Kar Wai Ng

BTW, the size I have is 24" x 30", which they don't seem to have on their site anymore. Their largest rectangular seems to be 16" x 22". Everything else are the strips and octogonal banks, which seem to be the 'low profile' models, so I'd expect them to be less even.

I have one of their medium rectangular softboxes. Build quality is really quite decent...very difficult to construct and deconstruct so I just leave it built. I've only ever used it with small flash units (made my own bracket), not larger studio strobes or continuous tungsten lights, so I can't really give a fair judgment about its light quality compared to other softboxes. In general, though, I have no complaints about the light quality. Both the internal baffle and the exterior diffusion material are similar to what you might find on a Chimera, but perhaps a little thinner. I guess you could say that as a result the light transmission is relatively efficient. As a bonus it also came with a grid and two masks that can velcro onto the front. For the money, it's great value. I've never measured out with a light meter to determine the photometrics or its evenness of distribution, though I guess that would be the most useful data to you.

I shot it at 10 ASA, came out fine in hand-processed reversal. But then again, I developed by inspection (since it's orthochromatic you can use a safelight to develop), but since it's so high-con it's difficult to know if the density is coming from exposure or development. The reversal process also throws in a bunch more factors. Apparently the suggested speeds outdoors is 6 to 12 ASA, depending on the weather. With such a slow stock, keep in mind if you're going to use B&W filters, you better have bright sun. With a Red 25 you're looking at an effective ASA/ISO of 1.25! I think it works out to about a T/2 stop following sunny 16 and the bolex shutter+prism compensation.

Corpse bride was shot with Canon 1D mkII's (8.2 MP) with Nikon glass.

Yeah, I'm not at all a fan of Zeiss Superspeeds, mainly because of the flare. I got used to the Optars shooting one film and then when I used the Superspeeds for the first time, I did a lot of the things I like doing like shooting into overblown windows (which weren't really a problem with the Optars) and came out really disappointed. It's not even a nice flare, like with older cookes, it's an ugly, unappealing one.

I've had great experiences with both Stock Options (www.stockoptionscorp.com) and Certified Film (www.certifiedfilm.com). Both suppliers have short ends and recans of film, and everything they sell has been lab tested with a snip test. If you get in touch with Slavica at Stock Options and tell her what you need for your upcoming shoot, they can even start collecting the film for you as it becomes available to them.

That's a fun quiz! There are a couple trick questions too...but managed to get 66 of 73. Question 73: Which of the following positions are not below the line? a) Director of Photography b ) Script Supervisor c) Line Producer d) don't know I thought the DP is usually above the line? It was my belief that (on a larger production) they usually are paid a set fee as opposed to the crew who are paid hourly.

Not really. Correct exposure for the white dress is not correlated to what reading you get on your incident meter. You have to make that decision based on the relative luminosities of areas in your frame and the contrast you want. In this case, I'd want to make sure that the luminosity of the white dress fits within the film's latitude; if that means adjusting lighting or shifting your exposure to bias the highlight or shadow, then that's what you do. It's not as simple as reading off what the incident meter says.

I'd beg to disagree; I'd use a spot meter so I'd know where I'm pegging the blacks and whites. A reflective meter doesn't "make" blacks grayish or whites darkish; your exposure decisions based on meter readings are what determine that. You can use either meter so long as you know what you're doing. So...there's no correct answer really.

Sounds reassuring. I guess it's not something I should really worry about. Thanks everyone for your input.

I've been very tempted to do that; basically using the reverse mode as a 'rewind' only thing. But then I've been told I shouldn't do that because it puts extra stress on the perfs and when you do your second forward pass, the film's already been through two passes which might affect the perf shape and hence stability on the second pass. Is there any truth to that?

Is it okay to run the second pass of a reg test in reverse (on cameras that run reverse), or should you always rewind on a bench and run it forwards only on the camera? Is it possible for registration error to show up when running reverse but not forwards (or vice versa)? I figure that the movement isn't really doing anything different, just doing everything in the reverse order, but I wasn't sure about whether registration would be affected by the film direction...

The Canon 7-63 also breathes way less than the Zeiss.

