Bob Hayes

I have only used black light in conjunction with standard lighting. It has worked very well. I usually just eye ball it. You might try shooting your set up with a digital camera set to match your film and camera specifications.

I?m looking for some good forums that deal with Adobe Premiere. Bob

Great tests David. It is amazing how much better the flesh tones (mid Range?) held up on the VX100.

The best way to keep your camera dry is to put it in a water proof splash bag with a good seal between filter and bag. You really need a good seal that prevents water from getting from the front of the filter to behind it. As far as keeping the filter dry http://www.hydroflex.com/ makes an air spraying device that will blow the water of the lens. It?s pretty much a scuba tank with an air nozzle on the end. I shot in the worst part of Hurricane Fran. 145 mile per hour winds. I found if I stayed out of direct rain I could keep the lens dry. Since that experience I noticed the news crews go out of their way to keep water ON the lens. It makes it look much more dangerous.

I want to use my PD150 to convert s-Video to Fire wire so I can capture it on adobe Premiere. Any ideas or sites that can help me?

Although the Tota is far from my light of choice it is still pretty piece of lighting equipment. For those of you who don?t know what it is here is the Lowel site. http://www.lowel.com/tota/ It is a very small and powerful 750 watt tungsten light. The nature of it?s design makes it very difficult to cut with flags. However, I have found the Tota,, on a medium stand bounced into an umbrella has a soft quality of light and is easy to move in a documentary setting. Often I will set one up in the corner and slide it out to do well lit interviews as opposed to the sun gun crowd. It is globable to 220/240 volts. I made up a small kit with 3 Lowel light stands, 2 Totas 2 Umbrellas, 2 gel frames, 2 extension cords, and some gels and diffusion in a soft small tripod bag. It weights about 5 pounds. Sometime it just makes sense to go light. One of the major drawbacks of the total is if you can?t gel the light to match daylight if you bounce into an umbrella. If you gel the light you must go direct and diffuse it. Also when you guys are saying "Ds" do you mean Lowel DP lights?

In my experience you can underexpose or overexpose KODAK stock by 2 stops and reprint it so it looks like it was properly exposed. Is that what you mean by latitude?

I?d get a wide angle adapter and, if your movie is a tripod style of film, get a good tripod.

Take good notes. I recommend placing a slate with the film stock, stop, and exposure setting (one stop over for example) recorded on it in the corner of your frame. Place a gray chip chart next to the slate. A color chart might also be a good idea. Make them large enough to read but don?t block too much of the frame. Use a spot meter to check different exposures in your shot. I draw a sketch of the shot and write on the sketch what your different exposures are. I try to meter and notate around nine stops of range. -4, -3, -2 , -1, 0, +1,+2, +3,+4 . You really want to see where you lose detail in your whites and where your blacks start to lose detail. These kind of tests really helped me build confidence in under or over exposing the image. Then have the lab print your negative twice. Once without correcting for under-exposure or over-exposure and then have them make the images match as closely as they can.

A Lowell light kit might be what you are looking for. 2 Tota lights, 2 Omni lights, a couple of Gel frames and Umbrella. Inexpensive, very light and portable. Shoot many of us shot with this kit for years. I think it is a good idea to buy a cheap kit instead of an expensive one. It takes a lot of shooting to figure out what you like and need. Bob

I would also add to this list a section on Biographies: A Man With A Camera ?????????.. Nestor Almendros I think this is a great book for starting film makers because Nestor?s approach was always to try and take advantage of natural lighting and location. He talks about lighting 35mm features with natural light through a window and a bounce card. He was a great DP. That said when you work on larger budget films with more responsibility you can get yourself into trouble thinking you?ll light the whole scene with sun through a window if you don?t have a bunch of electrics standing at the ready with a 12K. Also Nestor complains that Americans sets seem to be obsessed with MORE. More this, more that, which really just meant ?More coffee and more doughnuts? in Nestor?s eyes. However when Nestor got on bigger films he always had plenty of stuff to cover his ass.

I saw William Friedkin talk about the "Exorcist" and he said he looped the entire film. That his background in radio drama made he feel he could get better performances in an audio booth then on a set and therefore just went for the best looking takes. Was I imagining this?

Leon: Great list. I would definately add: Theory The Visual Story???????????? Bruce Block Lighting Reflections, 21 Cinematographers at work ??Benjamin Bergery Cinematography Screen Craft????????Peter Ettendgui

I think the studios show add a feature to your DVD that lets you listen to popcorn eating, cell phone ringing, and talking at home. Maybe someone could even stand up and block the screen at key moments. :-)

7274 is a great stock. I would always go towards the tungsten stock. Most of the situations where you need the speed are tungsten. You will find the fine grained 74 a terrific 16mm stock. I still try to avoid 500 ASA when shooting 16mm. Some big films, ?Day After Tomorrow? for example were shot on 200 ASA Kodak stock. Get a faster lens for sure.

