Naim Sutherland

Thanks for your replies everyone. I have picked up extra 1/8th plus green for this location. Sadly, the production cannot provide me with the extra powerful lights that I wanted for this location, so I will have to make due with 3x 1.2k par, 4x 575 par/fres and some kinos. This will change our plan a bit, and we will aim to make our world more contained than we would otherwise like. It will force us to shrink the fov in key areas of the location to avoid seeing world that can't be managed properly. To a certain extent this also means we will be spending more in colour correction, and I think that is understood by the production. I am still concerned that I will have a couple of different temperatures through the day in the same frame. Sometimes it'll just be my lights and the fluorescents, sometimes I can keep it to real daylight with just HMI and turn off the fluorescents, but sometimes I'll have to mix with real daylight and have fluorescents and my lights all at once. The Red with Ye Olde Mysterium sensor isn't the best at smoothing out different temperatures, but I don't really think I can do much about it. I guess my next thought is won't my HMIs feel cool compared to the fluorescents? Should I warm them with some CTO? In that case, what should I do when I can see outside and inside at the same time? I have at least 1 shot where I think I will be forced into using the fluorescents, will be able to see outside, or see daylight spill at least, and will have to sweeten the subjects with my own lights (at quite a distance) all at the same time. To a certain extent I could see situations where real daylight may be in a unique luma value that would be fairly colour correctable on its own, so I think my main thing now is just the difference between HMI with + green and fluorescents (which to my eye are "Cool White"). I think the answer is white balance and manage colour temperature with a spectrometer (hah, as if we have that) or my eye in the eye piece and be prepared to shift around as needed on a case by case basis, but I wanted to see if you guys had any other suggestions. Sorry for the horribly rambly post... I think you all understand where my energy level and my head is at right now. Thanks, Naim

Hi everyone, I have a low budget show coming up with a couple of days in a bank. The location is fairly spacious, and has a lot of fluorescent lighting. I am going to go ahead and get a quote for enough tubes to replace everything, but I am looking at several hundred bulbs, and I am very concerned that the show will not be able to afford it. Do I have other reasonable options here? I intend to bring in significant levels of daylight through the windows along the side, but it will not reach through the whole space (nor do I want it to), and I will have huge areas in the back of the bank that will not have any direct HMI or any spill. I've never used minus green gel. Will that take out the green spike on the fluorescents? That will bring them back down closer to tungsten temp, correct? Not quite ideal... How much punch would I lose doing that? I intend to stay at an F2 and I'm on the old Red sensor, so 320 ISO.... feels like I can't afford to lose much stop. Even with minus green, the spectrum is incomplete, so I will still end up with a bit of an odd tonality under those lights, right? I can avoid lighting my main subjects with them, but certainly 'staff' extras will be hit by them. I don't anticipate being able to bounce off the ceiling, as this problem is chiefly a concern on the wides where we would likely see any hot spots like that. Today I told them that I was concerned there wouldn't be a viable backup plan if they could not afford to rent the bulbs. I said I would look into it and get back to them with anything else we could do, but I can't figure anything else out. I seriously can't hide stuff in there, I see so much of the space... anything I would be able to hide would be behind cubical walls, but it would be on the floor and have the wrong light direction. I don't know. Any wise thoughts out there?

Hey everyone, I hope I am posting this in the right sub forum! I have a shoot coming up on Tuesday on the Canon 5D MKII. It'll be my third gig on it - I think I'll buy one actually, I seem to be shooting lots on it. I am aware of all the drawbacks on the camera, so we don't need to discuss that. One of the things that I want to take care of this time out is finding a nice, hot shoe mountable, battery operated monitor which can provide me with (ideally) waveform, or some other metering via HDMI. I would consider myself a bit of a gear head, but monitors are outside my normal range of knowing what's out there. Can anyone suggest something that matches that description that won't break the bank? Thanks!

SD would be fine for my purposes I think. I really can't afford too much, but I wanted to see what was recommended. My plan was actually to try to track down something used to save cash. I would only use it to occasionally colour my own films (which is happening less and less, thankfully), my reel and obviously it would be valuable for testing. Not really anything worth a significant investment. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I need to colour my last two films, and I'm wondering what people would suggest for a CRT monitor to use for this task. I will need something affordable, of course. And also, has anyone had any experience with hardware monitor calibrators? As in something like this: http://spyder.datacolor.com/index_us.php Worth it, not worth it, any thoughts? Thank you.

