Igor Trajkovski

Music videos can be shot on whatever you desire. Majority of big stars MV's are shot on film. 35mm. Videos are shot electronicaly from HD, DV, D8, to analog 8mm, hi8, SVHS... I'we seen an video partialy shot on webcams. Aired on MTV. On Alternative Nation thou. :) It's all budget and artistic choice. A German well known MV director Nikolay Georgiew /www.georgiew.de/index2.html]www.georgiew.de[/url] has shot a video for U96 feat Ben titled "Vorbei" (you remember U96's top selling world wide techno anthem "Das Boot"? ) with DVX100 and MovieTube, and some other cams. Also Melanie C's "First Day of My Life" video (former Spice Girl) with HD (Varicam i think) and 35mm adapter. You can watch the videos and the making of at this address: www.313music.de/videos_auswahl.html I read somewhere that for a The Black Eyed Peas video "Let?s Get It Started" a Cine SpeedCam, an high speed HD camera was used. The french groovers Daft Punk, their "Robot Rock" video was totaly 70'-80" TV studio retro look. Interlaced, star filters, mushy picture color bleeding, ghosting, saticon tube artefacts, colored gells... I got the feeling they didn't done it with high end camera and got the look in post. I think they used old TV Studio cameras and got the look. :) So, go with what ever serves your video best. For up to 60fps slo-mo the varicam will do just fine. Best. Igor

Check: http://www.lowel.com/rifa/

Thanks Laurent.. :) About his touching: I thing it was at the ends of the bulb. At the porcelain base, and some small part on the glass. Bare handed taking out of the bulb is nearly impossibe only at the porcelain end. It evolvest at least touching some glass, down there, where glass and porcelain meet. That glass area is flat, no inner volume. (if i make sense with this) Is that a critical "please don't touch me with your greassy fingers" part too? Best Igor Trajkovski

Today i went to the shop where i bought the lamp and showed what happened after 5min. - Could it be a defective lamp? - i asked. - Might be. You know u should not touch it bare handed... - I know. I wiped it before installing. I pounted out that while he tooked it out in the first place it looked wierd, the filament bent and touching the glass. At the exact places is the damage. He was kind enough, looked thru the avaliable packings, and gave me a new but other brand bulb. Now it looked fine to me. Went home, did an thorough, for any case, alcohol cleaning. I thing i removed 0.001 micron of the glass surface by rubbing, and gained ca. 0.001 of an F-stop. Not bad, a? :) Put the new bulb. Nothing.... No light. Hmmm...... Unscrewing again. Took out and reinserted the lamp. Power on - Light On! Fine. Let it shine for 10min. All fine. Regards Igor Trajkovski

So this is what the infamous bare-skin-touch-grease do? I'll say again: I've known that grease will destroy the bulb but that such a great care should be taken? Avoiding bare hand taouching of it at all cost? One other thing thou. I remember the hardware shop keeper taking out the bulb out of the packing just to be sure it was 500W. Yeah, finger touching there. But another thing that i noticed. The fillament was long, not in straight line, curved on 2-3 places. It looked like it touches the wall of the glass inside. As you can see, on the pix, those are the places of the breach. Is it normal the fillament to touch the glass? Or should it be straight in the middle? Anyway, thanks for your advice. Regards Igor Trajkovski

Hi all. One of my 500W floodlights bulb went dead. I bought a replacement. Installed it. All fine. After ca. 5min work it went dead. Some ratling noise and there it goes... I wander, was it a defect bulb or was it coused by finger grease? As i remember my hands were pretty much clean. I touched it at as much as possible at the porcelain ends while inserting. Then i thought maybe i should really take more care and not touch with skin, so i wiped all beautifully with a (enough clean i hope) cloth and insert it with it. I took some pix of the bulb: Nice shot, a? :) So what was it? Thanks in advance. Best Regards, Igor Trajkovski

