Dominic Gruenberg

In this video, Marc states, that they were working on the Valencia (Arriflex 435 HS) until around fall 2008, when they stopped it. There is only the plastic model and an actual working prototype of it. In the German version he goes into a little more detail. He says, that during that time (financial crisis, potential SAG strike, no more film shoots), the rental houses didn't want to buy film cameras since they were afraid that they couldn't earn their money back. They even cancelled their orders. Arri didn't have any orders and couldn't sell their cameras, so they had to cancel project Valencia, which was one of Marc's favorite projects, on which they had worked on for a long time. English Version: German Version:

After following fishes on YouTube videos of aquariums became pretty boring, I tried something else on the weekend. We live close to an airport, which can be pretty annoying at times. But this time I wished for even more planes coming in, so that I’d have more subjects to follow. At least it showed me, that I still have a lot of training ahead of me. I mean, I'd say that I have no trouble with the direction of the turns and I'm not thinking about turning and let instinct take over (as long as I’m actually not thinking about it ? ), but while framing the shot, I've got the feeling, that I'm always ever so lightly off. I guess, that's the part where I just need to train more. The camera was positioned right beside our house, so when I saw the planes pass our roof, they were already above us, so I had a really hard time getting the planes in frame on the 400 mm. After I took that picture, I mounted a little DSLM camera on top of the handle with a much wider lens to help me with orientation. I do get, that using a geared head for long lenses can be problematic, but I found that it helped me train to keep a steady motion while following the planes. Charles, I tried your trick and it works very well, thank you! I haven't tried it with actual subjects yet, but I kept my imaginary subjects in frame. However, it showed me, that I'm having trouble stopping the wheels without them turning back a tiny little bit again. The faster I spin, the harder it gets. Is there a trick or a technique to prevent that from happening?

I tried to "throw the wheels" und do whip pans. I'm not saying I'm givin up yet, but after a while of doing that, my left hand hurt and putting pan in neutral gave me better results. Obviously I've still got a ton of training ahead of me, but yeah, so much for whip panning for me. ? Arri actually sent me a gear adjusting manual to get rid of backlash in panning. They say that sometimes, when you're working outside during winter and then coming into a warm interior set, you might have to adjust. I thought that was interesting.

Thanks guys, I love reading your experiences. Keep them coming! G'day Dom, what do you mean by they can be time-consuming to work on? The maintenance? Thanks for your suggestion for a geared head show reel, I’ll look into that and try to find comparisons between fluid and geared heads in certain situations. Moin Uli, that’s a beautiful head you have there with shiny, shiny wheels. I totally get what you mean by warm feeling, I’ve got the same every time I look at mine. Hey Charles, thank you for your stories. Could you describe how you’d “throw the wheels” to do a whip pan? In my mind I’d add a pan bar and put panning in neutral for that shot. Here's my Arrihead:

