Marco Leavitt

Treating the room, as suggested, is always a good idea, but almost never practical. I don't usually bother with it. Mostly it's about choosing the right mic -- a good hypercardiod as already suggested, and getting the mic close, within a foot and a half when possible. If it's a very bright space and you can't get close enough, you pretty much have to use wireless. If you are going to treat the room, you need to cover two perpendicular walls. This is usually not possible though, because of the lighting. You also have to be able to duplicate it on the reversals. Again, usually not possible.

RAMPS is great, but do more reading in there, not posting. It is not the place to ask beginner questions. That forum is populated by serious pros and they can be cranky. You would be better to ask beginner type questions at forums like www.dv.com and www.dvinfo.net. Best thing to do is buy Jay Rose's book (he's a moderator at www.dv.com), "Producing Great Sound for Film and Video," it is the bible. http://www.amazon.com/Producing-Great-Soun...4152&sr=8-1

Did you finish the shoot? These two products would help. http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/C...76&IID=1731 http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/C...76&IID=1729 By the, I much prefer to unsqueezed mode in the eyepiece. It's easier to focus. They letterbox on the flipout LCD you lose a lot of resolution.

The guy lasted so long and made so many great movies I had started to take it for granted that we would be enjoying new films from him forever. For me his passing is nothing short of a shock. He has a special importance for me, because I remember coming across "Nashville" on late night television when I was a child, and it was the first time I realized that movies could be something other than the slick formula product that Hollywood excells at. I really credit him with sparking a desire in me to seek out more interesting movies. I can honestly say that without his work I wouldn't be who I am today, and I am seriously bummed that he's no longer with us. God bless the cantankerous old bastard.

Make sure you get HiMD. The Sony MZ-RH1 is your only real option.

I've always wanted one of those, but don't think I can get a copy by Saturday. I am headed to NYC Friday to pick up the lenses. Can anyone recommend a store down there that might have it?

Are there charts I can download and print showing the depth of field for 16mm lenses at each aperature? I just rented three primes ? 12m, 25m, and 80m.

Thanks. Very tempting. Is this the auction? http://cgi.ebay.com/Cooke-9-50mm-T2-5-lens...1QQcmdZViewItem

Smart alec. :) Okay, I've expanded the budget to about $2,600. Again, can anyone recommend a good rental/sales house? The only one familiar with is Birns and Sawyer and I'd like to comparison shop.

Well, okay, I know. Is there at least a passable lens (used) in the $1,300 range?

We're gearing up to shoot an 18 minute short using Silicon Imaging's rockin' new digital camera. The camera is designed to use existing 16 mm film lenses and has a PL mount. I've checked rental prices, and it looks like it will be cheaper for us to buy a used lens and sell it after the shoot. Money's a little tight on this, as we have just completed two other projects recently. Can someone recommend me a nice sharp all-purpose zoom in our price range ? about $1,300? I would rather go with something more on the wider end of the spectrum, rather than telephoto. The image area of the camera is pretty close to 16mm, by the way. It is a 2/3 inch CMOS sensor, so it's a tiny bit smaller. Also, where is a good source? I'd be willing to pay a little more to buy from someplace more reliable than eBay. Thanks much to anyone who can help me. By the way, if you haven't checked out the Silicon Imaging camera yet you really should. It's killer.

About that 800x480 resolution... Is that the true resolution? LCD manufacturers often neglect to mention that it takes three dots (RGB) to represent a pixel of video, so you usually have to divide the stated resolution by three. The highest true resolution I've seen before in a 7 inch monitor is 240, so Marshall's specs are interesting. The thing I really want to know is, can you pull focus (in HD) with this thing? It seems too good to be true.

Isn't an aspheric lens more than just a wide angle adapter? In fact, I've seen a fixed lens that was labled aspheric. I was under the impression (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that an aspheric lens is designed to correct for the distortion that you get with many wide angle lenses.

There's a quite a lot of information online on how to get the best sound out of that camera. Many feel that if you use a mixer and go in through the line inputs (RCA), you'll get the best signal to noise ratio. Check out this article at DV Mag, it's pretty much the definitive writeup on the audio performance of those cameras. (You'll need to sign up, but it's free and painless.) http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.jhtml?Loo...ose_feature1102 I've had the best luck with that camera by splitting the audio track and recording one track about 6 db to 10 db lower than the other. Then you can keep the levels pretty hot with less worry about clipping. Basically, you want to maintain fairly hot, uniform levels with all digital camcorders. If you record too low, when you boost it in post you'll also raise all the hiss (noise floor) that has unfortunately been recorded to tape because of the fairly noisy preamps all of these cameras have. This is the main reason many people (myself included) still strongly urge double system sound if you have the crew to handle it. Another tip: on any camcorder, try and keep the gain knob at about 1/3 of the way. Much lower and you'll get distortion, much higher and you get hiss. If you end up with levels that are too low using that setting, you have to find a way to boost the signal, like with a mixer. The Sennheiser ME series of microphones were specifically designed to accomplish this wihout a mixer, and have a very hot output. That's why they're so popular with no budget filmmakers. Most people feel that average peaks should hover (two or three times a sentence) at -12 dBFS to get the best signal to noise ratio. Good luck.

If anyone is keeping a tally, I'm with those who think that "Gladiator" was utter crap. It had its moments, but wow, that has to be the worst ending of any movie I have ever seen. Easily the worst movie to ever win a best picture oscar, a record I thought was going to be held indefinitely by "Braveheart." Sorry, not trying to contribute to any flame fests. I think the vary nature of the topic of this post makes comments like this appropriate. Oh, I still love Ridley Scott though. He's made some great movies. I just don't think "Gladiator" was one of them.