Tom Hepburn

No doubt. New seller too. How unique.

Checked it out Dave and it's been removed. T

Hi John, I bought a camera off of Ebay. Knowing what I know now, I would also factor in what it would cost to have a good camera tech give it the once over. Tom

Hi Gareth. The SM58 as Brett mentioned is a live mic. It's also a beast that would probably bend a telescoped pole :) I would look at a shotgun mic. As the name implies, at a reasonable distance you can point them in the general direction of the sound(s) and it should pick it up and reduce the ambient sounds around it. In terms of the minidisk, I'm not sure what the compression would do to a good well recorded signal. Tom

Hi David, I'm going to make the change back to Final Cut Pro when the new macs come out. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on going from Premier to FCP, as I'm currently using Premier myself. I've had some road blocks with it. Tom

I used them a few times 6 years ago and had good results. No surprises. Tom

John, Keep positive and hope it's getting a little better each day. Tom

Hi Chris, Just an aesthetic opinion on my part: I always find myself a bit disappointed when viewing something that cuts away from film and back again. I find myself noting the change as opposed to being carried along by the story. Of course I do understand budget limitations. Tom

These are great responses. I appreciate the help. Tom

I probably should have given a bit of background Michael. I have no aspirations to go to Hollywood and become a DP. I'm a happy father here in Chicago and 48. At this point my experience is very limited and I'll go ahead and thank the many people here that have accelerated my pace on the learning curve. I do however have a good deal of experience editing video and working with sound (insert resume here :) I also like to think that I have an active creative streak and would like to use the medium of film to express that. I have the utmost respect for the processes involved in doing so. In time, I feel like I can become a competent short film maker. Having said that, I'm as close to a one man show as I think is possible. Of course, I do have some great friends that have really helped and will continue to do so. For the most part I write the story, do all of the cinematography, create and manage the shot lists. I have others to help me set up lights, run the sound, including the boom, carry anything that needs to move. They have some basic experience, but like me are not professionals. So as you can see I'm at the very basic level. I don't have professional actors or anything like that at this point. I need to learn the skills necessary to confidently manage the mechanics of filming a short before that happens. So, I'm starting slow as I don't want to lay down a weak foundation. Some great info so far gentleman. I think I have a handle on the timing involved in terms of working with schedules, actors, and trying to get a scene in before the environment changes. If you guys or anyone else can expand a little on taking your work flow from paper to production that would be great. I'm particularly interested in how one would do this with one camera. Obviously, I'm not able to do a two camera shoot live, then choose some of the best portions from each. Some may have to go back a few years to remember...... Also, Michael I don't rigidly tie myself to the storyboards, I think that I have them close by as I'm concerned I'll shoot all of my shots and miss a crucial one that will render the story incomplete. Or if I move the camera before I have what I need, then have to try to put it back exactly where it was to maintain continuity. Thanks, Tom

Thanks Brian (and Adrian). I actually am asking about the mechanics. If I understand your response, I was using the above as an example only, and in terms of mechanics, not as it relates to a story or character development. I would make different choices in regard to aesthetics and creativity. The work flow example is basic and rudimentary in hopes that our communication here is easy to follow and understand as it relates to the mechanics of shooting out of sequence and to reduce the amount of subjective ideas. If I'm misunderstanding you, let me know. I understand that in one sense all of these things are tied together. Thanks, Tom

I have a couple of questions that are based around the process of planning and shooting. What I'm a little vague on is how folks actually plan and organize their shots and in what sequence. I'm also not sure where I should post this so I’ll start here. Say for example I have an 8 minute narrative short. I have one 16mm sound sync camera and one light kit consisting of 2000 total watts. This is what I would do: Get the script (whether I or someone else wrote it) Sketch out quick general storyboards to try to turn the words into pictures For example, if I have a interior of a living room and two people talking, I'll have 3 basic sketches: an establishing wide shot a shot of actor "A" over the shoulder (or side) of actor "B" a shot of actor "B" over the shoulder (or side) of actor "A" I'll do that for each scene. So in the end I'll have each scene with the basic general layout of location, camera position, objects, and actor (s), based on the story being told. Then I'll refine the storyboards and add more (to use an animation term, add the "in betweens") to have a board for each shot in the way I'd like to tell it. Once I have each shot covered on a storyboard I make a copy of each (on a copier of course). I arrange one set in the order of the story being told to make sure I have the flow of the story close at hand, and the other grouped in order of location. For example, "interior living room," "outdoor sidewalk, walking," and "on the park bench." This is what I would do for the “on the park bench" scene going off of the story board of which there are three camera positions: The establishing shot of two actors walking in the frame and sitting down on the bench. actor "A" talking to of actor "B" actor "B" talking to of actor "A" Shoot the film in this way: 1)shoot The establishing shot of two actors walking in the frame and sitting down on the bench change the camera position 2)shoot all of the shots of actor "A" for the scene change the camera position 3)shoot all of the shots of actor "B" for the scene Repeat for each scene in a practical order. This is a purely hypothetical situation, but it's something that I think I really need to work on and understand to get to the next level. I never studied the idea of shooting out of sequence in school or on a job. I did mostly 3d animation, where I could build, design, and animate each scene in order and then recall it in a click. So I am even close here or do I have my head completely up my #$^ Any help along these lines, be it advice, books, or whatever would be appreciated. This question has been on my mind for a long time, but I’m just now feeling comfortable enough to ask it. Thanks as always, Tom Also, fyi, going back to school is not an option.

