Lindsay Mann

We were up in West Chester, NY at a state park. Reshoots coming up. Hey Joe, you want in? Haha.

Well it was quite a shoot. Shot through the night and got home at 5am. We would have camped out on the second night but our tent was confiscated for being in the wrong area. I was pleasantly surprised by how much light the 6K barger gave me at about 100ft. with no diffusion and only 4 lamps. We could have used an art department to keep some firelight in the background, but this just wasn't the show for that. These are some "graded" frame grabs. I am a little disappointed in the amount of grain, but it's kind of my fault for not having enough light and boosting the gain to 3db. The closeups look fine, as I predicted, but the wides were a little sparse and dark. The firelight gag looks a little hot in the second image, but it was a 300w on a dimmer off a beadboard and I think it worked well. Anyway, things I would do differently next time include 1) hiring more crew, 2) replacing our blue/green gels when the wind snatched them away (at least it was before we started rolling), and 3) don't camp in the wrong area. A huge thanks to Joe Lotuaco who doubled as my AC and Electric. A role I will never ask anyone to do again. Thanks Joe.

Excellent idea, Tim. I'll go with that. I'll try to post my results.

4K would be nice. So would a real crew. In this case we're gonna stick a 6K Barger Baglite on a Mombo as high as it will go, lash it down and turn on as many lamps as we can. I may not even bother diffusing it. Maybe throw some 1/4 CTB and 1/4 plus green up there. For the actors I'm thinking of having some china balls on dimmers or maybe some christmas lights on a piece of bead board.

That's actually brilliant. I think every light should be on a truck. Always. I'm beginning to consider the Barger Baglite. I could split up the load into 3 circuits and get a lot more bang for the buck. I'd tap out the genie pretty quick though.

Yeah I should have clarified, I wouldn't attempt to match the fire, just warm up the HMI and use it as blue moonlight. And Chris, am I really mad? That's what I'm trying to find out. I recall a DP once lighting a nighttime EXT. with a 1200w par. I don't really need to be able to read much of the background, I just want it to not be black. We're shooting HD so I will be able to see it immediately. I think I'll forget bouncing the light with such a small unit. I'll throw the wide lense on the par and pray for the best. Maybe it will be foggy. Anyone have experience with line loss running a bunch of 50ft. stingers? I'll look it up to be sure. My only other thought is to replicate a homemade lighting balloon I saw once made out of 4 or 5 500w photofloods, some 216, and some hula hoops that don't burn. Yikes.

So I'm shooting a wide open field at night. 40 extras, one fire pit, probably a pretty wide shot. Lanterns in shot won't fit the story. It's got to be sparse candles and the firelight. The budget provides one Honda 6500w generator. I'm trying to think of a solution for lighting the wide shot with not much more than one or two 1200w HMIs. Assuming I don't have flicker problems with the genie, I may want to use HMI's. I need to bury the genie at a distance for sound. Here are my questions: Is it really possible to light a wide shot of about 250 square yards with a 1200 HMI? (half CTO to join the firelight and backlighting the scene) When do I need to start worrying about line loss with all those stingers? Should I try to send two 1200's through some diff? How much will the ballasts draw? The budget can't support a real genie, the Honda can't support much more than a couple 1200's, and there's no crew to speak of. I can't convince them to shoot at dusk either. I'm really at a loss.

Excellent, thanks Chris. I'll keep that in mind. It does help that it's video and I can just check the monitor. Next on my agenda is figuring out generators and power.

That's a good way to think of it. Thanks. I think I'll try to keep things pretty warm in the middle of the party, keep the backlight low and just put the lanterns out of focus in the background. I'll probably bounce a 2K off some beadboard for the closeups.

Well I'd love to build up a base light with a 4K HMI or something and let it go a little blue, but we simply don't have the crew or budget for it. I guess my question really is how to light the wide so that bringing in a lamp for a closeup will match the wide. Sorta tricky if I can't run any big lights on the wide. I like the idea of letting the grass go a little blue in the distance. That's a good idea. I'm just not crazy about blue on the faces when they're next to a candle or lamp.

Wow, thanks Chayse. I notice some noise especially in the reds on the fill side. But his face looks nice. A couple questions: What did you light him with? Do you have any clips of one or two stops under from that? I'm assuming that's AVC Intra and the digiPrime. You shoot anything with it yet? What's your overall impression of the image and the workflow.

Anyone (Mitch?) have a rough ISO for the HPX3000? I'm hearing it's somewhere near 250 ISO, but I read on DV.com: "Altering the master gamma to .4, making some tweaks to the matrices and shooting at a 270-degree shutter or a 360-degree (off) shutter for most of the film put us up at 640 ISO" What does that mean for noise, raising the gamma to .4? How far are people willing to push the gain in low light?

