Tim J Durham

Hi Peter, You're quite welcome. The DSR-40WSL is the camera that replaces the DSR-570WS (if I'm not mistaken) and includes 24p and 30p, yes? I've done alot of shooting with the 570 (always in 4:3-bummer) and it's a good camera so the 450 should be as well. A book I'd recommend as a sort of walking tour through the Sony menu system is, "Digital Cinematography" by Paul Wheeler. It was written with the DVW-700 & 790 in mind (digibeta) but the Sony menus are all layed out similarly and if you find diffferences, you can probably get someone on the phone at Sony to find out how they do/don't relate. In the back, he gives his settings for getting the most "filmic" look out of those cameras, if that interests you. Another good book, although it is written specifically about the Pana SDX-900, is, "The Goodman Guide" available from Abel Cinetech in NY. It goes into alot of useful USER-FRIENDLY video reference and deals with the proper ways of shooting in 24p which you will need to know. As for setting the flares on YOUR camera, I'd suggest doing it in a proper shop with good scopes. You only need to do it once (in a while) for each lens as long as you record the settings and keep them handy for lens changes. That's the great thing about menus (as opposed to the old days of opening the side and greeny-tweaking) in that everything is operator-handy and easily repeatable if you keep notes.

You could get a dozen or so Coleman battery-powered camping lanterns (very bright!) and suspend them on the backside of a series of trees, then fog it up a little.

The "flare" settings compensate for what the light entering the lens does to the response of the imagers to black. As opposed to doing a black balance which is done with the iris capped ie: no light entering the lens. On your vectorscope (if you had one) anything black in your picture should be registered exactly in the center. When you black balance your camera, among other things, this creates a centered reference point for any black in your picture. When you actually let light into the imagers thru your lens, however, the centered black reference point will move off center depending on your lens glass and lighting conditions (which were not applicable when you black balanced). This is called flare. So the black/flare setting compensates for this movement off of the center reference point. You NEED a vectorscope to set the flares and it is NOT a substitute for doing a black balance. You also need to reset the flares each time you change lenses...That is, if you want perfect (or close to perfect) black response. So to finish: You should black balance with the lens/iris capped, then open the iris onto the chip chart (or anything you know has black) and set the flares for that lens in controlled lighting. In the field, the flares will move around if you don't properly hood the lens. But don't lose sleep over it. In 18 years at CNN, I never once heard ANYONE mention setting flares on a field camera, and you can see how great CNN always looks. I do it, but that's me.

Oh, in that case, yes. And if it's a metal hood for a Fuji or Canon lens, the filter size will be written on it next to a circle with a line through it. It may not be the same size as the front element of the lens, though. Take it into a filter dealer if it's not printed on the hood itself. It will be a standard diameter.

You mean out front of the lens hood? You don't want to do that.

Whoops, I think you are right. I took a trial membership quite a while ago and I guess they never cancelled me. Hopefully they never will, it's a great source of info. Anyway, by 4:00 and 8:00 I am describing a system to tell where the lights are set. If two people are facing each other, the point in between them is the center of the clockface. The camera at 12:00. The two people are at 3:00 and 9:00, so the person at 9:00 is keyed from a point roughly at 4:00 and the person at 3:00 is keyed from 8:00. Which doesn't mean much if you can't see the photos. So my suggestion to you is: Watch the film with the director and get some screen grabs which are lit the way he likes. Then you post those screen grabs and people here can tell you how the lighting was done. That's the best way to get the help you seek as I suspect many (me for instance) have not seen the film and I see ALOT of movies.

Use your rain-cover and keep the camera shaded as much as possible. Deserts and desert towns are dusty even when you're not in a sandstorm. The very-fine dust can ruin your tape transort AND your lens! Take many cans of compressed air to blow dust out of stuff. Take a lightweight white cooler to transport the tapes and keep them in ziplock bags. Keep everything in ziplock bags. Drink lots of bottled water. For the high contrast, get to know the black stretch adjustment and use a polariser.

