John Sprung

There are over a dozen makes and models of these small outboard recorders. With the HDSR shortage after the tsunami, they've been a hot item. -- J.S.

This is the range where you might think about adapting an astronomical telescope. -- J.S.

I actually saw a Doiflex once about 40 years ago. Very few were ever made. Nothing on them is interchangeable with Arri. They use a guillotine shutter, not a rotating mirror. No parts available. If it's in excellent condition, you might offer $25. It's a large decorative paperweight. -- J.S.

The problem is mostly moving and storage in post. Our shows typically shoot about 500 GB per day on Apple ProRes on the Alexas. If we tried do do that uncompressed, it would be north of 3 TB per day. And we'd be stuck with those archaic DPX files -- each frame is a separate file, and there's no sound. -- J.S.

The main thing to remember is that with a mirror shutter reflex camera, what you see in the finder is exactly what you *don't* get on the film. Run the camera without film and watch several of the strobes with one eye on the finder and the other open. The ones you *don't* see in the finder are the ones you have on film. As for exposure, shoot bracketing tests. Strobes because of their short duration get into the area where reciprocity failure becomes an issue. -- J.S.

FCP X? -- J.S.

It's random. You develop the habit of inching it open when you cut. That was easier on the models I and II, where the inching knob is near your right thumb. They could have given it a hard stop, but that wouldn't be good for the high precision mirror shutter. -- J.S.

The killer is coating rather than slitting and perforating. So, as long as there's photochemical film, there'll be both 16 and 35, and on special order, 65. When the volume drops to where the coating plants have too much down time, that'll be the end. -- J.S.

Apple has always been sort of the Starbuck's of computing. There seems to be a stable five percentish niche market for that, and Apple owns it. They're a great profitable closed proprietary consumer gadget company, nothing wrong with that. -- J.S.

Gel cell sealed lead acid batteries -- you can get them from a motorcycle shop, along with a charger. Or, you could get them from a computer supply place that handles UPS batteries. Negative on pin #1 and positive on pin #4 of the XLR connector. -- J.S.

Go as far upstream as you can -- the camera original cards if you still have them -- and look at it on a different system. If you're lucky, it's the editing system that's the problem. One of the virtues of a big post house is that you can try different machines to see if you get the same problem. -- J.S.

Check with the major dealers in your area. Panasonic has been doing presentations on the AF-100 out here. Attend, and they give you a card for $250 off if you buy within a few weeks. -- J.S.

There's a company that shows at CineGear that has a lot of GFCI stuff. I think it may be Bender: http://www.bender.org/ -- J.S.

The IR thing is endemic to all big single chip cameras. We got bit by it on an Alexa once. -- J.S.

No, Paul had heart trouble. He died a couple years ago. I wonder what became of that movie he was working on. He always had such interesting and unusual ideas.... -- J.S.

What's the source for that? Why do the banks, insurance companies, government, hospitals, etc. use LTO instead? LTO was designed for long term storage with infrequent access. -- J.S.

No problem. Film has had that resolution forever. Just get out the diffusion filters.... -- J.S.

You might want a larger shutter angle = longer exposure to get more motion blur, and a softer, more fluid effect. Or, you could go the other way for the "Private Ryan" look. -- J.S.

That's a problem I've suggested Arri could solve by introducing a variant on the PL mount. Alas, no interest. My idea is to add a pin that sticks out to the lens, and for electronic cameras with no shutter, a hole that allows that pin to enter. On cameras with a shutter, the pin would prevent mounting an unsafe lens. Film designed lenses without the pin would work fine on cameras with the extra hole in the mount. -- J.S.

Many years ago we had an assistant editor who had a strip of film tattooed around her leg. The only thing anybody said about it was that she had chosen 16mm, when she could have had 35mm for the same price.... -- J.S.

But nobody does. The few who got burned on FCP have gone back to Avid, which pretty much owns the town. Lightworks and Edius are the other niche players. -- J.S.

Test a variety of combinations and pick what you like. A lot depends on what kind of dance it is, what it's supposed to do for the movie. Maybe try 36 fps 360 degree shutter, 12 fps 15 degree shutter.... When you see a combination you like, try others that are nearby. If you liked 36/360, try 36/240, 48/360, etc. You can do this with your assistants on a test day at the rental house. That's a big advantage of digital, you can see it seconds after you shoot it, and try again. -- J.S.

Vaseline or similar on a flat piece of glass would be a way to do it in production. I'd look at digital ways of doing it in post. That way you're not locked into it, you can increase or decrease the effect in the context of the cut piece. Less time spent in production, and you're not freezing your tush off while you decide.... ;-) -- J.S.

What kind of lens mount is that? The Konvases I've seen had a single port flange type mount that looks sort of like PL. It was called OCT-19 or OCT-18, IIRC. These look more like the original Arri or Eyemo mount. -- J.S.

Indeed -- I just chanced to catch another example on PBS late at night, a famous and controversial old movie from 1960, "Never on Sunday". It turns out to be a sweet little movie, but the most surprising thing was that it could have been done on a Roger Corman budget. -- J.S.