Mike Panczenko

I would say, first off, make sure you do a proper checkout, of course, but that is not 35mm specific. You know how to pull focus, you know how to set up lenses and matte boxes, etc. Make sure you can thread the camera up quickly. It should just take a few seconds, depending on the type of camera, give or take another 8 seconds. In the heat of battle, take after take after take, a groove gets going, and no one likes to wait on the first taking longer than normal to thread up. Make sure you know how to check the gate, and pull it if necessary. Make sure you know how to change the shutter, change the fps, etc. It may seem like it's intuitive, but for the 535b, you need to unlock the shutter with an allen key, and then change the shutter with an allen key. Test everything in shooting configuration. At the checkout, make sure all the parts work in conjunction. Don't test the monitor, then unplug it and test the FIZ. Test them both together to make sure they work together- on the shoot you may have both simultaneously. Tell the prep techs at the rental house if you have any questions about anything. They will show you better than anyone on a forum can. Before you leave, make sure you know how to get the camera going. In many ways, it's not that different from a RED or a 16mm. Good luck to you!

Yeah, I've heard of some commercial DPs who will underexpose 2 or 3 stops, so that it can be brought back up to level, but not much more, without introducing noise and artifacts. Now I have never seen this, only heard stories of it- so take it with a grain of salt, but sounds like if the DP is able to get away with it, it's a pretty sweet deal!

There is no "dust check" button. You manually inch the camera until the shutter clears to check.

Don't know how recently this was updated, but it should be a good start: http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/product/rentals

It may be too late, but if you're doing a steadiness/registration test, I would recommend against running the camera backwards to rewind the film. It adds extra stress on the perfs and can give inaccurate results. It's best to shoot the test and hand-rewind in a tent or darkroom, and mark the frame with a grease pencil, so you can realign with the correct frame and shoot your 2nd pass.

Well, to chime in, I saw it and I did get nauseous- which has never happened before. I had to close my eyes for a few seconds and sip my water to ease it. But, I also did enjoy the movie and am glad I saw it. It was a well done movie with a nice spin on a classic idea. I do think that they should have toned down the shaky-cam concept and sought a happy medium, but, on the scale of things, my liking of the movie overall outweighed my nausea at the camera-work.

Since the 85 corrects daylight balance to tungsten, if you shot a gray card in tungsten light with an 85 on, that would effectively be double correcting. Or did you shoot the card clean? Also, while some people shoot gray cards at full tungsten, they then make extra sure to light with that in mind. Since you really had no control over lighting at this location, you might have been better to shoot the card at this location.

If they're starting a film tomorrow, they might be asking you if you have a chart so that they can shoot a framing leader. Arri has some of them on their website. Here's a link to a bunch of different ones: http://www.cameraservice.com/tech/format.htm Hope this helps!

Also, here on cinematography.com, when you go the the main page, listing all the different forums, at the bottom is a "Manuals and Docs" section, which has the Millennium manual, and a lot of Arri and HD manuals as well.

One more thing, is that the inching knob on the GII is on the back of the body. Push in the black knob and turn it to inch it.

There is not a downloadable quickguide for the GII online, but there is a manual for the Millennium, which can be downloaded on this site. While a lot of the bells and whistles on the Millennium are missing on the GII, the basic threading, and mechanical functions are all the same. Shutter angle is controlled by the mechanical dial on the back of the body, as opposed to an electronic style on the newer models. Just remember to unlock the shutter lock inside the body. And FPS is changed via +/- selector switches on the GII, again as opposed to the electronics on the Millennium. One last thing to remember, is to make sure you get the Pola ring made for the GII with the cutout, as with physically small lenses, the ring will hit the viewing system and not be able to get back to the lens. Hope this helps!

The past few months i have done a lot of night shoots, and for me, they never get easier. Some people have no trouble adjusting to them, and others, myself including, never adjust. I normally sleep during the day, but again, others split it and take several short naps for their rest. Tailor it to your own body- what works best for you. The one thing, above all, is be safe with your driving. If you can't drive safely, get production to get a hotel room for you. If they won't, then stay with a friend, or pull off on the side of the road. Don't mess with your safety. Also, every weekend, I dedicate one day to sleeping pretty much. Others might say this is worse, because it will throw off the schedule you have semi-adjusted to during the prior week, but for me, that works. Really, the only thing I can say is to do what works for your body, which will be completely different from what works for someone else. The last thing, is that our circadian rhythms will never fully adjust to the night shift. They get more comfortable with it, but they never fully adjust. Extended night shoots suck. Look forward to the end of the month when you can sleep normally again. View it as a goal, and once you have reached it, celebrate by sleeping.

The Hilti's have also have a little viewfinder with a red dot on it that you can look through, to see where your laser is aimed even though it might to too bright outside to actually see it. Very helpful.

Would it be the Modular 51 bags? www.modular51.com Expensive, but worth every penny in my opinion.

Larry Huston, a big NY ac, is the namesake for these bags he designed.

We pulled the gate when we saw it and made sure both the filter slide and the matte slide were all the way in. My guess is that it's just a software glitch. I'd love to know for sure though, and it is annoying to see it.

It's on the display on the side of the camera. I've seen it and it was just always fixed by the rental house, so I never found out what the actual cause was.

I've had this happen, too, and while it doesn't do anything technically, I've had DPs ask with a stern face why the display is showing that. I'd also be interested to know what the cause is.

Well, black and white film is more sensitive to daylight than to the tungsten spectrum- hence the two ISO numbers listed for the one stock. So when metering, be aware of this. But you are not going to get a gross mismatch, the speeds are less than half a stop apart, so in terms of mixing color temps, you'll be fine.

Who is on your crew David?

I would love to see a fund made in his memory. John, thank you for everything. You will me missed.