John E Clark

I would never look directly at the sun, nor look via a 'lensed' device, such as a spotmeter, or the reflex viewer on a D/SLR. Even if I had a telescope there would be piles of ND filters... think of what happens when one takes a magnifying glass and adjusts the lens/sun relationship such that pieces of paper start to burn... That said, for 'sunset', and I mean a big reddish ball one or two fingers off the horizon (stretch out your arm and measure the number of fingers off the horizon the setting sun is...)... one could perhaps take a reading directly and then set the camera such that that value is 'very high', and anything else in the shot would be very dark. Other wise you take your meter reading of the subject of the silhouette, set the f-stop such that the subject would be 'very dark', like 4-5 stops lower than the meter reading, and that may get you close to a starting setting, for a situation where the sun is higher in the sky.

I use this site for trying to find sites have gone down. However I don't think it archives 'photo' sites... given the amount of data storage that would require. http://archive.org/web/

What the title for 'do everything because my acquaintances won't work for free'... As it is for my and other people's short films I've mostly done directing/writing/sound/editing/photography. If I'm working on someone else's short film, I have tended mostly to director/writer/editing/sound. Everyone wants to be the 'director of photography' or 'cinematographer' so I've tended to take up these other areas that are often totally lacking... not that I'm a mayvn in say sound or writing... but given the 'scripts' and audio or editing tools some of the people have had... I'm a veritable wunderkind... Oh yeah... lighting too... To me DoP is totally pretentious for a really small project, especially if the 'dop' is the only one shooting the camera and setting up the lights... if any... I' think of 'director' requiring some crew to direct.

I was calculating the draw of the lamp its self. Once on knows that one can then determine what circuit would handle such. For residential power and 4K, other than the 240V circuit for the dryer or other 'kitchen' appliances, there is typically no 'easily' already installed circuit and attendant plug available. When dealing with any form of electricity I would only hire the services of a licensed electrician to make changes to the distribution box, put in new lines, etc. So, when I estimate a draw of 66 Amps on startup, and 33 amps continuous, so that would suggest a line that is above 60 amps... Do people get away with using things in places that may be 'underpowered' or not properly wired, sure... but in terms of safety, it's about the only place I'm 'conservative'. Modern ballasts may be better on the peak draw. But older ones may not be so good. Older house wiring may not be up to either, even for the 240V lines.

You would have to get a generator, or have the incoming line to the location 'wired' for providing 33 amps (4000/120 = 33) Now, things I deal with aren't that high typically, but in most electronic circuits that have some sort of 'ballast', or 'voltage conditioning' there is additional draw on the line, especially during startup, and so my basic 'rule of thumb' has been to have lines that are 2x the nominal power, for that startup period. That would suggest an 66 amp line... Even if one had 240 V that would still be 30 or so amps.

No, but I did have a chemistry teacher who, in explaining the first test results, divided the class up in to 'super wits', 95% and above, 'wits", 85-95%, and 'half-wits', 70-85%, and then stated 'any half-wit should pass my exam'... In my master for math program a professor stated... 'there are students here who will 'get it' with some effort', 'there are students here who will get it with a lot of effort, and there are students here who will never get it, and I don't want to bother with those who will never get it'. In my grammar school experience I was subjected to teachers who didn't mind using the 'paddle' or 'ruler', and I had my knuckles scared for years, due to my lack of concern for their rules... fortunately for me, despite the number of paddling and knuckle rappings I received, I did not form a later life inclination for such 'indoor sports'...

