Rob van Gelder

I think Allan Gordon enterprices in Hollywood sells and converts these camera's

"I think it would save tremendous amounts of money,...." I think that's a good one! Why do you think this? Why do you think a fimcamera that actually performs GOOD, (there is no way you want to have an "reasonable or acceptable" camera for your production) can be made for less money? Did you really research this or is this just a guess? Though I admire everybody who is going to make such a thing, it is just not something that can be done for cheap. Not if you want to stand behind the product and garantee it's performance! Look around, go to the library, there are books which will show you what a camera is made of and the knowledge you need to have about so many things, materials, film-dimensions, accuracy etc. oh, one more thing, filming is expensive, always, it will never save YOU any "tremendous" amounts of money! Happy New Year, good luck inventing!

Reading back my reply I don´t know what i was thinking..... exchanging a mirror for a prism does basically the same but it there are some issues, like the refraction index of the glass and such, but it has been so long ago that I learned about this.... But you can find yourself a 50% transparent silvered mirror and replace the original with that. You need to make a construction that keeps the light out, also the picture is reversed because it is not mirrorred by the mirror (it goes straight through). Some tiny CCD camera´s have a switch to reverse scan.

Though it is ok to check through the lens (which you can do only well with zoomlenses or relatively long lenses anyway), I recommend to have a check at least once or twice during each roll INSIDE the camera. In my years as assistant I had at least two times that there was an enormous build-up for dust in the film-path UNDER the gate, so you would never see it through the lens. It was caused one time by a little chip of film that had been pulled out of the magazine (Jammed probably earlier?) Another tile was while shooting in the desert, with a helicopter that landed and an Arri 3. Sand blew in the magazine dial opening, was transported inside the camera and it looked like the sahara inside! Stratches all over! Imagine if you decided to check through the lens " because you don´t want any sand to get into the camera". I even had one time a damaged gate, don´t know how that happened but I noticed a little cut on the upper side, looking through the lens (which is actually on the under-side in the camera) after the first takes. I checked and there was a little piece of metal sticking out, towards the film and making a very big scratch. We were in the woods, far away from any rental company so the only thing to do was to take the swiss army knife and file it off...... it worked but was scary, for sure!

Arri 3´s will do this without much problem, if there are any problems then it might be in the magazines. Therefore it is better to angle them to the right, so the film lies on the guiding rods inside the magazine as you would load it. If you angle the camera to the left (eyepiece towards the ground) the filmroll MIGHT start to scrape against the magazine cover due to its weight , and that will be worse towards the end of the roll. I would not recommend this with a sync-sound camera, as most of the movements are suspended in rubber and when they are radically off there normal position there might be a shift in focal flange dept and you might get out of focus images. Also, I remember a case where the put the Arricam magazine in 90 degrees looking down and then it was scratching the film because the inside of a magazine is in rubber too and it was just too much to clear the film channel.

Hi Dominik, I live and work in Thailand as cameraman and Steadicam operator/owner. I met Bob there, just too bad we could not work together as he was working with a different rental company than I do. But Thailand has a lot of promise for the future, you just need to be patient. You are mentioning a long term job, that means you are employed by some company? Otherwise it is hard to get a job here. For projects like Bob did it is possible to get a temporary work permit, in other cases you need to hook up with a thai company who is willing to pay a lot of expenses..... difficult, unless you are special or have something they really need. We have most of the new equipment here, not Panavision/Aaton though. But most of camera, lenses and lighting is available. And crews are mostly very efficient and good. Only their English is ...often basic. When your plans are more certain or you are here in Bangkok, feel free to contact me. Rob van Gelder, Big Eye / Lighthouse film service, Bangkok

Yes, your picture of the prism and the lightpath is incorrect. Light bounces 2 times inside the prism and so the path is longer. That means that if you replace the prism for a mirror, you should take the eyepiece lens further away from it to get focus, but this might introduce other things like vignetting. The best way is to get a prism which has on one side a 50% reflective layer and the videocamera could look through that...... Otherwise, go for full 100% video assist and operate on a LCDscreen and trust your focus puller.... :)

Dennis, are you keying the unprocessed Filmstream data? I thought, that after you have adjusted the image for the right look, color balance, detail, etc, THEN you apply the key? or is it for live-keying?

