Pete Wallington

Interesting request from director, I wonder if you can help me a) check my maths and B ) come up with options... Shot is a typical beach scene, looking slightly down on the beach and edge of the sea. Girl walks/dances on beach amongst 20 or so China Balls. We're shooting Kodak 5207 (250D). We're shooting during the day time, in a warm sunny part of the world. The director wants to know if we can get the china balls to show (as lit). My answer - No. My maths - Sunny 16 rule suggests at 250ASA and 1/250th, middle grey is around F/16 We're shooting at 25fps, so 1/50th, therefore stop down by 2 stops to compensate = f/32. Key is f/32 So assuming the sand is middle grey, I figure the china balls would need to expose at least 1 stop over key, so f/64. (or more?) I have a 12" china ball here with a 200W bulb in it. At 20ft it gives a spot meter reading of f/32 (ie - at key). So with a 400w bulb, it would probably get to around f/64. However, I very much doubt that sand will be middle grey. I imagine it will be light orange, if not white, and therefore at least 1 if not 2 or more stops over key, in which case the china balls would need to also be an extra 1 or 2 or more stops brighter - 800, 1600, or 3200W bulbs..... Does this sound like sensible rationale? I guess the basic question is, how bright does a light source need to be to be visibly bright in daylight?

Absolutely, there's no better way of learning than from a more experienced DP on set. Otherwise, subscribe to American Cinematographer magazine.

It's very common practice to remove the glass from picture frames to avoid reflections.

Try the widescreen centre in soho

Yeah that's inaccurate in my experience, you can easily get Small tungsten units Plus a kino for £100 for the day in London. Even if you don't have insurance most rental companies will add it on for no more than 10% extra. Practical bulbs and some china balls are the cheapest way to light on a low budget. Go to ikea, grab some paper lanterns, and a couple of meters of cheap muslin and black material and you're away.

Yeah I agree with Adrian, you can always scrim/diffuse/ND/move-further-back a light that is too bright, but it's very difficult to work with a light that's not bright enough. Of course size then becomes more of a concern - have you chosen small lamps because you need to fit them in very snug places? It doesn't look that way from the sizes on your floorplan. Is it just one guy sitting on the seat watching the TV? If so a 150 china ball should be enough to key him, using the practical to motivate it. Providing you can get it close enough. If you have any really wide shots you may need to rely on the practical alone, or use a soft source with a longer through from further away. Do you want to simulate any light coming from the TV? A softly flickering blue/white light projecting onto his face? If so there are a variety of means to do that, waving your hands in front of a 350 through a frame is probably the simplest. Or get a couple of dedos on dimmers with different coloured gels and ramp the dimmers up and down in shot. It's not always a good look though, so it may not work for your scene. The 300 is shooting through a window of some description? Is it supposed to be simulating moonlight? or streetlight? Don't forget that once you gel it you're gonna start losing more light quite quickly. It's also coming from the same direction as your china ball. One will probably over-power the other, unless you are maybe aiming the 300 just at the back wall to create some seperation? Some ugly flourescent green light spilling from the kitchen seems like a good idea.

Why are 2nd Ac's calling "Mark" (or "Marker")? That's the 1st AC's job no? Isn't the whole point of the call "Mark" to let the 2nd know that the camera is up to speed, and only the 1st knows when that's the case. What is the point of the 2nd calling Mark? we know it's the mark, that's what the loud clap is! On my team I will have the 2nd announce the board "2A take 1" then the 1st rolls the camera and calls "Mark" when it's up to speed, then the 2nd claps.

So, 9 months ago my full Red camera kit was stolen, now last week my full Canon 5DMKII (S/N 0330219480) filmmaking kit was stolen - camera, 9 lenses, accessories, shoulder mount, etc etc. The kit was stolen in Guildford Surrey, UK. Details of the kit are listed below. Please keep an eye out in and around the area and do let me (or Surrey Police) know if you see anything that looks like it might be this kit. Many Thanks, Pete Wallington info@petewallington.co.uk Large Black Plastic Flightcase containing: Canon 5DMKII body – S/N 0330219480 2 Chargers, 4 Batteries, 4 CF Cards Cine-City Rig-23 Shouldermount Proaim Follow Focus Cine-City Mattebox Lilliput 7” HDMI Monitor + Canon Battery Plate + 2 Batts + Charger – S/N 669880110018 Large Grey Plastic Rugged Case containing: Nikon 24mm Lens Nikon 35mm Lens Nikon 50mm Lens Nikon 100mm Lens Nikon 135mm Lens Canon 70-200mm f4 IS Lens Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 Lens Canon 85mm f1.8 Lens – S/N 45700055 Lensbaby 2.0 4x4” Black Promist Filter Set (1/4, 1/2, 1, 2) ND Fader Variable ND Filter LCDVF Viewfinder Loupe Various mount adapters and accessories Small Grey Rugged Case containing: Suction cup + Various other mount accessories

