Travis Gray

ha, And I thought I was going to be cool and be the first to say something like gummy bears. More practically, protein bars and 5 hour energy. Never crack the 5 hour energy (not sure if it even works for me really), but the protein bars always end up making an appearance.

So? haha And yeah, I watched a video of the mount switching, and you have to pull it off, switch it out, use the correct shims, check focus, etc etc. I decided just going with PL off the bat was worth saving the $300 or whatever it was for the mount kit per lens. Downside, I can't use it for my Nikon DSLR, but I figured if down the line I somehow fall into a set of really nice glass, I can then invest into switching the CP.2s to Nikon.

I'd second the CP.2s. Good glass for the money. Better than still lenses. You could pick up a kit for <30k I think. And that's 7 lenses. Abel Cine lets you pick which lengths you want too. I have CP.2s in PL mount, but just so that I can easily adapt them to the FS100, and then I can easily start putting it on other cameras instead of having to switch the mounts. If you are going to stay in the 5D/Scarlet/C300 range, you could just keep them all Canon mounts and get the CP.2s in that, but then you won't be able to go to a PL camera as easy. I think there are ways you can adapt the 5D to PL? I know I've seen it done on 7Ds before.

Tungsten balanced film is set for 3200K where daylight is balanced for 5600K. With filters, you can use one stock in the other condition and correct the colors for the film. If you don't correct in camera, you could correct later in the timing of the film (printer lights, etc) printer lights are for timing, yes? no practice on this so I'm not 100% in the techniques...

So do we have to steal the materials from buildings now?

I'm glad they tested this. I had no idea what the footage would look like until now. Sorry. Had to. http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=57168&view=findpost&p=374547

if it's a one-off, look into renting. Lens Pro To Go up this way has one. http://www.lensprotogo.com/product/kessler-revolution-pan-tilt-head-system/

So panning and tilting on the tripod? Same rules apply. Measure it out. You would need some way to mark it off on the tripod, or some tripods have marks on it. My old crappy sunpak had marks for panning. So, if there were 20 marks, and I wanted 40 frames, just split the distance between the marks and move it once a second. What I've done with a time-lapse before, just to do a quick pan, and I know some people (without naming names...) have done this on bigger projects, but you shoot it on a DSLR with an intervalometer and at a larger resolution, then you do a "pan" or move in your editor. Either way, without automated motion control (like kessler's revolution head) or something that you can make precise movements on, you kinda have to wing it. Assuming I'm understanding correctly.

On a slider/dolly? Panning? Tilting? You'd have to figure out your start and end points, the distance between the two, the time/frame duration, and then divide the distance into those steps. Mark it off, and move the camera accordingly. That's assuming frame by frame. If you're just recording straight video and speeding up in post, you could just set an interval for yourself to move the camera the required distance. So if I'm doing a time-lapse that's 10 seconds of screen time (24fps), and takes place over 2 hours, and I want the camera to move 4 feet... that's a shot every 30 seconds, 240 shots, 48 inches/240 = .2 inches every shot. ....waiting for someone to point out giant errors in my math.

I'm kinda waiting for the slo-mo craze to die down. It's great and has it's purpose and I like that it's becoming affordable, but some of the stuff people are putting out there is just boring. I always see "slow mo test!" videos and it's a 5 minute long video of nothing. I get it. I know what slow motion is. And I've already seen good tests that give examples with different lighting and strobing. Getting bored already.

Just a point on semantics here... It's 135 shots that restore your faith in cinema / 135 of the most beautiful shots. It's not claiming a definitive list. Just like some greatest hits albums may not include some of the best songs, just what works for the flow of the album or however they put it together. But yeah, there was a lot in this piece that didn't do much for me.

Make good art.

Probably the easiest thing to do will be to stick them all in the same track, if they're all getting the same treatment, and then add the boosts/eq to that track. My last audio issue I was dealing with, boosting low pickup, was a mix between fine audio, and then the lav didn't grab some of the other lines like I thought it would. I just took all the quieter spots and cut them down to another track. Kicked up the fader as much as I could, and added a gain plugin on it (you could add gain with an EQ plug in as well, they usually have gain in and gain out. I could go into a whole thing about compression and RMS and peak values, but I think you'll be ok with getting the peaks to register at 0 or just under to get your starting point, and then listen to it in the rest of the mix to see how it sounds. If you do bump it up to 0 and it's too noisy, play with a room tone in the background and cutting out silent parts, or EQ, or bring it down lower and see if the dialogue is still intelligible through the program. Then in the future, get the sound guy to record a little bit better of a signal. Mics closer to the actors, in the right position, cutting out extraneous noises, etc will all help. When I'm dialing in audio, I always have the talent deliver a line that'll be the loudest in the scene and set from there. I'm not usually running a compressor during recording, so I want to make sure my loudest part is going to be ok. I'd rather have some noise than clipping.

