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Jed Shepherd

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Everything posted by Jed Shepherd

  1. So ive read a fair bit about this but I cant find the best answer. I have a shoot in july which has a night scene in it. I will have a 1.2k hmi available as my main light source (poor student film, best we can afford) and im trying to work out how to power it. Unfortunately i have the dialogue dilemma which makes using a generator a problem. I have looked into silent generators but they still seem to give off 50+db of sound at around 4 meters or so. My question is, If i hire a 5-6kva silent generator (more then what we need by a lot but just taking start up wattage into account) could I effectively place it far enough away from the light by using a long extension cord without any issues? I know using long extension cords creates problems but I would prefer not to go down the deep cycle battery with inverter road as its cheap to rent a generator but not to buy a battery and inverter. The dialogue is my main concern as we arent skilled enough to get decent ADR happening yet. Just wondering what other people have found works in a similar situation to what im in. Any help would be great. Thanks
  2. So i see a rig alot which looks like part of an office chair attached to an operators back, which goes over their head and attaches to the camera via a wire or something of some sort. I dont have a picture but if anyone knows what im talking about it would be good. Almost seems like some kind of steadicam system, just for supporting the camera with your torso rather then arms. If anyone knows the name could you tell me? Thanks
  3. Yeah they actually offer 2 and 3 perf 35mm cameras. They just seem to be at least double the cost for the camera per day then say the sr3 or the xtr prod. The xtera is similar price to the 35mm cameras as well. It would be great to try using 35mm but unfortunately i don't see it happening. As for focus, after measuring, i was told by a teacher at my university that the viewfinder would be the best. I still have a little while before we start filming so will have to go and check out the cameras to see if they offer video taps.
  4. Thanks for the replies. At the moment it looks like super16mm will be all that can fit into our budget. If someone could explain video assist to me it would be good. Does it allow external monitors for focus etc? Or does it only act as some form of recorder. The cameras available to be rented where i am are the arri sr3 s16, AAton xtr prod, aaton XTERA and the aaton a-minima. Im not sure on camera specifics but all the cameras say they come with video assist. Not sure what the extent of these are but if someone could maybe tell me which camera is best or just some pro's or cons that you have experienced with any of the above. Thanks
  5. Thanks. So when choosing a stock i just go by the iso and balance etc. Pull down is irrelevant?
  6. Thanks for the useful replies David. I have one more question that if you or anyone else could answer it would be good. If we were to shoot 35mm i'm a little confused on perforations. I understand perforations in terms of film size, aspect ratios etc but my question is in regard to buying stock. Once a chosen perf amount is decided upon do I then have to specify how many perforations are needed with the stock i want to buy or am i thinking about it incorrectly and its the camera pull down that is all that matters? In my head i cant see how it would be solely the cameras pull-down that would determine the pull-down as i always thought there was a gap between each emulsion and as such you would have to choose a film stock that has the certain amount of perforations. Bit confusing but any info would be great. Thanks
  7. So for my grad film this year, we are planning on either shooting super 16 or super 35mm depending on budget and i have a few questions on film techniques and stock etc. In the past i have shot standard 16mm film but did so a little uneducated and ended up with less then perfect results. Ok first question - In my grad film we will be shooting a big chunk of night time scenes. These scenes are out in a field or valley and as such wont have tungsten light sources. I will be using tungsten lights with daylight balancing diffusion on. The question i have is what would normally be used on a location similar to this. I have used 500T in the past and would like to do so again, for the grain and low light capabilities but its tungsten balanced where as the scene will not be. Can this still be used? I saw some vision3 250D stock but didnt know if it would be fast enough for night shooting. -If anyone could elaborate on rating film stocks lower it would be great. The basic understanding i have is that if you rate something like 500T at 320 or 400 etc that the light meter will give a faster fstop reading to compensate for the slow film. I will be trying to used some lenses along the lines of t1.3 etc so before anyone says i will need fast lenses i jsut thought i would clarify. Ok back to the question. Is rating like above always necessary? Assuming that most the shots will be high key due to lack of lights available for the production, will it cause highlights to blow out but reveal more detail in the shadows, or is film dynamic enough to still handle such a situation? -Controlling Depth of Field when a light meter is telling you what stop to set the lens at. Is it just a matter of using more light if i want the stop to be slower? As mentioned above the scenes will be at night with minimal lighting available. Just dont want every shot to be extremely shallow dof. -Last one. If we were to shoot super 16mm is it possible to use 35mm lenses or would it be best to stick to something like the zeiss superspeed mk3's s16? I fully understand if some of these questions cant be completely answered as they are artistic choices etc but if anyone could help me out with some knowledge it would be great.
  8. Bit of an odd question but when a film is completed and sent back to film ready for projection, what kind of film is used. I know when filming you choose either tungsten or daylight balanced and then whatever asa/iso that you want but when editing is complete what film type is used for projection. I would assume it would have to be a film that isnt balanced in anyway so that the white balance isnt thrown out on certain scenes but i guess even this could be wrong. If anyone knows if there is a standard or any information it would be good. Thanks
  9. Guess i should clarify. I am not trying to find a way of not using light. It was just a random question that popped into my head. Im all for lighting scenes.
  10. Thanks for the reply. I wasnt asking so i didnt have to do as much post work :) Your right in saying research the area but i just meant worse case. The reply after yours makes sense in saying not to worry if something small and not obvious is clipping but if its something big then its definitely a problem. But either way your answer was what i was thinking with the underexpose a little then bring the image back in post. Thanks
  11. Thats why i was asking. Best way to not have hightlights clipping. For the sake of this question lets say within a shot that has to be available light only. A place where i cant light darker areas but may have blaring sun hitting some items within the frame. Was wondering if it would be best to get good exposure on the highlights and then try and boost the underexposed areas or to just try and find the best balance and not think about a post correction? My common sense says to do the latter but i was just wondering if anyone had tried to brighten an underexposed image without experiencing too many artefacts on dslr footage. Just thinking about the best way to get cinematic footage and i thought that having an image which appears to have good dynamic range, so no highlight clipping would be a good place to start.
  12. Thought i would add that i mean only closing the iris just enough to stop clipping or minimize clipping as much as possible. Im not talking extremes, just minute adjustment to get the best exposure.
  13. Jed Shepherd