Hello everyone, in this thread I hope to find people who are interested in exchanging experiences, ideas and more about geared heads. How do you stay in training and how often do you train? What are your arguments for/against a geared head? Perhaps the more seasoned operators might want to share their stories and experiences and the younger aspiring cinematographer want to know more about the dying art of turning the wheels. In Europe for example barely anyone uses them anymore, even on the biggest sets. Maybe enough people are interested in this topic so we could collaborate on something, for example make a list of used ones on sale and upload pictures or brochures for others to enjoy. I have an irrational love for geared heads, even though I never had my hands on, let alone owned one before. They fascinate me, the mechanics, the fluidity of the motion, they have that special aura. I soaked up all the info I could gather from the internet and every now and then, just out of curiosity, I’d look at ebay and other sites, if somebody is selling a geared head. I’d love to hear your stories; when did you get your hands on the wheels, what was your best move on a set, what are you trying to do to “get in the game”, etc. I’ll start with the story about how I actually got mine (I try to keep it short): Ever since I was in film school, I wanted to work with one, but I never got the chance. I told myself that someday I’d buy one! Well, I spent the first years paying back student loans. Additionally, I was mostly doing work where a geared head just wouldn’t make any sense. So it remained a dream. After I started a family and income became steadier again (unlike me, my wife thankfully has a real job, so as a freelancer I was taking care of the kid until he was ready for kindergarten), I was finally ready to buy one. I knew, that geared heads were becoming a relic of the glory days. If I’d ever buy one, I might not use it on a production, ever. I knew that. And I was OK with it. It was still my dream. And then, suddenly, I saw a listing at one of the big rental houses: an Arrihead 1 at a criminally low price! After a few minutes of thought and speaking to my wife, I called them, and a few days later I literally drove from one side of the country to the other to pick it up. Finally, I am the proud owner of the seventh Arrihead ever built! I’ve talked to Arri about that head and bought some replacement parts. It’s in a reasonably well condition and for the first two months of owning it, I’ve been practicing for about an hour every night. It really is a dream come true. That was over half a year ago and it’s still one of the best purchases I’ve ever made, even when I still haven’t brought it to any set. Others buy motorcycles during their midlife crisis. Well, my motorcycle is the Arrihead.

Nice trailer, now I'm interested. Could you show us a clip from the movie, a bit longer than the one on your website?

Watch this video. At 1:40 you see the actual camera. http://www.marinacityonline.com/news/wingsuits0608.htm

Very interesting read, and the pictures look great, thanks for sharing. I might have missed it, but: what are your plans on color grading?

Very interesting, thank you for sharing. :) And I've got to point out that sentence, because it is so well said, with nothing more to add but to quote it:

Susanne, as said, try to widen your look on Canada. Toronto and Vancouver are the two cities you should start with, where quite possibly some American productions will be as well. If you have a confirmation for a job, contact the Canadian embassy in Germany for a work permit. For the next step, they need you to do a bunch of medical tests, which, if you're not health insured privately, you will have to pay for those tests yourself (which is not cheap). This whole process will take time, count at least about three months. I don't know how it is now, but that's how it was ten years ago. ;)

I just read this blog post which I found very interesting. After a long day of work, would you go out and have a drink with some of the crew or would you go straight to bed? What are your thoughts? Personally, I think it's nice to just hang out and talk without having to concentrate on your job and on what's happening around you, because that's what you're doing when you're on set. Sometimes I go with them, drink a coke and only stay for a little while, or hang out on set and drink a bottle of after work beer. I remember on my very first major production after my first day of shooting, the camera crew and the sound crew set off to hit the bar. I went with them, and inevitably most of the talk was about the day or work, but that didn't matter. It was primarily a friendly hang out to get to know each other a bit better. Of course, there are also other occasions. One involving part of the crew jumping into the hotel pool after midnight and having way too much fun. It's just one of those nights, but people still talk about those nights, which makes them even more fun. ;) The most important thing is: as long as you can do your job in the right way, even those nights are somehow part of a memorable shoot.

The biggest problem when watching dubbed movies is, that the dub might not feel organic enough to believe that this voice really belongs to the actor. It is always an interpretation of the voice actor. If your actors all can speak English, in my opinion, especially whith the theme of your movie, you should shoot in German and let the actors dub themselves. Only they know their emotions during each of their particular scenes and can play those through for the dub again.

Christian, thanks a lot for your "few" words. ;)

Pretty standard rigs, sounds like nothing that needs extra permits. When we are shooting here in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, if you close the road, you can do almost anything you want there, except of destroying stuff and put the public in danger, of course. And sometimes things still get damaged and then the company has to pay up, but we are still allowed to do stuff. I cannot imagine that Frankfurt has other laws concerning the permits. But I'm sorry, I cannot give you a definite yes for Frankfurt.

I cannot confirm that. We use a lot of camera rigs on cars, but all on blocked roads that is. At least you need an interval block. What exactly do you need (and where), maybe I can find something out for you?