Hi Rajavel! Well, this is a suprise... :) Yes i remember you! We even had a little chat. I was asking the crew around who is who. You were assistant. If i remember correctly you had an viewing glass hanging on yor neck, and was doing photos with a film SLR (Nikon, i think). Set photography or something, not quite sure... Definitly the world is small. :) You wonder what was i doing as an extra on the set and "with so much knowledge about the grip and things" (thank you). I was on visit for darshan by Satya Sai Baba in Whitefield (near Bangalore). One day i was approached by a russian aquaintence in the ashram and he asked me would i like to be a part of a tv commercial. They were yesterday and needed more westerners for the spot. Sure i said! So that's that. And as a multimedia artist (electronic music, photography, digital art, CGI, animation) and aspiring DP i had a great and educational time. I would VERY much like to finaly see that spot! I searched many times over the net and could not find the commercial. I looked for Danny Pope's site. Nothing. Found a link for Rajiv's company. The link/site is down. Please put it up and let's post the link here so the readers may see the finnished work. You said you were shooting a feature on your on. How is it going? Why don't you, if time allows, post a production thread here. With pictures of course! :) Keep in touch. Regards, Igor Trajkovski Macedonia

Yeah, that's right. Just as you (me) thought that you(I) saw&heard everything in life, there comes a suprise! :) Hi Res Digital Camera system on the (relative) cheap. Thanks Scott! Regards. Igor Trajkovski

That is Hardcore Man! Hardcore! I am eager to see the narative side of this project. Yes, we can be suprised. I was thinking... Why don't i shoot a short with web camera? Pluged into laptop... :) I remeber a music video on MTV shot with web cams. From an review of the Sony Ericsson W900i used phones: "Hidden beneath the hood, and likely to silence detractors of music phones, is a whopping 470MB of free memory space (good for up to 240 songs), on top of the Memory Stick PRO Duo slot for an optional 2GB more of storage capacity (yielding up to 1,000 tracks)." And It looks it goes 640x480@30fps. (usual disclaimer) Check this out too: http://www.theasc.com/magazine/feb05/shorttakes/page1.html# Creative use of Lo-Fi. Why not? Wait till the day comes... Phones with 2K+ video, 15 stops dynamic range, variable frame rates... Hehe. :) Regards Igor Trajkovski

I would suggest you go with the beta. I remember reading an article by Scott Billups (the DP that shot the pilot PlayStation2 commercial directed by David Lynch on PD150), about a documentary he shot for Discovery Channel, about the Krakatoa vulcano. Here is some food for the thoughts, an excerpt: "Direct-to-disk stop motion Faced with a consistent long-term need for D-Beta acquisition, I've built my own D-Beta-quality camera that I've used on nearly a hundred shows. Without going into too much detail, I took an old analog Betacam SP camera body and lens that I got for $1500 total, upgraded the chipset for $800, and routed the uncompressed, component RGB signals into an $890 AJA D10A component analog-to-serial-digital converter. Back when the camera was new, the lens was worth nearly $6000, but because it was attached to an outdated system, it could be had for pennies on the dollar. With the addition of a $550 anamorphic adapter, the signal that comes out the other side is uncompressed serial digital widescreen video. Does it compare with a $60,000 dollar D-Beta system? In this case, yes. Because the signal from my homemade camera goes directly into the computer, it bypasses both the compression and transposition stages of a signal that gets recorded to tape. The image that it creates has the same resolution as D-Beta, but the pixels are a little fatter and a little healthier. Most important, since it cost so little to build, I'm not concerned when it sits in the locker for a year while I work on motion picture projects." The above thing got me more respecting BETASP. You can find the entire article "RE - CREATING KRAKATOA" at: www.pixelmonger.com/article/Krak.pdf Scott Billup's web site: www.pixelmonger.com Regards Igor Trajkovski

This trick remainds me on "texture backing " in 3D CGI. "texture baking,? allows you to create texture maps based on an object's appearance in the rendered scene. The textures are then ?baked? into the object: that is, they become part of the object via mapping. ~from 3D Max 5 Users manual. In other words, you can put all your lights, global illumination, radiosity render it once for the selected (mainly stationary) objects , convert it into applied texture maps. The time consuming rendering then can be focused to other moving or foreground elements. What ever. My point is: cheating the way we get the final result. "Smoke and mirrors" hehe :) Great tip George! Never thought of translating it in real world too. Regards. Igor Trajkovski