If in doubt, go for the wider lens. Sounds like the 25mm should cover you. HOWEVER (this is a BIG however!) If you want to record at 120fps you will have to knock the resolution down to 2K on the Red ONE. This in turn means that you'll be effectively "halving" your field of view so the field of view is similar to 16mm rather than 35mm. Thus to achieve the same FOV as a 25mm lens you will need a 12mm lens. The Red Pro Primes obviously don't go down below 18mm, you are better looking at lenses made for shooting 16mm rather than 35mm lenses. Hope that makes sense.

Can anyone help me decipher what's wrong with this 8mm footage? Unfortunately it was a zero budget, heavy schedule shoot where the 8mm footage was only a very small part (one afternoon of a 5 week shoot) so I didn't have any time to test camera/stock/lab before we started, and after it was shot it was handed over to the producer to deal with and I don't know quite what stages it went through after that! This was also last summer, so I can't remember an awful lot about it. We were shooting either 7217/7218 and lab instructions were to process "normal". Any advice on what's the cause of the colour wash? Thanks

How effective are "pneumatic floor wheels" on a dolly? Are they literally only usuable on a perfectly flat, smooth surface like a studio floor, or could they be used with some success on the street? I'm talking about a cheap portable dolly such as the Keywest Magic Dolly - http://www.keywest.nl/

Wide shots are usually a compromise. You are limited to where you can place lights while keeping them out of frame. You're also limited in how much you can control these lights with flags etc, as you also need to keep all the grip gear out of the frame. When you move in for the close ups you are much less limited, you can usually put lights pretty much wherever you want and have a lot more control over them. That's why a lot of times you will adjust the lighting for a closeup. In the wide you have to compromise and in the closeup you don't, so you can often get a better image by moving your lights into a more favourable position. Shadow and highlight may look completely different in a closeup even with an identical lighting setup. The contrast through a frame is affected by what's in the frame. Often in a wide shot you can get away with imperfections that would show up much more obviously when you punch in for the CU, such as a shadow so dark it holds no detail or what was a small highlight in the wide shot becomes a huge highlight when you punch in closer.

Any more practical solutions?

How would one go about creating haze on an exterior shoot? Are there hazers big enough to create enough that it doesn't get instantly blow away/dispersed?

That's A Wrap http://www.taw.eu.com/

As it says in the download instructions on Red.com/support: REDCINE Training Videos: * http://red.cachefly.net/redcine/interface_overview.mov * http://red.cachefly.net/redcine/project_settings.mov * http://red.cachefly.net/redcine/shot_settings.mov * http://red.cachefly.net/redcine/color_settings.mov * http://red.cachefly.net/redcine/output_settings.mov * http://red.cachefly.net/redcine/library.mov

Anyone know where I can rent some 4-lamp Mini Brutes in London?

If you go into monitor setup, you can cycle through the 3 different views (Raw, Redspace, Rec709). Have you tried this?

I'm trying to put together a showreel for my cinematography, a lot of which comes from music videos. Why is it that all the great-looking shots I really want to use have been cut to death in the edit, and are now only seconds (if that) long! It's hard enough getting a copy of the finished edit, let alone trying to get copies of some of the rushes so that I can extract longer versions of the shots. How do I get around this? Has anyone else had this problem?

If you only cover the scene in 1-shot, remember that you have to get it perfect during the shoot. I don't just mean the acting has to be perfect, the dialogue has to be perfect, and the action perfect. You have to remember that with only one shot, you have no way of cutting the scene during the edit. Therefore if, for example, you find the pace is too slow you have no way of shortening or mixing up the scene. Even just shooting useful cutaways will at least give you the option of cutting into the scene in the edit. That said, if you just shoot cutaways it can look very clunky and obvious when you cut away from the main action....

Whereabouts in London are you shooting? (though prob doesn't matter as most deliver free/cheap within M25) There's TX or Axis Hire at Shepperton Lightning Media in West London ** Filmscape Media in SouthWest London ** Video Europe in Soho Decode in Hammersmith Direct Lighting in Waterloo (** = particularly recommended for price and helpfulness) UK Ring Main is usually 30A Wall sockets are 13A Mains is 220V-240V Redhead: 3.64A (800W) Blonde: 9.09A (2kW) So one blonde per socket, up to 3 blondes on the ring main would theoretically be fine. Most places may have more than one ring main.