Tim O'Connor

There are lots of slang words and phrases that I've heard on film sets, usually with West Coast crews out here on the East Coast. Sometimes, it's a year or two before I've heard those words start to show up in the world outside film sets. Now I just heard a couple of phrases that are film specific so they may not migrate into the outside world but how many people have heard these? West Coast DP, pointing to right side of camera, "We call that the 'East Coast' side... or the 'dumb' side'."

Thanks for all the replies. Still, I seem unable to find a consensus. A lot of insight from different angles, walks of life and it all makes sense. Daryl, you have a lot of experience with dollies and wheels, which perhaps is the most applicable to my specific concern but everybody else's points are appreciated too. I talked to the rep. from the company that makes the 16 wheel, two rail kit and he says that not only are all of their wheels 99a but the company does a fair amount of production as both an offshoot of selling the products and as part of their R and D. Sure, he's going to want to sell his product but it is one that sells well already so I'd have to think that the company must have done some serious testing before committing to using all 99a wheels. I don 't want to ask endlessly about this but since I still have other stuff to build presently, I can hold off a bit on purchasing the wheels. If anybody has ruminated further or anybody else would like to chime in. please do. Thanks.

Here's a frame grab from a short that I did in January or so with a Panasonic DVC-30 (3 1/4" chips.) All the flares from the sun go green. It actually works for the video but I'm curious why it might go in that direction and I know lots of people on here have good understandings of how the red, blue and green information is handled/divided/combined by different sensors and stocks. Thanks.

Oh, I thought that maybe you meant that they had some other non screen way that they preferred but for which productions would usually never pay. Thanks.

Lots of good advice here and in these posts. If you're not using a heavier gel, say ND.6 or more, 85 with ND, but perhaps half CTO, then use diet Sprite.

"Just from my experience, the VFX artists that I've had a chance to ask (which are only a couple) have reluctantly said Green is preferred with digital media." Why "reluctantly" ? Is there something else that they'd rather do first? Thanks.

I have found a really nice set of 16 skate dolly wheels, eight per rail front and back on two rails, that I can buy and mount on my own platform. They run on straight/curved track and are made by a fairly well known indie dolly maker. The wheels are 53mm, with a durometer rating of 99A. The price for this kit is just under $250.00 On the other hand, I can buy wheels from a skateboard wheel manufacturer that has specially designed wheels for film dolly work, designed to avoid flat spotting. I've talked to this guy and he seems pretty solid. The company is near me on the East Coast and has been well established for many years. It's not a retail business but will sell to an individual for a minimum order of 32 wheels at just under $10.00 each. These wheels are 60A, which the company guy told me are what the company's research found to be best for dollying and avoiding flat spotting. The second option has more assembly for me and costs a $100.00 more but also has twice as many wheels. Either price would be okay with me. I am confused because there is such a gulf between the softness/hardness of 60A and 99A wheels, at least in my understanding. Can they both be a good choice? I'd really like to build this soon. I've e-mailed back both companies and asked what they would say to make me see the benefits of buying one or the other. With the Labor Day holiday, it'll probably (and I hope for their sake will) be next week before they reply to me. Maybe I just don't know but it seems to me that the difference between a 60A and a 99A is more like going from a naked lens to an ND9 or something than going from no filter to a skylight/UV filter. It seems pretty significant and I could use some advice if anybody knows about this aspect of wheels and dollying. I posted more or less this same message in the gripping forum but have received no replies despite a bunch of views in the past couple days so I'm posting again and here as I hope to have some information for when I next talk to these people. Thanks. By the way, does anybody else feel that a lot more people used to get Labor Day off than do now? I was shocked last year at how, up here in Boston anyway, all of the big retail stores were open and the parking lots were full like any other day. I thought that Labor Day was in part at least to honor and give a break to people such as retail workers, stockers, backroom workers and others who typically don't get as great vacations as many of the other people in higher paying jobs whose workplaces were closed last year.

Thanks, I'll check the local tool rental shops today.

If you are yet to do this, could you take some stills to document what works best and post them? I'm sure that many others would like to see. When you say heat gun, what exactly would that be? Do you have a picture? Thanks.

