Tim O'Connor

Hi Grant, You have some really striking images but I have a suggestion probably in line with what others have said or might say. Go through each of your shots and grade them with 10 or A or whatever being the best. You know when you have a good shot that you love. That's okay to say yeah! Then cut out everything else, as painful as that might be and as much as you might love those shots. I think that then you'd have a smashing reel. Good luck.

I thought I had you to thank for being in such great shape. I've been training to my Freygalates tapes every morning and I'm now practically an athlete, plus I've picked up some lighting tips while working out. Are you sure you didn't do this series? Buck a Book, or at least one of them, was on Tremont Street right opposite the Park Street station on Boston Common. It's a Dunkin' Donuts now. Did you used to live here? One of the local places for simple props is Boston Costume. It's not at all comparable to a prop house in Hollywood or anything but it's a pretty good resource and it's relocated to Cambridge where it shares space with a place called the Garment District, a funky thrift/vintage clothing place where I've found some good wardrobe. The Garment District is famous for its section where it sells clothes for a dollar a pound.

I agree that with the increased costs of Super 8 closing the gap that once made the format far more affordable for learning than 16mm that it's a good idea to find a good deal on a simple 16mm camera and projector. Just for kicks, here's my Kodak Super 8 camera that I bought for 7 dollars at a sidewalk sale when I was a kid. Fixed focus, manual exposure. The 'light meter' was the chart on the side of the camera and then pretty soon just calling the stop. Those were the days.

How tall is the hallway? What is there for a ceiling? At 4' wide with Chinese lanterns and 650W lights you ought to be able to use a multitude of rigging options, from a polecat if you can get one short enough, to wall spreaders, wall plates, a variety of clamps if there are any beams overhead, scissor clamps perhaps depending on what's above. You also could mount a small softlight to travel with your dolly to provide some nice fill on your talent and perhaps light in eyes depending on if you have talent walking toward or away from you. Will you be low shooting high or high shooting low? If you frame out the lights, will you see track if you shoot down or are you perhaps not using any? Are there people in this shot? Is it a narrative film or a training video for carpet installers or a tour of a museum? Really, I'm just asking slightly differently what's already been asked. What do you desire for a mood, look, etc. and what is the action and field of view?

Hey, that's got some pretty cool stuff on there, definitely some imagery off the beaten path. Nice work! I like the layout. Only one clip ("Destin" in "commercial" didn't load) and I got the big blue Q. Everything else was ready to go right away. I mention it because I use i-Web too and I like to know if people can see everything. I'm curious, some of those clips are good length. i-Web recommends a 10MB file size for optimum performance per clip. What sizes are these clips? Do you export from Final Cut Pro or i-Movie or how do you send your video to i-Web and do you use QT conversion or "share" in i-Movie? Now I know where I've seen your name. I watch "The Business" on IFC. You do a great job!

Hi Michael, Yes, part of the problem is that the room looks like an aerobics studio and will even if you pull the standing heavy bags. What if, rather than fighting the presence of the mirrors all the time, you create a bit of a set using fabrics, warm earth tones say or whatever feels right. I'm not suggesting major construction or money, but maybe a trip to a fabric store and then some simple lattice work or whatever you could get inexpensively in order to hang the fabric. If this would work, you could perhaps shoot from behind some of your set pieces for a number of shots and even if the mirrors are in the shot, the camera and operator could be hidden behind a set piece, even perhaps while using a jib. You also might be able to use colors that tie in to the color of the client's company or DVD cover or something. Then, perhaps you could list the shots in which you want to use the mirrors to let you see the other side of a particular pose or movement and find a way to shoot while keeping your gear out of the shot. Also on your list could be the shots which would require the mirrors to be covered. Hampshire frost could do the job but perhaps if the fabric/setpiece idea works for you; then you could drape some fabric or move some setpieces. Either way could work and give you some production value and thematic unity to your images. Lighting from above sounds like a good plan. Somebody on here suggested using Lee 188 Cosmetic gels for warming flesh tones and I've used them a bunch since then and really like them. Good luck.

Why is it that lately there are so many wise guys on here? "can we talk about the problems of the space now" You asked how you could make the room look "more cinematic" You gave some details and a picture but to the people on this forum, "more cinematic" is a vague phrase that they often hear, often when they need details. I understand that humor in e-mails and electronic postings can be easily missed but I still feel that you could have proceeded without what seems like a wise ass comment. It seems like there have been more posters than usual displaying some attitude on here. Have you read the lengthy and detailed responses that Michael Nash often writes? He asked you the question that occurs to a lot of us when we read posts that may have information but not the right information. He probably wanted to find out so that he could best address your question without having to type more than he would have to, since he, like a lot of people on here, take the time to mentor people by writing responses into which they invest more than a little time. Good luck.

