NEWCASTLE MOVIE MAKERS EASTER - Federation of Australian ...

INTERESTED IN MAKING MOVIES ?
If you own a movie or video camera and would like to meet
people with similar interests, you are most welcome to attend
a meeting of the Newcastle & Hunter Valley Cine Society.
WHO ARE WE ?
The Society was founded in 1964 and is affiliated with the
Federation of Australian Movie Makers.
WHAT DO WE DO ?
EASTER
NEWCASTLE MOVIE
MAKERS
ESTABLISHED 1964
N.H.V.C.S.
ISSUE No 513
April 2010
We are amateur movie makers who are interested in learning
the skills of movie making as a hobby and as an art form and
cater for both the beginner and the experienced movie
maker.
We hold competitions and have technical and movie screening
evenings and are in touch with other clubs around Australia
with the same interests.
WHEN AND WHERE ?
We enjoy the excellent facilities available at the home of
John Winstanley, 8 Ada Street, Hamilton on the second
Monday of each month at 7.30 pm.
We meet at CINEMA 86
8 Ada Street, Hamilton
Second Monday of each month
Commencing at 7.30 pm
VISITORS ALWAYS WELCOME
CINE CAMARADERIE
Aussie Printed

Newcastle & Hunter Valley Cine Society
Newcastle Newcastle & Hunter Movie Valley Makers Cine Society
Postal Address: 19 Jubilee Street, East Maitland 2323
Email: Email: gordon.taylor@hunterlink.net.au
gordon.taylor@hunterlink.net.au
An affiliate of the
Federation An of affiliate Australian of the Movie Makers Limited
Federation of Australian Movie Makers
NHVCS
NHVCS
2009-2010 COMMITTEE
ANNUAL PROGRAMMME
President:
2010
Frank Embleton (02) 4955 9795 April 12 Golden Oldies
President:
Vice President:
Vice President:
Frank Embleton
Bill Powell
Bill Powell (02) 4966 8882
May 10 Theme Competition,
59 Wentworth Street
2 Challice Street
Secretary/Treasurer:
Gordon Taylor’s half hour
WALLSEND 2287
BERESFIELD 2322
Gordon Taylor (02) 4933 7359
Phone (02) 4955 9795
Phone (02) 4966 8882
Social Secretary:
June 14 AGM
Joe Laughton (02) 4969 4219
John Adam’s half hour
Secretary/Treasurer:
Social Secretary:
Projectionist:
Gordon Taylor
Joe Laughton
John Winstanley (02) 4961 3510 July 12 Open Competition
19 Jubilee Street
13 Darling Street
Assistant Projectionist:
Noel Kidd’s half hour
EAST MAITLAND 2323
HAMILTON SOUTH 2303
Noel Green (02) 4961 6314
Phone (02) 4933 7359
Phone (02) 4969 4219
Equipment Officer:
August 9 NVM Programme
Brian Spurr (02) 4968 1764
John Winstanley’s half hour
Projectionist:
Committee Member:
Committee Member:
John Winstanley
Robert Farquharson
Gary Peterson
September 13
8 Ada street
2/25 Floribunda Close
Editor & Assistant Secretary: Non-competition movies
HAMILTON 2303
WARABROOK 2304
Robert Farquharson (02) 4967 2003 Gary Peterson’s half hour
Phone (02) 4961 3510
Phone (02)
robertf@exemail.com.au
October 11
Assistant Projectionist:
Editor:
Noel Green DISCLAIMER
Movie of the Year
Gary Peterson
In regard to products, services and/or procedures
which are either advertised or men-
guests and visitors
All members, their
1 Francis Street
PO Box 75
tioned
TIGHES
in this magazine,
HILL 2297
members should
TORONTO 2283
are welcome.
determine Phone for (02) themselves 4961 6314 the reliability and/ Email:
or suitability of these products for their own gazzapet@yahoo.com.au
particular Equipment requirements. Officer:
COPYRIGHT
NHVCS Brian cannot Spurr accept responsibility for All articles and photographs appearing in
any 97a products Georgetown service Road statement made this magazine are subject to copyright and
herein WARATAH and the opinions 2298 or comments by may not be reproduced in whole or part
contributors Phone are (02) not 4968 necessarily 1764 the views of without the author’s consent. Enquiries
the club, its committee, its members or the regarding permission should in the first
editor.
instance be directed to the Editor NHVCS
Newcastle Movie Makers.
