1.

Introduction
First of all, thanks for downloading this guide. We hope it will help you. We’ll try to give you practical and simple advices based
on the experience we got shooting “Marla.”.

You may not find everything you’re looking for in this guide; feel free to ask us questions but remember that the best way to get
things working is to practice yourself, there is no magic solution. We’ve chosen to write a rather technical guide because we have
no good advices to give on the content of your movie, do whatever you think is right.

So now, read this guide quickly and go kick some serious ass !

another state of mind

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 2. Homemade MINI35 for dummies
You went to all those great forums talking about Mini35? You read those 48 pages long threads about spinning frosted CDs,
condenser...? You didn’t understand a single word? Neither did we. So, this is the simplest way we found to build a homemade
MINI35.

A. What you need:

12 2
3
11
1. camera slr
2. plain focusing screen
1 3. digital camcorder
4. lenses
13 5. macro adapter
4 6. step-down ring 58-52mm
7. wide angle adapter
8. sunshade
6 9. camera sunshade
5 10. battery
11. viewfinder
12. normal focusing screen
13. wooden planks
7
9 14. piece of black paper

14
8 10

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 - 24x36 reflex camera (SLR)

Attention: You must be able to remove the viewfinder. We know the Nikon F-F2-
F3-F4-F5 does work. Many other cameras will work too but we haven’t tried them.
You should better ask your local photo dealer for more information.

Tip: Ebay is a great place to find cheap old SLR cameras and optics.

- plain focusing screen compatible with your SLR camera.

Plain means nothing at all, no grid, no small circle in the middle,.... For Nikon SLRs,
it’s a D type focusing screen.

Tip: Ebay is also a great place to find focusing screens or you can try a search
in google using focusing+screen+ “cameramodel”. There are some 3rd party
manufacturers making plain focusing screens for all camera brands.

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 - DV Camcorder

3ccd camcorders work better, lowlight sensitivity is important because there’s a

loss of light due to the KIT.

- Lenses

You need lenses for the SLR camera.

You can use wide-angle adapters on your lenses, it works pretty well. Some hotspot
and barreling distortion may occur but it often looks nice.
For example, on Marla., we had a 35mm f/2,0 and a 105mm f/2,5. We did use a
0,7x wide-angle adapter (using a step-down ring 52-58mm) on the 105mm to get a
73,5mm and also on the 35mm to get a 24,5mm.

Attention: You’ll probably use this lenses wide open, so choose them wisely or
you’ll get a too short depth-of-field.

Tip: Again, Ebay is a great place...

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 - Macro adapter

It depends of the camcorder you’re using. On the Canon XM-2/GL-2 we used, a +4

macro adapter was enough to get the focusing screen at full frame.

- Wooden planks & screws

You will need thoses to built the kit

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 B. how to proceed

1. Remove the viewfinder 2. Remove the inapropriate focusing 3. Place the plain focusing screen
screen

4. Now you have a nice and clear 5. Add a step-down ring to your 6. ...And screw on your wide-angle
image lense... adapter to create a new focal lenght

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 7. Looks nice indeed...
10. Adjust the position
just facts : another guide to digital filmmaking
8. ... And even better with a sunhade
11. Take your camcorder and screw-
on a macro adapter (usefull if you
want to focus properly on the slr’s
focusing screen)
9. Now, screw your camera on the
basement of your brand new kit!!
12. Fix the camcorder on the kit, over
the camera and adjust the position
until your are able to get your focusing
screen full frame . And then zoom-in if
needed.
07
 13. Take whatever you think 14. Here you go with your ready-to- 15. HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!
usefull to avoid light and dust to shoot-brand-new-homemade-mini35-kit
go on the focusing screen and
camcorder lense

That’s all folks

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 3. Shooting tips
Consumer DV camcorders are not made no shoot movies, they are made to produce some nice colorful sharp videos of your
wedding or holidays. Don’t run and go to buy a 16mm film camera, there are many things you can do to tweak your camera before
or during the shooting.

- Have a look at the camera settings

Most 3ccd cameras have a setting panel where you can modify the sharpness, color
phase,... Push everything a couple of steps down, especially the color settings.
Basicaly, every DV camera tends to push the colors and sharpen the image. By
pushing the settings down, you will reduce the compression artefacts and get a
nicer, softer image.
Try different settigs while watching the picture on a TV. For Marla, the color settings
where all down to minimum and the sharpness to at least -4.

