andrew dean

The softer wheels are more forgiving of bumps, but get flat during long sits. What I do with softer wheels is rock the dolly between takes. doesn't take much to keep it from getting them. Or, if you want to throw money at the problem, these are super clever and sexy: http://www.porta-jib.com/porta-glide.htm

The c300 has a MUCH beefier mount at the bottom, so I can't help but think that helped. I filmed a couple different dslr on my mount to see where it was flexing and with a longer lens (not like a "long" lens, but 24-105) you could see the lens moving slightly separately from the body. (1ds and 5d were more solid than the cheaper dslr, but that's no big surprise. heh) Again, the c300 has more metal at the lens join... so, it probably just all adds up. I've put a red epic and sony f55 on hoods on my mastermount now, and with 5 points of contact it was great so it seems to be the distribution of the weight more than just "the weight". (with only 3, they had a bit of jiggle). Oh, and the car makes a HUGE difference. People keep coming to me with old beaters. Oh for a cadillac! hehe.

I've given up on most hood mounts. I always mount to the window if i can, or at the very least triangulate to it. I bought the full matthews mastermount and struggled with dslrs so i ended up buying another 2 mounting cups and rods as well. Some things that did help were 1. a lens support so you can tie down the lens Under "bounce strain", the 1/4-20 on the bottom is floppy as is the lens to camera join. A rail or lens support can tie those two loose points together which helped 2. a bar supporting the hot shoe (also floppy, but tying to both helped) and 3. finding the most stable part of the car possible. (usually the glass, but the closest point to a corner/join is often ok)). on modern cars, the hoods are just too floppy, especially in the middle where you'd think to put the camera. I rambled about some of my experiences here if that helps: http://www.hillbillygriptruck.com/2013/02/matthews-mastermount-car-mounting-kit.html I never bothered posting about my followup with the additional gear, but after mounting to the window with a lens support and 4 tie points (some to the mount and some to the shoe mount) i ended up getting pretty good results. Hope that helps!

I've been doing more and more FX lighting lately with my kick lights by riftlabs. They'd do this look easy-as. I do a hillbilly ramble about them in the middle of this video:

Heya Gregg. I think i was "floop"!

Made me giggle, anyways. Move over Bartek!

Depends on the windows and lighting angles, but have you tested a polarizing filter? I've shot through store windows where the polarizer got rid of almost all reflections and on days with a blue sky, served to nicely darken the sky up a bit too. Might be an obvious reason not to use one, but seemed like one of those "possible simple solution for a big problem" moments. cheers, -a

I own 4 of the cool lights 150w cdm fixtures as well as a 575w HMI. I would absolutely recommend the cool lights cdm to anyone on a tight enough budget to be asking about them. They are versatile little units that provide quite a kick for the money. advantages: ok, the huge advantage is obviously price. You can buy stacks of these for the price of a branded HMI fixture. The CDMs cost around the same as a redhead (800w open face) class fixture, by my tests output roughly the same light as a redhead gelled CTB and draw what, 1/7th the power? If you shoot daylight, or have a limited power supply, these are gems. If you compare them to an equivalent HMI source... I guess the closest would be an arri 125w fresnel hmi. With bulb and ballast that would come out to be around $2800, roughly 6x as much as the cool lights. Without any question the arri is a better built fixture without some of the rough edges of the cool lights. If i were a rental company or ran shoots where i really beat the heck out of the gear, i'd absolutely pick the arri. As a low budget production truck, I'm happy to have 4 of the cdm plus some other fixtures for the same price. Anybody that works with HMIs knows that you get a color shift over the life of the bulb. Newer bulbs are bluer and older bulbs warm up a bit. I've been on sets where a new bulb in an arri sun spit out 8000k (surprisingly blue) and had to be gelled warmer. What is curious with the CDM is that they came out of the box a little bit warm to start with, flagging as 5200k when testing using the white balance in an ex3 (granted, not the most precise test). I haven't put enough hours on the units to have noticed a change, so i'll be curious to see where it goes from there. On the other hand, replacement bulbs are what, $30? You can change them out 6x as often as an hmi bulb for $200 if the shift becomes an issue. There are some quirks to the cool lights cdms. The casting is a lower quality than an arri, with the mold lines being visible and some casting "tangs" along the edges of the air vents. The rotation lock looks kinda odd and the baby mount is some kind of abs plastic which looks kinda flimsy (but has held up really well so far.) The bottom line for me is none of the shortcomings of the unit have proven to be anything other than cosmetic. It looks a little rough around the edges, but ultimately, who cares? I have one beef with the light quality. I don't know if its the bulb or the fresnel lens, but there appears to me to be a small hot spot towards the middle of the light. I've only noticed it when shining a splash onto a wall - not when lighting a scene, but still. The oddest part is that the hot spot kinda looks to have a color shift... like its a bit aqua. Again, its never been a problem shooting a scene, but I was surprised to see it when i pointed it at a wall specifically to test the focal range. The biggest shortcoming of the CDMs vs. hmi is the power. I mean, 150w, even as hmi is "nothing" in the film world - hardly any power at all. The 120 and 200w hmi are more sold as specialty application fixtures and not keys. In the video world, I have more and more people hiring my cdm 150s as keys. So i only reply because nobody else has. I'm far from a lighting expert. I will say this: I've used my cool lights CDMs mixed with a cool lights 575 hmi, an arrisun 575w and arri 1.2k par on shoots with veteran DPs and grips and never heard anything negative about the mixing of the sources. In fact, the only thing usually said about the cdms is "they were HOW much??" Personally? I'm happy and would buy them again. hope that helps, and holler if i missed a point you wanted me to make. cheers, -andrew

