Close Encounters of the Digital Kind

Digital Filmmakers Panel (Photo by Jeff Perrin)

Participating in the discussion were Jeff DeVuono, cinematographer for Spheeris's latest, We Sold Our Souls for Rock 'n' Roll, a documentary chronicling "Ozzfest," an all-day 14-band music festival featuring reunion performances of the original Black Sabbath; director Allison Anders (Mi Vida Loca, Sugar Town) and her editor, Chris Figler; director Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her, for which he won the 2000 Cannes Flim Festival's "Un Certain Regard Award"); director Leon Ichaso (Crossover Dreams, The El Super) and his editor, David Tedeschi (who also edited the TV series, American High); and Michael Moncreiff, producer for EFILM, who described the company's process for transferring the completed video to film. Each presented a clip from their latest production, shot in digital, and discussed the merits of the process.

Spheeris was first attracted to shooting on video for both cost savings and increased mobility. "For the last two and a half years, learning this technology has been my job," she told the packed house. But after viewing a high-definition projection for the first time, she noted, "It changed my life and my perception of what my role was in filmmaking."

Spheeris and DeVuono shot a total of 270 hours of tape, using two high definition (HD) and two digital video (DV) cameras (though the performance footage itself was shot by an eight-camera truck by American Hi-Def). At one point, the crew of six (four camera operators and two site-recruited kids holding 200W HMI SunGuns for lighting) and two bodyguards shot footage from the bowels of a "mosh pit," something which couldn't have been done with a standard film crew. [When DeVuono questioned Spheeris on the idea of bringing $250,000 worth of equipment into such an environment, she said she asked, "Is it insured?" "Yes," he answered. "Follow me," said the director, leading the charge.]

Allison Anders's new film, Things Behind the Sun, was shot in DV on location in 17 days in Florida for just $900,000 — including the cost of the acting services of such talents as Rosanna Arquette, Don Cheadle and Eric Stoltz. "I wanted it to look like Two Lane Blacktop," she said, recalling Monte Hellman's 1971 film about two men drag racing across the United States. "I had stuff I couldn't put on the schedule, because nobody would believe I could possibly get all that done in 17 days. But with digital, it was just so easy to get it all."

Rodrigo Garcia's Ten Tiny Love Stories, a compilation of ten monologues by different women discussing love affairs of their past, was shot entirely on HD. Garcia went with HD for several reasons. "I always wanted the piece to look not completely like a film, more like a documentary," he said of the made-for-cable production. The monologues vary in length from between seven and 15 minutes, so cost savings versus film were tremendous, he noted. Since the monologues were direct address with no cuts, the longer pieces wouldn't have been possible to shoot, since ten-minute reel changes weren't allowed. Garcia also liked the smaller crew size, though he admitted the comfortable setting surrounded by ten or 12 people took some getting used to. "At least, if there's 100 people, you can just 'throw up the wall' and sulk!"

Leon Ichaso's Piñero chronicles a criminal-turned-writer, Miguel Piñero. The film was shot using a Canon XL mini-DV camera, punctuated by Super 16 black-and-white inserts. His choice for video, like the others, was based on mobility and budget, but also because the director preferred the coarse look produced by shooting with the tiny camera.

The case for HD versus DV/mini-DV was discussed. HD cameras generally rent for about $1,000 to $1,500 a day, versus $200 to $800 for DV/mini-DV. The HD cameras are, according to the panel and generally speaking, bulkier than DV and, certainly, mini-DV cameras. As David Tedeschi pointed out, the variance in ASA and image has, in the case of video, more to do with the "chip in the camera," as opposed to the qualities of a particular film stock used in a motion picture camera. "There's a lot of different looks, a lot of different cameras," he said. Jeff DeVuono also stressed the importance of shooting test footage to make certain one is getting the targeted look for the film.

Sound can be recorded either directly onto the camera stock or onto a DAT, as one would do in the standard film world. In some cases, both are done, using the DAT simply as a backup.

In each case, the director and his/her editor assembled their film using either Avid or a program such as Final Cut Pro. In the case of a film using mixed media, such as Spheeris's (which had both HD and lower resolution mini-DV footage), the lower resolution footage had to be "up-resed" (transferred to a higher resolution) by Laser Pacific, to match that of the HD footage, before editing could take place.

One of the advantages of editing online, noted Spheeris, is that color correction and contrast corrections can be accomplished at that stage, prior to the transfer to film. And, as in any work handled online, flaws can also be removed.

Digital Encounters panelists (from left): Penelope Spheeris, Jeff DeVuono, Allison Anders, Chris Figler, Rodrigo Garcia, Leon Ichaso, David Tedeschi and Michael Moncreiff. (Photo by Jeff Perrin)

Once editing is completed, the assemblage is sent to a transfer studio, such as EFILM, in 20-minute reels at video resolution, on either hard drives or digital DV camera tape. That footage is then transferred, using a computer algorithm, to a higher 2k resolution, before "written" onto film, with the use of red, blue and green lasers, which expose the film stock.

EFILM's Michael Moncreiff recommended shooting in the European PAL format, as opposed to NTSC used in video in the United States. PAL utilizes a 25 frame per second frame capture, versus the 30 frames per second used in NTSC. That amounts to only a 4% difference in speed when transferred to the standard 24 frames per second film speed, a difference unnoticeable to the audience. [To compensate, a correction does need to be made to audio pitch during the online editing process, however, when dealing with music performance, for which a change in speed may be noticeable.] For NTSC video, footage is translated by yet another algorithm from 30 FPS to 24 FPS before being transferred to film, though this can occasionally produce some "artifacting." Both HD and DV cameras are available in PAL, and, as Rodrigo Garcia used in his film, Panasonic and Sony (in a joint effort) now make an HD system that utilizes a 24 frame video system.

So what about the look? Should HD be used for a big-studio feature production? For the smooth, soft-contrast film look, the panelists agreed, stick with film. "When you try to make HD look like film," says Jeff DeVuono, "you are walking on the wrong road. If you want it to look like film, use film."

Those interested should note that the Guild will host another seminar on Saturday, September 29, to discuss digital filmmaking from pre-production to post.

Table of Contents     Top of Page