Ed Moore

Hi Zac, If you definitely can't get anything bigger because you need to stick to house power, then that's one thing. But if you can get a 6KW HMI PAR set up right you could probably light the whole scene with just that and some bounce cards inside the shop. Perhaps you could afford the bigger unit by not hiring any other units for the inside? I find with lower-budget work a real trap is using loads of low powered units, all of which get set up individually with good intents - but when they're all on it inevitably ends up being a bit of a mushy mess. If you can cut the units right back to one or two but up the power, you'll almost certainly get a more striking look. Just a thought. Good luck with the shoot!

I shot a short recently where the producer ended up doubling as the first. Not a combination I'd recommend. Producers have to do almost all their work off the set, and the first can't leave it. Ended up in much the same situation as Stephen, in that I was sort of keeping proceedings ticking along whilst lighting. When I saw some of the footage, there was a continuity issue with a prop and I was getting annoyed with myself for missing it... suddenly reality kicked in! A DP's job is complex enough - especially on low budget shorts where for some reason the DP is often the most experienced person around (probably because they've worked on bigger shows further down the greasy pole and are just building their reel as a DP). If you start to find yourself taking responsibility - and worse, been *seen* to be taking responsibility for things outside your ken, it's only going to end in unpleasantness. Ed

Hi Stephen, You said you shot at T2.8 - does the EX1 lens have T-stops, then? Or did you calculate them in tests? Cheers, Ed

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...p;rd=1&rd=1 Buy it Now: £250 No reserve! Happy bidding! Ed

Hi Matthew, perhaps you should list some of the films you like the look of, and try to describe exactly what it is you're seeing that is attracting and involving to you. It's then a much easier case for the various posters to work backwards and make some suggestions based on the facilities you have available. What do you have in the way of editing and post production equipment? With a camera like yours sometimes the only way certain changes can be made to the image is in post production. It's not going to have the same supermegaultra technical standards as other approaches, but if what you want is to experiment with different looks and see what kind of feeling each one evokes in combination with your shot, cast, location etc - it's a great way of learning.

These adaptors fascinate me. The cameras used are so cheap compared to the 35mm lenses that get put on the front that it seems more accurate to say you've hired a lens with a record facility rather than a camera with a great lens. Says something for the immutability of the laws of physics that everything that doesn't need to work optically - i.e. the camera - is now becoming actually hard to even SEE on a fully kitted out mini35/MovieTube rig. Unless they come up with some amazing new way to bend light into a single point, I expect eventually we'll have little postage stamp sized disposable CCDs that you just whack on the back of an S4 and it Wi-fis the picture straight to your laptop...

Hi Oscar, try Film Lab North in Leeds on 0113 243 4842. Used to be part of Yorkshire TV, now under the ITV Productions banner I suspect. I'm not sure whether they do reversal but they are extremely well equipped. Being out of London means their pricing is very competitive as well. Let us know who you end up going with!

As I understand, it's not even close to being offered for sale. But then I have heard various darkly muttered rumours about it not working terribly well on extended shoots (i.e. longer than a TVC) so perhaps the current rentals-only thing is a sort of extended, public test period. I spoke to Arri London a couple of months ago and they gave me the price of £1500 per day, no deals available. My own take is that, for the money and considering the lens package you'd want to support it, the only fundamental, crucial reason to rent this camera over a 35mm cam is a political one: i.e. you, the agency or the client desperately want to shoot on it and/or have a full resolution monitor on set. In the advertising world of big budgets and little patience I can not only understand that but even view it as a wise call under some circumstances. Very interested to hear more reports of the D-20's use on a full scale feature.

Try this link http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/search.php?searchid=545000, if that doesn't work, go to http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/, register then search the H1 forum for mini35: lots of people have posted lots of example footage. Other than the mini35 your options are limited to things like the Redrock Micro M2, which fit in FRONT of the existing 20x lens rather than replacing it a la the mini 35. There may be something out there I haven't noticed, 35mm-adaptors for 1/3" cameras is a notoriously fast moving and finickity field. Ed

Yeah, it's hard to see where the back of the platform is - possibly it's resting on the top of the building below, and the crane is just supporting the bit that's sticking out over the edge. Still, I think I'd rather be over with the onlookers on the completely opposite side of the street :)

So the fun game is, what is the shot going to be? You're disqualified if it's instantly obvious to you what movie or commercial this is from (I certainly have no idea). My guess is that the shot starts looking into the bottom car (which is raised so you won't see it on street level), then lifts up an insane amount to a similar shot of the second car, which has a light shining through the sunroof or windscreen so presumably has people inside it. Then they take out the upper car's support cables in post. Absolutely mental though. Has anyone worked on a set where something of this scale was performed? How long does something like this take to set up, and how does a risk assessment read for 'putting a supertechnocrane on a swinging gantry from another crane'? Ed "looking forward to the big time" Moore

