Tim J Durham

hey everyone,

 

I'm preparing to rig a lightweight suction car mount for the hood and side. The mount is supporting a Canon Xh A1, which the mount has no problem holding up. This being my first car rig, I'm curious as to the best way to secure and strap down the camera? just in case.

 

thanks

Check out the photos and maybe buy one of the books:

http://cinemasupplies.stores.yahoo.net/carmounts.html

there is also a rigging video in there somewhere.

I need to get a new production monitor for video shooting. I've been looking at the new Sony LCD's and I used one a month back on a short day job and it looked great. (I wish I could justify buying the $4000 Panasonic LCD but I don't shoot that much HD right now.)

 

They have three models:

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...egoryNavigation

 

I've been shooting a mix of BetaSP, DV, HVX200 and Varicam stuff lately.

 

Has anybody had any bad experiences with these new monitors, or reccomendations for a particular model?

Tim,

I use the 9050 every day. I think it's a great monitor with very accurate color.

Yes, we do have the Sony XDCAM HD 350 camera available for rental.

Hi Mitch,

Are you going to get any wide-angle 1/2" HD lenses to rent for the F350?

(For what it's worth I'll answer my own question)

 

Frank,

 

You can look high and low in NYC (as I'm sure you have already) and you will not find a full sized Standard Definition PAL camera that shoots progressive frames. Looks like you'll have to convince them to go with an HD camera. And since they don't like the Varicam maybe you could suggest the CineAlta F900.

 

Yours truly,

 

Frank

Frank,

 

Thanks for the speedy reply. As you say: There is no full sized SD 25p option here in NYC. How strange is that? And I thought I (you) could get anything on this dirty little island.

 

I told production yesterday that we have to shoot with the F-900 or.... the F-900.

xoxo

F

Frank,

I think Abel-Cine has XDCam HD F350 which shoots both PAL and NTSC in DVCam as well as HDV. You could also try Bexel. They seem to have everything.

I have some audio that was accidently recorded with auto levels. I can cut it together alright with the auto on, but I was wondering if its possible to remove auto levels. Heres my lame attempt to plan it out:

 

Take the audio, filter with EQ so all that is left is ambient (consistent) level, except for the auto levels bringing it up and down. Then render out a video track that has a VU with markings of the level. The idea is that the only time the VU would change would corrilate to how the auto level changed the audio.

 

Then I should be able to come close to smoothing out the audio level changes. I know it won't be perfect, but it may make the ambient noise a bit more consistent. The other option is to find some kind of audio filter that automatically does this function on a sample by sample basis. Does anyone know of a program or plug-in or technique that would get me where I am trying to get (and yes, I know the obvious: check levels before recording...to late now)

Soundtrack Pro has the ability to make an ambient noise print which you can then selectively reduce. Obviously it also affects the audio you want to keep but it does a surprisingly good job once you tweak it a little.

Stylistically, we don't want anything too difficult (a relative term in lighting) - something "gritty" but not too dark. Think CSI or ER. Same type of camera movements/shots as well. Handheld on a stabilizer at times, sometimes on a tripod. Probably heavy on medium shots, but always a variation. Usually at least three people at a time, sometime up to 5 or 6 I hope that's enough info. just keep in mind, there may be a lot of moving camera. Thanks.

 

Evan

When you say pilot, is this commissioned or are you doing it on spec hoping someone will like the idea and pay you to produce it? Either way, sounds like you need to use available light as cleverly as possible. Have a big china ball on a grip arm that you can hang over the center of your group shots and keep your group gathered around it (but not directly under it) so you can move the camera and have everyone lit similarly.

If you plan to move around a lot, it's pointless to try to do too much beyond the available light without a budget and/or serious expertise. You might spend the money replacing the overhead tubes (fluorescents, I assume?) with 5600k tubes and you can take the reflector off of a 200 or 400 watt joker bug HMI and drop that down into your china ball so it will match the daylight overheads. Just make sure the bulb doesn't touch the sides or you'll have a comet in the middle of your actors.. That way, you can use the same lighting for your daylight scenes.

That's where I'd start.

Hmmmm, I think there is a bit of confusion here. Okay. Everything visible to the human eye consists of three primary colors: red, green and blue. To capture color, one needs to record these three colors. So, if you want to do it with black and white film, you have to have three records, one for each color. If you have a stationary object, yes, you may use the same strip of film, and just take three photos, one after the other. If you want to record actual motion, you need to record all three records at the same time, which necessitates three separate strips of negative. Does that clear it up at all?

Brian

Are you trying to get a job with Turner Classics colorizing old B&W movies? What's the purpose of this process?

Not puttin it down, just curious.

BTW, green is a secondary color...

i don't know what's scarier, coming to cinematography.com to talk politics, or reading anything posted at any political "news" site as radical as informationclearinghouse.info

I don't know what you find so "radical" about posting that video on informationclearinghouse.com or anywhere else. It pretty much speaks for itself just like the photos from Abu Ghraib.

