Hal Smith

This is a bit of a sidewise look and comment about career promotions and steps-up from someone whose day job is in a field where being at the top of the totem pole can be as difficult to get to as professional DP. My field is radio broadcast engineering. I was teaching Physics at the University of the South when I was asked to take over the Chief Engineering responsibility for the campus FM station as faculty sponsor, no pay, just gratitude. I had a fair amount of electronics experience at this point and had held a ham license from high school. I had no intention at that point of going into broadcast engineering for a living - the men I knew who did that in Chicago were Gods and Gurus - they walked on water while mere mortals at best rented boats. Several years later I went through a divorce, my ex-wife was staying on as the Anthropology Chairman and I was thinking it best to get a job somewhere else, Sewanee's a small school and the academic community is tight knit. I had produced some staged musical works for a student friend, his dad owned a prosperous radio station in a small city. My friend's dad had a Chief Engineer retire unexpectedly for health reasons. I was asked if I was interested in the job since I obviously was competent to take over given my campus FM experience being the "Chief" at the University's station. So I began a new career as "The Chief" - the list of things I didn't understand at first about commercial radio stations was quite lengthy, but I paddled like mad and learned. Over the years I've worked in different markets as a Chief including one of the most prestigious for an engineer to work in. I now have a nice consulting business of my own and make pretty good money at it. This enables me to be in the DIY School of Film without having to worry about making a living. My point is that over the years I had a succession of Assistant Chief Engineers who were technically good enough to be a Chief, even some that were pretty knowledgeable about FCC Rules, etc. But when I moved on, they remained as assistants, management never wanted to take a chance on promoting an assistant - too much of an unknown factor for them. I left one job where they temporarily promoted my assistant to Chief and then hired a new Chief from out of town, that assistant could easily have covered my job, management just wouldn't take him seriously as Chief. Two jobs later he went to work for a major professional audio manufacturing comporation that HAS recognized his talents and abilities - he now runs their worldwide customer service and installation network. Management is the same everywhere for the most part, when they pay good money they don't want to take chances on fresh faces. In the radio business they obsess on issues like being off the air (therefore losing ad income) and in film they obsess on burning a bunch of money on subsequently useless film, talent time, crew time, etc, etc. Therefore they hire the known quantity. I have an immense amount of respect for the Cinematographers who stuck it out and became successful, as well as the men and women who have been content to become the best Loader, Focus Puller, etc. on the face of the earth. I wonder if the best path to DP isn't to take the path that many actors take, to work any job that will put bread on the table while concurrently getting in front of any camera or on any stage they can. If they're good, sooner or later they will get noticed. Opinions? Edmond, OK

The music programmer at a classical music station I consult (engineering) says he believes music copywrite is 28 years and that it can be renewed once. Can anyone confirm this? There is a lot of nice modern music that's over 56 years old - like Prokefiev's Alexander Nevsky. Now there's a score for a VERY brave filmmaker to use - nothing like risking being compared to Eisenstein! On the other hand....a documentary on the US's ill advised ventures in the middle east over that score? Nah - who'd want the neocons mad at them. (Michael Moore: are you lurking?) :) Edmond, OK (note for the curious: yes, I am a US citizen, a U.S. Navy veteran, and stand for the Star Spangled Banner, I just can't stand the Bushies).

I'd like to shoot 5 minutes of film with the same visual impact as any 5 minutes of film taken from "Lawrence of Arabia". Wouldn't "Tropic of Cancer" end up looking like a "Henry and June" remake? :) Edmond, OK

Am I correct in believing that one must specifically get "synchronization" rights for film and video scoring? What about MIDI files I play on my computer system? There's a plethora of MIDI sources of classical music over 75 years old on the web - and you don't have to be a very good musician to take a score and record it as MIDI. What's the rights situation there? Enough questions for now. Edmond, OK

I wondered about that - makes good sense to me. I got lucky last year, Home Depot clearanced out a 500' spool of 10/4 SOOW generator cable at 80% off. Took me about 2 seconds to jump on that deal! Edmond, OK

Tim, How many amps do you need? Production Advantage (http://www.productionadvantageonline.com/) stocks a good range of ready made stingers in 12/3 with choice of Edison, stagepin, and L5-20 plugs. They're all built on SOOW black cable. I didn't see any 12/3 Edison cables at 50' but I would bet money that they'll be glad to make up what you need at a pretty respectable price point. Edmond, OK

"yes, you're absolutely right, it is an intelligent light with CMY color mixing programmed to change color and intensity up in that cabinet. no, your're not. sorry, i'm making stupid jokes again. i don't even know what that thing you described is... Alex" Many modern theatrical light fixtures use three variable density cyan, magenta, and yellow filters in the light path. They can create just about any color by mixing the amount of C,M,Y in real time. Most, but not all, use a lamp similar to an HMI. "Chicago" used a lot of this technology for the fantasy/dance scenes. Take a look at www.highend.com to see what I'm talking about, in particular Studio Beams, S. Spot CMY's, X-Spots, Color Pros, and Cyberlights. Edmond, OK

