Tom Jensen

That was wonderful. Thank you!

Jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tony-scotts-death-suicide-hollywood-mourning-363968

shims

Help me out, grips. Also the gobo arms need to go over the top of the tightening handle so the weight will automatically tighten the gobo in a clockwise direction. Does that make sense? A grip can explain that better than I.

Rodney Taylor! Long time, no see.

rate at 2/3rds open works as well.

Silks are fine, everyone uses them.

Anything with Kenneth Branagh in turns me off. The first half was atrocious. The forging of the rings was incredible.

And...everyone should be required to take the grip clip test.

I now seem to remember that. We had one at Otto Nemenz in the 80's. Didn't get a lot of use.

Mirror lenses are not the sharpest and are not used a lot. At an 8 you are wide open and that is not the best place to be shooting. How far can you stop down?

Also you should look at a film that has been under-exposed with muddy blacks to compare it to because "good" is relative to "bad." You have to be able to compare the two to see why one is preferable. Why one is correctly exposed and why one isn't.

A trick that I use is to fold a long strip of tape in half lengthwise but leaving a good three inches of sticky exposed on each end and tape it to the iris rods and then pan to the end where you want the shot to stop. Tape the other end to a c-stand or something solid so when you whip pan the tape becomes tight and stops at the end of the pan. If that makes sense. I'm not always good at explaining things.

What is burn stock. If it unused, give it to a rental house for scratch test. You don't make much recycling film if any.

Turn the camera on myself.

Flares are mistakes. Sometimes they do look amazing and sometimes they look horrible. If it fits the story at the right moment and has some sort of visual impact then great. Otherwise they just don't cut it for me.

Right tool for the right job always makes ones' life easier.

Blacks represent the least exposed part of the negative and you want that area to look black. When you overexpose, you start to see texture and the colors go from black to gray and eventually to the color that the object is. You want your blacks to look rich and not muddy.

Ghetto? Where all the black people live?

Because the O'Connor head might be on another camera. Do you really want to stop production to swap heads, especially if the other camera can't do the shot without it or it's on the next stage or out on 2nd unit? You just have to learn to do it. Sometimes the rehearsal goes great without it and in the middle of the take, all of a sudden things speed you have to spin the wheel. It might be a stunt and you have one shot at it and it could mean the difference in getting the shot and not getting the shot. And what if it is a full speed dolly move that comes to an abrupt stop? The fluid head will dip down just about every time. My point is that sometimes you don't have a choice. Do you want to be the guy that says, "I can't do the shot because I don't have the right head." That never goes over well. Switching to third gear might speed things up but then then small turns of the wheel make for big camera moves that aren't as easy to control. The smoothest moves are in the lowest possible gears.

awsomely fantastic.

In addition, letting the wheels spin isn't using the geared head beyond its' capabilities, you're using it beyond your hand's capability to turn the wheel fast enough. Stopping the wheel is an art. You have to use your hand as a brake and it can get hot fast. You have to ease it to a stop. Trust me, I'm not the only one who does this.

You just have to know what you're doing. It's a skill, not a mistake. I've done it many, many times and I've seen it done many, many times by the best.

To each their own. It is really the DP's prerogative. The operator will often use what the DP says to use. Whatever gives you confidence and makes your life easier, use it. One of the beauties of the geared head is that you can count turns of the wheels for repeatable moves. This is particularly useful when you need to land on an exact spot on longer lenses. With a fluid head it is sometimes difficult to repeat moves to exact positions. Fluid heads are great, I have nothing against them but like any job, you have to have the right tool for the job. Sometimes you just can't do the move on a fluid and sometimes you just can't do the shot on a gear head. That being said, I would want a geared head on every job if I could get it. Just remember that as an operator, you MUST know how to use one. If you get called for a job and your camera is given the geared head, production and the DP expects that you can to the job. In the 80's I went up to Otto Nemenz just about every weekend and practiced on the geared head until every move became second nature. It just takes a little commitment.

Not necessarily. On a dolly move you sometimes need something to hang onto. If you have a fluid head and the handle is the only thing there is, it goes where you go. On the gear head. the head doesn't move unless you turn the wheel. Sudden stops on a fluid head is something that also looks horrible in dailies. Gear heads become very easy to use once you learn them. The fluid head is often a crutch for those that haven't figured it out. They aren't easy, that's for sure but their use and purpose is hard to argue.