Scanlines
BRISBANE MOVIE MAKERS INCORPORATED
See two months worth of this years program of activities below. Make a note
on your own calendar at home and come along for a great selection of evenings
May 2014
Mo
Tue
Wed Thu
1
Fri
2
Sat
3
Sun
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
We meet at:
The
Community Meeting Hall,
at the eastern end of
Josling Street, Toowong.
{At the northern side of
Perrin Park}
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Starting time:7.30pm
26
27
28
29
30
31
May 2014
When: First and third
Thursdays
Neal to show a movie and ask for a critique of it’s features. What do we like
Email: srgordon@ozemail.com.au
what we and
Senses and sensors,
me and
our camera do the sa
tly.
sometimes differen
www.bmm.org.au
June 2014
Mon Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
2
9
16
23
30
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
3
10
17
24
On the Web:
This evening still open for club member
1
Sun
1
8
June Tretheway to conduct an
15 Actor workshop. This should be
22 a good night to attend and get
29 into the mood.
President’s Report
The BMM clubs “Open Competition” for 2014
is just around the corner and we have just
placed the advertising and conditions of entry up
on our web site, so lets get those movies rolling
and have a go this year. We have had entries in
past years from our sister clubs in Queensland
which have taken out the prizes and they have
deserved them too but it’s about time we showed
them all what BMM can do. It’s an open format
which means anything goes, within reason, as
the committee can reject anything considered
not reasonable. (our decision)
I have returned to the position of president of our
club ,not because I yearned for power or prestige
but as Neal pointed out in his last note as Vice
President, a club without it’s committee is not a
club in it’s reporting form under the structure we
registered as. I don’t suppose for one minute that
any big sticks from any Government would declare
us void but to maintain our registration we need to
act properly.
We will continue to conduct committee meetings
once a month and you are encouraged to let us
know of any issues that you want us to consider.
Remember ,it’s your club.
Go to bmm.org.au to down load the forms,
and don’t forget our web site has back numbers
of our news letter too.
I would like to see some more members step up to
make a presentation at a club evening. Any skill or
particular style of movie making we would all love
to hear about it, even if you are only at a starter level. The second Thursday of each month is where
you can “strut your stuff” generally and the first
Thursday is set aside for members movies but having said that it’s not set in concrete and if there’s
only one particular evening you can spare ,go for it,
give us a call
Neal has been collecting scripts from members
from which we want to produce a club movie and
that means we want every one to get involved in
any way possible as part of a team. There probably
won’t be enough time to get something ready for an
entry for the BMM “Open Competition” this year
as the deadline is looming,17th July, and for the
showing on the Saturday 30th August at the OES
Hall again but it would be nice if we could make a
good club movie for the BMM end of year show.
Whatever your skill come along and join in.
Whoever’s script we choose there is a lot of activity
before we even think of shooting.
Ian Skennerton has taken of the management role
for the “Cobb and Co” shoot in August but at the
moment he is away so we won’t know what the
progress is until he returns. It could be as big as
Ben Hur but its intention is to make a record of the
event for the 2014 Cobb & Co Anniversary Celebration and to give the participants a record of the
day.
If you have any ideas for our web site please let
us know. The web site does work, as recent visitors have all found us through it. It is our only
outside advertising venue and we should take
full advantage of that.
I hope to see as many club members and visitors at all future club meetings on the First and
Third Thursday each month
Stewart Gordon
I have decided that as the proceedings of
the committee meetings are to be sent to
all members then there is no need for me
to wait and comment further here, if
there is any point raised by the committee
that needs discussion and decisions to be
made by members then once again we
will let everyone know directly.
This will help me get the news letter out
to you all without a rush between the
committee meeting and the second club
meeting Thursday.
2
Rod and Bette Kay would like
to invite everyone to attend
their Premier show as below.
Advertising space for club
members.
Ian Skennerton, Items for sale.
I have an item for the 'Buy, Sell & Wanted'
column...
Digital Stopwatch, great for timing segments in editing & post production.
1/100th sec stopwatch, Split / lap time, Normal time, Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Day
Date & Month.
