Chris Keth

Caps off, wide open with focus set (approximately), as well.

And cased back up clean, in the proper hole, with both caps, wide open, focused to infinity.

Here's my method/opinion: If you're a second, you should bring the lens without caps. You should also bring all accessories that need to go with the lens such as different length rods, donut, lens support, etc. Hold the lens by the barrel so you can hand it to the first front element down in his hand already oriented as it will go onto the camera. If you do this, you will make your first very happy.

If you're changing to a zoom, this all still goes but generally just bring the case for the zoom. Many, if not most, zooms we use aren't really safely one-handeable, and it gives you somewhere to set stuff since going to a zoom usually involves changing more stuff over than swapping primes.

I'm on a show with two alexas and on fresh batteries, the low-battery warning will still flash periodically. It's a very on-off thing, it doesn't stay on for more than a second. It's made the assistants wary of believing the low-battery level warnings when the battery really is going low.

Anybody know why this happens?

I have the low-battery level set to 12V, perhaps the accessories are putting enough load to drop the voltage below 12V for an instant before the battery can respond with more juice?

It was a solid couple years before I felt kind of secure and another year or two before I felt like I was consistently doing the kind of work I want to do.

I went on a grant I obtained from school. It was a great experience but nothing I wouldn't have learned in my first few jobs, just condensed into a week.

I prefer the FF4 of those choices

An assistant named Dave Berryman has a machinist make some in batches. I bought one and it is very nice. PM me and I'll send you his e-mail address (don't know if he'd want it public)

...when someone like Mullen, Wolski or Schwartzman talk, people tend to listen.

No, people tend to kiss-ass and take their opinions as solid gold fact.

I was hoping someone could explain to me the relationship between shutter, shutter angle and frames per second with concern to a DSLR. My canon 5DmkII has options for 24 or 30fps, and shutter speeds going from 1/30 (for active liveview) to 1/8000, how do those shutter speeds affect the shutter angle (which is limited to 360deg)?

 

I know that to replicate a "film look", I should set my fps to 24 and my shutter to 1/50 as that's the closest approximation to 1/48 (which is equal to a shutter angle of 180deg, 180/360 * 24 = 48).

 

I've read that a few major tentpole films are now being shot at 60fps, what would the shutter speed/angle be for that? Is a reasonably similar look attainable with the 5DmkII?

 

How about on the opposite spectrum, what shutter speed/angle is best for a "Phantom camera" like look with additional slowing in post? I would think I need to increase the fps to 30 and use a faster shutter speed (1/250?) to get clearer frames for the time remapping in post.

 

I hope someone here could enlighten me, thank you.

The "normal" shutter angle you're looking for is always going to be 1/(2xframerate). At 60fps, this would be 1/120th. For the best shutter speed for slowing things down in post, I think you'd have to test it.

Some of the driving plates were shot with 5Ds, there's a bit of digital format there.

The "film look" comes from the fact that they are shooting Progressive rather than Interlaced frames. In addition to this, the F35 has a 35mm sized sensor, which gives 35mm style DoF. I believe it's also being lit in a more cinematic way that it has been in recent years. Knowing the BBC's aversion to film grain, I'd be surprised if they were adding any in post

Also, since the sun doesn't exist in the UK, it gives the illusion that these video formats can hold highlights well. ;)

You don't see me running around demanding that people prove their credentials.

Perhaps you should question information a bit more. Nobody here is saying that claims about the epic are false. I haven't shot with the camera yet nor assisted with it, therefore I claim nothing. I think everybody is saying the publicity material deserves a dram of skepticism, given the red company's history of unabashed hyperbole and, depending on your definition of the act, maybe even outright lying.

You bought a camera, arranged to pick it up in person, and then just left it there for eight months? That is the real problem here.

At what focal length do you want to know the focal length? What chip size does your camera have?

Umm, you've just described my entire working practice.

 

damn!

I can corroborate this.

This is such a NON-story... OMG, a professional dancer was used for shots in a movie about professional dancing??? The movie was a work of FICTION, the actors aren't playing themselves, Natalie Portman didn't really die at the end, she pretended to. Actors play nuclear scientists, astronauts, ancient Romans, Jesus Christ, etc. all sorts of people that they aren't in real life. And they do it with the help of technicians, stunt men, efx people, costumers, doubles, etc. It's the art of ILLUSION.

Sarah Lane is my cousin. I've had to try very hard lately not to piss off my family by saying exactly what David has. They just don't quite get it.

I do wish she had been credited properly and fairly for the job she did, though. Everybody knows the production company or the distributors aren't going to flaunt the fact that there was a dance double for Natalie. That's not the point. The point is that she was a dance double and was credited for stunts and as a hand model.

That's terrifying, an easy way to create handheld 3D images. I should buy stock in advil.

3 or 4 seconds is a long time. I would say, even with slow stock, that you definitely should have edge fogging and figging on the outside couple winds. If it was on the perf side of S16, it may not reach into the image area if you're lucky.

I tested one today for a show as a small riggable camera along side an F35, an F9000, and an alexa and nobody at the test was really impressed, especially with it's lack of dynamic range.

Looks like I'm going to be in Atlanta this summer. Anyone know their way around? I'd love some insider information that's not influenced by the local business organizations that want my money.

You would probably be fine but if you're recording that HDSDI signal, why don't you have a cable made with a right angle end and eliminate the extra connection?

In my experience, the job changes in two ways. The first is that you start doing things that would normally be other jobs but those positions don't exist.

For example, there may not be a script supervisor so some of those responsibilities may fall to the 2nd.

Another real world example: I did a whole feature as the only camera assistant without a second. It sucked. We were in some rough desert locations where I would have killed for some help schlepping gear around. It was also a pain hitting sticks and then going back to the camera to pull focus.

The other way the job changes on low budget films is that you get fewer "extras." The best example I can think of from my own work experience is that I pulled focus on a surprisingly low budget anamorphic feature with a lot of steadicam. There were days I really needed either a cinetape or time to get lots of marks but I couldn't get either for money reasons. For that reason, they had to be satisfied with a lot of buzzes. The DP knew that big steadicam moves at a T2.8 on 40mm and 75mm anamorphics wasn't going to go well but the director insisted we go ahead even knowing the technical problems we would have.

Camwaves are a rehoused wifi-based system meant for transmitting a television signal through a wall or two in a house. IDX stuck them in a housing and charges way too much money for them.

Since an HD signal is not needed, I would probably want something like a canatrans. The problem will be powering it on a camera that, as far as I know, has no accessory power source.

That is only half the story. Adams would expose for the shadows, but would also push or pull process to gain his desired highlight density. This was possible because he was shooting large format sheet film. It is not possible with motion picture film as each roll generally contains a range of scenes, each with different subjects and contrast ranges.

 

Following this advice blindly when shooting motion picture B&W could easily result in very blown out whites and highlights.

This seems a bit nutty when I think back on it, but for my thesis in school, I shot a lot of B&W exteriors. I was very used to zone system exposure and processing large format so I would actually have 3 mags loaded: one for -1, one for normal, and one for +1 processing. It was slightly cumbersome sometimes but it really did help me out with some tough exposure situations.

I would steer clear of the camwave. I used it extensively for the last show I did and it was awful. The receivers have to be so close you might as well hardline.

Going on an HVX is tricky, since I don't remember them having P-tap power outlets. Does the camera have any kind of power tap?