Kevin Zanit

I think he was talking more price than anything else.

It?s a real cool magazine, I haven't seen this current issue (I wrote something for it but don't know if I made it into them on time for this issue), but I always really like your articles David. I still have no idea how you have time for writing all these posts and articles, it?s a talent! Kevin Zanit

Yeah to an extent names don't matter, but you wouldn?t call the transpo captain the craft service person. Gaffer, electric, grip, they are all different jobs, so it just sounds stupid to me when people mix them up. Now when it comes to a beefy baby vs. a regular baby stand or some other small difference in equipment naming, that really doesn't bother me too much. I was mainly talking about people not knowing really what each job is supposed to do. Kevin Zanit

I have had flicker on 1k PAR globes and through testing anything smaller than a 5k. The multiple phases works at some speeds, but at a certain speed you are not seeing Hz rate flicker, but the actual arc of the HMI moving around looking like a flicker. You can get rid of this by putting it through some large diffusion frames, but you still need to deal with the flicker of any Hz rate issues as well.

At these high frame rats you can kind of through the convention of "safe" shooting speeds out the window. You not only see Hz rate type flicker but also "arc wander" (to steal a term from carbon arc days) with HMIs and fluctuations (for lack of a better word) in the filament of tungsten globes. The bigger the globe (i.e. 5k and up) the slower these fluctuations happen on the larger filament, and thus it is much less apparent.

It can be fun; it is always interesting to see something that only takes one second in real time stretched out for 35ish seconds. I do a lot of table top type stuff (product shots), but I have seen or shot more random things in slow motion than I ever could begin to recount. From water to fire to someone getting punched in the face to trick pool shots . . .

I hate the putting the cable under the leg poop. It does nothing to prevent trips that a properly laid cable can't fix. You should always have a neat coil of extra cable by the head; put down in such a way that you can move the light and the cable will just unroll without flipping the coil and becoming a tangled mess. The screw issue is something I always would check as part of habit before setting a light (especially a big heavy one), just stick your finger in the junior receptacle and make sure the thread isn't in the way. For lights with baby receptacles, do the same. I've never tightened them completely down, it just is annoying and slows things down considerably with what my old gaffer would call "fiddle fu*king around". You obviously don't want to make a habit of loosing the knuckles (not something I have really ever encountered much), but frankly as an electric your job is to get that light up fast and safely, not protect the rental houses stuff at the expense of making your job smooth. If you loose one as a result of leaving them out (once again not something I have really encountered), oh well, l&d move on with your day, grab a different stand, look for the lost item on some down time.

I do a TON of shooting at a 1000fps. It seems obvious, but I constantly see people make the mistake of just not grasping how much light they really need. I have heard the 600iso figure, I don't know if it is true or not, but I strongly recommended doing some testing before the shoot. To light a small product shot in a close up at about 200iso at 24fps I end up using 4 or 5 10ks only a few feet from the subject. With tungsten light, anything under 5k will flicker, and the smaller the filament, the worse the problem. 10 and 20ks are best suited to this type of work. If you have DC power, Dinos are very good for this. Kevin Zanit

Ask the rental house . . . Typically if you prep and ship out on Thursday, shoot Friday, Saturday, Sunday and return Monday you are billed for one day. Thus you would most likely have to pay for Monday if you don't have it back to them. If they are closed on that Monday, then I doubt it would be billable as it's not your fault.

stoop - You need to change your user name to your real name per forum requirements before your account gets removed. You can do this under "My controls" > "Change display name".

Well they are pretty expensive to be just bad ass looking, you?re probably better off renting. http://www.coffeysound.com/home.php?cat=40 http://www.avsupplystore.com/dke-ts3bw.html http://www.avsupplystore.com/dke-ts3c.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...&sku=327180 http://www.filmtools.com/dendcodts3el.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...&sku=414880 Kevin Zanit

He wants to remove the stops so that when he does the iris pull it will be smooth rather than jumpy when the ring pauses at each "hard" f-stop stop.