Hi Sebastian, just to be sure you have read the website of them: Thomson-Viper Anyway, if your shoot is about a lot of compositing, double passes, blue/greenscreen and such I doubt if there is any better. Best Rob

Please make a picture of that rig with the Mitchell and lens mounted to the scateboard :D :P :D Oh, don´t forget the batterypack/power supply!! B)

Hi Bob, as others already said: 50 hz: 24 @ 172.8 degrees or 25 @ 180 degrees. Rob van Gelder

Hi Bob, I hear that you were (or maybe still are) in Thailand. Any chance of meeting somewhere? Best, Rob van Gelder

:) :D

Hi Bob, Apart from living and working in Thailand as operator I am also involved and working together with a brand new rental company that supplies camera´s (16/35, incl. Arricam) grip and lights (all new Arri/Kino) (Panther.GF) and the crew comes with it. Professional, dedicated crew, trained to work together like clockwork. Hope to hear from you soon. Regards, Rob

www.motioncontroleurope.com

The white pixels flashed randomly, no pattern or fixed places. Probably not longer than one frame. Can´t say if they went to tape too, they didn´t try that, only waited till the problem disappeared. If it was up to me I would have jiggled the cards a bit in their connectors, as that was what I guessed as well. But the people here are very afraid of DIY things, if it doesn´t work as expected out of the box... then just wait till it disappears! A very Thai attitude and it sometimes works. :)

I just did a shooting with a almost brand new (3 months old) Varicam and we had a lot of problems in the beginning because of white pixels that randomly appeared all over the picture. The owner-cameraman (a Thai guy) said he had seen this problem before and to solve it they heated up the camera with tungsten lamps. Being in Thailand I would say the temperature is pretty high already but on this day it was about 22 degrees, still a nice temperature. After a while and countless black balance and black shading procedures the problem disappeared and we could start shooting. Who has seen this before? I find it hard to believe that it was a temperature problem.

Dan, if you would take the time to type " infrared videocamera industrial" in the google bar you will be amazed how much companies and details you get....... About using them: can you remember the fuzz about the Sony camera´s when they introduced the "night-shot" mode? They said that you could look through clothes. They made a button that removed the infrared cut-off filter because ALL CCD´s are highly sensitive to infrared but as this interferes with accurate color reproduction they are supplied with a filter, the bluish piece if glass that you see on a bare CCD. Rob

Phil, hopefully you don´t mean to say that video or HD for that matter as opposed to filmtechnology is foolproof? The simplest mistakes are made there too: one time I was in a rental company and overheard this telephone discussion between a "cameraman" and production: The tape he delivered from this important live event was full...... of feet, swaying around, sky, etc. He pushed the record button alright, but not for the takes, he consequently managed to stop the tape when the real action started :blink: His argument: but I saw it all in the viewfinder....... And this is human error, but the electronic errors are happening everyday as well!

A second hand Scorpio system? I don´t give you much hope on that. They are considered top of the line equipment, upgradable and therefore will be used by the same owner for a long time. And when they do part from their first owner, they will not be really cheap at all. Try Service Vision, the maker in Spain, maybe they have demo sets. Look around in second-hand fora, like the Steadicam forum or on Mandy. Anyway, be prepared to spent some serious money! (I use Preston, first generation FIZ and don´t want to part from it!)

Nunzia, there are many people on the world playing with and designing such devises. There is even a website dedicated to homebuild stabilisers. http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/ There is also a professional forum where you can look around for info, I advice you strongly to use the SEARCH function before you put such questions there, but you can get a enormous amount of info there. And look on Ebay, search for Steadicam and you will get many manuals how to build your own for cheap.

Having the DIRECTOR recording the video assist is a certain failure! They will either forget about hitting the record or pause button, or they will record between the takes! Moreso, they will probably blame someone else for not recording! Seen that, done that, do yourself a favour and give him only a screen with tuner and don´t forget the Hoodman, or he will complain that he cannot see a #$%& in the sun! <_<

Photoshop -- select "filters" ----> video ----> de-interlace ----> voilá :)

A beautiful set, but maybe a bit overkill? I mean, some lenses are very close to their neighbours in focal lenght. I foresee many " incomplete" sets in the future, as rental companies might save money and not take some less used focals....

I did a televion movie for the BBC 2 months ago where the steadicam was chosen for the speed of the shooting, in a very hilly/angled terrain. In the hands of an experienced director, who anticipates the use of Steadicam,BEFORE executing the script, and together with an experienced operator it can save a lot of time, and allowing flexibility. I know for sure that in the 8 days of shooting we covered at least 3 weeks of conventional shooting, on dolly and sticks. It was hard though, 6 to 8 hours wearing the rig every day, while one foot is always lower than the other does stress the human body.