Technical FAQ

Delivering Your Masterpiece

Q: What is 16:9?
A: Go here Aspect

Q: Shorts must be handed in on MiniDV tapes. What is MiniDV?
A: MiniDV is a common video tape format. It is used in consumer video cameras, as well in some professional/prosumer cameras. For a more detailed explanation check the Wikipedia Mini-DV article.

Q: Shorts must be handed in as PAL format - what is PAL?
A: PAL is the standard definition format used in New Zealand for television. If you have a regular consumer standard definition video camera sold in New Zealand then it will almost certainly be able to record to PAL.

Unfortunately a lot of newer record in other formats, such as HD (High Definition) formats.High Definition formats will not be accepted for the tape you hand in. This includes HDV formatted video - even though it is still recorded to MiniDV tapes.

If you want to record in HD and master your short in PAL - that is fine, however if you are wanting to do this then please make sure you have tested it out first or know what you are doing.

For more advice check the forums but in general its much easier if you record everything in PAL, and that is the absolute best advice for inexperienced competitors.

In other words DO NOT RECORD OR SUBMIT FILMS IN NTSC.

If you are shooting High Definition on your camera, you need to make sure you are shooting on a camera that can record either 25 frames per seconds, or 50 frames per second - generally indicated with 25i, 25p, or 50i. If you do not, it will be nearly impossible to hand in a correctly formatted PAL Mini Dv

For more info on PAL check out the PAL Wikipedia entry.

Q: Mini DV tapes must be recorded in SP format, not LP format. What's SP?
A: SP stands for standard play. LP stands for Long Play (sometimes EP, Extended Play). Some tape recorders can record in SP or LP mode - the tapes they are recording onto are the same, it's just how they record. Make sure your camera is recording in SP. (It's generally the default setting, but check the manual.)

Q: Shorts must be handed in with a 16:9 aspect ratio - what does this mean? NEW FOR 2010! READ

A: 16:9 is the aspect ratio for wide screen television. For PAL this means video, which is 1024 pixels wide by 576 pixels high. Older televisions are normally 4:3 aspect ratio - films recorded in this fashion will need to be played back as 16:9 pillarboxed. Pillarboxing is the process of putting the 4:3 image inside a 16:9 video, so there are vertical black bars on the left and right. If you do not pillar box them, your picture will end up looking fat and stretched when it is played back at the Heats and on television.

If you are shooting in 4:3, and you want to make your video LOOK like 16:9, you can add a black matte to the top and bottom of the picture so that it looks like 16:9 (this will generally make it look more 'cinematic' - but you'll be cutting off the top and bottom of what's been recorded on the camera). You can then scale up the video to make the picture fit in a 16:9 editing timeling/sequence. For a more detailed explanation of aspect ratios check the Wikipedia entry.

If you only have a 4:3 TV to watch the playback of your final tape on, then it will generally make everybody look tall and squished. This is why it's a very good idea to get a hold of a wide screen tv to test your film on.

AGAIN - FROM 2010 ALL FILMS ARE TO BE HANDED IN WITH A 16:9 ASPECT RATIO

Q: Shorts should be preceded by 10 seconds bars & tone? What are bars & tone?
A: Bars & Tone are coloured bars that are used to check that a tape is showing correct colour and sound levels. Tone should be set to the a level about 8-10dbfs less than your audio normally peaks at (recommended -20dbfs, with audio not peaking above -10dbfs). Most editing programs can automatically insert bars and tones - if you don't think your editing program can, or don't know how to, you can download bars as tif files here BARS and tone as both .aif (for Mac/Final Cut) and wav (for PC/almost anything) here TONE. Just put ten seconds of the picture in your editing program, with the accompanying sound file underneath.

Q: I cannot hand in my short on Mini DV - can I make a DVD?
A: First - you should really aim to hand in your short on Mini DV. For a very large number of reasons DVDs are likely to cause more problems than if you hand in your short on a Mini DV tape. However if MiniDV proves totally impossible DVDs will be accepted. They must be DVD-R dvds. DVD-ROMs, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW etc are not suitable. When you buy your DVDs to play back make sure they are DVD-R. You must also encode your DVD as region free/region 0, and it still must be recorded in PAL. The DVD will also be played back at a 16:9 ratio.

Basic Camera FAQ

Q: I have camera, is my camera good enough? Will it work for V48HOURS? What should I look for in a camera for V48HOURS?
A: Ideally you want a camera that records on to MiniDV tapes, records in PAL, has a firewire connection (IEEE 1394) also known as iLINK so you can connect it to your computer to edit and record video back to it so you can hand in your tape, has a microphone input of some kind so you can plug in a microphone to record better sound and has a battery charger and MULTIPLE batteries that last a reasonable amount of time (so you can be charging one while you are shooting with others). There are potentially other things to look for to improve quality of image, sound etc - but those things are the most important.