Overall nice mood. What's going on in the kitchen clips with the flourescent practical camera left of the actress' head? As close as I can tell the actress hasn't moved (successive frames?) but the practical is changing color and intensity. If this were a clip from a gazillion dollar production I'd say there's actually an intelligent light with CMY color mixing programmed to change color and intensity up in that cabinet. If not, then a flourescent with a bad ballast in it causing a flicker. Edmond, OK

Igor, thanks for finding the demo video, it is a very good visual on the technique. What I was referring to in my post in this thread is doing exactly what the demonstration video shows but coiling the cable on the deck rather than holding the coils in your hand. Edmond, OK

I was going to use that image for "bin" but thought that allusion would be lost on Forum denizens who have never enjoyed the pleasure of having film bits hanging all over the place. There have been some improvements since the dark ages.......they're called NLE's! :) On the serious (?) side of this thread, good spelling seems to be acquired early in childhood. One can expand one's vocabulary later but there seems to be a built in bio-spellchecker that has to be activated in the early school years. I too get frustrated by trying to read badly written and spelled posts but the Forum is about making beautiful pictures and I'm going to work overtime on keeping that in mind. If an individual's spelling, sexuality, politics, nationality, religion, or whatever bothers me, that's about me, here I'll try to judge the person only on their capabilities as a filmmaker. Also, Cinematography is indeed a world-wide profession, and anyone whose native lanquage isn't English and loves the world film community enough to brave posting here should automatically receive 25 extra points for courage. Edmond, OK

I'll buy the zoom if it's still available. Do you have a Paypal account? Edmond, OK

Maybe the Forum can license Google's translation demon. I read a post today where a UK filmmaker was talking about tossing bad film in the "bin". After wondering how one would use an Avid editing system to discard garbage film, I realized "Aha! bin (UK) = trash (US)." :) PS: I've been known to spell it "colour" just to be perverse. Edmond, OK, USA

I live about 3 miles from Aggreko's Oklahoma City office. I rented an Aggreko diesel generator to keep a radio station on the air after an ice storm took out just about all the power in Kingfisher Country, Oklahoma. Their machine ran like a watch for the entire two months, never a hiccup. I've also seen one of their event generators on site three or four times. Their gear always looks well maintained and their people seem to want you to be happy. I've never seen one of their hush generator movie location machines in action but I be very surprised to discover anything bad about them. No, I don't work for them, just a customer once and a lurker a few other times. :) PS: Paul, how right you are about location size - I've always been amazed by just how tiny a lot of TV sets actually are compared to what they look like on screen. Edmond, OK

Is there anyone lurking this thread who has an opinion about using K mount Pentax SMC lenses on an Arri 2C? I've got a bag full of Pentax lenses that I'd love to use on my Arri. Pentax SMC series lenses aren't as esteemed as Nikon or Canon but they're still a pretty good lens. I bought an old CP BNCR hardfront out of England and to use K mount lenses would have an adapter from K mount to BNCR made by Les Bosher, Century, etc. The idea behind using BNCR on the camera is that I could always rent BNCR mount lenses as needed, if I had a K mount hardfront made I would be up the creek if I ever needed to rent lenses for a project. Edmond, OK

Aha! What a great idea, use the crud generated by the motor itself. I'm on the way to the shop to take a look at the DC input with a scope. An small inductive reactance in series with the + lead into the motor would also help peak up the crud if I need more of it! Thank You!!!! Edmond, OK

There's a technique that I learned from pro divers where you pull cable while down on your knees and over and under coiling it on the deck as you pull, they use this to pull diver's hose up while an underwater diver is surfacing. It makes it a LOT easier to be on your knees (with knee pads!!!) pulling and coiling. I haven't been on enough professional film shoots to know whether pro gaffers do this or not - but if not - try it. I'm thinking this would get you down to a gaffer and a PA per light - assuming PA's bright enough to learn proper cable coiling. ;) Edmond, OK

