J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR

I was thinking the same thing too. I would guess you could run them off of a few different kind of fuels or maybe use an additive to get a different CT.

seconded...

Definitely a special purpose kind of thing, could be a cool practical source in a period film.

Well it depends on color balance. If you have those HMI's you could go with a daylight balance. Use the HMI's as fill if the window light is strong enough to be a key, if not use them to boost the window light. I personally would go with a daylight balance, the '18 with an 85 rated at 320 to 250. I love the '18, it's rapidly becoming my all time favorite stock.

What do you guys think about these Tilley Spotlights? Tilley Lights I hear they can make upwards of 20,000 CP. Any ideas on color temp? Looks like it could make some interesting fire light effects.

No, it's not a close match. If you tried to intercut them, you would definitely see the difference. A close match grain wise would be 7248 or the new 7212. If you're shooting '45, I'm assuming you're shooting exteriors. With an 85 on the '48 or '12 you would gain 1/3 of a stop over the '45. Personally I like the '48 over the '45 on exteriors, I like the contrast better. As far as 7218, from my experience it seems to have tighter grain than the 7246. I recently used 7218 intercut with 8622 and 8672. It matched OK with the 64D and made the F500 look like the odd man out.

This discussion relates to a music video that I shot recently. This would be an example of what not to do to reduce grain. We wanted a home movie 8mm look and we were shooting 16mm. So I shot this on 8622 one stop underexposed to bring out the grain and did not pull focus. I just told the boy to run in circles around me getting closer until he could tag the meter pouch on my hip. He is about to tag the pouch. Add a few scratches and ta da! Home movie. So as you can see, underexposure and lack of sharpness really emphasizes the grain. In actuality this scene is a bit "sharper", I don't know how to export frames from my NLE and retain all their sharpness.

Can you check your links? I can't get it to play or right click and save as.

Funny thing about these ads is, the only people who want to attend would be ones who think they have talent. If you thought you had no talent, why would you apply?

The DVXuser.com forum has a section for it. Go there to find out the problems it has with 24p. I don't think they've issued a patch for it yet. I've got PPro 1.5 and I have no problems with it besides the 24p problem, which hasn't bothered me yet but it needs to be fixed in a hurry.

All good advice, I wouldn't worry about your age. No one will probably even ask and I doubt anyone on the crew is going to read your resume. I long ago learned that I have the unfortunate personality trait of being "aloof or stuck up." Actually I'm not, I'm just so focused on what I'm doing I forget to acknowledge people standing a few feet away. So I make it a point to say Hello and shake the hand of the first guy I see on set because that always puts me in the mindset that I have to communicate with everybody. Not communicating constantly with the crew will get people pissed off faster than anything. Such as if there is some delay and everybody is ready to shoot, I always simply say "hang loose a bit guy's...we're work something out." Just communicate what your plan is for each scene in detail, don't expect people to just know what you're thinking. Once you've given them enough to go on, they'll run with it in confidence. Also, if you don't know the department heads well, don't ask their assistants to do something, ask them, even though you're the director, I've seen a gaffer get very mad about that. On top of that if anyone gets mad and trouble starts, diffuse it, we've all seen "the aside." Like when the producer takes the director aside and says, "The DP feels you're not acknowledging any of his suggestions and you are making things harder than necessary on everybody. Besides, you know that DP's are right all the time anyway." :D

It might just be that particular post house prefers Avid but I would think they could work with any EDL. If they couldn't I'm sure you could convert it into Avid format. EDL's are just a list of timecode, when you do the TK they will lay timecode down on the D5 and an exact match on the DVcam. There shouldn't be any problem "fixing...frame errors" unless you're talking about trying to match your EDL to a second TK in your scenario. That of course brings into play keycode. However, I think some (or all, I don't know) telecine machines have the ability to roll live to a master timecode. If you laid down a master tape, you would start the timecode at the punch frame, then after an edit you could pull selects off of the OCN by rolling the telecine from the punch at the same timecode, just recording the selects. Thereby skipping keycode altogether. If money is the deciding factor, you obviously go that route. I'm just wanting to point out that more often than not, in my experience, and HD tape-to-tape session gets done. It's just how you put the finishing touches on, to get the best final product. Like David says, in your second scenario the second TK will be out of sequence, actually I guess it could be in sequence with scenes on the same roll if you shuttled around but you don't have to, the colorist can get good matches with the frame store but you always want to make changes when you see the edits/shots side by side in the finished cut. Try searching the archive on this issue I know we discussed it last year and it seemed every possible route is taken by different people for different reasons. The one thing I will say you should do is shop around, if you have options look at all of them and don't pay retail.

