Bob Hayes

No I am actually looking for a different material. It is aluminum honeycomb. We use it to control light and it works like the egg crate baffles. It is ridged and controls light much better. It is used in the aerospace industry and also for air filters. It is quite high tech and expensive. I'm seeing some figures of $22 a square foot. Since my project will need 24 square feet I am talking some expense.

Chimera repurposes the material. But again it is pricy.

http://www.chimeralighting.com/dspProduct.asp?productid=16

Because it is a common industrial material I am hoping to find an affordable supplier.

I’m really getting into using honeycomb grids and I’m looking for an inexpensive industrial supplier. Any leads?

I used to rewind 16mm to make daylight loads. I used a coupe of 16mm cameras in a dark bathroom. It worked surprisingly well. The lab freaked out because the edge numbers were on the wrong side. Besides that it was fine.

These larger budget effects films is that they are doing a huge amount of post work. And this work is really expensive and done by really good folks. So just because “Benjamin Buttons” or “Knowing” looks good doesn’t mean your film is going to look that way.

In the long run you will find other formats are easier to use, cheaper, and will deliver better quality.

I think focus pulling has become a much harder job of late. More and more DP’s shoot wide open on long lenses. The "lets go with out a rehearsal" attitude has become prevalent. Cameras often move randomly to different actors creating the toughest possible challenges for the AC. But many ACs are up to that challenge amd DPs who were firsts are much more sensitive to these challenges.

I haven't looked inside a Chimera Pancake in a while. Is it a bare Mogul Bulb? You might want to get a "cage" from a hardware store. It's just a metal protective frame for a bulb. You might be able to pre gel this and slide it over the bulb. Also they are coming out with new powerful fluorescents which might match the practical lighting you are dealing with.

Another side note/question...

Anyone know of a Directors Finder for B4 video lenses? Such as digi-primes or HD zooms?

Thanks, Rich Robbins

From what I’ve heard digital lenses don’t focus correctly on a ground glass. They arte designed to go through a prism.

Also with regards to the pros and cons of a Mark V or PL mount director’s finder. The Mark V style finder just doesn’t work with prime lenses. If I set a camera using that style of finder we often have to adjust the camera to find the exact frame we want. With a PL style finder we nail it. If you are on a zoom and don’t mind fudging the lens a bit the Mark V is fine. In the long run the real lens on a finder is fast.

I don’t know what shows you guys work on but every day feels like the Indianapolis 500 to me.

Here are some good ones.

When I was in the rental business we got a call that our camera had malfunctioned. There images recorded was black. They were shooting BL IIs. When we showed up on the set the assistant walked by with the mags loaded backwards black side out. This is no small feat with a BL mag. I’ve joked about it since then and I’ve actually caught a loader who have tried to do it to me.

Some student rented a Arri 16 BL and took it underwater thinking BL meant it was waterproof.

I was shooting a film in the Philippines using short ends. On day two one of the rolls was completely clear. No exposure. Further research revealed some of the short ends were positive stock re-canned as negatives. We switched to unopened stock but until it showed up we kept samples of the stocks taped to the slate so when we reloaded we could match the stock colors.

A friend of mine was doing a film and using a small local theater to project dailies. A driver would drop off dailies and pick up exposed stock. One day he was late and the inexperienced projectionist ran a roll of exposed native through the projector.

When I was shooting Pacific Blue on Venice Beach some film students left a camera case on the board walk. It was reported as a bomb. The bomb squad showed up. I’m talking 40 LAPD officers. We told them we suspected the case was owned by the students but they were unable to contact them. So we were shut down for two hours pinned down behind sand dunes as the bomb squad cleared the perimeter and detonated the case. They used some sort of water cannon so there was no explosion. Oooops.

10 minutes is a long time on the screen. The real question is what the drama is. What are the beats? I think a great film to study is John Huston's "The Dead". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092843/

From a camera stand point it can be pretty simple. If you shoot the scene in several passes and give every actor a couple of takes in close up you shouldn't have much problem with continuity. Eating scenes are a little more difficult because actors are always grabbing different stuff or talking with food in their mouths. I'd try to control that a bit.

I’m sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy the job of First Assistant Cameraman. It is a great job and I love the time I spent as one. Hear are some of the highlights.

1. There is a lot of job security. A lot of people want to work in this industry but very few people have the technical knowledge to run the camera and the hand eye co-ordination to pull focus. It takes a special person to take your place.

2. Your job is key to the success of the project. And if you decide to move up to DP you know you can make that camera work. Camera failure is the number one catastrophic cause of failure for new DP’s.

3. You are in the center of the action. The camera is the center of the storm and you are standing right next to it all day. If you want to learn how films are made there is no better seat. You get to watch film school all day. You’ll watch the DP, the Director, the Actors, the Gaffer and Grip. You are on the set almost the entire period of film making. No other person sees what you see. If you want to learn to light you watch the Gaffer and DP solve problems all day. The electric best boy is in the truck and the electricians are picking up banded in the alley.

