Nathan Milford

The A-Minima's light meter is usually correct. Perhaps yours needs service or something was dialed into the menu incorrectly.

What stock and what lighting conditions? Sometimes only a little bit gets flashed and sometime whe whole thing gets hosed. I've seen a couple of rolls that miraculasly came out unscathed. Never hurts to have it processed.

They fit perfectly in so much that they are 200'. The A-Minima loads are wound emulsion out, and the ACL if I am not mistaken takes it's film emulsion in. You would need to rewind the film emulsion in. I'm not sure if it would be an issue but it is quite possible that focus issues might come into play due to the film's memory. If you have film wound emusion in it will naturally bow in to the gate, emulsion out will bow away from the gate against the normal tolerances we set for the camera. It may not be a problem. I'm sure people have done it dozens of times with no issue at all, but your lens and mount tolerances are set with the expectation that the film will bow a little thus giving you a few microns to play with when your setting the flange focal distance or backfocus. Wide lenses would probably exacerbate the problem, like the notorius wide end of the Angenieux 12-120mm. You would also want to remove it from the A-Minima spool and place it on a normal core.

I had an editor (a man of great experience but bad judgement) waltz on the set of a shoot I was Gaffing. The editor had the ear of the director (a woman of little experience... and bad judgement). By the end of the night the editor was moving my lights! The DP was operating and the editor would occasionally tug on the director's arm and change the framing. The director just let it happen. I was absolutly fuming! But I was a good boy (but not the best boy. har har) and let the D.P. know how I felt (he felt the same) and he talked to some suits and I never saw the editor again, untill I had to sit next to him in the theater during the opening. The guy never really understood why my crew and I were very cold and bitter to him... Boggles the mind really. I'm sure he'd be upset if I started puntching keys on the ol' Avid... "Oh, I think this would cut into my reel better..." - nathan

I saw it last night. Essential Noir at the Film Forum was sold out so... I can't remember leaving a movie with such a bad taste in my mouth. I just can't put it into words. What were they thinking?

There are still B&W Televisions out there, why bother even broadcasting in Color?

Did it appear like production had learned thier lesson? Were they able to connect the dots or did they just pass it off to bad luck...?

http://members.aol.com/npr16mm/ You'll find the manual there.

ttp://www.abelcine.com/panasonic/purchase_pricing.php Jeff or Milton @ abelcine.com could give you a more accurate approximation as these, I believe are just list.

Yeah, I'm not aware of a long exposure technology. I'm sure some engineer, sitting in a dark room with a soldering iron and some nickleprint is working on it somewhere. The VariCam is a pretty nice piece of kit. 4-60fps. Sadly we do sell a lot more VariCams than we do XTRprods. We have a few clients who own the both though. The XTRprod is my second love. (The first being my ARRI 16SB)

see: http://www.broadcam.com.au/varispeed.html see: http://www.cine-speedcam.com/news-l1cat3.html

See: http://www.theasc.com/clubhouse/inside/beg.htm The Old Moy & Bastie 35mm *swoons*. In the patent encumbered early film world many camera engineers had to get pretty darn crafty to make a camera that didn't upset someone else's patents. Basically attached to the crank there is a shaft, at the end of which is a cylinder with a groove cut in it that snakes, like a wave around the circumference of the cylinder. Engaged in that grove is a long screw that is attached to some kibbles and bits that drive the claw. As the shaft turns, so turns the cylinder and the screw rides in the groove osscilating back and forth thus creating the eccentric movement that drives the film. That's a streamlined representation of what's happening, but it gives you a good idea. If you ever get the opportunity to see it work, you'll understand quickly how brilliant it is! I also think the Biograph camera is pretty darn neat, see: http://www.soc.org/opcam/06_sp95/mg06_biocam.html Each bloody frame was 2"x2" (neg was bigger I believe) with no perforations. It's sprockets were half coated with rubber and the other half bare. The rubber would grip the film and drag it down then the film would be punched so a perforation would be made (and it would act as a reg pin). The frames were irregularly spaced on the negative but this was resolved during printing. Pretty crafty stuff. Sure they all had thier problems, but nonetheless crafty. On a side note: Give Rhonda at SCAD my regards. I hope to finish the overhaul on your LTR shortly. - nate

Those who have posted before me have pretty much espoused my view. I'd just like to add: I have a deep love for film and film cameras. I repair, coddle, strip and nurse film cameras for a living. I have a respect for them as marvels of engineering and for thier history. I am desigining my own primitive film movement based off of the old 'drunken screw' movement. But I can also recognize the coming of age of Video. Sure the quality is not that of film, but who is to say it won't be in the future. As proper, competative video technology makes it to the market and standardized post-paths emerge who knows what will happen. Film is great. Film is good. If I had my way I'd shoot film all the time, but the F900 makes some pretty pictures! The Varicam is a wonderful tool! But at the end of the day they are just tools.