It always used to amaze me that people would buy a $3000 1080i HDV camera and would boast that their camera outputs twice the resolution of the $45,000 720p Panasonic Varicam. They suffered a rude awakening when they later found out that in the time it took their HDV camera to scan 1080 lines the Varicam had already scanned 1440 lines.

You think people sufffered a "rude awakening" when they discovered their $3000 HDV camera wasn't as good as a Varicam? OH, the HUMANITY!

Hi,

 

I'm a bit concerned by this concept of someone sitting there, effectively grading the whole time. You're either going to get grotesque inconsistencies (which are hard to fix due to the nature of the recording) or exactly what you'd have got if you'd set it up in prep and gone with it.

 

Very cautious about this stuff.

 

Phil

I have to say, if there is only one camera involved, it can't be too strenuous (I wouldn't think) but as you move the camera there are adjustments to the flares atleast that need to be made. I've only ever DIT'ed on multi-camera shoots like concerts, talk shows and sports with wildly inconsistent lighting and it can be a very strenuous job.

After the end of the day when all is said and done the 720p format with its 1280x720 resolution and its 60 complete frames per second actually delivers the most pixels.

Why don't you just put this quote in your signature, that way you don't have to continually type it into every post you make.

Hey Folks,

 

Working on a commercial for basic cable. It only involves graphics and a voice-over. We were planning on creating it in an HD format on after-effects but found out that we have to turn it into the cable company on a Beta SP tape...

 

Here's my question: HD's native ratio is 16:9 and what will happen to this when transfered to an SD Format which is 4:3?!?

 

I hope this makes sense as I am somewhat confused myself and the Cable company has yet to return my calls.

 

Will the HD information just get scrunched making the image looked warped? Will it get chopped off? Is there any way to remain in the HD format without bad things happening? And we would hate to have to originate the images in an SD, 4:3 format as the colors die out and the sharpness of text deteriorates greatly.

 

I would love any help, recommendations, or suggestions that anyone might have.

 

Thanks,

 

John "extremely confused" Carreon

Is this something that will still have a life beyond the time when this cable company goes Hi-def? If not, you're wasting your money shooting it in HD. As for the color and text problems, you are working from faulty information. Downconverting the HD to BetaSP in After Effects would look worse than originating the project in SP.

There are a hundred little tricks we all use but they tend to be problem-specific. For example, I've always had problems with the classic "close-up of person looking through a crack in the door" in terms of avoiding a front light to get around the slit of the door. My solution has been to backlight the person or at least hit the wall on the other side of the door and let the bounce-back light the person's face (if they don't lean too far forward.)

You don't greenscreen the person into the crack? Then you could light them perfectly. Hmm, I think I'm gonna go try that...

Question:

 

Taking real-time, raw video out from the camera (NOT playing back captured, compressed HDV footage) through the component cables - will the video I?m inputting into the computer be 4:2:2? I think yes. In 4:2:0 it?s just flipping the signal, so 4:2:2 minimum I expect.

 

Any chance it?d be 4:4:4 (perhaps the internal firmware doesn?t screw with it that much, so maybe it?s not just 4:2:2 ? im asking you!)

I don't think so. I'm sure I'd have read about that by now. The cameras been out over a year and people were raving about the HD-SDI out on the Canon XL-H1 before, during, after its' release. All the while the Z1 was already out and not a peep. If anyone had been able to do 4:4:4 or even 4:2:2 it'd be common knowledge by now, wouldn't it?

Hi,

 

Oh, you're going to have fun!

 

I suspect you will be in a slightly better situation with regards to the rest of the crew by being on both sides of the fence at once, since it's my experience that people can be highly suspicious and distrustful of such a comparatively new position.

 

It really depends what you're going to be asked to achieve. Read the manual, it's far from terrifying.

 

Phil

He's going to have to do more than read the manual if the DP or director hands him a photo and says "set the camera up like this. We need to start in 20 minutes".

Make sure you know well in advance how they want it to look so you have time to find out how to make it look that way. The F900s have extremely complicated menus and on-set with actors looking at you is no place to make that discovery.

Looking for any tricks on the Panasonic SDX 900 Skin Tone Detail. I have always used a gate and adjusted with that but am not familiar with the settings of the Panasonic. I am trying to really soften up a clients face and skin tone and make some adjustments to make them "Younger" Any help on this would be great

Cheers Chris

If you have a copy of the Goodman Guide, he walks you through the process in it. The rental house probably has a copy if you don't have access to one.

We are in the midst of shooting several projects in 1080I which is the only format supported by our HD 700A Sony Camcorder. Yesterday as my partner was getting ready to go out on a shoot He hooked the camera to his big screen and whoooops 14 dead pixels Of course he ran the dead pixel hiding process several times with no results. Then this morning there were 16. This from a camera that had no dead pixels just days ago.

 

(...)

