Film is now at my fingertips
OMG yes! Okay well not film per se but perhaps the closest damn quality at an affordable price. Yes I’m talking about the quality of digital video and the little gem that is the high definition camcorder - the Canon HV20. This amazing piece of equipment records film like images in full HD (yes 1920×1080!) and for the film lovers (hello!) it can record at 25p. Other great features of this camera is the ability to alter and monitor sound levels on the fly, manual control of shutter and aperture (there are tricks to do a manual gain adjustment) and record images at 3.1 megapixels. Essentially for the ultra-budget filmmaker who isn’t making films as a career choice (right now) but still wants exceptional film-like quality from a camcorder, you can’t beat it for price and features. I’ve even seen people make homemade steadycams with terrific results.
Now I’ve only done one test so far but you can’t really appreciate the quality of an online video so here’s a 720p HD version for you to enjoy (36MB, .wmv). I plan to shoot a few more tests hopefully over the next week with ample light to hopefully showcase what this puppy can achieve. Hang tight.
12 Responses to “Film is now at my fingertips”
nice one man! i d/l the video and it’s not bad (even if it’s just driving on a wet melbourne day!!). the quality of it is awesome, my gf has a $350 video camera and trust me, ours looks nothing like yours. :)
Very nice. The quality is so good!
Thanks guys. This was just test footage, as I want to give it a bit of a run through before I shoot anything with a narrative. So yes, there will be some pretty pointless footage coming within the next week or so.
what’s that song by the way?
It’s ‘Passenger Seat’ by Death Cab For Cutie
Could you upload please a frame of this video unprocessed and un-graded so we can see the amount of grading that took place over the original?
Greetings,
I just came across this web blog and I must say it is great. I watched your test footage that was shot on the HV20 (the one in the car) and I am curious about what you have done to the color to achieve that moody filmic look which I really like.
I am new to filmmaking and I recently bought the HV20. I want to learn more about color grading/correcting. Can you send me a screen cap. of the original uncompressed footage so I can learn to achieve the look approximate to yours?
Your reply is much appreciated.
Best regards,
Timothy
Note: The email function on this site doesn’t work somehow. I punched in the verification code as shown but it said error and couln’t send out the message.
Eugenia: All done!
Timothy: See my newest post for info on colour correction. Sorry about the email form. I’m overhauling the site over the next week or so so everything should be up and running smoothly shortly.
i just knew you would put ‘passenger seat’ for the car video…somehow perfect choice no…plus its been playing around everywhere…reminded me of how much i like the song…was used kinda perfectly on ‘californication’ recently…
your site is awesome!
Film *like*? I can tell that it actually is film, since, clearly, it’s been loaded into the projector backwards, what with the cars driving on the– oh wait. Got it now. Beautiful test footage, inspiring!
[...] adapters mean you can trick out the HV20 to suit your purposes. Photo by Hooverdust, who also has a terrific blog review and (36 WMV) video [...]