Daniel Smith

To get into film is my dream, however as I've started through television I have a feeling drama is going to be my area, which I don't mind at all as it's probably the most cinematic television genre. Although I'm hoping to get into the NFTS after ravensbourne so perhaps I'll move completelly over to film then. Provided I get in of course...

Hey Serge. Yeh.. studio A lol. A fellow student in the year above me used muslin for a similar idea, for rave-on-air. I just left it a little late, as I had my sights set on tracing paper. But since as it needs to pass the flame test, I won't waste my time with it. I'm hoping to atleast LD one of the rave-on-air channels next year so this time I'll know well in advance. Went on your profile, saw you talking to a Stephen Price who also went ravensbourne. First two people I've seen around here who are from rave. Apparently Stephen works for Take 2 Films, used to drop a lot of work off their when doing work for IBF in covent garden. Good to see some ex-rave students involved in film and not just television.

Ok thanks. Another question, this is slightly vague but I'll try to explain it as best I can. In audio balanced connectors are used to shield the signal from common mode interference, CCD's are also vulnerable to this sort of interference. It's not just gain adjustments that fires up noise. So, I was wondering if CCD's have any similar technology that shields it from this interference? Could the capacitors somehow be connected to the system with two phases 180 degrees opposite? Sorry for the poncey question, but I was delving into balanced and un-balanced signals the other day and wondered if the same principles could be used on CCD's.

To be honest I'm not too bothered about the falloff, however if I had time I'd place a light underneath it aswell. The only thing I'm bothered about is that these things have to go through the flame test before I can light them, most things apart from gels will just set on fire. Burning isn't a problem, it's fire. But, I have to remember this is only a college project and I'm not spending crazy amounts of money on something I'm not making anything out of. I'll try and post a video link at some point so you can all see what it was all about if anyones interested, although a groups TX for tommorow has absolutelly creamed my plans. Their LD blagged about 15x MAC 250 moving lights, about 20 LED strip lights which change colour and brightness through DMX, and they have atleast 2 studio lighting guru's working on it. And the LD owns some crazy 30k lighting desk. The studio looks like the death star. Myself and my 3 man lighting team have done very little studio lighting, just all on-location drama lighting. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definatelly keep the fabric idea in mind, I'm not writing off this idea as a live television broadcast is taking place next summer which will have a solid budget.

Only problem is I want about 6. Cheapest place in the UK I've found does 7 metre rolls for about £45 roughly. 6 would just be rediculous, this might be a largish college project but I'm not paying out that much. The college is willing to pay expenses but within reason. And the loan stores don't keep that much of one type in. I've taken an alternative route so far, I'm purchasing a whole bunch of 6ft fluorescents which im going to gell different colours. Pink cyc wash with white gobo patterns all over, along with the fluorescents for hard light should look ok. http://blog.dispatch.com/mgrossberg/Spring...arge%20cast.jpg 'Cos I didn't steal this like.... Anyway thanks for the suggestions, but I think I'll be ok now I have an alternative. I'll keep an eye out for somewhere that sells re-used gel, although my college normally has loads. Just not 6 rolls of Lee 250.

Hi. I need an alternative to Lee diffusal gel (expense reasons), I'm lighting a studio and wanting to hang 7 meter long lanterns to shine gelled lights down, to build various pillars of light. I wanted to get tracing paper as it's cheap however the problem is it needs to pass a flame test, and I know it won't pass. So far I've heard baking tray paper. Any other ideas? Sorry I know this is posted in the wrong place but I need answers desperatelly and the lighting section isn't as popular. I need to sort this by next thursday. Thanks Dan.

Hard drives are less reliable but I don't think they are anywhere near as bad as people make them out to be. I think it really depends on how important the video is to you, I keep all my video on my hard drive but it's not commercial work so it would only be a shame if I lost it. If it's commercial it needs to be on something reliable. I'm not sure if these will deal with non-business customers but they are offering a cheap LTO drive: http://www.idealkit.co.uk/collections/mass...-200gb-internal Failing that there are DAT drives, holding a similar amount to the low end LTO drives just a hell of a lot cheaper. I don't know how reliable DAT tape is, perhaps someone else here can fill that one in. But as I say, it really depends how large and important the work is. If it will fit, DVD discs are reliable provided they are looked after. Same with blu-ray.

