Posted by Vincent at spider-wm051.proxy.aol.com on March 04, 2001 at 02:10:10:
In Reply to: Re: Q for Vincent - one more thing (not really DV) posted by seanbonner on March 03, 2001 at 08:38:21:
: In the last 2-3 months I've seen a lot of talk about DV,
: some of it from people who if nothing else I'd think know a little about
: filmmaking like SPIKE LEE and GEORGE LUCUS. Both singing it's
: praises. That seemed interesting to me and unless I'm missing
: something huge, which is a giant possibilty, a camera like the
: Cannon XL-1 souped up with all pro parts is only like $6,000 and that
: provides the best image quality on the market. It can also be
: transfered to film after final editing for almost idential results as being
: on film from the begining.
You've been misled.
For starters, the DV format George Lucas is referring to is a High-Definition format that shoots a frame with 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels at 24 frames per second. Thus, it's resolution is very close to the 2K resolution that's most often used to scan 35mm film into a computer file for digital effects work (35mm negative can achieve up to around 4K resolution but 2K is most often used for scanning/output to save computer space and becuase it's been deemed "good enough" by the powers that be even though it's only half the resolution 35mm can provide).
And, Spike Lee may be singing it's praises, but I've heard BAMBOOZLED, the film he shot on DV, looks like crap. So does CHUCK & BUCK. The only DV shot feature that looked attractive to me was DANCER IN THE DARK, and I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how Lars Von Trier got it to look so good (and in 'Scope no less). But even so, it didn't look remotely like film- it looked like something "else", not quite film but not video either. If you shoot using that Canon camera, that's the absolute best result you ca expect, and you won't get it if you shoot in NTSC. Most Dv "features" shoot in PAL format because it has an extra 100 scanning lines and runs at 25 frames per second, which makes transfer to film easier.
Anybody who tells you that PAL or NTSC DV transfered to film will look like a movie that shot on film to begin with is lying to you. Don't believe it. That's not to say you shouldn't do it, just don't believe that it'll ever look as good as if you shot on film to start with, and remember that those DV-to-film transfers are not cheap. You better be hoping to get distribution and a budget down the line to do that transfer, or you'll forever have a film that exists only on DV format, or if you budget to do the DV-to-film transfer to begin with, then you've negated the supposed cost-savings reasons to use DV to begin with.
Vincent