New in box, $15. Ian Skennerton, 0406 925
976 (out of the country 1st April to 3rd
May)
Cheers, Ian
3
There is also space cut out for two
additional high capacity batteries.
Hi All,
If anyone is interested, or may
know anyone interested and forward this email onto them,
Comes with the standard battery
charger, cables and instruction
manual.
I have for sale a Sony FS-100pk
super 35mm chip camera .
Reason for selling - I have two other cameras and I no longer have
the 2012/13 client who I used this
FS-100 camera for.
Great for that much sort after
depth of field film look.
It is Sony's answer to the poor vid- I paid $6,200 for the camera in
eo/audio making DSLR's that are January 2012 from Video Pro,
on the market.
Brisbane.
Please see 3x attached Photos.
(You can buy the same camera
The camera clock displays only 50 online for $5,500)
hours work done.
Pelican case and Hoya filters cost
It has the latest firmware installed.
me $500
It has a UV Skylight filter screwed
to the lens for lens protection.
Willing to sell all for $3000
Regards
Graham Weston
Has two additional filters - a Hoya
Polarise filter (drops 2 stops) and a Contemporary Video
Hoya ND8 filter that drops 3 stops.
07 3800 9333
It has a detachable lens mount
0403 054 450
that uses any E mount and A
c.video@bigpond.com
mount lenses.
With adapters you can mount
many other makes of lenses.
It comes in a neat Pelican case.
The space cut out for the standard
mic is also the right size for the
popular Rode NTG-2 mic.
4
RECORDING NARRATION /POP FILTER
When carrying out a narration for my videos, I have always seated the narrator comfortably in front of a
suspended microphone to give the least amount of movement noise. The microphone must also be connected on a long lead, to keep the computer noise from entering the recording. Before commencement of recording, the audio level must be set to have a maximum peak output of no more than 0db or distortion of
the signal will result. The recording meter on the Corel Editor, and apparently some others, is very poor for
accurate results, so I actually record mine on a professional reel to reel recorder. This unit has very accurate
vu meters, which I monitor during the recording.
The narrator then reads the total narration with two second breaks between each passage. I find this is important to keep the same tone and level throughout. I then copy this tape via Audacity Program, to remove
possible hum, pips, and if required, overall level, before transferring to a CD. I then add each passage to the
timeline as required. With this method, I also have a narration copy for any future alterations.
While I thought I had always produced good sound, I found a recent anomaly after my daughter had done a
narration. There were three spots where a sudden rasp occurred, that sounded like an overload. On close
scrutiny, it was noted this was happening on plosive
sounds, ie. P words such as plus or poser.
Looking up a book on professional recording and on
the web, I found every professional studio uses a pop
filter for singers or narrators. So I set about to make
one.
It was just so simple. I bought a small embroidery ring
from Spotlight for $2, stretched an old black stocking,
my daughter was throwing out, between the rings, and
stretched the fabric tight. As my microphone is held in
a Rhode mount, which has a ¼ inch thread , I bent a
piece of 8 gauge fencing wire in a small loop at one
end and poked the other under the screw on the rings. See photo for construction.
I found this simple device worked perfectly and a friend of mine has also made a more elaborate unit for
use with a vertical microphone and is more than pleased with it.
Nev Long
External memory devices look to some major change in the future
with new method of creating re writable memory.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/RRAM-terabyte-Crossbar-stackability-NANDFlash,23810.html
New development storage called RRAM that may make the present Flash Ram old hat before very long.
This may end up being our external storage device of the future and hold all our movie
files.
5
Jan and I went to see a special screening of the Movie “The Nothing Men” at the Red Room in Cleveland last Saturday. It was hosted by the producer Andrew Windsor.
This was the first movie produced in Australia made with the Red Camera system in 2010.
This carried the penalty that very few cinema’s were capable of screening 4K digital at that time and so
gave it a limited release. This has since changed and almost all cinema’s now use digital projection.
This is a good story about the issue of some men being made redundant but only if they can manage to
survive two weeks waiting without trouble to collect their money.
Not a movie for the faint hearted though as plenty of swearing throughout but a strong story line .
Andrew talked about the problems of production and getting finance for his $1.5 million movie and he
is still now working to get it shown around the world.
