Derek Diggler

Either way

I have this Sekonic L-398A ("Studio Deluxe III") analog light meter. While it's build like an incident meter, it claims to be incident AND reflective. Incident metering is fine and great, but I'm having real trouble getting any sort of accurate reflective metering. It always gives me a readout that results in the image being underexposed by at least one stop. Is there any trick to this that I am unaware of? (Just to walk through this: I'm using the reflective "lumigrid," pointing it at the set from camera position. After taking the reading, I match it on the dial using the highslide arrow.) In the past, I have been using my digital SLR's built-in meter to take reflective measurements for motion film. I had been hoping to get rid of that rather silly solution.

It records to a flash card, so I've just been copying the WAV files from the card to the computer. For a previous project (a film) where the audio guy ignored my warning and recorded 24/96, I did indeed connect it analog to my M Audio device and played it back from the Marantz (since again, it plays back fine from the Marantz itself), and that proved to be hours of painstaking work. ;) That's certainly an option for recovering recorded audio, but I just wanted to make sure it's not my fault that I can't just copy the WAVs over.

Phil: My goodness! Thank you for all that effort dedicated to my problem! It's good to hear that I'm not crazy. I noticed my firmware wasn't up to date so I'm sending it in to get updated, do you think that could solve the problem? Or do you think it's certainly a hardware issue? No, the XLR wasn't crossing over any wires or anything. This happens consistently when I try it out in the field and everything (and with much nicer mics :))

I have a Marantz PMD-670. When I record audio in 24-bits (regardless of sampling rate: 96kHz, 88.2 kHz, etc), it sounds fine playing it back in the Marantz, but when I transfer the file to any computer, it sounds ridiculously scratchy and distorted, and the waveform in ProTools reflects the scratchiness and distortion as well. Here's a sample (24/96): http://ext.glowingpixel.com/marantz_24bit.wav And a 16/48 recording from the same recorder: http://ext.glowingpixel.com/marantz_16bit.wav What do you think? As I said, it plays back fine in the recorder. Some have suggested it's a dithering problem, but a) I can playback 24-bit stuff from other sources with no problem and B) I can't open it "clean" in any editor to be able to dither it down to anything else. It's very irritating. Thank you for any insight.

Thanks! That's good advice. I usually load/unload coaxial mags in changing bags and haven't really had a problem, but I could see how the, uh, dual-axial(?) BL could be more prone, since it'll be open under there twice as long and stuff. In that case, can you recommend a good size changing tent for the BL mag?

I'll be shooting on a 16mm BL soon, and I was wondering how big of a changing bag I should buy? I live in a shitty area with no camera shops in sight, so I have to buy one online from B&H or something and hope that it's a good fit. :P (I'm hoping specifically for a changing bag and not a tent, mostly because it seems bags are cheaper, and I'm used to working with them.)

Yes and yes. :) The pay is quite good and I usually am very fond of the scripts he picks up, which is why I continue to attach myself to his projects despite the stress and conflict of "vision." He certainly has an ego, and I'd like to think I do not, although I guess I'm not the one to say. :) My "philosophy" (or whatever) is that a cinematographer is there to execute the director's vision, to serve as an abstraction to that process, and to consult the director on the look and feel of the film. So I definitely take my commands and do them, but I try my best during the planning process to suggest that maybe we shouldn't shoot the entire film with a 50mm prime wide open, or maybe we shouldn't allow the mix of daylight and tungsten temperatures so much in a shot. But he has these things set in his mind, so as much as I dislike it, I execute it.

I'm a cinematographer, and I have two directors that regularly bring me in to their projects. One guy is very easy to work with. We storyboard the complex scenes together and he lets me handle the rest of the shots on my own. I have a lot of artistic freedom, and he likes my "look." The other guy is almost the polar opposite. He dictates every shot he wants, he usually demands everything to be shot handheld (which isn't usually my thing), or if I argue enough, he "cuts me some slack" and wants steadicam, which usually are for shots that I don't think are appropriate for the steadicam look. He dictates the light he wants, the framing, etc. He leaves the film stock up to me, but I think that's really because he is more used to video so he doesn't know much about film. I'm pretty submissive to this guy because he is, after all, the director. But I mean, where is the line? Is this common to have little to no artistic input?

Thanks, but that's more about lighting. My question is more about film stock. Will Vision3 do the trick? Do I need special film?

I'm prepping to shoot an indie film on an Arriflex 416. I'm the DP. I want to shoot most of it on 7219, but there's one scene in a bowling alley during "glo bowl" so it's supposed to be a blacklight situation. I've never dealt with blacklight before, will normal film even pick that up? Have any of you shot that before? I am at a loss.

Thanks for the excellent suggestions, guys! I'm definitely going to give these a try.

Thanks! Is there a rate sheet or anything for them? I can't seem to find anything on their website about actually ordering services, but it looks like a really quality place!

I'm shooting a little 16mm thing on the side, just to enter in festivals and stuff. I'm in Michigan and having a really hard time finding any decent telecine or scanning services around the area. I found a couple "transfer your old memories to video" type places around Detoit and sent in a 100' reel just to test the quality. It came back looking like some kind of home video 1-CCD crap, and for some reason I couldn't remove the pull-down in Cinema Tools. Any suggestions for good digital transfers around the Great Lakes area? I read a lot of love on here for Cinelab in MA but that's a little far away and the minimum is $125 so I can't do my 100' test. :) Thanks!