The word has been buzzing around now longer than the hype for "The Blair Witch
Project." It has spawned a whole new industry and is launching the careers of
countless future Orson Welles, or at least Orson Beans.
The word is "digital." Movies may soon and forever more be a collection of ones
and zeroes arrayed on an optical or magnetic media, as the age of the chemical process to
capture light and shadow fades into a Technicolor sunset.
This isn't good triumphing over evil--just one thing over another. It's called progress.
Digital moviemaking is the ultimate convergence of film and television--the film
experience with video technology. And it's pretty cool stuff.
Literally thousands of moviemakers across the US have embraced digital filmmaking for both
its high quality and low cost. Digital opens up the doors to filmmakers who previously did
not have access to the expensive film and video equipment and processes. And the Internet
is predicted to open up new methods of distribution that may significantly impact the
traditional world of sprocket-based entertainment.
Digital moviemaking systems cover two broad areas: production and post-production.
Production includes the camera and everything needed to get the image into the camera.
Post-production includes editing picture and sound, and creating one or more final
products, and will be covered in Part 2 of this article (sort of like a sequel!).
Digital Video
There are three formats of digital video, the most prevalent being the so-called
prosumer (part "professional" and part "consumer") format of miniDV.
It uses a videotape about the size of a pager that records 60 minutes of digital video and
CD-quality sound. The video resolution for these cameras ranges from 400 to 525 horizontal
lines.
Traditional (analog) broadcast video cameras can record 750 or more horizontal lines of
resolution. Better, right? Well, yes and no. In the camera, the 750 lines are better. But
copy the image during editing, and the output can fall below 450 lines, less than the 525
line standard for US televisions.
In digital video, exact duplicates of the master image and sound are created throughout
the post-production and duplication process. So 525 lines go into the camera, 525 lines go
out to the computer for editing, 525 lines go back out as finished tape--zero generation
loss, which is amazing to anyone who has ever tried to make a copy of a VHS tape to send
to relatives. ("Now, is that ghosty thing supposed to be little Jimmy taking his
first steps? And, gee, we didn't know everything in your house was orange and
fuzzy!")
MiniDV and the other digital video formats use basically the same image and sound capture
systems, so they all grab about 525 lines of resolution. The more "professional"
DVCAM camcorders may be more rugged and offer more bells and whistles (particularly
related to microphone inputs), but the images will be roughly the same, all other things
being equal. And 525 lines of resolution is more than you get with your typical network
broadcast, so the picture in miniDV is considered "broadcast quality."
(Side note: actually, "broadcast quality" as defined by the FCC only deals with
the sync signal of video, not its quality or resolution. And, as anyone who has ever seen
"The Nanny" knows, "broadcast quality" could be considered an
oxymoron.)
And if you think digital video is only for distribution on television, check out the
newest breakthroughs in projecting digital video onto big screens. It works, and it looks
great. Given that George Lucas has vowed to shoot the next two "Star Wars"
movies on digital video, it may be a wake-up call to theaters to begin installing digital
video projectors or risk losing the rights to show the next prequel sequel in their
multiplex. (Technicolor, www.technicolor.com, by the way, has just invested close to $100
million in an "e-cinema developer" called Real Image Digital. Technicolor
intends to utilize Real Image's compression, encryption, and digital storage processes to
present theatrical films via digital projection. Told you so here first.)
Camcorders
About a dozen digital camcorders are on the market today, mostly miniDV, from four or
five manufacturers. (Sony is also marketing a format called Digital8, which records
digital video on standard Hi8 videotapes.)
Leading the pack are the Canon XL-1 and the Sony VX-1000. People post to numerous web
sites and newsgroups, hailing one over the other. (These are the same people who argue
about whether the Atlantic is a better ocean than the Pacific.) Both cameras will do the
job--and have--depending on your needs. Bennet Miller's "The Cruise" was shot
with a VX-1000 (nicknamed the "vixen.") So was "Sacrifices," a
low-budget indie whose makers have an informative digital video web site at www.xsite.net/%7Evisionfx/.
Kent Williamson directed his feature "When Love Walks In" using a Cannon XL-1
(nicknamed the "XL-1"). His equally informative article on the benefits and
drawbacks of that camera in action can be found as his Paladin Pictures web site (www.people.Virginia.edu/~kcw3e/).
The XL-1 will set you back about $3,500, while the VX-1000 can be had for a few bucks
less. A selling point of the XL-1 is that it is the only camcorder with the capability of
changing lenses, as can be done with film cameras.
New to the market is Canon's GL-1, priced at about $2,500, smack dab in the middle of the
camcorder price range. The GL-1 looks like a cross between Sony's VX-1000 and TRV900
models, and features Canon's "Flourite" lenses. (Now, I recall as a youth
hearing horror stories about a Communist plot to add Flourite to our drinking water. But I
suppose putting it into my camcorder lenses won't hurt, especially since the USSR is all
broke up.)
