Jaron Berman

Cheapest has to include ALL factors. A cheap light may be expensive to power, and that's including labor as well as cabling and electricity. A more expensive light rental (like the mole LED tener) may save a lot of time and energy (pun may as well be intended). Or a cheap light with tons of output may work if you can easily power it and place it. Not enough info in the OP. 1) What exactly is the overall goal? Lots of light is pretty vague... evenly from all directions like an arena? A shaft of light? A club-look? A glowing floor? Do you care what color the light is? Do you care about the quality of shadow(s)? 2) What is and how big is the space itself? Large space means different things to different people. If you have to hang your lights at 50' trim, a 1k mole is not very bright. How high are the ceilings? What's the widest frame? Do you care about seeing sources? 3) What access do you have to grip/mounting, lifts, etc? Renting a single huge source means nothing if you can't place it. Or if you can't cluster smaller sources, then that option is off the table. 4) What access do you have to power? House power / wall plug? Tie-in? Generator? 5) What access do you have to crew? Do they know what they're doing? If you have a gaffer that's comfortable tying-in, that's a big factor in 4) - but if you're saving money on crew you may need to pay more for lights or power. 6) How much time do you have to build your rig, including prep? Homemade solutions take time. 7) Are you recording sound? Some cheap lighting options are loud, as are some power options. But does it matter in your case?

Things like monitors are very personal so my opinion is not going to line-up with everyones. Especially now that many people use monitors as their light meters - it's important to know what you are and are not seeing, what features are actually useful to you etc. A lot of monitors have "scopes" but few have actually usable scopes. For me, I like the picture on smallhd monitors but I can't stand the interface. Every product is wildly different, and the units that offer customizable layouts are always jumbled. I choose a lesser monitor just to be able to do simple things quickly. I found a liliput monitor, it's 5.5", 1080p, hd-sdi w/ loopthru and conversion, hdmi w/ loopthru and conversion, has USABLE scopes, false color, all the basic features including external power input (what the hell, smallhd?!??!?) or battery, and costs about $450 - Q5 I think? It's relatively color accurate, good for an onboard framing/scopes monitor. Super basic, but I've had it for a while now and punished it and still like it better than most of the other onboard monitors I've tried. It's not as nice as an odyssey, can't do LUTs internally or anything fun - but it's cheap and simple and lightweight.

That’s a fair point. Full spot, a dedologht 150 is brighter than a 2k fresnel center beam. But obviously you’re not getting the spread. So like beam for like beam (comparing spread not shadow quality) in real world use I find the Hilio to be noticeably more output than a 400 hmi and about the same output as a 2k fresnel.

Only thing I've seen that's close is the litepanels Hilio - about 350w and a spot source but has >2K output. If you have the ability to control (DMX) the light, there's a unit by Elation Lighting which is a bit north of $2000 and will FAR exceed a 2k - unit called the Paladin. It's 1200 w of LED - and in real world use it'll go toe-to-to with a 4K hmi with slightly less spread to get that output. It has remote controllable zoom optics and is an RGBW fixture. Not designed for film use but with some ingenuity it can do some incredible things - and compete more in output with 10K units.

Used rifas. Or LED mats from cheaper brands like ledgo. People seem to be dumping tungsten gear, so if you're a bit patient you can probably find them for cheap somewhere.

With steadicam it's called a "step on." The operator physically steps onto the platform of a camera crane and the grips who have been holding the nose down step off the platform, allowing it to move and finish the shot. In lots of movies - check steadishots.org to find examples. Marvelous Mrs. Maisel did a Movi/Techno transition I believe - That was a David Mullen piece so he would know details. The thing you have to keep in mind whether crane and steadi or jib and movi/ronin is that lever stabilizers like cranes and jibs are balanced systems. You can't just throw weight on or off them without changing their behavior radically and violently. In the case of a steadicam step-on/off if it's done wrong people get crushed or tossed and big heavy things break. Even on a modestly sized jib, if you pull 30lb off the end of a 10' jib, 100lb of counterweight will now slam into the legs and potentially capsize the whole thing. The key is maintaining the balance of your jib/crane through the transition. You have to preload the jib with some kind of dummy load equal to the stabilizer load you'll be adding - and in a way that you can drop smoothly - in your case most likely a grip holding a strap on the end of the jib. (give this person a way to tie it down between takes also). Then as you hook the stabilizer on you continue to handhold and operate while the attachment is being made by a 3rd person. Good communication is critical to safety because if you send the jib before the connection is safe, it'll smack people, drop the camera, etc.. - all bad. So when the connection is made and that person gives the signal, the grip releases the weight and, because you've been careful to balance the jib with the stabilizer on it beforehand, the person operating the tail of the jib continues the arm movement smoothly. It's not an easy move at all especially if you've never done it. BUT if you're able to practice the transition between dummy load and camera payload smoothly then it's doable. Just know that it can be extremely dangerous and that the crew responsible for doing it should be empowered to stop the shot if it's not working safely.

