Matt Workman

Don't actually shoot in B&W in camera. Do that in post, you have much more control getting the contrast you want by adjusting the color channels. Unless you are using a lot of in camera filters like red/yellow etc. Then it may be helpful to actually shoot in B&W in camera. 50i sounds good, the cine-frame mode on that camera is weird. What software are you using? If you are looking for a "dirty film effect" I suggest Magic Bullet or Nattress. They both have nice color correction suites also. If you shoot it with the mind set that you are giong to use those plug-ins don't over expose too much. You want a low contrast "digi neg" to start with or you can't push it very much. 2cents. Matt

When I suggested that the still looked like a CGI image, it wasn't an attack or praise. It was more of an observation. I don't doubt/believe RED's capabilities because it's still in prototype. I will probably buy a RED with a PL Mount when it comes out. But for whatever reason I think that particular still looks like a render. Go ahead and tear this post apart. The first image here is also an HDRI render. Not the best one I've seen but you get my point. Matt

This looks computer generated, IMO. I'm I alone?

The DVX100a is a great camera to start with. I always comment on how even someone who has no idea what they are doing can get great results, in 24p. Obviously the more you know about photography the better it will be, but if you are just starting it can be as simple as iris, zoom, focus, shoot. And the DVX will look pretty good. People here are selling the DVXs all the time. The new HVX craze has made them CRAZY! Heh, Good luck. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=17 Matt PS: As for your town or near by towns, there are always wanna be filmmakers. I can almost guarentee that there is someone in your area who has a DVX, they are everywhere.

Hi, Why is RED, or why would you speculate, that RED is releasing a 300mm Prime Lens first? - Is there a gap in the telephoto prime lens world? - Is it impressive to be albe to manufacture the lens, so they are testing their engineering? I'm just curious. Not skeptical, malicious, jelous. It just seemed odd. "Yeah first off I'm going to buy my RED camera and now I just have to have a 300mm lens..." Their 18mm-85mm Zoom, if it is fast and probably will be, is definitely the lens I would get. I'm interested to see if RED has something new up their sleeve as far as lenses are concerned. Are their lenses going to be better than Zeiss, Cooke, Arri etc? It seemed unlikely, but I'm all for it. I'm excited to see the results, they certainly have at least got their marketing down with all of the hype. Thanks. Matt

Hi, Having shot a few projects for free and a few getting stiffed on some, I've come up with a battle plan. On shoots like this if you want footage for you reel or the symbolic payment (no deal memo payment) at the end of the day I hold the tapes. At the end of the project, they dont' get the tapes until they have paid. In your case you could just capture them on your own. I rarely take projects of this nature without some sort of deal memo or contract, now. But after being burned a few times, if I don't personally trust the producer/honcho I protect my interests. No one else will. Matt PS: Many times I have been the editor or I am friends with the editor. This is always a good position.

Unless you are working on really short project in a different town, I don't understand how the gaffer could possibly try to pull something like that. Doesn't he want to keep working? You guys have to work together for a weeks at a time, why did you hire this guy anyway? Maybe he had a bad day (not an excuse, but we have all had them) and he was venting. If he had asked nicely and concisely for you to clarify what you ment, then he was being a good gaffer and not guessing and wasting time. The lecture is usually saved for when you aren't on the clock and definitely not in front of others. Matt :ph34r:

Hey Noah, I'm shooting a super16 music video soon and I had very simliar questions. I think this question has been posted over 1 million times. :blink: Seeing that you are in NYC, there are plenty of labs. You can also call upon the sacred "student rates." Which they may waive if you ask for a supervised telecine. If you have a nice G5 tower with 2+ gigs of RAM and a 2 stripped RAID you can edit 10-bit uncompressed SD, or digibeta footage. You won't be able to view it on an SDI monitor without a card..or a monitor but if you do a supervised tele-cine you won't have to tweak much anyway. If you know you are only going to SD then print to Digibeta, either tapes or have it tranfered to hard drive. Don't get only DVCAM, unless you really don't have the budget. Digibeta has a lot more data. If you don't have a nice G5 workstation, then have the footage transfered through a Kona/Decklink card (not firewire) and then use Media Manager in FCP or Compressor to make offline dubs, at NTSC DV settings. Do your editting and then uprez to 10-bit to print back onto Digibeta, Compress for DVD, web, etc. After a lot of researching and calling labs I recommend a Spirit to SD transfer. If you have the money you can do a supervised transfer but a scene-to-scene is much cheaper. Cheers, Matt