Hi Jim, I just wanted to start by saying that no matter what we end up seeing from you guys (and personally I'm totally sold), the ride over the past few months has been practically worth $1000 in itself. Much respect to all on your team who've looked after how the details have come out - I think you're spot on. I was looking through a few other posts on the RED camera and wondered if you could venture a comment on whether the production model might include built-in waveform, vectorscope etc - style monitoring solutions. As a DP just young enough to not really 'get' the whole idea of 'offline/online' in the first place and the associated palava, I love the idea (as I see it) of RED as a far more refined tool in the visual storyteller's kit: giving you whatever you need without all the associated crap that you find on an everyday film set. One such piece of crap is the video cart: of course, there's a function of all the kit there, but surely that sort of technology in terms of electronic monitoring can be included inside your camera body? Would be great to hear from you on this. Ed Moore DP, UK

Hi guys, 'Everybody' seems to be rating the F900 at ISO 320 - just wondering if the same goes for the 750P? I will be using the factory settings in 'film' preset shooting 25P. Much obliged! Ed

Just to build on what Simon was saying, it's interesting to note that the BBC has (to my knowledge) stated that their goal is a entirely 50P system - i.e. that they will only genuinely have completed their transition to HD when it's 1080 50P and 50i/25P is just an inbetween. Perhaps someone better informed might put me right, but assuming that's true it will be interesting to see what happens with glossy BBC dramas - whether they'll stick with 25P for that slightly floaty unreal look or bump up to 50P which seems to be either the best of both worlds or a horrible compromise depending on how you look at it. Has anyone actually seen any footage originated and displayed at 50P?

Possibly the best Leamington Spa related quote I've seen for a long time. I shall forward it to the Mayor's office :) I would love to hire Phil, hell I would love to just *meet* Phil after a good year and half lurking around here - and I'm sure I will at some point but for this gig I actually signed an agreement with ProVision in Leeds to supply the £800 of lighting. Whilst I'm going to have a right good go at building one of Phil's 6' shower curtain diff frames, I'm not sure he has so far invented a way to manufacture a 2.5kW HMI PAR out of sticky back plastic and loo rolls, so there has to be a little rental company involvement. Having said all that, we're filming in Birmingham between the 2nd and 5th of September inclusive, so Phil, if you're around I would pay several pints to meet you and your banks of MR16s :) Seriously, thanks for the tips, I've been finding them very useful. I have also discovered, after a lengthy trip around Focus, Homebase et al, that you are quite right about the unfortunate blight of goldfish-covered shower curtains.

Hi Phil, That's really great stuff, thanks. I hadn't thought of the fluro trick; how do you handle the colour balance using these? I guess you could make up a reasonable facsimile of a kino blanket lite this way. Good point on the heavy white shower curtain; the maximum I'm going to be able to bosh through these will be a couple of blondes combined so I might go poking around for some sort of intermediate-opacity curtain. I guess a couple of layers of frost on the blondes then bounced off a 6x6 white shower curtain would get it reasonably soft, though. Never going to quite recreate the effect of a 20K through two layers of 8x8 diffusion for a fiver but we can but try :) More please! Ed

Hi all, Am shortly to be shooting a 'trailer' for a feature which will be shot next summer, but the plan is to use the trailer as proof-of-concept with which to raise funds for the feature shoot. The latter is professional budgeted etc etc, but the trailer is necessarily tight. It's only a four day shoot but even so the £800 I have for lighting rental isn't going to get me as much flexibility in lighting equipment as I'll have for the feature, and obviously the intention with the trailer is to show how wonderful we all are at our jobs so I want to get as close as I can in the few shots of the trailer to how I want the feature to look. The lighting kit is primarily limited by no cash for a generator so we'll be running off 230V 30A ring mains, which prevents me from using any particularly large sources - this has been taken account for in the location selection, and I've got a 2.5kW HMI PAR on the truck. My idea to save cash is to have a bash at knocking up some large diffusion frames and pseudo-nets so I can spend the money I do have on things I can't manufacture, i.e. lamps. Was wondering if people would like to share their favourite "homemade" bits of lighting equipment. I have read with interest the various variations mentioned on "box of polystyrene board with photoflood bulbs in" as a quick and easy softlight, but I thought there might be some more cool ideas floating around. I'm thinking of making some 6'x6' wooden frames for various grades of diffusion; can anyone recommend a particular sort of material that would work well - thinking a really soft muslin effect. What's the minimum distance I could say, get a 2k blonde without causing a fire risk? Is there some sort of fabric I could use as a net with a nice soft edge? In the broadest terms, what groovy and useful things can I make by not worrying about how branded it looks on set and rather, concentrating on getting a lot of bang for my DIY-store buck? Thanks for taking the time to read all this... Warm regards, Ed Moore DP, "The Glass Cities" (2.35 HD 25P)