While in Shake-a-stick's time audiences were mixed, that is men and women in the same room, with no separate area for women... in most roman games, the women were either excluded or limited to a certain section of the coliseum. In Greek times, women were mostly excluded from the theater, with only perhaps limited attendance for 'tragedies'. Roles were played by men, whether a female or male character. Roman theater did have some occasions where a woman played a female role, but that was not typical. There were of course 'street' theater, which women and men, and lots of sex played a role... One of the reasons given for why women were in general excluded in the Greek Theater, was because of the subject matter of 2 of the 3 play forms. In the case of Tragedy, there was at least a moral precept to learn. In the case of Comedy, the bawdiness and sexual explicit or implicit references and acts, were many, as in Aristophanes and women(that is male actors...) wearing dildos, parading through the theater... The 3rd form, the Satyr Play, has limited attestation, that is one complete satyr play from Europides. There are references to other Satyr plays written by playwrights whose Tragedies have survived in their entirety, or mostly entirety, such as Aeschylus. The Satyr Play took even more liberties with bawdy parody of 'high drama'. So, some 2/3 of the Greek Drama has been mostly lost, with 1/3 completely lost, and both categories were mostly dedicated to Drugs (lots of wine...), Sex, and Rock-n-roll. Where as the 1/3 that has been far better preserved has been for 'sober contemplation of the human condition, with all due regard for propriety'... Roman comedies often centered on some sort of sexual scandal with various tropes being used, which are still in use to day... Plautus being one example who has been preserved from ancient times. Oddly, his plays were 'preserved' but the reuse of a manuscript which his plays were written on. Writing materials were expensive, and in many cases the parchment was 'scrubbed' then rewritten. In the case of Plautus... it was a commentary by Augustine on the Psalms....

And perhaps art in general as well. One of my 'favorites' is Artemisia Gentileschi's rendering of "Judith Beheads Holofernes". The 'story' besides the obvious story of Judith, is that Gentileschi painted her self as Judith (wielding the sword...) and Holofernes has the face of her former mentor, and who was tried for raping her. In this image both Gentileschi's version on the right, and Caravaggio's version on the left are shown. In the case of Gentileschi, there is clearly more 'getting and get bloody' action... in Caravaggio... Judith looks to almost be questioning if that's really 'her' hand...

It is not 'porn', except in narrow definition that you have presented which seems to be 'any sexual depiction is porn'. The story is a 'romantic story', and as such, for modern representations, more explicit sexual depictions are part of the 'realism' of the modern world. No more **(obscenity removed)** locomotives at full steam racing into tunnels (heck when was the last time one say a 'steam engine' running on any track in the 1st world)... no more **(obscenity removed)** fountains bursting into geysers... no more **(obscenity removed)** fire works... as was the usual way to depict a romantic couple's consummated union. The problem about this sort of thing is that 'sex' has been banished from the public sphere for so long in the West, one can live one's entire life and be blythly unaware that there are now museum warehouses full of 'erotic art' from the pre Christian times, that were used everywhere, from brothels to first citizens houses. Because the Wife and I are going to Burning Man this year and she got a Burning Man art grant to do a fresco workshop, we have been reviewing fresco works, from 3 periods, prechristian, Renaissance, and modern (specifically Klimt). We have refreshed our recollection of prechristian roman frescos from Pompeii. In that case in particular, when Pompeii was first rediscovered, and some amount of artifacts and frescos were found, a large number were 'so erotic', that at some point the King of Naples had such material 'locked away'... This charge of 'pornography' when nudity is depicted is not a novel innovation or a new commentary. It has been used in the West for as long as Christianity has existed as a power. Did Michaelangelo 'have' to paint nude figures... no... but he did, and was charged with making 'pornography' and putting it up in 'holy places'. He had the patronage of a pope and so some amount of the critics had to pretty much hold their tongues... until he was dead...