Directly competing with the GL-1 is the Sony TRV900, a three-chip beauty with a big LCD
and packed with features, such as a floppy disk drive to automatically dump JPEG images
from the camera onto a floppy. Priced at about $2,100 (from numerous mail order houses,
such as B&H Photo, www.bhphotovideo.com),
this is the camcorder I purchased to shoot "Geezers," as it had some solid
features and performance. Like most of these camcorders, the TRV-900 boasts auto and
manual focus, with a nice macro focus that can get right up to about 1/4 inch from
something and keep it in clear focus.
Sound and Features
Also in many of the miniDVs are features such as auto/manual white balance, special
effects such as sepia, ghosting, high-speed shutter, and stereo sound. Even with the
minijack unbalanced mic inputs, the sound recording capabilities are phenomenal, rivaling
or exceeding recording on DAT.
Since my budget for "Geezers" didn't allow for purchase of a really good,
balanced microphone ($400 to $1,000 and up), I found a cheap solution that, unbelievably,
worked as well. For action shots where a boom operator couldn't be used, I purchased the
Sony ECM-HS1 hot shoe mounted shotgun mic (about $60). Its three-pattern settings brought
in nice, controllable sound. Sennheiser makes an equivalent model that works with all
camcorders.
Making sure no one saw me go into the store, I also purchased an Optimus shotgun mic from
Radio Shack (also about $60). Now, cheap mics can sound like, well, cheap mics. And most
professional sound persons would chortle me right off the lot if I said that a Radio Shack
mic was as good as a Sennheiser, Neumann, or Beyerdynamic. But by jingies, when I hooked
up my little Shacker to my used boom pole ($80 from Location Sound in Los Angeles, www.locationsound.com), the sound was darn good.
We shot a scene in a parking lot in Northboro. Fairly heavy traffic whizzed by behind the
actors, and about 150 feet to one side, a giant skip loader was moving a three-story pile
of manure around. (Hey, I pick only the best locations.) Remarkably, very little of this
background noise picked up onto the soundtrack.
The only sound snafu we encountered was on our night shoot. After a two-hour lighting and
background set-up, we began rolling tape and were ready to slate a scene. All of a sudden,
the sound system started picking up what sounded like a Japanese children's musical
playing on someone's television. Only the boom operator and I could hear this in our
headphones, of course, but it would pick up on tape. We did what we could, picking up the
cables off the ground and keeping the mic away from power lines, but the little darlings
kept on singing off and on for a few minutes before disappearing. (I had a similar
experience shooting at a famous hilltop restaurant in Los Angeles, which made a few extra
bucks by allowing antennas to be mounted on their roof. Every so often, a take would be
ruined by a stray LAPD radio broadcast for a 211 in progress. So I don't think our
equipment was at fault on "Geezers"; it's just that sound sometimes travels
through strange channels.)
One of the drawbacks of the minijack mic inputs on these camcorders is that any weight put
upon the jack--such as the weight of the cable--will quickly damage the input. I cobbled
together a handful of adapters from Radio Shack and held the connection on to the
camcorder with rubber bands. It was a workable short-term solution that I don't recommend
to others.
To use balanced XLR-type microphones, such as the Sennheiser ME66 or the Shure SM89
shotguns, an adapter is needed. Beachtek (www.beachtek.com)
makes a little box that connects to the bottom of the camcorder and takes the inputs from
two XLR cables and routes it to the camcorder's minijack input. It's a very nice system.
If you want to use balanced pro mics, get a Beachtek adapter (about $200). If you want to
use unbalanced mics, build your own adapter to keep the pressure off the mic input.
Tiny Camcorders
Canon has a couple of other viable digital camcorders, all with names ending in
"ura": Optura, Vistura, Turalura (just kidding). They also have the ZR, which is
so small that a name with "ura" in it wouldn't fit on the case. It retails for
about $700, but don't let the price fool you. (Okay, go ahead and let the price fool you
just this time. Were you fooled? How did it feel?) The ZR records a nice picture with one
CCD (chip) and CD-quality sound, just like its bigger brothers (sisters?).
Competing with the ZR is Sony's PC1. You could fit them both into one of those Chinese
food takeout boxes, and still have room for plenty of lo mein.
About the only drawback to the ZR and PC1 is their size. Being about the size of two
cassette tape boxes taped together, it may become a little bouncy if not stabilized. And
you won't command much respect on the movie set if you keep putting the camera back into
your shirt pocket between takes. You'd look pretty silly being pushed around on a dolly or
up on a crane. Passersby would stop and ask your Teamster driver, "Why is that guy up
there on that crane with an Instamatic camera?" To which he would reply, "How
should I know? They just pack the camera package into the moped's saddle bag and I drive
it where they tell me to."
That tiny size, however, can have its advantages. Paul Wagner shot "Windhorse"
on location in Tibet with a palm-size camcorder. The Chinese government would surely have
taken away his camera and possibly his freedom if they knew he was shooting without a
location permit. (You think the unions are tough here. Imagine a country with a billion
people in the local! BTW, rumors that Wagner smuggled out his footage in take-out boxes
stuffed with lo mein are not true.)
