Hal Smith

Both photos would have been improved with a little powder on the subjects. No camera system is perfect but a good makeup artist can help work around a given system's problems with skin tone rendition and excessive highlights. Many of the pros shooting the Canon HDSLR's have come to the conclusion that "Getting the Shot in the Camera" is the best approach since its 8bit H.264 files are so fragile in post. I've shot a lot of color reversal over the years, I shoot with my 7D imagining it's loaded with Ektachrome to stay within the camera's available dynamic range. That's working out pretty well for me.

Hi Cap'n, Nobody? Okay, I'll put my couple of two cents worth in (=$.04?) I've recorded sound effects for radio broadcast from time to time so I've got a few suggestions. Any good mike with good overload characteristics will do. I've got a Sennheiser MD421 that's good for effects recording since it'll take a gunshot at close range. If you are recording extremely loud sounds be sure to use a recorder or mixer with an input mike attenuator option to avoid overload in the mike preamplifier itself. There are people who like to use surface effect microphones for effects recording, I've never used them but there are pros who do. As a rule, it's best to be as close a practical to the sound you're recording. No mike has perfect directivity and the closer you get to the sound, the better the desired to undesired sound ratio. Unless you're in a sound deadened studio you can easily get too much room reverberation along with your desired sound. You can always add ambience and reverb later, but you can't remove it. Don't record effects in stereo, you can always position the sound later in post. Use a really good pair of closed back headphones when recording foley and effects. Learn to listen very carefully to the sound for imperfections like cars passing, radios and tv's, computer fans whining away, etc. in the background. It's amazing how much sound you don't hear when recording that bites you in the butt later. My closed back weapon of choice is AKG K271's (for open back I like K240's). You can probably find an old pair of Koss Pro4AA's on eBay for cheap money. They're uncomfortable to wear but they're pretty good since they amount to a pair of hearing protectors with little speakers in them. Wikipedia has a foley article with some pretty good links. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking) Hal

The Uher sync sound models were the full track Report-1000 and Report Synchro. The Report 4400 is 4-track stereo where you can record one way then flip the tape over. No built-in sync option.

Brian, The core problem is that we allowed one country to become our dealer first for every imaginable consumer good, then industrial goods, and now increasingly even high dollar professional goods. Competing with Germany is tough, but it can be done. Competing with a country that pays workers less per week than I make in an hour or so is insane but that's exactly where we're at right now. My feeble effort to do something about the situation is at least to try to buy things made in democracies (even those that aren't functioning too well). At least I'm trying not to support people who mean us harm, physically, psychologically, financially, and militarily. PS: Richard. Last time I checked Canada was a functioning democracy, you're on my white list.

Having had a few intern/apprentices over the years I can state with authority that the biggest PITA from the Master's point of view is Apprentices who insist on challenging the Master's knowledge. As a result rather than telling the Apprentice how to do something, and them doing it, the Master's time is wasted defending their approach to something. I've had one intern/apprentice over the years who "got it". He was raised in a family where his dad was an senior AT&T microwave and computer engineer. The son respected his dad and as a result respected my knowledge. That one runs the world-wide support operations now for one of the largest professional audio manufacturers on earth. The others are probably pulling french fries out of the fryer at McDonalds given their unwillingness to learn. I've got a pretty good mentor/student relationship with a well known ASC member on the subject of using HDSLR's. I usually start out wanting to tell him what I think...then get smart and first ask for his opinion about the subject. Yes, in a way that's kissing his a** but he's working at the top of the profession every day and I owe him my deference based on that very fact.

There's a field of view calculator on Abel Cine's website that should be helpful: http://www.abelcine.com/fov/ Be sure to email Mitch Gross there with your thanks if you find it helpful.

Sound Devices has hit a home run with their new USB Pre 2 external sound card. It's really well thought out with just the right inputs, outputs, monitoring functions, VU/Peak 23 segment multi-color LED metering, etc. They use pro quality components like Neutrik connectors, metal case and knobs, etc. I've done some test recordings at 24bit/192kHz with my MKH416 using a 11.6" screen Acer Netbook running Vista and Sound Forge Studio 10. The most striking thing is almost NO discernable hiss on the mike preamps. Sound Design has put exactly the same mike preamp technology in this $650 jewel that they use in their high end 700 series digital location recorders. So for that price and a netbook running entry level professional recording software like Sound Forge Studio (SFS10 is the first version that will support 24/192 recording) you get a Hollywood quality recording system for about 1/2 of what it would normally cost. In my opinion it's a much more versatile system than a stand-alone recorder since you're using a computer for software and capture. My first serious project for it will be recording a friend's brass quintet in concert. I'll use my pair of Altec-Lansing C28/195A 1/2" capsule studio condenser mikes and see what I get. I'll use C-stands with baby pin to 1/2"-27 mike thread adapters to hold the mikes up high in front. C-stands at $150 each (or so) work better than almost any mike boom stand setup I know of except for the expensive ones from companies like K&M.

Have you got any screen grabs of the Dior in action?