5. There is simplicity to your job. No mater where you go in the world your job is exactly the same. Same camera, same lenses. You can step on to a set in Russian and start pulling focus. You can work on a commercial one day and a documentary the next and there is one constant; the camera.

It isn't the easiest or most glamorous of jobs but it can be a great career.

FAKE FIRE EFFECT

In your case I would recommend small lights with CTO and something to cause a small sourcy smoke. Much of what people perceive as fire is actually back lit smoke. It will really be more effective then the silk fire effect but the silk fire is fun and can be effective if used smartly.

This is actually a very easy and simple effect particularly in HD. It is very helpful to see exactly what you are getting and to shoot with the shutter off to give some motion blur to the flames. In this situation the fire martial would not give us permission to run a flame bar at the location and fire was critical to telling the story of a car crash aftermath. This is an effect I stole from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disneyland. I cut several thin long strips of CTO full, ½, and ¼ and the taped them to a fan. Silk would have worked better. I placed them in the foreground of the so they flicked through the frame. I then added a side lit fire effect to the actual scene and back lit smoke behind the car with full and ½ CTO on a flicker effect. I find backlighting smoke is as effective if not more so then actually fire in the shot. I have also started to add CTO back light to my reel fireball explosions. I find that the flash of an explosion is often over to quickly and by back lighting the residue smoke and then dimming it out greatly enhances the effect.

Imagined failure has the same effect on your psyche as real failure. Your mind can not tell the difference. So if you spend a couple of days imaging the worst and then everything turns out great you will have experienced all the pain of a failure that never has occurred. When dealing with uncertainty try to focus on the possibility of a favorable outcome. You will be in a much better place to deal with what ever happens.

The concept of “crossing the Line” is a useful construct but it sort of comes from a time when people would go to the theater, see a train coming at them and think they were going to get hit. Times have changed and the audiences are much savvier with regards to film making. They know that if a guy on one side of a desk talking to a guy on the other side of the desk they are still talking to each other even if the camera moves around.

I wouldn't go any larger then a 6'x6' if all you have is C-Stands. You'll break the C-stand and someone WILL get hurt. If you have an 8'x8' you might get by with one combo stand. 12'x12' definitely will require at least two combo stands, sand bags and tie down ropes. I'd recommend going the 8'x8'route until you have the cash to get real support for your package.

- They want to have their kneecaps broken.

You ask what a crew member is “worth”. I competent crewmember is often worth more then they are paid.

Producers generally have a set amount they are willing to pay for a specific job. The goal of a good producer is to get the best employee they can for the money they are willing to pay. Sometimes you can get a great crew person for less money if they are interested in the director or the project or you. The other side of the coin is you may get conned by someone who is a great salesman and not a competent craftsman.

Where are you planning on filming this project?

Steven Colbert goes Christian Bale on Steve Martin. This is F**king amazing!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/s...n_n_164312.html

This isn't his first case of assault. Don’t forget Christian Bale was arrested for verbally assaulting his mother and sister when Dark Knight came out.

I ain't no expert, but I immediately saw that the "Burger King" in the sign and on the building was horizontally flopped.

Yes you caught me. This was a test still I took before I lit the inside of the restaurant and flipped the image. Flipping the image was easy. The real pain was when we needed to go into the menu the controls were backwards so we had to un-mirror every time we did an adjustment.

Take a board and hammer a nail in the board. Place the board in your livingroon and guess the distance from the board to different objects in the room. Do it until it becomes obsessive. Take your steel tape messure and start guessing distances as you go about ton. It is important that you always guess the distance from an object near you to a far away object as this most reflects the real world. Take up a sport like darts will help hone your hand eye co-ordination and tain your torelax under pressure.

I have been testing rear projection with moderate success. Here is a test I shot with a VariCam as the recording camera and as the source camera through a Panasonic 7000 projector and into Rosco Grey rear projection screen. At a distance of 20’ I got a 10’ by 3’ image. The color was a bit of as the day plate was shot in early morning blue light. I found the blacks to be a little milky. I shot wide open with a 180 degree shutter. That is kind of a 1.4 at 400 ASA. I haven’t given up on this system yet. You need a beefy HD projector and if it is a union show a projectionist.

Also it looked like I got an ocasional sync. issue like a flash frame every 20 seconds or so. I think they need to be synced together.

I'd love to get some expert advice on how to refine this technique. Is anyone using Black Rear Screen. What lenses for the projectors are you using. Source material. Examples of this technique in HD.

I have attatched a day plate and a night plate.

Take a small thin board attatch a baby plate to it. Remove a tile, slide the board up above the ceiling, and rest it over several tiles. This will distribute the weight. If you have enough room you can set the light uo into the ceiling so it doesn't appear in your shot.

Use a Steadicam. Mount the ball to a zoom motor so it can spin. mount the zoom motor to the steadicam so the ball is in the bottom of your frame. Spin ball and run at wall.