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Hal Smith

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Everything posted by Hal Smith

  1. Wow! Available light + a little help from S4's, Kino's, chinese lanterns, etc. + an Epic is (IMHO) absolutely nailing the look this movie needs. I think you're really breaking some new ground here.
  2. Sandisk is a manufacturer, Kingston is a sales and marketing operation. Kingston has no way of directly monitoring production quality. One batch of Kingston cards sold through their regular distribution channel turned out to be defective chips stolen from the plant that was making them for Kingston, packaged in a midnight run at a different chip manufacturer's plant, and then infiltrated into Kingston distribution. It took three different criminals in China cooperating to do that. Of course, there's always the run of the mill eBay counterfeits to worry about.
  3. ETC has great photometric information for their different Source Four models on their website. Reading through some of the specs will give you a good idea what professional photometrics data and diagrams look like. Dig down through to the data sheets for individual fixture models like the 50 degree Source Four. http://www.etcconnect.com/products.fixtures.aspx
  4. No, you're being an artist and your sensibility is what counts, not some book's "rule". But you might have a look at Sidney Lumet's "Making Movies". He's got a chapter where he talks about the "how" and "why" of his use of different lenses. He's talking about lenses on 35mm movie cameras but you can always convert those focal lengths to whatever format you're using.
  5. It's not easy to make a black model look really right...but darned if the S-log didn't nail that difficult exposure.
  6. Soundbooth has been dropped by Adobe. Adobe Audition CS5.5 is now their current audio editor and has replaced Soundbooth in their suites like Production Premium CS5.5. I suggest looking into Pro Tools 9. It's a very complicated world with a steep learning curve but it can do just about anything audio. The entry level M-Powered versions requiring M-Audio hardware are quite a bit cheaper. It will export to the full studio versions of Pro Tools for further processing and editing if required.
  7. Any chance this is because video cables are 75 ohm but the connectors traditionally used for video are 50 ohm BNC's? As digital video frequencies get higher and higher into the low microwave region sooner or later the mismatch between the connector and cable's impedance is sure to bite someone, somewhere. There are 75 ohm BNC's but they're usually only seen on test equipment and those connectors are not mechanically compatible with the 50 ohm variety. Also: BNC's never were intended for use much above 1GHz, at microwave frequencies it's best to use either TNC or N connectors. And yes, there are 75 ohm versions of both.
  8. That is more than enough to buy a couple of top quality still lenses but not enough for cinema lenses. My "walkaround" lens is the Canon EF-S 17mm-55mm F2.8 IS (around $1K US). Fast with great optical quality but it doesn't have cinema style focus and iris rings. I've read that the Sigma 85mm lens is good on a Canon HDSLR but don't have personal experience. The only negative thing I know of about the 17-55mm is its rumored tendency to pick up dust. I keep a baggy on mine at all times, on and off my 7D, except when shooting and it's still as clean as the day I bought it. Its image stabilization is phenomenal, I've shot video from a helicopter that looks a lot better than any $1400 camera with a $1000 lens on it has any right to look.
  9. The chief law enforcement officer for the State of Vermont is: Attorney General William H. Sorrell The general information email address for his office is: atginfo@atg.state.vt.us It is appropriate in the United States to address an Attorney General as "General" as in: Dear General Sorrell, ....message... He probably won't be able to help you directly but will know the proper legal procedures for you to follow in Vermont to attempt to get your property.
  10. Don't tempt me to pontificate about "Umbra/Penumbra/Antumbra". But if you peek into Wikipedia you'll start to get the idea.
  11. Good that you have the mattebox and filters to test. I suggest you rent the lenses you think might work and test them. Someone in London should have those lenses. You might try Panavision first since they bought out Samuelson's who seemed to have everything. If you have an existing relationship with a rental house, they may be willing to let you bring your gear in and test lenses in their prep room, particularly if they also sell the same lenses and have a chance to sell you something. Do you know a really good AC to bring with you?