Just for clarification: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a best light set or adjusted based on the first few seconds of visible frames? Then "they" let it roll till the end. If one was to send SLR shots when getting a best light transfer, wont' they just match that to the first few seconds ? Tom

You know I have to agree with you Tim that this is a bit extreme. It's one thing, to have advertisements on the side or top, but it's quite another to have pop ups when someone is inadvertently navigating around a screen. I understand that there are costs involved with a site of this nature. However rather than reading an ad, I'm forced to interact with it without my consent. I know it can be disabled, but I guess I feel like it's a bit aggressive on the marketing side of things to have resort to that. I'm not saying I'm gong to leave, but I hope that removing these will be considered. Tom

Hey Nick, Not to turn this into a webinar :P but you can always drag the web address icon, when on the 16mm forum, to you desktop. Then whenever you click that icon, you'll go right there. I'm a "view new posts" guy myself. Tom

Isn't Kodaks' Cinesite in England? http://www.cinesite.com/ If so, I would think they at least have a student rate and if you talk with a Kodak Rep there maybe even better. Tom

Reminds me a bit of the Buddy Rich tape....although I don't remember him going after anyone. too bad though.

"Is there any reason not to use the frankenmac with FCP?" Although I love Adobe products, for me there is no other reason-I'm not sure about the Frankenmac. And hopefully the new macs and FCP will be equipped with Blue Ray capabilities. As I said, I love Adobe and will be using Premier Pro today, but the problem I had with HD, is getting the transfer done and put on a PC formatted hard drive. I would check your favorite transfer house on that one. Tom

One way is to draw a mask around that person and animate it from frame to frame, then desaturate the background layer. Or there is a plug in in AfterEffects called Leave Color, but something like this, is pretty advanced. You can always experiment, but I would try not to get too frustrated as these skills, take a lot of time to develop. Software is good, but you still need a skillful person to make it work. Hope that helps. Tom

Hi Austin, There are a couple of good options. One is Lynda.com. You can subscribe for a month (I think it's like $25) and watch the tutorials there as many times as you want. Take copious notes as they say. There is also, this site: http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html I haven't spent a lot of time there, but it looks like some good info. Of course hands on is the best way to learn. So you might still have some learning to do when you get the Final Cut Studio and that should be filled with a lot of other great tutorials. Tom

Well, I can't tell you exactly what you should be looking for, but a great little shotgun mic is the Rode NTG-2 It's light, reasonably priced and good sounding. I've mounted in on a homemade shock mount at the top of my ACL. There is a "sweet" distance that is far enough in front of the camera to reduce the camera noise yet far enough back to be out of your shot. Keep in mind if you were in a quiet place, indoors with wooden floors, you may pick up the camera slightly, but on ice, I think you'd be OK. You may also want to look into the wind screen. I think it's called a dead cat, as I'm sure if you're skating around you're going to be getting some wind brushing across the surface. I might also consider having a video camera somewhere that would pick up ambient sound of the audience. That way you can mix the two when and where needed when editing. As always, I would test this set up first, but these have been my experiences. Tom

Dan, It all depends of what you want to do. Toon Boom is the cartoon "standard" so if you're going to be doing, or want to be doing that kind of work, that's what I would consider. AfterEffects is a whole other thing. You won't be able to do the same kind of work that you would with Toon Boom, but it is ideal for motion graphics animation, compositing, and video/film, among other things. You can do some basic 3D work, but nothing like, Maya, Lightwave, or Softimage. Maya, or any other 3D package is another animal as well. I will say that you won't hit the ground running with any of these as there is a steep learning curve, if you haven't used them before. All three of these packages do something well. If it were me, I would decide what it is I want to do and make my software decision based on that. If you're mostly interested in 2D cartoon animation, then I would go with Toon Boom. Good luck, Tom

"fumbling around with focus/exposure on my Eclair ACL while skating, " Hey Nick, sorry but I can't help but chuckle at the sight of that :lol: I would fall so many times there would be very little left of the camera at the end of the day. I understand the tight budget, so this may beyond that, but it's certainly portable and 24 bit: http://www.jr.com/sony-pcmd50-recorder/pe/SON_PCMD50/ it's small enough that I actually mounted it to the side of my camera with velcro tape because I always forgot to turn it off between takes. I needed it closer to the camera switch so I can turn it off just after the camera. I use it for all of my sync work. But as I said, as a one time shot it's probably too pricey. Tom

Another idea: What about using a 3D ball. One can also set up a 3D "scene" where a nice shadow will fall on the wall as the ball approaches it. It's not film, but you will have more control over the ball and shadow. So you would just pretend that the camera is following an invisible ball. Just another take on it. If you prefer to stay with film that's certainly understandable. At the very least I might film that plate just as a back up. Tom

Hey Nick, I have an ACL II and the red light does in fact flicker every so slightly when the camera is running. It is off when the camera is not running (but still powered up). I'm no tech, but I'd say that it flickers so anyone near the camera knows that it's rolling. Sort of like an "on air" sign in a radio station. Tom