robert duke

Matthews is nice and their new head design is great. but frequently rental companies only have the old style head which sucks. American is really a great choice the heads are super smooth and always lock. American doesnt have the mishmash number of holes matthews does. but I have to say my new favorite is Modern studio. their stands are all stainless steel and their new head is the heat. just finished a month on the beach and the matthews and american stand all look like hell from the rust. the Modern stands only needed a quick wipe down. The Modern combo stand has a tie down point on it, great for windy conditions. I would purchase Modern stands in a heartbeat. They seem built to take it.

1/2 strawberry syrup 1/2 chocolate syrup. tastes great looks great dries nicely. for non mouth stuff add some dish detergent so it washes out easier.

Ask yourself how wide do you want to be. look at the photometrics tables for your lights. figure thr asa of the camera. FIgure out what areas you want to light at what stop, angle, ability to hide the source, etc. think about how many pools of light you want. Craft your image. Then answer your question yourself. I dont mean to sound snide. I mean it in a way that If I tell you what to use the I might as well light it and get payed for it. You dont learn how to create gear lists and why to use one light over another. you wont learn how to use the tools of preproduction to your advantage. you wont be crafting the image, but finding an acceptable image in a smear of light pointed haphazzardly. you will become one of those DPs everyone hates and doesnt respect. Check out Photometrics ( a book), also mole website has photometric data. look at films and images you want to immulate. look at how they are lit. you can figure out angles and sources from stills. Good luck.

WOW how do you find this stuff? Is it kizmit or what?

I have used them to some degree of success. The ALzo lights are overpriced for what they are. you can typically go to a lighting supply house (industrial not film) and purchase these same globes for less. the trick is the watch the color spike and the cri. The 5500 cfls work great for video but the green spike shows itself on film slightly. Bill Schwiekert uses the poop out of them. he has built his own fixtures for them. The fall off is a problem. they are a small soft source so the fall off is drastic. grouping several lamps together seems to work better. experiment first.

I dont think you can avoid looking too low budget. The dvx100 has a hard time in low light. the mole 2ks can light your background but only in a narrow view. you can create the forground with the arri kit. my best advice is rent more lights or stay on a tight lens.

You will find that what you spent in prototyping and figuring out how to do it cheaper will cost as much as a real c-stand. It definitly wont be as durable and effective and all around reliable as a real c stand. for the shizzy on low budget DIY check out www.rondexter.com Ron is an old school DP and gadget man. He has a great informative website. he has tons of inventions and DIY projects on his site including a grip helper. It is not a c-stand but it is workable.

Try Running strings of xmas lights in the background. The gaffer for x-file used to do this to separate layers of depth for the background. Just run a couple strings in the far background. the strings will be out of focus and give a sense of depth. They are low wattage and cheap. you can also try using stake lights like people use in landscaping to up light trees in the near background.

instead of monofiliament try using some of the braided fishing lines available like spider wire. it comes in some extreme strengths and is as small as the light weight mono. It comes in a dark green and a black color. it is non reflective and knots easily.

we used the harness technique some on this film. It worked well. we also wratchet strapped the tripod down as well as an 8 step on the bow of the boat in 8ft swells. I safetied the Dp who refused to wear a harness while operating a 2x2 bead board. We would drop almost 20ft then rise up 20ft as the boat took the waves. It was amazing. The harness is a good idea if you want handheld stuff. It is limiting by your movements and how wide you can go B/c of lanyards in your shot. It is funny how small the deck on boats are even big ones. have a good plan in place and a strong AD. Take ginger it is the best motion sickness prevention we found. Duke

I am on the last week of a miniseries where we spent a month in north CAlifornia on fishing trollers shooting boat to boat and on the same boat for a shark movie. We experienced seas with 8-10ft swells frequently. mostly we went hand held but occasionally I rigged something for the camera. The mini series is directed by Jim Contner the 1st ac from jaws and the DP from jaws 3. In doing my research for the film in Pre production I found the MAKO head to be a very attractive offering for a leveling head. It has a really cool website with video of it mounted on a sea doo and speed boat. check it out http://www.makohead.com/ Having just done this movie I have to recommend that you find a u shaped dock in a well protected cove and shoot off the dock rather than shoot boat to boat. take the pre production time to rig mooring points that are four times as big as you think you need. shooting boat to boat will take too much time of your day dealing with currents, sun angle,lining up the shot,communicating between boats, swells, all that makes the ocean and sea unpredictable. Spend the money on the front end and find a cove to cheat all your out to sea shots. I cannot stress the importance of this. Dont forget about bathrooms, access to a dock, loading and unloading the boat. It makes for a nightmare. Make a miniature of the boats and do a mock up for each scene before you go and shoot it so everyone has a crystal clear idea of what it takes. Sometimes a green screen is a needed evil.

