Charles Papert

If interested, here is a short made to demo the EX1 and a Redrock M2 about a year and a half ago.

Thank you Waqas! I've been juggling a shooting career with a Steadicam and operating career which is an uneasy balance in LA (easier in small markets, where I came from)--somewhere between 20 and 25 years. Incidentally, "The Perfect Sleep" is available on DVD now and was just featured as a new release on Netflix.

Not daylight-viewable.

The event went beautifully. The Steadicam Forum has a lot of feedback from operators (not surprisingly there was not a single "winner"): http://www.steadicamforum.com/index.php?sh...aylight+monitor Also see the link in this thread for a picture and video of the "rotisserie".

Well, it's good and bad news as far as I'm concerned--after the short theatrical run this spring, the noir feature I shot is now out on DVD. That's the good news. The bad is that there's no Blu-ray, and there are no extras on the DVD. But it's out there available for rental at Netflix and Blockbuster (does anyone still go there?!) and of course for sale at Amazon etc. "The movie's justifiably preening cinematography (by Charles Papert) is...easy on the eyes" (New York Times) "Well crafted...all burnished brass and shining steel...the cinematography contains fine compositions" (Roger Ebert) "The cinematography, in a word, is simply stunning. I know that’s two words, but that’s how surprisingly breathtaking they are" (iFMagazine.com) Check out the trailer here: The Perfect Sleep Trailer - HD main site: www.theperfectsleep.com

Event is today, blue skies at the moment but may cloud up later...come on by!

As a reminder, this is happening this Sunday. The weather is not the best, it's likely to be partly cloudy but we have borrowed some of the big metal halide fixtures from "Terminator 4" to help blast some lumens onto the screens!

A definitive hands-on test of the all-important daylight performance of current and upcoming monitors suitable for professional Steadicam application. The centerpiece of the demo will be the “rotisserie” where all of the monitors will be mounted side-by-side on a rack to simulate the typical Steadicam monitor viewing position, with monitors able to be tilted and rotated in unison. Products from the following manufacturers will be presented: Boland (HD LCD) GPI (greenscreen SD CRT) LC (HD LCD from Bulgaria) Lumavec/Blackbird (SD LCD) Marshall (HD LCD, OLED) Nebtek (HD LCD) Tiffen (HD LCD, OLED) Transvideo (HD LCD) XCS (greenscreen SD CRT) Many of the manufacturers will be on hand to demo their product and answer questions. Attendance is free. Sunday, June 14 12 to 4 p.m. Camera Support 2827 N. San Fernando Blvd. Burbank, CA 91504 web site: http://web.me.com/chupap/Films/monitorshootout.html

However, the lens was extremely wide for the Hands-free portion of that shot, it would have been difficult for the focus puller to screw that one up. Can't think of a reason why he needed to run alongside other than not having time to get to the stage ahead of the camera.

Steadicam is a good look for emulating the feel of an elevator--a slight float to the frame will deliver a subtle cue that the elevator is in motion, and the operator can make a very quick boom correction at the point that the elevator stops. A skilled operator will be able to duplicate the effect that this would have if it was actually a real elevator, which is that the rig suddenly wants to fly up (or down, depending on the direction of travel)as a result of inertia and the operator would attempt to buffer that movement; this look can be replicated with some practice and is quite effective. It would be possible to simulate this also with a jib arm, but tougher to get the fast booming response.

I remember the first time I saw a car crash from this perspective (I'm thinking the pilot of 'Six Feet Under" about ten years ago) I thought it was amazing, stunning, horrifying. However it has since been repeated to the point of cliche. If it were me, I would be trying to think of a new way to show the point of impact.

I've just learned that there is an HD version of the trailer "hidden" on the site... The Perfect Sleep: HD trailer

"The Perfect Sleep" opens tomorrow in Dallas and two weeks later in Chicago. Friday April 24th Inwood Theater (Landmark) 5458 W Lovers Ln Dallas, TX 214-764-9106 Friday May 8th Renaissance Cinemas (Landmark) 1850 2nd St. #110 Highland Park, IL 60035 847-432-7903 www.theperfectsleep.com

Thanks Brad!

"The Perfect Sleep" has begun it's week-long engagement at the Quad Cinema in NYC. http://www.quadcinema.com/#490

New Screening Dates--Held Over! Due to audience response and attendance last weekend, The Perfect Sleep has been held over at the Sunset 5 until the 26th (an additional week). The NY engagement at the Quad Cinema has been pushed back a week, it will open on the 27th.

