PAL to NTSC conversion experiments and results

A tech challenge! I want to enter "Laputa" (7min) into a USA festival which insists on "NTSC" for previews and selected screeners. "Laputa" was shot in "PAL".
In the digital age of hi-def, the issue is running speed. "Laputa" is shot at 25fps. NTSC means a choice of 23.976fps ("24") or 29.97fps ("30").

The "24" looks like the most obvious. "24" is close to "25" aint it? I could go that way by outputting "Laputa" as about 9000 separate still images then re-importing at 23.976. Some fun with audio which would need to be output separately, slowed by 4 percent, get a pitch-up correction and then need some manual sync-up to allow for the 4 percent being an approximation. I had a think about this and decided to go for the "30" because of a more straightforward audio process if maybe more video challenges.

When we set a "25" video editing project to output at "30", this happens by repeating every 5th frame. With "Laputa" I am going "25 Progressive" to "30 Progressive" which cuts out the option of playing some tricks with "Interlacing" to give a smoothing effect. In theory I should expect a "jerky" or "staccato" effect. I am using Adobe Premiere CS5.5 software which offers a "frame blending" option to help out with this. I tried 2 x "30" outputs with and without "frame blending". Both outputs looked good as in pleasant-surprise-good for most of the movie but behaved differently for sequences with a lot of motion. For smooth animated movements the frame-blending worked better. For our fight scenes the non-frame-blend jerkiness seemed to add value while the frame-blend added blurriness to all rapid actions. So like all oldies faced with a high tech challenge I turned to the nursery rhymes of my childhood for inspiration:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.

Which means - render out both as high-bitrate intermediates and do an A-B edit with each option covering the motion it handles best. Little detail, I also render the audio separately as uncompressed PCM (max quality) to prevent quality loss with the extra editing stage. I am living with some theoretical video quality loss with this but it looks good to my critical eye.

Some values.
Laputa original settings - 1280x720p25
3 x outputs:
(1) and (2) Intermediates (1)with and (2)without "frame blend". .mp4, codec=h.264, average bitrate = 12 Mbps, peak bitrate = 20 Mbps. VBR 2-pass.
(3) Audio PCM uncompressed 48KHz sample rate 16 bit - ie common "wav file"

New editing project to put (1), (2) and (3) together.
Typical required output is .mp4, h.264, average bitrate = 6, peak bitrate = 10, audio AAC best quality, 320 kbps.

Hunger Games with Social Comment

I saw "The Hunger Games" almost by chance today. I have not read the books. Brilliant! Works for me as social comment and political satire and I found myself intensely drawn in on the thriller action level. I also love the Roman Empire and Shakespeare references. Great to see the young of today taking in powerful messages about the gap between rich and poor, corrupt authoritarian rule and media manipulation of a population. This movie is a successful "occupy" protest!

Tutorial - video double-system with cellphone audio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tst7YnQWLqQ

Long have I needed a portable voice recording gadget with good quality for indie film-making. People I know now own cellphones which do this well. I borrow and film this test. Works well - methinks they have a future of frequently lending their cellphones to the film-making cause. More notes on the Youtube page.

Test Scene on Amazon Studios

Some action from us on Amazon Studios.
We have posted our test scene for "The Hour of Temptation" by Ben Ramsey.

http://studios.amazon.com/movies/8758

Test Scene (3 minutes) of Jordan kidnaps Abbey. This is also a test of "compositing" human actors + green screen with computer artwork.

At first I thought some of this script veered into comedy, especially the Dwight Dyer character. I started writing a comedy revision a little like "Naked Gun" or "Flying High" (aka "Airplane"). On filming this I see it differently. I am now thinking that what Abbey or anyone would be experiencing in a threatening situation like this is better played straight.

V48 Hours 2011

We participated in the V48 Hours Furious Film-making competition in Auckland NZ as "Team MITCIT" for our 7th year. We drew "Quest" - see our movie "Laputa here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2KYRA38iho

We were 1 minute late so we were out of the main competition but still eligible for some category and special awards - and we won a special award. See us in the awards list at:
http://www.v48hours.co.nz/forum/topic/460/

Amazon Studios - some needles appear in the haystack

Amazon Studios has announced their Feb script competition semi-finalists.
http://studios.amazon.com/contests/5
Semi-finalist lists are down the right-hand side.

IMHO good news to see more scripts engaging with social issues. Up until now Amazon Studios seems to have been dominated by entertaining escapism avoiding all challenging thoughts about the issues of our time. Now based mainly on loglines but with some script reading I count 11 out of 50 with some social issues merit:
The Argentine Job, E-Town, Exiled, Gimme Shelter, Heartland, Malabo, The Narcissist, The Nevsky Prospect, Survival, Tijuana, Zombie Robots.

If you register there as a site member then you can read the scripts.

HOWTO take a million digital still photos

IN BRIEF
I have 3 reasons for creating videos as big sequences of still photos. My current camera does a good job but it is slow and I want to replace it. DSLRs and EVILs appeal but there are shutter life issues that are very difficult to get information on - after a lot of digging I have decided they cannot deliver. Webcams have been improving so I plan to go for modifying webcams to meet my main need of film digitisation.

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IN DETAIL
3 reasons why I want to take a million photos per year.

1. (Main) is digitising film to video by individually photographing every frame.
Ref: "What's up with Film Digitisation?"
My test result then was - to copy Super-8 film frames at near full quality needs a sensor of at least 1280x960 pixels.

2. Physical object animation aka "claymation"
Ref: "Dancing with the Pollies"

3. Time Lapse

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Current solution - Panasonic MX500 Video Camera used as a stills camera.

This has a non-interchangable zoom lens which takes well to adding other camera lenses as close-up lenses because of the very small sensor size. The sensor is a 3CCD unit which gives a better resolution than the size would suggest. Panasonic claim a relatively high 2.3 Megapixel stills performance compared to the 0.3 Megapixels for video by half-pixel-offsetting of the 3 CCDs. I was sceptical of this but my tests with line resolution charts indicate that the offset does work.
This Panny delivers excellent results but it needs 10sec between still shots which means 10 hours to digitise 1 x small roll of Super-8 film.

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Investigating possible improvements:

DSLRs and EVILs? No because they have a mechanical shutter.

My investigation began with the Canon EOS DSLRs including hiring one for a few days to try it out. Excellent cameras in many ways but not for this particular job. Even in electronic "live view" mode a mechanical shutter gets in on the act to take a still photo. Further investigation reveals that other cameras including mirrorless ones also have a mechanical shutter - eg Panasonic Micro Four-Thirds.


Aiptek GVS? No because sensor/lens geometry is too big

My favourite budget cam, the Aiptek GVS, comes close. GVS comes with a charger that doubles as a long-run power supply. It has remote control. But the physics of a zoom lens limited to 5x with a relatively large sensor makes it more difficult to get the ultra close up shots of Super-8 frames. Maybe a goer if I could obtain a stills camera lens of 28mm focal length and aperture f/1.8 or better to use as a close-up lens but that includes the negative factor of adding extra glass to the mix.


High Definition Webcam? Looking promising!

My next experiment is to buy a high definition webcam and modify it. If I can remove the lens then I could substitute a single prime lens from a 16mm camera. I have bought this:
http://www.chinavasion.com/webcams/pc-webcam-1/
It has recently arrived and on early testing is looking promising. Its own lens simply removes by unscrewing giving good flexible scope to use it with other lenses. The sensor on my testing gives results true to its claims of 1600 x 1200 pixels which is a good size for what I want to do.