Jamie Sides

You've probably finished your research on this topic by now but... For music videos and the like, the 7D is a much better way to go than a regular video camera, even one like the HVX 200 - although with a Letus Ultimate and some decent lenses it's quite remarkable. I bought the 7D over a month ago and I've already shot a couple spots and a "film" for the UN with it. As for glass - I adapted my Nikons with the Kawamall adapters and and that works great, but I also got an L-series lens and I'd recommend getting this over the less expensive ones, simply because if you are serious about this as a career, it won't be long that you'll find you're ready for the next big thing, the new 5D or 1D or whatever and you'll already have your lenses and support gear (still waiting on my back-ordered z-finder, but something like that is going to be crucial as well). Tom is right in that those cheaper lenses are good, but they won't work on a 5D. There are many arguments for not buying a camera but the sooner you get one in your hands and start experimenting with it and learning things, the quicker you'll learn about cinematography-and the better you'll become. There are so many ways that this camera functions like a film camera, not an HDV video camera and I think that is a big plus.

I've flown with them and FedEx'd them probably a dozen times now-I have two 400's in two separate cases and the case is very sturdy. The only problem is that the case for the lamps doesn't carry enough to bring both daylight & tungsten-I think there's only 6 slots. I've even gaffer taped my lamps into the Diva so they wouldn't pop out and one or two of them have still broken en route.

Ashley, I had a very similar set this last summer. It was in an actual townhouse in Baltimore rather than a stage. Lit by just the light from the windows it is very similar to what is in your picture, which I don’t find to be all that melancholy. The room and it’s surroundings may be, but the light is soft & pretty, but rather flat as Satsuki said. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2781/439239...df78bab2d_o.jpg We put up some walls & doors so we could shoot 360 when we went into the room. This is what it looked like from approximately the same angle, from outside of the room-after we put up the wall & doors. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/439248...798f8872e_o.jpg Since it was a “drug dealers den” I went for a less pretty look (which I would consider more melancholy) and used primarily hard sources. We blacked out the windows and in the middle of the room I hung a single lightbulb (photoflood) from a socket with a string to turn it on. There were open rafters that went about 5 feet above where the ceiling would be, so as high as I could go, I put a …200w HMI up there (I think it was 200w). The HMI was somewhat broken up by the rafters and we created some cookies out of black foam core to break it up even more. In a few places near the walls, where specific action would take place, we accented those areas with weaker instruments-250w tiny & midget moles w/ ¼ or maybe it was ½ CTB. In this grab you can see the bare hanging bulb and then over to the left, is one of the mole fresnels (which should not be in frame incidentally). http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2721/439316...51dbd26a7_o.jpg Here are some screen grabs of the scene: w/ a midget mole overhead. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/439316...7e6aebac5_b.jpg hanging photoflood & HMI high overhead. Background accented w/ ctb corrected fresnels. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2693/439239...a5a19292b_o.jpg http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/439239...e0dcacd57_o.jpg (the green tights are for a VFX removal of actors legs)

I prefer the quality of light from the paper lanterns to a chimera. I got a dozen or so a few years back from here: http://asianideas.com/naturalwhitepaperlanterns.html Filmtools has them: http://www.filmtools.com/chinlan.html Regular photo floods get extremely hot, so I’ve started getting these and they’re great-they are much larger than a regular photo flood. I’d recommend at least a 30” lantern. Eiko sp85 50 med: http://www.amazon.com/Eiko-Self-Ballasted-...t/dp/B000IBQ68G I go to home depot, buy ceramic sockets, and ungrounded stingers (I’m not an electrician so that’s probably bad advice), cut off the female end and assemble the socket to the cable.