Wednesday
Nov052008
SUBWAY
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 12:15PM 
A man struggles to dial a phone and board a heavily skewed train in this D90 test reel that alternately shows off both the best and worst aspects of current DSLR video.
Click the image to watch a Quicktime in your browser. Discussion with filmmaker Matthew Bennett on DVXuser here. Thanks to crashandannie for the heads up.
Reader Comments (23)
Stu -
what do you consider the drawbacks, because I'm not seeing any. This has a similar look (not exact to be sure) as an episode of 24, and I would watch this sort of show online ( a thriller?) instead of people constantly breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience.
I noticed a lot of skewing problems (at least, I think I did) - some big, some small, but all present.
Still, it looks pretty sweet.
Wow. That makes me smile and cringe, then smile and cringe again. This is just the beginning of what's to come. I would be surprised if the next gen of cameras have this much skew or so many limitations on settings. In fact, it may be Panasonic that shows them how it's done with their coming G1 HD. Exciting times. One thing is certain, I doubt the filmmaker would have been able to capture that footage unharrassed in a subway if he had a traditional looking video camera.
Watching that gorgeous footage, I was actually starting to think I could live with SKEW, but then I started noticing the JELLO all over the place.
It'll get there. It'll just take time, and Stu holding a boombox.
Cunningham, see David Co.'s comment—the skewing is a real problem with the D90.
Still, quite impressive, especially for "a quick half hour of messing around." Bennett could have edited around the worst examples of the skewing, but he chose not to. As such, he's created a sort of magnificently frustrating sampler. Like Boz wrote, it's a roller coaster ride of beauty and heartache.
Wonder how much skew he cut out. The locked-off stuff was brilliant.
You could totally shoot around the skew after some practice. But its there.... and you're $1000 in, and you wife (who knows nothing of skew) says "Why is it doing that?" and you have nowhere to go with a good sounding response. Knowing that crazy $h!t is going to happen to cameras very soon... makes me want to wait.... If they came out with this 3 years ago.... I would have bought a couple of them.
Talk about wobbowy vision.
More like ROBBERY vision. Amirite? I'll just hang tight until the second generation of these things come around.
Aside from the Woble, am I the only one who thinks the DOF is *overdone* in a good portion of these shots?
It actually doesn't give me a "cinematic" feel at all, it gives me a feel of *exactly* what it is; DSLR images - only moving. Not "cinematic".
Somethings off here. I know, big sensor == lots of blur == new shiny toy == massive overuse, as always.
/Z
I had tried the D90 for a 2 day test period, and the "jello" made it unusable. I was not even able to handhold the camera and move it in the least without getting issues all over the place. It gets worse when you use the zoom lens and zoom to anything besides being totally wide. Sure locked off shots look great, but I need to be able to move the camera a little bit for it to be usable. Some of the shots made me get seasick they are so wobbly. I prey that the new Canon has not got this issue, or I will be real disappointed. I bought the D90 really wanting to like it, but it had to go back. I understand if your whipping and panning like crazy, you will egt issues, but simple handheld shots cannot look like that.
I have some of the footage I shot here:
http://artguglielmo.com/blog/videos/d90-test-clips-october-2008/
what's jello and what's skewed?
I do love how unassuming the camera setup is. Tons of free extras walk by because it looks like someone's just taking subway photos. Good luck doing that with a bunch of camera gear.
I know this has nothing to do with the camera, but why in the world did the director let him chew gum?? Ugh!
Master Zap: I couldn't possibly agree more.
Shallow DOF has been massively overused and abused by 35mm adapter enthusiasts and this will only usher it to the next level.
To so many, filmmaking seems to be get shallow DOF at any cost. That is about #99 on my list of importance to a film.
2009-2010 will be known as the "shallow focus rack" era of indie/no-budget filmmaking. Hopefully 2011 will usher in an era that focuses on more important aspects.
Blake: "what's jello and what's skewed?"
Look at the still frame that Stu has at the top of the post. That is not a dutch angle shot, the subway car door should be vertical. The unnaturally diagonal subway car is SKEW.
Now, open the vid and go to 00:44. There is a quick shot there where it is close on the main guy, and he has both hands up, just after the kid with the headphones. You should clearly see the whole picture wobbling as if the picture were a brick of JELLO wobbling on a plate. There are more examples, that's just the one I'm pointing out here.
Then, almost right after that, at 00:53, there is a left pan on the subway from a security guy past a skinny goatee guy. That goatee guy is severely SKEWED.
Guys - I see what you're saying about the subway train skewing and the jello, but seriously - If that's the biggest two problems the camera has - I'm sold.
The skewing of the train made it appear to be moving faster and the jello for me, (and one assumes most audience members without a critical cinematographer's eye)actually added to the tension of the whole piece.
If we had a shot of a gun inside the backpack, and a closeup shot of a person (his target?) on the iphone, then the "story" would have been complete (for me).
If it doesn't get in the way of the mood, the storytelling of the piece then it just plain ole isn't a problem.
Thanks brian, I was seeing the skew, but I hadn't recognized the Jell-o taste until you got specific for us.
Geez, that's pretty weird. It's kind of okay for a dream sequence, or even a chase scene, where everything is shaking and rocking. But I want to control when it happens.
That said, there are all sorts of weird artifacts and accidental quirks of filmmaking that have become stylizing tools to give a video or film a "gritty" or "realistic" feel.
(Cough)lens flare(Cough).
I'll make a totally reckless prediction right now: not only will we see the "shallow focus rack" era in 2009/10, by 2012 Stu will be plugging Red Giant's newest software plugin, "Knoll DSLR skew." By then, of course, we'll be trying to get our HD footage to look like it was shot on a Sony VX1000. So DV, so gritty, so real.
LOL. That's all the next release of MBLooks needs is a post filter for "Rolling Shutter Effect".
The real question is if Red Giant will beat Video CoPilot to the punch.
For now, I'll shoot without it, but I'll be first in line for the filter when that look is all the rage.
Cunningham: Remember that none of us are suggesting you shouldn't buy or use the camera. If it has what you want, make great films!
Maybe it's like a bad smell that some people just don't notice but others cant stand to be around. So many people either dont see or dont care about rolling shutter affects, but many others are repulsed by the "smell". (And also strangely attracted to the beautiful shots.)
These videos make me really want to buy a DSLR.... three years from now. By then there will be no more jello, and the form-factor will be more conducive to shooting motion picture, and they'll all shoot some sort of raw / log format.
It's a really interesting time... to wait before buying a camera.
If the rolling shutter effect is an outgrowth of the use of a CMOS sensor, is there any reason to think that the G1-HD will be any better than the D90? I'm not familiar enough with the G1-HD's sensor design to answer this, so I'm one of y'all can help out. Also: is there a way to around this problem or are we waiting for RED to come out their new system?
I'm a happy owner of a D40 with the Tamron 2.8/17-50, so I'm likely heading jumping on the D90 bandwagon anyway, but wanted to ask.
Thanks,Joe.
I don't shoot anything handheld, no pans, movements or nothing. Im originally an architectural photog so SKEW I can take care of. Do I have to worry about getting JELLO on moving subjects during a tripod-mounted shot?
thanks!
in case you didn't see slashdot
How to fund movies and television in a DL world - post release still and moving advertising embeded via cheap and easy software
http://zunavision.stanford.edu/
http://www.redrelay.net/owners/bloom/films/subwaytest.mov