Stepan Sivko

Hello I'm thinking of buying superfalcon2 for my light and grip company Anyone with experience out here , recommendations etc.? www.cinetech.it Thanx Stepan Sivko www.pixrperfect.com

Looks like we are the only active folk around here Richard,how is life? Stepan

Hi folks, Im looking for good Key Grip/Dolly grip for a feature starting August 7th - September 7th, Shooting at summer camp near Orillia / GTA area, about 3 hours drive north of Toronto, Canada. Pay: 900$/ week (6 day week/12 hours) catering provided by the camp kitchen, accommodation in wooden cabins sharing with other 11 people from the crew. Equipment from Whites consists of 4k's,2.5's,575's,2k's,8' tubes KF 55, source 4's,12by,8by,Chameleon dolly and 10 pieces of track, I already have bestboy,and 3 swings, just looking for experienced key. Thanx Stepan Sivko Gaffer

Hi guys, looking for advice....recently i shot some footage on Gy100 and i just got it from the production company in mov file as uncompressed 720 24p. i tried my windows based quick time ,but it only plays sound and no picture. It plays fine on any mac. Im obviously missing some codec, but anyone has an idea which one? Im as well unable to edit that footage in my Premiere pro 2.0 thanx Stepan

Hello everyone, Happy new Year 2007 and if anyone is looking for a DoP/Gaffer in GTA area (Toronto/Hamilton) let me know, Im hungry for work and for meeting new people! Im a hard and fast worker, easygoing,professional...please feel free to check out my site at www.stepansivko.com and light rental package available through me www.pixrperfect.com best light Stepan Sivko

Thanx a lot Ken

Hello folks, Im looking for advice regarding my upcoming music video shoot. Camera: HVX200 my concern: We are going to shoot in a abandoned church, the oltar has been replaced by huge greenscreen with markings for matting and tracking purposes. The greenscreen will be replace in post by a picture of a tree and the director wants rays of sunlight to be coming from it inside to the church.. Isuggested rigging couple of Par 64's and bring the mist machine over, but now Im having second thoughts about it.....would the fog and rays of light create any problems to the post guy in implementing the image of the tree? Is it better to add such effect in post? Thanx for any advice. Stepan, Hamilton,Ontario,Canada

Hi Joe, I as well try to sit as much with the director before the show and even discuss every aspect of "how he likes to work" that I tell him my perspective of the role of a DOP and than we either continue (99% cases) or we say goodbye. I think the most important day is always the first day on set, people need to feel from you that you know what you are doing and those who dont think so (like script supervisors) should be ignored, or let them be aware of what they r doing..... Stepan p.s. my 2nd AC was brilliant when it came to cooling down some hotshot....I remember that similar thing happend on one show with Production designers assitant beeing "too active" he ended up with a horse poop stuck in his sleeping bag. Not my idea, but I totaly felt like he deserved it.

I dont think still 35mm camera is the easy way, but I will consider following SLR's as a interesting choice..... Canon 1D MARK IIN 8.5fps for up to 48fps or Nikon D70s 3fps up to 144fps (jpeg) Stepan

Sorry folks forgot to leave a contact info. Please send me ur CV's and contact info to stepansivko@yahoo.com transportation covered, accomodation covered, expect nonunion day rates And one more thing....we are shooting near Niagara Falls, Ontario,Canada....the production will not cover transportation from states or europe. However if youre willing to comeover anyway...we will arrange accomodation film website www.deadfallthemovie.com

Hi there, Im shooting a horror feature starting september 25th to October 21st. Im looking for 1st AC's and 2nd's. Payed position. I will value any recomendations. 16mm or HD Stepan Sivko Director of Photography

Hi folks, Im shooting a feature starting september 25th-21st October, in Ontario Canada, st. Catherines area mainly, now we r still deciding between s16mm and HD, and because Im new to GTA im looking for 1stAc and 2ndAc that have experience with both formats. please send me your CV to stepansivko@yahoo.com Stepan www.deadfallthemovie.com