I would warm against the magnet trick. You are playing with fire. Also it only flips the image one way, it doesn't really solve your problem. Get a Varizoom SD monitor or a Xenarc. They both flip the image correctly. I have a Noga isreali arm and I just mount the monitor upside down. The new Marshalls and Pansonic monitors are easily mounted like that also. Magnets and DVX is not a good mix. There is a reason the magnet trick is called a hack.

After trying to work with the normal Technicolor camera reports I pretty much gave up. It was very hard to cram filters, lens, f-stop etc. neatly. I started keeping a seperate notebook on the day and then transfered as neatly as a could and concisely back onto the official reports to then distribute amongst the departments. I see AC's with metal/alum cases to keep their reports/notes in. Its a pain to carry though. :ph34r:

You may have read this already, but if not, cheers. http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20DW/UV-Lighting.htm Matt

Hi, I've heard about 3rd party companies taking short ends and turning them into 35mm still rolls. Where can I purchase these rolls? If I shoot with a Nikon F-5, what is the aspect ratio? Where is a good place to get them processed? Is the processing similar to motion picture processing? I would probably just scan them after that. How does the f-stop of the lens compare to the t-stop of a motion picture camera? You would probably shoot at ISO of the film, 1/48 shutter, and only change the f-stop. Does anyone have experience with this, it sounds like a good way to practice, inexpensivly. I would love to see some stills online if you have them. Thanks. :D Matt

I vote for Shake. Its an industry standard and is capable of working with Cineon files (log to lin conversions etc.) Its has all of the plug-ins you'll need for keying (ultimatte, keylight, many more) Plus there are plenty of training programs for shake out there. If you ever start doing motion tracking, 3D, shake is the only OSX program that can handle the job. On PC there is Digital Fusion but its harder to learn, less documentation. I've seen both used for similar shots. SIDE NOTE: I'm selling my Gnomon Workshop - Apple Shake 6 DVD Training Series. I worked through these in a few months and it really gives you a good start in compositing. If you want to learn real green screen techniques this is the way to go. Much more powerful than then AE filters. http://cgi.ebay.com/Gnomon-Workshop-Shake-...1QQcmdZViewItem

You are probably aware of the new PowerBook recalls on the batteries. My G5 actually started to go to sleep during mid render, even with the power options disabling sleeping. My solution was to bring in a room fan and blast it into the front of the computer. It works...so I'm assuming it was a heating issue. This is MOST likely the case, especially with laptops. I have Apple Care so I'm going to have them give it a checkup. I would recommend the same for your laptop. In the meantime try keeping the laptop very cool when rendering. You don't have a grill to put a fan on like the G5 but you can probably find something. Matt

You got a quote per frame? Is that stadard? I thought it was per hour? Euro conversions :blink: What are you editing your cineon files in? Shake? I had a test clilp of cineon files and it killed my computer to try to play back the rendered series. The stills look really nice. I'm trying to tell the difference between those stills and the once taken by an SLR. The Cookes are definitely bettter glass than any Canon L-Series. I guess I don't really know that, I'm assuming.

It looked good but the compression (even on the high) was very distracting. :( What did you compress this from? If you have a digi-beta or even DV copy I would suggest recompressing with H264 at a higher bit-rate to really show off the 35mm. I like the shot of the man in shadows crouching below the window. You only could see the highlights of his face and shoulders. :ph34r:

Thanks for the info. The super16-HD really makes sense in that light, thats why Arri/Aaton have probably just released their new cams. As for the forum when I click on the thread it only shows the first post. Then at the bottom it has the "message tree" hierarchy. I only noticed this recently. Has it always been like this? Its like some of the other forums I'm on so I'm used to it.