Very much "Third Man"--as in, "The Third Man Theme"...! (although my favorite version may have been the one Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass did--pretty funny actually). The original score is by David Vanian of the seminal punk group The Damned, it's quite good. I think the trailer score was made before he had finished his work.

Thanks Paul--the producer told me tonight that he has fired off some emails to the various sites that miscredited the photography (unfortunately the Times was one of several), which was nice. Richard--I disagree, most established film critics have an understanding of the major players behind the scenes. And this is the L.A. Times we are talking about!! Tonight's show went well, I'm happy with the print and generally amazed at how well the F900 cropped to 2:35 holds up, especially when cut against Genesis footage. Would love to hear feedback on it, hope some of you can see it during its engagement (through next Thursday).

I'm just the DP...there are plenty of producers and a distribution company who are dealing with such things. thanks though! There will be a viral video online shortly with some "special guest" testimonials--pretty cool actually.

thanks Brad. It opens next Friday at the Laemmele Sunset 5 (at Crescent Heights) for a week and hopefully longer, depending on attendance. I did have to operate on the film, unfortunately. I personally think that if there was ever an absolute need to separate the shooting and operating duties, it's on a low budget HD production but ironically, it is the most likely type of shoot to not be able to afford an operator and this was no exception. I dealt with it by using my Hot Gears as much as possible, operating from the engineering monitor which allowed me to keep an eye on the lighting at all times. It did make communication with my AC and dolly grip difficult (would have been fine with coms or at least walkies with headsets...no dice on either, natch). Unfortunately there was a mishap with the Hot Gears halfway through and they went off to be serviced for the remainder of the shoot, so I was back to operating from the camera, with a lot of running back and forth to the monitor... And yes, I did my own Steadicam as well but there wasn't a tremendous amount of it in the film for stylistic reasons. I did have a number of B camera days which Gary Hatfield operated, he also went off and shot some splinter unit atmospheric shots for me which were terrific (and many appear in the film).

Someone asked me off-forum what the budget was on this--principal photography was around $600K.

No adaptor, no--couldn't afford the stop-loss with our lighting package. This was a very low budget show for its scale; principal photography was around $600K and an 18 day shoot. I had Zeiss DigiPrimes and the Canon 7.5-158 zoom. The first Digizoom had just been released but we couldn't get it for this job. I ended up living on the Canon zoom more than I would have liked for speed purposes--I honestly can't tell in the final film which shots were on the primes vs the zoom, however. Interestingly enough there were five days of additional photography (2 years and many edits later!) that I wasn't available to shoot, so Greg Gardiner covered it on the Genesis with Primos--I was naturally concerned how this would cut with my F900 footage but it worked out well enough. Projected, I can see the difference in sharpness but it's one of those things that virtually no-one else will notice. Luckily these were all discrete scenes that "live" on their own, which helped.

The day I've been waiting a LONG time for has finally arrived--"The Perfect Sleep", a film-noirish extravaganza that I shot 4 1/2 years ago is about to have a limited theatrical release. We worked very hard on the visuals for this film and I believe that it shows. We shot principal photography on the F900 and it will be screened in anamorphic 35mm. See the trailer at: The Perfect Sleep Opens 3/13 at the Laemmle Sunset 5, Los Angeles Opens 3/20 at the Quad Cinema, NYC Chicago, Dallas and Portland dates TBD The booking is currently for one week at each theater depending on attendance...come one and all!

Complete Hot Gears system with motors for Arri and Panahead. Details here: http://web.mac.com/chupap/hotgears/Home.html

"Cheers" was set in Boston (the exterior was the Bull and Finch pub on Beacon St. near the Boston Common, which for many years has milked its fame with tourbus groups passing through and merchandise galore), and there were indeed a number of 35mm originated establishing shots (can't explain the "smeary NTSC" look that Tim recalls, these were definitely shot on film). It is pretty standard practice to have 2nd unit establishing shot work done in the city represented by a given sitcom, not a big deal to gather as can done with as little as a 2-man crew. To answer your question about the sitcom audience Josh--yes, the audience is supposed to sit there all day. That's why when you come to the tourist sites in LA, you are inundated with people recruiting audiences for these shows. Some scenes may be reshot after the audience is released, and inserts or specific gags may be done at that time also.