Tim J Durham

Hi Bob, Ofcourse I was just having a little fun. The smiley face didn't seem to attach itself to my post. :blink: Here he is. Next time I'm in LA, I know this great sushi place on 3rd...

Just take the best three minutes. Nobody's gonna think you're trying to claim you ran all three cameras. Then after you've shot a few more things, start cutting back on the footage from that show to include the new stuff. Try to keep it around three minutes, though. Don't forget to put your title card on the front and back.

Hey, be careful there. You remember what happened to Jerry Maguire after HE published a manifesto... :blink:

Hi, There is a particular procedure you need to follow to regain continuous time code after you've rewound or popped the tape out and put it back in. It should be covered in your owners manual and it surely involves more than just keeping the TC set to "regenerate". Check for a button that says,"return". I can tell you how to do it on a broadcast camera but that will likely not help you. So read your owners manual. You DO NOT want editors talking smack about you to the producers. Time code breaks, as you are finding out, drive editors nuts.

Are you shooting film or video? If it's video, I'd sure pick a color OTHER than white. In full sun, a white car will really blow out. You'll get hotspots on any highly polished car but I'd go for a deep blue or gray and use a black frost filter to diffuse the highlights and a polarizer to adjust reflections. I was shooting a design show at a house in Chatsworth, CA and at the house next door was a huge crew shooting many different cars in that houses driveway. They basically put up a silk tent over the car and lit from both sides of the camera (35mm) with 12K and 20K HMIs through huge silk frames. The gaffer told me that they were using a black frost filter but no polarizer. I never saw the finished product but they seemed to know what they were doing and none of the cars were white (although a couple were yellow).

One more thing to note when dealing with adjustments to the master pedestal and that is: Adjustments to the pedestal can be done just as easily in post and I would recommend doing it that way because once you've crushed the blacks in camera, the shadow details that once existed in your scene are gone for good. Once done, it cannot be undone. Therefore, you are better off shooting with as wide a latitude as your camera can provide, then tweaking it in post where changes made can be easily undone. By all means, experiment with the settings. But when money is involved, leave yourself the maximum post possibilities.

Hmm, let's see... On the one hand, I could use a $60 filter. On the other hand, I can use several $5000 lights. THAT'S a tough call! You Hollywood guys crack me up. Brooklyn, Check out "Zentropa" by Lars von Trier before you shoot. He used rear projection beautifully in that film and you might get some good ideas from it.

Setup level: Ok, this is a numeric setting of the bottom of the gamma curve. Where the black point is. It is 7.5 IRE for broadcast television and 0 IRE for DVD and film out. When someone wants the blacks crushed, they are artificially pulling the gamma curve down into, but will go no lower than, the setup level. Master Pedestal: When someone says they want to "crush the blacks", this is what you use. It takes the entire gamma curve and stretches it downward. The further down you go, the more of the curve gets piled into the setup point, but will not go lower. Black stretch: This changes the slope of the toe area of the picture. To give a scene more or less tonal range within the toe area. Positive black stretch values increase shades of grey in the toe while negative values decrease shades of grey in the toe. The toe area being the bottom part of the gamma curve, where the dark things live. It would be highly instructive to hook your camera up to a waveform monitor so you can see what happens when you make adjustments to these settings. It is important stuff to understand and can be confusing.

Oh...well so much for using the windows as a main source of light. I'd still only flag (outside) the direct sun from getting in, not ND. Use a silk, so you still get some light. And I'd use the pro-mist. Then I guess I'd start with bouncing HMI's off the ceiling (make sure to barn it from hitting the sidewalls) and accenting with small tungsten lights to add warmth. I'm guessing it's just you doing most of the work? If so, change "HMI's" to "HMI".

The first one is a broken link. I tried searching "Washington", "Baltimore", even "New York" and got "No results". Search "Los Angeles" and get: EVERY...SINGLE...MEMBER...IN THE FORUM. Guess it's time for me to buy a Steadicam rig? Is a "Flyer" a good one? The Steadicam website has two used ones for sale at $5700. They take up to 44lbs. Wonder if that's a "Turn-key" price?

Thanks Tim. You're the bomb.

