Hal Smith

When Producers start hiring PA's to drive extended wheelbase vans with 14 passengers there will be horror stories in the news about fully loaded crew vans going out of control and killing the driver and passengers...just like the fairly frequent stories where a fully loaded church van being driven by a volunteer driver has gone out of control with multiple fatalities. I drive a 3/4 ton Ford Super Duty E250 Super Cargo van for my business. That's the same chassis and body as a 15 passenger window van. When fully loaded with equipment, supplies, tools, etc. it's not something I'd want to be riding in the passenger seat while being driven by an eighteen year old kid. The big vans are safe when driven by good drivers, and death traps when driven by amateurs. Teamsters ARE professional drivers, and worth the money they get paid. PS: I charge my clients for travel time and mileage, I make a lot more per hour driving my van than a Teamster, anyone got a problem with that? My clients don't, they get their money's worth because I show up with a fully equipped engineering department on wheels.

If your laptop has an Express Card port there are Firewire adapters that plug into those ports. LaCie has this one, it's a Firewire 800 card which would require a "bilingual" 6 pin to 9 pin adapting cable to plug up to a Firewire 400 device. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11078 If it's got a PC Card port (AKA PCMCIA card port), Geeks.com has a Firewire 400 adapter. http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=FC-103A&cat=CCD For background: I've got a Pyro PCI card Firewire 800 port in my HP XW8400 workstation hooked up to a Lexar Firewire 800 CF card reader. I can ingest 24 minutes of 1920X1080 24fps video shot on my Canon 7D in less than 4 minutes. When I was using a USB card reader I could go out to lunch in the time it would take to read Canon cards.

Richard, You live in a country with half-way decent national health care, a financial system that was regulated enough that it didn't melt down, a modest defense establishment, a sensible balance of trade, etc. I live in a country that watches people die because they can't afford medicine and doctors, a casino financial system operating like all casinos...solely for the benefit of the owners, a defense establishment that bleeds the federal economy, billions of dollars going overseas, money that returns to indebt us to a dictatorship, etc. Back in the day when I used to visit Detroit regularly I used to marvel at just how differently I was treated by Canadian Customs when I'd to over to Windsor as opposed to how American Customs treated me on return. Canada? Courteous and professional. American? Surly and insulting.

And the business of Labor is to make damn sure that the bosses drive Chevys, not Bentleys. Executive: "Greed is Good". Labor: "Solidarity Forever".

Avid's dropped all products below Media Composer. If you're editing a digital format you might be able to find a copy of Avid Xpress Pro or Xpress Pro HD on ebay. Their editing functions are pretty much the same as the current version of Media Composer. If you're student or faculty at a school there's an educational version of Media Composer 5 that runs around $300US. Be forewarned, it takes a pretty stout computer to run MC5, I had to upgrade to an HP workstation with two dual core 3GHz Xeon processors to meet the minimum specifications for MC5.

Only if you've got the high speed motor with the separate rheostat. The variable motors will work pretty well with 12 volts at 24fps but Arri does specify 16 volts and it's never a good idea to do something the manufacturer doesn't recommend.

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Not sure about 25P/50i but what version of MC are you on? MC5 will ingest Canon HDSLR files directly to the time line but MC5 also as a result requires more computer power than earlier versions. I'm in the process of upgrading my HP XW8200 computer to an HP XW8400 because MC5 requires at least a dual core Xeon processor computer to meet Avid's specifications. The 8400 is on Avid's Certified Workstation list for MC5, the 8200 is only certified through MC4. Fortunately I got lucky and found a working XW8400 on the web that's not very pretty for $450! And, best of all, 8400's and 8200's share the same case and I can "borrow" case parts off my 8200 to improve the 8400's appearance. I'm also going to install an internal CF card reader to speed up ingest. I use Sandisk Ultra CF 30MB/s cards in my 7D and I hope to be able to ingest 12 minutes worth of video in two or three minutes after all the upgrades. At least that's the plan.

I suggest contacting Mitch Gross at Abel Cine in NYC. They're a dealer for them and Mitch was showing them off at NAB. I'm pretty certain Mitch said the only difference was the mount itself, that the mounts can be interchanged...but I'm not the horse's mouth...Mitch is.

I think I'll write an SF script where everyone is walking around fiddling with handheld communicators with a thousand times more computer power and infinitely better graphics than the Apollo moonships had. Oh damn, I'm too late... It's called an iPhone.

Shane Hurlbut is not impressed with Canon glass for serious work with Canon's cameras. He found that when projecting his work on a large screen Canon glass is soft compared to lenses designed for motion picture work. I thought the images in the "Help Me" episode of "House" also shot on 5D's with Canon glass looked pretty soft compared to other episodes which are for the most part shot on 35mm film. The images were good enough not to distract from the story and as Greg Yaitanes and Gale Tattersall have said, the 5D's enabled them to use very realistic and claustrophobic sets.

