videographers wanted

jack · Post by **jack** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:16 pm

I know i've kicked this idea around a ton in the past, and tonetripper has expressed interest in the past as well, about creating a songfight live documentary thing. i saw some of the finished video from austin, and thought it turned out very cool, so i guess i'm asking/requesting/putting out an open call for videographers that might have the means or desire to shoot video of the show. it would be great to have multiple people doing this, to get tons of raw footage that can be later edited, from different angles and perspectives. i'm happy to work on pre or post show production stuff, etc. (i'll probably be pretty busy both nights of the show working the door though) I'd love to get interviews with individual songfighters as well as live show shots.

any thoughts or takers?

Bjam · Post by **Bjam** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:01 pm

Not videographer, but I'll have my camera and be taking lots of photos, and possibly little .movs. (And this year the battery will not go dead and I'll get in a place that won't kill the flash

)

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:17 pm

Likewise - I'll probably bring my video camera with me - someone who knows what they are doing is welcome to my raw footage

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 10:30 am

I will have my video camera as well, and I'd be happy to play around with the footage after the show. (I am an editor, after all) The trick is making sure everyone who is shooting footage is shooting a compatable format. (ie, something I can actually get into the editing system)

If anyone who is planning on bringing a video camera and donating their footage to the final product would let me know ahead of time what format (or what kinbd of tape... mini DV, high 8, vhs, dvd, etc) they are shooting I can make arrangements to try and get it all in.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:45 pm

I'll probably bring my camera, which is a piece of shit which records MiniDV. It can do 16:9 anamorphic and 4:3. Which should I set it for? 4:3 would be more compatible of course but 16:9 is awesomer and (slightly) higher quality.

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:59 pm

4:3 is easier and more compatable. Plus, I can always cheat and mask it to 16:9 later.

Also, Mini DV is the preferred format.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:18 pm

But you could crop 16:9 to 4:3 by the same token.

It'd be nice if there were decent editing software which natively supported multi-format stuff so that you could use the same timeline to edit hybrid 16:9/4:3 footage and just have a rolling pan-and-scan window which switches between horizontal and vertical based on the stock footage. I see so many TV shows which edit together 16:9 and 4:3 footage for broadcast in both SD 4:3 and HD 16:9, and then fuck up so BADLY on both of them. PBS is particularly bad about this, where they usually just stretch it anamorphically, seemingly with the hope that people won't notice.

Even the half-assed solution of putting a moving backdrop underneath the 4:3 to help it expand out to 16:9 is preferable.

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:25 pm

fluffy wrote:But you could crop 16:9 to 4:3 by the same token.

It's a total misnomer that 16:9 = higher quality picture. The picture size and shape changes, but the pixel count is identical. Your aspect ratio and your quality have absolutely nothing to do with eachother.

In order to crop 16:9 to 4:3 that I would have to blow up the picture, which could lead to pixelization and distortion as well as cropping. Simply adding a mask to existing 4:3 footage only crops and does not add any distortion. If people want a true 16:9 dvd from the show that's cool, but everyone would have to shoot at 16:9.

Honestly, shoot it however you want. It will all import in. I will, however, set the project at 4:3 since I assume that's how I'm going to get most of the footage.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:04 pm

Actually it is higher quality, precisely because of the reasons you said it isn't. The pixels are shorter, so given the same bitrate you have more vertical detail with the same amount of horizontal detail.

Either way, though, cropping one to go to the other represents a HUGE quality loss (you lose 25% of the source pixels either way). Which is why if everything's in 4:3 and you crop it to 16:9 that'd be utterly retarded since then everything loses out (especially if something was originally in 16:9 in which case it's getting cropped twice, unless you re-edit specifically for 16:9).

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:29 pm

fluffy wrote:Actually it is higher quality, precisely because of the reasons you said it isn't. The pixels are shorter, so given the same bitrate you have more vertical detail with the same amount of horizontal detail.

Either way, though, cropping one to go to the other represents a HUGE quality loss (you lose 25% of the source pixels either way). Which is why if everything's in 4:3 and you crop it to 16:9 that'd be utterly retarded since then everything loses out (especially if something was originally in 16:9 in which case it's getting cropped twice, unless you re-edit specifically for 16:9).

Fluffy has just voluntered to do the video.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:44 pm

Oh hell no. My home video rig consists of said crappy camcorder and an old copy of Final Cut Pro, and the only reason I was able to finish the audio from 2004 was because I was unemployed at the time.

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:10 pm

fluffy wrote:Oh hell no. My home video rig consists of said crappy camcorder and an old copy of Final Cut Pro, and the only reason I was able to finish the audio from 2004 was because I was unemployed at the time.

Hey dude. You're a pro and apparently I am retarded. Every one here in my edit bay says that with your vast and exact knowledge of video you should edit it. They also say that you need to read up a little more on aspect ratios and how they work in practical application, but you'll have plenty of time to do that while you're importing all the footage. Cheers.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:26 pm

Dude, I understand aspect ratios. Don't be a hater.

Smaller pixels = finer detail. Just like smaller brush strokes. Also I could go into a long-winded technical discussion about how the 8x8 DCT window affects artifacting and how a 16:9 aspect anamorphic video helps that too and so on, but I don't want to bore people.

I could also talk about some of the video reconstruction research I did as a grad student, and I could violate my NDA by talking about how this also relates to my job. But I won't.

