Lance Soltys

Just checked ebay, and they have an O'Connor 50 with Birns & Saywer legs for $448 OBO. Not sure if it has ever been repacked or if it leaks but I love that head. I'd love to get one, but as I'm using a BMPCC these days, the camera is way too light for the head.

I don't know, other than a slightly squarish head and an over-pronounced brow, I think you look fine. Seriously, don't you think this has always been the case? Definitely, good-looking people will always have an edge. That doesn't mean that there aren't many successful people who don't fit that bill (I certainly don't fit that bill, but then, I'm not successful). I really think if you looked at a lot of behind-the-lens talent, you'd find that there are many that are not rock stars (have you seen Mick Jagger recently, by the way), I mean, common on...Woody Allen.

Yes, it is one 4 pin cable.

I would think option 2 is the only way, only don't use glass, just an empty mirror frame. Google "Lucille Ball Harpo Marx" for an example. It will probably take a lot of rehearsing to get the timing perfect. If there's no sound, you could have a metronome going or someone calling out when to start moves. The key to the illusion would be establishing a "reflection" in the mirror and that would be up to the set department, e.g: having a lamp or something behind the main character and having an identical item placed on the other side of the frame as it's "reflection." If you see around the edges of the mirror frame (it looks like you're planning on using a free standing mirror and not one mounted to a wall) you could probably fix that with mattes in post. I've never done this effect, but that's how I would probably approach it.

Is there any motion going on in the miniature? Any atmospherics? If not, then frame rate shouldn't matter. As far as f-stop, going higher is better for the illusion. Imagine if you were actually shooting the real location, you'd be pretty far back, so the dof would be pretty large. Try to simulate that with your miniature.

So, this is just too weird. The matte painter whom I mentioned I have had some contact with, Mark Sullivan, is I think the same guy on the second page of the article Dennis posted. Admittedly, I didn't know him back then, but his age would be right, and that's what he was doing back then (stop motion). Is it a small world, or just such a big world that these coincidences become inevitable?

Creating atmospheric haze could be an issue with a small foreground miniature. And making the model big enough to put it far back would be one crazy large piece of glass. How about shooting the live action plate, then shooting the miniature against green? Or better yet, use an old time technique of doing a mask pass. Years ago when people had to comp in animated stuff, they would shoot one frame with all the beauty lights on, then shoot another frame with all the foreground lights off and putting a piece of white foam core overexposed behind it. You could then use that frame (black foreground/white background) as a mask in your composting software. Once your miniature is its own layer you can do whatever you need to create atmospheric haze. I suppose you might even be able to bring the model to location and do the same thing (that would make it easy to match the lighting on the beauty pass) but you'd have a hard time getting the foreground dark enough for the mask pass.

Yeah, and one issue with a foreground matte painting is you have to guess the lighting conditions (overcast, sunny, etc.). That's the great thing about foreground miniatures, the lighting works out automatically. Of course if you comp in a matte painting in post, this isn't an issue. If this is a paying gig, I have a connection to someone who did matte paintings for Lord of the Rings. Probably won't be cheap.

Wow, looks like a cool opportunity. Is that a wall that goes off screen right? Could the whole miniature be interconnected so as to be supported by a gobo arm behind that wall. Or better yet, have only the front half of the model sculpted, so the back half is flat and affix it to a sheet of glass. Just some quick thoughts.

The second movie I was ever on was The Babe. The operator who brought me on, the great Chicago cameraman and DP, Bill Birch, was old friends with Haskell from his Chicago days. Being able to hang around as they exchanged stories was remarkable. He was the only celebrity that I felt giddy meeting. Yet he was very kind and down to earth, even to some young kid who "was crazy enough to want to get into the picture business," as he put it. It really is a loss to lose not only such a talented DP, but also someone who seemed like such a wonderful person.

I actually just checked out Hayes Urban's web-page and the last update on this project was from March 2014, so probably nothing too new going on with this.

A friend just sent me this link: http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/15/the-nolab-digital-super-8-cartridge-could-digitize-your-old-movie-cameras/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=sfgplus&sr_share=googleplus&?ncid=sfgplus Didn't someone make a digital back for the Arri SR? Did it ever take off?

Those are all good points, plus I suspect budget would be an issue. (though maybe at this large of scale, the period cost may not be so significant, I don't know) However, Mad Men really caught on (admittedly not a theatrical release), and I think the audience did really respond to the aesthetic. The suspense thing is tricky, but I'm of the mind that the details of his early exploits would have been kept secret. The public would never learn about Dr. No's laser or about what happened in Fort Knox. Of course we would know that the Mercury Project did work, and that Fort Knox didn't go nuclear, but we kind of always know that Bond will win (and likely end up alone with a woman), it's the getting there that's the fun part. But I think your right about the audience, I think most main stream audiences want to see his modern technology and perhaps deal with contemporary issues (and a $300mn movie needs a lot of people in seats). Probably do way worse over seas, too. However, I was just thinking about what I would like to see, not necessarily what's actually practical. Actually (again, just dreaming) I think it would be great to have two franchises, keep the modern one going and introduce Bond Classic.