Q: What else makes a good camera?
A: Other things that can help when selecting a camera is making sure it can white balance, it has a manual focus, a manual iris/exposure setting, a manual shutter, a manual zoom - in fact as many manual features as you can get is good. A microphone input (such as XLR inputs) is also very important. Most importantly what makes a good camera is that it comes with a manual that the person using the camera has read. It also helps to search online to find out more about the camera you are using. Once you understand what your camera can and can't do you will be able to decide if it's good - but even a great camera is of no use if the person holding it doesn't know how to use it.

Q: What else do I need to go with my camera?
A: Possible accessories to cameras are almost endless - but the most common and important one is a tripod. Without a tripod it is almost impossible to have good still shots.

Other camera related equipment include matte boxes (to stop camera flares on the lens), dollies (to allow you to do moving shots without the camera shaking), steadicam, hi-hats, jib arms, cranes etc. In general these all allow you to move the camera in different ways or put the camera in different positions which you couldn't easily do otherwise. However, on the basic level if you can use your camera on a tripod and use it hand held then you should manage fine.

Q: I don't own a camera. Where can I get a camera?
A: If you don't already own your camera, then look at renting a camera or borrowing a camera. If you think you may want to rent a camera we suggest that you try and book it as early as possible, as historically almost every rental camera available in the country gets booked out over the 48 hours and you will have difficulty finding one.

Here is a list of a few rental companies for the different areas that you could get in touch with (or just check the yellow pages etc.) :

• Auckland Rocket Rental Niche Cameras Broadcast Rentals

• Wellington AV Services Rocket Rental

• Christchurch Ace Video Services

• Hamilton Any Audio & Visual Vidcom A V 2 U Audio Visual Equipment

Also you can check out the website Hire Things - some video equipment is listed there.

If you are thinking about borrowing someone's personal camera - ask the person you are thinking about borrowing the camera from to be on your team first and make sure that they understand that THEY are responsible for the camera over the weekend. The reason we suggest this is that in the course of making a film cameras can end up in all sorts of precarious positions, that the owners might complain about if they found out about later or blame you for if the camera is broken in the process. Rental companies will be aware of the risks involved and will have insurance to cover themselves, and will generally detail what sort of cover they have in a rental agreement.

Private individuals are unlikely to have the same sort of insurance in place and if something does go wrong then if the person who owns the camera is with it at the time they are going to have been in a position where they knew what was going on and could have stopped it happening if they thought it was too risky.

Q: What is white balance? Why do I need to white balance?
A: White balance is how video cameras adapt to changes in light temperature. Different types of light (sunlight vs indoor electric light bulbs, etc.) have different temperatures. This means that video cameras see things as different colours when they are under normal light bulbs compared to sunlight for example. This change is most obvious when you look at anything white on video, and the scene changes between this two types of light. The colour white in video will often turn blue, if going from being lit by lightbulbs to being lit by sunlight, or if going from lit by sunlight to lit by light bulbs.

Cameras compensate for this by white balancing a shot - generally by pointing at something white and holding down a white balance button or having a preset indoor/outdoor white balance setting. For specifics about white balance read the Wikipedia article, but in general the most important thing to know is that you need to white balance every time you move from shooting in sunlight to shooting under light bulbs, otherwise your video will dramatically change colour.

Q: My video on my camera is very dark. How do I stop my video looking too dark?
A: Most video cameras need quite a lot of light to look good, much more than is normally used in day to day life. You will probably need to use extra lights to stop your video being too dark. Also - some cameras have something called an ND filter (Neutral Density) - if your camera has an ND filter make sure this is not turned on. Next, if the video still looks to dark if your camera either has an iris or exposure setting, see if you can increase it. Between extra lighting and opening the iris/increasing the exposure you should be able to get your video light enough.

Q: My video on my camera is very bright. How do I stop my video being to bright/blowing out (going all white)?

A: Video cameras aren't as good as adjusting to very bright light as the human eye is. As such you will need to ensure that your picture isn't over exposed. You can do this by closing the iris/decreasing the exposure setting, turning on the ND filter if your camera has one, or decreasing the amount of lighting be used. If you are not sure if the picture is over exposed, you may want to check if your camera has a Zebra function - these will show what part of your picture is too bright by showing diagonal lines in the view finder.

Q: How do I get good sound into my camera?
A: By having a decent directional microphone that can plug into your camera, and by checking that the levels of audio going in are not peaking (ie the sound are not being recorded to the point which they distort the microphone - this should mean that they do not go above 0dbfs, and in general you should aim for the loudest noise you are likely to hear in a given situation to be recorded at about -10dbfs - the loudest noise in regular conversation is often laughter).