 

Has anyone else had similiar experiences of sudden dead pixels on Sony cameras of this series?

Is there anyone reading who might have ideas of the cause of this?

Is there any other fix than a new sensor block? ..... (About the price of a good used Benz)

Does anyone make aftermarket parts for this?

 

Thanks for any help

TJ

Try doing three or four black balances in a row and see if they come back. You should be doing this at the start of each shooting day as a matter of course.

With respect, I must disagree with you Stuart. THis definitely looks like slide film. Its more saturated, more contrasty, and definitely deeper blacks, at least from what I can derive from the small scans on the monitor. I can imagine what the actual cibachrome can look like from your representation. When I was first starting out in photography, I got really into slides for a bit, and, being an analog purist, wanted to try cibas. From what I understand, it is a dye-destruction process, which makes it pitifully slow if you were to use the emulsion coated to film in-camera. You COULD use cibachrome micrograph film, used for making microfilm records, as a print stock if you could get the company to make it with MP perfs. It is made in 35mm but I believe only unperforated. I don't think that the cibachrome look is possible to duplicate exactly in the MP world, but you can definitely get the same "feel" with some experimentation. Definitely shoot an E6 film, Kodak's 5285 or maybe Fuji if you can stilll get that in 35mm. Cibachrome is designed not to boost contrast, so I don't think duping onto another camera-speed E6 stock would be the right choice here, but you could try getting some EDUPE with the right perfs or try to digitally adjust contrast and saturation. I'd recommend trying to get as much of the look in camera as possible though. To me digital mimics look fake. I don't know if you budget or the scope of this project could warrent custom film orders or not.

 

Regards,

 

~Karl Borowski

Umm,

Cibachrome is a printing process. It differs from other color printing in that you are printing onto polyester instead of paper. The prints themselves have a distinctive look (in my opinion, they are MORE contrasty, not less) but any scans there-of from the prints to the internet would likely lose the distinction of comparing them in person due to the variables of getting it from point A to B.

I'd guess you can come up with a fairly close approximation of those particular photos (even the original Cibachrome prints) in motion picture film as I've seen plenty of films with similar looks. I'm with Stuart. They're beautiful photos but not all that out of the ordinary as far as color. Cravo Neto is a content-guy.

Please don't say radio shack. I just would like to pick up two good lapel mics. Not the wireless type.

To be used for interviews.

 

Thanks.

I have a set of Tram TR-50's (these are about 6-7 years old now). In all my gear, they are one thing I can always count on.

Folks-

 

I'm considering a purchase for an LCD field monitor. My camera supports composite HD and HD-SDI outputs.

 

My question is this:

On a 6.5" or 7" LCD monitor, is there really a (noticable) difference between HD composite and HD-SDI?

 

Will I notice a difference? Will the client?

 

-Keith

Yes,

You can see the difference plus you get sound with HD-SDI.

CRAZY process, I read about someone who color corrected a 10 minute short (16mm -> DV) on a Mac Pro correcting FRAME BY FRAME in Apple Aperture (PHOTOGRAPHY color correcting software). Such a crazy process, but it looked damn good for the effort.

 

Anyone ever heard of something like that?

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/mag/video_oneman_pipeline/

Somebody posted about this a couple days ago. Sounds like a lot of tedious work if he's describing it accurately, which I suspect he's not. It's probably more like what Gavin said.

I just recieved my B.A. in film but am looking for more experience and education in camera operating. Are there any schools just for operating? If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

http://www.theworkshops.com/catalog/course...amp;SchoolID=21

Our financial backer today expressed his wish to purchase AJ-HDX900!!! We plan to make three feature length documentaries in a row so he deems it would be better for us to have the camera instead of renting different ones for each project.

 

It's a lot of money. Hence my question is what you guys think about it? Moreover, if we are to purchase this sweetie, what would be the best lens for docu purposes?

 

Any insight, suggestion and help is more than appreciated.

This is what you want:

http://www.fujinonbroadcast.com/cgi-bin/products.cgi?p=351

You could tow the car and frame out the tow vehicle. If you're going to be close enough on a particular angle to see the steering wheel, you could have someone hide under the dash and operate it during the shot. Coverage could be shot from the invisible driver's POV to help sell it.

You could do it the same way they did "Toonces, the Driving Cat" on SNL. Maybe the low-tech would be seen as charming.

Yes -- assuming 180 degree shutter -- that's great that you know so much about film cameras, but you haven't answered my question. I didn't start this thread for a intro to FILM lesson. Clearly the camera is duplicating frames to approximate what a longer exposure time would be -- so what is it doing when the shutter speed is increased -- compression wise; how does it affect the long-GOP. It's obviously not throwing out frames? It's not writing more data either now is it? so what is it doing to the structure of the MPEG-2 files? Thanks for trying, but I don't think you know

It's hard to tell exactly what you're after. You started with a series of wrong assumptions and Matt tried to dig you out from under them. Now perhaps you should change your tone and start over.