Unlike most 'intellectuals' I don't divorce myself from appreciating the naked body of humans set in erotic situations. I don't have a problem nudity and sex even if some people call it 'gratuitous'. If the 'story' has people in bed having sex... they are most likely naked... if the story has people waking up... depending.. there's a high probability that they are naked... unless someone was so drunk that they don't know how they got in to bed naked... they sure don't draw up the sheets/blankets, and cover themselves upon getting out of bed. There was a debate a few years back when Michaelangelo's "Last Judgement" was restored. Originally Michaelangelo painted the figures with 'full nudity' in many cases. As the 16the Century wore on there was a great shift to prudery... On the topic of the expurgation of "The Last Judgement". The Expurgated versions were retained. ---- Pope's own Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena said of the painting "it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully," and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather "for the public baths and taverns," Michelangelo worked Cesena's face into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld (far bottom-right corner of the painting) with Donkey ears (i.e. indicating foolishness), while his nudity is covered by a coiled snake. It is said that when Cesena complained to the Pope, the pontiff joked that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain.[3] Two decades after the fresco was completed, the decrees of the Council of Trent urged restraint in religious imagery. The genitalia in the fresco were painted over with drapery after Michelangelo died in 1564 by the Mannerist artist Daniele da Volterra (who because of that got the nickname "Il Braghettone", meaning "the breeches maker"), when the Council of Trent condemned nudity in religious art.[1] The Council's decree in part reads: Every superstition shall be removed ... all lasciviousness be avoided; in such wise that figures shall not be painted or adorned with a beauty exciting to lust... there be nothing seen that is disorderly, or that is unbecomingly or confusedly arranged, nothing that is profane, nothing indecorous, seeing that holiness becometh the house of God. And that these things may be the more faithfully observed, the holy Synod ordains, that no one be allowed to place, or cause to be placed, any unusual image, in any place, or church, howsoever exempted, except that image have been approved of by the bishop. --- Which of course killed grand church art that was a center piece of the Italian Renaissance art.

Well... sure... I don't think you will see many 'cast of thousands' and a 'battle scene in wide screen 'vista/toddao/whatever'(*) such as one finds say "Spartacus"(1960) or the desert vistas of "Lawrence of Arabia"(1962)... But you know what... you typically won't see shots which are supposed to be 'somewhere' which are clearly done in a studio, or 'outdoors' with a obvious back/front projection screen... or car shots where it is clear the rear window is being projected... while the people is in a studio. The reason perhaps one doesn't see a difference between a Coke ad and a film... is because the advertising business has significantly upgraded their production values. Perhaps because of the use of digital processing rather than using expensive optical or other types of effects. *The most recent battle scene in Game of Thrones, I think is the 'best' relative to the idea of making cinematic a 'medieval' battle... if one reads what those battles were 'really' like, rather than nice clean sanitized versions which were the Hollywood Standard during the Golden Age of the Studio System.

It's been a while since I've seen any of Jeunet's films, but I recall on the "Amelie"(2001) Special features, there was some discussion about setting a 'blue' thing in the shot, otherwise with a 'yellow' cast. And that was due to a Brazilian artist, Juarez Machado, style that the director liked. I also believe "Amelie" was one of the first for Jeunet to be shot in part 'on location'. His other films were studio based, where total control of the lighting was available.

In still photography there was quite a bit of manipulation of the image. To be sure it was more tedious in some types of effects than a wipe on a Photoshop control... but one could 'tone' B&W images to variety of colors. Even ones that appeared 'neutral' often were toned with Selenium or Gold, yielding a bluish/violetish/redish twinge depending. Kodak papers of the early 70's tended to have 'warm' blacks, were as other papers such as Ilford had a 'bluer' black. Kodak always struck me as 'muddy'... so I tended to other papers. But the pink elephant in the corner is.... B&W was hopelessly a stylization of the reality... unless of course, a person was born with out any color response at all... In terms of 'painting'... often shadows have a bit of 'blue' mixed in, since the human vision+perception system tends to 'read' bluish as darker than say yellowish. So one would 'paint' highlights with yellow twinges, shadows with blue, and the human would 'see' contrast. What Digital has allowed is far greater control over such things for both still and motion picture processing that what was available in the past.

Unless Panasonic has something 'special' in one or the other case, as far as I know, both format use H.264 for their encoding method, with user selectable resoutions and frame rates. There may be limits to the selections in one or the other formats. In the case of my GH-1, I always used AVCHD, and Premiere CC can 'playback' for editing purposes AVCHD formated media directly. Also, AVCHD defines a number of things, it is a hierarchical set of files. At the lowest level of file, the H.264 recorded video is saved in an MTS(MSDOS 3 character extension mode) or m2ts file. Since AVCHD is a set of files in a hierarchical 'tree', it is perhaps harder to move/copy/etc. If the editor does not understand the file tree, one has to burrow down into the hierarchy to get the MTS files. The MP4 file is a single file, containing both audio and video data streams. Hence it is easier to move around a system. Otherwise both would use H.264 as their method of encoding for video. There may be differences in the audio recording AVCHD is essentially the Blu-ray format, and has requirements for compatibility in video and audio. Some manufacturers may offer certain resolutions using certain formats... I don't recall what the other options for the GH-1 were, but I selected 1080p, 24 fps, and AVCHD.

