Jim Feldspar

Not a silly question. Most of the time we'll benefit from having two 1k (and lighter weight) generators that can work in different places and then for our occasional needs for a 2K power supply, we have the parallell kit. Thanks, everbody! Good book recommendation Dan, thanks. EM 7000 seems like it must be pretty big. Was it riding on a Shotmaker? Why did the oil sensor have to be disabled?

Thanks Chris, I may not get a chance right away to test using a 1200w HMI but I will let you know. If my math is right, after striking, shouldn't a 1200w par (even an HMI) be drawing about 9.6 Amps in which case that wouldn't be close to maxing out a 2K generator? If you're recording audio, have you been pleased with the ineverters noise levels? They're advertised as being really quiet so I was surprised when I started them-louder than I thought. I'm sure having them some distance away with a sound wall will be okay but still I was surprised.

We just bought two Honda Eu1000w inverter series generators with a parallell kit to utilize them together as a 2K source. I've always heard that when using HMIs, crystal sync generators are required. I've seen some on sets and they had red digital readouts on them. I guess I could always test but I'd rather ask first. Do you think that I can use HMIs with these generators. Also, if instead of a couple of 575s I wanted to use a 1200w HMI; would the striking demands be too much? Obviously a 2k power source could handle 1200w but starting up that 1200w HMI might be too much?

The XL-H1 is cool but I'm looking at the XH-G1 because it's so much less $. I'm thinking of buying a Canon HDV camera but don't need the HD-SDI out because I can't afford to rent the appropriate decks and I don't need genlock. A salesman told me that with my MacBookPro and Final Cut Pro I could record uncompressed HD -Not HDV - using the HD-SDI out which if true would be great even if I had to spend some money on external drives. Does anybody know how to do this? I'm thinking of buying the new XH-G1 if I can use the HD-SDI out; otherwise the XH-A1 is $3000.00 less ! and otherwise the same camera.

We're making a short with interiors and exteriors set on "the hottest day of the year" but we're shooting in New England in October. Does anybody have any suggestions -lighting, gels, lenses, filters, anything - that could give us a hot waether look? We'rs shooting on Mini-DV...but as long as the I'm asking, if you have any tips that work primarily for film that would be good to know for future reference!

I've been shooting video, both 30 F.P.S. and 24P and doing slow motion using the speed adjustment in Final Cut Pro. It doesn't always look as good as I would like (I know of course that it's not going to be the same as shooting a higher frame rate in the first place) but I've heard that a different shutter speed can make a difference if you know that you're going to slow the footage down. I usually shoot at 1/60. Are there good shutter speeds if you're going to adjust in Final Cut Pro?

Thank you everybody. In this case, can you tell me what is an R.C.D.?

I want to use a 1200W HMI PAR but the location (old house) has only 15A circuits. The (student) gaffer says that's okay but I've heard that HMIs have a "striking voltage" and that might require a bigger circuit in this case. Can you tell me? I don't want to ask any more questions at the rental house because, although I've used these lights before, the gaffer asked a lot of basic questions when we booked the equipment and the way they looked at us I think that they were almost on the verge of not renting to us.

I'm going to be doing some green screen shots so I searched on this site and found a lot of information, including that people like to use green lights for green screen but green Kino tubes were all that was mentioned. I'm using tungsten lights. Can anybody recommend specific gels? Also, do people use blue lights for blue screen? Are HMIs good for this sort of thing? I'm shooting Mini-DV which isn't the best format for green screen because it "loses" too much color information according to what I've read. Any tips?

I thought that French flags clamped on to the matte box were just to screen flares but somebody told me that even if there is no flare issue, you still have light rays coming in and blocking some of them can affect the image. The example he gave: He was shooting across a wide store with a lot of flourescents on the other side. There were no lens flares from the lights but he noticed that when he adjusted the French flag so that it blocked some of that light from coming in; the contrast was better -less flat I think but not sure what he said exactly, just that it was a nicer image. I never knew this. Does anybody know about this or can explain it?

That's all good advice. Although I work at a t.v. studio, I'm more interested in films. I've helped on some and people just seem to throw them up on the stands and then the D.p. comes over and shoots. I've never heard anybody talk about the height. I'm going to check out that Burt Lancaster movie.

I work at a cable access station and the studio fresnels used as key lights are hung from a grid about 12 feet high. When they do a location shoot they put their Lowell lights on stands up about 8 feet or so. They ddidn't seem to have any opinion on the height question but I know that height matters- nose shadows and dark eye sockets - and they seem pretty sure about the key being 45 degrees to the talent. Also, I saw a film director interviewed on the Charlie Rose show and because he used to do theater lighting and D.P., Charlie jovially asked him what he thought of the show's lighting and the director said well, his (the director's) key light could be a little higher. Is there a most desirable height for a key light?