Man there are so many ways to light a moon lit bedroom. My current favorite is to take a Baby, put ½ blue in the gel frame, open the doors and completely cover them doors with a nice new piece of black wrap. No light should spill. Then a take a screwdriver and punch small holes into the black wrap where I want the light to fall. On the face, the hands, etc.. This keeps the whole room dark except where you want the light to fall. And looks pretty natural. Like it is light through curtains or trees. One thing I am learning is fill is really important to keeping the scenes dark. If you light the scene at high contrast the faces will look lit and overexposed. And the rest of the room will look black. So a little soft fill will actually let you print it darker. Bob

I?ve just started using the SEKONIC L-558 cine. It?s a combo spot and incident meter, I used to carry a spot and an incident but I like the combo. This meter lets you load two separate film speeds and you can toggle between the two. With a roll of the thumb you can change frame rates. It is great for multiple cameras or bizarre changes in camera set ups. ?Lets shoot A-Camera with a 45 degree shutter at 40 FPS and B-Camera at 8 Frames. And lets put the high speed stock on C-Camera and push it three stops?. My head was spinning until I got the Sekonic. Bob

I downloaded a demo of Frame Forge and found it technically pretty easy to use. Just pulling elements into a 3d environment. It?s fun to move the camera angles around to tell your story. You are pretty much creating a Computer Graphic world like they do on effects films. I found it fun and almost addicting to create little animated sequences. I do CGI and Motion Control work on ?CSI? and the animatics they give me look like the type of graphics I can create on Frame Forge. So it?s also an easy way for non CGI folks to learn about how Virtual Worlds are created. It may sound like I am a big advocate of Frame Forge but I don?t know if it is the tool people are looking for. It is very time consuming. You could spend hours and hours just creating simple story boards. Although simple to use these programs require really good spatial skills to create these worlds. You also need to have pretty good life drawing skills to move and pose the characters in the frame in believable postures. And you are doing all this with a mouse. My recommendation is buy a #2 pencil and a pad of paper and start drawing. Buy a couple of books that show story boards from movies you like and try to copy them. Spend some time at the local comic book store looking for work you like. Currently I am into Pagulayan who draws Elektra. This kid understands lenses.

Thanks for the focus chart info. It has been dead on. I?m still pretty good at guessing distances and knowing 66% on the focus chart equals 6? etc.. Makes it pretty easy. It?s a shame the Auto focus is so slow on the camera. Bob

The cool thing about shoot with RGB is you shoot the actual film stock and you get both original negatives and slides. I used to shoot tons of RGB. Bob

Aaron: Don?t forget. Night is supposed to be dark. So just because you feel like you don?t have much light you may have a great image. The KODAK Vision2 7218 500T stocks have a lot of latitude and when in a dark environment I?m ok with under exposing a little and printing up rather then pushing it. Haskell Wexler shot much of "Silver City" on 7218 and then went through a DI to get to a 35mm print. If you are currious how 7218 looks in a 35mm print go see it. Bob

On the VX100A where should the set-up (black Level) be set for broadcast on US television? The VX100A offers two choices 0 and 7.5. On my PD150 I run the set up at 7.5. That?s where black levels would be for a beta cam. I was told the 0 set up is for Japanese TV. When I shoot HD I set the black levels at 0. Where should the VX100a be set? Bob

It?s unfortunate when the poster or campaign misleads the audience. Ultimately it hurts a film when it attracts the wrong audience and pisses them off. I am however a big fan of movie posters and my walls are covered with them. A great campaign can really create excitement and anticipation for the film. Just look at the campaign for Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo... Wait ... is this the Rob Schneider fan site?

Marc I?m glad someone picked up the gauntlet. And, I?m sure you weren?t referring to me as an old head. Bob

My experience with DI is limited to 10 minutes or so per 35mm movie to include fades dissolves and simple special effects. I have yet to do a whole movie that goes through the DI process. When you go through the DI for a whole film does one pre-scan selected negative for complicated effect shots so the digital effect guys can work ahead of time? Once the film is edited is an edit list used to pull selects from the negative ? Is this automated or done by hand? Once it is scanned how is it transported from where it is scanned to where it is on-lined? Once it is scanned is it then on-lined in a computer. I assume this is done at pretty high end on-line facilities. Is this a different facility from where it is scanned? Does it look like a normal on-line suite? Once it is on-lined is it then color corrected in a computer? Like a tape to tape correction? Is it a different system then the one it was on-lined in. Is each step performed by a different specialist? Thanks for you patience Bob Hayes