Adrian Sierkowski

Agreed that it doesn't look too bad. It's hard to see with the youtube compression and before I've had y 3rd cup of coffee for the day; but it looks pretty good. The day ext doest look a bit lackluster; but i was very impressed with the opening church scene. The only issue i had was the woman's face on the reverse from the picture which speaks to her; it felt just a bit muddied in my opinion, maybe just a little bit more light on her would've helped. but, yes, good job, and keep it up!

I again second the holiday cheers. I got my cinematograph8y book and some nice dvd box sets (the office season 3 and faulty towers) as well as the most important gift to get me through the work slump. . . a bottle fo bushmills and a pound of espresso! Now if only the g/f would read through filmtools.com and pick me out a nice tripod. . .oh well Valentines day. Remember, like my dad always said, don't eat yellow snow!

I normally frame my S16mm for 1.78:1 but as you'll be recording the 1.66:1 anyway you have a bit of room in post for a reframe if you want to go 1.78 or 1.85. Always good to talk to the director, too, to see which ratio they want. I habe to do a 2.35:1 once off of a XL1. . . just because the director wanted it.

Also if you didn't properly form your loop you'll have a white scratch through frames. I had that happens on my SR3 on a shoot where the film was chugging along a bit on the bottom of the loop right before the take-up. If you have a screen capture it might be easier to diagnose. I posted one and got a solid answer of the cause in about 45 minutes.

i've used nikons with different adapters to video cameras. They're alright; but the issue i've seen most with them is that they are not in focus across the lens; eg the center will be focused fine but it will trail off towards the edges. They seem pretty good, overall, in terms of color rendition; but since i've only seen this on video; it's really hard to judge. In the end, cine lenses are far better, as you already know, but nikons aren't bad either. A few of them have even been rehoused for cine use and of those i have heard, but not seen, of good results. a lot depends on the application; for video, ok go for it; but if you're shooting on film i'd strongly recommend getting proper cine lenses.

you get more flare with a zoom lens than with a prime because it has more elements in it. however, a 40w bulb and candles are pretty dim sources, so i'm assuming you're using 500T. if that's the case, i can see a situation where the 40W might overpower the candle light, not to mention most zoom lenses aren't as fast as primes, so you may be underexposing. The short answer is just to test it out. How many candles, and where they are, as well as the bulb and the specific lens you wish to, or need to, use for the shot will all effect whether or not you can get the flare you like, and/or get both the bulb and the candles to flare together.

Dunno. . if they were really good sandwiches you might never move up! I haven't "made it," in any special or spectacular way. I get paid for jobs now, which is great, but I always want to do more. How I got here, I don't know. One day the phone rang and then it kept ringing here and again for paid shoots. I think it has a lot to do, as was mentioned, with your ability to get on with the people you work with and remaining cool under pressure, and working to keep the set moving along. Whenever I read interviews with other DPs, it seems what comes up most often in their stories is how they got along with people on set, and were able to work at a good clip. So, work hard, keep the set moving, and be as personable as possible. Just my .00002 cents

Hard drives sadly fail. I've had good experiences, though, with Lacie (the one designed by Porsche) as well as Western Digital (though not the Mybook!) and Seagate. The sad reality of it is that they have moving parts and as such will degrade over time, sometimes much faster than you'd wish. Perfect example: I have had the same Lacie drive for around 4 years now. . give or take, no problems, but I got handed a brand new maxtor from a friend which promptly died 3 days later.

I decided to "wrap" all my presents in film canisters, because, a retarded monkey could wrap a present better than I. I'm thinking for bows this year, I despool some miniDV tapes I've had around forever. This first Christmas with the new G/f will certainly be memorable. . .

I've shot the K3 and I can tell you it's about the same as a bolex. Very loud. I don't think i've ever seen one modded for a PL mount but the M42 screw mount is very nice to use some alright still photo glass. It's a decent starter camera though, but not something you can do sync to. Bolexes do sound like lawn mowers, though they have some quieter sync models which I personally havn't used 9the EBM and SBM i believe). The Eclairs are nice cameras, if you find one in good condition. they're older so some of htem have seen a lot o milage; but I have no qualms with them in the least. they remind me a lot of Aatons, in their overall design, and I believe the two are linked somehow. The arris of the time were very loud, 'cept for the BL but even that was no major picnic. It can do syn and make some beautiful images, though; but as mentioned it's pricier. I'm not sure if oyu'l lfind a S16mm ACL or NPR under $5000, but it not totally unlikly. Call up Visual Products, they have a lot of cameras around and are very nice people from my dealings with them.

So, i always keep tweaking it; working it up in "versions," like software. In any case, i just cut this tonight with some more S16 footage and I figured I'd stick it up here. Any feedback would be great! and please excuse the compression. The perils of online i suppose http://blip.tv/file/555680?filename=Crimso...eelV399b860.mov That's a link to the source h.264 file without it being converted to flash. Best, ~Adrian

I mean overall. Hell I'd love a 2K or 4K sensor for a film camera as a mag, but i'd settle for 1080 just to get stuff like this on the market for cine cameras. It'd really help get a lot longer life out of your gear (especially if a company made "universal versions," for any mag camera!) Probably a pipe dream though

You know I was sitting in a color correction class and we were bitching about SCAD because of all your AVIDs. Temple Univ here in Philadelphia is pretty much all FCP based. But, we have a large lighting package to rent out, and a lot of Aatons, so I don't complain. Sounds like you have a great program out there. Remember, as Phil said. Don't pick at it.

from my experience you really can't rate the "asa" of a video camera. it'll vary depending on a lot of things. Your best bet to get close would just be to expose a greycard to your liking on a monitor, and then meter that. fiddle with ASA on the meter until it matches with the F stop you're reading from your camera. For example, the HVX "rates," at about a 250 asa. But, often i'll have to rate my meter @160 to get what the HVX sees, and other times I'll be rated at 320. It depends on what's in the scene (with 80% zebra on white spots.)