Continued... When i came back from lunch break to the set, they were setting up for filming with the MILO motion control rig. On the left side you see the background: advertising props, businessman extras and a boy casualy dressed, with dreadlocks and trumpet. No lighting to them, just the avaliable ambient skylight. Some closeups: Here an ARRI HMI thru frame of golden gel. For backlight. It seams like the set went into shadow or the sun was behind a cloud or hazy. Can't remember. Big bounce frame. I don't remember if sun was still hitting it, but they had as you can see an HMI bounce into it. Flag keeping any lamp spill of camera. On the far right you can see partialy the MILO rig. The idea of the shot was to do a layer of 3-4 times the lead character walking, talking and standing beside it self. So 3-4 of her in a row. The shot was MOS, but sound reference for lipsync was used. I think they made background passes only too. Now two interesting things about this shot: For sync of the passes i can't recall if they used electrionic slate, with timecode, but i saw a guy holding a wire end to the lens just before the rig stated to move. I asked what exactly he was doing. He showed me. On the end of the wire is a red LED, wraped in blackfoil cone and connected to the control computer. The opening of the cone was handheld on the lens/filter, the computer sends couple of pulses, LED glows, the sync guy moves away and the rig starts the dance. :) The second thing. As the camera started to move towards the actress, a PA or grip guy, handheld a flag and followed the camera, preventing spill into lens. Of course the cam had a lens shade. Last shot. This was taking between two of the buildings. Mainly skylight coming left, top and rightside. A light was added to camera left. Smaller HMI thru big diffusion frame. The diffusion material was very plastic like in feel. Hard, had the feeling like a percussion instrument membrane. Can someone tell me name of this material? I can't get the idea off my mind, but i think the frame was just leaning for support on the lamp itself. There were some unwanted reflections in the glass of the BG building, so they had to move crew, extras and gear on the right side away. This was a layered shot too. As you can see the framing on the monitor, she stands left side, enough room to the right for her alter egos. Clean BG was shot too. In focus and blurred. A BG shot with lots of people walking in and out of frame was done too. It was interesting when the extras aligned left and right of frame and on ACTION! start to move in same pace toward each other. Immediate CUT! Looked like two armies walking to each other. People spread, filling the space and on action starting to move with individual pace. Couple of takes and it was a wrap for the day. The next day was planed to do product beauty shots in Chennai (Madras). The unfinnished greenscreen shot in Diamond Distric too. I was tired, but happy and fullfilled from the experiance. What is funny, is that i haven't seen the spot yet! I did search on the web,on Titan's web site, looking for Danny Pope's web demo reel or such, but nothing. Maybe i should try to contact him to find out where can i see the spot online. I managed somehow to find demo reel of Danny put on an agency site. Nice stuff!! The Titan ad is not in it. If you would like to see his demo, i'll look for the link. I just did a search. Finnaly he got a web site: http://www.dannypope.com.au/ One of his well known spots is a Fevicol ad, which has won Silver Lions at Cannes. You can see it here. Any question and comments are welcome. Regards Igor Trajkovski Macedonia, Europe