The control system is also new. There’s still a lens ring, and a nearby function button
changes its operation between manual focus, white balance, shutter and iris. The
single function button replaces the two used previously in Panasonic camcorders. A
single press enables manual mode, whilst a second one cycles through the four options.
The lens ring is then used to make adjustments. A review of the camcorder
from the “Trusted Reviews” website in the U.K. wrote: “It’s an extremely quick and
easy system to use, and the most powerful manual control method of any consumer
camcorder”.
A new feature is the “Wind Noise Canceller” that automatically isolates and suppresses
wind noise, so natural ambient sounds and voices are still recorded. This is
ideal for recording in locations such as a beach, and in a wider variety of weather
conditions. “Trusted Reviews” indicated that this feature worked extremely well and
had a noticeable effect on the clarity of recordings made in breezy conditions.
There is also a time-lapse recording facility that lets you record a frame at intervals
from one per second to one every two minutes.
The only caveat is that the 1080p recording system uses a variation of the H.264
(AVC) codec instead of AVCHD (which does not support 50p recording). It will
take a little time for the various editing programs to offer support for this format but
in the meantime, you can still shoot in 1920x1080i AVCHD if necessary.
Recommended Retail Prices: HDC-HS700-K (A$2099) HDC-SD700-K (A$1499)
More information can be obtained from the Panasonic Australia website:
www.panasonic.com.au/
And now to finish, a few gaffes made by those wonderful church ladies who so generously
give their time and typing skills in support of their churches:
Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church.
Please use large double door at the side entrance.
The school drama group will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church hall on Friday
at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
FAMM CONVENTION
Just a reminder of the upcoming FAMM National Convention to be held at AUS-
TRALIS Noosaville, Queensland from 17 th to 21 st May, 2010.
If you intend going to the convention and you haven’t yet booked your accommodation,
then you should do so ASAP to ensure that you can get accommodation that
suits your needs and budget.
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ecome more distinct. Other colours such as green and red also become more saturated
and vibrant. Polarizing filters also reduce reflections, particularly off glass,
which can be very useful at times and don’t forget that a filter will protect your
fragile camera lens from damage.
In the next article, I’ll take a look at indoor lighting.
Revolutionary New Panasonic Camcorders
The new HDC-HS700
-K and HDC-SD700-
K camcorders from
Panasonic are revolutionary
in two important
ways:
They record full HD
(1920x1080) images at
a full 50 frames per
second i.e. 50p. These
are the first consumer
models to offer full
1080p recording.
The optical zoom is 12X but can be augmented with the built in “Intelligent
Zoom” system whereby more pixels are used than are required for HD video and
the zoom can be extended electronically to 18X without any loss in image quality.
Amazing!
Other features include a new Leica Dicomar lens that is wider than normal and at
its widest, is equivalent to a 35mm wide angle lens (great for shooting indoors or
in confined spaces).
Panasonic now includes a new type of image stabilisation system called “Power
OIS”. It can detect and smooth out movements with a frequency as low as 5Hz and
will smooth out quite violent movements.
The HDC-HS700-K has a 240Gb hard disc drive and an SD card slot which can
take SD/ HDHC/ HDXC cards up to 64Gb, while the HDC-SD700-K has no hard
disk but does have 32Gb of built in flash memory and an SD card slot as above.
Except for the hard disk drive, both models are identical. What’s more, when photographing
for extended periods, if the built in storage (hard disk or flash memory)
runs out, the camera will automatically switch to the SD card slot and continue
recording without dropping a frame!
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE By Frank Embleton
I have often said that this is the age of electronic movie
making.
This was made obvious at our last meeting when Robert
Farquharson demonstrated how he “electronically”,
through the use of a computer, improved the image quality
of a feature film. It seemed only a matter of knowing what
buttons to press and when.
The result was shown by running both images side by side, the original copy
on the left and the improved image on the right.
Thanks, Robert, for showing us what can be done, “electronically”.
Then followed the screening of entries in our “One Minute” competition.
Thanks to Brian Spurr and David Waters for their entries.
Frank.
AT OUR LAST MEETING
At our last meeting, it was my turn to present my half hour presentation.
