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Topics - ImagineFlight

#1
General Help Q&A / Shutter Speed Readings
May 10, 2014, 12:31:31 AM
I've searched everywhere. I'm sure everyone says that though.

Traditionally, I've been using ML 2.3 with the most recent RAW module plugin for my 50D supplied from here: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5586.0

I always shoot my Photo and Video in Manual. Always.

I decided to try the most recent nightly build and was thrilled to find that RAW Video capability was built into the ML firmware! The new font is shiny too.

I was not thrilled to find seemingly different and frustrating shutter speed options. The top of my camera currently reads at 1/50, (as I shoot at 23.976 fps for the extra resolution, so 1/50 fills the 180° rule), and when taking a photo, the exposure is always correct as I adjust through ND filters and aperture / ISO settings.

BUT in Live View it reads a completely different shutter speed and the Live View picture is whitewashed when shooting outdoors, (even though photographs I take with the same settings are exposed correctly). For example, the camera is set to 1/50, but in live view it will read as 1/92 (or any number it would like to). In fact, even when I adjust my aperture I've found that this number changes. I'm not certain of how my frames are being exposed. I also get confusing readings within the ML menu, like "1/92, 94°." When this value is changed within Magic Lantern, my photo settings change on the top of my camera as well. It also appears to loop around through settings when I rotate my click wheel far enough.

All in all, I would like some help in setting an accurate solid shutter speed for 23.976 fps raw video recording, and an understanding of what these units represent. Do I follow what's on my camera's top display or what ML tells me?

Regards and much thanks, ImagineFlight
#2
Share Your Videos / The Quiet Season - 5D Mark II
May 09, 2014, 11:53:09 PM
The Quiet Season | A Filmmaking Experience
Brandon Neubert of Kaysville UT | 3 May 2014



The concept behind The Quiet Season began with a letter that my mother wrote to me while I was away in Tennessee for a few years in service for my church. When I received the letter, I read it through about seven times and went to a public library to type it into a word file and save it onto my portable hard drive. I don't know what caused her to write as poetically as she did in that letter, but I do know it was inspired, and I'm glad she wrote it. She's an excellent cyclist and loves to ride. What I loved most about this letter was how it shared her reasons behind her riding, the honesty of it all. It was so visual, so vivid, that I could see, hear and feel everything as I read. Simply put – I knew that other cyclists shared those same feelings, and I wanted to share her experience. Later that week I began basic scripting and very basic storyboarding. After that, I put it away for a year and a half until I could return back home to Utah.
People deserve to know that this was the first "real" "short film" I've ever produced. I have my reasons for not uploading the rubber duck love story that my buddy Angus and I made in high school, though it is pretty awesome. I'll start out by saying my experience using Magic Lantern on the Canon 5D Mark II was fast, moderately simple (with a complex workflow), and delivered more for my budget than anything else in existence right now. You can read about my workflow near the end of the article.

This was actually my first experience with ML as well, making this project even more difficult. But I didn't want to botch this and turn such a fantastic narrative into a sub-par home video. At the time, all I had access to was a Sony NEX-5N. So I began doing research on HDSLR video.

I discovered Magic Lantern completely by accident. While searching for HDSLR footage and learning about bitrates, frame rates, 180 shutter rules and other technical stuffs, I stumbled onto some ML Raw footage on Vimeo. I was absolutely and utterly blown away by the clarity I saw, and it blew all other DSLR footage I had ever seen out of the park, rendering it cheesy, cheap and totally obsolete. In fact, even footage shot at 540p on a tiny T3i in raw absolutely destroyed everything shot at the normal H.264 codec in "1080p." Ladies and Gentlemen, not all 1080p is created equal. The raw is so sharp and versatile, it doesn't even compare. Here's some post production coloring to show how data-rich raw footage really is:



Color grading example for the film. Magic Lantern really is magic.

Now armed with some newly found knowledge of DSLR video and the incredible potential of Magic Lantern discovered, I began even more research. I learned as much as I could about production that I didn't already. I realized quickly that the Canon 5D Mark III or its older predecessor were what I wanted. Through all of this, I was still building my storyboard, writing shot lists, scheduling shoots, locating and selecting music (which turned out to be right under my nose, stupid me...), finding locations through Google Earth, managing my (very) limited budget, and going to school at the same time.