Hi guys ,i need help... I supppose to shoot a doc for CTV in autumn about poverty, they want the delivery in digibeta as well in HDCAM...so right away we decided to shoot on HD....now why im mentioning this here....cos we will shoot lot of times undercover I dont want to be running around junkies and criminals with a 50000$ BIG ASS camera on my shoulder...so i started considering using HDV...canon H1 off course...now i got to an argument with sound man who is very unhappy with my choice because of unstable??? Timecode?? which has to do with fact that canon uses mpeg2 compression.....doesnt that actualy matter if we r gonna record sound directly to tape and is it realy that much of an issue??? thanx for any opinions Stepan

thanx rick for reply it took a while somebody did...but honestly the image you see must be letterboxed in the finder right. you dont get the full aspect cos still the finder is 4:3 S

howdy! well Phil you just hit the nail with the hammer....what to do with the HDSDI out by canon....our company was trying to get the best out of it and I personaly thing the best you can get from it for resonable price is that you use it as a onset reference for a DP for lighting and focus...as well every director who saw the monitor so far is so amazed by it...cos they all r used too pal oncamera out from 35,16mm cameras which looks so ugly specialy when you roll. Otherwise you can oofcourse rent a HDSR deck (if any company rents it out) but than we will be forced to pay that company same money like they pay us for the hole kit...and than most of the people will just go for HDCAM package cos it aint no more different. What might be the solution is some kind of a cheaper external recording system like HR-1 by wafian or onboard (still in development) solution by charon HDU-1. Back to the canon lens,,,i promise tu run some optical comparison tests with it, i know so far that if you zoom and you have autofiocus on you dotn have a problem ...it starts when you are in full manual. best light Stepan My experience so far....use glass NDs as much as you can,dont go for the on zoom NDS!..they create noise! We just saw today the footage,,,and all the invited DPs including us where stunned by the images such little piece of plastic (sorry Im still a 35mm dude no matter what) can create....the HDV format and 25F by canon delivers images that r from other century....its a beatiful thing ,from now on almost anybody can shoot films and edit them at home and than just bring edited graded film with sound mix to any lab to burn it to film and screen it..... wow Good night and Best light S

As I mentioned in the previous quotes the canon lens is a nightmare for anyone who spends most of his time around the "real" lenses, however as you say Brad for point and shoot its enough. As well I totaly agree with you that if you had a budget that you can afford F900 than its silly that the director still demands canon, personaly if you can afford F900 you can pretty much affrod 35 workflow as well, than just it depends on the amount of footage shot. Canon is not a solution for bigger budget , but its definitly a solution for students and lower budgets that would like to shoot in a film style shooting ,cant afford film and HDCAM is still too expensive (in Czech HDcam F750 package ,camera,pro35 converter,lensset,tripod,HDmonitor,car,technician ...runs for around 3000 Euro a day, and our company offers the same package with canon for 1/3 of the price) Last night we shot some tests....sunset sky,trees, night shots,candles....so I should have some images ready soon. Already on the location we have mentioned that the camera doesnt hold exposurewise next to FUJI Eterna 400 in the Aaton, but we didnt brought over our HD monitor so we dont know how much is for real on the tape.

Hey folks ,so here is the update on our new Canon XL H1 "Arrivised" we will start heavy tests from monday on (compare with Aaton S16) first the footage will be transfered from both to Digibeta and graded at telecine...i guess on Spirit. Than S16 DI and DI footage from Canon will be burned by Arri laser and later we will screen the footage in one of the Prague Cinemas. Here is are the images of Arrivised Canon

hello everyone....so some new news in building the canon solution for feature films....today we bought the HDlink from black magic and Dell Supersharp LCD monitor ....i must admit that this combination gives u realy nice HD image.....finaly we can see how the footage looks from HDV playback....there are only couple issues i need to address... 1/The HDlink DVI-D connectors are very sensitive even slight movement results in signal drop, that can be taken care by proper profesioanl housing like any video village has.. 2/the HDlink gets very hot after couple minutes, but apperently thats its working temperature (u can barely leave ur hand on it) 3/when the canon is running in HD mode and 25F setting the image has a 1/2 s delay, anyone? my guess its the actual software of the camera which resamples the 50i to look like 25...cos if u switch to 50i this delay is around 1/8 of a second....but still...is it the data rate....honestly i did two pictures as a focus puller in HD 750...but i dont remember that delay, but we used pro HD CRT monitor, is that the issue....i cant say cos i never had a time on the set to check...i was mainly sweating from keeping the film sharp...which is a hell in HD cos u have a 1/4 of depth of field compare to 35mm anamorphic! Best light tou all Stepan

