Pictures from Workshop

[Kim Welch]

Update, November 2026
These photos are from one of the early StudentFilmmakers.com hands-on workshops in 2004. Learning from working professionals is still at the heart of what we do, now with live webinars and on-demand master classes taught by ASC cinematographers and working directors.

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[JLNeir]

Ahh, memories...
Are these the ones that Digi took or have you gotten those yet?

 

[Kim Welch]

These are the pictures of the workshop digi took

These are the pictures of the workshop digi took

he may have uploaded some others. He siad the light was nto good on soem of them and the camera flash was not working or something of that nature but these are ok. I will check and see if he has others. I am goign to check the footage you took in a couple of days and see if we have any good stuff there.

Kim

 

[DerekEastham]

nice pictures... good memories...
out of curiosity, what camera were you using to take these? they're absolutely beautiful pictures!

 

[JLNeir]

There might be some good footage, but dont get your hopes up...I appreciate you taking the time to look through it and maybe putting some of it up for those who weren't there.

 

[Digigenic]

I used my Nikon CP 5700. For the most part, I was trying to capture group pictures, many of which didn't come out quite as good as I'd have liked.

I wish I had a tripod with me to aid in some of the longer exposure shots, since most of the shots were taken without a flash it proved difficult to get group images without an abundance of motion blur.

No worries though, frame grabs from the HD cam footage should provide us with better images of the speakers, being that it was lit specifically for that purpose. Anyhow, it was a great event, and I had a good time with everyone involved.

Where's my sunglasses :?: 8)

 

[JLNeir]

Sunglasses...?? right here... 8) :wink:

 

[Kim Welch]

Kodak Presentation
Ha, I hope the sunglasses find their way home! What did everyone think about the Kodak presentation at the workshop? Seeing film and video side by side on a big screen is one of the best ways to understand the differences.

 

[DerekEastham]

Sunglasses...
they're on my desk...
I got your e-mail though, so I'll get them sent out to you either tomorrow or thursday depending on time.

On Kodak's presentation... I'm not really sure just yet... I liked it, but at the same time I had trouble seeing the complete differences from behind the screen... however, there were a few times that I noticed some rather surprisingly nice images from the DVX when they were compared imediately with film stock... though, I'm not sure how the differences compared from in front of the screen... also, I am a little curious to know how the film-stock images were effected by the telecine down to HD... and wether that tape we looked at was a 1:1 un-compressed image, or if it was 1:2 or some other compressed level of imagery... it would be interesting to find out though.

 

[Kim Welch]

Bogen
Thanks for sending the sunglasses, Derek, and for your thoughts on the Kodak comparison. Good questions about the telecine to HD. What did you think about the green screen presentation?

 

[Digigenic]

I had heard about the Reflect Media Chromatte stuff before, but actually seeing it in this setting opened my eyes entirely different world of filmmaking/video art, and I began envisioning some interesting stuff coming of this. Of course, I'm trying to see if I can track down the materials seperately, as the retail for a small package of the matte and the LED lights gets pretty pricey.

 

[DerekEastham]

The green screen presentation was absolutely wonderful!

I am curious when they came up with the idea... and how long it's been in practice... as it's absolutely brilliant. I only wish I had one of those at home!

 

[JLNeir]

what prices have you found on the LEDs so far? I thought that the presentation was positively amazing...what a powerful tool. There have been way too many times where i have had serious issues with getting light splashed back onto my subject because the room was too small to have a green screen in the first place and i had to have my subject too close to the green screen. I also echo derek in the question of how long this has been in practice?

On this same note, has anyone used one of the photo bubbles that were created recently by Roman Coppola and Steve McHale? I hear they are an extremly powerful tool and are fairly cheap to rent.

 

[Jared Isham]

I have a comment on the Kodak presentation.

I thought their tests were rather helpful. I was able to see the limits of DV (specificialy the DVX100A) and noticed that for low budget it is very viable. It is also helpful to see the differences between film and video, video looked like good video and the film - as expected - looked like film.

Me being someone who would prefer to use film over video was a bit annoyed by all the peoples comments that it was not an accurate test. Like it has been said so many times on this website that video is one medium and film is another I found it funny that with the comments about film vs. video and how it shouldn't be that people still tried making their defenses as to video's superiority to film. I am not sure if it was David Mullen, Roy Wagner or laurent.a that made the comment about film is still the format that captures the best image - (I searched the forums quickly to find out who said it and I couldn't find the post but I think it was David Mullen).

As Roy said, the test show us that we need to light things slightly differently for either film or video - what colors not to have in the highlights and what not.

As far as the mention of what the compression was. I work where they did the telecine of the film and edits and what not and my guess is that they used the Spirit HD Telecine, not sure of the compression of it but I can see if I can find out this next week. From what I know of the process it is scanned at 4:2:2 onto HDCAM, I could be wrong, though. I'll find out more and make a post regarding my results.

 

[Kim Welch]

Great Workshop

Great Workshop

This was a great workshop in burbank. We are thinking of doing it with some additional speakers here in NYC. What wast he best part of the workshop for you?

Truly
Kim

 

[DerekEastham]

Best part of the workshop for me...
I would have to say that it was any time that Roy opened his mouth. Honestly, what he had to say to everyone was really just amazing.

As far as presentations went... I think the Rikers portion of the workshop was my personal favorite... followed closely by the LED ring-light Demo.

 

[Jared Isham]

I have found out more about the Kodak demonstration that was at the workshop.

The film was obviously down converted to HD, it has much high resolution than HD - for example the typical scan from film that is the highest resolution is a 4k scan, the second is a 2k scan which is 1/4 the size of the 4k scan. Below that is the HD resolution 1920x1080 then the 1280X720 resolution followed by Standared Def.

So the film was down converted to HDCAM at 1080/24p or 1080/23.976 (er something). The HD footage was transfered from 1280X720 to the HDCAM tape at 1920X1080 (so that is an upconversion) and the stuff from the DVX100A was upconverted from DV to HDCAM at 1920x1080.

Because each one of the formats have some sorta of compression, except the film, it would be hard to say the exact compression rate but the general compression would be a 4:2:2 compression. If it were HDCAM SR it would be a 4:4:4 compression rate. If anyone was wondering about the way the DV footage looked it was in part that they color corrected to adjuest for the best blacks. As Roy mentioned reds don't hold up too well in the DV footage highlights, so that is something to watch out for, other than the back focus issue you've got a pretty good format for low budget stuff.

In response to Kim Welch's post. The best part of the workshop for me was what Roy had to say at the end that inspired so many of us to want to go out and make a movie as well as how he mentioned how he doesn't let the technical aspects of filmmaking take away from the artistic views he has. The second best thing was the technology he showed us but more so the test that he showed us and the way he lit them.