Perhaps church socials have changed since my youth... but most church 'meals' were potlucks and the support/service provided 'for free', and if problems arose, like food poisoning, or perhaps even all the 'mothers' decided not to cook for the potluck, no great difficulty would ensue... unless it was an e-coli outbreatk... or the like... I'm sure many nolo budget filmmakers would love to have 'free' support... not everyone has a Mother. Scorsese to cook for the crew... I've eaten at restaurants with a 'B' rating... I've eaten at food stands in Mexico... I would not recommend such for meals for a crew were work was expected post meal...

While the wedding business has probably a higher dollar per plate, I can't imagine getting 35 people fed for $25 for 3 meals... and as mentioned that includes tables and sundries for a meal, as well as setup/breakdown and area cleanup. It has zip to do with an opinion of people, just knowing the catering business, and at some point, it's as 'cheap' as one can get, and still have people not 'sick' from whatever is provided for less of a price. I personally became a gourmet of wedding catering... it was the only pay I got from supporting the Wife in her business...

You could have probably dropped the Mariachis for the lunch/dinner entertainment... and avoided having them show up 2-3 hours late anyway... In any case, the Daughter for her wedding in February had contemplated using a food truck, which has a certain vogue in wedding catering these days. They found it was more expensive than one would 'expect', perhaps $3-400 for a 'limited' menu, and happened to find a local bar that had a 'beer + pizza' event package, and went with that. But for a project, film or not, where everyone has to be in a certain place at a certain time, having meals provided eliminates tardy arrival, or the 'lunch/dinner scatter'.

Those would be called 'gliders' in English. For hand tracking, a good tripod, and easy control of the tripod head. I think this is why someone recommended a 4K approach, this would allow you to capture a 'large' frame, and then crop to 2K, using both hand tracking in capture, and some form of 'object' tracking in say After Effects. (I don't know if Premiere has tracking filters...). A zoom lens exacerbates the problem of 'shaky tracking', but is required for getting the glider to be anything but a small dot. With shooting 4K, you don't so much 'zoom in' as just eliminate unnecessary pixels. At more than 50 feet you should be ok with the focus at 'infinity' and say an f/8 setting.

When your title said 'sky surfer', I was thinking of something like this: Which really requires that someone be following during the jump with a camera mounted on their helmet like this: As for ground based capture of someone in the air... very difficult without mechanical tracking. Essentially one focuses at 'infinity', and then tracks the object.

The 'behind the camera crew' consists of 25 or so people. There were 8 principles, 2 of which were there for most of the 18 days, with others coming in for typically less than 8 or so. And about 6 extras, for 16 days. Don't know if they changed extras or what, but there were 6 of them for 16 days. Anyway, looks like the 'average' for the number of people was about 35 per day. So 850 / 35 = 24 per person... for 3 meals... I think GSA schedule for per diem 'meals' is about $50-60 for Los Angeles. An army marches on its stomach... Napoleon or Fredrick the Great... take your pick.