B&H has them listed as the names that they are. Flame, 3/4 CTO. They also list the 4 digit number they are as well. Anyone selling Rosco will probably do the same thing. I knew theatre guys who knew all the codes they used most like the back of their hands.

I use the CineCalc Pro app for iPhone and it has a gel wizard in it that you use to match color temps. Put in your starting, then what you need to get to and it gives you what CTOs/CTBs you need to do it. Haven't confirmed how accurate it is, but the exposure stuff in the app is pretty good, and the gels I ended up buying for one light looked pretty close (no extensive testing or anything) Then I bought gels through B&H. Just the single sheets. But depending on your size, maybe go to a theatre supply place, or depending on how much you'll use, buy a roll. I'm a little partial to Rosco, so, I stuck with them. $6.50 a sheet isn't horrible.

Maybe that is his real name. Or maybe just the last name. First name "Bumble".

Yes, clean is also important. Very important. If you have something recorded quiet but the base level of noise is even slightly there, once boosted it's very noticeable. This is going to depend on every link in the chain... source, microphone pattern, microphone, cable, external interference, recorder... but since you didn't record the audio, you have no control at this point. If noise is bad, look for a noise reducer plugin. Apple Soundtrack allows you to set a noise print, grabbing a part with just noise and saying listen to this and get rid of it throughout the whole clip. Can be disastrous since it works with frequencies and if it's too noisy, it can pull out some useful information and the dialogue sounds like it's coming from underwater or something weird. One of the things I do in this case is no noise reduction, maybe roll off the highs a bit to get rid of the hiss (it's important to know frequency characteristics of voices to know where to roll off and what you can play with), and then cut any audio not part of the dialogue, so right before and right after words, and long pauses. Then a slight envelope into those clips, and then lay down a room tone appropriate for the setting. Helps mask the noise in the dialogue a bit.

Probably kinda low untouched. I've worked with audio like that before, and you can always boost it. The best way to tell is to listen to how it sits in the mix. Does it sound quiet? Then it's too quiet. Keep an eye on levels too. I typically shoot for hitting and not going above 0db, sometimes I'll throw a limiter just underneath that so if something sneaks up it'll still be ok. But a lot of times music will hit those levels, maybe dialogue sits lower. It depends on the scene, and what's going on. You could always run music through and make sure it's peaking at 0, and then set your speakers to a reasonable listening level and see how the dialogue sounds. That'd be my advice.

internal buffer limit

I always make sure I have 37 pieces.

To stick with the Berkey quality, stick with Berkey stuff. I love it. Is it a different baseplate than their FS100 one? I have that, a set of 12" rods (or 8?), threaded, and then a set of 6" (or 4? I don't remember). That, plus the versa weight, short handle set, and shoulder pad... makes for a decent rig. Just was too shortsighted to add a threaded block (http://www.berkeysystem.com/store/15-mm-series/accessory-mounting-blocks/) for the SmallHD arm. Right now I have it screwed into the handle mounting block, so not much flexibility there.

haha, right after I posted that, I saw someone else somewhere say "here's something from a great cinematographer" and it just doesn't sound right. Every photographer I know who has a DSLR is now a cinematographer. It's a giant buzzword in the wedding videography business. And I admit, I do weddings on the side too, and I haven't found a word I'm happy using. Especially when you see (i know I know...) wikipedia saying "art and science". Which makes sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematographer I wonder if Mozart, Monet, etc.. called them selves artists (maybe there's documentation that they did, just don't feel like looking it up).

I like this one the best, although I still feel like a cinematographer is a much more important sounding word and you have to be deserving of it. And I hear too many people calling themselves that who are just pointing a camera at things with no thought behind it.

Agreed. Whoever pays you has the real final say. Now, you may have someone who hired you who trusts your creative input and you basically do get final say. That's always a good thing. Or, you can employ tactful language to suggest what you know will be best... or ok, not even tactful language, just honest opinion. You can't come right out and say "no, we're doing it this way", say why you want to do it that way and how it's beneficial to the client. Then it will mesh with your style, something you'd be proud to put on your reel, and it fulfills the client's needs.

I was doing a B&H order and just threw this on http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/529526-REG/Digital_Image_Flow_DGK_1_Digital_Grey_Kard_Standard.html I'm guessing this is a you get what you pay for situation haha