Let's all just go to Cuba. My American money will be worth more and on the way back we'll have Celine perform at customs so we can sneak in some cigars. :lol:

Also, in terms of short ends and all, there is drrawstock here in the US. I havn't had a problem with any footage from them as of yet. They have a website, just google away. It'll save you some $$.

In theory, though, couldn't Arri or Aaton or anyone just build a mag as such (maybe to link out to an array) to be put on the back of any of their cameras? I don't see why it couldn't be done, really (perhaps not @4K but star with something simple. . . say 1080?) just a thought. I love the new Aaton's look. Though I'll probably not see one in person for a few years!

Worked fine on my PC, though hiccuped Firefox for a few seconds loading the QT trailer Windows XP Pro SP2 Intel Xenon 3 Ghz 2 GB Ram Nvidia something or other 3 doohickies 4 whatchamacallits keyboard mouse Site looks awesome too. I still love the CGI wolf! Really well done!

My haircut isn't that bad. . . is it? Damn. . . it is. . . time to get a mac and be cool! Joking aside, I've seen both, though I normally see AVID running on PCs and FCP on macs. AVID I would argue being the more "professional," of the two, though I'm not editor and I know a lot of FCP people who would (and do) argue against that.

I really like my 9.5MM optar illumina. It's a T1.3 and sharp as a tack with very deep depth of field. It will, however, distort the of the trees as it is so wide. Also the 25MM Optar I have is nice as are a lot of the older Cookes. The older Cookes are "softer" than their newer cousins, and I feel err more towards warm tones (like bark). That's just my very humble opinion, as I am in no way as well versed as many of hte others here. Take it for what it's worth.

The $750/day was me, the camera, my lights (what I do have), my grip, and the lenses lol. I don't think that's too unreasonable! In seriousness, though; shoot within your means. And plan the hell out of your project!

For an example of cheap rental. I rent myself/lenses/matte/and some lights for $750/day with my SR3 for low budget stuff, though, I normally would love to get a dayrate on top of that.

For a good looking 1 light; expose a greycard at the beginning of the reel under the lighting you'll predominately use for the roll (i.e. under the sources you'll mostly use) and they'll correct for that.

Film isn't inherently hard. Basically what "trust film" means is that, you'll get an image. So long as you set your exposure properly (for the key light, normally) you'll get an image. Loading a camera (in s16mm/16mm) isn't too difficult. I learned in under 10 minutes, though getting fast at it takes a while and it depends on your mags. The ACL isn't too hard, from what I'm told, as it's coaxial, so 1/2 of it you can do in daylight. if you're renting a deck I'd recommend DVCPROHD because of it's 4:2:2 color space and high data rate. Do it @720P and you'll be happy. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. your first few shoots mightn ot be the best ever, so practice a bit. Find a friend with a bolex and get some 100ft daylight spools of reversal film. hell if you can expose that you can expose anything! Will's way through post is a more valid way for a feature. Generally my shoots are short (music video or short film) so we don't have that much footage overall (normally under 10,000ft.) Dailies are a luxury I havn't yet had :(. A good way to spot check your settings is with a DSLR still camera. Set the ASA to that of you're film, and the aperture to that of your lens, and take a shot. Realize the film will read into the shadows more than the digital, but you'll see, overall, whether or not things are right! The best thing about film, as far as i'm concerned, is looking actually though the lens at the image. I hate the viewfinders/lcds of video and HD.

When I do film i try to get it on DVCPROHD 100 and rent a deck for ingest into FCP. You get a lot more out of the negative than digibeta will give in my opinoin. I think deck day rate is $450 here in philadelphia and we're normally doing $300 per 800ft of film for a supervised (300 an hour for the telecine which runs through 800 ft of film give or take). All in all, your post workflow seems sound to me, although you're missing how to get the footage into FCP; i'm assuming you have a deck. I would also agree that film does give you more flexibility in post than video ever will, especially in terms of "fixing" mistakes (you'd be amazed what a well placed power window can do to a shot! I know I was when i first saw it.) I see no problem with an ACLII, but you have to realize a camera is kinda like a boat or a house. You'll pour money into it FOREVER. It might be best to rent for that reason, but I know how alluring it is to own (hell i own a camera i probably shouldn't!). Some show an ex g/f of mind had me watching (dirt, i think?) had a great line: "shoot film, you can trust film." I would agree with that. aside from my first ever bolex film on reversal, I never really had an unsalvagable shot. I've had some not so great shots, and a scratch here and again; but never shot on film and got an end result that was so fubar as to be unusable. I wish I could say the same for some video stuff. . . lol