Bobby Shore

Hey All! I wanted to see if anyone had experience with dry for wet lighting, specifically with using moving lights (clay paky or robe or varilight etc) to create punchy shafts of daylight that can replicate the water caustic effect. I'm shooting a small sequence for a tv show in a couple weeks, and planning on going with the tried and tested method of bigger lamps bouncing into loosely skinnned-rosco hard mirror gel and shooting overcrank (200fps minimum), plus a big overhead soft box. The set we're shooting in is meant to be a busted up bell tower with holes in the roof, so wanted to explore other ways of achieving a punchier beam of light effect (hence looking into something like a clay paky sharpie or robe esprit). Attached a couple images that have a ballpark effect. And open to any insight from folks who may have done this before ? bobby shore

Hey! I'm prepping a low budget feature in LA, and am trying to track down Linestra's. If anyone knows where I can find them in LA, would love to know. Thanks! bobby

Hey, I'm have a shoot coming up with a lot of day time car int. work, and was toying with the idea of doing some of it green screen poor man's style. Anyone have any good examples of films or television shows that have pulled this off? Shooting style would be to mimic practical shooting as much as possible, so pretty bumpy/shaky camera work (ie. hood mount, side mount, hand held). Thanks! Bobby

hey man, I'm shooting a feature right now, tested the MX and the alexa pretty extensively. alexa wins hands down, even shooting 4444 to the sxs cards. I blew up the tests to 35mm, both the RED, and the alexa shooting to cards and srw-1 deck HDcamsr, and the difference (for the different alexa formats) was almost unnoticeable. in alexa RAW, there's about 2 more stops of dynamic range, but going to cards still gives you plenty of room to work with (at least 2 more stops over/under than the RED). plus the alexa handles highlights/shadows with a much more graceful way. also, the quality of the sxs cards, which is only a logc 1080 p finish, still beats out the RED 4K image in terms of overall quality (my opinion). even for FX work, I spoke with the post superviser on the show and 4444 was approved no problem. again, I took the tests all the way to print, watched on a 60 ft screen, and the alexa shot with sxs cards held up fine, looked great. we ended up going with MX for the feature cause of budget, and it's been working fine, but would have definitely preferred to have used the alexa. Let me know if you have any other questions. bobby shore DP mtl/la bobbyshore.com

so we did our piece with the phantom over the last week or so. only hmi lighting, mostly 18's through 12 by light grids, and a couple 6k and 4k's, also diffused, and some data flash units in the BG. shot with 360 deg. shutter, rated @ 400, and shot 360 fps, 600 fps, and 800 fps. without any noticeable flicker. kinda goes against everything I read/researched, always hearing that 360 fps was the highest you could go with hmi lighting. used regular electronic flicker free ballasts. anyways, thought I'd share, wasn;t expecting it to work.

came across this last week... could prove useful: high speed ballast bobby

Hey Mitch, Thanks so much for the reply. For the houselights, even though I'll be testing this week, sounds like I'll have to kill them and just supplement everything with my own lighting. We have enough big guns that this won't be a problem, especially after having talked with the director and keeping everything high speed relatively tighter in value. So 250 for the ISO? I've heard of people rating it up to 500 and the results turning out great, definitely will be part of the testing. @JD, thanks for the info as well. The lights are definitely metal halide, but we;re shooting in a couple different rinks and they have varying degrees of newer/older heads, so it'll definitely be something to watch out for in terms of matching color temp to the HMI lighting. As for power, we'll be sorted so as to run bigger heads further away and diffused. I'll keep you posted on the results of the test. Thanks! Bobby

