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Tim Pipher

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Everything posted by Tim Pipher

  1. When shooting on a stage, any suggestions regarding what white balance temperatures should be used to simulate different conditions/locations (indoors or outdoors, night or day, sunrise or midday, sunny or cloudy, office or living room, moonlight etc.)? I find lots of charts online showing different white balance temperatures for various conditions, but I suspect they're more for actually shooting in those conditions, rather than trying to simulate those conditions on a stage. In case it makes a difference, we're using Varicam 35 cameras, Fujinon Cabrio 20-120 zoom lenses, and can adjust light colors using a Digital Sputnik DS 1 LED. Thanks!
  2. Hi everybody. Many of you have given me advice through the years as I built a studio with a 3D virtual studio system in Florida. I thought that some of you might be interested to know that we've just re-located to Los Angeles (Burbank to be exact). LACastleStudios.com If any of you would like a tour of the new studio and/or a demo, just let me know (818-861-7317). Thanks to all for their advice through the years! Tim Pipher
  3. Thanks Mitch. But I don't understand your analogy. I asked for "opinions" of which looked better. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of situations where an opinion of which would look better -- green or yellow -- would be useful.
  4. Here are two low budget spots, identical except: 1. The first is shot 60i with a deep DOF 2. The second is shot 30p with a shallower DOF Any opinions of which looks better would be appreciated.
  5. I thought you might enjoy this video of my new studio. It doesn't show off the outside (which we think is beautiful), or our dressing rooms, control rooms, and offices, but it still gives a nice recap of what we do. Sorry -- I was just winging the script -- no teleprompter -- no makeup. Also, we've added a fifth teleprompter since we shot this. It's on the crane camera. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions. Thanks!
  6. I get this feeling every time I pick up the phone to make my first sales call of the day. I worry that maybe I'm bugging the prospect too much. Then I remember that I've got nothing to lose. Maybe there's a 1% chance that the prospect is going to get ticked off and decide that he won't do business with a guy that's trying so hard. But if I don't call, I'm not going to get the sale anyway, so I might as well call. Besides, it's just as likely he'll actually want to do business with a guy who hustles. It's the same thing with your situation. If you don't approach him, you're not going to get a job with him anyway, so you may as well go after him. He might even be impressed with your go-get-him attitude -- he's probably been in your shoes. And even if you turn him off, he's not going to remember that the next time you cross paths.
  7. Hi James. You can definitely create your own virtual environments. This is a language I barely speak, so some of what I say may not make sense. Your sets need to be in a VRML format from 3DSMax, Maya, Softimage XSI etc. I may be wrong about this, but I get the impression that 3DSMax is recommended. I have a PDF with all the details I can e-mail if you want. One great thing about making sets yourself is that you don't have to pay for them. But it's also good because you can use them over and over. There's a producer/director who plans on making a feature here in July. It will be a sequel to one of his science fiction movies. He'll be making his own virtual sets. The great thing for him is that he'll do that once, then have his sets ready to go for subsequent sequels.
  8. Hi James. It's much simpler than that. Everything is keyed and composited live. There's absolutely zero post production in these clips. Nothing is real except the people, any tables and chairs you see, and the square piece of grey carpet you see in a few of the shots. People ask me if that big set in the exercise video includes a big circular real carpet with the client's logo in the middle. It's not real -- just a green floor there. All the sets were easily customized in a matter of minutes with client logos and videos in various places. There are no tracking markers. Tracking is done mechanically with the encoded jib and with sensors on the tripod heads and from the lenses, combined with little infra-red cameras in the lighting grid interacting with these little domes on the cameras -- it's very sophisticated and way beyond me. However, all that complicated technical stuff during the system installation makes the actual productions extraordinarily easy. You just shoot and switch as you would with any real production, and the system does the work. This saves a fortune in set construction and studio rental days, and allows small productions to have major league sets. In fact, we rent the whole studio at a very reasonable rate, and we're headache free because we have almost everything most productions need in-house. The network that used our studio for a pilot didn't bring in a single thing.
  9. Hi Freya. I thought the fact that there are three cameras in these clips might be significant to some people for several reasons: 1. Everything shown was done live using a super-computer virtual system with absolutely no post production. Systems like mine are often demonstrated at trade shows like NAB so people here have probably seen them in action, but all the demos I've seen have been single camera. 2. You'll notice that the cameras are moving all over the place, zooming in, pulling back, on a jib, focus going in and out simulating depth of field, reflections of the virtual elements on the virtual floor, virtual monitors from different angles etc. Using traditional green screen compositing methods, this would be a huge amount of work with one camera -- with three, it would be even more 3. Three cameras require a bigger green screen or cyc than one camera, with a bigger area needing to be tracked. I thought it might be interesting to some that this whole big area is tracked. Although you may be right, I haven't noticed the keying differences on some sets vs. others. Everything is keyed with an Ultimatte HD/SD (hardware). The best looking stuff so far (we're very new) was for a pilot for a broadcast television network, but I can't show that to you. All the virtual sets were created by and licensed from Ronen Lasry of Los Angeles based FullMentalJacket.com. He creates them for NBC and many others. Thanks Freya!