OK. So I have a short film coming up soon which I'm a little worried about. The largest scene in the film is a party scene in the middle of a field at night. Trying to pick some light sources for the party, the directors like the idea of candles and china balls rather than a bonfire. The location is a clearing in the middle of some trees and I'm thinking of stringing some china balls along the perimeter of the party on the trees and also have lots of candles on the tables in the middle. My concern is that I won't be able to motivate a source when I go in for closeups in the middle of the field. The china lanterns will provide great light for the wide shots, but I can't stage everything next to a candle. I guess I'm in the less than ideal position of needing to light faces even if the source is unrealistic and I'm struggling with how to do that. I don't want it to appear overlit, but I also need to see some detail, something more than candle light. We're shooting on the HPX3000 with a very small crew. Hopefully there's vehicle access to this place and we can back a generator up there. Which brings me to my next problems: noise and line loss if we have to use putt-putts instead of a truck. Anyone have any thoughts?

So this actually works? That would be a great solution if it's cheap and doesn't go purple on screen or anything. What are the other differences between the perspex and true ND? You don't get any ghosting effects or double images or anything? Do you notice a difference between hanging them on the inside as opposed to the outside of the window?

I'm assuming you're s16. Shooting 7218 (500T) will give you plenty of stop in low light situations. Don't be afraid to push it a full stop. I doubt the EX-1 is better than 7218 in low light. I've heard of lanterns that use a combination of oil lantern or triple wick candle in front of a battery powered light. But on Assassination of Jesse James they were cabled fixtures so they could be attached to a flicker dimmer. Or so says Deakins.

Yes I noticed it mostly on wider shots with strong daylight backlighting the singer. Her hair has a strange green tint along the edges. I actually don't notice it that much on darker tungsten setups. Then I'm mostly having backfocus issues. All in all it doesn't look so bad. I'll post some stills when I get the OK.

Finally got some footage back from our shoot. We ended up shooting on the F900 with a Canon cine style zoom. The zoom seemed necessary for a seat of the pants shoot like this. I'm wondering one thing though. I still saw some aberrations on the edges, especially around the highlights. Is this a result of the zoom lens, the camera's sensor, or the 1/8 warm promist I had in front? It looked a heck of a lot better than 1/3" cameras, but it still had that flanging that I hate.

OK maybe that's a dumb question. I was experimenting a little with the HVX shooting 60i in a 24p timeline and it stutters like hell. I guess the F900 just isn't the right camera for it.

I couldn't find any info on this for some reason. I haven't read the entire manual yet, but I'm going to tonight. I suppose the Panasonic Frame Rate converter is for 720p footage only. How does one shoot slow motion on the F900? By shooting 60i and putting it in a 24p timeline? Would I need to adjust the shutter speed to be faster in order to get less motion artifacts? Just seeing how you guys have done it. Wish I had time to test it out. Can't wait for the new Varicam.

Thanks very much Michael, you've made me reconsider things significantly for the better. The shoot was pushed back for a few weeks (seems to be going around these days). We'll probably end up going with the HPX3000 if it is available, or the F900. I'll see what cine lenses are available. Until then, I'll be shooting film dammit.

Michael, were you referring to the HDX900 as being 720? It shoots 1080, no? If you had to shoot on the 900, which zoom lens would you choose?

I guess I was intrigued by the possibility of using some good 35mm glass in front of the camera. But you raise a good point about the adapter softening the image. The 3000 may be out of our budget at this point, I'll let you know what we end up shooting with. Thanks for the thoughts.

Shooting an R&B music video, one female, lots of performance stuff, and a male dancer (I think). Kind of interested in the idea of shooting on the HDX900 with a pro35 adapter, but I've never used it before. I could probably get the HPX3000 for a better rate (if it's even available) but I'd only want to shoot using AVC Intra, and I'm sure that would cause the editor some problems. I guess that makes the choice fairly clear, but has anyone shot with both of these cameras and can compare depth of field and color. I'd be using the pro35 with zeiss ultraprimes I believe. What kind of picture can I expect with this pro35 setup? Is it something comparable to s16? Kind of a broad question, I guess. Just looking for suggestions or alternatives. Can anyone compare it to an F900? Thanks.

A friend showed me around Technicolor, New York the other day and the subject of 2-perf came up. He told me he keeps seeing people frame for 2.35:1 rather than 2.39:1, which he says is what most theater projectors frame for. I keep reading different specs on the 2-perf system. So which is it? 2.35:1 or 2.39:1? And if it's both, can someone help me understand that? And on that note, doesn't 2-perf present a challenge for some special effects because there's less information in the negative?

I've had some cans of Vision 1 Kodak 7274 200T in my fridge for like 2 years. I seem to remember Kodak's site saying somewhere that it was 16mm not Super16. Can anyone verify that? And how about Fuji 8683. Any idea without having to unpack it in a bag? When did Kodak switch over to single perf for all their 16mm stock? Thanks.