Ken Keeler

Here is my DP Reel http://vimeo.com/15244820 Let me Know what ya think -Ken Keeler

I have 16mm Arri sr 1 great conditions the package includes the following -Arri SR 1 Body -2 400' -6' eye piece extension -crystal sync frame rate controller -10-100mm ziess zoom (arri mount) -Handle grip -Shoulder pad -15mm rails -Metal case for body - 2 slot metal case for magazines -2 batterys and a charger ( 1 needs to be re-celled) asking 4500$ OBO the camera is in great condition an it needs to go so dont be afraid to make an offer. located in Encino, CA contact Ken at 775-813-7737, k.keeler@notownmedia.com The photo below does not include some of the items listed so please let me know if you are intrest offers are encouraged it never hurts to try :) thanks

J I know that if you are shooting film an to dying to catch a flash a good way to tell if you got it is if you don't see it in the veiwfinder when you are shooting. If you do see the flash in the veiwfinder youdidnt capture it reason being is because the mirror on the shutter is reflecting 20% of your image if you see the flash it. Means the mirror caught the flash not your emulsion. Let me know if that didn't make sense ha

Hey all, So heres my issue I have build 30 of the RED ONE and got a new 7" HDMI Marshall Monitor, when I have everything hooked up via HDMI because the monitor doesnt have and SDI out I get no image except the blue "no signal" screen. I have looked through the menu map multiple times and can't find a way to switch the monitor output from 720 SDI to HDMI output. The only other thing I can think is the HDMI cable is bad but its new? any help would be awesome here is a link (CLICK HERE FOR LINK) to the exact monitor I have. also the menu never pops up on the monitor itself. has anyone else used this model before. This is my first time with the cheaper marshal monitor instead of the HD production version Thanks Ken Keeler

Right there in your text is your answer. Have fun with it!! Thats the main thing. It sounds like you are putting yourself down a little by callin your self pig headed. You arnt pig headed lol I think i was in your same boat worring about doing something the wrong way. so because of that i was following all these rule just experiment now and have fun and make mistakes. Everyone was in your shoes at once whether they say it or not. but to answer your first question, There were aspects I notice no one really mentioned ( If i missed them my apologies). Other things that may make the DP light from over head could either be the location good example being a small room if you have a bedroom scene but only a foot or 2 on each side of the bed then it might be more practical to rig your lights overhead. another factor that could come into play is scheduling/the coverage of a scene if you see ever part of the room in that scene and you are shooting it all in one day then for time reasons it might make more sense to rig your lights overhead instead of having to move a lights and c stand with flags etc which would take more time to reset every shot. Let me know if that made sense haha.

This is a very interesting topic! I think about this all the time. about a year ago all my jobs delt with shooting film an I was pretty reliant on my meter I felt like I would meter everything just to make sure. And in the end it would come out great. But recently maybe for the past 9 to 10 months ive have been shooting all digital mainly on the RED. I have noticed that I pretty much only use my meter during the location scout or on set to double check a highlight or a window of something of that sort by quickly spot metering. Other then that I have strictly been lighting by eye. When it crosses my mind on set I feel bad haha like I'm doing something wrong but once again the footage looks great and honestly I have shot some of my best stuff lighting this way. So long story short Im in the same boat as Adrian it takes time and when it happens you dont even notice that you are doing it, it all sorta just feels right. Now im not saying dont use your meter because it is a very important tool but it has its time and place. I think its all preference and or technique there is no one way to light or do anything in the film industry. Whatever feels comfortable for you thats the way you light. and that will change as you grow and your skills get better.

This is a very interesting topic! I think about this all the time. about a year ago all my jobs delt with shooting film an I was pretty reliant on my meter I felt like I would meter everything just to make sure. And in the end it would come out great. But recently maybe for the past 9 to 10 months ive have been shooting all digital mainly on the RED. I have noticed that I pretty much only use my meter during the location scout or on set to double check a highlight or a window of something of that sort by quickly spot metering. Other then that I have strictly been lighting by eye. When it crosses my mind on set I feel bad haha like I'm doing something wrong but once again the footage looks great and honestly I have shot some of my best stuff lighting this way. So long story short Im in the same boat as Adrian it takes time and when it happens you dont even notice that you are doing it, it all sorta just feels right. Now im not saying dont use your meter because it is a very important tool but it has its time and place. I think its all preference and or technique there is no one way to light or do anything in the film industry. Whatever feels comfortable for you thats the way you light. and that will change as you grow and your skills get better.

