Patrick Neary

Searching the forums does make for great reading on the subject, but you end up wading through a lot of material for a simple answer... what would be nice is a clear, concise DOF primer on the FAQ. This Q does come up quite often, and almost every time, the notion of the imager size having something to do with DOF creeps in. I understand why it's in the discussion, but it's not accurate, and we want to be somewhat precise here, right? In the same way, you could rightly make the argument that DOF is determined by the film's ASA, or the lighting package, or the number of ND's stacked on the lens, when really, those are just ancillary to the actual mechanics of DOF. The reason I bring this up is that I know for myself, it became much easier to understand the vagaries of DOF when boiled down to it's core, which is not complicated at all; focal length and iris (and you could add the distance the lens is focused at, if you want to get really fancy.) there, I'm done.

well, to split a few hairs here, the size of the imager actually has no bearing on DOF. The shallowing DOF you see in 35 as opposed to minidv is a by-product of using a different focal length lens to achieve the same angle of view. DOF is blind to format - it is only a result of focal length and aperture.

hi there ring lights can be VERY flattering to your talent! My gaffer on a series made one from those tiny 12v under-the-counter lights you can get at Home Depot, fixed them to a ring that circled the lens, and while the rig was not beautiful, the light it produced certainly was. I'm sure on a cosmetic commercial you could just get a real one! (plus i think it might be actual law in most countries that ring-lights are required for cosmetic shoots ;) )

hi there- at the risk of sounding snotty, you don't really "wait" ten years, you work those ten years, and maybe then some, on whatever you can get. and each milestone along the way feels like a great accomplishment- the first real paying gig, the first shoot on a real soundstage, the first shoot on a project that people actually see, the first year you actually make a livable income...

>As of know I've got 8 national television shows credited to me for editing and 1 national commercial for VANS shoes for being an AC. hi there- this makes no sense to me. You're working on national-level spots at 16 and you think pornos will further your career? Why not stay in the far more lucrative and promising arena of commercials?

>What's a cranky bulldozer? sorry, i could have just left that whole last bit off- But a cranky bulldozer is someone who shows up first thing griping about whatever there is to gripe about, complains about every setup and then does whatever he wants, regardless of your wishes or instructions. To be fair, I've had some GREAT gaffers, guys who really know light, make suggestions that simplify a set-up and/or make it it look even better.

i think the danger of sending a gaffer reel is that it is so non-standard, it might suggest (to the producers) a lack of experience in real-world work. People are interested in your experience, which should be spelled out on your resume, or 30-second sales pitch. When I have to go gaffer shopping, it's all from personal recommendations. Then you want to talk with the person directly and make sure they're not 1) cranky bulldozers (man, there are a lot of them) 2) egomaniacs 3) incompetent boobs i don't ask for much...i just don't want to spend the entire shoot fighting with the dude who is supposed to be helping me. ;)

yup! it's the little knob just below the lens.

"David Lean: A Life in Film" it played on some cable channel years ago, and had a lot of footage of Lean working on "Passage to India" both shooting and editing. I wish I could find it on DVD, but it seems to have just vanished....

are focus pullers all across the UK breaking out in cold sweats?

oooooooooooookaaaayyyyyy...... :blink: If there's enough good ambient light for the church interior, maybe just use a small handheld unit or china ball to clean up the close-up. Taking a digital still camera in and setting it for your film's asa/shutter/fstop will give you a rough approximation of how things will look as-is, and maybe suggest where you need or don't need supplemental lighting.

Hi- I just picked one up for shooting local corporate stuff - I'll let you know how it goes, but so far I'm very impressed with it, it seems quite a bit more substantial than the dv500, and very nice picture for dv.