Hi everyone, I am asking for specific suggestions of specific lamps and wattages.... that is the part I need help with. I will place them where they need to be, don't you worry about that! There are several lights that will never hit people and don't need to be very pretty, and can hopefully be something cheaper than an HMI PAR. I think larger setups like 9 lights will be harder to hide, and won't be tree-mountable, so my inclination is to avoid that kind of thing. I have also been entertaining the idea of going 100% tungsten at night, which I know will draw more power, but it will save the production money. What tungsten lamp will give me the same throw as a 6k HMI PAR? The disadvantages would be having to gel my balloon light, and shooting already lower key stuff farther away from Red's 5000 degree sensor. I guess I will just trust that build 16 is indeed cleaner. Thanks.

Hi everyone, I posted a while ago about coming up with an approach to the massive amount of exterior night setups in my upcoming project shooting Red. I want to generally see a lot of detail at night, and be able to shoot at a decently deep stop (T4 or 5.6) because of all the movement and action I'm going to have to cover. The look of night will have to be stylized for this film because the world is totally overcast, and our characters are out in a forest with no source of light at all. Anyway... I think I have boiled down the general approach to 4 sources of light, and now I'm wondering what kind of lamps and what wattages would be cost effective for these different purposes. I have drawn out a ridiculously rudimentary diagram http://naimsutherland.com/images/lighting-setup.gif . Here are two typical areas that I will be dealing with for the movie: http://naimsutherland.com/images/location.jpg http://naimsutherland.com/images/location1.jpg Blocking will range from sitting in camp talking to running on steadicam away from an assailant, fighting with knives and guns, and eventually deaths from the weapons and bludgeoning as well. Light 1 is the helium balloon key. Ideally this fills our immediate space with a soft, even light and gives everything a base to work from. Light 2 is the backlight for the subjects. It needs to be fairly subtle and not too hard since it's completely unmotivated, and I just want it for separation and to avoid being flat and boring on the characters since I'm doing a soft overhead. Light 3 needs to rake the background, which in a wide-ish shot might be quite a distance. It can be hard, but it should be even. I am afraid of losing depth by just losing things in darkness... I want to keep the idea of endless forest around them even at night. Light 4 gets the foreground stuff that might be missed because its not facing the balloon light. It will need to be soft and even and mimic the balloon light. Obviously this is a general conceptual approach, and not a specific schematic for a shot of the film. One other requirement is that I'd like to have one of these larger lamps for putting up a subtle, very soft key on exterior day setups where appropriate. The whole movie is supposed to be overcast, but even so it might be nice to be able to paint on a subtle direction when/if I can. I would love any tips on what lamps you guys think would be good for these jobs... I haven't really used much more than a 1200 par on my stuff, and I think this is all beyond something like that! Thanks!

Hi everyone, Thanks so much for your thoughtful insights! It's always difficult to make a step up in this field. Suddenly you're out of your comfort zone with gear, or your working in a new style or professional/political situation that you're not used to and it's like you have to figure everything out again. I've always been fortunate and able to rely on the kind generosity of those more experienced. I think the night look and strategy are beginning to solidify in my mind. I have a meeting with the guy who usually gaffs for me this week... sadly he is not going to be available for the movie. Hopefully then we can talk it out further and draw up some schematics and a basic list to get a quote from. It will definitely center around a balloon providing a general level, and then adding a soft key with bounced or heavily diffused light if needed and a hard back or edge, and splashing the background in some yet to be determined way. I definitely see what you mean in terms of contrasting quality of the light since I am unable to use a different temperature. I hope I will have enough stop to give a focus puller a chance on moving steadicam stuff. More than anything else its the night time moving, chasing, gun and knife fighting and killing stuff that concerns me! I will think more about exactly how far a distance I will need to have lit, and what my frame sizes will ideally be like vs what I can get away with. I should have been more clear regarding budget, though it's hard when I don't know what the budget will be! I expect it will be a limiting factor, so bang for buck is key as usual. Honestly, I wish the budget situation was more clear and definite, even this far out from going to picture. All I can go by is my sense that they sound serious and generally aware of the price of things. I can see it going a couple of different ways, but I am just going to continue to think positively and hand in a best case scenario gear list and see what we get. Indeed the director mentioned right in the first meeting that he thought balloons would be the way to go. The local rental houses have been very generous with discounts in the past, and there is a lot of goodwill around in terms of camera, lenses and personnel so I hope for the best... I don't know what else to do! Thanks again for your suggestions! Please do not hesitate to post any thoughts or suggestions you might have. I will have more questions and ask for more advice as we go ahead... I still have to decide on approaches to the numerous fire side scenes, as well as the opening car sequence (never used a tow before!).

