Mark Kenfield

I'd swear the closer we get to film being completely superceeded, the higher the claims of film's resolution and dynamic range seem to get!

It makes me sad to think that film is going, and even sadder to think I'll almost certainly never get the chance to shoot a feature-length narrative on it. But such is the march of progress, and if there's one certainty about technology - it's that it slows for no man. And in the end, does it really matter?

For me the moment came when I saw Drive at the cinema, it was projected digitally and shot on Alexa, but I never even thought about that until after the film was finished and I was told it was shot digitally - all I saw were beautiful pictures. And in the end, that's all we're really trying to create.

So if the quality is equivalent, who cares?

I've both directed and shot most of the work I've done.

Given the luxury of enough budget to cover hiring a DP I trusted intrinsically, I think I'd probably be happy to just focus on directing. That said though, I find it extremely hard to separate my 'vision' of any given narrative/script from the images we're capturing as we shoot - so I tend to feel a good deal more comfortable operating as my scenes unfold, because then I know exactly what I'm getting, and how well that matches what I need.

Personally I've never found it to be much of a burden. So long as I have a competent crew around me (i.e. a solid AD, AC and gaffer(s)) it's always a pretty simple matter to tell them what I need, and then work with my actors as they set things up. Directing and operating don't happen at the same time, so I've never found the overlap to be an issue.

In the end, it all simply comes down to whether things work or not. If a director can make it work filling both roles, that's perfectly fine. If he can't, that's fine too (so long as he has a DP to do it instead). Film, by it's very nature, is a collaborative medium (you need someone in front of the camera and someone behind it), how the collaboration works and who plays what roles is irrelevant, all that matters is that it DOES work.

It's threads like this that make me really glad to live (and shoot) in PAL land.

I've just stumbled across the Movcam Matteboxes and follow focuses, and was wondering if anyone has seen/handled/used them before?

16x9 Inc. :: Products > Movcam > Matteboxes

The MM1 looks like a good match for my CP.2s, and the follow focus looks nice too - I'm just wondering how well the units compare to options like the Tilta/Lanpartes that sit below them (price-wise) and the Arri/O'Connor/Chorizel that sit above them?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Hi guys,

I'm wondering if people can recommend me some Mattebox and Follow Focus options for Zeiss CP.2 lenses?

They have a common 114mm front end, and I'm only looking at single-sided FFs at this stage (not dual-sided studio FFs).

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hey Guys,

Long-time lurker here. I'm looking to pull together my first lighting kit of my own at the moment (I've always rented in the past) and was hoping I might be able to call on your collective expertise. I currently only own 2 lighting stands, 1 umbrella, and 3 little Z96 LED lights, so I'm basically starting from scratch.

I've been scouring the lighting sub-forum for weeks now and I think I've finally got a bit more of an idea for what I want to do, but I wanted to my thoughts past you guys first.

I was hoping to have $3000 to spend on my lighting gear initially, but camera support gear is eating into my budget further than I'd hoped and it looks like I've now only got $2000 to spend for the moment.

I'll be shooting a range of projects, from basic commercials and marketing/promotional videos, to educational videos, and I hope some more creative narrative productions and music videos as well.

The $2000 will need to cover all of my lighting gear, including stands, clamps, power boards/cords, diffusion, gels, cutters and reflectors. So I really need to plan things effectively to get the most out of the few dollars I have available.

In the past I've always used basic hard lights (generally redheads, blondes and the occasional deed) with scrims and gels for most of my lighting, but I've always found the heat they generate and the time required to scrim and gel them to taste has made things time-consuming when running with small 2-3 men crews on the shoots I normally do (I also tend to prefer softer, more diffused lighting for digital video).

Now a large part of the reason for buying my own gear is to expand my business and the scale of the productions I work on (i.e. shoot with larger crews) But given the small scale of most of my productions at the moment, portability and speed are big considerations, so I'm particularly keen on incorporating LED fixtures with V-mount batteries to save on setup times.

Here's the basic setup I was thinking of purchasing:

- 2x Cool Lights Portable 4x55w Flos (with tungsten and daylight lamps for both) $898

- 2x Chinese 700 LED bi-colour lights - $550 (http://www.indiev.org/?p=916)

- 2x Globalmediapro 95WH V-mount batteries + mini-charger - $333 (are these any good? http://www.globalmediapro.com/dp/A00UV7/Globalmediapro-Li95S-Lithium-ion-Battery-95WH/ )

This leaves me with a couple of hundred dollars to scrape together the gels, scrims, -1/8 greens (for the LEDs), reflectors, diffusers and cutters I'll need (if anyone can recommend good DIY or cheap sources for these bits, it'd be much appreciated). My three existing little Z96 LEDs I plan to use mostly for accenting and highlighting my backgrounds.

At this stage I'm thinking I'll simply rent more powerful hard lights when I really need them, and might grab a couple of basic work lights for blasting the outsides of buildings etc.

What do you think guys? Does this sound like a sensible kit to get started with? Would you change anything up?

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

I'm disappointed.

All I really wanted was a 2k+ s35 sized sensor in a cheap small package (something like the Canon 5D mkII but recording redcode raw) there isn't anything like that in this release.

To get S35 in the Scarlet you have to go to 5k which is overkill (for me anyway) and is twice the price of the original Scarlet concept (without any of the required accessories). Still half the price of a Redone though which is amazing.

Jacob, it does look like the original 3k for 3k Scarlet concept will still be an option, but you're going to have to pay more for a s35mm style camera - though that's not really all that surprising.

Much of this is why the Phantom HD camera's sensor is 1920 photosites across in uper-35 image area (total resolution is 2048x2048). For the Phantom 65, to get a 4K imager (4096x2440), the photosites are the exact same size but now the chip size is the same as a 65mm film negative. You don't get something for nothing. There are good reasons for large photosites beyond sensitivity.

Mitch, what sort of lens mount is the Phantom 65 going to use? Is there likely to be a possibility of mounting medium-format still camera lenses on it? The idea of shooting 4K through some of the old Pentax 67 lenses I've used gives me goosebumps! I imagine it would also make access to glass that could be used with the camera much easier - there's certainly a few more MF lenses floating around than 65mm Cine lenses!

I think Panavisions excuse for rejecting 4k technology is that some people just want to hold technology back. The fact is that a lot of people are not yet ready for high definition and think that standard definition video is good enough. So when ultra-high definition is invented that threatens to make high definition obsolete the promoters of obsolete equipment make up even more excuses that somehow obsolete equipment is better because it has more dynamic range more sensitivity better low light performance and 3 CCD's. For a lot of people it is easier for them to fight off advances in technology rather than to accept the technology.

And Thomas I just can't see why any technology company would want to hold back their technology - being at the cutting edge is what brings customers to them. And I'm yet to see projected digital footage that looks better than what I've seen from the Genesis.