Hi all. While doing some backup and cleaning on my disk, i bumped on pictures i've taken in 2004 on the set of an Indian TV commercial. So i said: "Why not to share my story and pictures with the cinematography.com comunity?" Noooo, i wasn't the DP or lead actor... :) I was as an extra in it. A short intro: This was a TV commercial for the Indian brand of watches "Titan", the Raga 9 to 5 collection. I was participating only the second day of shooting. The story (quotation from an indian newspaper): "A BUSNESSLIKE woman is headed to work through a plush business district. She glances at the time on her watch, a Titan Raga. As if it's her imagination working overtime, an apparition-like image of herself appears beside her trying to sew a button on her sleeve as she speeds to work. Shrugging this aside, she walks on, only to be confronted with another apparition of herself trying to feed her milk. She hurries past these images of herself through glass doors that shut behind her, keeping out these two images of herself, a home-maker as well as a mother. Symbolic that those facets of her life are not accompanying her at work and she's herself, neither a doting mother nor wife, attending to hubby and kids." Early, early morning. 4am. I am awake, starting my morning rituals, anxious to get on time to the rally point of the "westerners" extras. 5am. We meet David, the guy responsible for us, "overseas" extras. Short after we got acquainted each other, did some chit chat, we boarded the van and head for ITPL, Bangalore. ITPL stands for International Technology Park L(imited(?)). It is an IT based complex of glass towers. Very nice, very modern. Exactly as needed for the highend look of the spot. Now some gear fetish: Camera Arri 435. Arri HMI The sun was still below horizon. People gathered, crew and equipment starting to roll on set. I was told the DP is from Australia, Danny Pope, and lead actres was Gul Panag, former Miss India. Wow!!! Gota see that. Well, you too: This and some of the other pictures are soft. Reason? Taken in a hurry , subject moves, others move sudenly in front of subject... Focus hunts, shutter lag... (full of excuses, am i not?) The long day just started, Gul wants to feel comfortable. When shooting MS and CU slippers will do just fine. :) And now, here is our hero, Danny Pope, the DP. The sun was low and coming from the left side of the picture. Used as a backlight. An 1x1m frame with golden (i think) gel was rised on two C-stands 3.5-4meters high and behind the actress, to give a golden glow to the sun backlighting her. For key a saw a big 3x3m white frame for bounce. I guess that was used for the wider shots. For MS and CU 4x4' polystyrene board on C-stands were used for key/fill. What realy surprised me was the use of flags for the lens. As you can see, besides the big lensshade, slightly forward and higher is a flag on stand. Nearby was a motion controled MILO rig. Arri 435 on it. That was cool! The following picture is not mine. It's from an old eNewspaper who wrote a report about the commercial. I hope i won't get into trouble coz of it. Just want to show an extra pix: The background consisted of business man & woman going to work, reading the morning paper, talking on phone, etc... The business people were mix of indians, westerners, some africans too. In an CU shot of lead actess forced by another to drink milk, the background was people hastly walking in and out of frame. Just 1-1.5 m behind main talents. One of them is me. :) I was standing and watching, dressed in a square patern shirt, light brownish pants and pair of lether chapals on my feet. Not much business looking! :) The director needs crowd for BG, said to an AD to quickly choose. I was near and being freshly friend with the AD, he chose me in the bunch and i wasted no time borrowing a tuxido from a nearby standing young indian, also an extra. The shot, like all had couple of takes. On the next, the actress was actualy drinking the milk. After a while she couldent any more, so magicaly from somewhere a plastic bucket apeared for spiting the milk after every "Cut!" :) I took a break. They selected couple of toe to tip well dressed in tuxido extras for the next set that would take place in the city. I was not dressed like required but wanted to be on the next location. I asked my new AD freind, "Can i squeeze in?" Sure, no prob! Continued... So i was rolling with the rest of the production into Balngalore. I was surprised on how much modern buildings i saw in Bangalore. This was my second trip to India and i newer had the opportunity to discover and see modern urban India. Gear out. Ninon, if i recall his name correctly, a friend from Spain being tux'd up. Nothing on him, like he told me, except his underwear was his own. All borrowed/compiled from other extras. :) In the big hall of the building. I don't know what kind of a building it was exactly. It was of course business related, but was it a bank, insurance comp, IT, offices, or what ever i don't know. The big entrance hall was daylit from top very high ceiling windows, and the front big sliding door and above glasses. Plenty of light. With the orange hat: Danny the DP, left from him Rajiv Menon, the director. Foamcore on stands used for bounce of avaliable light. At one point I noticed a clampshell configuration of the boards: On one side the board was high, on the other side it was filling from bellow. An ARRI 18K HMI standing by. While planing for a higher master shot, reverse and to the side from the above, Danny noticed a nasty splash of light on the marble floor. For a moment the grip assembled a 3x3m black frame, placed it outdoors next to the window, effectively blocking the offending rays. At some point they needed a white frame. I don't recall where they used it but i was astonished on how fast the indians assembled it! Somebody gave the instruction and people were runnung toward the grip truck, assembling the pipes, and already stretching and tieing the white cloth! Next you now it was erased and moved in position. It was outside, but the function of it, can't remember. The glass slide doors were not motorized so PA's did the pulling with cables. The fun part was when on the cue "OPEN DOORS!" one door opened the other stand still! A cabble snaped. :) Director Rajiv Menon on camera, DP Danny Pope next to him. Shooting towards glass door entrance. Rajiv Menon gives instructions to Gul. In order to drop down the light in the BG, a long ND gell was cut out of a roll and hold outside the doors in level of the MS&CU of the actress. Taken form the side near camera position. You may see here the effect of the ND gel. Just above the tire of the car in BG you will see the border where the ND starts. After doing some shots, Danny didn't liked the BG. Too cluttered, not appealing. So they decided to do green screen. They pulled this green cloth/material, velcro it on the frame and that's it! All my knowledge on how to do chroma: Clean surface, carefull even lighing, was droped into water! Clean? It was not. You may see by your self. Even lighting? Maybe it was, flat, being more or less ambient light form all over. I guess the light level fell, so they put to duty a 18k ARRI HMI on the left side. A sheet of some gel (was it bluish?) was put in front of the lamp and the ray continues on a big 2x2m diffusion frame. Just about to start rolling, the power was cut! The shot remained for tommorow. Back to ITPL. The extras with the tux where gone long before they wraped in here and i remained only. I came back with the AD's. :) It was lunch time. Had my meal, some rest. Did i said rest? Yes. I need a rest from the typing. Will continue tommorow. Regards Igor Trajkovski Macedonia