He also talked about some early problems with the Red camera with a software glitch, which was fixed
by a call to the makers and a system reboot! It seems the camera got into a tangle when too much
green was in the shot.
Andrew made the point that as the camera’s were rented it was easy to get “Tech Support” and they
were soon back in production but then it was quite a fright when a camera shuts down because it got
to hot in the closed up indoor environment of the Factory. Some local ice cooling soon got them back
working again this time too.
I have no doubt that since then these sort of problems have been overcome as almost all major movies
made in the USA use the Red cameras in some form or other.
You can see the “film like” features of producing this way as short focus and sharp images were there
for all to see in this production. Film look without its cost, although I noticed that a final version was
also created on 35mm film to be able to spread it’s exposure. (no pun intended)
At our viewing they used a very expensive new digital projector to show at full 4k brilliance even
though they couldn’t afford to also hire a screen and showed it on the wall, A La BMM but at least their
wall was true white!
The Movie “The Nothing Men” was shot by Peter Holland using the Red One camera above.
Stewart
6
Back to the DSLR. A focus ring on the lens is a given as is a
zoom ring (unless you're using a prime lens) but with modern DSLR lenses there is rarely an aperture ring.
Rod's DSLR Notes
Manual Labour
In the old days of film SLR cameras it was common to have
an aperture ring on the lens and more expensive lenses still
frequently do. Bette has a couple of nice Sigma lenses for
her Pentax DSLR that have them. I talked about DSLR cine
lenses a couple of issues ago, so I won't go back over that.
If you want a camera that's good for shoot and run type activities, including holidays etc, then you probably aren't looking to
buy a DSLR.
The point is that adjusting the aperture on the fly from fiddly camera controls is not easy.
Why? Because they aren't ergonomically designed for it and
(this is the big but) they don't generally have continuous auto
focus. (This is not quite true because some later models do)
I haven't even mentioned white balance yet: and I won't.
So where are we left after all this? and how can we transition to manual operation without going crazy.
Anyone who has been a member of the club for a while will
know how many times we have been exhorted to use manual
controls on our cameras. But we still (most of us including
me) frequently rely on auto.
With the DSLR ( unless you have one of the newer ones)
you have to learn how to manually focus and all it takes is
practice. Lots of practice. But you get the real benefit of
being able to control depth of field. A decent follow focus
helps and there have been a couple of articles about these in
Scanlines.
The good news is that the new Canon 70D DSLR has continuous auto focus. This won't be a review though.
Exposure is the big issue. Going manual will really help
your shooting, but the problem comes back to the aperture
adjustment. On my camera it's a fiddly control on the back
of the camera. It's hard to get to when you are looking
through the Lupe and difficult to control. I would really like
a lens with an aperture ring on the turret! Nevertheless it's
worth persevering because exposures will be better if you do
it manually.
I'm often tempted to adjust the shutter speed rather than the
aperture because it's easier to get to on the camera, but
we've talked about that before and we know that the ideal
shutter speed for most shooting is 1/50th second (assuming
25fps) so try and stay close to that.Always remember that
the camera, while very capable, is not able to adjust to all
conditions. It'll never be as good as the human brain.
I was looking at a Panasonic "prosumer" camcorder the other
day with a price tag of just over $2k that had three rings on the
turret. About time! this allows you to adjust iris (aperture)
Zoom and focus very simply and makes the transition to using
manual controls much easier.
Rod
If I was looking to buy a camcorder this one would be on my
list
I won't discuss the reasons for going manual, because I think
we all know them.
7
Editing Project Settings should be set up with
1920x1080p 8bit or 10bit if your editor has this
ability.
At a recent meeting it was suggested that we
should start showing our movies on Flash drives
to enable us to show them at the HD quality we
had filmed them at. There are issues that should
be considered first and they are discussed below.
There is a difference between HDV (High Definition Video) and HD (High Definition).
We can readily purchase a “WD TV Live” unit to
show them through at the club. Take note of Graham’s comments to get a format that works for
you and have something ready for the July 3rd
meeting.
HDV has a frame size of 1440x1080.
HD has a frame size of 1920x1080.