Western digital do 1TB external USB hard drives for about £90. I'd say DLT tape but that involves getting the drive etc. which can be costly. It really depends on how much you're storing to make it worth it. I like the 1TB hard drive as its cheap, holds a lot, and you can access it when you want. Get 3 and stick them on a hub. LTO is nice just bloody expensive.

I'd probably try finding an Avid or final cut system then chopping it up and see if that fixes the problem. Importing one file that big is just asking for trouble imo, unless you have some insane setup. The only problem I find with re-exporting files is that I always have to do it in un-compressed. And then you have stupidly difficult and big files.

Hi. Probably a silly question, but why are shutters still used in digital photography? Surely an eletronic servo of some kind could allow for signal intake at certain intervals. anyone? tnx. Dan.

Ok tnx. I was thinking about the HDX900 also, which offers both HD and SD, it would be nice to record some SDI on a 2/3" as the DSR-570's and 500's we have don't have an SDI out.

Hi. I don't know how more capacitors on a CCD creates more noise however, a lot of cameras, mainly stills cameras offer the option of shooting in a lower resolution. Do you think it takes the photo at full resolution and then down-rezzes it or will it use less sensors on the CCD? And, will using less sensors on the CCD have any effect on noise, even amongst the millions more un-used? cheers. Dan.

The simple way is to make sure contrast is set to default and then turn down the brightness level just until the black bar doesn't go any blacker, but don't go any further. Standard way of setting up a 570 viewfinder anyway. But I'd still run some tests before hand. See how it looks on the LCD and then on a broadcast monitor.

Gels are supplied by the college fortunatelly.

Yeh I've seen some fluorescent coloured sleeves but again, they are about £8 EACH. So I'm just going to wrap them in gel.

Hi. I am the LD for an upcoming live studio show at my college, and I'm trying to get hold of some wall lights like the ones shown here: (Straight from the Strand lighting web site) I was talking to a sessional tutor today called Luker Rollie, and he is against neons as they are expensive and fragile. I was looking into fluorescents for price. However he mentioned a plastic tube light, but couldn't remember the name of it. Apparently it's cheap, durable and you don't have to mess around with a ballast etc. I'm just wondering if anyone here knows what these are called. The other option of course is to buy a barrell or bendy strip light, although I really like the idea of a perfectly straight rigid tube to hang, as I'm not sure I'll have a backdrop to screw into yet. Any suggestions from anyone, baring in mind I am from the UK, I am willing to rent aswell if anyone knows anywhere good that does this kind of stuff (in the London/Kent area). Cheers Dan.

David Crossman a television director linked me this, I thought it was interesting. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7639915.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7639614.stm A hollywood legend, real shame to see him go.

- not to mention the stupidly quick seek times, less than 0.35ms.

ok thanks guys. I'm looking forward to those solid state drives coming down in price, writing at 85meg per second and reading at about 130, SATA II with RAID support, four of them should go in a fairly cheap raid 5 motherboard and cover hd-sdi. But really I'm only looking into being able to process hd-sdi, I'm not splashing out on a blackmagic card when I know it's just not worth it at the moment. I just wish my college would realise that they're only getting about 10% of the three HDX900's potential by recording onto tape right now.

is this from a 7200?

I'd shoot at dusk, and use car lamps and batteries to bring out the actor more.

great article. Does anyone know of any performance data giving actual read/write speeds of hard drives? I've had a search but nothings come up. It would be nice to not use 6 hard drives and get some 10,000 rpm drives instead but as they give no clue of the speed I don't know how many would be fast enough.

ok tnx. This is more a computer question than anything, but as for building a server that can process hd-sdi, I've worked out the data rate to be about 1.054 gbits per second including 20% room. What's really confusing me is western digital hard drives, it says on their web site that even their 7,200rpm hard drives have a transfer rate of 3gbits per second. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.as...veid=552#jump11 But in every server I've seen built to take high quality video there has been a raid 0 array, but these hard drives appear to have a transfer rate which can handle hd-sdi. Either I'm looking at the wrong thing here or new sata II hard drives can handle hd-sdi viewing in realtime. what am I missing here?

cheers Phil. when it comes to bluescreen work do you think I'm better off shooting 1080i or 720p, in terms of keying? down rezzing to standard def after. dan