I know that this has been discussed a lot so I searched the forum and the seemingly most concise thread of the consensus on this topic, or lack of consensus, seems to be summarized in this thread skateboard wheels for dolly I would like to make a skateboard dolly this weekend. In the above thread, people start out discussing using wheels that are rated with a hardness from 85 or so up to a 100 on the durometer scale. A manufacturer responds saying that his company had researched the issue and had found that a much softer wheel, a 60A, works best. I can get a good number of the soft wheels, designed for film industry use, fairly soon. Since this thread, have any of you developed new and or stronger opinions about what wheels work best. I want to use wheels that are ideal for 1 1/2" track, steel or PVC. What hardness would you recommend and what size? Also, here is a picture of some 1 1/2' PVC track that the production rented. I'd love to know how they made these curves. I know that there was a thread a week or so ago about heating, bending and baking the track. Has anybody found a good way to do that?

Hi Dave, I found this which came with my meter. I don't recall anything more extensive as far as a manual. although if there is one I'd like to see it too, especially considering all the calculations that can be done with the wheels on the back that work kind of like a slide rule. I snapped these real quickly but I can mail you a better copy if you want. Did you also get the insertable slides for ASA speeds and for multiplying footcandles? It's funny on my shoot last week using 7219 I used my 250 slide, adjusting for a stop each time, because when I got the meter there were no 500 ASA films stocks for which 500 slides were needed!

Hi Dave, I probably should look first before replying but I may still have mine. I will start digging. You have a meter with history. Cool.

Yeah, SRII is so much easier too use/operate! BL is unwieldy but it is cool looking. Not enough justification to choose using one but if I ever have money for a camera collection I'd love to have one! Thanks guys.

Thanks guys! After first set-up today camera stopped running so put it aside and just got an SRII as replacement. Would like to check it out but haven't had time.

Shooting with an Arri 16BL, 12-120 Angenieux, when camera, lens are all level, ground glass is high on right. Haven't touched that before? Is it an installation issue? Not referring to viewfinder being non-orientable. This is different. Thanks.

Thanks Mike and everybody. I've had far less free time than I thought; flying back to Boston in the morning and then driving to N.Y. Saturday, will check equipment tomorrow and make some calls if necessary although I know what I have for my own gear and what I'm bringing from High Output in Boston, so I'm in pretty good shape. Very glad to know about all that you've suggested, thanks. Saw this place right down the street from where I'm staying!

Great, thanks everybody. Am in Detroit now, will check all those out. Was here only once before, a while ago. While driving around here, I'm spotting all these cool locations that are unrelated to this shoot but would make great locations and offer built in production value with looks and feel unlike anything in Boston. I'm taking lots of stills and notes. Love this place.

I'm going to be about fifteen minutes outside Detroit and then in and around Hudson, New York. I have had no time to research. I will but I'm wondering if anybody has any recommendations right off the bat. I'll probably be going to N.Y. location from Detroit so won't be going through Manhattan. Otherwise it would be great to go to Abel Cine Tech and say hi to Mitch and maybe give him some business. Interested in both grip/electric and (film) camera rental houses. I'll be bringing minimal equipment with me but enough to get started. I've got a rental from production for what I'm bringing but I'd like to know what there are for resources and if there is more than one in an area, what anybody might recommend first. Thanks! Also, first week (in Michigan) is looking a bit less crazed so if anybody in the area wants to say hi, get a coffee or drink, please get in touch. Same for N.Y. although I think that is going to be much longer days and nights so not sure how free I'll be.

No never JD but that probably is not a role model photo. Because I was laying such a short bead, if you would call it an actual bead, I switched to holding the welding mask in my left hand so that I could line up and then hold the mask where I could look through it and strike. I am wearing clear safety glasses because I always do anyway but I would never go without the welding lens. I don't want that kind of pain, much less potential damage. Thank you for your concern. It is hard to see the helmet in that photo so I hope that nobody gets the wrong idea. It's going to be very hard to be a DP if you look unprotected at an arc like that. It's going to be pretty hard actually to do anything except experience pain and be mad at yourself. That's a great suggestion about bending the frames, thanks! Michael, this first one is intended to be a solid because I figure that if I get the workflow down I can get duvetyne the easiest of materials and have something working right away. I'm still looking for a good place to buy net material but I do plan on making them three sided. I looked on Mathews Grip site and it seems that they sell every type of fabric except the scrim net materials. Also, I'm going to make some open frames for putting on whatever may be needed such as a particular gel on a certain day. I think that I might make those with the flat stock that is often used because it ought to make it easier to attach gels. Thank you for your comments. By the way I found what was to me surprising information. On the MSE website, it gives descriptions of all the fabrics, including the nets even though it doesn't sell that material separately from the frames. I've always though of a single as cutting .5 and a double as cutting 1 but on the website it said .6 and 1.2, respectively. I suppose that's not such a big difference but I wonder if every other single and double through the years has been rounded off or if these numbers are unique to Mathews current nets. I mean, it's like how uneven the metric system is with a kilometer being .6 of a mile. Why can't they fix everything and round it off so that a kilometer could be .5 of 5,280 feet? It would make measuring distances and converting so much more sensible. I think I'll go out and run half a league or for 30 minutes.

