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?

Thank you for your replies. My thesis is getting somewhere now, but still I'd like to hear some input from you guys. It seems that German cinema isn't very popular in the world. When I worked in Canada, the only movie they knew was "Run Lola Run". But if you'd asked me what spanish movie I'd know, you'd see question marks all over my face. How about you, do you know any European movies (other than UK)?

Does someone know somebody who worked in both markets who I could ask?

Hello guys, During my practical semester three years ago I started to work right away and kinda let the last thing left to the bachelors degree, the thesis, unfinished. Now I have enough time and want to finish the degree. I hope you can help me with my bachelor-thesis. My topic would read to something like this: “An analytic comparison between American and German motion pictures of the new millennium – is there a difference in style?” Basically I’m trying to pinpoint the differences so I can say exactly what it is that makes the movies look different. Besides the obvious difference in budget (which explains why they look different, but not how exactly), I found some in lighting, camera movement, digital make up, and what I still have to check, color correction. First question would be: do you actually know any German movies? If yes, which ones (specifically from the past 10 years)? It seems, that almost every picture in the states is colored by Deluxe or Technicolor, even the low budget ones. Do you know more about that? Looking at the visual aspect, what in your eyes would be the main differences between German and American movies, and why? It would be great if you could help me with my questions. Thank you very much in advance.

Did that always happen or only that one time? Can it be that it was just a miscalculation of some sort? If you put in a fresh roll with 122m and the digital counter says 62m, there's about 59,5m left on the mag. We withdraw only 2 to 3m and it always fits. :huh:

You kinda got me interested in seeing this little movie. How are the plans for release? Festivals, Internet? Did you fit all the ext-shots on that one 50d roll? I'd love to see more making-of pictures. :)

I just read that Avid is shutting down Avid Liquid completely. I don't get along with Avid cutting systems very well (that's why I changed to Liquid Edition), and in the future I will have to change from Liquid to another program. But which one? I love FCP, but I don't need another computer here, so I am looking for a PC based one. I heard that Edius is quite good and pretty similar to Liquid. So what are you guys using, and why do you think it's good?

Drew, For the Sekonic L-758C (which, I state again, do own myself) 24 f/s equals 1/48th of a second exposure time (if it is set to a 180° shutter). That is not absurd, that is how it is. That is even said in the link you've given us. If you want to shoot 24 f/s with a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second, you have to set your light meter to 1/1000th of a second. Think about this: what is the difference in shooting 24 frames in one second with an exposure speed of 1/1000th of a second, or one picture in a minute with the same settings? You are rapidly shooting still images, in your case 24 images per second with an exposure speed of 1/1000th of a second. I think you may got confused because of the whole shutter angle = shutter speed thing. An example: let's say we are shooting in 24 f/s with a film camera and a video camera. The film camera has a shutter angle of 180° (= 1/48th exposure time), the video camera has a shutter speed of 1/48. At this point the exposures of both cameras are the same. Let's change exposure times. The film camera gets a shutter angle of 45° which gives us an exposure of 1/192nd of a second). Hypothetically our video camera can change to that exact same exposure speed, so set it there. Again, both cameras record 24 f/s with an exposure speed of 1/192. And now we change the framerate, but don't touch the exposure settings. We set the film camera to 48 f/s. Because the shutter is now rotating twice as fast to capture twice as many frames per second, the exposure time is twice as fast as well, it is now 1/384th of a second. we set the video camera to 48 f/s, but don't change the exposure time. The video camera now records 48 frames per second with a shutter speed of 1/192nd of a second. So we changed framerates on both cameras, and only the exposure time on the film camera changed. film: 24 f/s, 180° = 1/48 video: 24 f/s, 1/48 = 1/48 film: 24 f/s, 45° = 1/192 video: 24 f/s, 1/192 = 1/192 film: 48 f/s, 45° = 1/384 video: 48 f/s, 1/192 = 1/192 Hope I could clear things up a little.

Obviously that would be incorrect, the f-stop measured with 1/60th shutter speed should be only slighly lower than with 24 f/s, not one full stop...

Well, which part is incorrect? As I said, "24 f/s is equivalent to a shutter speed of 1/48th of a second [...] assuming 180° angle shutter". If you don't have a 180° shutter, as you do, you simply measure the shutter speed. If you shoot with a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second, each frame will be exposed to light by 1/125th of a second. Each frame, meaning the 24 frames in one second, the 60 frames in one second, or 2 frames in one minute. It makes no difference if you shoot 24 f/s or 60 f/s. It's just a change of speed on how many pictures you are taking in one second, but there's no change in exposure. Can it be, that you set your Sekonic to 24 f/s, measured f2.8, then set it to 1/60th of a second and measured f2.0? If so, that is because, as I said, the 24 f/s are measured with a shutter speed of 1/48th of a second.

Hi, I am no forum regular (apart from reading), but I do verify your thought, Dimitri. There's a simple reason why the Sekonic (I own one myself) isn't able to adjust framerate and shutter speed at the same time: there's no need. The framerate option is just another conversion from a shutter speed. 25 f/s is equivalent to a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second, 24 f/s is equivalent to a shutter speed of 1/48th of a second, and so on (assuming 180° angle shutter, of course). Coming to video, you don't need f/s anymore, you just take the shutter speeds. It doesn't matter if you're shooting in 24 f/s or 300 f/s, if you're shutter speed is 1/600th of a second, you expose for 1/600th of a second either way. so don't measure the f/s, just the shutter speeds, and you're safe.