Watching "24" last year I was intrigued by how often shots crossed the line and yet weren't jarring. I think that in a simple scene, say two people talking about the weather, it's really conspicuous if there's a jump across the line. In a scene in which there's all sorts of tension and dramatic dialogue, it's easier for the viewer to get caught up in the story and not notice as much, especially if the shots are also different focal lengths. I was constantly thinking about how "24" had scenes in which the line was constantly being crossed but it wasn't jarring to me; I was still caught up in the story. Why they did it is another question. I think that, having seen some behind the scenes footage of "24" in which there were often two cameras rolling simultaneously with one moving handheld, crossing the line so much may have been the result of having the camera operators follow the story without worrying about the line so much When you then add a lot of action to a scene, like bullets and bombs, it becomes even easier in general to get away with crossing the line, I think, although somehow that starts to irritate me more than say when Jack Bauer is talking to the president and the shots jump around during such an urgent discussion. If you ever saw "NYPD Blue" that utilized a style that incorporated a lot of adjoining but fractured shots, as if there were some disjointed documentary footage, but somehow that seemed to work. It may not have been for all tastes but it worked in that a shot panning would be interrupted and then a part of another shot would be next and then something else shaky in a way that typically would never be done for an episodic drama and which would look funky even in a documentary but in "NYPD Blue" seemed to slide by. I think that a good soundtrack with high quality and layers of effects and ambience and a score help shots flow together in a way that would be a lot bumpier if the same shots had no score or underlying room tone from shot to shot and the audio was being cut each time as well.

Have 40mb files worked for you? I use i-Web for a .mac website and usually split video clips into separate podcasts (as i-Web considers them) because i-Web recommends files no larger than 10mb in order for people to access them esaily. I have put up 25mb or so files to test but it seems like they took a long time to load when people went to the site and I don't know if people have enough patience always to wait so i tend to make more, smaller clips.

Yeah, me too. Before I bought my camera, I heard about the frame rates and thought cool, but I wish that it could overcrank more, say up to 96 f.p.s.. I've shot some stuff at 60 f.p.s. that has stunned me. I did a scene at a beach in winter with the wind blowing through golden (I call it sea grass, the stuff that grows right near the beach) and I still go back to look at it because it's so gorgeous. Snow on the beach, brilliant blue sky, sun out. All I did was aim the camera and hit the button.

Is everybody who mentioned a particular service talking about sites that have to load or do any of these have the video ready to go when somebody arrives at the site and also are instantly able to be scrubbed? Yeah, it's so true that everybody wants a link and further I think that they don't want to have to wait for the video to load. Does it seem to anybody else like this is a big shift in the last six months from many people willing to have a DVD sent to them to now most people saying give me a link or don't bother? It certainly seems so in Boston but I know that often things happen first out West and then people here catch on to them a bit later.

When you say that you habitually resize for your series, do you mean that you'll get a close-up or a tighter shot by blowing up the picture a bit? I do that sometimes in Final Cut Pro but I'm wondering if you mean that or something else. If you do mean blowing up the picture, do you have any special software? I sometimes just go from 100 to 110 or 120 which works pretty well and can get something out of the edge of a shot without hurting the image (don't know about on a big theater screen but on everything else looks okay)but I know that some people do use such software. In fact, I think that there's one called "Resizer".

Why do you always shoot in 720pN mode? I do too, unless as often happens somebody asks for 1080. I realize that there many potential answers to this question, along a broad spectrum from being pragmatic (more time on cards) to feelings about the look of different modes. Is it your clients or type of work or your feelings about the look?

Bobby, one resource that I utilize is having a ProCare membership with Apple. It's good at any Apple store and gives you an hour one on one with an Apple expert once a week for a year and also priority at the Genius Bar in the Apple store. I just spent my whole last appointment working on a website in i-Web. I'm fairly good at it but I had some funky challenges and they were able to figure them out. For two dollars an hour, or now four dollars an hour (see below) it's a deal! It was $99.00 a year and it just went up to about $200.00 a year for both but it's still worth it. You've got to find the right people at whatever store (some are experts at Final Cut Pro, some are musicians who are great at GarageBand but not the ones to be asking about video post production.) I would guess that one of them could help you. I'll ask about it at my next appointment. Also, there's a forum called Creative Cow (pretty sure it's creativecow.com) and those guys seem to always be able to answer questions about oddball stuff like this in Apple applications.

I use i-Web too but I haven't seen that happen. i-Web suggests video to be about 10mb so often reels get split into separate podcasts so clips are less compressed. What size are your clips and how are you sending them to i-Web? Are you using QuickTime conversion in Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express or are you sharing them from i-Movie? I always send or drag clips to i-Web pages. Do you really import files or is that a typo? Are you seeing the darker videos on your entries page in i-Web or on your published site? Have you checked it or had anybody else view your site from another computer?

