Michael Campanella

I just went and watched it again on and can say it's just a helicopter shot. I was uncertain about the beginning of the shot when I posted yesterday, for some reason I was thinking the camera flew out of his window. Seeing it again they just cut from inside his bedroom to outside on the helicopter. At around 2:28 to 2:31 in the YouTube video is where they had to edit out the shadow of the helicopter, I remember that clearly from the DVD.

Hey Matt, I'm about 90% sure that the entire thing was filmed on a helicopter. It's been a long time since I've seen the film and I'm having a tough time remembering the angles of the camera and the DJ at the start of the shot, so I can't say with certainty that there isn't a cheat early in the shot before we find ourselves looking through the DJs window. However if I remember correctly it's all done from a helicopter. I know for a fact that they had to have the shadow of the helicopter removed from the building early in the shot. If you have access to the DVD the scene is discussed there in one of the extra features. Hope that helps, great film BTW. Mike

I have to say that I agree with everything you said here. This is my biggest critic of Avatar, from a technical point of view. It's something that while watching the movie reminded me that I was seeing something that is still in it's infancy. I think if film makers want to seriously create 3D films they will need to re-examine certain time honored techniques, and it starts with the focus issue. Too often in the film my eyes would wonder onto a certain object in the frame and be irritated that it wasn't in focus. Having said that I got to say that for me, that wasn't eought to ruin the experience. I really enjoyed Avatar as a whole. I thought it was very submersive and the amount of detail was fantastic. I loved the little touches, like the computer displays, windows, and so on. I heard the story isn't too original, my gf says it's Fern Gully in space, but that really didn't bother me either. I had no trouble witth the glasses or my eyes either, the film pretty much flew by for me. I think I will watch it again after Christmas to try and look at it even more technically without being distracted by the story.

I've seen quite a bit of Red footage that I like, however this was the first stuff I saw that was really a disappointment.

These Red threads are becoming ever so tiresome. Who cares about all these petty arguments? If the camera comes out and you use it for a particular job and it does what you need it then there are no problems. Some people will throw their money away hoping the camera can fulfill a dream, others will probably put it to good use. But that shouldn't be of any concern to you. If it's a good camera, then it will become an option among many others, and for some project it just might fit.

That's fantastic news, I hope they screen it here in Stockholm or that it gets a DVD release. Peter Bogdanovich really deserve a lot of credit for his work in restoring Welles' projects and even defending the man's name.

I've had this happened to me twice out on locations. The first time, I took it as a learning experience. The second time I warned the photographer of this problem, and he decided to neglect my advice because the rental house told him it wasn't a problem. I feel your pain.

I have never seen the Gaffer's handbook you mention, but I can tell you that The Set Lighting Technicians handbook is fantastic and worth every penny.

I saw this cool music video the other day, and I was wondering if someone here could tell me roughly how many frames per second they think some of these effects are. There are 3 of them in particular, all slow motion effects. One is water coming out of a faucet. One is slap to a face. And the last one is bucket of water thrown at a person. Here is a link to the video El-P - Smithereens (NY Times). It's on the New York times website and you might need to register to view it. Thanks in advance.

As other have mentioned I've found it fairly easy to get Fuji to send me one or two "test" rolls. They are pretty relaxed about it. As a matter of fact we ran short even with their "test" rolls and called them again and managed to get more.

Fantastic post by Adam ... I've got a long way to go before I'll be sitting in any DI sessions, but you explained a lot about what can be done. I'll have to get the book recommended by in the previous post as well.

I never knew that part ... pretty clever.

congratulations

My version is beige and I never really got the cover until I saw this black version. One of the best books I've ever purchased in my opinion.

That's the 758DR you found on Sekonic's website 758Cine is no where to be found on their webiste.