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:46 pm

In the application we're talking about none of that stuff matters. When it comes down to professional and consumer level digital video cameras and they way they interprit and then record data, the pixels are the same. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that your camera's anamorphic 16:9 is really a built in mask. Most prosumer cameras are. Not until you start getting into HD and high end stuff are we even considering pixel manipulation. Your chipset will give you a set number of pixels regardless of weither you set it at 4:3, 16:9, 3:2:2, 1:8, etc etc etc. If doesn't fucking matter. What matters is how that data is transfered into the system, and if you shoot it at 16:9 and I have a 4:3 project, I'm gonna have to blow it up and it's gonna look like shit. You can violate your NDA on whatever game you are working on all day long, and it won't change the fact that when a camera records data and an editing system takes that data in, it interprits it a certain way. I spend every day of my life on an editing platform. I have dealt with every format from VHS to 24p to HD to 35 mm film, and I'm pretty damn good at knowing how they will react under given circumstances. Give your techno know-it-all attitude a rest for 20 minutes and stop calling people retarded. I do this for a fucking living, and I am very good at what I do.

jack · Post by **jack** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:02 pm

and cut!

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:06 pm

I'm not calling you retarded. However:

- My camera, shitty as it is, doesn't just mask to get 16:9, it actually records anamorphically. The CCD is 800x600, and in 4:3 mode it scales to 720x480, and in 16:9 mode it crops to 800x450 before scaling to 720x480. So yes there is still some quality loss, but WAY less loss than if it were recorded at 720x480 and then cropped to 720x360 just to be scaled back up to 720x480.

- I already said my camera was crappy. However by recording in 16:9 it mitigates some of the crappiness, vertically, because the pixels are flatter.

- You threw the first punch by implying that I don't know what I'm talking about, when all I was saying was that I'd like to record in 16:9 anamorphic to at least resuscitate some of the quality as much as I can. I realize that you work on video all day but there's no reason for you to be a snob about it, particularly since I work on similar things all day TOO.

- I am not working on a game. I haven't worked in the games industry for over a year, and even when I did it was just a temporary thing until I found something better. I found something way better.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:15 pm

Okay, one thing I neglected to consider is that I was thinking only in terms of 16:9 framing. 16:9 sacrifices horizontal resolution (resolution meaning in terms of dot pitch, not in terms of actual pixel count). 4:3 sacrifices vertical resolution. Converting one to the other causes a 25% quality loss either way (and worse yet it's in the direction which was already sacrificed to begin with). Ideally you just want everything to be in the same source format, or at a higher resolution than your target format. Of course we're just talking about a cheap-ass consumer camera.

Sorry to get my knickers in a bunch. You were right, just for reasons I wasn't considering.

My apologies.

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:39 pm

Listen man, I didn't mean to infer that you don't know what you are talking about. You know more about pixels and graphic technology than I would ever dream to. But how those pixels react inside an editing sysem was the question, and I will defer to my own knowledge when it comes to that. You asked a question, I gave you an answer. You didn't like my answer and spewed out a whole lot of technobabble that had absolutely no relivance to the question you asked. I'm sitting in an edit bay with 4 professional editors scratching their heads at what you are saying and how it has anything to do with the final product given the Songfight situation. I'm sorry if I was a dick.

The project will be 4:3 because that's how most people will most likely shoot it. If you want to shoot 16:9, knock yourself out, but it's gonna look like shit in a 4:3 project and therefore very little of it will be used.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:51 pm

Right, and I'll shoot in 4:3.

I still maintain that my "technobabble" wasn't horseshit (I was thinking in terms of encoding stuff which was already in a wide aspect, e.g. movies, like what I was working on when I was learning about this stuff), it was just not appropriate for the particular situation.

prayformojo · Post by **prayformojo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:09 pm

fluffy wrote:Right, and I'll shoot in 4:3.

I still maintain that my "technobabble" wasn't horseshit (I was thinking in terms of encoding stuff which was already in a wide aspect, e.g. movies, like what I was working on when I was learning about this stuff), it was just not appropriate for the particular situation.

I don't think it was horse shit either. In fact, I'd wager you were right about most if not all of your numbers, etc... but yes, given the situation we were discussing none of it mattered. ("technobabble" is what the editors call it when one of the tech guys is on a rant. They are tellign us every bit of coding and whatnot, and all we need to know is how it was made, what will happen to it when it comes in, and how it will look when it goes out. People tend to forget that all the technology in the world doesn't matter for squat if you can't get it to create the final product you ask it to.) Anyway, bygones and stupid crap...

regardless it will be good to see you in Santa Cruz.

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:27 pm

My TV's are all 16:9.

So you know.......issue resolved.

Because it's all about me.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:58 pm

I have one TV, which is 4:3. It is also an HDTV. This leads to all sorts of weirdness, like how all 4:3 content broadcast via HD is pillboxed to make it 16:9 (since ATSC, for some reason, only supports 16:9 content on 720p and 1080i), and then my TV letterboxes it, so my 27" TV is more like 22" whenever I watch the major networks and they're not broadcasting something in 16:9 (and when they do it's still just 24"ish).

I will probably replace it with a 40" 16:9 TV since even 4:3 pillboxed content on that is still quite a bit bigger than native 4:3 content on the 27".

Now what'll be really hot is when prosumer HDcams become affordable. It's kind of silly how every person with a Mac has a complete (if gimpy) HD editing suite even though most of them don't even know what HD even is, much less want to spend $3200+ for an HDcam just so that their videos of their kids playing with a beach ball are at 1920x1080 resolution.

(Incidentally, the one thing that I'm happiest about with ATSC and HD in general is that they've finally switched everything to square pixels, which makes aspect ratio and resolution issues much less of a problem. Of course since it's fixed at 16:9 there's not really a whole lot to care about except which of three resolutions it's at and the bitrate.)