Kevin Zanit

You may not have had the camera mag number on the slate, but did you have a roll number? If so, a properly filled out camera report for that roll should indicate the mag number. I have never experienced this problem with the SRs, but apparently I have been lucky.

I've been quoted $250 an hour (supervised) on a Shadow to HDCam SR with DVCam simultaneous (none of this including the price of tape stock) from Entertainment Post in Burbank. This is what they told me was their book rate, so anyone should be able to get a similar price. I've never worked with them, so the question is how it would look. I remember seeing some posts on here that had stills that looked like the typical noisy, not the best quality look from this companies Rank, but that is sort of typical of the Rank and low budget telecine places. If anyone has used their Shadow, I would be curious how it looked. Kevin Zanit

I have heard that same complaint from a few different people with regard to these lenses.

Respectfully, I have to disagree with you. I am extremely loyal to Panavision, their gear and people for the most part are what I consider the best in the business. That said, the digital Primos are definitely not superior lenses to the Digiprimes. I have done side by sides several times, and have had people who work at Panavision (annomysly of course) agree that the line of lenses do have problems. I still rent my HD gear from Panavision because I love the company, and if one reads my past posts I have never really had anything negative to say about Panavision, but on this one point, I can not agree with you that the Digital Primos are superior.

For me, shooting film is like being able to play jazz music. If you can play jazz, you can play anything. If you can truly shoot film well, the medium really won't matter. As many have said before, film is an extremely valid/ relevant format. It is not expensive to make students shoot a few rolls of 16mm reversal and really see what their skills are like. Besides, if you thought your old film cameras were poorly maintained, wait until you see how a poorly maintained video camera works. I do agree with you, a ?real? HD camera (read one worth more than a nice car) would be helpful to have (along with the proper lenses and support like follow focuses, etc). Amateur equipment is indeed a stupid thing to pay a ton of money for the right to use. You are supposedly paying for the theory education, etc, but no one gives a poop how much theory you know if you can?t get good real world results. Film schools would have a much better reputation in the "real industry" if they would better prepare their students for what the real world is like. You WILL NOT graduate and begin working as a director. You WILL NOT graduate and begin working as a DP. You WILL work in many of the "craft" fields surrounding the job you seek (as you should) before making any real money in that position. If film schools spent more time teaching proper set etiquette, how to really work in the camera department, how to really work in the grip or electric departments they would be churning out far more employable and useful people. When I say "really work" I mean someone that can operate as one experienced in that position. All the little things like the proper tools to have, the proper way to label things, the proper crew structure, the proper way to hand off a lens, the proper way to lay distro, etc, etc. This requires instructors with real, practical experience. And to those who feel the work is beneath them/ won't need to do this work before getting in their fields - If you can manage to avoid it, I don't know how you did, but congrats. But please don't call me or anyone I care about to work for you because you sure as poop wont be able to run a show in a proper way, or in such a way that I would want to deal with you. This is way off your original topic, but oh well, most of the previous advice given is good. Kevin Zanit

I should have signed it, it was me. I don't always agree with you Matthew, but this one instance I did.

Can someone post the response in English as well? I am sure plenty of people that don't speak French would like to know the answer as well. The gist I could pick up was to use the three buttons on the body and navigate to the menu that allows you to set the style of the beep, and then to select "no beep" (or verifier).

If you are in the USA, then a 2.5k HMI is pulling more than 20amps (or so close that when you strike the ballast, it will blow the breaker). Thus no, you should not power a 2.5k in the way you are proposing. Kevin Zanit

You can put a B4 mount on a F900 from Panavision, you just have to ask nice (or have someone in your camera department who knows what they are doing change it out themselves). The Digiprimes are way better lenses than the Digital Primos. I am told they are very old, rehoused Canon lenses. The Digital Primo zooms I find to be better than the primes, and I really liked renting HD equipment from Panavision, so I have always rented my HD stuff from them, in spite of the less superior optics. Kevin Zanit

One of my biggest problems when shooting high speed table top is getting enough depth of field to even keep the lip of an entire glass in focus (or something similar), and this is with 35mm depth of field. Having 65mm depth of field would kill me in terms of lighting for double the stop I normally would go for. I haven't worked with this camera so I cant say much one way or the other beyond I hear it has some quirks of it's own, like every HD high speed camera I have seen. Kevin Zanit

Congrats on finishing that up! A very long stretch indeed. I've never been on one show for a period as long as that; I don't know how I would keep it fresh . . . that?s probably a big challenge (at least mentally for you). Have fun doing nothing for a bit. Kevin Zanit

Ric Halpern who is the head of the student grants program a Panavsion WH posts on here some. Why don't you just call and ask what is acceptable?

Well I happened to be at Panavision WH today, and it is true, Dan Sasaki is leaving the company. Today is his last day. I guess he is going freelance. He was a major asset to the company, an amazing guy. Even today, on his last (or 2nd to last) day he was helping me with lens questions and putting a particular set aside so that they could be found when he was gone. Kevin Zanit

Bleach bypass on the negative affects the highlights, on the print it affects the shadows. This has been discussed literally thousands of times on the forum. Please do a search. Kevin Zanit

I dont know about the figures, but I sure know they probably loose money on every roll of film sold to the type of shows I'm on :P Thanks Kodak for always being generous!

Wow, where did you here that? I just talked to Dan two days ago about a project coming up in a few months and he didn't mention that he is leaving. I hope he isn't, he is an amazing guy, known him for years. I'll have to put a call in and see if I can find out anything.

Shoot your gray card the same as you are shooting the scene (unless you want to "trick" the colorist into a certain look you want, such as warming the image up, etc.). Lighting for more contrast is the best way to get more contrast, just use your eyes, that film is going to render what you see. If this is just going to live in video it should be really easy to dial in the look you want. Kevin Zanit

Well overexposing 2/3 of a stop will help. But to get more contrast, simply light it with more contrast. Since you shot it last week you will have a better idea of what you are dealing with. To be completely honest, I find that '18 when looking through a ground glass, the film records pretty much what my eye sees. I have yet to be surprised when seeing the results from any of the Vision 2 line I have worked with ('17, '18, '05), that is not necessarily a good thing to me, I'm prepping a show that I am testing '29 on, and maybe I will be more surprised with the results as its a low-con stock. Kevin Zanit

Yep, good memory!

If all you need is a small light than you can what you said, but I've needed to goalpost things like a 12k PAR.

This is called a goal post, and there are a few ways to dit. You can take a 12' piece of speed rail with ears on each side. You then use two high-rollers or combo stands with lollipops in them to support it. Kevin Zanit

Well that auction isn't including the ballast which is the most expensive and important part of that light. I think there are switchable voltage ballasts for these lights. You would need to ask around. All that said, you are missing the most expensive part, so do that research before considering buying this light (called the head). You also would need a head cable to connect the light to the ballast. Kevin Zanit

Ric Halpern, its good to see you on here!

Just got home from seeing it. Great work David! Looked fantastic, and was a fun, well done movie. The stuff with them talking by the pond/ lake with the yellow and then green tree looked really nice, a lot of your work on this movie should help your commercial reel quite a bit :D Kevin Zanit

The extra 1/3 stop of exposure can be a nice safety margin as far keeping a dense negative, however it is a fairly minor bit of overexposure, won't have much impact. '79 does have less latitude than '18, especially in the shadow detail. I consider '79 to be a more contrasty stock as well as being a bit more saturated and warm. It also can tend to get what I call "crunchy" in the blacks when faced with underexposure. You may just want to shoot a simple test, if you have shot a lot of '18 then the differences will be pretty apparent. Kevin Zanit