Hey James i have a few question for ya, in your last post its sorta hard to tell what is going on. It looks like you have some sort or arm rigged from the front of the cars frame, and do you have and op riding with the camera? or are my eyes playing tricks on me?. Im guessing this is some sort of speed rail rig and you have duvi drapping down. You do some pretty amazing rigging good work! im hoping to get more up for everyone soon.

I will have to agree with everyone else i tend to only use these on stage traveling with them is impractical they are quite large. I mainly have used the 4k Zip for greenscreen work. if i were doing a full head to toe greenscreen i would use the 4k to light the ground or in some rare cases i would use this as my key or fill. more often then not i will use this light to bring up my ambience in a room by either blasting it through a 4x4 with either opal or 216 etc. it all depends on the shoot an what you are trying to achieve. all lights are just tools know how they work and what they can give you so if you dont have access to certain equipment you know you could make a certain light work for the job.

James I this thats a great idea! we should start a truck/ car rigging thread count me in :) and ya it doesnt seem as bad now. You are right if you take the necessary safety precautions and you have the right tools for the job then you can safely mount these fun toys. James how did you mount the speed rail on you jeep I was at Modern Studio Equipment the other day and saw this awesome grip tool. it was a trailer hitch to pipe adapter looked very useful but the thing with it that you have to keep in mind is you can only put on a weight load that your hitch can handle J.S. that is a useful formula! thanks for that Ken Keeler

First off thanks everyone so much for there responses you guys brought up great ideas and good concerns. The shoot went very well and the day we did the truck rig was fun and interesting. for me as DP of course I wanted to get these amazing shots but my biggest worry was my crews safety.If it wasn't going to work i was going to scrap the whole idea. Just as a reminder we did not need the camera to jib up or down we just need the camera to be offset from the truck bed to eliminate the possibility of 1. either seeing the truck and 2. seeing all the dust coming from the truck. When i talked to my key grip about this idea a month or so before production he said he would work on some ideas and i would do the same and we would meet back up and go through the pro and cons of all the ideas safety, time, weight of the rig etc. Any-who our final decision was to mount the Chapman Super PeeWee into the bed of the truck and then build the Lenny arm on the dolly to give us the offset. My key grip told me he was going to do a 4 point tie down on the highpost to the frame of the truck. once this was secure we gave it a good test and this thing was not moving. Granite there was still worry in my mind that the ratchet straps could break with all the stress and movement one we actually started rolling. we made the executive decision to no go above a speed of 10MPH. we never had anyone in the bed of the truck when we were rolling. and inside the cab we had the op with his monitor and the controls to the remote head. here are some photos to check out all this crazyness. i have learned that even though this worked and we had no problems i think is one of those situation where i wont do this again unless i have the right tools for the job.

Hey everyone, Within the next week I will be shooting a Western. In the film there is a chase scene on horses, we will be shooting on the RED with Lomo Anamorphics, we have rented a Lenny Arm with a high post kit, a Vibration Isolator, and a remote head. Here is what I am trying to accomplish, we have multiple shots following the lawmen on the horses.My plan is to rig the either 6ft or 8ft Lenny Arm into the back of a pick up truck the lenny arm will then have the Vibration Isolator mounted following with the remote head. OPTION 1. My first idea was to build a speed-rail rig secured to the bed of the truck which then had a Mitchell mount / or a Mitchell cheese plate bolted into this little grid. OPTION 2. I had a remote head tech suggest I take a bazooka mount which i have access to and bold it straight into the bed of the truck. To give you more information our terrain is desert/sand there are dirt roads but they are not the smoothest. Please any ideas will help thanks for your time I look forward to your response! Ken