Hi Dave, It's 3/8" mild steel, pretty much the same as used in the solid I rented the day before from the local rental house except that was also stainless steel. I also got 5/16" steel for the little hook, or appendix as somebody called it, on the stem that I was asking about in that post a couple days ago. I wanted the size to be the same so that on any set, it would feel and work the same for anybody as any other flag/net/diffusion frame. The thing's pretty sturdy. I couldn't pull it apart and I gave it a couple of good bounces off the shop floor and my driveway. I used a Lincoln Electric 220V box welder with 6013 1/8" rod yesterday but I'm probably going to switch to using MIG once I get the workflow sorted out and my assembly line (well, okay, me and my cottage industry.) I'm also working on a 19" X 25" frame. It's like an 18" X 24" but, well think of "Spinal Tap", "mine goes up to eleven." I think given a choice, the entire production world will switch to the 19 X 25 s.

Thank you, Daniel. I will make sure that it's securely bagged and sturdy. It's funny that a sandwich was ordered when on the list forwarded to me there is also a list of those items but not as if to itemize the sandwich, rather as if they're also being ordered individually. It's funny, I rent an 18" X 24" 'set' fairly often from my local rental house, different than the rental place on this job, and it's practically the same thing (comes with a cookie instead of the second solid) and I haven't heard "sandwich" there. I looked on Mathews Studio Equipment griptionary and didn't find it there. Glad I asked here. It sounds like you have a strong feeling against tying. I'm sure that you're right. Can you tell me why? I get the sense from your reply that tying it off would be making things less safe. If somebody else suggests to do that, I'd like to know why you feel (it seems to me) so emphatically against it. This is a great forum. It's a bit embarrassing to ask things that I think I ought to know but I'd rather ask and get it right and people on here are always helpful. Asking was less painful in the days before this was a real name forum though!

I'm going to be doing a bit of gripping coming up and i have two questions. One, on the equipment order after the nets and flags is listed a 2' X 3' sandwich. I looked on some manufacturer's sites and didn't see anything with that name. I haven't heard it before but I know everything else on the list and it doesn't seem to be a special order. Also, there are floppies ordered on the list so it doesn't seem to be a nickname for one of those. Is it something really basic? Also, I know some knots but haven't done a lot of rigging in a while. A 1.2K HMI Par is going all the way up on a mombo-combo to shine in through a second floor window in an apartment building. The stand is going to be in the small space, say 5' to 7' feet between the building and a chain link fence. I would think that the stand ought to be tied off well. What knots would you choose? How would you secure this? There is the fence of course but no place such as a balcony on the building, although I think that maybe a line could be swung in and around the window frame but have to check. I think that there should be a safety up higher or else tying it just to the fence would be like that old joke Man: I'm stuck in this tree. Man below: Catch this rope. I'll pull you down. Thanks! Also, I started today making frames so that I can build myself a set of flags and nets and diffusion frames. I'll keep people posted. I'm looking for a good place to buy bobbinet. I believe that the bobbinet that is used in double nets is sewn in a certain way in order to avoid the possibility of moire patterns appearing when a light is shone through a double at just the right distance. Yes, this jig is primitive but I did it fast in my eagerness and the 18" X 24" frame came out evenly. I'll build a more durable one as I start mass producing them.

I remember that production companies and news stations would always designate their worst camera for certain duties, so that when say shooting a concert with unavoidable bright lights, at least only one camera would take most of the beating. When they used that camera on another job/story, you definitely knew it when you were watching tv. My old Pontiac had an AM radio with a factory reverb switch. That thing got respect even from the guys who had gone out and put in their own stereos. It was a convertible too and even with the roof down it worked great.

Troublemaker.

Hi Andrew. Do you find it worth it though to find and determine an ASA for a camera in this situation when the virtual ASA is going to change depending on light levels? A lot of people rate the HVX-200 (at certain settings) at 320 but then it's more like 160 at the open end of the lens, for example. It seems to me that since that means that you'll have to do so much extra checking of what your meter is saying if you think that you're in that area in which your virtual ASA is responding differently, why not just avoid that altogether and find another workflow?