Apparently you can rent 5D Mark III kits with Magic Lantern already installed for about $200 a week, body only. But I sent a message to my friends and coworkers in the BYU-Idaho AV Department, asking if anyone had access to a Canon 5D Mark II or III, and another request for a CF card. Turned out that I was in luck. Another friend and coworker, Andrew, was the proud owner of a Canon 5D Mark II, a Glidecam HD-2000, a Tamron 18-24mm wide angle lens and was already incorporating ML into his workflow. Another friend owned a very quick CF Card, onto which ML was quickly and easily installed. I rented all of this from the two of them for $110 total for the four day weekend.

Shooting dates were set, I found a ride home, and armed with my new weaponry and knowledge I got to work.
I had two days for the shoot. Originally I had planned for three, but if weather isn't one of the many destroyer of guerilla filmmaking then I don't know what is. Day one consisted of mostly ambient shots – those I categorized without having a rider. We shot a little of my mother during the evening when my father returned home from work. The day after, Saturday, was completely spent rushing from one location to another, taking two to three shots and moving on. I named my new ulcer, Freddy. Days were short, and the golden hour quickly faded into the golden 5 minutes, or so it seemed.

A small portion of my shot list and text storyboard.
Through some miracle, I got most all of my shots in, as well as some that I hadn't planned on before the sun disappeared on Saturday night. On Sunday morning it was snowing, but was able to capture the footage of the geese – to me, a key element of the film. Other decisions involved cutting external audio from the film, a decision made to save time and also to make it more cinematic. On Sunday I also recorded the narrative with my mother in her studio and she gave me the music. I'll tell you right now, having a studio producer for a mother is the best connection in the world. You can hear some of her other work here on her Bandcamp page:

https://lisaneubert.bandcamp.com.

Please remember that this was my first short film. When I finished, I had a massive amount of data to work with. I had researched previous ML workflows, run some tests and learned about how ML worked. But when you're working with that much data, it can be overwhelming. I was juggling three external hard drives around and had multiple file types in different codecs for each clip: DNG Sequence, Lossless AVI, Unprocessed ML Raw and a couple AE composition files. However, soon I was organized and ready to edit. My workflow looked like this:

1.   Use Raw2DNG to extract DNG files into their own folder. Label and organize shots according to folder.
a.   This may be the most important step of your entire workflow. I had all of my shots numbered and lettered before shooting anything.
2.   Use After Effects to create proxy editing files. Build your rough edit.
a.   (Now, I've learned you can use RAWanizer to combine steps one and two, a great time saver)
3.   Use Adobe Dynamic Link to link back to your original files in After Effects. Replace proxy images with full-res DNG sequences.
4.   Make basic color corrections and grading as you go.
a.   The video was so versatile and easy for me to color with my photographic experience in Photoshop and Lightroom. Without raw, it would never have looked like it does now.
5.   Complete your final edit in Premiere.
6.   Review all coloring, and make adjustments as necessary using Adobe Camera Raw in After Effects.

Many hours, late nights, caffeinated beverages, test audiences and prayers later, I finally reached the release date I had set a month earlier – Thanksgiving Day. I premiered it at home, made minor corrections (you never finish, you just submit it with faith), and uploaded it online, adding subtitles through YouTube's awesome subtitle tool. After uploading, it turned out I was only half way done. The next few weeks were spent contacting local bike shops, Facebook organizations, international online blogs and all sorts of pages to find my audience. Now, beyond my own belief, I've reached over 17,000 views – a solid 16,500 more than I even pretended to hope to gain. It's been viewed all over the globe in places such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Spain, Italy, and even Kazakhstan. I've received thank you letters from many people around the globe for sharing their own feelings and riding experiences in The Quiet Season. See, cyclists everywhere share a common bond that The Quiet Season was able to portray to others.

This project was an incredible experience for me. It was the largest projects I had ever undertaken, and took many hundreds of hours in planning, researching, learning, messing up, stressing, contacting, shooting, editing, driving, scouting, praying, and having a blast. It was so much fun. I'm really grateful that I took the initiative to film this narrative. It has been the building block in my current career outlook, and has opened many doors. For me, I just love telling the story. It takes a lot of work – to attempt this in a week would have been impossible to say the least. To attempt it in a month would have been difficult. It had been a project in the making for over a year. But hidden within the research, stress and sleepless nights was a story worth telling, and that made it all worth it.