On this occasion, I returned to my technical presentations and decided to show
fellow members what could be done to restore noisy movies originating from
film or video. The software used for the demonstration was the “Neat Video”
noise reduction plug in for Sony Vegas and I will be writing a detailed article
on this software in the next issue of “Australian Film and Video”. The demonstration
was shown as a PowerPoint presentation followed by a DVD showing
some excerpts from the restored film in split screen mode with the left half of
the image in its original form and the right half of the image after restoration.
The original movie was found to have a poor transfer to digital form, exhibiting
excessive grain, dark transfer, soft image and too strong a red balance in
the colour. The dark transfer and incorrect colour balance were corrected using
Sony Vegas and the excessive grain and softness were corrected using the
noise reduction and sharpening tools in the “Neat Video” plug in. The software
has auto settings to make it easy to use but also has manual settings so
the whole process can be fine tuned to avoid excessive noise reduction and
sharpening that can introduce their own artefacts.
An interesting feature of the sharpening tool is that it works in conjunction
with noise reduction and avoids many of the artefacts that plague other noise
3

eduction tools, unless it is applied excessively.
The image, after restoration, showed less grain (but still some grain to maintain
the cinematic look), richer and better balanced colour, a brighter and
sharper image, without introducing noticeable artefacts.
The demonstration was another example of the enormous extent to which nonprofessional
movie makers are able to manipulate digital images and sound
using the latest software.
Next, the entries in our “One Minute” competition were screened. The movies
in place order were:
1st: Easter Goat Race by David Waters
This movie was gushing with audience appeal, good photography and editing.
2nd: Maitland Floods by David Waters
An interesting use of stills to convey the drama of this tragic event in our local
history.
3rd: Mime Mania by Brian Spurr
This movie showed Brian at his best, recreating another golden song from yesteryear.
4th: Bellbirds by Brian Spurr
This movie captured the environs and exquisite sounds of the bellbirds inhabiting
Blackbutt Reserve.
The raffle winners were Joe Laughton, Neville Coulton, Gary Peterson, Frank
Embleton, Noel Kidd and Gordon Taylor.
AT OUR NEXT MEETING
Our next meeting on 12 April, will be our annual “Golden Oldies” night.
Guests and visitors are always welcome.
DEADLINE For Our Next Edition
FRIDAY: 23 April 2010
Bits and Pieces
Outdoor Lighting Tips - continued
In the last article, the problems of shooting in bright sunlight were discussed
and the use of reflectors to overcome the harsh shadows created by harsh
sunlight was described. This month, the use of silks will be described.
4
Silks
Silks are large pieces of material (often silk as the name suggests) strung
across a frame. The silk is placed between the subject and the sun and due to
diffusion of the light, harsh shadows are reduced. A handy substitute for expensive
materials is to use a plain white sheet which will do the job very well.
A silk can be quickly made by rolling your material or extra wide tracing paper
(it woks very well) onto a piece of dowel. It can then be easily clamped to
a portable light stand.
Silks can be used outdoors and indoors (where they are most often used) to
diffuse or soften light sources.
The use of silks is particularly recommended for medium close ups to extreme
close ups of people’s faces when harsh directional lighting is used (the sun and
spot lights indoors).
The following are suggestions that can improve your outdoor shooting.
Always try to shoot with your back facing towards the sun. This may not be
appropriate for some special lighting effects, but generally holds true. This
simple technique will even up the lighting on your subject and help to reduce
some of the deep shadows.
Make sure that your camera’s white balance is correctly adjusted. You should
carry a “white card” in your camera bag and use it to obtain the best possible
white balance. Remember that the colour temperature of sunlight will change
throughout the day so a white balance adjustment in the early morning, mid
morning, midday, mid afternoon and late afternoon will ensure true to life colours
over a full days shooting. Note: The auto white balance in most modern
cameras does a good job, but a good manual adjustment is definitely better.
Avoid shooting at midday. This is the worst possible time due to the deep
shadows that are cast. If you must shoot near midday, make use of reflectors
and silks to soften the light and reduce shadows. Mid afternoon and morning
are excellent times to shoot your movie in natural light.
Avoid bright backgrounds when shooting people as this can be distracting. The
people in your shot should be the brightest objects where possible so that they
stand out against the background.
Use a good quality polarizing filter. These filters allow light travelling in specific
pathways to pass through but absorb all others. Since blue light is the
most scattered in the atmosphere, polarizing filters have the greatest effect on
blue light, particularly the sky. This results in a richer blue sky in which clouds
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