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Hal Long

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Everything posted by Hal Long

  1. Glass has a lot to do with good flares, anamorphic being the most sought after example. There are also streak filters that can be made pretty quickly or purchased/rented. Moving lights work well and many low-draw DMX-controlled moving fixtures do this nicely.
  2. I shoot mostly Dragon on mid-tier commercials and films. On some of the bigger jobs, clients sometimes request Alexa and the color is great, no doubt. The few times we've shot Arri raw, the clients have regretted the extra burden of the post process though they asked for raw. For resolution and ease editing, it's hard to argue with R3D.
  3. I sold my Alan Gordon DVF a few years back after having it for a decade. I thought I'd miss it, but between Artemis and a standard APS-C DSLR, I really haven't regretted the decision, and I've been able to use the pics from both to show clients the shots without dragging them through the set. On most big sets, you usually see a DSLR with a PL mount used as a DVF as well.
  4. While the micro HDMI on the GH4 is fragile and prone to damage, the camera can and should be able to output an HDMI signal compatible with most monitors. I've had great luck with several varieties of Small HD as well as the Odyssey 7q and 7Q+. Keep in mind that on the Odysseys, HDMI usually goes to input 1 for multistream. I also love the GH4 for its versatility. I think it wins in the DSLR for acceptable skew. Color and dynamic range are good, though not best in class. I use it all the time on gimbal and as a crash & insert cam for Dragon & F55.
  5. On most crews, all grip, electric and art/props will wear them. Different channels for different teams. As DP, I have mine on me always, but sometimes it's out when a particular channel gets busy and I have a different conversation going on with talent, a director or client.
  6. If you want it to be mac then you have three options. 1) Use a mac pro tower standalone: You can add in only one decent GPU (GTX 680, 780, 570 etc) with a little tinkering and power routing. This is what I use and I color 4-5K red files all the time in real time (with sampling set to 2k to match my monitor). This is a decent set-up and delivers pro results with the compromise of less than real-time if timeline sampling is set to 4K but delivers better than realtime performance when delivering to HD or 2K from 4K or 5K. It's possible to run two high-end GPUs but you'll have to run in an external power line to one of them. 2) Use a mac pro tower + a PCI expander: Look at the cubix boxes with PCI 2 or 3 speed and double width for GPUs. They have plenty of power. The boxes start around $2200-2300. 3) Hackintosh: You can build a PC that will match the new mac pros in speed with more cores and with real actual PCI slots for much less money. I've talked to people who have built 20-core machines with three GPUs that absolutely scream. The downside is there's no tech support to help you get the system running and every now and again a software update of an app or OS may give you real downtime. This route seems very attractive if you have time to tinker and aren't afraid to hack. I ultimately steered clear because I couldn't risk my machine going down mid-color session. But others swear by their hacks. Just my experience.
  7. Josh, I think the answer to your question is compression. Unless you're recording the raw sensor data then you're better off scaling in camera before any compression. The Amira does output uncompressed HD but that's not the sensor raw (Arri Raw) output like you get with the Alexa over T-link. Since the Amira records in prores -- a lossy format -- it'd be better to scale before the prores compression no matter which prores flavor is used.
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