  12. Inverse Square Law (1/D^2) applies to point sources as noted above. An infinitely large source follows Inverse Law (1/D). Sources in size between the two are neither 1/D^2 or 1/D but somewhere between the two. When Cinematographers talk about "fall-off" being different for different light sources that's what they're talking about. A physically small source like an open face fixture has Inverse Square behavior and a fast fall-off. Conversely a large extended source like a 10X10 diffusion frame with it's subject relatively close is approaching Inverse Law and has a slow fall-off. That's why if you want a close up that has dramatic shadows you use a small source and if you want a "Beauty Shot" you use large diffused sources. Light an aging actress with a Blonde and no fill (all Inverse Square Law lighting) and she'll never want you anywhere near her again. But use a large book light (approaching perfect Inverse Law), a little hair light, and a bit of diffusion and she'll think you're the greatest Cinematographer to ever walk the face of the earth.
  13. Anyone who hasn't read it ten times or more spends a lot of time re-inventing the wheel. Sidney was a great writer as well as a great Director. I wonder if his strongest suit in truth might have been his deep understanding of just how important Art Direction is to the ultimate impact of a film. He really understood if it doesn't LOOK right, it's not going to FEEL right. I think that's one of the things he was talking about when he wrote about the importance of style in film. A good pair of examples is "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Murder on the Orient Express". DDA was shot like it could have been a live cut-in on a local television station and MOE was as intensely designed and stylized as a movie can be. Both approaches were absolutely appropriate to their story and perfectly realized. And then it didn't hurt that he always had his pick of great actors wanting to work with him. I wonder if any other Director had as many different Academy Award winning actors in his films over the years.
  14. One of our greatest Directors died this morning. Sidney Lumet Obit in NYTimes
  15. The EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 IS is one of the best lenses available for a 7D. I've got one and it is infinitely better than the kit lenses. As Garry noted, the "L" lenses are overkill on a 7D shooting video. One thing to watch out for, the 17-55 has a reputation for picking up internal dust. I keep a ZipLock over mine at all times (even when on the camera) except when actually shooting and not had that problem.
  16. Protect for 1.78 when shooting S16 (Don't use the extreme top and bottom of the frame) and change it to 1.78 in post. Ask your editor about that.
  17. As all the professionals who answered this question on cml said: This can only be answered if the exact make and model of both lense and mattebox are known. This kind of knowledge comes from experience, not a book or Internet forum. This is why the pro Camera Assistants there told you to TEST the combination you had in mind.
  18. The Super-16 camera and the 5DII have radically different depths of field. Not a fatal problem but keep it in mind when designing shots.
  19. Sound Devices USB Pre 2, $650 at BH Photovideo. Very high quality mike preamps, great monitoring, robust construction. I use one with an Acer Netbook but it'll work with any modern computer/laptop/netbook with USB 2 inputs. Best "Bang for the Buck" software is Sony Sound Forge Studio 10 at $50.00, it'll record stereo at 24bit/192kHz if you need absolute top quality. The oldest marketing scam in the audio industry is building a piece of consumer gear, glueing XLR connectors on it, and loudly proclaiming it as being PROFESSIONAL!!! For instance: Denon takes their good quality proconsumer CD players (DN-C615), moves the buttons around on the front panel, adds a little add-in pc board with a single chip amplifier and XLR connectors on it and charges an additional $250 for their "professional" DN-C635 model. Internally they use exactly the same CD deck, power supply, and main circuit board.
  20. Last season's finale of "House" titled "Help Me" was shot entirely with Canon 5D's by DP Gale Tattersall. The entire episode is available in HD on Amazon for $1.99 at: http://www.amazon.com/Help-Me/dp/B003MUQSMY/ref=pd_vodsm_B003MUQSMY If you Google "Gale Tattersall" and "House" you'll find interviews with Gale on how and why he used 5D's exclusively on this episode.
  21. Tim Carroll posts here from time to time, he's an expert on Arri 16s's. PM him and ask for his advice.
  22. "Stagecoach": I think a person who has never seen it could follow the storyline with the sound off.
  23. Nor has tried to design one. I know of one production company with a "Sound Stage" that was designed by a local architect who assured them he knew all about sound proofing. Great studio location, it's under the glidepath to the local airport and one-eighth mile from a railroad main line. Our local genius architect thought soundproofing consisted of double studded walls and very little else. Result? They have to shut down production any time a train or airplane is around.
  24. Can I assume a few contributors to this thread have heard of Marni Nixon? Sarah Lane is a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre. Am I the only one here who recognizes that is as great an achievement as winning an Oscar? My Uncle Howard (stage name Alan Howard) was a soloist with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. To this day I run into dancers and balletomanes who remember him and are THRILLED to meet me, the short, stubby engineer, solely because I'm his nephew.
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