Adamo P Cultraro

How many union members does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Four! Why, you gotta problem with that?

One of my favorite jokes from Harry Box's Set Lighting Technicians Handbook. In any case, I think it more or less exposes the unions for what they are - a joke.

Personally I would take a hard look at the Letus Extreme adapter. not sure if you are renting or buying, but the Extreme only loses 1/2 stop, flips the image for you, and delivers razor sharp images with nice bokeh. Plus it costs $1500.

As far as lenses go, I prefer Nikons. I have a set of 6 primes and am happy with them. I've heard that Zeiss lenses are pretty nice, but the cost to performance ratio is just not there for me. I'd stay away from some of the no name lenses like Kogaku and a few others.

Remember to get the fastest lenses you can as these adapters tend to lose a lot of light.

Should also add that setting of a marine style flare near a body of water requires you to contact the coast guard and let them know a "flare test" is in progress. Or else it will be all over channel 16 VHF and someone will show up pissed thinking someone is in distress.

Aren't unions great? They add so much value. Not. :rolleyes:

If anyone has seen the trailer for Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary "Shine a Light", you would remember the scene where Martin is on the phone with a "voice" talking about wanting to bring in a "moving camera" for their shoot at the Beacon Theatre? Well he was talking to Tony, the Local 1 Union boss at the Beacon. Essentially the union, as always, makes it very hard to bring in any jibs, dollies, track, stands, anything for a production without paying thousands and thousands of dollars. Well the union shot him down and he was unable to bring in a jib for the shoot.

 

I'm currently involved with the creation, shooting, and post on a STARZ HD concert series and we shot the Kaiser Chiefs at the Beacon on Saturday night.

 

We didn't have a jib either, and we fought for one as well.

 

Martin Scorcese - 0, Filament Productions 0

 

That made us feel better.

Thanks David!!!!

I can't tell you how helpful these writeups have been. I appreciate it!

I recently ordered Harry Box's book - Set Lighting Technician's handbook. A great read but more technical rather than discussing the finer (stylistic) points of lighting. Anyone recommend a good book that covers this?

Hey Chris,

Interesting. I think it's the relatively low price point of getting into the cam that makes it so popular. I'd still like to think there are very few HVXs setup like mine - more of a studio rig with matte box, FF, rails, 35mm adapter, primes, you name it. The rig is approaching $20K for all the stuff I have - the camera being the cheapest component. Work for free isn't in my vocab, however...:-)

I don't get the line: 'here in LA everyone will take advantage of you if you have an HVX'. Please explain.

Tim - your scenarios are the classic "movie vs reality" issues that are contained in most movies. Which is why even in a movie as unbelievable as 'children of men', the cinematography was sooooo believable. We were right there with the characters experiencing the whole thing with them. That one long tracking shot as they entered the building was phenomenal and very realistic, even if the content itself wasn't.

Shooting something that's obviously fantasy can be made to look realistic by clever cinematography. Shooting something that is reality, something mundane, like asking someone for a date, can be made to look very fake by canned cinematography.

Andy - It's what I've been saying all along. The HVX shoots 1080 as well.

I have a 4 and a 16 after the firmware update. Works fine. No ideas about FCP thought - I use Vegas. Even so, I just dump the card on the drive. My NLE has no contact with the card; I'm assuming the same for most other people.

Shop around. The cam is a consumer item and you have to hunt for the best price. I don't think you would get a discount. They are all priced pretty close to each other.

But it is nevertheless a 1080p camera.

Barry Green's HVX book has a CD that comes with it. Besides being an excellent resource, the CD containes scene files for the camera, a couple of which are optimized for low light.

The HVX does not uprez to get 1080. It records everything at 1080 and actually downrezzes to get 720. I can't believe the misinformation out there on a camera whose specs are widely available.

As a matter of fact, Juan Perretier has been able to squeeze 2K out of the imagers of the HVX with his Hydra modification.

Put lens flares in during post.

Why do we care what Phil thinks?

Gary,

No, I didn't. But I did give him a credit!!!!! Did you like it?

I'm not here to scrap it out, man. I agree - let's get along.

Jim,

I'm surprised you care what people like Max, Phil and others think. I don't have a RED on order (yet), but am real close. It's obvious to me you've got a great product and between me and my DP, we kind of laugh at the internet know-it-alls.

Not sure if your presence here is damage control, but in the circles I swim in, RED is well spoken of.

Why even deal with a light meter????? Get yourself a good monitor (no, the stock LCD is not good enough) and use the zebra function to get the exposure where you want it.

Also, get Barry Green's HVX book. It comes with a CD of 16 scene files and tells you how to change the many parameters of this camera.

The abandoned marine base at El Toro. I'm shooting there January. 4700 acres in the middle of Orange County (SOCAL) complete with ghost town, hangars, and runways. My flick doesn't use it in the post apocalyptic sense, but it is so run down it could be.

Plus how often do you get to shoot on a real freaking base.

Yeah! great report!!!!!

Just tuned in, but tons of very useful information. Thanks, David.

While I don't care about the details, someone does and it's only a matter of time until someone buys one and reverse engineers it.

What pisses me off is the whole 007 part of the marketing campaign. No pics on the website even after the camera is released. Hush hush about every facet of the device. I live 10 minutes from where RED is based - and I doubt if I could just "drop in and have a look" at the cam. It really is irritating. Talk of NDAs left and right.

Couple that with a forum of zealots and ass kissing Jannard sycophants, and the whole project is really nauseating.

Oddly enough, I still want one and am planning to purchase one. The chances are 100% I will own one as I have the wherewithal to do so tomorrow if the opportunity arose. Just show me the damn camera - so tired of looking at spec sheets, hype, and speculation.