Proof of Concept

This will only be remarkable to me: a proof of concept—use the Canon EOS 5dMkII DSLR to create a filmic look.

I shot this using a 70 - 200mm f2.8L in native 24fps, ISO 100, f2.8, 1/50th, using the Vari-ND to stop the exposure down, shooting at full 1920x1080 HD resolution using the superflat profile. The short little clip was then imported onto my hard drive via ShotPut Pro from my FireWire 800 card reader. I used MPEG Streamclip to transcode the H.264 file using Apple's ProRes 422LT codec and then dropped it into FCP. (I know firsthand that FCP doesn't play well with H.264 files!)

(Unfortunately I had not yet downloaded Canon's free EOS Movie E1 import plugin for FCP which was released today. I'm eager to try it. Interesting post here about that workflow.)

I then did a little color grading in FCP, added titles and a short music clip, and simply exported the file using ProRes 422LT at full size. Then, using MPEG Streamclip to prepare it for the web, I exported the 1920x1080 (137.4MB) file to 720x405 while converting it to an mp4, using the H.264 codec, at 100% quality, with multipass and better downscaling. The exported file is only 5.4MB! Maybe one day I'll compare which delivers a faster QuickTime conversion export: FCP or MPEG Streamclip. (Everyone says it's the latter.)

I'm posting the finished product here. It's very short! The only thing special: it's a first for me, and it worked straight away!