- Shoot progressive

If you camera is able to shoot in a progressive mode, use it. The Panasonic DVX100 has the best progressive mode but Canon’s
Frame Mode is quite good too. We did shoot Marla using it and it was way better than desinterlacing in post.

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 - Shoot manual

Always use the camera in full manual mode. The shutter should be 1/50 (or 1/25 if
you don’t have much light but motion blur will be more apparent). Do not use gain,
it always brings too much noise. If you have too much light, use ND filters.
Note: if you have to slow down shots in post-production, shoot with a shutter speed
faster than 1/50 to avoid motion blur, like 1/250 or more)

- Mess the white balance

Always do a manual white balance. It’s also a great way to change the colors of the picture, to make it warmer or colder. For
example, if you make the white balance on something blue, the picture will become more red. Go buy some coloured sheets of
paper and simply try, it’s fun to see how it works. For Marla, for the interior shots, we did the white balance on an orange box,
making the picture shift to blue-green tones. For the exterior shots, we did it on a soft purple sheet of paper, the picture became
warmer with some yellow tone in it.

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 4. Post-production
“Filmlook” has become a widely used word in the video industry. You get “filmlook cameras”, “filmlook filters”, “filmlook plugins”,…
We are still waiting for “filmlook tapes”…
If you want to get something close to filmlook using video, you’ll have to get trough a whole process starting from shooting and
ending in post-production.
Don’t trust any commercial message that includes the word “filmlook” or “cine-like”, trust your eyes only, if it looks like film to
you and others, then it means it’s working, as simple as that.

- Make the best out of DV

DV (we’re talking about Mini-DV form , also known as DV25) is a rather highly compressed video format. Without going into details
about colorspace and that kind of things (we’re geeks but not that much), let’s say that DV compresses the colors hardly.
Basically it means that the colors are quite often washed out and/or that you’ll see compression artifacts in some areas of the
picture (blocky pixels,…). You can minimize the problem by configuring your camera (see Shooting tips) but now, you are in post-
production,so the only thing you can do is to avoid creating new compression artifacts!!!

So the first rule, and that’s a hard one because it’ll mean long long rendering times:

Do not ever compress again, work on uncompressed video.

For Marla, we did capture the rushes as DV files (basic Microsoft DV codec), chosen the right takes and did convert them to
uncompressed AVI files.
Why? We preferred to clean, color-correct and frame the takes before the editing, to avoid any compression loss.
We decided to do it that way because you have much more pleasure editing nice color-corrected rushes. Ok, that’s half the truth.
Now, the real reasons:
Some of our rushes were really weird before the post: picture upside down and/or horizontally flipped, shots that needed to be
stabilized, moving framing during shots (if you touch the zoom of the DV camera when using the MINI35kit, it will radically change
the framing,
Look at the deleted scenes on the website, you’ll see by yourself.

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 Some other advantages working like this:

- You really see how your movie will finally look like, same as doing it in 16mm or 35mm.
- You cannot say “I’ll fix it in post” during the editing process, it’s already done or it’s too late to do it.
- When people come to see you during the editing, you’ll not have to say “it will look better when it’s finished”.
- If you are one of those who like to edit a trailer before starting the editing of the movie, you can easily do it, it’s always fun.
(But please, wait until your movie is finished to post it on forums, a trailer is not a movie. If your trailer rocks, people will
want to see more and you’ll have to show it ASAP).
- If you leave out certain takes during the editing, you can still show them proudly to the world, at least they’ll look nice.

Now, the list of problems:

- Rendering times
- Files size
- Rendering times
- Files size… People will laugh about you when you’ll say that you have about 80gb of uncompressed data, but hey, at least
it sounds professional and you’ll find a use for this new 250gb hard-disk you just bought...
- Rendering…Be patient, really, really patient. Get some good CDs, get a Playstation, read a book,…or write your next
script.

Here’s what we’ve done on Marla to get the best out of DV:

- We did capture the rushes in DV.

- We selected the right takes and did convert them to uncompressed AVI
- We took every single take and cleaned it up. We corrected the framing, removed artifacts and grain using some plugins.
- We stabilized some takes (every single exterior shot)
- Then we went to color-correction which is the next part.

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 - Color-correction

Like always, there’s no magic solution when it comes to color-correction. First of all, you need to know what you want to achieve
during the shooting. If your picture is all red and you want a nice blue/green tone, you’ll get mad trying to color-correct it.