Howdy....Im a happy canon owner...but trying to raly find out which camera is better in what......my question....is the JVC ccd chip a true 16/9 chip or it is a 4:3 chip that only uses parts for it to do 16/9? thanx stepan

Exactly ...the only thing ..we r lucky that we have all the lenses and other "iron" as we call it...basicly we were deciding for a while ...if to get a super16...lets say SR3 or HDV....to me S16 looks that its no more a solution for ultra low budgets....and honestly thats what part of the market we r trying to address with this kit. The others can still rent the 35mm. the question to u David ....will u actualy demand to record on external device when the producers will give u HDV as the only option?

Hello folks, my company just bought the new canon so i decided Im gonna share with u my day to day experiences how to change the camera to a low budget feature solution. I must addmit that Im very slowly getting involved in HD (Im by heart 35mm follower). Anyway...lets get to the core....there are several issues that must be addressed right away.... 1/big bonus for canon goes for all the safe area markings up to 80%, center cross/line mark, function to turn off the AUTO OFF!!!,B/W mode of the viewfinder...still the viewfinder is uncompareable to PRO viewfinders....quite difficult to judge a sharpness...the jump in to check for focus feature and peaking are useless cos they are only accasible only in stand by mode.....than i saw that canon makes FU 1000...so called PRO viewfinder....we where very happy till the moment we have found out that its only 4:3....so we canceled the order imidietly.... 2/the actual zoom lens provided with the camera is a continuation of the XL series...same features just black...things that makes DPs mad...the electronic focus and zoom...(btw in manual mode u can either focus or zoom...forget to do both at the same time)......so we decide to scratch this out completly and go with the PS technik mini 35 converter....should be in about a month so i will let u know... 3/with the mini35 this starts to become a very nice tool for any indie filmmaker...we do have 35mm arri cameras and accessories so we decided to go the 15mm rod support system way...whatch out the rod support system by PS technik is the Video based (DigiBeta,DVcam,Chrosziel) support so not the way for us, we r lucky we have an extra bridge plate that we can easily mount on the mini 35 20mm base rods (the rods that the hole camera sits on) now our accessories become usuful...so as well all other accessories by arri like wireless zoom ,focus,iris,gyro etc. now the fun part.. 4/these accessories needs 12volts,HA!...the camera needs 7,2 Volts....looks like a problem....PS technik has a solution its called Mini 35 break out box...which has optional power input (XLR,Anton Bauer,NP) and than redistributes power to camera and as well gives u fisher 4 pin and 3 pin outputs ...mind u this baby adds another 3000Euro to our budget....(we have decided that for now we r gonna build our own box for much less lets say with just one fisher 3 pin for now).....breakout box as well gives u 2 BNC analog outputs for yur onboard/videoassist ..they run the signal from the s-video out from the camera. 5/mind u that deals with analog SQUEEZED video...so ur video assist and onboard must be either widescreens or support the desqueeze function....this all leads me to the biggest struggle we have now...the recording format..... 6/those people which will be happy with a footage shot in HDV on mini DV cassettte using our Zeiss lenses and Mini 35 and canon ....if they are happy we are happy...but what about those who wants to bypass the HDV and record in the uncompressed HD 10 bit 4:2:2? its very nice from canon that they give us this option, but so far i spoke with canon people....they basicly dont try to think further...so that leaves us with few options....simply it becomes in all ways very unportable a)rent HDCAM SR deck or D-5 and through BNC HDSDI record on those....sounds simple, dont know how in states but in europe any facility that rents such things (if ever) will usualy be forced to rent u one of those that are closed in dust free, airconditioned glass cabinet....so far i checked with couple ...might be an ok for studio work but a big NO NO if u r planning to shoot outside lets say...mine...all the dust!Yummy! as well this becomes a problem as well financial cos with second company involved ur camera rental jumps to double or triple the price.....simply cos the deck costs more than all we bought so far.... b)rent DVCPro HD deck but will that be so much better than the actual HDV???a question to all c)build a PC workstation with HDSDI capture card.....sounds nice but storage storage my friends....the raw HD runs in about 1200 Mbits/second !....so unless u wanna have truck with Hard drives on the set.....there might be a solution in applying a codec....just found out today the newDNxHD Codec by avid....see deatails at http://www.avid.com/dnxhd/ that wil limit u in using avid HD as a recording/editing tool ,probably using AJA Xena ...good or bad? 7/for now we have decided to go the HDV way only just het a HD link from Black magic (converts HDSDI to DVI-D) and buy 1920/1200 LCD monitor (apple,HP,sony,acer,benq) specialy acer looks very nice in price /output check this out http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/sea...=A179-2400%20CA personaly still somehow HP is HP...the sonys and apple are out of question...triple the price simply said all this that the DP can watch for lighting ,focus etc. funny thing is the first film that this camera will be rented on will be the original package ...no mini,no monitor,no focus puller....just the camera it self....Im telling my associate that this will be the case we will NOT put our logo in the credits...simply cos i did two features on HD and focusing is a quite big deal....anamorphic 35mm is a park walkthrough when comparing (u have about 8 times less depth of field) it has to do with the circle of confusion...as well U NEED the monitor to set up lights properly. Ok looking forward to any comments ,suggestions,sharing of knowledge! Best Light Stepan

