Tools of the Trade for Digital Movie Making
Part 1: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Digital Camcorders
by Peter Bohush
(September 1999) 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 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 movie-makers across the U.S. 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 format of miniDV. It uses a video tape 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 U.S. 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 ya 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 websites 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 had an informative digital video website.
"Sacrifices"
Kent Williamson directed his feature, When Love Walks In, using an 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 website, www.people.Virginia.edu/~kcw3e/.
"Love Walks In"
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 broken 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.
  
Scenes from "Geezers"
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 sounded 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,
see 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 straight forward-looking
camcorder. Both 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 consultancy 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 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 camera person 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!
Peter Bohush is a writer, director and Internet consultant who spends too much
time shopping for gadgets and gizmos. His website is at www.writerdirector.com.
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