Hi- I think you nip it in the bud by not shooting cross-processed reversal if you're concerned about high contrast! :)

a friend of mine did it with an old tube camera with a c-mount- he removed the lens and used aluminium foil, i think, for the pinhole. It was really funky stuff, but he could only shoot in direct blazing sun. I think by it's nature you can't do pinhole photography with a camera that has a fixed lens, the idea is that the pinhole is the lens.

plus there's something about it that's like saving a dog from the pound, it just seems like the right thing to do.

hi- I'll toss in a vote for the Cooke 20-60 if you're on a budget, (scroll down a bit in this forum and you'll see a few other comments about it). I just used one (from Panavision/H'wood) for a commercial, and it seemed to match their ultra-speed primes very well (I can't remember if those are zeiss glass or not, someone here will know for sure). It was quite small, more like a big 16mm zoom, a bit slow at t3, great close focus (around 2') handled flare extremely well, and was sharp as anything. Whether or not Panavision did some tweaking to it beyond the original Cooke design I don't know, or maybe it was just a well-maintained, choice specimen, but it was veeerrrry nice.

would just overexposing and then pull-processing get you close?

all shorts are too long. Is it possible to distill the very basic essence of the theme of the piece to an under 10-minute short? (under 5-minutes?), which then allows you to slave over each shot, edit until perfection itself is reached, and end up with a masterful powerhouse of a film that gets into festivals? also, it seems like a short shouldn't have subplots... My wife won't even go to festivals with me anymore because I made her sit through so many too-long shorts, something just snapped.

>>I am going to do tests at location in a couple of days, and one of the more interesting things is how well will the DVs latidue handle the extreme contrast of a sunlit forest? probably not very well... :) In big fir forests here in the pacific northwest, (on a sunny day) you can have 6400 footcandles in one spot and about 10fc right next to it. nothing can handle that. Overcast makes it much easier, but it may not be the look you're after. There was an interview with Ron Garcia, talking about his work on the "Twin Peaks" TV series and he said his working method for exteriors was something like "backlight, fill and boogie" (!) Especially in a high contrast area like a forest, that technique should work great- Overexposed backlight (with your "normal" exposure for the rest of the forest) looks great, overexposed front or sidelight surrounded by big inky black areas, not so great (unless you're going for that kind of look.) good luck with your shoot!

you probably already know this, but Jon Fauer's Arri book is worth the bucks. Lots of real-world user tips! (and you could just find an older edition for the BL4 info)

apologies, i was just making light of it, you're quite right- That service panel is a very scary place, as it should be. i hope that my post, while sounding pompously authoritative, isn't mistaken for any kind of "how to", it wasn't intended that way. That is my understanding of how it works, though. Despite its unforgiving nature, or maybe because of it, I find electricity to be interesting stuff... :)

To clarify (or just correct) my earlier post, as I understand this kind of set-up, because each hot wire (from the 220 circuit) is out of phase with the other, the neutral will only carry the difference of the two new 110 branches. So if you have one of our dryer-plug adaptors splitting off into 2 110v boxes, and you have a 2k plugged into one side, and a 1k plugged into the other side, the neutral is actually only carrying 10 amps (rounded up). Or if you have a 2k plugged into one side, and nothing in the other, the neutral carries 20amps (rounded-up), or if you have a 2k in each side, then the neutral is actually, well, neutral. so you do have 30 amps each side (60 total) to play with in a 220v/30a circuit. If you overload one side, one of the breakers (tied to the other) will trip and shut down both sides. again, as i understand it, this is how a typical split-wire receptacle works, without burning your house down if you plug a toaster in the top and your hairdryer in the bottom... If any bit of this is just plain wrong, please someone let me know before I hurt myself.

That sounds absurd. Have them do a quick test, and i think you'll see how laughable the whole prospect is. It happens a lot, and I never can understand why some people are so afraid to commit to a look that isn't dull, flat and boring.... start rigging those xenons! (although, as a practical matter, you might look at the difference in output between those and dedos. Dedos don't really have that kind of oomph...)

....or maybe a better example would be a typical split or multiwire-circuit? that's also using a common neutral.

howzabout a small pelican case with holes cut on each end for the lens, viewfinder and access? (maybe one for your head, too!)