Tilt shift lenses allow you to achieve "movements" - a term pioneered in the world of large format film photography. On a 4x5 or 8x10 camera with bellows, the lens itself is relatively simple and contains generally just an iris and shutter. Focus is achieved by moving that optic closer and farther from the film plane. But you can do more than just move it in/out - bellows allow you to rise/fall the lens parallel to the film plane or shift it sideways or swing it sideways or tilt it up/down - and bellows allow you to do all these things at once. Or you can leave the lens in place and rise/fall/shift/swing/tilt the film plane itself. The tilt/shift lens is a method to achieve some of these movements on cameras without bellows. These lenses work because the optics cover an area much larger than the sensor/film size of the camera they're intended for. To picture what a Tilt/shift lens is doing, imagine that the lens projects a circular image the size of a round paper plate. Inside that paper plate is a 3x5 notecard which represents your sensor/film. Sliding that paper plate around on top of the notecard you're choosing that portion of the projected image. That's what's happening with a shift/rise/fall. Imagine pointing your camera on a wide-angle lens at a tall building. If you aim level, you'll likely cut off the top of the building. If you tilt your entire camera up you'll frame it in, but you'll exaggerate the "keystoning" of the building or the appearance of the sides of the building angling together at the top. An architectural photographer (or Stanley Kubrick for example) may not want those lines to converge and may prefer that door frames, corners etc all remain perfectly upright. The power of the rise/fall movement is being able to keep the camera level and rise the lens itself upward to frame-in the top of the building without changing the geometry of the room. Very cool. Or conversely - you could "fall" the lens to trim your frame for headroom without tilting the camera down. It's a cool and subtle effect. Spin that on its side and do a horizontal shift, and now it's as though you're standing a bit farther to the side than you are. Useful way to shoot into mirrors without seeing yourself. Tilting is a different story and most of what you're seeing when people use TS/E lenses for effect is because of tilting the lens in relation to the focal plane. The math behind tilting is called the Scheimpflug principle. Basically your plane of focus is no longer parallel to the sensor/film, and you can choose what angle your plane of focus falls. Meaning - you can shoot someone walking towards you from some distance away and if you choose their path and the plane correctly, you won't have to pull focus because they'll be sharp the whole time. The rest of the scene may look crazy but they'll be sharp. Or you could aim straight down a long road and have the entire road be in focus. There's a lot more to TS/E lenses than just that "fake miniature" effect, and knowing that these tools exist can be super helpful for those few times when you're in a head-scratching situation.

Most moving head lights in the theatrical/entertainment world use MSR-type lamps (similar to HMI) and are fully dimmable. They tend also to have color wheels, zoom/iris adjustment and gobos, color wheels etc.. And they're generally cheaper than HMI. Also - you can find movers in every major brand that can do framing shutters like lekos . If you don't need the framing but like the focus of a leko beam then you'll find basically any moving "profile" light will do it (and have onboard mechanical dimming). Skypanels are excellent, but you can find a lot of fixtures in the DMX world that can do what sky panels can (and a lot more) - such as move/zoom for less money. Because you'll be programming a lighting cue anyways - look into theatrical lighting because it's meant to do what you're trying to do (vs. kludging film lighting to do the same thing for more money). If you need just crazy punch and can find them locally - look at Elation Paladins - 1200 LED watts. That's about 3x the power of a skypanel but the paladin also has a pretty huge optical zoom range that's DMX controllable. They aren't moving fixtures, but for about 1/3 the price of a skypanel and roughly 6x-10x the output depending on zoom.... And they're waterproof. Once you add DMX to the mix, you really open-up your options for fixtures that can do what you want.