In some of their support information Avid does allow as how some GeForce cards will work with their systems. I was successful in using a GeForce 7800GS AGP card with Media Composer 3.5 in a Windows XP computer running a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 processor. 7800GS cards are going for as little as $25 Buy-it-Now on eBay. I'm on MC5 now but with an HP XW8400 with a QuadroFX 3400 in it. Obviously YMMV

Was the "Highlight Priority Tones" (HTP) preset on? The high-end professionals using the Canon HDSLR's have figured out that HTP protects highlights pretty much ignoring any effect on the blacks. As a result the blacks can get noisy because the camera was actively keeping highlights from burning out. Since HTP is an automatic computer function inside the camera you have no control over this behavior. The obvious fix is don't use HTP unless you're shooting under uncontrolled lighting situations like a live stage show with very bright light sources like followspots in use. There really aren't any good cheap monitor options. The only "bargain" I know of is if you need to buy a high end laptop buy one of the HP Elitebooks that are available with DreamColor LCD displays. It adds $400 to the purchase price of the laptop but gives you the full equivalent of a $2400 DreamColor monitor.

You might consider 7285 for a saturated color look. That's an easy stock to test since Ektachrome E100VS 35mm still film is the same emulsion.

For the best optical sound you'll want a Dolby SR surround sound processed optical track. Dolby Digital movie house playback processors have it built-in since DD falls back to optical SR if the projector loses the digital signal for some reason or another.

More at: http://www.dpreview.com/news/1009/10092130panasonicgh2.asp Following the http://www.dpreview.com/previews/panasonicdmcgh2/ link for a hands-on report on the GH2 3D for the 4/3 system is on the way! http://www.dpreview.com/news/1007/10072801panasonic3dlens.asp

For HDSLR's at work: http://hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/ For a glimpse at what top level pros are interested in: http://www.cinematography.net/

Amy, As you put it the question is almost impossible to answer. Give some examples of specific scenes in movies members here will be familiar with so they can understand just exactly what you mean by "Naturalistic Lighting". One hint: The absolutely hardest lighting to create is lighting that doesn't look artificially lit once on a screen. Film and video don't see light like the eye does. To make something look naturally lit means creating lighting that AFTER it is captured by the camera and then gone through all the steps of post production it looks like the eye itself would have seen the original scene IF the original scene was lit by available light only.

I was visiting my Grandmother in North Hollywood from Chicago in 1963 (I think) when she asked me if I wanted to see a movie. So we arrived at one of the big Hollywood houses to see the movie she thought I might like. The movie? "Lawrence of Arabia" in 70mm on the largest movie screen I had ever seen. It took until "Star Wars" for another movie to dumbstrike me like "Lawrence" did.

They show up on eBay from time to time.

Get in touch with O'Connor, they'll have the dimensions and might take pity on you. Another source might be Ron Dexter.

I know of no better place to start learning about sound than Tomlinson Holman's book "Sound for Film and Television". It describes every step of the process from location recording to transfer to final print/tape. You know the name, his initials are the "TH" in "THX", he invented it. Link to book on Amazon A good online source for reading about sound is: Filmsound.org 1) In film and video the mikes may feed an external mixer first or the sound recorder directly which may be the camera or a separate recorder. My personal choice is to not use the mike preamps in a camera unless it's a truly professional one but to use an external mixer or separate recorder. 2) The preamp's noise level is important but just about any piece of modern prosumer or better gear has good to excellent mike preamps in it. But there are other important noise issues; the mikes themselves, ambient noise on location, noise buildup in successive steps of mixing/transfer, etc. I personally prefer not to use the camera's mike preamps, my personal preference is a good mixer with integrated preamps. The best low cost mixers IMHO are the Mackie Onyx series. People like Sound Devices make excellent recorders and mixers but they are expensive (Sound Devices just came out with an exciting new product. It's a $650 USB based external sound card that has the same mike preamps as their high end recorders and mixers. It's got everything you would want, XLR's, digital I/O, good VU/Peak metering, 48 volt phantom, monitoring facilities, etc.) 3) As a general rule yes, but there are extremely expensive custom mike preamps that are used for projects like classical music recording where dynamic range is important. 4) Yes, as a rule recorders (and cameras) have mike preamps.

Nope. Sennheiser knows something about making a natural sounding shotgun mikes that they're not telling any else. Shotguns by the very nature of their design should sound harsh and most do. There's a couple of Schoeps mikes as good but if you think Sennheiser mikes are expensive, price somes Schoeps. I wrote up a grant application for one of my public radio station clients for a small set of Schoeps for recording classical music in the field. Price? $12,000 for four Colettes with alternate capsules, power packs, etc. I suggest that you rent a collection of three or four mikes that you think are possibilities. Hook them up to a good mixer, and listen with a good set of headphones like AKG K240's or K271's. The studio Sony phones are pretty good too. Listen to some spoken dialogue and decide which ones sound in the headphones like your ears hear them direct. I met the 416 personally a couple of years ago when I got hornswagled into recording the dialogue for a little horror short. I couldn't believe just how good that mike sounded. It had the openness I usually associate with the absolute top tier of mikes I see in studios and radio stations while being a shotgun therefore a lot more directional than what studios and stations use. My personal collection of mike is: A 416, a half dozen of Shure dynamics, a couple of Beyer Hypercardiods, a matched stereo pair of EV studio condensers, an RCA 44BX, and an RCA 77DX (plus miscellaneous lavaliers and so forth). The only other mike in that collection that has the sort of perfection is the 77DX. It's not as natural sounding but you put it in front of a ballsy male voice and something happens that's amazing. I've got the original RCA desk stand (rarer than the mikes by a factor of ten). I've been offered enough money for it to buy a fistful of 416's...and turned it down. Rant over...buy a 416!