Costs savings aside the problem you run into is that you will want or need to do an HD tape-to-tape CC no matter what route you take. It is your mastering format so you really can't avoid it and it doesn't make sense to do so. Especially if effects and title sequences were created in HD resolution by someone at a post house who isn't sitting in on the editing. It's likely the director, editor or maybe you dialed in some CC in the offline and you wonder how the D5 compares. I find it convenient to just transfer everything to D5-HD and consider that your digital negative. They can simo roll the TK session to DVcam to save downconversion costs and time. Do an offline edit, then conform with titles and effects and tape-to-tape CC on the D5. In my experience the tape-to-tape CC hasn't been time consuming at all because most of the work was done in the original TK.

I'd have to say I try to strive to create images as good as those in movies I saw as a kid. My very earliest memories are of movies my parents took me too as a baby. I probably cried and pissed off the audience. Of course as a kid you don't even know that cinematographers exist, but the images mark you forever. Oswald Morris Gordon Willis Haskel Wexler Bill Butler John Alonzo Caleb Deschanel Ernest Laszlo Philip Lathrop Nestor Almendros - Look in the dictionary under style. Robert Hauser - for the Combat series in reruns. Others include Storaro Janusz Kaminski Raoul Coutard John Lindley Jack Green Roger Deakins

Some thoughts on the DVX-100/100A after using it many months now on a documentary in 24pA mode. I feel the image is great for SD TV material, I've intercut it with 16mm footage transferred on an URSA Y-Front and most people have no idea. There is a difference in grain, the film (7246) has sharper grain the DVX more like soft video noise, because that's what it is. It's a great camera if you have no/low budget and it will deliver suitable material for TV broadcast. I have my doubts about 35mm filmout and digital projection gets iffy. I have no problem with the spinning focus ring because of the focus numbers. The ring keeps spinning but the focus range does top out and you can see that visualy. I've used it with the follow focus lockout gear that limits the ring movement and it works like any other cinema lens. The camera IS a bitch to get focused though. I find the LCD to be the best to focus with in combination with a fine pitch production monitor. Sometimes I also A/B the focus against the auto focus. Onboard audio has been fine. The biggest complaint I have is the color space. The 8-bit DVX-100 is a complete let down IMO. It just looks far too flat to me and seems to be lacking. The 12-bit DVX-100A is an improvement and the way to go if you're looking at this camera. Still not as good as an SDX and nothing like film in terms of color depth. Comparing it to the XL2, I like the XL2 ergonomics better for handheld when it is fitted with long rods that go over your shoulder and hang a battery out back. I like the interchangeable lenses on XL2 but they have a serious draw back in the wide angle and expense department. I feel that negates the value of this option unless you are using a mini-35. The Mini-35 though is way too expensive. It seems with the 16:9 arrangement that the included lens is useless without a wideangle adaptor. I'm just not sure the XL2 is worth the price difference, it would be if it came standard with a good wide angle lens.

Ah-ha, I new there had to be something. I totaly agree with the philosophy behind the camera, it just looks a bit cobbled together to me. As always the proof will be in the image.

The flip side to all this is a few times I've heard people yell out things that were very funny. I went to see "Coming to America" with a friend who usually isn't prone to any sort of outburst, when the Paramount logo came up he suddenly yelled very loudly, "Anybody ever notice that mountain keeps on a lookin' better and a better?" Of course that's the movie that they flew over the logo and that is where Eddie Murphy's character lived. It got a huge laugh from the audience. I thought he was going to get pelted with Milk Duds. The funniest thing I've ever seen in a theatre though was a packed house for the opening night of some flick. The lights went down and a trailer started that had some spooky music, the camera was panning to reveal something awful and the sound effects were building up tension to a crescendo, the audience caught in high nail biting suspense and then....nothing. The projector stopped suddenly along with the sound and the house lights flicked on full brightness. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop and a guy in the front row stood up turned around and said in a very good Vincent Price voice, "Well, I guess you're all wondering why I've asked you here this evening." It was so funny, everyone was laughing then of course some theatre workers came in and wondered why we were laughing instead of exiting the theater because actually the fire alarm had been tripped.

