Josh Fritts

I gaffed a comedy feature a while back called 'Frankenhood.' We had a 50k Soft Sun for 3 of our bigger exterior days. I was extremely impressed with the light. I had fill control that cover half of a basketball court at any time of the day. The light has a very wide spread (I believe about 150 degrees) right off the unit. One other cool feature, is that it can dim within 3 percent of its total output with only about 100-200 degrees of color shift. (Try doing that with an HMI) Which comes in useful as the sun starts to set and you can stand right next to camera with the DMX controller and keep the ratios consistent, without running around with scrims. I found the light to be very even coming off he unit, but I still put Hampshire Frost in front just to make the light fill a little more organic. The only downside I found was the power consumption, which I dont think you'll have a problem with since your going with the 10k size. The 50K pulled around 750 amps total or 220-250 a leg (If I remember correctly). Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I found the light to be fantastic. In quality and versatility. Normally, I would have had between 2 to 4 18k Fresnels rolling around, but they never made it off the truck while we were using the Soft Sun. If you have any more questions about them, let me know and I'll try and answer them to the best of my ability. Josh

Everything was exsposed properly.

I did.

I recently shot a S16mm spec commercial on the Fuji F64. This was my first time shooting on that stock so I'm not to sure what the grain structure is like, but knowing that it is one of Fuji's finer grain stocks, I assumed it would be some where in the ball park of Kodak's Vision 1 stock the 7245. During the color grading, the grain structure appeared pretty smooth. But after it was laid to tape and I saw it captured into Final Cut, the grain structure was really pronounced. More pronounced than any other S16mm projects that I have shot. Especially in the shots where I over cranked the camera. Since the director and I are paying for this out of pocket, we went to one of the smaller post houses in town. They transfer on a Cintel Ursa (Tube Transfer, not CCD Digital Transfer), and we went to Digi Beta. This is the first time I have ever done telecine on a machine like this. So, I'm wondering if the Transfer caused the grain to read more or could it have been the digitizing of the tape? Even yet, could it have been the grain structure of the film itself and I just didn't notice it on the NTSC monitor? Although this is a spec commercial and its not going to broadcast, I still want it to look clean so we can use it for our reels. So, I'm considering taking it to another lab to do a digital transfer of it. Any suggestions?

I have one on a S16mm BL and it is super sharp. But, from what I have been told, is that they can become very soft the older they get if regular maintnece is not preformed on them. Clairmont Camera takes care on mine. Also, minimum focus on mine is 5 feet, which can be limiting at times. I shot this little trailer on it with some buddies after we finished a feature in Montanna. http://yellowwoodfilms.com/130togo.html (Not 100% sure, but I think we're talking about the same lens)

Are there any camera houses in the Los Angeles area that conducts regular Demo or Workshops for the Viper camera? I would like to attend one. Thanks

"Image Control" by Gerald Hirschfeld, ASC Its really good.

Its also good if you need to soften light around lots of reflective services and do not want to see a large white frame reflected in that surface. But, the down side is they are very thick and eat up a lot of light. I have one in a 4x4, 2x3 and 18x24, but it rarely sees the light of day and is almost more of novelty on my truck.

I have a S16 shoot coming up that takes place around a swimming pool dealing with a lot of muted pastel colors. Originally, I wanted to go with the 7212 (with 85 plus other filtration) because that film stock is Kodak's finest grain 16mm film stock, but now I'm second guessing that by putting grain aside and thinking more about making the muted pastel colors pop. I have always been a devoted Kodak guy, but this project gives me some room to experiment and I was wondering how Fuji would hold up in this color test. Any suggestions? Thanks

Did anybody notice the V3 lens system at the Angenieux booth. It had a rotating iris built into the lens. Apparently it helps seperate a flat image by putting movement to everything in the frame that is not on the focal plane. Some of the test footage look kind of interesting and I think it would find a lot of use in the music video world. Did anybody else see the V3? Any other thoughts about it?