Here are the super16mm Prices. http://www.mattworkman.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=285 I'm not sure if I have the 35mm ones. :(

What kind of transfer did you do? I guess you could just do a cheap 1-light to DV if you can use the EDL and just cut the actual 35mm neg. Is that cheaper than doing an HD scan for 16mm? For the 200T does this usually assume a pretty nice lighting package? For my little s16mm projects I was planning on 500T because we have a less than modest package. But the issue of grain/16mm is something I hadn't really considered. (BTW) What is with the new forum organization? Its like a message board now... I'm not sure I like it. And I'm even more sure that my opinion doesn't really matter. :rolleyes:

As an beginning AC/DP I would love to be hired for a feature s16 or 35! But as a producer I would steer clear of assistants and go for an experienced DP. If you have $150,000 secured, paying an experienced DP is a good investment, seeing as he will probably be the most experienced person there. You will save money with a bumped AC/Operator but your film "on set" will suffer and your final product will too. The DP will most likely be able to hire the entire crew from past experience and get you good rates at the rental house and lab. This is mainly quoting from "From Reel to Deel" but it holds true in my experience too. Though everyone makes the jump at one point, you could being making someone's career. :D As for 16 v. 35 it depends on the deels you can cut. Short ends, DP w/ equipment, relative at Technicolor, etc. But I would aim for 35mm if its feasible and it wouldn't limit the film horribly. As mentioned 16mm you could definitely hire a good DP and be a little more spontaneous.

I have two HMI's (Lee w/ Electronic Ballasts) they were a good deal and I got them for a project where renting was out of the question. I wouldn't assume that the genie is compatible with the ballast. It may cause some severe flickering and it could screw up the bulb/head/ballast. I think they have to mod these kind of generators. I could be wrong. Post some production pics when you get to shoot a test. I have a 575w and 1200w, 4k is pretty large. You need some serious grip equipment I imagine the MAGNETIC ballast for a 4k weighs 100 lbs. Hope it works out. Matt

After talking with a few houses, dp's, forum guys, and friends I've learned a few things: - Labs are your partners and friends (be nice) - Colorists are you right hand in post-process (be nice) - If you are professional and serious they will most likely cut deals - Spirit 2k is the standard - Night rates/ Day rates (different) - Transfering to DV is a waste, digi-beta is the lowest you should go - I need a nice capture card and raid setup to edit 10-bit uncompressed SD - I need a friend or relative at a post host to edit 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 HD Thanks for the help guys, Matt

Although I've been warned from that article I have priced out a BonoLabs workflow. Hopefully I'm not the only one who finds this helpful. http://www.bonolabs.com BonoLabs - s16mm -> DVC PRO HD -> Firewire Hard Drive - 2,000 ft or 55 minutes (Unsupervised, figures by runtime) Prep Clean @ $.08 per foot - 160 Film to HD Scan @ $7.15 per min. - $715 Tapeless Fee @ $2.40 per min. - $144 DVC PRO HD to Hard Drive @ $6.25 per min. - $375 Total: $1444 *Plus Shipping and Drive Deposit Not bad. Only thing is that this isn't a Spirit or a supervised transfer. :unsure:

You are my new best friend! :D I'm still calling lots of houses. Encore Hollywood huh, is that a standard rate or are you hooked up with them?

Article about Spypost and Bonolabs http://www.cinematography.net/digitk/digitk.htm Sad :( Bono does straight to hard drive for a good price. Company 3's Rate Card http://www.company3.com/pdfs/co3_ny_ratecard.pdf Spirit -> HD $1900/hr Spirit -> SD $1500/hr Spirit -> HD (Disk Array) $1900