Elhanan Matos

I have attended about 3 or 4 Santa Fe workshops so far and would have to say that it is a great workshop to take to get a good grasp of HD. The workshop is usually 4 or 5 days long and includes lectures and presentation from many professionals, usually they are, Michael Bravin from Band Pro, Jeff Cree from Band Pro, Michael Condon from Clairmont Camera, Sean Fairburn, and many other people from all the major Vendors in HD equipment, ie, Sony, Panasonic, Thomson, Canon, Fujinon, Zeiss, etc... The workshop mainly revolves around the F900, but also includes the Viper, F950, and Varicam.

That was a very horrible ad, David LaChapelle should stick to shooting stills, I love his portraits. I also refuse to believe Darius Khondji shot that. And as for Rent I can't wait for that movie to be released in theatres... SO THEY CAN STOP PLAYING THAT HORRIBLE TRAILER!!

The ziess digiprimes, much like all the other zeiss lenses, will give you a crisper and snappier picture when compared to the Fuji's and Canons. The Zeiss Digiprimes have an almost perfect even field illumination, and also have the highest MTF. They are also all the same size and weight (except for the 3.9 and the 70).

I've worked on several commercials where the director is also the DP. Paul Laufer is one of the director/DP's that I have worked with in the past that I can think of right now.

I have worked with Image 80's at around 1000fps and they do flicker at that speed, I have also noticed the flicker at 500fps. I think it all depends on how far away the lights are and how diffused the light is, also if you have any specular highlights you will definitely notice the flicker. The safest way to work in highspeed would be to use large tungsten units, 5k and above, or any tungsten light running on DC power.

HD cameras are more likely to be damaged because they have more pixels on the imager, but this is very very rare. I think last year alone I shipped at least 100 cameras (most of them HD cameras) by air all over the world, and as far as I know, nothing went wrong. The most important thing is to put the camera in the correct case, usually a thermodyne camera case works best.

The mount your camera has is a B4 mount. Canon, Fuji, and Zeiss all make prime lenses for your camera. They can get very expensive though, I know the Zeiss Digiprimes range from $20,000 to $30,000 each, or you can get a full set for around $170,000. The canons would be the cheapest, although I'm not sure about the price.

They are rehoused Fuji ENG lenses. Youre better off using the Fuji Cine lenses, or if youre in a bind try the canon lenses.

The front cover seems to be a little bit too busy, you should consider only using one photograph for the cover. Also the yellow text is too bright and pops too much, and try a font thats a bit more conventional.

I've seen these clips on a few different computers and the brightness and contrast varies between computers, I also compared the quicktime to the uncompressed AVI's and the AVI's are much brighter and more saturated. I don't know why but I'm sure it has something to do with display drivers or something like that. I attached a still frame, maybe this looks better. I wanted to attach one of the original raw HD images but the hard drive that I had it all stored on seems to be corrupted, and all i have left is the downconverted AVI's.

We originally planned to shoot alot more, there were four scenes that we couldnt shoot because of bad weather, and so what you see there is everything that we shot. The two drops that repeat at the end are just duplicate takes of the first two drops and werent going to be in the final cut, but without those two the spec is only about 15 or 20 seconds long.

There are many differences betweent he F900 and the Genesis. The most important being the imager and the recording device. The F900 records in HDCAM, the genesis records in HDCAM SR. The F900 is a 6 MP camera, 3 CCD's at about 2 MP each. The Genesis uses a 12MP single CCD imager in a vertical stripe pattern. Also the Genesis is a simpler camera and much more user friendly, allowing you to change from video nomenclature to film nomenclature, this helps alot if you are not familiar with video cameras.

Hmm... My favorites are: Bjork At the Drive-in Clap your hands say yeah Death cab for cutie DJ shadow Portishead Radiohead Smashing Pumpkins The Residents The Mars Volta The Postal Service The shins Zero 7 Thievery Corporation The Cure Oysterhead Massive Attack Interpol Cibo Matto

Ok, I didn't DP this spec, but I did direct it. The DP was Kevin Zanit. We shot this spec about three months ago, everything was shot, cut and graded in HD. The compression isn't as great as I would like it to be, the uncompressed files are incredibly sharp though. Heineken Spec

I recently bought a Kodak Jiffy series II, the camera seems to be from the late 1930's. What I'm trying to find out is what the shuter speed is on the camera (it only has one) and the aperture (I'm assuming it has one too because I can't seem to change it). I've done a few tests with my light meter and from all my calculations I'm getting approximately an F32. If anyone knows the shutter speed on this camera it would be really helpful... also does anybody know of a good place to find 620 film? Right now the only way I can use this camera is to re-spool my 120 film onto a 620 spool.

The directors label series has been out for a couple of years now, so far they released, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Chris Cunningham. All three are great! I can't wait for the Mark Romanek DVD.

I've been hearing good things about a movie called "Sex and Lucia." That movie was shot on the F900, but I'm not sure if it was released theatrically worldwide.

I used to work in the service department at Band Pro, they repair HD equipment as well as Chrosziel accessories. And if I remember right... (you won't like this) You can't replace that part, the only parts that you can replace on that mattebox are the filter trays and all the little knobs. But you should probably call Band Pro, or 16x9 inc. at (818) 841-9655, either ask for Vince in the service dept. or James Lee at 16x9.

You can do single frame recording with the F900, it's a hidden feature in the camera that is easily accessible.

http://www.claudiomiranda.com/heineken.html Thats a link to the heineken commercial.

Call Pace Technologies, (818) 759-7322. www.pacetech.com. They are the best at what they do, no questions about it.

I know Plus 8 Digital has one but I think it's on Miami Vice right now. Call Plus 8 Digital New York (212)947-9797, and ask for John Fishburn, he should be able to help you if they have one. If they don't have one they might be able to find out who does have one and subrent it from them. If that doesn't work then call Michael Bravin at Band Pro Film & Digital (818) 841-9655, they sell the Digizoom and Primes to all the rental houses.

the GII is very easy to thread. The Millenium XL is the tough one.

All the music videos I have worked on go through at least 2 hours of tape for a five minute video. But this could be because they were all HD and they could shoot that much (this is a great advantage but also a great disadvantage).

Mike, I have never filmed out any of my own tests. You should talk to my boss Michael Bravin, I'm sure he has either done the tests himself or knows someone who has.