Hi guys, Regarding balloons - are these expensive to rent? It seems like any solution I get I will need many multiples of to cover the area that I need. And please excuse my greenness once again, but what is a Wendy light? My searches find things from low wattage bulbs to light banks to people named Wendy Light. I think if the ambient level can be around a 2.8 I can add a backlight and work with that for wides, and then when I move in I can get a proper stop with a key and the ambient can fill the area. Is that stop achievable with these solutions? I am concerned that hard background fill will look sourcey and not mesh with what's happening in the foreground... anyway, I will play with it in testings and figure it out... it will be quite out of focus anyway. so it's important for me to remember that that specific element isn't the most important thing! Thanks!

Hi everyone, I have a project coming up shooting on Red that will require quite a bit of exterior night work out in the forest. I need some advice on what kind of gear would work for me. I'll try to describe what I'm after.... Some of the stuff is dialogue, but there are several chases and fights that happen at night as well. I think it will be important to achieve a stop at which a focus puller will have a chance with if we are running around on a steadicam. Because our world is always overcast and the action takes us away from firelight and flashlights and basically any other light source, I am aiming to create kind of a base layer of ambient light in the vicinity of our scenes. I think that if I can do this it will afford me the time to work with a soft sidey key and backlights and still shoot relatively quickly. Once I have an area lit I'm sure I'll be able to swing around to cheat things as a new area if we are say running and fighting and there aren't a lot of visual geographic references. I am also concerned with keeping a background somewhat visible in any kind of wide-ish shot... not sure how to do that without it looking hard and sourcey, or falling off right away and not reaching very far. I think the director/producers are aware that this is going to be a costly way to go and they want to see a preliminary gear list to see if this kind of look will even be possible. Anyway, what I am looking for is advice on some kind of soft space light system that can cover a fair distance and be as cost effective as possible and give me the stop I need. If this has been covered, please link me, since I couldn't find anything in my searches. Thanks in advance!

Hi Brian, My suggestion would be to get an actual .com for yourself, and include that on your business card. That way you can lay out your reel and resume in a clean, professional manner and not feel iffy about including the URL on correspondence and your business card. A site will run you less than $100/year, and I'd say it's been well worth it for me. Good luck!

Hi everyone, Thank you so much for your generous help and suggestions! I have suggested to the agency that they expand the budget to include a Ken Labs KS8. This unit sounds very promising for what I want to do, and will not break the bank. It'll be a close call with shipping to get it up here to Vancouver from Connecticut by Thursday for my shoot Friday, but we'll see what they say. I guess my worst case scenario is to rent a glidecam unit. I will certainly be careful, and I will have an assistant there to hold me on the day. I have done moving vehicle stuff with glidecam before, but not boats. I am still concerned that most of the vibration and bump won't be taken out, and that it will be cumbersome and more trouble than it's worth, but on the other hand I am concerned that I won't get very much if I don't bring it. We'll see what they say. I am also up against the fact that this gig came from a craigslist ad, so I don't have a personal relationship with the agency doing it, and there is no established trust there. The other thing that sucks is that all I don't even have a name or phone number from them, all I have is an email address, and it is 'intern@theirdomain.com'... great, I am going through an intern. Anyway, I will definitely overcrank at 60fps, and I will have a pola and nd grads on hand to add some visual punch. If all else is lost I'll shoot it really wide and they can use that FCP stabilization plugin! Thanks for your help and support everyone!

I did consider glidecam. My concern is that I will end up having to hold the thing so much to keep it from blowing in the wind that it might not be worth the marginal amount of bounce it could obsorb. The Makohead looks awesome, though probably completely out of my budget. I have requested a quote from the nearest place, but I won't be able to afford it unless the client wants to pony up some extra cash, and obviously I won't hold my breath on that.

Hi everyone, I have a gig coming up shooting promo material for a speed boat company. I get the sense from the brief, cryptic interaction with the agency that this will primarily entail shooting speedboats from other speedboats. I am wondering if anyone has any clever camera stabilization suggestions. My gut tells me that shooting handheld in a way where I can brace myself in the boat and the camera against my body will give me the most flexible, smoothest shooting possible, but I wanted to run it by you guys as well and see if anyone has any experience or suggestions to offer. I have a very small budget (so no ultimate arm, though that is clearly the correct piece of gear for this kind of thing!), and I'm shooting on an HVX200. Thanks for your help!