greg harris

Briese huh? I worked for Briese years ago when a guy called Brent first set up shop in NYC, as far as i know he's still here (212 414 9596) and has until recently had somewhat of a monopoly on the Briese rentals in NYC. Milk studios and Pier 59 studios (separate companies) have only recently purchased Briese (much to Brent's annoyance) and really only have a basic range of gear and primarily strobe as they are stills studios. Briese NYC (Brent's outfit) have the largest range of gear including up to 6K HMI which will go into the parabolic umbrellas described above. They are made out of kevlar for heat and come in a white and a silver. I know Dave Devlin, a gaffer who works for Steven Klien (Dolce Gabbana campaigns) is a huge fan and quite often rents from Briese NY. The lights are a little over-designed and are fragile to a degree but improvements have been made over the years. You can use them outside with exactly the same issues as flying a 12x12 rag, lots of sand bags and guy rope. Rumour has it that most of Pirates of the Caribbean was shot using Briese (could be a myth). greg harris

i'll just chime in real quick with a stills guy perspective, some of our lighting rigs sole purpose is to hide the hot spot of the actual lamp in order to avoid sharpness of shadows, for instance the octabank (literally an octagonal light about 6ft in diameter) in which the head is rigged facing away from the subject bouncing into a silver umbrella type affair and then running out through a full diffusion silk creating a very even spread across the diameter of the light. another example is the beauty dish, a much smaller light source about 20in in diameter has the head hidden behind a small disc in the centre which bounces light back into the dish which can be silver or white depending on the sharpness of shadow required. these both achieve a very even shadow termination i.e highlight to shadow is a smooth transition, then the distance to source determines the rest as already mentioned. g

boom! found out the deal, the monochromatic IS the one with the greenish cast (thankyou) a guy called stan has a place called "the filter gallery" (many of you probably know it) super helpful guy and seems to something of a jedi knight on the filter scene. no website but he's on west 31st in nyc. i didn't manage to actually SEE one of these monochromatic filters and just assumed it had no cast but he sorted me out... thanks anyway...g

question #2 from the new guy, i've loved so many films with the bleach bypass process and my film school friends have roughly outlined the process. i read the "21 grams look" forum question which leads me to the stills guy question... how do i get my lab to bleach bypass my film (i.e. 120 or large format film)? can i? is the c41 process able to be manipulated in this way? i did hear that maybe a stills lab would be reluctant to process in this way because of the effect it would have on the chemistry in the machine. the range of processes CCE, ACE etc sounds enticing but i'm not sure if it's at all possible. any advice would be grand... cheers

hey guys, i've been hunting around for DFN filters for stills use, the only one i have experience with was used by a guy i assisted who insisted it was out of production (ok) made by tiffen which had a greeny/warm cast to it. the only tiffen ones i can find now are monochromatic and blue. does anyone know (a) if there is a tiffen DFN filter with a greeny cast still around or (b) if any other filter companies make DFN filters? the name of any good cine filter supplier in new york would be a bonus... cheers