well heres the update as of sunday we finished principal photography but here what happened, so we had a huge time issue because some how our lead actor never got a call sheet he lived far away from our location so we ended up being 3 hours behind so i actually got the establishing shot to look like dark overcast but i got pushed for time and was told to scrap the overcast look and just shoot a normal day. i was extremely pissed ha but really i couldn't control all the issues we had luckily they weren't because of me or my crew. also our camera house made a massive mistake on my filters so really i dont think i could have achieved this look without the correct filters. so i never got to go threw with the lighting style that i had planned for months. But i like what you have suggested the 6x6 with the 1.2k hmi is a great idea for creating eye-light because its a big source that the eye would pick up, i would have just kept it away enough to make sure it didn't change the exposure on my face to much, the 4k with frost would have worked great as my key especially with the 4 stop loss from ND filters to make my background dark, as for fill i was going to use 4x4 floppys as negative fill to give me the contrast ratio on our talents face. THANKS FOR YOUR SUGGESTIONS THEY ARE GREAT IDEAS!! let me know if you need help with anything in the future ill help ya as much as i can take care Ken Keeler

anyone? :huh:

ok so im shooting a scene for my next film this saturday, on an ARRi SR2 S16 with a Tiffen 85C correction filter on Kodak Vision 3 500T/7219 and the director and i have decide to make the first visit at this location overcast based off the story and what are character is going through. we ideally would like it to be dark overcast as if it were thunder clouds, are contrast ratio would be at 3:1 on our talents face but no hard shadows i would like them to wrap around sort of like this picture the film is not a war film its a dark comedy but i like the contrast ratio on Tom's face and the overcast sorta look. this will be shot on a front door step that is covered, but my biggest issue is what time of day i shoot this scene, whether that be morn mid day or afternoon? another issue is that when camera is getting a wide medium or close up we will see the street behind him and houses( the house is in a culvasac) my plan for that is to throw up a 12x12 silk outside behind the front porch (the porch is covered) try and frame all hard shadows out and as of right now im going to throw in a ND .3 or .6 two cut down the background a 1-2 stops i also have ND Soft graduated .3 .6 and .9 my place for lighting was to bounce a 1.2k HMI or 4k HMI (depending on what filters i use) on a 6x6 grif. any ideas, thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated, any gels that could get me closer to this look, i will also be shooting a scene with a car in the street that is supposed to be the same time of day the car will be parked? thanks for all your help!! Ken Keeler

ya i agree with peter i know it sounds like renting can be expensive but if you go to the right house you cant get good stuff for cheap it would be worth the 100 bucks or so. im not sure where you are located but if your around the LA area go to Wooden Nickle they have good prices

well sir that sounds like you have a tricky adventure in store. my only suggestion is, because the pool is light blue if you use the blue screen, in chroma key you select the color you want to super impose. you may get blue reflection on her white shirt from the light blue pool if this happens, when u chroma key it may not come out clean because the blue reflecting from the pool on her T-shirt could be picked up when you chroma key and parts of her T-shirt may look like the background you have put on the bluescreen. does that make sense? ha sorry if it doesn't any-who i would go with the green-screen and as for lightigh because you cant take lights underwater your setup logically seems fine but if there is a chance try and do a cam test to see if the light from outside of the pool give you enough light and make sure it look right an believable. what are you shooting on? hope this helps and hope to hear back from ya soon Ken Keeler

Well you can still get lights pretty high without a condor or scissor lift, you can use crank-o-vator stands or use some sky high's as for a soft wide I would suggest a 12 or 20x frame with a silk I don't know how big the area is but that should do it and I would consider using something with more throw then a 5k depending on what your shooting on the silk would cut down a 5 k quick. maybe try either an 12 or 18k HMI cause you are competing with the sun also you can all ways put the frame set over head to and soften the sun but be careful of your background an other parts of the frame because the frame set will only cover so much. I hope this helps or gives ya some ideas. Its hard not seeing the location and know what your shooting on. Ken