Haven't seen it but judging from these prod. photos: http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0119792/photogallery looks like soft overheads (like the Godfather without the gold filter), strong edge lights, keying from the reverse (4:00 and 8:00) with underexposed warm fill in the shot of the two people talking to each other. I'd have him grab some stills from the DVD to give you an exact idea what he wants. Looks pretty eclectic to me.

Nice job. It looks like a daylight shot to me. The shadow on the back wall looks exactly like spill from a window. The scene could use some color, though.

Have you checked this out? http://theworkshops.com/ You can design your own curriculum and it's all hands-on with professionals teaching the courses. They also offer a professional certificate program through Rockport College (which as a piece of paper I suspect means very little but...) and it only takes a year. No French or math classes. All film. Lot's of contacts to be made. http://www.rockportcollege.edu/pcert-film.asp

Don't copy the $100 at Kinkos. They are required to report you to the Secret Service!

You didn't say which camera you are using but it sounds like you need to do your color correcting/balancing in post.

One good way to make it look like night is to actually shoot it at night. Why aren't you?

Two things I can think of: 1) One of the boards may not be seated exactly right and a contact point is only intermittent until the camera heats up and the contacts expand. Have you tried re-seating the boards? 2) condensation making cross contact until camera heats up and dries it out. Is the AC turned way up or down overnight? Try opening the tape door in the morning and blowing a hair dryer in there on a low setting. See if it stops doing it.

What sort of response were you after?

Sounds like you're describing anamorphic lens flare, although it would be easier to identify if you post a link.

http://tinyurl.com/afdwe They've got pretty much everything and the prices are usually near the lowest.

You didn't think the Ring Wraiths were menacing? Or the Mouth of Sauron? Or Saruman? Or the Balrog? Or Wormtongue? I admit the Orcs were pretty easy to bump off, but what about the Urukai (sp?)? Or the Nazgul? Which one of the characters in this Batman (or any Batman film) would have avoiding being scarfed by a Nazgul? Even Gollum would've kicked the cr** out of that Scarecrow guy! Would they have been more menacing wearing hockey masks?

Check out their rating: http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2375.html They'll most likely tell you they have it, take your money, then you're on perpetual back-order. That's the lowest rating I've ever seen.

This company: http://warmcards.com/ sells a "minus-green" white balance card in a set of 6 or 7 cards and it really makes a difference. I was skeptical but bought a set anyway (money back guarantee) and was pleasantly surprised. Ofcourse you could make your own by laminating colored paper, I suppose, but who has time for that?

If I were going to try to get a repeatable way to match them exactly, I'd start by shooting a chroma chart with the film cam under studio conditions (repeatable), process it all the way into FCP on my powerbook, then from that image on my powerbook, I start shooting test frames under the same studio conditions and work my photoshop settings until I got them to match side-by-side when I import the Digital still into my timeline AND keep good notes on settings. Then you have a set relationship between your film cam and the DSLR as long as you take your powerbook on your shoots to look at the digital stills in FCP. Sounds like alot of trouble, though.

I think getting out of Indiana for the summer might be the best thing you could do for yourself. Check this out: http://www.theworkshops.com/filmworkshops/index.asp These are very highly regarded (atleast in the East). A friend of mine took a lighting workshop and loved it. Very small classes so LOTS of hands-on experience. Classes are taught by industry pros and they also have guest lecturers. They have a six-week immersion program that you'd probably consider to be exactly what you're after (don't know if you're old enough, though), plus, you can work on the campus if you need extra $$ while you're there.

I'm trying to think of another business where people expect you to work for them for free AND expect gratitude from YOU....nope, nothing.

Yes, the motion blur is the trick. Renting a varicam for the day is probably what I'll end up doing and the increase in exposure works to my advantage as it will be shot in a bar using practicals (mostly). I don't want to end up liking that Varicam too much.

So to account for the motion blur- slow frame rate + slow shutter speed. I need to investigate whether that can be done on the SDX-900. I know the Varicam will go down to 4fps. Hmm. Thanks