Tom! Any luck with the surf-proof mic experiments???

LCR grids, "fabric egg crates", lighttools grids - Most grip houses will carry the usual sizes like 8x8, kinda like an instant directionality to your 8x without adding much depth (about 2-3"). The angles tend to be relatively accurate if you're flying the frame flat like a door, butterfly it tends to get a little tighter pattern at the edges as the grid wants to slump in the middle. Placing flags in front of that directional 8x can further help separate certain areas, so you get the full "bang" of the frame but with clever placement of flags you can only "show" parts of it at a time using parallax.

Exactly, CS2 front capsule, CS3 rear-lobe subtraction trickery. I think the 2 sounds sweeter than the 3, so it's a good little hybrid. I literally only use it for doc onboard, but it has a super tight pattern and essentially no rear pickup so it's a world better than mkh60/416 in the same usage. I am all thumbs when it comes to hiding lavs, on the rare occasion I ever have to. But while the DPA is definitely much nicer sounding than the sanken, the cable transmits a lot more noise than the cos11, so it's definitely better in the hands of someone in the audio world who has the technique and practice.

The wiring is super simple, BUT just know that when you add that many additional adapters, it'll wobble a lot. I built something similar, took way too long to get it right and in the end it just added wobble so I went back to a simple noga arm and a cable. Much more flexible and no play.

Same as doc - the better you know the characters, the better your coverage will be. It's important to know "motivations" even in doc so you can decide if the action or reaction is more important. If you're always reacting then you're always 1-step behind and you'll literally miss everything. The good thing is that you know going in what the idea is supposed to be, so you can plan with the director where to be for each "line" or idea. And you can always pick-up reaction shots after. Hybrid is tough because unlike true doc, the characters aren't personally affected - though good actors should react with the same quickness and conviction as if they were. It can be tough to base your speed, but you'll feel it out and your director should help! You can even hybrid your hybrid coverage - you shoot it doc-style as you feel and at a certain point the director cues you into specific shots regardless of the literal words - for example as the argument escalates to a certain point you hit a frame and hold it regardless of what happens. Part of successful doc is good single-cam editing - the editor can be your ally. It's also worth mentioning that to the director how important it is to find an editor who knows how to cut single-cam doc - because it's NOTHING like other forms of editing.

gimbal suspended from a wide handle shaped like an upside-down U (speed rail, wood, whatever it doesn't matter). Long enough "legs" on the U so the grips can hold it comfortably while the crossbar is as close to the ceiling as possible. Have them run the length of the hallway. The width of the crossbar should naturally minimize up/down translation while the gimbal stabilizes everything else. And you can remote operate the shot. No rigging.

Ghost load works, like a 60w bulb cube-tapped into the line as a quick fix, but better are "low voltage compatible" dimmers.

I love mine, took me 5yr to get it and not without pain/struggle. It's very weird, inconsistent and heavy but I think it's one of the few lenses I own where non-camera people look at the image and say, "wow, that looks gorgeous" pretty much without effort. It is not remarkably sharp, it has a LOT of vignette, and I think its sweet spot is around 4-5.6 in terms of overall beauty. But I would never let mine go. Now be careful if buying one. Mine arrived with the zoom group rattling around inside. It was BAD, to the point where I couldn't risk shipping it back because that would ensure it was destroyed totally, and I couldn't send it for repair for the same reason. So I drove it to ZGC optics and Guy explained that because it's a modification of an old lens, there are zero parts available. You could try to find a 20-100 and customize some of the bits but more likely you're looking at repairs needing custom machining. AND, it's one of the most complex lenses Cooke ever made, so adjusting anything takes HOURS to tear-down, adjust, rebuild, project, ---rinse/repeat. AND even if you get it all aligned perfectly, it was hand-made and customized so it may NEVER have been a good copy in the first place. I was stubborn and hopeful so I shelled-out and had him fix/calibrate and rebuild anyways, and he did a remarkable job and I lucked-out that nothing was actually broken, just loose. These are difficult to maintain so most owners never do - and things like the zoom group retainers can get loose due to the weight of all that glass rattling around in cases. Moral of the story - it's special in an odd way. It's not modern in any way, it cuts well with original non-recoated panchros. I personally like the look better than original panchros though not as much as the new panchros if that makes any sense?