Cameras that allow you to plug in microphones should also show levels up on their screen/viewfinder (you may need to look through the manual to turn this on.) and a way to turn down the volume, which it is being recorded at. You should also listen to the cameras output through headphones to get an idea of what it sounds like. Importantly - turning up or down the volume on the headphone volume control will not normally affect the levels being recorded to the camera, which is why you really should be able to see the levels meters to find out how good the sound is.

Generally this means that you will have a shotgun mic, attached to a boom pole, meaning that you can point the microphone directly at the thing you want to record and get it as close as possible without getting it into shot. There are other options, such as lapel mics, but nothing is as generally useful as having a good directional mic on a boom.

If your camera does not let your record sound in to it with anything apart from the on-board camera microphone - then try and make sure everything else is as quiet as possible when recording as on-board microphones tend to record any noise anywhere near the camera and there isn't much you can do to get rid of noises once they are recorded.

Alternatively, you could try recording sound into another device, and synching them up using a clapper board (so you can see when the sound should be made), but this is a somewhat advanced technique and can lead to problems for the unprepared. Regardless of your setup, testing it before you start shooting your short is your best method of preparation.

Another general note: Sound generally should be set to record 16bit sound at 48khz if possible.

Q: How do I get video from my camera into my computer?
A: This is one of the areas that causes competitors the most trouble every year. The most common way is that your camera will have a firewire (IEEE 1394) port, and that you will connect your camera to your computer using a firewire cable, and then using an editing program (such as Adobe Premiere, Avid, Sony Vegas, Microsoft Movie Maker (PC), Final Cut, iMovie (Mac) etc) you will digitise your video on to your computer. However, if you plan to do this please TEST YOUR METHOD before the competition starts on Friday night - see the diagram - because if this doesn't work you will not be able to edit your short.

Q: Where can I find out more?
A: The internet has a huge wealth of information on cameras - especially good information can be found on various forums such as DVInfo.net, or by asking questions on the V48HOURS forum itself.

Basic Lighting FAQ

Q: What do I need to light my short?
A: The answer to that in terms of equipment could be anything - it depends on your short. The practical answer is first you need a basic understanding of lighting, one nice simple website for that can be found here but its a pretty huge topic so a Google search is probably a good place to start. The generally most useful thing to have in all situations however is what is known as a "flecky". Basically a "flecky" is a portable reflective surface used to bounce additional light on to the subject matter. They are often white or silver but are sometimes gold. Sometimes bits of polystyrene are used to bounce light as well.

In general anything you can get that allows you to get extra light on the subject matter is useful, and fleckys are especially useful because they can be used indoors or outside and don't require any power.

More complicated lighting kits will involve additional lights, some common lights for video are known as redheads and blondes (redheads are 800 watt lights, blondes are 1000 watt). You could also use workman/mechanics lights on stands. As soon as you start to use lights though you have to be very safety conscious and aware of things like fuse loads, shorts, safe cabling etc.

Electricity can kill you if you are not careful. Also strong lights tend to get very hot and a light falling over is a massive fire risk, which is why they are best used on stands weighed down by sand bags.Extension cords are easy to trip over, if you are running them down corridors or along the ground where people will be walking make sure they are taped to the ground somehow so people won't trip on them.

Additionally blowing fuses in houses can make it very hard to continue shooting, so if you are using extra lighting having someone with a sound knowledge of electricity, how much load can be put on a circuit etc, and an understanding of lighting is vital not only for aesthetics but also for safety.

Basic Editing FAQ

Q: What do I need to edit my short?
A: You need a computer with editing software and a way to digitise your footage. This generally means a firewire (IEEE 1394) input.You would normally turn your camera to VTR mode (rather than Camera mode - might also be called 'Play' mode or something similar) and with the firewire cable plugged in to the camera your editing programme should automatically detect and take control of the camera.

Most relatively new computers will come with firewire - but you NEED to check and test that you have it so that you can both get footage into your computer and back out again. Firewire is the most common method for good reason - if you think you can do it but you've got USB only, or something else, and you are not really sure, chances are you will have problems.

Find this out first, and irrespective of how you are doing this TEST YOUR METHOD before the competition starts on the Friday night - because if you can't both get the footage from your camera and back out onto Mini DV tape without any hassles chances are you will not be able to hand your short in on time.

Q: What is the best sort of computer/best editing software?
A: The best sort of computer/editing software is the one that someone on your team knows how to use and has tested. Some editing software is incredibly powerful but somewhat complicated (Avid), some editing software is quite simple but not very powerful (iMovie/Microsoft Movie Maker).