Deluxe and Technicolor in Toronto are the obvious choices.

DVCPRO HD in 1080 is only limited to 60i when it comes to the tape transport. But when you're going to disk you're really just creating a Quicktime .mov, and you're just doing the compression using the DVCPRO HD codec. So 23.976 is entirely possible...heck, you could even specify it to any frame speed you want. (Not sure if they would do a wacky speed for you but Quicktime would support it).

The question is whether the $20k in tuition over 4 years for a university program, versus the $25k for an 18-month or so program at TFS works better for you. How much can you learn and how much experience can you gain in a year and a half? There are also colleges like Humber and Sheridan, which have 3 year programs.

I'm finishing my fourth year at Ryerson in film. It's difficult to compare to other film schools not having any experience with the others but generally is considered the best film program in Canada. It's relatively well rounded, has been established for a while, and has a decent amount of equipment and quality of facilities and faculty. Despite the universal student complaint about tuition, for the $5000 in tuition per year plus your production costs it's a relative bargain compared to what film school in the states would cost you. I've heard a a rough figure of $8000 of provincial funding subsidy per head in the film studies program at Ryerson, which is really quite substantial. Film school is what you make of it. It won't teach you everything, but it provides an opportunity and platform for you to derive what you can from it and with your own initiative and interest you self-educate as well. The other benefit of getting a film education in an organized institution like a film school is that you are stuck with the same peers for four years, and you develop a core network of talent that you will find yourself working with long after graduation.

I just got back from a prep at Panavision and I am pleased to report that you can indeed change RCU modes while the camera is running. With the go-ahead of a tech, I tried my idea of running in "fps+angle" mode, ramping up with compensation, switched to "ramp" mode during operation, and ramped back down without compensation. Works beautifully!

With the Arri RCU-1 controller attached to a 435, is one able to switch RCU modes while the camera is running? What the DP has in mind is to ramp up from 24fps up to 40fps, with exposure compensation, then up to 60 fps, with exposure compensation, and then back down to 4fps, WITHOUT exposure compensation; this is all in the same shot. So what I'm thinking is put the controller in "fps+angle" mode, set my end-stops at 24fps and 60fps (which would define the shutter angles from 72 deg to 180 deg), RUN, turn the handwheel up to 40fps, then all the way up to 60fps, switch the RCU knob to "ramp" mode (with it already preset to 60fps and 180 deg as the start, 4fps as the end), and then hit RAMP and have it ramp down to 4fps. Would this work? If we have to break the two stages of the shot into two separate shots then we'll have to do that; however, if we can change RCU modes during the shot which would allow us to achieve both the ramp up w/ compensation and the ramp down w/o compensation within the same shot then that would be ideal. Thanks Kar Wai Ng

I don't own an HVX, but a shoot I was on had the same troubles too with the RCA video jack. Very flakey...the more we jiggled with it the less often we'd get an image. That whole jack area doesn't seem very robust; the panel has a bit too much give...like it's 'spongy'. Aside from using the s-video out, to reduce strain on the RCA port, instead of going straight out to an rca-bnc adapter and have a heavy BNC cable hang off the camera, you could run a length of lighter, thinner RCA cable off the camera and then put the adapter on the end of that.

That would be the Aug 2005 issue.

In the August issue of AC, there's an article that says their two Aatons were equipped with Optek 14-480mm zoom lenses.

Does anybody know if there's a place in Toronto where I can get DVCPRO50 dubs from a Digibeta master?

You should definitely take a look at Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", which also occurs on 'the hottest day of the year.' Lots of warm light, and bright, vivid colours in the art direction. The Criterion Collection edition of the DVD has a commentary track with Lee, Ernest Dickerson ASC, and production designer Lynn Thomas. There are some interesting comments on it...some of the scenes they shot were actually rainy, but you would never be able to tell by watching the film.

I think Michael was suggesting getting DVCPRO50 captured to a hard drive for you, without needing to rent a deck (get the post house to do this), and using this as your online, without having to deal with Digibeta. I'm exploring this possibility myself since it's much better than DV25, yet still retains a FCP-friendly workflow without having to do a dedicated digibeta online.