Brad Grimmett Posted Today, 01:23 AM I think he was comparing a 16mm 'format' lens with a 35mm 'format' lens, which would explain why the field of view was the same or similar. Hi Brad. Yes, I think maybe I worded it poorly. I understood that but I like the way that Michael illustrated how a similar field of view from shooting in 35mm or 16mm requires different focal lengths because of the different image areas. I don't know; I tend to mangle my discussions on this topic but I found that picture very helpful. I guess because by seeing how the same focal length lens, used for shooting different film sizes, produces different fields of view; it helped me work my way backward into a new way of looking at how the different focal lengths produce the same or similar fields of view when shooting with different (16mm or 35mm) film sizes. To all those of you who have discussed this with me before, I promise you that I remember and am repeating the mantra "A 50mm lens is a 50 mm lens is a 50mm lens." "A (focal length) is (a focal length) is a (focal length.) I haven't forgotten; just haven't improved in talking about it. I'll stop now.

I don't know. It sure is beautiful when the sun is out and it's just poured and the pressure has dropped. Don't know why though.

I know that people can tend to think of, and I've heard it expressed this way, a 50mm lens as being "more telephoto" in 16mm than 35mm. While that can be one way to approach the subject, your explanation and illustration show that the tighter field of view with the 50mm lens in 16mm is because that is the image area available and that's how much of it is covered with the 50mm lens. I think that even if people continue to use this shorthand language that helps them go back and forth between formats and choose lenses for close-ups, you've given an extremely clear explanation for why a lens may seem "more telephoto" and that is going to clarify for a lot of people why different focal length lenses in different formats are used for the same field of view and the corollary of why the same focal length lenses in different formats provide different fields of view.

Thanks Michael. I'd like to take my camera out and do some tests but I've been editing all day (reading and posting on here during while something is rendering or being exported or DVD being burned.) Probably the same plan tomorrow but I'm going to see if I can grab a couple of hours soon and just shoot a bunch of the stuff that we've been talking about as well as some gags I've been wanting to do.

It seems to me that I remember people years ago shooting music videos in 16mm. at 29.97 f.p.s. (maybe you were rounding off for discussion?) because they said that since the music videos were exclusively for television, it made syncing easier. Does that sound right? Do you know if a lot of people did that? Thanks.

I've wondered this too, at least regarding the percentage of shorts that are shot in 24P but 99% of the time viewed on regular television sets via DVD. Even the 24P is "24 over 60" when it's say a DVX-100 recording Mini-DV tape and if it's adjusted to a 24 f.p.s. timeline in editing but then put on a DVD to be seen on 60i display, it's going to behave as you've described. It's great that 24P has come along but it seems to me that many of the earnest and often quite good shorts that people I encounter are doing around here still are viewed in a way in which the 24P doesn't seem that significant, although when they set out to make these shorts that they know are going to be seen this way, they're adamant about shooting 24P.

Hmm, thank you. When I get a chance I'll see if I can find my source for that information and check it out. It's been a while but I think it was a school book or an encyclopedia.

Does it bother anyone else how much some directors and producers (and even D.P.s when I was gaffing) speak almost exclusively in reference to other works? It's one thing for somebody to be inspired by somebody but it's crazy when people say 'look at this scene in "J.F.K." (playing on DVD at base camp) and "light it just like that" and who also think "paying homage" means "okay to rip off entirely". This post is a good question so to add something positive, I can say that I'm always thinking of Norman Rockwell pictures because of how they tell stories.

That last comment is pretty exciting because it explains, or certainly suggests a good explanation, for why it seemed like footage shot in a low pressure area looked sharp. Even if changing pressure does affect human eyes, it seemed doubtful to me it would affect a camera the same way because the lenses don't work the same but they are both looking through the same medium, as you point out, the air, and that would have changed. I think you're right that daytime exteriors are harder to fake because you've got a mix of light and bounced around light with different color temperatures, plus you may be attempting to simulate a light source that is 93 million miles away. I think sometimes though with nighttime " exteriors" that are done indoors, the atmosphere in an air conditioned studio deep inside a building is just different in whatever is floating in the air and affecting light than the air would be on a real porch say outdoors on a humid August night by a factory next to the highway. Again, that also is pretty much part of what you were saying about different atmospheres. They're going to look different, whether they're in different places or the same place at different times, and that's going to make each scene look different.

Yes, good points above. Some nice shots but take another swing at editing it. A general comment is that I've learned that many potential employers are impatient (or busy?) and thus go with your best stuff first and do your best to GRAB their attention immediately and hold it for as long as you can and then cut out and leave them wanting more. If you use your "okay" stuff to save the best for last, your potential employer may click off and not ever see it.