  10. Here are clips from my studio showing live green screen compositing with three moving HD cameras (Panasonic HPX3000 cameras and Canon HJ Series zoom lenses). Saves not only $50,000 to $500,000 on set construction vs. building a real set, but also studio rental days for set construction and tear down. Live Compositing Demo
  11. Let me know if my studio can help. Southeastern Studios is located exactly two hours north of downtown Miami in Vero Beach. Website is www.SoutheasternStudios.com
  12. After three years, Southeastern Studios in Vero Beach, Florida, has finally opened, just in time for the economic slowdown. Pictures of Studio However, thanks to constant hustle from my sales team (my wife and me), a huge special that is saving producers a ton of money, and lots of prayer, I'm pleased to say that we're off to a good start. Several large infomercial companies and advertising agencies are either using the studio for regular productions or are about to start, and a broadcast television network has produced a pilot from the studio and is gearing up for production (they've asked me not to say anything more than that). What do these producers like? First, we offer live multi-camera high definition green screen compositing with moving cameras and virtual sets. This results in producers getting gorgeous sets and saving not only the $100,000 to $500,000 or more that these sets would cost to construct in the real world, but also saving the costs of the days of studio rental that they would otherwise be spending first to build the sets, and then the rental days to tear them down. Raw Footage of our Live Compositing Second, we have just about everything the producers need in-house. This includes our beautiful studio building with plenty of parking, the virtual set system from Orad, an infrared camera tracking system, three Panasonic HPX3000 cameras with Canon HJ series zoom lenses, a Panasonic HPM110 recording deck with six 32 gig P2 cards, two tripods with encoded Vinten 250E heads, a fully encoded Cammate jib encoded by General Lift, an HD Ultimatte, a large pre-lit cyclorama, all the lighting producers are likely to need with all the lights connected to a dimming system, a massive array of excellent quality audio and communications gear and mixing console, HD switcher, lots of monitors, two on-camera teleprompters and two presidential style teleprompters, and two luxurious on-site motor homes. In fact, for the network production, they didn't bring in a single thing -- we had everything they needed right here. Third, we're giving producers an outstanding deal. They're getting everything listed above, including the 3D HD virtual studio system that saves them so much on set construction and studio rental days -- and even the motorhomes -- for $7,500 per day. This includes a full crew including two camera operators, a jib operator, Orad operator, technical director, sound person, teleprompter operator, and a nice spread of craft services. Some productions bring in their own crews. However we charge the same amount. Outside producers and crews enjoy a special deal with a local oceanfront hotel for only $65 per night -- Vero Beach is a lovely place to visit, and is about half way between Orlando and Miami. I hope you'll consider us for a future production!
  13. Hello Richard. In Dov S-S Simens' book "From Reel to Deal", he discourages trying to self-distribute into theaters because he believes that theater owners are crooks who won't pay and you'll spend all your time in court trying to collect. Simens says that theater owners will pay distributors because if they don't, they won't get the distributor's next movies, but self-distributors don't have that leverage, so they won't get paid. Did you have that experience, or did the theaters pay you your percentage without trouble? Thanks!
  14. I'd like to invite everyone here to check out Southeastern Studios in the beautiful coastal city of Vero Beach the next time you're in Florida. We're an easy drive from Orlando, West Palm Beach and Miami. Photo Link We're fully up and running for top-quality greenscreen production from our 80 ft. (40 ft. across the back, and 20 ft. up each side wall) 180 degree pre-lit cyc using your equipment or ours (three Panasonic HPX3000 cameras with Canon HJ series zoom lenses, extensive lighting and dimming system, tripods with remote controls, top-shelf audio gear, monitors, P2 Mobile recording deck, switcher, Ultimatte HD, CamMate jib encoded by General Lift, and two luxurious motorhomes on site). Creative possibilities really open up, though, when our high definition 3D live compositing virtual studio system arrives in five or six weeks. Manufactured by the Israeli firm Orad, our three cameras will be fully tracked into photo-realistic virtual environments (including from the encoded jib), allowing for fabulous creative possibilities and huge production savings (versus building actual sets or moving an entire cast and crew from on-location site to on-location site), and big post-production time and money savings due to the streamlined compositing. If you use our facility, you'll be able to record the composited scenes to the P2 Mobile deck using the AVC-Intra 100 codec (or DVCPRO-HD if you prefer). However, you might find it advantageous to record three streams of 10 bit uncompressed to our very large and extensive 4Gbit SAN system. Stream 1 will consist of the live actors and real props, Stream 2 will consist of the tracked virtual set, and Stream 3 will consist of the two streams composited together. The advantage of this is that streams 1 & 2 can be color corrected separately, so the lighting and color of the real scene can match up perfectly with the virtual scene. For your editing needs, we can do it for you, or you can do it yourself using our two Intel based dual-quad Final Cut Studio editing systems each with 16 gigs of RAM plus an identical dual-quad Final Cut Server system (providing up to 24 processor cores at your disposal). You're welcome to use our facility and equipment entirely independent from our staff, our we can offer turn-key commercials, infomercials, music videos and talk shows (with huge Entertainment Tonight or ESPN Sportscenter-style sets to boot). We'll be producing movies for ourselves, and we invite you to use our facility for that purpose too. I hope you'll check out and then use and enjoy our new studio. We'll do anything and everything to make sure that you're satisfied, and will make every effort to meet your budget needs too. Website Link
  15. Good question Dave and I think I know why you asked it (great working with you last week, by the way). From Michael's answer, I think the conclusion is what I had in mind -- don't dim the fluorescents that light my green screen cyclorama, but dim away as necessary on the lighting for the talent. I'm not sure if we did it on our recent shoot, but a good way to do things is to turn off the cyc lights while lighting the talent to make sure we're lighting both the talent and the cyc optimally.