Not in OKC...I checked them and Lowe's first. What they have here is styrofoam insulating board that has a shiny plastic film on the white side. As a result you get a specular (mirrorlike) reflection that looks like h*ll.

I spent a fair amount of time on the web trying to find a source of beadboard that wouldn't cost a fortune to get shipped to OKC. After a fair amount of Googling I found a source on the west side of OKC...and learned a lot about beadboard in the process. Beadboard is sliced from 4'X8'X40" blocks of foam. Taylor Foam here in OKC makes all sorts of things out of beadboard including signs, architectural shapes, and even can make custom props. For reflectors they have a machine that produces slices at any thickness you want. I just had them make up six 4'X4'X13/16" reflectors that were $8.40 each. Taylor Foam's website is: http://www.taylorfoam.com/

Yep, I just got back here from searching for "DIY Frontbox" and here was the horse's mouth giving the link. John, A very gentle nag here: Always search first before posting a question like yours. Hal (not a listmum, just a kibbitzer) Smith

"Designing a heatsink isn't rocket science"??? Good heat handling engineering seems to be something that isn't taught enough in general engineering courses. The kind of engineers who get that training usually learn it after they graduate and go to work somewhere. And the places that are really sophisticated about heat are often (ready for this?) rocket manufacturers and NASA. So designing a good heat handling system IS rocket science. I work on equipment that costs the kind of money that would buy a RED or even an Alexa. I run into cooling issues that go back to the original design...and have to solve them. The most misunderstood area of cooling is just how air moves and how little an amount of air flow, IF IT'S IN THE RIGHT PLACE, is often required. For instance: Engineers will install a finned heat sink with the fins vertical above a horizontal circuit board or chassis expecting convection cooling, apparently missing the point that air flowing past the fins has to come from below to be effective. Take a look inside your stereo receiver or amplifier. 99% of the home ones don't have a fan AND the heat sink fins are placed as above, only the edges of the fins see any air flow. Mount the same heatsink with space below and above it and the air flow increases maybe three or four times. Or use a very relatively small fan and blow some air though it. My HP XW8400 workstation's memory cooling fan was installed sucking air up. Therefore the air was coming in the ends of the memory sticks at the top edge and completely missing the main body of the sticks. The memory was running hot enough that you couldn't hold on to it. I turned the fan over, the airflow now was over the entire stick, and the memory started to run cool. The HP tech out at my place to repair a separate issue (you have to love HP commercial product 3-3-3 warranty) said he's seen the fans installed both ways by the factory but had never thought about what it meant to blow the air up, not down. I raced sportscars for twelve years, building and preparing my own cars for the most part. That's an endeavour that if you don't solve the heat issues, you don't finish races. I also did my own engine air induction system development. I built a flow bench and learned how to use it. That paid off nicely both then and now in my knowledge of how to seduce an airflow to do what it needs to do.

If you're going with DAT you probably want one with time code on it. I'd look for a good PD-4. With any DAT you don't want one with a lot of hours on it. The transports get old and it's been years since the manufacturers have been able to supply replacement transports. My experience is that replacement transports were the only practical repair. DAT transports seem to wear everything out at about the same time. When my radio station clients were using them, I'd replace a couple of small parts, the deck would be in good shape for a while, and then something else would require replacement. I hate to be a snob but frankly for a dialogue mike I'd go the extra mile and buy a Sennheiser MKH-416. They are such great mikes that I look at them like you look at shooting 35mm, there ain't an alternative. For cardiod and hyper-cardiod mikes it's hard to beat Shure for quality vs. price. The dynamic ones aren't quite as good sounding as the condensors but if budget is important, the dynamics will do a perfectly respectable job. It's pretty easy to find Shure mikes on the web at deep discounts. One place you can save some $$$ is a Mackie mixer. They're about the best "bang for the buck" I know. They sound good and they're reliable. I've installed a bunch of them over the years as production room and remote mixers and they've done a good job. I wouldn't want to beat one up but that's a given in professional circles, no? The Onyx series has 48 volt phantom on them plus you could use the analog output to drive a DAT and simultaneously run the Firewire output into a laptop for a security copy. With a simple setup you wouldn't have time code on the laptop copy but with classic slating and the time stamp on the laptop recording files you could figure out which take was which. For laptop software, Sony Sound Forge Studio would be perfectly adequate on the laptop. If you can live with a steel rather than aluminum cart, look into the wire shelf carts you see at places like Sam's. They're a bit small compared to a Magliner but I use one for temporary test equipment setups in the field and it works pretty well.