Drew, Why don't you post some digital stills of the room. That always sparks suggestions because then people have more than just a vague notion of some dusty mauseleum packed with stacks of old newspapers. That said, with all those windows, I'd be keen on using them as my main source and just flagging the sun from actually coming in through them with a silk in a frame outside. Then using small tungsten lights as accents for each set-up as opposed to trying to light the whole room at once. I'd also use a pro-mist when the windows are in shot so the blow-outs look nicer. ND'ed windows look just as bad as blown out windows IMHO, and usually worse. Plus, you can't use them as a light source for when they're not in the shot, so I don't do it unless forced to (such as when there is something outside that you need to be able to identify in the shot). Those sorts of houses are always packed with "Stuff" and you don't want to have to move around too much gear, breaking things not being an option. But I could tell you more if I saw some photos.

I've felt that way about a few of my projects.

This reminds me of the scene from Hannah and Her Sisters where Max von Sydow says, "If God (may have said, "Jesus") ever DID come back and see what was being carried on in His name, he'd never stop throwing up". As for making the all-encompassing feel-good movie for all time; when you finish the script, I'd love to be a part of it. Call me. In the meantime, you have to settle for less ambitious titles such as, "Mindwalk" and "The Big Bang" which, inspite of their good intentions, leave you somewhat wanting.

I'm investigating the same thing right now. Using a bunch of wireless mics to a DAT recorder and jam-synching the 24p cameras in free-run TC off of the DAT. I'll let you know if I find out before you do and post it. The tape is still 30fps, I don't think there'll be a problem since the editing timeline is 30fps so the dropped frames should also drop the audio with it once it's synched up in the timeline. Audio is not my bag, baby.

Yeah, I checked there first to see if there was a "Jobs" thread. Nope. Would be great if there was a way to see who lived where and I could just e-mail them, but nothing. So here it is.

Hi, I'm looking for a steadicam owner/operator for 4-5 days starting on August 7. Will be shooting at Towson State Univ. just outside of Baltimore with my Canon XL-2 (16:9, 24p) so familiarity with that cam is a must. It will be you and a PA to help you shooting mostly sideline action at football practice and surrounding business. If you know a good PA/cam assist you like to work with, let me know. E-mail me your details at timjbd@yahoo.com and we can talk turkey. You needn't be the most experienced Steadicam op but knowledge of the XL-2 is a must. In lieu of XL-2 knowledge, I would consider hiring you if you were an SDX-900 owner as well as that is the primary cam. OK, that's it then.

Well, you could always go and throw yourself on the mercy of the Beeb. I would guess that a PA job there would open you to all sorts of opportunity. Don't think they'd ever hire you? They have to hire somebody, but they'll never hire you if they don't know you exist. Don't just send a CV. Find out the name of someone high up in the department that interests you and call them. Offer to take them to lunch. Cheekiness always gets attention, not always positive but what's the worst that could happen... a restraining order? Just don't let them refer you to the Human Resources dept. That's desperation time.

It's tough to beat the Irving Penn simplicity: One large, soft source with a medium-grey seamless backdrop.

That might be the most valuable bit of info I've seen written on these boards. Nice post.

You should ask Phil Rhodes about becoming a colorist. Heh heh.

I think you're right on track. And inspite of what others said about the angle of the shadow on the back wall, when I first saw it I was immediately reminded of the way the sun reflects off the hood/windshield of my car in the driveway and casts the same shadow on my dining room wall. And when thought of that way, it is logical to have sun coming from two directions and people will subconsciously recognize it that way. Adding color to the scene has improved it immensely. Now just add some bird and traffic noise to the soundtrack and you're off to the races.

"Digital Image Tech" and "Editor" are two entirely different lines of work. The former being the person who tweaks video cameras in the field while the latter is someone who...edits.

Whoa! Funny? In the summer, I often work in a Speedo...So they were laughing at ME?

Oscar, If I were in your shoes, I would take my appeal to SOBEC. I suspect they have the same cards for each camera head they produce. If not, then the menu system will be similar enough that you should be able to adapt the DVW-700 settings to the DXC head with some minor trial and error. As an owner, they should be helpful to you. However, books like the ones I mentioned previously only happen when the companies fail to offer this sort of support in the first place. That was Robert Goodman's raison d'etre for writing his guide to the SDX900. So who knows? But call them first, then if you hit the wall, get a copy of "Digital Cinematography" which can be obtained through Amazon.com.