Mohan Sandhu

I seem to remember it was shot on the Alexa.

Fogal Noblesse 110 stockings seem to be favoured;

http://thedopshop.com/fogal-noblesse-p-53.html

Actually, yes, Dragon would be an ideal building block for this sort of thing.

 

I do a lot of motion control and stop-motion work, and I've bee around Dragon a lot.

 

i actually looked at an application like this about a year ago.

 

It's a good startign point for this kind of stuff, since it handles allt he camera overhead plus has a reasonable motion control capability that lensd itself well to step-and-repeat functions.

 

You'll still have to make an "optical bench" of sorts, with an appropriate, reasonably well-registered movement and light source with long-term consistancy, but if you can hook a step motor up to it, then you won't have to re-invent the wheel as far as coordinating motor and camera and storing off the frames goes.

 

Dragon is inexpensive - somewhere around $300 IIRC. You can roll your own motor electronics, but if you don't want to do that, Dragon sells a unit called an Iota controller for $750 that can do all the motor driving (The Iota controller was originally designed to drive an I/O slider and focus motor, but it can drive any two small step motors) .

 

Two caveats - first, you'll probably want to arrange the gearing so that an even number of motor turns advances one frame (dragon step motor axes don't like fractional steps in the current software rev) and second, you'll probably have to work in blocks of a few hunderd frames at a time - because it's juggling allt he frames in memory, the program can bog down on really long animations.

I've just been playing around with a Canon DSLR, an old micro-Nikkor, a lightbox and some 35mm (stills) film, image reproduction is pretty good. I might have to try and rig something together, shame I missed buying a couple of back projection mitchell movements for peanuts a year or so ago. I have a bunch of cheap Chinese 15mm rod clamps and stainless tube, that would probably make an adequate optical bench.

I also have a background (if you can call it that) in motion control for stop motion, and have recently started playing with dragon, here's some kit I've built http://www.flickr.com/photos/mohansandhu/

I was working on a rather large stop motion feature in the UK and got gently mocked for calling apple boxes apple boxes, instead they where all pancakes no matter the size. Is that a UK thing that I'm unaware of, or just the studio?

I've been thinking about the possibility of using Dragonframe stop motion software for film scanning, it has pretty nifty motion control component that could be used to drive a stepper motor based film transport system between grabbing frames.

I think the Foma kit might be your best bet, never used it though.

http://www.fomafoto.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1295&category_id=28&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=3

Hey, I picked up a battered Arri friction head (150 bowl head for arri 2's) for a tiny sum, the pan is still surprisingly smooth but I need to re grease the tilt, any recommendations for a grease that would work for this?

Cheers!

Mohan

Ive had a couple of mirrors from still cameras re silvered by scientific mirrors in London, the price was tiny and the turn around fast, I believe they do semi silvered mirrors and optical coatings.

I haven't checked but as far as I know films@59 and visual impact have Alexa's.

Here's a guy with a 235 strapped to his head @ 4:00 . Not wing suit though.

There are a few converted canon EF 1200mm 1:5.6 kicking around, I presume they take a teleconverter.

I use music in the darkroom ... with a bit of effort you can make play lists to any duration, and such as music is you know what 'time' it is

I used to time my print development by listening to only 30 second long songs in the darkroom, it was a very short playlist (mainly hardcore punk), nearly drove me mad after many dozen plays.

Something like this? http://www.mtfservices.com/mtf-products-list/mtfolympus-pl-mounted-slr.html

engineering and electronics huh - are you interested in motion control for cine ?

Very much so, I would imagine it relates closely to programming CNC machine tools, but far more creative and interesting.

Oh, here are some older stills, you might also be able to spot a bit of gear I've worked on or built;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mohansandhu/

I think you could handle it. You probably have the tools and the skills to be a lens tech or a camera tech. Where do you live and are you planning on making a move to a film city?

Thanks! That's reassuring. I'm living in Toronto at the moment (only for another 2 months) then back to my native England, the tentative plan is to make the move to London.

Oh, incidentally I paid for my flight over here by turning over an Arriflex 2C 400ft mag among other stuff.

Hi, Mohan

 

Would you care to give a tiny bit of information about your experience with cameras or any other experience such as in the field of mechanics?

Hi,

I was raised by a jeweler/silversmith and picked up a lot of those skills then studied Engineering at college before falling madly in love with still photography. I tought myself how to repair cameras as a way of picking up nice gear for very little money, I've worked on a fair bunch of Still gear ranging from Rolleiflexes, leicas and a Hasselblad to some really weird and obscure vintage stuff. I don't have the tooling to comfortable do too much with lenses (unless there already junk). My hands on knowledge of motion picture gear goes no further than Rebuilding a K-3, although my dirty secret is that I enjoy reading workshop manuals for gear I've never seen let alone touched. As a sideline I've been building some analogue music gear (effects and then a synth) to brush up on my electronic knowledge.

Oh, I'm 22 and work (not enough) as a commercial photographers assistant.

Forgive me if this has been asked before but just how do you become a Camera tech in this day and age? Is there a conventional path into the business?

It's something that I think I'd be very suited to do professionally.

Many Thanks,

Hi, I really like the sound of this!

What camera and glass are you shooting with?

I can?t recall that many dance music docs, but here are some I dig, most focus solely on the DJ?s and Producers and you?re lucky to catch more than a few seconds of just the crowd. It would be great to see someone capture some of the energy of being in the crowd rather than just the History, personalities and technique behind the music.

So;

?Notes on Breakcore?, the trailer looks great but I can?t recall many shots in the film that focus solely on the crowd, the few that do don?t look that good and certainly don?t convey much energy.

(the full Doc?s also on Youtube (legally))

Oh, and this looks very promising but is yet to be released, so only a trailer.

?Universal Techno? about Detroit techno is worth a watch

And this is fairly decent footage of a rave-ish thing in Montreal

On the Hip-Hop front, Doug Prays film ?Skratch? about turntablism covers the movement in a very accessible way.

Hope that was of some help,

Good luck!

I?ll be moving to TO from the UK at the beginning of next month and hadn?t heard of this before. Gonna have to try and check it out, if you need an extra pair of hands give me a shout.

http://www.oyemodern.com/designers/re-vision/

 

How committed (or geeky) are you to show everybody where your heart is at this way? :lol:

My mothers a jeweller and has been wanting to make me something I'd wear for years, this is what we came up with (my wrist as of 2 minutes ago).

Its's made of stainless steel, she had to drill and file every sprocket hole, I was going to look into getting some lazer cut if there's a market.

She also made me this broach, based on a chunk of 35mm still film, the film is Iron and the frame gold

Yes I'm very geeky ;)