Then, choose your tools. Some people are crazy about advanced color-correction tools with vectorscopes and all those kind of
stuff that take a lot of space on your monitor. Sure, there are wonderful softwares dedicated to color-correction but we prefer basic
tools: layers (and layers transfer modes), levels, curves and color-balance. The good point is that you can adapt yourself to any
software offering these tools.

Forget any theory about filmlook curves and other filmlook plugins. Most of the films you see on DVD or in theaters went through
a bunch of chemical processes like bleach bypass, cross-processing,…
You’ll have to trust your eyes only to recreate these kind of looks (or create new ones) in post.

Yes, but how? We are really sorry to say that there is no rule for that . It depends of what rushes you have and how you want them
to finally look.

So start simply, try to define what you want to achieve:

Take a frame of your movie in some photo editing software. Copy this frame on a new layer, so you get two layers with the same
picture. Now, play with transfer modes ( soft light, screen,…). If the picture gets too dark, play with the curves on one of the layers.
Play with color-balance, saturation (try black and white layers),…
You can add as many layers as you think is needed. You can also try to filter your picture using a colored layer (like a plain orange
layer for example or a gradient layer).

Now, that you’ve found the look you want, simply apply the same process to video. Watch out not to burn out the whites and crush
the blacks. Remember that filmlook is soft and subtle, if you want contrast, it’s ok but take it easy. Also remember to check how it
looks on a TV because it’s really different from a computer monitor.

Then, go test it. Show it to people and listen to what they have to say. When we mean people, we mean every kind of people: your
mum, your baker, your fellow filmmaker,… Often the people that are the less involved in the movie or have the less knowledge in
filmmaking, have the best advices to give.
Don’t give up until your mum believes you did shoot a real movie !

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 Here are some stills of Marla with and without color-correction.

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just facts : another guide to digital filmmaking 15
 5. Editing & sound
We don’t have good advices to give about editing and sound. After color-correcting the shots, we did convert them back to DV
to edit the movie. We preferred to use an old editing software because all we had to do was basic cutting. There was no need
for cutting edge high-end editing software. At the end, we did replace the DV files by the uncompressed ones, so we had a nice
uncompressed version of our final cut.

Our sound was not good (blame our cheap minidisk microphone), so we prefer to not say anything about sound, ask professionals.
All we can say is that there are great noise reduction plugins on the market.

6. Final tweakings
It’s never really over. We did some more color-correction on the final cut to harmonize the look between the shots. Then we had
to clean the stains on the pictures due to the crappy focusing screen we’ve found. That was a huge task, we ended up cleaning
scenes frame by frame in a photo editing software. We stopped after about 8000 frames, we looked like vampires with red eyes
and were close to a certain degree of madness. Don’t laugh until you try it.

We still had some kind of aliasing problems on some scenes, so we upconverted the whole movie to HD 720p (1280x720), applied
some smoothing and then went back to PAL SD (720x576). This made the picture look softer, aliasing problems were gone, a step
closer to filmlook (but it took about 72 hours to render).

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 7. References
- Websites / Forums
If you want support, advices,…or if you want to show your work, these websites are just great !

www.2-pop.com www.creativecow.net
www.dv.com www.dvinfo.net
www.dvxuser.com www.hackermovies.com (german)
www.cinematography.com www.simplydv.co.uk
www.emotiondv.com www.fusionarena.com
www.dvcreators.net www.dvfreelancer.com
www.microcinemascene.com www.repaire.net (french)
www.dvforever.com (french) www.cine-courts.com (french)

- Books

Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player by Robert Rodriguez
Publisher: Plume ISBN: 0452271878

The original guerilla filmmaker. This book is such a great source of inspiration.

Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices: How to Write, Produce, Direct, Shoot, Edit, and Promote a Feature-Lenth
Movie for Less Than $15,000 by Rick Schmidt
Publisher: Penguin USA ISBN: 0140291849

Another amazing source of inspiration, a bit more intellectual but still profoundly guerilla style.

Digital Guerrilla Video: A Grassroots Guide to the Revolution by Avi Hoffer

Publisher: CMP Books ASIN: 0879305754
Or how to run a production company when you have no budget at all. A book that finishes on “…and then go kick some ass”
cannot be a bad book.

just facts : another guide to digital filmmaking 17

 8. Final words
We just would like to thank everybody on the different websites and forums where we posted the movie. Thanks also to everyone
who sent an e-mail. It’s your feedback that made us want to share our little experience. Enough words for now, there’s nothing left
to say but…go kick some ass and see you on the web.

www.anotherstateofmind.be
www.marlathemovie.com

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