Thanks all for your ove-under coiling input. I thought i got it. But!... To make sure i am on the right track, i did some search and found this great video on how to do it: http://stagecraft.theprices.net/gallery/cablewrap/ Now i know! :) Best, Igor Trajkovski

I see nothing wrong with doing things with Digital Photocam. I like the idea of having a small cam and shooting. It somehow takes out the seriusness out of the process. Well, for me. Extremly good for spontaneos, "catch a moment" type of situations. Documentary, artsy. With a big, $$$$($) camera you go out with the idea i need to shoot. Couple of years ago i had some clips shot with my Canon Powershot G-1. 320x240 15fps mjpeg. Yes the picture is small, low FPS, high compression, noise.... But those couple of clips, i LOVE them. I think i would'nt capture those moments with a big cam. I do wish me now a D-photocam with BIG sensor and 25fps. Smooth image, low compression. Yeah i am in PAL, Europe. I see specs of cams and they go like 15/30fps. Rarely mentioning 12.5/25fps. HELLOO! Not everyone lives in NTSC-land. I use a term "Transcending technology". It means a creative persons goes out of the frame of what can or can't be used to create. So he may choose intentionaly lo-fi gear and express himself. Your skills and creativity are your biggest assets. I've even seen one music video on MTV shot with web cams. Well, on Alternative Nation, (or was it on Chill Out Zone?) :) Best of luck. Igor

What is exactly over/under coilling?

Thanks. So i'll need: 2 PA's at the Flo's 2 PA's/elec's on the stingers("pulling up the slack") - holding and moving along 2 PA's Waaaay back pulling and wraping/coiling the cable ==================================================== TOTAL: 6 Man to pull it off. Neat! :) Regards Igor

A situation seen on MTV's Making the Video. I thing it was (???) Janet Jackson and Miss Eliot video: Big basement garage in a building. Group of 3-4 girls sing and walk forward in front of retreating camera on (trackless) dolly. Left and right of the camera 2 PAs hold horizontaly Kinoflo 4-bank each. They walk backwards along with the camera. Quastion: How is the cable pulling managed? I mean the power to the Kinos. Back then sideways? Until it is out of frame. Or all the way just backwords? Thanks! Regards, Igor Trajkovski