The shutters can work well, though I usually rent strobes called "AF1000s" or the older versions were called "Dataflashes" by High End Systems (formally Lightwave Research). These are pretty cheap, DMX controlled, extremely high output Xenon strobes that can do constant output and everything in between. They rent for like $30 a day or so, I usually rent 4 of them with a DMX controller that is made for them. Kevin Zanit

Dinos are great for lighting large spaces. Another trick is to mix in VNSP globes with the traditional MFL globes in the Dinos. This gives you a bit more output without loosing too much spread. They are 9 rows of 4 globes high, thus they are very wide (like 7 feet), and so if it's windy you have to be extra careful. Also, if you are in sand dunes, I don't really know a safe way to build parallels unless the ground is solid. You maybe can go up one level on the parallels, and then get a "road runner" crank stand to get extra high. Kevin Zanit

Yeah, he did, left a few weeks ago. I used to know Eric as well, but he's been gone from Panavision for some time. I was at Panavision on Dan's second to last day, it was weird. I was also there today, seeing his empty work station was even weirder. He told me he was going freelance with Eric, I expect to see some really good stuff come from them. Kevin Zanit

In that instance it is plural, but "frustrations with gaffers & grips", and "among beginner grips & gaffers." just sounds like the million times I see the two jobs incorrectly linked as counter parts.

Among the terminology book should be a section talking about how the term "Gaffer" is not normally a plural one. On most sets there are not multiple gaffers, there is one gaffer, the gaffer, the head of the electric department. The only other time you run into more than one gaffer is a pre-rigging gaffer or a second unit gaffer. It is grips and electrics, best boy grip and best boy electric and key grip and gaffer. Just my pet peeve . . . Kevin Zanit

The ASC is essentially a club not a union, and thus a studio would not petition for the ASC to accept someone. To be accepted into the club is more a symbolic honor than anything directly tangible (for example joining the union directly allows you to work on union shows at union rate, not that you will automatically have union work). To be in the ASC could indirectly help you in the form of helping to get your rates up; it is a mark of a tried and true professional who can create camera work at the highest standards. "Also, some big time DP's get used to their million dollar budgets and large crews and are simply unable to work under more realistic circumstances . . . Just like everything, I guess, there are good and bad things about it." I have learned the higher the budget does not necessarily directly correlate to more resources in MY departments. It often means my crews are paid a proper rate, the actors are better taken care of, and the production department has a nicer trailer/ office. I don't know how many ASC members you have actually seen work, but I have had the fortune of seeing many, and honestly the better ones have their big setups, but primarily kept it simple. I don't know what you mean by realistic conditions, if they have the budget for their gear, then obviously those conditions are realistic for them, maybe not you (or me). Your location stills also have the benefit of being stills (with the ability to really alter them in post, as I see most photographers doing, not to say yours necessarily were). They also have the benefit of you having more or less complete control of when you take them. Kevin Zanit

I had heard Matthew Libatique was one of the youngest, not sure how old he was when he got in though.

For the 558c (current model), around $640ish (http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Sekonic+558c&btnG=Search) I think mine was around $500, I don't really remember to be honest. These are good meters, but you can get something to start out with for much less money. I started with a $20 Sekonic L398 for like $20 at a pawn shop. Kevin Zanit

Hi, I think it was the Nikon D80.

My friend (Elhanan Matos, who posts here also) has a nice digital SLR that he had brought on set just for fun on a film shoot. I played with it as a previz tool while shooting Vision 2 stock; it really did a good job of being a good representation of what I had on the neg. Polaroid?s are nice, but they take way too long, are expensive, and honestly not the best representation of a modern color negative stock. Kevin Zanit

It?s pretty simple, but has a lot of features thus causing some people to think it is not the simplest meter in the world (probably isn't). I would argue it is one of the best meters you can buy. I have the 508c (for years now), my gaffer has the 558c, and I have used the 608c many times in the past. All these meters are more or less the same in operation (mine is the oldest), and they all seem extremely reliable and durable (I know mine is). Kevin Zanit

For film, the Panavision Primo line is pretty great. For HD work, Zeiss Digiprimes. Kevin Zanit

There is never an okay time to take off the Pyrex lens of an HMI. You can quickly get burns on the skin from the UV radiation. You can run an HMI PAR with no lenses in the doors (but that still leaves the Pyrex lens on). The best bet for something like this would be either an Arri X light with the black reflector or a Goya with the black reflector. Kevin Zanit