"Artists will always shoot on film." That's a brash and massivly uninformed statement. And might I add absurd. "Artists will always use oil based paints. Acrylics are hype." An artist will use whatever makes the shot. Why limit yourself? I hate to keep up this board's constant (but well deserved) praise of David (I'm sure it's nice to have your ego massaged, but I also bet it can get embarassing) but the guy can seem to make beautiful pictures with whatever camera is put infront of him, HD or 35mm. I think Artists should only use RED cameras. Those cameras that are not RED must be painted RED or be rendered unfit to make art. If it is not RED it will be used to shoot reality tv.

I have PDF manuals for both the SR2 and BL, but they are too large to post here. I can e-mail them to you if you can accept 8 megabytes of attachments. Otherwise I am sure you could ask Tim to host them with the rest of his manuals on this site. - nathan

If you're not recording sound, don't have any takes longer than 20 seconds or so and don't require modern (for the most part) lenses then you're aces. Otherwise the camera is not ideal unless you have a blimp\barney or sound blankets to throw over it and have the motor instead of the crank.

f/4.8 or f/5 Isn't this the industry that prefers the more accurate t-Stops over the more abstract f-Stops.

I worked the majority of my adult life as a network security analyist and administrator (CCNA and CCNP and was studying for the CCIE before I went to work for Abel). There was/is a concerted effort to use those prefixes in that sector of the industry. It's not wide spread, but it is a better nomenclature. Much like the metric system in the U.S. it will probably not take hold. It's a shame. Precision is what you need when you're defining a measurement. 1024 =! 1000...

Dominic is correct. 1000 = a Megabyte (MB) 1024 = a Mebibyte (MiB) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte There are also Kibibytes and Gibibytes. Enjoy the ensuing confusion...

David, You can upload it. You just need a 64x64 pixel image.

I would beg to differ, Dave. Camera movement is a part of cinematography as is lighting. Granted lighting is a huge chunk, but movement and camera operation can feed into it. Sure, a lot of camera movement can be tossed off as a macho D.P.'s ego all over the screen or just plain spectacle, but great operation can be as expressive as great lighting. In my modest experience behind the camera I've found handholding akin to acting in the scene. You're reacting off of the actors as much as they react off of each other. It takes great skill to 'sell' it . To say cinematography's sole objective is lighting is a bit short sighted. Cinematography is everything that goes into the image, from simply interpreting the director's vision to lighting AND camera movement all the way down to choosing the print stock. That's tantamount to saying painting is simply about the paint. Nothing to do with the technique, brush textures, whether it is on a canvas or a fresco etc... But, that is just the humble opinion of one technician. Not the opinion of a professional, experience-hardened Cinematographer.

You should have no problem. We've sub-rented the Ultra Primes out with our cameras and have had no reports of problems. - nathan

Wheeler's book is mostly Panavision Propaganda with a bit of Sony Propaganda. But, it's a start. For the most part an understanding of traditional video terminology, technology and practices should suffice. I haven't read Goodman's Varicam guide, but the introduction to his SDX900 guide gives a very good, simple explination of video concepts. The American Cinematographer Video Manual is another good reference. Once you've mastered that knowledge go to a rental house and see if you can play with an HD camera. The differences will become visable quickly. For the most part, it's all the same stuff, just more of it. More resoluton, more bit depth, more money. - nathan

They're pretty easy to construct: http://www.film-and-video.com/broadcastvid...les-dimmer.html

I've seen residential 1K triac dimmers (granted most are 600w and you have your little 250w inline dimmers) I've seen 2K commercial triac dimmers. There are dimmable HMI and Flouro ballasts (obviously not based on triac technology, but sine wave inverters). I should note that my knowledge is of U.S. power systems only though. What misinformation? Did I miss something?