samm Parnell

first of all supply has not been outpaced by demand, quite to the oppostie especially in canada and the states but any country where digital cable and satelites are available have way too many channels of television and most of which have not even a third original programming, and are looking to change that. Alliance atlantis in canada accounts for sooo many channels and production venues its not even funny. Don't even lets get started on podcasting, it tv, etc.... I have been running a production company with my partner out of toroto ontario canada for about 9 months now, we have made maybe 3 grand throughout that time and have mostly lived on loans, selling off old items not needed anymore and changing lifestyles to be able to live much cheaper. Thanks to this i am a non smoker now and can't remember the last time i wasted a cent. Also, because we have not taken day jobs we have been able to take every little volunteer and low paying job that has come around, now at the start of our first summer as a formed company we are on the verge of making money and at what we want. it just took nearly a year of suffering, argueing and starving. My advice is to not get your cushy job, do whatever you can to stay away from that as long as you can... your not on this career path because it is easy or because there is no competition, but because it is somthing that you are passionate about and need to be doing. I can't even imagine what would have happened to me if I hadda taken the truck driving job I was thinking of instead of going to film school and starting a company. a few tips to the starving film maker who chooses to tough it out and not pour half their time and blood into "mindless" occupations. Food banks don't ID No one really cares if you shoplift toilet paper (in fact they deep down want you to) smoking sucks anyways just my silly opinion, samm

hi all, I am starting to notice a problem with captured footage from my dvx and ppro1.5. basically the frame becomes expanded and the previously carefully picked frame becomes slightly larger in all four directions, so little is the change that for alot of footage it was simply not noticed. this issue excists whether I am captureing reg video or 24p. the aspect ratio has been set to normal for our last four projects to guard against any strange framing issues that we find ourselves running into after projects with some editors suites. But now as I go back through our most recent footage shot in the normal aspect ratio I see that it catpured with this strange frame expansion. Thanks for any help with this samm

my name is samm parnell, i and my partner operate a small production company based out of toronto ontario canada, we deal with a variety of project types from interviews to live event coverage to short films and even low budget features. We purchased a panasonic dxv for its versatility. The 24p function when used properly with proper lighting and filters can look very close to 16mm covering our desire to be able to shoot low budget shorts and features at this, the begining of our careers. As an event coverage camera it has been ideal, with all the presets and user customizing functions it has been easy and quick to deal with changing lighting and locations. As a tool for dramatic shoots we have also been very satisfied, with lighting we have acheived very clean 16mm looks and have seen it deal well with a wide range of color saturations and tones. samm

dolemite - possibly the most flawed and badly produced blacksploitation film of all time. zombie nights - not that old but very bad, completely impossible to understand and hillarious to watch. open range samm

thats crazy cause ive seen arri bl's up there with zies lens packages for 4000, samm

Ive tried the wheel idea out and it works really well, thanks for the idea. The intermitent quality of the light and the ease of the rig are perfect, thanks again. samm

that relflection idea sounds like somthing that might work, thanks dude. I would use the dimmer idea but we won't have any dimmers for this, despite how cheep they are to get the production has set its limits. so if im getting you right i would aim the relfectors towards the same spto on the subjects but at different starting angles in realtion to the face of the light? then rotate back and forth between the two? Im going to test that out and thanks again. samm

hi all, I need a way to re-produce the look of police cherrys, without the actual prop. I was thinking of setting a two stage gel (top blue bottom red, kinda like a flicker stick) on a frame and running it over the face of the light (1k). We only need a hint of this for a short 5 - 10 second shot on the faces of two people advancing towards camera. I have tested this a bit but it doesn't look right, hard to get the light to look real. any suggestions about other methods or where to go from here? thanks so much for any help.

thats awsome guys thanks so much, The mirror deal sounds good because the 1k is as large as we are going to be able to get for this shoot so maybe we'd get a harder light from that reflection? so it seems like you both advise the same thing though eh, keep the light covered and then open it for an instant to simulate the lighting strike? id better run a few tests now that ive had this advice, another thing though, will it be better to shoot this with the plan to speed it up slightly in post? if so what advice do you guys have for that. we are shooting on 24p with the dvx. again, thanks alot for the advice, this helps alot. samm

Hi all, Im new to these forums and new to this career. I have shot a few shorts on 16mm and other simply projects such as commercials and interviews but a short we have coming up calls for a sfx that I do not know how to make properly. There will be a scene in an apartment location that calls for the cutting of all lights to simulate a power outage, and then a few lightning strikes to accompany the rainstorm sounds the editor will add in post. I have checked around for methods but i have found only machines or lighing rigs specially desinged for this use, needless to say this production cannot afford any special equpiment, it has been a struggle to secure the rental of a doorway dolly. So if anyone knows of a cheap, quick and dirty method for simulating lightning then id really aprpeciate hearing about it. The scene calls for the lead actor to enter an apartment room, rain drenched, and he will stand in the doorway for a min. the loation we will be using is a 8by8 hotel room with off white walls. The largest head we have is 1k so far, of those we have 3, they are fairly punchy. We also have several other fixtures rangeing from 500w to 75w kickers. We are willing and able to custom build any rig that doesnt require serious machining, we'd just like to be sure we get this to look right. thanks for any help. samm parnell