Unless I can find a nz dealer that doesn't think their gear is made of gold, I'll be ordering from the states, so brand loyalty isnt that big a deal. So what I'm hearing is: for an overhead, get a pair of MSE triple riser combo. And for all the lights, get manfrotto 004, which are discontinued. Any other suggestions for stands for the lights (that are still available)? Hoping for something nice and beefy but not any heavier than necessary. Thanks, mates!

I picked up some cheap 8' chinese stands that are ok, but i discovered on the first shoot that 8' is just too short. I think i'd like the option to go up to closer to 12' and something far more stable. If you were purchasing "hollywood grade" stands for a kino diva, a 575w hmi fresnel, 150w hmi fresnels, blondes and redheads, what stands would you migrate towards? (i dont know all the nomenclature, but combos? hi-hi? baby?) I realize this is kind of an obtuse question since you'd use different stands in different scenarios, but what if i phrased it like this... "i'm heading back to the lighting truck to grab stands for a diva, some 4 and 5" fresnels and a couple blondes... the dp hasn't specified what the shot is yet and we are behind schedule. which stands do you want me to grab?" And also "i'm running to the truck to get stands for an 8x8 overhead. What stands do you want?" Thanks for your input!

Just to clarify, an HMI is 4-6 times more efficient than a normal tungsten source. A 1k "quartz" consumes 1,000 watts and produces roughly the amount of light as any other 1k tungsten source. 1.2k HMI consumes 200 watts more than a 1k, but produces an amount of light closer to what it would take 5-6,000 watts of tungsten light to create. If your goal is to reproduce or balance to sunlight, then HMI are even more efficient still, as they do not need to be gelled (with light loss) to match daylight color temps. hope that helps!

I have a britek kit. Its fine if you are doing something non-critical, but they are just too unreliable for anything important. In theory a light is simply a bulb mount, wires, fuse, switch and a plug. For a reason I haven't been able to track down, the britek units blow bulbs. At $30-40/bulb, plus the fuse that always blows but you never remember to have replacements, it makes these units expensive to operate and really annoying. Its not the cheap bulbs, because I bought expensive replacement bulbs and they pop too. I cant find a wire fault, and the unit is simple enough that anything obvious should be... obvious. But, its not. I have no idea what could cause it, but any power fluxuation, bumping of stand, vibration or even a truck driving nearby can cause the bulbs to pop... sometimes none of the above. This hasn't been the case for the arri's i've used, so in retrospect the briteks were short sighted and unreliable units that i'm very reluctant to bring out. That makes the $500 for them go from a bargain to a waste. One arri fresnel that is reliable is infinitely more valuable than a buffet of lights I cannot trust. Plus, i have not been able to locate 240v bulbs for the 300, 250 or 150 units. Having moved operations overseas, that means all but the 650s i have to drag around a big transformer... I've had 4 hour shoots where i burned through 6 bulbs in different fixtures. ugh. i SO wish i had just bought a nice fixture to begin with.