I Can See You Naked
Rounding out the list of most-popular digital camcorders is the Sony TRV-9, the little
sister to the TRV-900. While its name has two less zeroes than the 900, the 9 puts those
zeroes into its low-light specification. It shoots in zero light. Yes, zero. Total
darkness. (Of course, my camera shoots in total darkness, too. And it makes a beautiful
picture of total darkness, or black. Hey, it worked for "Blair Witch.")
What the TRV9 uses is an infrared system. You used to have to be a spy or a Green Beret to
use an infrared camera, but now you can have your very own for about $1,100 at Best Buy.
Now, why didn't Sony put this feature on its later, more expensive cameras? Well, because
some enterprising customers discovered the naked truth about the infrared feature.
Infrared waves are either emitted from or reflected by a heat-producing source. Our eyes
don't see this, because they're busy seeing reflected or emitted light waves. A camera
knows no such limitation. In darkness, infrared cameras will record a person or thing
moving around. However, in a lighted environment and with a simple filter, it does things
like ignore clothing and record what's underneath (because your personals are only
emitting infrared waves when covered).
So if you want to see just what your dream date is packing, or you think you'd like to
sell a really interesting picture of Hillary Clinton to the "National Enquirer,"
flip on the infrared. (Okay, it doesn't really work that well all the time, and Sony has
modified the cameras now. But you can still pick up an older model at some mail-order
houses. For more info and titillating shots of an office chair covered by a flannel shirt,
visit www.cs.ust.hk/~wwkin/SeeThrough/
or
www.cnet.com/Content/Gadgets/Guides/Terrors/ss10.html.)
Other Makers
Other well-known consumer electronics manufacturers have been in and out of the
digital camcorder business over the last two years. Panasonic made a pretty good line of
now-discontinued camcorders, including the DV-910 and the AG series, including the EZ30,
EZ20 and EZ1. These can still be found at places such as B&H, Camera Sound
(www.camerasound.com) and other mail-order firms. Feature for feature, they hold up with
the Sony and Canon models, except that the company doesn't seem committed to the miniDV
market.
Electronics giant JVC is the Mario Cuomo of miniDV products. It just can't make its mind
up whether or not to be in the business. First they were in; then they discontinued most
of the models (which didn't have Firewire, by the way--see below for more on Firewire).
Now they seem to be back with their new line of Cybercams. The VVM70 is similar in size to
the Sony PC1 and Canon ZR. The DVL9500 is a straightforward-looking camcorder. Both have
Firewire capabilities. The older DVA1 and DVF10, which sell for under $1,000, do not have
Firewire.
As you can see, JVC has not hired a top-notch consultant to help it name its camera
models. So it's little surprise that its proprietary video dubbing technology is called
J-LIP, which sounds like something you don't want to catch or be born with.
Sharp also has a line of digital cameras, called the Viewcams. Actually, it only has one
active model, the VL-PD3U (another swell model name), and a couple of discontinued models
you can still buy. The VL-PD3U (nicknamed the PU) has the kind of boxy-looking style that
fans of the old Brownie Instamatic cameras would love. But it does offer Firewire and the
ability to shoot in 16:9 wide-screen mode. (Others do, too, although not the VX-1000.)
Firewire
The cameras above, along with many others (but not all), have a Firewire port to
connect to a digital editing system or to make pristine dupes to another machine. Some of
the lower-priced models, especially the older ones, do not have Firewire.
Firewire is a technology developed by Apple Computer to connect computer peripherals.
Think of it as similar to serial, SCSI, or the new USB connections. But Firewire is many
times faster than USB, SCSI, and Ethernet, with current data-transfer rates of about 400
Megabits per second. A very fast SCSI drive has about 50 Mbps throughput. Up to 63 devices
can be connected together using firewire. These devices can be added or disconnected live
(true plug and play)--all this through a tiny little six-pin cable. (Don't lose yours;
they cost about $70 to replace.)
If you plan to connect the camera to a digital editing system or to another camera or VCR
for dubbing, Firewire is the only way to make perfect digital copies.
Recommendations
- Of course, cameras don't shoot movies; people do. Digital technologies don't mean that
everything produced digitally will be good; but then, everything produced now isn't good,
either.
- If you're serious about shooting digital video for a living, or at least to make more
than one feature, consider the Canon XL-1 or GL1, the Sony VX-1000 or TRV900 or maybe the
Panasonic EZ30.
- If size is important, the Sony PC1 or Canon ZR would be good bets.
- To save some money, the single-chip camcorders such as the Sony TRV9 or Canon Vistura
will work just fine. The discontinued Panasonic DV-910 is a nice little camera, too.
- If you don't want to invest in miniDV decks to use for editing, consider the Sony
Digital8 models, where you can use existing Hi8 tapes.
- Pick up and hold as many camcorders as you can before purchasing. As with still cameras,
the "feel" of it is important. You've got to feel comfortable with it to shoot
good pictures. The XL-1, for example, has one of the nicest zoom controllers I've ever
felt. It's really a nice rocker that the cameraperson can control with near precision. The
TRV900 does not have such a feature, but it's $1,500 less.
So pay yer money, take yer chances, and good luck!
See listings of companies that sell or rent digital cameras in the NewEnglandFilm.com
Industry Directory.
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