone might be spying on another person with a cell phone camera. Lacking a cell phone with video though, we used a new iPod Nano instead. Well, one thing about video technology now, is that it’s just too good. The Nano does put out some crappy, low-res video, but not crappy and low-res enough. It just wasn’t giving me the look I wanted. So I played around with it for a while, and finally settled on this. I exported it as an even lower-res web video, uploaded it to YouTube, hoping to further degrade the image, and then shot the YouTube video on a TV screen with a DVX set to 30p. It was only then that I started to see something about like what I wanted.
I haven’t settled on this stuff yet, so if anyone reads this and has some brilliant ideas about it, feel free to comment or email me with them, or drop a note through the form below.
Various Other Video Cameras
But I did carry on with this technique into some other videos. At certain points in the story, some characters record themselves on video and put these videos on the web. I’ve been having the actors do these by themselves, as they would be done, in order to give them as much a sense of the reality of the situation as possible. I’ve been working non-actors into the mix as well. But again, the video they’ turn in just wasn’t bad enough. Too clean, too good, too nice. I wanted the video to call some attention to itself, to insert itself between subject and viewer.
Plus, there’s an inherent creepiness brought by the obfuscation of the subject, by the fact that you cannot completely make out what you’re looking at, by the fact that you have to sort of meet the subject matter half-way and engage your mind to figure out what you’re seeing, and hopefully engage your imagination to fill in what you’re not.
This aspect has some bearing on our story, so I wanted to start working out how to express it visually.