Kevin Zanit

I agree with most of the above. I have shot video (including HD) for many years. That said, I still like to bring out a DIT. I have heard many terrible DIT stories, but I have only ever worked with one, Elhanan Matos who I have known for years and work well with. He has a great artistic eye and can give me valuable input when asked but can also tear apart an F900 with is eyes closed. I have always worked with a DIT except for a few instances, for example a few pickup shots in New York where it was a very small crew, he just gave me a memory stick and told the 1st what to do settings wise once we got the gear from Plus8 NY. I know the basics of how to read a waveform and can set a monitor to bars no problem. I am doing a shoot next week with no DIT as Elhanan is not available (I need to stop promoting him on this site ;) ), though I am so comfortable with the F900 that I'm not really worried. Kevin Zanit

Old topic that goes over much of the same, don't ask how I remembered it. http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...opic=794&st Kevin Zanit

Fair enough, though I certainly did not ignore it, I figure most people on here don't need someone to point out how stupid a comment that was to make on a public forum.

Let it begin . . . Adam, "not in their nature", please provide me some evidence that gender roles in the US are driven solely by nature, that it really has nothing to do with the socialization of how women are raised in the US, finally settle this whole nature vs. nurture debate thats been going on in the sociology/ communications fields for god knows how long since you clearly have the answers. I don't think the question was why are there not equal amounts of males and females, but really why do the various genders gravitate towards various jobs, and is one of the factors discrimination? Do things have to be equal? No. Should we discriminate based solely on gender? You tell me. All this said, I can honestly say I am more prone to hiring male crew members for the simple reason that I find I communicate better with other males. Why? because I am a male, so we communicate in the same way. Does that mean I would not hire female crew members, definitely not, I have in the past. "I will throw in some mysoginism and say I don't think females do well on a crew on very demanding and remote location shoots. Shooting under "military" conditions doesn't go well with most females. Word to the wise." Yeah? Say that to some of the ladies of the IDF (or any military with women serving), see how well that goes over. Kevin Zanit

Deakins sure has two great looking films as contenders. No Country looked amazing, so did the Jesse James, I would be happy to see either of them win. Personally, I would have liked to see Kaminski get a nom. for Munich, though I have not talked to too many people that share my sentiment, though I happily argue its merits ;)

Its interesting, I know of quite a few female camera assistants, but plenty more male ones. I think there is more than one factor at work. Women traditionally were discriminated against in all fields, as the various womens movements made headway the notion of a woman in a traditionally "male" job became much more acceptable. I don't know too many people who look twice at a female camera assistant, or set electric for that matter. I think there is still some discrimination directly in the movie business, but at the same time, little girls are still socialized by their parents and people around them to seek certain types of work. Thus, you find fewer women attracted to certain crew jobs. Mary Pickford co-owned a studio in 1920, the same year the 19th amendment (women's suffrage) was ratified, though she was an exception, in some ways Hollywood was early in giving women a lot of power. I think people tend to think the movie business exists in isolation, that what we do is so much more unique than everyone else. Of course the job has some very unique quirks, many of the issues people have are found here, discrimination, hating ones boss, etc, etc. Why are there so few women CEOs of fortune 500 companies? So few women race car drivers? So few women construction contractors? So few women presidents? The list is endless, and the question applies to all these other professions as well. Kevin Zanit

Do a search, been discussed a ton before (as have many of the other techniques used in SPR). It is from throwing the camera's movement out of phase with the shutter so that the camera is pulling down a new frame while the shutter is still partially open. The camera pulls the film down vertically, and thus the streaks are vertical as well.

In my experience, its 'good enough for government work', I end up doing it all the time (doubling up). I'm sure its as accurate as the odds of any of our lighting units delivering an exact 3200 or 5600.

I would use a turn table for the can rotation. The above is all true, big soft sources and big solids so that you can create the shape of the can.

Why on earth would a cinematographer come with production insurance?

I heard Monday, there is definitely a strong feeling they will strike. I was on a commercial at Universal yesterday and today, the call sheet had a note stating we were a "Neutral Party" if there were picket lines, as there is no WGA contract with this commercial production company.

There are probably over a thousand posts on this forum that answer the question. We don't need another film vs. video thread, please just do a search of the site, there is SO much information here that answers your question.

http://armytrucks.com/ is where we got our military vehicles on my last project. I don't know if they will transport or have resource out your way though.

