richard thomas

You are absolutely correct David. A Chief Lighting Technician and Gaffer are essentially the same. And you are also correct about it being a regional circumstance. In many production cities around the U.S and Canada, the local unions require a "Matching Gaffer" and sometimes a "Matching Key Grip". On Road to Perdition, I was interviewed and then hired by Tom Stern. Tom brought his Best Boy and Rigging Gaffer in from L.A and the rest of the crew was mine. I am happy to clear up any confusion regarding this issue however, lets remember, this forum was supposed to be about Conrad! Rick

Actually, Tom Stern (a good friend of mine) was the Chief Lighting Technician and I was the Gaffer. We worked side by side during the movie. Tom had been Conrads right hand man and I was fortunate to be invited along!

My Favorite was Searching for Bobby Fisher and I was the Gaffer on Road to Perdition!

There is a company called Movie Tone that makes both 3200 and 5600 T-8 tubes in various sizes and by the way the pin configuration is the same as the T-12. The designer and owner of Movie Tone lights was originally involved with the company that made optima 32 tubes. They no longer exist so he started his own company and he knows quite a bit about our industry. Regards, Rick

Actually, using the actors skin can be a great way to ensure consistancy with regard to exposure. If you have ever worked on a film set with known actors, you will find that you will never ask them to hold a grey card, so, you must find out where on the zone system there skin tones are. Once done, this is usually a great way to meter as your not constantly sticking a meter (or a card in front of the actors face) Incidentally, do you think the founder of the zone system used a grey card for his metering? No he did not! Ansel used his spot meter to determine where he wanted certain zones to fall and then developed his film accordingly. There are many great cinematographers that use nothing but spot meters and without grey cards. And another note regarding this subject-- using the spot meter on African American faces is a great way to ensure consistany exposure. I have worked on two feature films ( as the Gaffer) Barbershop 1 and 2 and here you have a true range of darker skin tones and you must light and expose them with care.

Does anyone have experience with mounting Xenons on helicopters for motion picture work? I am wondering what instruments and what power source to use.

Thank you for your response David. I am wondering however, if you might know what the calculations might be so that I might be able to figure out an alternative shutter angle to use in similiar situations. The camera running with a 90 degree shutter produced no visible pulsing. By the way, I posted the wrong frame rate. It should be 23.98. Thanks again for your help. Rick Thomas

Hello to everyone. Does anyone know that mathmatics involved when adjusting shutter angles on the Genesis camera. I am working on a Genesis film in Canada and while shooting in an ice arena, we set the camera at 45 degree shutter for that "Saving Private Ryan" look. When set this way (frame rate set at 29.98 as recommended by panavision) we could not only see pulsing on the wave form monitor but on our video monitor as well. The effect on the video monitor was a slow decrease in exposure as well as a shift in color (magenta). We changed the camera frame rate to 24p and still had the problem. We thought that it might have been an "out of phase" problem (electrical) and made sure that the camera was running on the same power source as our practical (metal halide) lights were. Still no change. When we changed to a 90 degree shutter the problem disappeared. Any Ideas?