Note: 1440 divided by 1080 = 1.33 aspect ratio
or the old 4:3 (divide 4 by 3 = 1.33)
Flash drives and recording formats.
Note: 1920 divided by 1080 = 1.77 aspect ratio
or 16:9 widescreen (divide 16 by 9 = 1.77)
From Graham
Question: How do they get HDV aspect to look
right on a 16:9 widescreen TV when really it is a
4:3 aspect ratio?
You currently must stick with the old Fat 32 file system when formatting your USB drive.
This will enable compatibility across multiple playing platforms.
Answer: The pixels are not square like HD. The
pixel aspect ratio for HDV is 1:33 by 1.
Not all players will recognise the superior NTFS
format.
Therefore HDV is 1440x1080 with pixel aspect
of 1:33 by 1
Apple is the culprit for this, as they will never accept
their is any other format other than their own, even if
other formats are superior to the Fat 32 file system.
HD is 1920x1080 with pixel aspect of 1 by 1
(square pixels)
Therefore, all USB drives natively cater for the Fat
32 file system.
The best file type to export from any video editor
is:
Fat32 universally works on any platform such as
TV's, Blu-ray players, PC's, Macs, iPads, mobile
phones, iPhones and any other kind of media player,
.
File type to use = h.264 (some editors call it .mp4
or AVC)
(.mp4 / h.264 video files are far, far, far superior
than AVI or HDV files.
The pitfall is the Fat32 USB drive will not load a file
bigger than 4GB.
This is why I still stick with Fat32 formatted
USB's and render my videos out in 1920x1080
HD in H.264 .mp4 video files at a data bit rate of
9-12 Mb/s to be under 4GB file size.
Therefore, all finished movie files will need to be
exported from the editing program with a file size no
bigger than 4GB.
9 Mb/s data rate allows me a 60 min video and
12Mb/s allows me a 40 min video with excellent
picture quality.
Fat32 file system can only be allocated with a maximum 32GB size partition onto any drive.
All video, these days, should be recorded in progressive mode, not interlace.
Graham Weston
Ex QMM and ex BMM club member.
That is, avoid camera record settings in interlace
mode - record in 1080p not 1080i
8
Flash memory drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, whatever you call them come in either usb2 or usb3 and either FAT32 ,NTFS, or EXFAT format but they aren’t by any means
the same. (see Grahams comment re the use of a particular format)
I picked up a 64gbn Scandisk Cruzer Blade drive form Aldi for $40 which is a good price
but is it a good performer?
If you go to this URL for Toms Hardware site there may be some nasty surprises about
your latest purchase.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-thumb-drive-review,3477.html
If you have purchased a USB2 device or a USB3 device then they may not perform as you
might hope.
So if you are going to output your latest Movie to show at the club onto a usb3 Flash
drive be prepared for time difference depending on the device make.
Below are a selection of flash drives that I have accumulated over the years and I tested them with a free application called Checkflash. (it only likes FAT32 ) It doesn’t
attempt to test under all file sizes and types but it just shows that if you expect to wait
the same time to output your video to Flash Memory you could be in for a surprise
with different device makes and sizes.
It is very obvious that if you have a big movie, under the 4gb limit), then USB3 flash
drives are the way to go even if they cost quite a bit more for the same capacity of a
USB2 device.
It will pay to check the performance (on the internet) of a particular USB3 device before you shell out over $100 for a big capacity one
Flash Ram name
Model
Lexar
scandisk
Capacity
Format
interface
Write speed Read speed
16gb
fat32
usb3
18.8mb/s
37.28mb/s
fat32
usb2
3.82mb/s
6.59mb/s
cruzer edge 8gb
Scandisk
cruzer
blade
64gb
exfat
usb2
no test results from
S/W
Verbatim
Store and
Store and
14gb
fat32
usb2
4.5mb/s
16.46mb/s
Scandisk
Cruzer
Titanium
4gb
fat32
usb2
8.08gb/s
17.22gb/s
9
Brisbane Movie Makers 2014 open competition notice
President BMM Stewart Gordon president@bmm.org.au
Secretary BMM Bob Adamson secretary@bmm.org.au
10