I know this would probably never happen, but if they re-boot the franchise, I've always wished they'd set it back in the 1950's. Everything about the character seems to make more sense back then, and it would differentiate it from other franchises, like Bourne.

Thanks. I kinda guessed a beam splitter was involved, but I wasn't sure. It's an interesting effect.

Hey Adrian, Not that this matters in the grand scheme of things, but I was unsure if you were implying that stop motion and go motion were the same thing, or simply that they both employ frame by frame capture. Go motion is a relatively short lived process developed by Phil Tippett for ILM. It utilized mechanically controlled articulation of the puppet to reintroduce motion blur. Sounds like you've done some stop motion, so you probably already know this, but I just thought I'd clarify. I have not done any stop motion since mirrorless cameras have become popular, and it would be interesting to see how they perform. Strangely, Dragonframe doesn't seem to explicitly support mirrorless cameras. They confirm they can be used, but encourage DSLR's. I'm not sure why.

Yep. Also, yep. Sorry. Perhaps posting after a few glasses of wine is not such a good idea. Truly, I was just trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing. Can any one elaborate on how the cats eye effect is done? How it's different from a regular eye light?

Oh, and her irises are open, so lots of off center bounced light?

Okay, now I'm waiting for someone who knows a lot more than me to tell me shut up, but I'm also getting into the whole mystery of the thing. I'm going to stick to my guns, arc light coming from screen right, bouncing into something that provides the edge. Here's why..if the arc light was coming from screen left, presumably up high, as you suggest Satsuki, wouldn't there be a top edge light on the cigarette? Instead what I see is a strong bounce from basically head level, notice the strong highlight in the curve of her right wrist, as well as the really hot spots on her hair, suggesting that light is coming from slightly below her eye line. And having this primarily lit from bounce is not so weird, because look at the shallow stop. This is becoming a totally Kennedy assassination thing (back and to the left) but I think back and to the right.

I don't know much about these powerful of lights, but couldn't it be that the arc was on the right side of the frame, blasting into a beadboard fairly close to the screen left side of her face to provide that edge. That would explain why the right side of the chair backlight seems brighter than the left. Though it would've had to be flagged off the screen left chair. And then the second beadboard might just be bouncing off the first. I can't remember what the wider shots looked like, though I just saw it not long ago. And if the beadboards were hard to the left and right of her face (have to be for the edge on the screen left) that might also explain(?) the warmer highlight on her screen right shoulder. That shoulder highlight seems a mystery to me if the OP's statement is right that it was only two fixtures.

Well this isn't really harassment, but it's kind of funny. I was working on one of the Bob Newhart incarnations set in Chicago, and we were set-up to do a night exterior of what was supposed to be his town home. Had the whole street lit up and everything. Well, the guy that actually lived in said home had not yet received his check from the producers, so he puts up a Pink Floyd poster on the window. That did it, it kept us sitting there until the money issues were worked out. Freezing cold that night, too.

It depends on what you're going for. My first thought was exactly what Stuart said. Though, of course they were using the old style ballast, but I'm too young to have really thought too much about the look of fluorescents back then, though maybe a very slight buzz would be cool. That being said, if they were LIGHTING A MOVIE back in the 70's, it would look a lot different. Probably a lot more hard lights. 1K's fresnels through diffusion maybe. If you're trying to create the look of films from the 70's you could certainly scale back from the total wattage, but you may want to go with something harder.

Yeah, I would definitely recommend manual lenses, but I would always use manual lenses with DSLR's. That's just me, maybe. Also, I'm no expert on DragonFrame (I only did the photography on the movies I worked on) but I worked around them quite a bit and I remember there being some lens control option on some cameras models, I know aperture for sure, maybe focus.

Okay, I love film, and you really can't beat the look. I'm thinking especially of the look of the Brothers Quay stuff. However…I've shot a lot of stop-motion on both film and DSLR, and DSLR has some distinct advantages. Namely, the onion skinning feature in DragonFrame. This is super handy, especially for someone new to stop-motion. Now, there are ways to get the image from a Bolex into DragonFrame, but it's really hinky contraptions. Also, the nice thing about a DSLR, if you make a mistake in one frame (like leaving in a surface gauge, or your beer bottle in the frame) you can just delete that one frame and keep going. With film, you're starting the shot over. That kinda sucks when you're 10 frames away from the end of a 8 or 9 second take. Now, I'm not completely bashing the film idea. There really is nothing like the look, and there's something to be admired about the discipline, as well as the magic of getting your film back and watching things move (of course, you also don't have the stress of praying you didn't screw it up. But these are factors people should consider. As far as equipment, yeah just go look at the dragonFrame info. Most cameras are fine. I assume you're not doing a feature, but I know Harry Selick had issues with the mirror mechanism in DSLR's burning out. Shouldn't be a problem for a shot though.

For my two cents, I would also at least key with the same color light. I have used gold reflectors to fill some darker skin people which did bring out very nice tones but I kept it pretty subtle. Also, I made sure that the fill didn't play too much on the area surrounding the character. I would think keying with different color lights would appear as if you were doing it for effect.