Hi all, Looking for some advice. I'm filming an outdoor classical music concert in a few weeks on two DSR390s recording straight to camera with no remote CCUs or nuffink - straight out of the box. The event starts at 1900 and ends at 2230 with a fireworks display. It takes place mostly inside a large tent/stage (http://www.roustabout.ltd.uk/roustsetter.html) with some performers (the singers, soloists etc) just in front. I've got 6 bars of 6 x 1KW parcans and a few 5K theatrical fresnels, all frosted, inside the tent to try and bring the inside levels up a bit. There's also 6x1.8KW colour changers washing up the inside of the tent. Finally there are music stand lights which tend to fill in the musician's faces rather well. One camera will be out front getting wides and crowd shots (probably end up being around 15m or so from the front edge of stage), the other will be on a steadicam floating around the front edge of the stage for soloists (and between-act juggling displays - don't ask...) and probably wandering around inside the tent if there ends up being enough space. The sun will set on the event day at 2122, the stage faces almost exactly southwest. My question is, what would be the best way of approaching the colour temperature change that will occur during the event itself? I don't want to completely erradicate any idea that it is becoming night but I also don't want to start out on a 85 filter in camera and get warmer and warmer as the night goes on. Taking out the 85 at some given point during the event introduces an abrupt change that will be a nightmare to smooth out in post. We could re-whitebalance every ten minutes or so using the side of the tent as a reference but I'd be worried about the chunks of time suddenly unavailable to the editor. My most recent thought is to stick CTB on all of the artificial lighting and stick with a single combination of white balance and filter for the whole event, but there I worry that I'm knocking down the levels from what probably isn't enough light to start with. We can't afford a focus puller for the steadicam so I really want to be able to keep him at at least f/5.6 if I can help it. Has anyone lit a tent/stagey thing this size before? http://www.roustabout.ltd.uk/roustsetter.html - how much light did you need? Terrified by the top picture on that website! Perhaps not a great way to judge with all the lens flare, but looks pretty damn dark in that thing. Cheers for your time! Ed Moore

Perhaps it's impossible to take in the entirity of her beauty all at once...

I'm really excited by that video - okay, it does look pretty ridiculous, but I've spent enough time trying to massage some life back into a wrist totally numbed by supporting a DV camera all day that I'd be happy to sacrifice my otherwise impeccable streetcred :) As Drew says anything XL2 sized or bigger is going to be pointless but this seems the ideal counterpart to the Z1. It's not the sort of effect I'd want to use for drama so much but it would be fantastic for unpredictable documentaries - I spent three days shooting in London recently carrying a DSR390, a Vinten Vision 8 and a rycote around on the tube and my spine has yet to forgive me. The opportunity to leave the sticks on the truck seems too good not to pass up. I like the idea of being able to use the bottom curve to steady the camera between your legs but the top half of the curve above the handgrips seems pretty useless other than for mounting a shotgun. Perhaps if they removed this bit you'd look a bit less like you were filming someone with a steering wheel...

What size is your original? In Photoshop, if you resize to about 800 pixels wide and set the "Save to Web" settings to "JPEG High" that would produce an appropriate image for this board. The reason your picture looks a bit odd (other than it's very small) is it's saved in GIF format, which only supports 256 colours hence the abrupt transitions in colour. Hope this helps!

Hey Oscar it looks really nice but do you have a higher-resolution picture so we can examine it in its full glory? :)

Or if it's a PAL XL1, frame movie mode would generate 25p. But Josh is right, it's not "proper" progressive scan. I defer to the rather wonderful Adam Wilt: As for the meter readings it's difficult to say exactly but I have heard figures bandied around for the XL1 with 0db gain being roughly equivalent to ISO 160 to 200. That makes a sort of sense to me as I know the F900 with it's larger CCDs reads out at 320. If you have access to a really well lined-up monitor and an 18% reflectance grey card, you can work it out for yourself. Will post how if you like.

That's possibly the best thing I've ever heard, serious respect from your crew if you pull that off :) I guess another advantage is, for exteriors, if you held your palm out flat facing upwards you could use your finger's shadow to work out whether it's time for lunch yet :D