  16. I'd love to have you guys meet at my new studio in Vero Beach sometime. Here are some photos: Studio Photos Equipment is rolling in. In the next couple of months, our HD Orad machine will be installed, offering live greenscreen compositing with full camera movement (3 cameras -- Panny HPX3000s with Canon HJ series zoom lenses). You might enjoy coming down on a Monday evening. After we open, every Monday evening we'll be opening the studio for "Movie Maker Mondays", where we bring in actors and crew and actually produce a scene from a movie we're working on or produce a short right on the spot. You guys could be our guest cinematographers!
  17. Thanks Brian. Actually, I found a new salesman -- Jonathan Eppner from AbelCineTech in New York (referred by Mitch Gross through this forum) -- and went with the HPX3000.
  18. I wonder if I've been too caught up in trying to achieve a shallow depth of field. Everybody seems to be looking for it these days. Postings all over the forums are full of statements like "Great Shot -- Love the shallow depth of field". Others say they'll never buy any camera that doesn't have a 35mm sensor because they want the shallow depth of field. But maybe a shallow depth of field is unnecessary. After all, from what I understand, great directors like Orson Welles -- most notably in one of cinema's great masterpieces, Citizen Kane -- went out of his way to achieve deep depth of field, and the pursuit of deep depth continued throughout the 40's and 50's. I know many filmmakers want complete control of the audience so they'll look where the director wants them to look, but when I'm at the movies, if I find the car in the background more interesting than the scene up front, I like having the freedom to look where I want. I'm not sure that viewers are particularly enamored with shallow depth of field. Is it possible that 35mm shallow depth of field is over-rated and the deeper 2/3 inch depth of field might be a more pleasing compromise?
  19. Actually, I own the HPM110 (bought from you guys). I assume that's what you mean by the P2 Mobile? We're acquiring equipment for our new studio and haven't really put it together yet. Is it correct that the HPM110 serves this function (backing up the P2 card directly to a hard drive -- or two if using a mini Raid)? If it does, that's a nice bonus I hadn't anticipated.
  20. Is it safe to assume the P2 Gear will work with 1080p AVC-Intra 100? How long would it take to back up a 32 gig card to hard drive? Thanks!
  21. I had a long, heated, and perplexing conversation with a recently hired in-house cinematographer today. It was over an issue that I thought was as obvious as 1 + 1 = 2, and he was just as confident that I was out to lunch. Since I'm relying on him to be our cinematographer, I'm assuming (and hoping) that I'm wrong. The dispute is over whether we should be acquiring in 24p or 30p. We're shooting AVC-Intra 100 with our Panasonic HPX3000. If we're shooting a narrative movie or television show, I always believed we'd want to be acquiring in 24p with the desired result of the dreamy look that viewers are used to in a feature film. My cinematographer says that's not necessarily true -- that there's very little difference in the look of 24p and 30p, and unless the project is going to film-out, 30p offers so many advantages that we'd be better off at 30p. I argued that 30p is great for reality, sports, news -- anything we want to look "real" -- but for narrative work where we want to look like a movie, 24p is the obvious choice, whether we're filming out or not. He again emphasized that there is little difference in the look of 24p vs. 30p, and that the film look will be attained through lighting and camera techniques. He reminded me that he's worked with some of the most talented people in the business and at the highest-end and most prestigious studio facilities in the world, but that I'm the boss and he'd do things my way whether I'm right or not. Finally, he said maybe the 24p vs. 30p argument is subjective based on the cinematographer's personal preferences, and maybe some -- perhaps even up to 50 out of 100 accomplished DP's, would choose to shoot 24p for narrative work. I countered that I believed that 99 or 100 out of 100 would choose 24p for narrative projects. He's the expert -- I'm not. But is he correct?
  22. I've been searching for a forum aimed at producers -- any suggestions?
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