I have comment to number 1 1) I just met one very unhappy frind of mine...he had the sony Z1 and he bought the PS technik converter...thr truth is ...Because u can not remove the lens from the camera PS technik is forced to supply additional Lens based converter and kind of cover the lens with it....who knows opticsknows the truth....too many optics too bad...the result is very unpleasent fuzzy image, if i can recomend go with either the HDV by canon or jvc...they both have the option to remove their original lens...which in the case of canon is a very good thing. S

here is some datailed info A 35mm film production "Bootcamp / Workshop?, is scheduled for May 15 - June 16, 2006. It was created and designed by Professor Tom Gregor who has been Instructor (and program director) at the Prague Film & Television Academy of Performing Arts, for the Tisch School of the Arts in New York(NYU). Now available in Toronto, (closer and less expensive), the workshop program invites applications from qualified students or emerging professionals with serious aspirations in the directing and/or cinematographic aspects of filmmaking. Toronto has a robust filmmaking community and infrastructure, not to mention an exciting cultural environment, including of course, the Toronto International Film Festval. Participants will receive hands-on training in 35mm film production (widescreen) while gaining work experience in the roles of Director or DP(and something to show at the end). You will be professionally mentored and will have a support crew of fellow students. The workshop begins with screenplay development, moves through pre-production, a hands on camera workshop, 35mm production and postproduction (online). All in just 5 weeks! Therefore a deep passion for filmmaking is necessary for you to survive this challenging program (that?s why we call it Bootcamp). Deadlines are tough and demanding, as they are in the real film business. With a limit of 20 applicants, you will at the end of this workshop, screen 10 films (shot on locations) in an on line stage, with non-synchronous sound mix (music, sfx, VO only) and will receive a certificate of graduation from TPI upon course completion. You will also take with you a finished DVD of your completed project as well the film originals. Let me know if u need any feedback,cos Im probably involved - i worked on similar program in Czech republic and they r trying to hire me. Stepan Sivko

Hi, at this moment im getting a canon H1 with pstechnik mini 35 adapter...the fact is that canons viefinder is quite soft and bad for focus checks (its has a jump in to check focus feature) so i was planning to get the professional FU1000....i just found out that this viwfinder is onlz 4:3....so no way Im gfetting that one....there is one more option for me to get the PS technik breakout box which has output to Sony´s DXF801 viwfinder mz question is if this viwfinder has the 16:9 ? I tried to look for it but i havent found a single description of it thnax a lot for any help Stepan

Fotocentrum K+K is looking for HDCAM with HD monitor...PAL or NTSC 24p operation preferably SONY HDW-700A body only. Please send us your offers to info@czfilmservices .Thank you