I was an audiophile and soldering nerd way before photography... MKH-50 - speaks for itself Shure KSM137 pair - stereo matched pair, knockoff of the Schoeps 41 but not as delicate Sanken CSR-2 - because I don't like to hear myself on the onboard when shooting a doc Sanken COS-11 - because I'm not good with lavs, this works and sounds good even in my hands CAD M179 - because I got to play art department and select a "space" looking mic CAD E100s - one of the best sounding mics ever MXL V69 Mogami - cheap, lush tube mic craigslist find great for harsher-voices Sennheiser MD421 - Sennheiser MD431 - Because it's so cool and legendary Beyerdynamic M88TG - Makes most voices sound HUGE. Blind listen sounds better than RE20 or SM7 for dynamic mic VO DPA 4061 lav - sounds better than the cos11 but harder to use

heavy-duty steel L bracket from hardware store - mount the camera lens to the sky on it, and your tripod plate to the other side of the L. Lay your tripod on a table/platform/box of some kind and strap it down so the head is hanging off the end a short amount. Use the pan axis of your tripod to spin around the lens - adjust the fore/aft slide on your tripod plate to center the lens on the center of the sticks. Real "improvised" but cheap and effective with a lightweight camera like that.

American Dj haze generator is a slightly derated clone of the df50...for a lot less cash. Basically the exact same effect BUT it cannot saturate as large of a space. Small sets it works beautifully and can use all of the same fluids as df50. Larger sets rent a df50. It’s Loud but because it is oil based it doesn’t require heat up time. On is on, off is off. Also, the Antari fazer series are quite good and inexpensive, and have a REALLY useful feature - they’re sealed so the can be used flat or upright without leaking. That’s a big deal in terms of sneaking it into corners or under furniture without dripping juice everywhere. But they are water based so they do have initial heat up time and do not create quite the same quality of haze as the oil crackers like the df50 or haze generator.

That shot was like 3 seconds long, any haze will work - plus the effect wasn't particularly strong so I think trying to find some alternative way of doing it would be counterproductive. There are a lot of CRAZY things that were done for effect in that era on stage and screen, some are probably missed and some probably not so much. Haze is such a common effect, you can choose from hundreds of variations in formulation in fog/haze/atmospheric effect, and nowadays safety is taken into consideration when mass marketing the fluids. Broadway uses a LOT of atmosphere because it's part of the scenic design to have beam effects. In a musical, those actors are doing 2x shows a day, 5-6 days a week SINGING in haze, so you'll find that actors equity has some of the strongest opinions of what constitutes "acceptable" haze/fog. Oil haze hangs longer and is usually quicker to saturate, but if you use a LOT day-in, day-out it will eventually make some residue. Generally the only "oil slick" will be directly next to the machine. Water-based isn't necessarily any less residual just because it's "water based," and you tend to go through quite a bit more fluid to create the same effect - so I find it leaves as much tackiness in the end. Either way, test the hang time in the space you're using in "game conditions" because the spec sheet that says "7-15 min hang" isn't taking into account movement of people, air drafts, temperature, etc - which do change the time/saturation you get.