    Exposure

    I own a 60D so im asking in regard to it but im sure the answer will apply to all of the canon dslr's. My question is about getting the best exposure out of the camera. Im wondering what would be the best option; letting highlights clip to some extent so that the rest of the image is exposed well or closing the iris to stop highlight clipping but darkening everything else. Im asking this as a kind of two part question. Im thinking in terms of color correction in post. By letting the highlights clip im losing the information for that section of the image but if i let them expose correclty then play with the shadows and midtones in post to brighten the areas which have become darker, would i get a reasonable image? I cant test this at the moment(macbook pro battery died) so im using a machine with no editing software. I was thinking about this in terms of making it look like the camera has better dynamic range then it really does. Im using a low contrast picture style (not superflat, just low contrast, sharpness etc) so in theory i should get the most information within my shadows, so i was wondering if anyone had mucked around with getting really good exposure using a 3 way color corrector for example? Im sort of struggling to explain what i mean exactly but hopefully someone might be able to give me an answer and i can maybe build on my question from there. Thanks P.S. I know i could use a polarising filter to help with overexposed sky etc but im just refering to hot spots that appear within an evironment where a polarised filter wouldnt be ideal.
  14. I would say this is the best footage ive seen come from the 5d. Looked great. Had a cinematic look and feel that i have not seen achieved on a dslr yet. Did you hire someone to make the trailer? Ive seen some trailers for other 5d features but this one looked as real as any big budget trailer you would see at the movies. Should be very happy with what you have made.
  15. In regard to Shutter. You dont just crank it to whatever. You still keep a 180 degree shutter normally. So if you were shooting 1/48th at 24fps and went to 48fps then you would go 1/96th which would keep the motion and blur the same as 24fps etc. Aperture is opened wider to make the light travel faster through the lens and lastly more light is added to the scene to help. As for exterior it would be more difficult just because of the ability to control light but on a normal sunny day you would find your self closing down the apertrue or using nd's to keep shallow dof if thats your goal anyway meaning there is plenty of light to work with to begin with.
  16. I know they have large sensors. Saying to swap to a smaller sensor doesnt seem like a good solution. The reply above mine about cine lenses makes sense. My question was just stupid really. Using natural light only when its dark seems useless. But i guess darkness might help some focus issues. Maybe...
  17. Never even said dslrs were ok. Was just using them as an example because of the millions of videos on the internet filmed on them in comparrison to any other new age hd digital cinema camera. But dslr's arent too bad. But i would much prefer to shoot on red or film etc if i could.
  18. Thanks for the replies. My question was just something i was wondering about. I normally light everything unless natural light is strong and can be bounced etc. I just see so many dslr videos where people open their lenses as wide as possible which results in focus being lost with the slightest movement. Just thought i would see if anyone had ever worked out some solution to my original question. I couldnt think up anything logical apart from lighting the shot.
  19. If a shot had to use natural light, meaning the lens had to be wide open but shallow dof is not required what could be done to correct this? Apart from raising iso on digital medium cameras, is it possible to have a reasonable iso, wide open aperture on a large sensor while keeping deep depth of field?
  20. Cool. I was just talking to someone about motion control rigs the other day and thought i might ask if the data could be retrieved.
  21. When using a motion control rig. Is it possible to import the camera move data into a 3d program to use for matchmoving?
  22. Also if your using the fileIn node under the image tab, you can select a tick box next to sequence listing which will display your sequence of images as one file. The file name might reference how many frames you have. So in your case it might say filnename1-370.dpx or whatever. Hope this might help.
  23. I have not worked with dpx files before but have used tiff sequences. In shake use the fileIn node to import your footage. Dont try and use anything under file>import etc. If you know this then cool. In your globals panel on the bottom right of the shake window you can see the parameter timeRange. It will probably say 1. Meaning your working within a 1 frame long sequence. If you click auto it should become 1-200 as an example. Auto will make the sequence as long as the longest piece of footage imported. If that still does nothing then it might be the file type as im not familiar with using it.
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