Q: Ok, so I have a computer and editing software and someone who says they know how to use it - what else do I really need to be able to edit my film?
A: You will generally need quite a bit of extra Harddrive space. Large Harddrives are quite common these days - but video takes up a lot of room (1 hour of MiniDV tape digitised will take up about 13 gigabytes). An external firewire drive with at least 100 gigabytes of free space is definitely recommended - the more the better. Also the drive needs to be quite fast, 7200rpm is recommended.

This is ESPECIALLY important for laptop users - a lot of laptop internal drives are only 5400rpm - this is quite likely to cause you hassles especially if you are digitising directly to the computers main drive.

Q: How do I get music into my editing software?
A: This changes between editing programs, but in general the main things you are looking for is that whatever music you are trying to add in to your edit should hopefully 16bit and 48khz. Music on CD is 44.1khz and will generally need to be converted to match your settings.

This again is a large area of knowledge so internet searches to find out more and testing your workflow is highly advised. Programs are generally set up to handle this pretty easily - but its a potential minefield especially if you are trying to put an mp3 or other compressed music directly into your video timeline (simply put, don't try - its much better to convert it to a 16bit 48khz file, either a .wav in PCs or a .aif in Macs).

Note: Same goes for preparing sound effects.

Q: The sound on my video seems really loud/quiet. How do I make it quieter/louder?
A: You need to adjust the levels on your sound track. This changes from editing programme to editing programme - the key thing is that you try and mix your sound so that the loudest sounds are no louder than the -10db sound on your levels in your editing programme (in which case the most quiet sounds should not be too much quieter, just try and mix them so they sound ok compared to the loudest sounds and you should be fine.)

Q: How do I get my video back on to a tape?
A: Firstly, make sure you have a BRAND NEW TAPE. Not one of the ones you recorded onto, or one that has been used before. Recording video back onto tape will generally be done in a similar fashion to digitising the footage into the computer. ie. normally the camera will be hooked to your computer via firewire cable aka IEEE 1394 or i-Link. This might be called making a Digital Cut (Avid), Printing to Video (Final Cut), or recording to video or something similar depending on your editing system.

The most important thing to check here is whether your editing system is set up to automatically start your camera recording as it plays back the footage.

This has been especially bothersome in the past for people who have used Final Cut and not known that the need to check a box to make this happen. If your camera ISN'T automatically recording video, and you can't figure out how to get your editing program to make it record, you should try pressing the play and record on your camera while in VTR mode and then try printing to tape. If you are getting images on your cameras viewfinder this should mean all is okay.

Aspect

Q. Can you please explain 16:9 to me?

As 16:9 widescreen delivery is a requirement this year, we thought we'd let Sycophant (aka Dylan) take a little time to explain exactly what that means. If you still are confused then go to the forums and ask for help. In his words...

This is something I deal with every day, and I am still surprised by how often I meet TV professionals (camera operators, producers, directors, even editors) who really don't get it.

PAL video is a 4:3 format, is has specific frame dimensions which cannot be changed.

A 4:3 frame is only 75% the width of a 16:9 frame, so we can't fit it all in there - see below

So there are three ways we can deal with this:

Centercut

This way we simply chop off the sides and we get a standard 4:3 image, but we lose detail on the sides of the frame.

Letterbox

This will be familiar to people with 4:3 television really - this way we simply make the widescreen 75% smaller, it now fits within the frame horizontally, but the top and bottom are black. This gets us the correct aspect ratio, but we're throwing out a lot of detail in the picture.

Anamorphic

This is the method that provides a 'true' widescreen PAL image. All the image detail is simple compressed into the 4:3 frame, so it's the same height, but 75% narrower. A widescreen TV will simply display this image across its full width and we'll get a proper wide image.

So which do you provide for 48HOURS? Anamorphic, also known as PAL Widescreen.

On a 4:3 television (and possibly your DV recorder when you're outputting) the image will seem skinny and tall, but on a 16:9 widescreen display (like the projectors at the screenings) it will be the proper shape.

What to look for?

On an older 4:3 television a proper anamorphic widescreen image will look tall and thin

On a newer 16:9 television the same anamorphic image will look correct

What to watch out for?

A letterboxed image on a 4:3 television will seem correct, but display black bars top and bottom

The same letterboxed picture will be short and fat, and have black bars top and bottom

A center-cropped widescreen image, or native 4:3 image on a 4:3 television will seem proper and right.

On a widescreen television the same image will seem short and fat, but will fill the screen.

These are the basic options, but some video applications may be capable of other setups. Also some camcorders will record the proper widescreen image but display on the LCD and video out with black bars - check the menu options and manual about that. If you can see black bars on the video you've captured into your editing application, chances are you have a letterboxed image recorded, not native widescreen.