Shooting TV screen?

[maksim]

Does anyone know from their experience whether shooting video playback off of TV screen, on Kodakchrome with my Nizo 6080 (by putting it on tripod in front of TV and filling its frame with TV screen), will bring more "filmic" (if strange and funky) look to my short edited project that will be shot in mini DV?

In other words, I'm seeking to achieve and get, not necessarily a "Super 8" look, but more some interesting, if unorthodox, variation to the DV look?

Will this sort-of-work... is there something I need 2 know before?

Any tips would be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks.

[woods01]

I've shot at 24fps off a tv screen before and what you will find is that
while the screen reads well you will get rolling bars. However, (correct
me if I'm wrong) but if you film a flat screen monitor you will not get
rolling bars.

John

[hhhava]

I hadn't heard about shooting the flat screen tv, that's interesting, and would be interesting to try. However I did hear that the way to avoid the rolling bars was to shoot at a slightly different film speed. I'm not sure if it has to be an exact speed like 22, or 16 fps, but 24fps is sure to line up with what the TV is showing in such a way that annoying rolling bars will appear on your film.

[seer]

I think its got to do with the shutter speed. I changed my minidv cams shutter speed to something like 1/25 and the bars I think went slower/less.

Anyways yeah I wonder what it would look like... is there an easy way to transfer DV to super8 or is it costly and hard?

[pvanscherpe]

If you are filming a television that displays 30 frames per second which is the standard in North America and a few other places, you can get an artifact-free picture by adjusting you camera speed and shutter angle to yield an exposure that is an even sub-multiple of the refresh rate of the display. In they case a 15th of second exposure should work. You could use a 30th of a second but you would then need to adjust/sync the tv's vertical blanking to your camera's film pull down.

[pvanscherpe]

I need to correct part of my prior message. You could film the tv using an exposure of a 30th of a second and it would work just fine. The sync issue would occure at a 60th of second since a tv has 2 seperate fields that are displayed every 60th of a second.

[teadub]

In other words, I'm seeking to achieve and get, not necessarily a "Super 8" look, but more some interesting, if unorthodox, variation to the DV look?

I think footage refilmed off video looks really nice. You end up with a very soft muted image. It desatuarates the colors too (although I would be interested in seeing how kodachrome looks)

but if you film a flat screen monitor you will not get
rolling bars.

This is true. In fact, I would recommend it. Even if you film off of a computer LCD, the quality will be better than a standard tube television (CRT). And you wont have to worry about all the nonsense: fps, shutter degree (XL or non-XL), glare, what f stop to use, etc...

[maksim]

O.K. so let's just recap what we learned so far.

1. I should avoid shooting off of regular catode tube TV (30 frames, 60 fields NTSC) and shoot off of flat screen Trinitron or Plasma TV set. This way I won't have 2 worry about my camera speed etc...

Q1. If that is correct, how will this look if I shoot 24fps with my Nizo, off of 30fps Trinitron flat TV screen anyway? Wouldn't then lip-sync go badly out of sync? What's the deal there?

2. This method will actually sort-of give me the result I am looking 4, by giving me nice, muted, soft look (where term "soft" hopefully does not describe "out of focus") although, with somewhat desaturated colors.

Q2. Desaturated colors effect might be something I like actually, but just in case, should I then oversaturate the DV footage, hoping by the time Super 8mm stock desaturates it - it will look just about right (or certainly better then without oversaturating DV prior.) or should I send the roll with instructions to the colorist to "pump up" the colors? Or are they going to be enough color information there for him to "pump up" the colors to begin with?

Q3. Shooting TV screen > Kodachrome vs. Ektachorme?

Q4. As far as the actual shooting of the screen, is the best and proper way to do this, to do it in the middle of the night, in the dark room with no other light except the glow of flat TV screen?

Thanks!

[teadub]

1. I should avoid shooting off of regular catode tube TV (30 frames, 60 fields NTSC) and shoot off of flat screen Trinitron or Plasma TV set. This way I won't have 2 worry about my camera speed etc...

Not just a flat tube by Sony. It needs to be: LCD, Plasma, Or Rear Projection (the old school big screen TVs)

Q1. If that is correct, how will this look if I shoot 24fps with my Nizo, off of 30fps Trinitron flat TV screen anyway? Wouldn't then lip-sync go badly out of sync? What's the deal there?

If you dont have a crystal synched camera you will have that problem anyway. You are going to get a lot of "frame blending". Depending on your destination format (super 8 or back to video) 3:2 pull down is an issue. we (the forum) need to know more of your final plans to give you more advice on this.

2. This method will actually sort-of give me the result I am looking 4, by giving me nice, muted, soft look (where term "soft" hopefully does not describe "out of focus")

I wouldn't say it looks out of focus. But it's not sharp, that's for sure.

Q2. Desaturated colors effect might be something I like actually, but just in case, should I then oversaturate the DV footage, hoping by the time Super 8mm stock desaturates it - it will look just about right (or certainly better then without oversaturating DV prior.) or should I send the roll with instructions to the colorist to "pump up" the colors? Or are they going to be enough color information there for him to "pump up" the colors to begin with?

Kodachrome already looks overly saturated, so I am not sure how it will look. I've only done this on vision 16mm stock, with the aaton that has a video link for synchronous shooting.

[maksim]

Destination is back to mini dv (mini dv - super 8 - mini dv.)

Finished product is not intended to be projected on large screens, instead the intended purpose is TV screen viewing.

Thanks Wallace.

[woods01]

It would be time consuming but if you put your footage on a flat screen
computer monitor couldn't you get your editing program to convert the
video to 24 fps? Then go frame by frame and photograph it using a
single frame at a time.

[teadub]

It would be time consuming but if you put your footage on a flat screen
computer monitor couldn't you get your editing program to convert the
video to 24 fps? Then go frame by frame and photograph it using a
single frame at a time.

Or just export one frame at a time from the 30fps timeline shooting 24fps (then re-synch when you get the super 8 footage telecined, hopefully the audio wouldn't be too off since you are going back to 29.97 with the video transfer). Or will that be a desaster, giving you way out of synch footage? hmmm... I'm not sure

I know you can resolve, 29.97 timelines to 24fps in Apple Cinema Tools (although I have never done this with synch sound footage). After Effects has a pull-down/pull-up tool as well.

Or maybe this? Do like Woods01 says, convert your 29.97 timeline to 24fps. Only keep your original audio in tact. Shoot your 24fps timeline on your Nizo frame by frame, get that footage telecined. Take the DV telecine (29.97fps) and apply the original DV audio that you started out with to the telecined footage. Re-synch.

DV Video 29.97fps :arrow: Frame by frame super 8 :arrow: DV Video (telecine)29.97fps

DV audio :arrow: DV audio