I would agree with you that the video budgets are plummeting (have been for a while), yet the end results are expected to be the same, regardless of budget. I remember days when $50k was fairly low-budget (still is by some video standards), at least in the medium sized bands world I exist in. Now it is a pretty high budget, with most of my work in the $30k to $40k range for a two day shoot. I can't even the remember the last video I did on film, let alone 35, its been a lot of HD. I just did a video where I used 40 or so concert strobes behind the band, it was fairly expensive, though really not that bad. But budgets are so tight, Frank (my gaffer) and I had to kill ourselves cutting everywhere else to be able to afford to do something cool (of course during a long, un-paid prep ;) ). Kevin Zanit

In my experience, Mole has the worst reputation for HMIs of the major brands (Desisti being even worse). Arri and LTMs seem to be the most common on my shows at least. HMIs can be finicky no matter who makes them. On a recent job, I had 4-LTM 18ks and had at least one or two go down at one point (over the course of a week or so of heavy use). I know we also had a 400W. Joker go down as well as a 4k Xenon. These were all from a major rental house, all in clean condition, it just seems to be a bit of a norm (though in my case I think we had a few go down slightly more than what I would consider normal). Kevin Zanit

Ok, insert 12% gray where I said 18, but for the sake of not being confusing I am still going with what most of the world uses when referring to middle gray, 18% (in spite of the ANSI standard). If I remember correctly, gray cards are still printed in 18% gray.

It has nothing to do with reflected light. An incident reading simply tells you that to expose 'x' amount of light falling on the dome (incident light) at middle gray (18%), use 'y' f-stop.

Though 3-perf S35 has very little room for re-framing in post.

I should have jumped in sooner, sorry. I just did a big mortar attack scene for a Vietnam movie, the pyro guys used a mix of pyrotechnic solutions as well as compressed air. They buried large cone shaped metal mortars in the ground that they then padded with sand to absorb the shock of the explosive. They then placed the explosive (not sure what it was, though they were like 5" long by 2" in diameter) in the mortar. On top of this they filled it with various fine sands/ dirt (probably some fullers earth, though your not supposed to) and chunks of cork. Here is a link to a video my 2nd AC Collin Cates took: You can see me operating in this shot as well. The shot started hand-held on a crane; the first two mortars go off while the crane comes down. We get to the ground, and some of my guys get on the crane, I step off and then quickly move forward to the guys returning mortar fire. This is one of the later takes, and to complicate things our Preston went down, so you can also see my 1st Ken Bender running with us (as well as key-grip, Bobby Woo) when he meets me on the ground. Also in this take there was a larger delay between the last hit due to some earlier problems, we could not move forward until that one went, hence why everyone was asking if it went yet and we missed it or something. The pyro guys used larger hits deeper into the camp so it would read better on film. As the hits walk in towards camera they get a little smaller (the first big one happens off camera, but you can hear it in the clip). They also shot air mortars filled with the same debris at me and the camera which looked great, though got me dusty as hell (hence me being so covered). I shot this with a 90 degree shutter which helped freeze some of the debris, it looked cool. Kevin Zanit

Below is a picture of a 4k Arri X-light w/ the silver reflector. The X w/ black reflector or Goya light w/ black reflector are a good bet for daylight balanced hard shadows (open face). Kevin Zanit

I don't shoot much standard def these days (plus my market is more commercials and music videos, not corporate type stuff), but my rates are the same regardless. That said, my rate usually fluctuates based on the project's budget, and in most cases the standard def projects are much lower budget. The last standard def project I did was an internet show on Superdeluxe that we shot on the SDX900, my rate would have been the same had it been F900. Kevin Zanit

Heavy NDs tend to have some magenta shift to them. A solution is to use PANCRO ND filters which are two-way mirrors.

Your right, flicker is not the correct term (I am just using it for simplicities sake), arc wander would be hidden through heavy diffusion. Having multiple sources on different phases through diffusion could also help with flicker.

Thanks, Through diffusion will help hide the flicker, sometimes to the point of not being able to notice it. That said, I can promise you, money back, when shooting at 1000fps (or even 500) you will get some form of flicker/ arc wander from "conventional" (i.e. not a light made for this purpose) even with flicker free ballasts. With the Phantom I just use the SDI out on a good HD monitor combined with the histogram in the software to get my exposure. We also have a somewhat proprietary post work flow that maximizes the amount of information we can get from the Phantom, easily approaching if not surpassing that of film's (with a lot of post work, not off the shelf). Kevin Zanit

Fire can be over exposed like anything else, the more over you go, the less orange/ red the fire appears. For good colored fire, figure you need to expose it at a 5.6/ 8 split on 500asa leaning towards the 8.