Were you trying to correct existing practical sources, such as street lights? If so what kind were they? If they weren't full spectrum units correcting them with gels can have an adverse effect. Though I'm not sure how you would get magenta. I always have a problem with getting gaudy blue grain in under exposed areas on F-500 in scenes like this.

After this camera leaves the prototype stage will it at some point undergo an asthetic redesign? I'm still wondering if this is just a hoax, why is it designed like a beer mug with a lens? Does it even accept rails and a follow focus?

Keep in mind you can use the set dressing to your favor too. Like having the covers a dark color so they drop off in exposure or having the character furthest from the light wearing a dark colored shirt. If the bed has a headboard maybe you could drape it with fabric so that it will contrast with the covers and the characters. That way you could divide the frame into three bands of tone: The headboard at the top of the frame a mid tone, the characters laying on light toned pillows in the middle and then very dark toned covers at the bottom of the frame.

Yes, shot by Nicola Pecorini who I believe was Storaro's camera Op.

Well Cris, it looks like most people are saying to avoid the music montage thing. I've seen one like that before that was really good but now that I think about it, it's probably just good to me because it's all stuff that is well known in this market. I didn't use it on mine but I also didn't cut down my music vid. I feel it's a special case though because it is a linear story, not MTV repetitive stuff. If they get tired of it I'm sure they'll hit chapter advance to the next thing. As far as the voice over thing, I remember reading in AC about an Italian cinematographer that is blind in one eye and part of his reel just shows half an image. I took it to have a voice over explaining his condition, but that is a special case. He shot that Vegas movie with Johnny Depp I can't recall the title or his name. (smacks self in head to make brain function....)

Yeah, I knew it had a special spool, it must be emulsion out. I'm not that familiar with the camera but I could see that causing problems if that is the case. I would just go with the 200T. Unless John has a secret source for 7218 A-Minima spools down under?

I assume this is an interior with little natural daylight coming in and any kind of reflectors outside to bounce light in are out of the question. If so definitely go with the 200T, the CTB is going to rob too much light from your fixtures. I wonder about letting the film "settle into its wind." I've shot spool downs to 100' daylight spools day of with no problem. Are the A-Minama spools special in this regard?

Well, as with all things a reel can be almost anything. I would keep it on the short side. The longest one I've seen was 15 minutes. 15 minutes of very strong material, which is the main thing to put in a reel. Put your strongest stuff right up front. Also an actual 35mm reel is obviously going to include different things than a DVD reel. The best DVD reel I saw was 10 minutes long and was organized into sections titled; Features, Documentary, Commercials etc. each section played its own music over the visuals and would occasionaly cut to actual production sound when there was some cool dialogue or an explosion or something. It was very effective but it required a lot of good material to pull it off. My current reel is only 8 minutes long because I had to chop some old stuff that I just don't think works anymore. It has a title card with my information then another that introduces a full length (4 minutes) music video that is very upbeat and happens to show a variety exteriors and interiors (lit with hard light, yes!). That seques into a 2 minute trailer to a documentary film. Then it has another title card that shows a two minute scene from another documentary. It ends with the same title card as the front. On some of the DVD's I include a gallery of my stills work because I come from that background. I keep my resume related to film jobs. I segment my resume into things I've DP'd, Directed, shot stills on and a various category for anything else. I also include my publishing credits for stills pictures and articles I've written when I'm not going for a DP job in particular because it has landed me a couple of gigs in production offices. I'm a beggar not a chooser. I can't tell you anything about agents except they usually won't talk to you unless you have a lot of experience or land a high-profile job. One tip I can give you related to your other post about getting a job. The resume fax assault is very effective. Get a directory of production companies and fax your resume to every one of them. Then call them a week later. It's best to fax at the first of the month then fax again two months later and keep up this cycle. Of course keep up with who hates you for faxing stuff to them and cross them off the list. This will dredge up a few jobs, maybe not what you want, but it will get you in the door.