Dear Greg, Missed your post 2/1. Interesting question. I have used a color toned general wash in the sense of color balanced light (AKA: fill) from time to time to set the "mood" of a scene or play. For instance: I lit a production of "Driving Miss Daisy" last year in the small black box theatre (CitySpace) at the Oklahoma City Music Hall. The Director and I talked about getting a "memory" look to the play. I used Rosco 99, Chocolate, for the general area lighting which gave the space a sepia look. The effect visually is setting a "white balance" that's warm and cozy. With a fair amount of intensity behind it, a gel like R99 becomes a color temperature to the eye. It's perceived as a white by the eye but has the emotional content of the underlying color. Once the "look" was set I could come in on top of the wash with area lighting (AKA: key) using colors like R34 (flesh pink) crossed with R03 (dark bastard amber) and they don't look to the eye anywhere near as stagey as they do against a more neutral, less saturated fill. Then one can play with subtle rim and backlight in colors like light lavenders for shaping faces, shoulders, etc. The overall effect is much like what happens when a really talented timer gets to work on a film, things look great without screaming at one. This wasn't easy to learn - I spent a lot of time on the cross working this out the first few times. I've also used fixtures with color scrollers in front of them for musicals so that I can make striking color changes on stage that really read to the eye. It's the ability to rapidly change the entire look of the stage quickly that works. I attended the Broadway Lighting Master Classes in NYC two years ago. Beverly Emmons put on a demonstration of how the eye adapts to color. She placed a dress dummy with a neutrally colored, layered linen dress circa late 19th style downstage center. She first side lit it from one side with a fairly lowkey lavender gel. At that point the dress looked like it was lit with lavender. Then she added a light from the opposite side with the same gel but at a higher intensity, probably 50% greater. She asked the audience, an auditorium with maybe 100 lighting designers in it, which side looked whiter. Everyone agreed the side just added looked whiter. She then proceeded to go back and forth side to side adding intruments from the same angle so things got brighter and brighter step by step, not letting the underlying fixture lamp color temperature change (keeping the lamp color temperature consistent at 3200K). As she went along with her demonstration everyone agreed that the current brightest side looked increasingly white. By the time she was finished everyone's eyes, including most certainly mine, were fully adapted to reading a high intensity lavender light as white. The dress looked white, period........and then Beverly pulled the rabbit out of her hat. She came in from the front balcony rail with an ETC Source 4 Ellipsoidal at full intensity and no gel. The dress dummy immediately lit up bright green. Beverly has so gotten us so used to lavender as being the "white balanced" light that when she came in with 3200K white light from out front, the eye saw it as almost kelly green. She then drily commented that maybe those of us in the audience might now understand why sometimes one tries things with lighting coloration on stage that just don't work. Yep, it is more than possible to use creative white balance ideas on stage - particularly if one understands just how coquettish color perception really is. To any color timer reading this: I stand in awe of your profession! Edmond, OK

I had the luck to be visiting my grandmother who lived in North Hollywood the week that "Lawrence of Arabia" came out. I still have wonderful images in my head of what that picture looked like projected properly in an LA movie house, I don't remember which one but it was probably one of the Hollywood houses. I've got a 55" Mitsubishi Platinum CRT with HD DirecTV, HD over the air tuner, and a Mitsubishi progressive DVD. Sorry - NOTHING looks like David Lean and Freddie Young's masterpiece on the big screen with a prime print. I've got the DVD - it's okay and I'm anxiously awaiting HD DVD but my! what magic silver works on the eye. Edmond, OK

Aha! Thanks David and Stephen. Use theatrical gels on lights, windows, etc. but not on lenses - not such a good idea. The theatrical dichroic filters are reportedly on optical glass - but they ain't cheap either! Edmond, OK

I'd like to add a question to this thread: are there any noticeable optical distortions created by using a gel filter over a lens that isn't absolutely flat? For instance: If rather than using a holder, I taped a piece of CTO over the front of a reasonably good quality prime lens would a discerning eye be able to see anything fishy? (Assuming I at least worked on getting the filter as flat as possible). I'm asking because I have a fair amount of experience with theatrical gels, mostly Rosco and Lee, and would like to leverage my knowledge of them onto my cinematography learning curve. (Well maybe if that "good quality prime" was something like a Zeiss Super Speed more than a few DOP's would think that gaff taping something on a $6K lens in itself was rather fishy) :) Edmond, OK

My two cents (sense) worth? Learn how to DESIGN your lighting. It's not real hard to learn to read fixture specification sheets and learn how to setup lights so that you're in the ballpark to start with. I do a fair amount of theatrical lighting here in OKC and have had more than one still photographer at a photo call comment on how easy my lighting is to work with. I pay attention to key-fill-back light issues and use lighting to establish time, place, and emotion. I do use a lot of intensity and saturated color in my lighting which can drive digital still and video cameras nuts (including one photographer's very expensive Nikon) - digitals don't seem to have enough latitude to handle dramatic lighting. Film cameras don't seem mind it in the least, film has enough latitude to start with and the timing that occurs in the printmaking process seems to handle high color saturation without too many problems (I am not a paid shill for John Pytlak...on the other hand - John - if you're lurking - you owe me). Edmond, OK

Congratulations! Is there an emoticon for ENVIOUS? Edmond, OK