As they say in still photography - the best camera is the one you have with you. Obviously "documentary" covers a huge range and variety of content, some of the best are the best because the access is amazing and the story is great. Yes, style has a little to do with it but let's not kid ourselves - especially in doc, it's more important to get it than to miss it fiddling. Especially if you're new to camerawork, don't be fooled into trying to get the shallowest depth of field and fastest primes - even for experienced shooters, holding focus with something like a 5d/sony a7s at f/1.4 is a fools errand. I'm personally sick of the "hunting for focus and never quite finding it" look, popularized by low-skill shooters with 5d's. Also in doc, you're occasionally or always going to want to roll takes longer than 30min - and if you're concentrating on content and monitoring audio - do you also want to be worried you'll roll-out and have to re-roll all of the time? Using a dslr, while attractive in picture, may not be your best bet. Also don't forget - most of the dslr don't have great screens or focus peaking so you'll need to ALSO invest in a monitor. For years, docs were shot on super16 film or 2/3" video and HD. Holding focus on those cameras was also difficult and done by pros with lots of time behind the lens - just look at local news (in any market) - using 2/3" video they still miss focus 90% of the time. There are a lot of 1" chip cameras out there with fantastic image quality that are true "video" cameras but have larger than s16/2/3" chips so still shallow DOF but actually usable by someone who isn't 100% concentrated on camera alone. SO, I'd say look at things like the Sony AX100 (which is 4k) - $1500 or the 1080p version of it HDR-CX900 $1100 - both 1" chips and excellent image quality. If you don't need to deliver 4k, it's still worth thinking about the AX100 because when downsampled to 1080p you get more color information - basically helps with more extreme color grading. They're basically the same camera, but the 4k version has some additional slow-mo features due to the additional processing. Both these cameras have face-tracking autofocus and it works. Now, if you're dying to get a dslr and can deal with the recording limitations, the sony A6300 and A6500 are the "super35" versions of the A7 series - so you save a lot of money to get most of the same features. Excellent video quality, 4k video, etc.. They still have the recording time limit but they can autofocus Sony lenses reliably face-tracking etc. Obviously all of this stuff leans heavily toward sony - reason being they seem to offer the best performance at the budget level, and they have some interesting features ahead of everyone else these days - the face tracking AF is mature, been in a lot of their products for at least 5yr, so it works quite well. Everyone and their mother has a 5d of some generation and there are a LOT of EF lenses in the wild - but before the 5dmk4 you're not going to find usable AF, and that cam is around $3500. I'm hammering hard on AF/focus because it's the most distracting issue to have aside from bad audio in a doc. You're telling a story, so if you can't hear it to follow the story and if you can't see it because it's all blurry or hunting then the technical "artistry" side of things is getting in the way. Nail the audio cleanly and keep it sharp and framed-well, and nobody is going to care about how shallow your DOF is.

Almost forgot - check the specs on the inverter - I saw Alexander's other post. Some of the ultra-cheap inverters can't go above like 15v without frying, and a fresh brick can be 17+.... so either check the specs or put a small voltage regulator inline on a good heat sink to dissipate a couple volts. As for voltage - all of the strip/tubes I've taken apart have been relatively high voltage internally, like 90+vdc. Not sure on quasar but one of my 4' died so I'll pop it open and see.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/925335-REG/pag_9508_gold_mount_to_vehicle.html or https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/925334-REG/pag_9507_v_mount_to_vehicle_cigar.html with https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/995854-REG/wagan_2221_6_smart_ac_150w_continuous.html I believe the 4' crossfades are 50w? Should be able to do 2x tubes with a 150w inverter, wouldn't go much smaller though.

Sorta. Technically any 75 ohm cable should be able to carry HD-SDI up to a point. HD-SDI is a higher frequency signal than composite video, by a lot. So it doesn't pass through certain things the way composite does. Solder, for example. You cannot reliably use soldered connectors with HD-SDI. So if the ends are crimped, then yes - except for long runs (200+ ft) basically any 75 ohm cable with 75 ohm connectors SHOULD work. If it's less than 25' even real junk should work reliably. You can run tests on the cables using a leader scope and signal generator, etc - but if you're hopping your f3 to a recorder you could almost use wet pasta to carry the signal. Not really but you get the point. HD Cable from belden or canare is tested and guaranteed but if you have a pile of old cable from those companies, chances are it's the same but not "certified."

It's not a permanent solution, but on a few occasions in NY elevators I've done used this technique with great success. Certainly WAY cleaner and easy to move than laying flat. Standard hand cart (magliner, steel crappy home depot hand truck - whatever) standing vertically with a 1/2 applebox laying flat and sticking outward on the tongue. Stand the C-stands vertically with the legs hanging off the side of the applebox, they should stack neatly. Bungee it tight to the cart. Roll away. For a little extra support on big bumps, stick a maffer clamp with a 16" 5/8 rod chucked into it on one vertical rail of the cart to line-up the c-stand arms. I've done 6 stands successfully with some dirt on the base as well.