I've shot along CA Hwy 1/US Hwy 101 from Santa Monica to Crescent City and beyond at one time or another... (Now that I think of it... all the way up the coast to Port Angeles and on to Victoria... Almost exclusively stills, and almost exclusively 'what ever condition is present', rather than having the luxury to hangout for a few days to get 'good light/conditions'. In a word one has to pretty much take up the Zen attitude of 'be in the moment', and see what could be taken. The worst of course is totally overcast flat days, with no surf, and a non-existant horizon line... well, unless one is looking for those days... I also tend to want near to infinity focus on shots that have large ocean expanses, which for motion pictures requires perhaps a smaller f-stop than what many like to use. Anyway, for shooting on bright sunny days, between say 10 am - 4 pm, the biggest problem is contrast. While an ND filter will knock down the values, they will not change the contrast. If a bit of sun gets on the lens, one also has reflections/flare to deal with... unless one is going for that sort of look. If people are in the shot, the 'best' time for people + beach/ocean is about 1 hour or less before sunset. At this point most people can have their eyes wide open, there's enough scatter to fill shadows, etc, and the light is 'warmer'. (of course there's an early morning version of this... but who gets up that early... and in fact depending, the early morning won't be as 'warm'.) In some cases, either too flat a light due to overcast, or even scorching sun, I've often shot 'details', perhaps this is more a 'stills' approach, but say for example tide pools or other 'little' elements of the beach. The other aspect is where to shoot... for those big panoramas... need to have some height. In that case CA Hwy 1 has some tremendous views, since often it follows the cliffs with the breakers below.

Unfortunately cable companies are not seen as monopolies since they cover only 'local areas'. A company could spend the money, put up poles, dig up ground, with attendant expense of such, to provide a 'competitive' alternative... right... Direct TV, via satellite and ATT's reuse of existing infrastructure, has allowed for limited 'competition', but that's all it takes to avoid a monopoly. What the big talk in cable land is called 'over the top(OTT)' content. Netflix and Hulu being 2 such providers, and now more content providers are developing or providing alternatives to 'cable' via the Internet. "net neutrality" is a method of dealing with the potential for 'monopolistic' practices by cable companies that provide internet service.

There were several aspects of the Paramount Decision, of which the ownership of theater chains by studios was one. There was also the practiced, instituted by Paramount, of Block Booking, and even 'sight unseen booking'. Independent theater owners, were offered 'package' deals of films. Paramount would offer a film with a hit star, then pack the booking with films with lesser known, and of dubious 'quality'. In 'Blind Bidding', the theater owner pretty much had no idea 'what else' was in the package. The Paramount decision outlawed studio theater chain ownership, as well as the 'block booking, seen or unseen'. Now a theater owner or chain owner may pick an choose what films they take up. Sort of like Cable these days... where one has to buy a 'package' whether one wants the channels or not, just to get the channels one does want. I think it is because in terms of 'nation wide' there are a number of cable companies, hence the Sherman Act or various decisions and additional anti-monopoly law at the federal level can't be applied, despite the cable company probably being the 'only single choice' for content distribution in a given locale. Also Anti-Trust can't be applied just because there is only one supplier, even nation wide, if that supplier is not proven to be actively excluding competition. For example if I had a Direct Brain Distribution System (DBDS), sold it high and low... if no one enters that market, be it due to my patent on the only way that process can be done (that is the 1 billion clairvoyant cockroach brains (C^2B Technology) required to telepathically distribute the media), or because of the expense, even if I do offer 'reasonable licensing', of setting up a system, again 'anti-trust' will most likely not apply.

I was very disappointed that "The Golden Compass"(2007) and "City of Ember"(2008) failed to get further installments. I would have preferred those sequels to say... yet another Indy installment... or parish the thought... Star Wars... They were 'little' films that could have been done 'cheaply'. Re: Religious outrage... It is ironic that Scorsese got "The Last Temptation of Christ"(1988) amid loud outcry from the religiously inclined... then again with an R rating, the church folk could be somewhat assured that 'children' would not be subjected to so called anti-religious propaganda. But then "The Da Vinci Code"(2006) got made with near hysteria in certain religious circles, and another adaptation as well... and isn't there a third adaptation in the making for yet another book of Dan Brown's?

What is not clear is if a 'holding' company such as Wanda which owns AMC and Legendary Pictures, violates Paramount... I suspect no... as Legendary is one of a collection of holdings, and AMC is not a subsidiary of Legendary, nor is Legendary a subsidiary of AMC. In any case, it is true that 3 chain companies dominate the theaters in the US. But unless they are found to 'price fix' or make other noncompetitive agreements, monopoly laws don't apply. It's my observation that with the rise of the the multiplex, the tendency has been to limit material to a certain type... say PG-13, and R which doesn't have 'too much sex, drugs and rock-n-roll', but violence is ok.