Tell me about it. I've got a client whose media department owns a Steadicam and has two staffers trained by Garrett himself. They haven't taken the Steadicam out of its cases in two years, they prefer to use shoulder mount and/or a couple of Fig Rigs now.

Chroma 50's are indeed daylight balanced at 5000K. Have you considered shortening your learning curve with a relatively inexpensive HDSLR like a Canon T2i? I believe the model number in Oz is 550D. Use it in manual mode, use fixed ISO speeds, film-like settings, and then learn a lot about Cinematography without going though all the extra steps required to shoot film. Yes, film ultimately is best but there's a lot to be learned with an HDSLR. Don't be tempted to use an HDSLR's automatic functions, if you want to eventually shoot film with a camera like a Bolex you don't want to make it easy on yourself.

Which lens? I'm really curious to know if the "L" lenses are any different with respect to the backlash issues. Though with 16 bit drive it should be possible to characterize a given lens and build a LUT so that the drive software knew exactly how to get the lens back to a given focus.

The secret of good film-making is preparation. Those gorgeous movies you see in your local cinema are the result of years of work. The more you plan, the better the final result. If you truly are working by yourself shoot tests in the church first. Since you're a novice you'll make every mistake in the book...make them on your own time, not on your cast's time. What type of fluorescents are in the church? Find out, then research what film stock and filtration to use. With a budget I'd change them out for GE Chroma 50's so I could use fast daylight film inside the church. People also use gels to color correct fluorescent lights like cool whites to something film likes. If you use daylight color temperature bulbs with good color rendering like Chroma 50's then practical incandescent lamps and candles will have a nice warm (orange) look to them which can be altered with blue gels to split the difference, a standard recipe is 1/2 CTB on practicals. For camera filters: http://www.tiffen.com/products.html?tablename=filters For color correction gels: http://www.rosco.com/australia/products/lighting.asp For film: http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Products/Production/index.htm

Rolling Hitches. They'll hang on to a second line, pole, etc. better than a clove hitch. There are several varations, the simplest is a clove hitch with an additional first turn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_hitch

Electronic follow focus makes perfect sense using EF lenses with their built-in focus motor. My experience experimenting with Canon's remote control software and my 7D and two EF-S lenses is that there's a bit of backlash when returning to the same focus point. Canon will have to improve the motor mechanism to attain really good electronic FF. Has anyone here played around with the remote software and an "L" series lens?

I'd bid on FrankenMitchell, one of Paul's finest inventions.

Another way to think about it: The 7D sensor is very close in size to a 35mm motion picture frame. If you've shot 35mm just use the focal lengths you're used for given setups.

When I've had crew working for me (mostly IA Electricians and Stagehands) I've always appreciated crew that keeps their eyes open for potential safety problems. But otherwise the only acceptable answer to a superior's request is "I'll Get Right On It".

I ran across this lighting simulator on GE's Learn About Light webpages. Color Booth Simulator It's quite a neat toy for researching and understanding the effect of different color temperatures on a set. Cool White Fluorescent Ceramic Metal Halide

Can you change out the overhead fluorescents? If you're lucky and they are 48" tubes you could swap them for GE Chroma 50's with a color temp of 5K and a CRI of 90. They can be purchased in the home stores in two packs for around $9. Chroma 50's aren't quite as good as Kinoflo bulbs but they're close and one heck of a lot cheaper. For the lighting geeks among us: GE also makes a Chroma 75 which closely matches reflected skylight. I've never used them but it would be interesting to try using them for fill on an outdoor shot in the shade on an otherwise sunny day.

Have you tried one of the NY and/or LA rental houses like Abel? http://www.abelcine.com

In the PC world Avid Media Composer 5 was released at the end of last week. I've got it up and running on my editing machine and will report back as soon as I get a chance to check out the new AMA feature that handles the Canon files directly on the timeline (no transcoding). Avid didn't warn anyone in advance (to my best knowledge) that MC5 and AMA would require a much stouter computer than transcoded files running on MC4. My dual Xeon HP workstation will be borderline with AMA and I may have to buy a couple of dual core Xeon's to upgrade it to quad core. Just about when I think I've got about the baddest workstation in Dodge City I find out it's yesterday's news. Damn that Moore's Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law

If one is using a large CF card on the 5D/7D or SD card on the T2i all you have to do is stop recording and then immediately start record again to go on to a new 12 minute segment. Those segments are the equivalent of 400' loads on a 35mm camera, that run length doesn't bother people used to 35mm work...but admittedly can drive people used to DV tape up the wall.