Testing my resolve

I’ve been editing with Adobe Premiere since the late nineties, and it’s always been my software of choice, especially as a windows PC user.  I just never got into the whole Mac ecosystem beyond phones and tablets so I missed out on final cut despite hearing great things about it.

Since the transition to Adobe Creative Cloud I’ve been finding it a lot harder to justify the monthly outlay on subscription fees given the amount of shooting I do at home.  

Recently I was involved in a narrative shoot for my day-job which included an extensive post process and edit at The Mill in London.  Watching their professional colourists working magic with Davinci Resolve really inspired me to take a closer look at that software.

Resolve has a free version which is almost fully featured but even the paid studio version is very reasonably priced at £225 and that means that for less than six months of Adobe CC you can own Resolve outright.

It wasn’t until I started looking at it seriously that I remembered I already had the software.  I received a license as part of the package when I bought my Blackmagic Pocket 4k but I’d never looked at it.  After a bit of a hunt around in my storage room I found the original box for the camera and sure enough there was the license card and the software on SD card.  

The version that came with the camera is Resolve 15 but Blackmagic offer free upgrades so the serial number works with the latest version 17 of Resolve.

So after a quick download and install, I’m now learning a new editing package for the first time in a long time.  It’s very straightforward to use, and Resolve even gives an option to set up the workspace to look similar to Premiere to help smooth the transition.

So far I’ve successfully edited a short mood-piece using some pro-res test footage from my BMPCC while trying out a newly purchased Lensbaby lens, and I found the editing process fairly straightforward.  There are definitely some quirks to Davinci Resolve but I’m pleased with the progress so far.

I found some great introduction videos by Casey Faris on YouTube which do a great job of quickly walking you through the basics, I’d highly recommend them if you are jumping into Resolve.  Search for DaVinci Resolve Crash Course, it’s about an hour and a half long and definitely worth checking out.

Banks and banks of humming machinery… the Sony EV-C500e

 So having unearthed yet more boxes of old tapes in storage I realised that I had more 8mm tapes than I thought. Most of them date back to the late eighties and early nineties, before I switched to using MiniDV and there is a lot of footage to capture if I’m going to archive them all.

So I’ve set up a capture station using a second Sony VRD, this one is an MC6 which is a slightly more compact unit that is small enough to sit on a shelf under my studio desk.

Initially I was planning to use one of my smaller Hi8 camcorders as a playback deck but then I found this Sony EV-C500e Hi8 video recorder going cheap on eBay.

The EV-C500e was a revised version of the EV-C100 first released in 1993 and externally it is almost identical to the earlier units.

The EV-C500e is a compact bookshelf style with front control panel including jog shuttle and rear connections for video and s-video in/out plus a lanc control point for use with editing controllers.

The supplied remote is a small RMT-V124c model which is similar to several other Sony handsets and is likely to be interchangeable with other models.

The model I bought seems to be in good condition with very little head wear and is fully working.  I cleaned the heads before putting it into operation and so far I’ve had no trouble apart from one of my oldest tapes which had some pre-existing damage that caused it to jam while forwarding and unspool, I had to open up the recorder to remove the tape.

I’ve connected the C500 and MC6 using RCA cables as the MC6 doesn’t have an S-Video connection.  Most of these 8mm tapes are being transferred to DVDR for archiving, but I can connect the C500 to my Blackmagic Intensity for S-Video capture on PC if needed.

 Overall I’m very pleased with this new addition to my editing station.  I love the dark grey colour scheme and the EV-C500e is built with the usual Sony quality so hopefully it will have a few more years of service left in it.  Not bad for a machine that’s almost 30 years old.

Approaching winter...

So it's been a while since I last posted an update. I was in Sweden for a month in August, and then finishing the game has taken most of my time until now.

I've still been plugging away at the filming, taking my 550D with me most places and shooting footage wherever I can. I also shot yet another short for an online forum competition and managed to take first place, which was pretty good considering I only had a daya and a half to edit it. Much shorter than I would have liked, and the finished product was definitely in need of some grading and sound balancing.

I've also finished shooting my big short project, an epic sniper thriller with a twist, that is the first time in years that I have been shooting on locations and dealing with permissions and all the phone calls and organising that goe along with that. We even had use of a brand new luxury car, direct from the manufacturer, which was very cool.

I was going for a Bourne style of shooting, and I spent a fair amount of time trying to get the sniper rifle that would match the type they use in those movies, of course it's easier said than done to obtain a prop gun these days, and unless you are a registered film/TV company, or a registered sirsoft skirmisher, it's not possible to buy or rent one.

So I ended up changing tack and using an old M16 rifle replica I already had, kitting it out with a scope and huuuuge silencer to complete the effect. It certainly looked the part, and although it's nonsense to use that type of gun as a sniper rifle, hopefully in the finished edit I'll be able to hide the specific type of weapon and keep it as just 'the gun'.

I've also been experimenting with lenses, and last night I was out in town doing some tests with a handful of Canon 'L' lenses rented from the Flash Centre in London. They do a great deal where you can rent glass for as little as £20 for a weekend! My favourite lens of the night was definitely the 70-200 IS, but at £1500 it's a little pricey, so I intend to go with the cheaper, plastic, 70-300 IS USM instead. I badly need a longer lens as my 18-135 IS kit lens it just not long enough, and my secondhand M42 70-200 is too unstable for hand-held!

Right now I'm finishing up my next short project, an extended test shoot that I turned into a short narrative in the woods, next I will be diving into the big edit for the sniper short.