Hey, The forum's been really helpful with this topic already, but I had a couple specific questions that maybe you guys could help me out with. I'm shooting a hockey movie, and to accent some of the faster paced action-y type footage, we want to shoot some high speed work (specifically for some of the hockey fights in the movie). All the locations we're shooting in have existing metal halide fixtures above the ice, so to match the color temp., I'd have to go HMI instead of tungsten. Everything I've read so far has seemed somewhat favorable to using HMI's at highspeeds, although it seems a little more hit or miss with a 60hz cycle, even with electronic ballasts (I"m shooting in canada) Has anyone used the phantom on int.'s with only HMI lighting? I know the existing fixtures will prove to be an issue as well (which I plan on testing next week), but do the same rules apply at higher speeds in terms of shooting at derivative frame rates of 20fps to avoid flicker? I don't think I have the lighting budget to kill the existing lighting and supplement the entire arena with my own. Also, I know with tungsten lighting at highspeeds you want to stick with 5K and up, is it the same for HMI? Would a 1.2 potentially be more of an issue than a 4K, or 12K? Thanks in advance! Bobby Shore DP Mtl/LA bobbyshore.com

hey, I have a project where the director i wants a subject to walk from a wide shot (probably starting from about 20 feet away), into an ECU of the subject's eye. we'll be shooting on a soundstage with the RED MX, so shooting at a deep stop is definitely doable. I was thinking about using the clairmont swing/tilt macro lens system, does anyone have experience with it? Or do you think a I could achieve the shot with just a macro lens around a T-11? We're probably going to shoot the shot in reverse (starting in the ECU of the eye), since focus will be so critical that close. Again, any advice at all from anyone that's tried something similar would be great. Thanks! Bobby Shore DP mtl/la bobbyshore.com

hey, thanks for all the help/advice. seems like the 90 degree plate is probably gonna win out. bobby

hey, I have an upcoming shoot that's gonna require a bunch of shots where we need to rig the camera sideways to shoot with the frame vertically oriented. We;re shooting RED MX framing for 16:9. I don't have a ton of experience with either the dutch head or 90 degree plate, if anyone has any advice on the best way to do this, I'm all ears. Do I even need a special head/adapter, or can I just throw the baseplate on sideways and tilt away? Not sure this really belongs in gripping, but figured it was a camera placement question. Thanks in advance! Bobby Shore DP Mtl/LA www.bobbyshore.com

hey, so I'm shooting my first car spot next week for Toyota. Concept is simple enough: night ext. on a tennis court, two friends playing doubles against unseen partners. One of the partners is blabbering non stop about his car, and the spot basically jump cuts all over the court from close to wide, etc etc. as this guy keep going on. At the end of the spot, we cut to the parking lot where the two friends get their new Toyota (I attached a pic of the location, BG will be the tennis courts), there' s a couple shots of them putting their gear away, getting in the car, driving off. I know for car lighting, you generally want as big a source as possible to maximize on specular reflections. since it's location work outdoors at night, and not a huge budget, there's only so big we can go (probably 20 by's). Is that big enough that if positioned properly could give the specular highlights needed without revealing the source? I'm pushing for a silver or grey color on the car to minimize this (does that make sense? - I've shot with black cars at night outside and it quickly turned into a cluster**(obscenity removed)**). Also, I've seen a couple people use 8 ft. flourescent tubes positioned around the car to bring out metallic reflections. Any advice is more than welcome. thanks in advance! Bobby Shore DP mtl/la tennis court.pdf

Thanks so much for replies. I finally met with the director today, turns out we won't actually need to operate the camera for the shot, which means no remote head. Looks like I'm probably going with a small porta-jib mounted on a fisher 11 or pee-wee. Appreciate all the help! Bobby Shore DP Mtl/LA

Hi, I have a commercial shoot coming up that requires a small jib shot, I only need the camera to move from about 4 feet off the ground to about 10-11 feet (6-7 ft. move). Unfortunately, this is outside the range of a pee wee (or equivalent) dolly's boom arm, and I'm looking for any suggestions for a small jib arm that can be mounted on one of these types of dollies. I've used a lenny arm to this effect before, underslung on a weaver steadman head, but we're shooting with a 5D and think it might be a touch of overkill. Thanks in advance! Bobby Shore DP Mtl./LA

hey man, great looking footage, love the feel! what'd you shoot it with? I really like the low contrast look/lighting. I'd be interested to know how you got those washed out, veiling flares, almost looks like you were shooting a pane of glass the whole time. Really nice. Bobby Shore DP Mtl/LA bobbyshore.com