Shooting VFX with Sony Z1 advice needed

[gwturnbull]

Hey,

Im about to shoot footage for a short vfx film next monday and I am still a bit unsure of what format to film in.

I have a Sony Z1 to film with and I know it can shoot at 1080i. However I am unsure whether to film at that setting or just go for PAL SD 1024x576- Although I think this is interlaced as well. The problem is the interlation and I need to matchmove my shots- will I be able to de-interlace the footage for matchmoving purposes and how would I go about doing so?

Im using, final cut pro and Shake, also have access to after effects.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

G

[eoffermann]

Both PAL and HD1080i are interlaced formats, so you'll only lose resolution by switching to PAL. You'd gain nothing.

I can't think of a single matchmoving package that won't support interlaced footage. It's annoying to work with though, so if you're going to deinterlace (and lack fancier plugins to do this sort of thing) I'd recommend deinterlacing in the FileIn in Shake - check the timing tab, under InputFrameRate and OutputFrameRate. Set your input frame rate, check "InputFrameInterlaced" (you'll have to open the InputFrameRate section up), make sure "OutputFrameInterlaced" is off. I'd also set DeInterlacing to "good" not "fast". File that sequence straight back out into another sequence (because this is a slooooooooow method of getting deinterlaced frames, you won't want to actually work like this if you can avoid it) or at the very least tuck a cache node right after the filein.

This method will use Shake's optical flow retiming to deinterlace the footage - which produces a superior result than merely deinterlacing using blending/line doubling.

None of the software you mention having access to is matchmoving software, so be thinking about what you'll be using there. I recommend SynthEyes from ssontech: it's inexpensive and a really world class piece of software. Fast and a solid performer for any level of visual effects work. I'm saying that and I don't even work for the company.

[gwturnbull]

Thanks for the info, yeah sorry forgot to add in my matchmoving software. I am using 3D Equalizer and Boujou(when needed).

I was looking through info about the camera and it mentions that it can do 720P(cant find this option the camera) or 576P. I also found that it can do cineframe mode at either 24,25 and 30 fps.

Any ideas what I should be going for?
cheers

G