I used to be a corner man for the SCCA in Memphis, my last race a porsche broke an axle and slammed straight into our barrier, the concrete barrier moved four inches. Remote starts, Crash boxes , planning, safety meeting, think out all possible directions for the car to go. planning, buddy system, planning, all things need to be thought out. If anyone has any reservations you should discuss in full the issues brought up. be careful. good luck I tried to attach a photo of our crash but it was too big.

Color manipulation in post. A lot of that is color mainpulation in post. Its kinda freaky going form dailies to finished product sometimes. Watch army of darkness dvd delete scenes and look at the color correction that was done to the footage. wow.

I did this on a $1.5m feature when the stunt team couldnt do it. They actually were not able to flip a step van. they claimed they couldnt get it up to speed. I used a 1/2 inch steel cable to a forged eye bolt on the opposite side of the van. ran the cable over the van to a tractor and pulled it over with the tractor.from a 90 degree angle. we shot it using two cameras at low angles. because the van was not moving forward we were able to place the cameras on remotes very close to the rollover. It ended up looking great cut with a couple shots of the van speeding toward camera and swerving out of control. Yes this is very technical and very dangerous. I kept the immediate area clear, along with a 45degree field along the cable incase of equipment failure. you might try it with a forklift. use a remote start on the camera and keep the shot angle low.

get in at a local tv station. PBS affiliates hire guys right off the boat. they usually dont pay much but it is frequently steady. Local staions hire guys frequently and provide a steady check. Steady checks are hard to find in this industry. remember you will be competing for a steady check with a guy who has 20 years of experience. you might also try getting in at a rental house.

contact a tax attorney or an entertainment attorney. They will help you and protect you. beware and get one that is recommended by people you know and trust. I had friends pay exorbinant $$ to attorneys and get very little in return. but I have friends that have had very suetsdwdccessful relationships with entertainment attorneys and gotten out of sticky widgets. check out some of the film law books out there. basically you form a corporation in the name of the film. the investors are boardmembers and have it all on paper as far as return and dates of return. payments and percentages and all that stuff.

big budgets switch the tubes. chroma 50's. it doesnt take too long to switch tubes. depending on the size of the area to change. It take 3-4 hours to switch out a large office with four guys working in two teams. one guys handing and recieving tubes the other guy snapping them in. The other option is to color correct in post and gel all your film lights to match. do another scout count the fixtures and meter their output. you can always lamp kinos with the same lamp as the overheads. An image 80 does nicely with cool whites.

most community colleges offer courses for electricians, they are designed for the IBEW electricians not film electrics. Some film schools cover this stuff but not in enough detail. the best way to learn is to work under a gaffer and learn through mentoring. In the modern day of unions and workers rights the mentoring programs are falling to the wayside. It is a real shame. Find a gaffer who will let you work as a electrician and teach you. In SF contact DTC rentals and talk to them. I have only dealt with them on the phone but they seem nice.

Remember that you are LIMITED LIABILITY. get insurance. because you are personally involved in the decisions of the company, you are liable for any accident that involves your personal decisions. including hiring a stunt guy or fire arms guy or electrician who may not be competent. these people often work low budgets and impact the safety of a set. CYA. get an attorney. dont listen to any of our advices or off the street opinions. get a tax lawyer. they can tell you where the IRS draws the line.

why would we work on your film for free with the promise on deferred payment. how would we pay our rent, car payment, school loans? Remember you dream of making your film is your dream. not ours. there is no promise that will pay rent. respect the people who craft films and act in film who have trained for years to learn their crafts, yes your script could be the next big hit, it could also never make it out of the editing bay. there have been great scripts that became bad films, and bad scripts that became great films. case is point "american grafetti" bad script great film. dont sell me your film, pay me with respect.

most shoots are 12hr days. 10 hr straight time and 2hr 1.5x. some are 14hrs, abuse is how you feel. the unions are here to help us protect ourselves from abuse. Contact the local IATSE chapter for the rates and hours. If you are feeling abused either quit or contact the IATSE for assistance. IATSE is made up of nice guys and gals. We want a better work place that respects us as humans with feeling and lives to live. Without the unions hollywood would have continued to abuse people working in it. we would be working 18+ hours a day every day, with no turn around. when I started in this a typical day was easily 16-18 hours. those long days caused many people physical harm and killed some. many people fell asleep behind the wheel on their way home. now many producers refuse to go more than 14. you can thank the unions, and a famous DP who fought for the respect we all deserve. If you worked a show and it was rough we have all been there. We sympathize with you and remember the days we spent in your shoes. buck up. there will be shows that no matter what you do will leave you feeling raw in the rump. a day is a day until it ends. If you want a finite time for your day you are in the wrong industry. Remeber man plans God laughs.

Silk is a kind of funny diffusion material. It difuses but still allows light to go straight through. So you get less contrast but keep your sourcey light to some degree. the black silk is nice because it does diffuse, stop down the source, and allows the light to be sourcey. If that is what you are wanting. you can also go 1/8 silk and throw a single net on it as well.

If you know what you are doing, spread the forces using pancakes with a little duvetyn padding to diffuse the outward forces, etc you wont break walls, plaster, etc.