Dan Hasson

The Party (2017) Blue Jay (2016) La Haine (1995) Raging Bull (1980)

Buy some resistance bands and find some exercises online. I'm not an operator but I have been told by on set medics that they recommend these to operators (and all crew who are lifting/moving heavy objects) as a key to working out/stretching your muscles. Of course stretching is vital. This guy has a great video on basic stretching. I have to do a lot of the above because I dislocated my shoulder when I was younger and its caused problems ever since. I'm still no expert on the matter but I'd highly recommend what I have suggested. Hope some of that is useful! Dan

I would recommend the Canon AZE 814. I've shot a couple of rolls with it and been very pleased with the results. I use my Sekonic Light Meter to take readings. Here is an example of something I shot on the camera with Vision3 500T stock (thats why its so grainy). The film is nothing too serious, just a day at the beach earlier in the year with some mates.

Here is a good field test video with the Zoom H4N Pro. About 3mins 30secs in he compares with and without the deadcat. Marco you should check out more tests people have done with these audio recorders on YouTube. They show all pros and cons. I do not think the built in mics sound bad at all. As long as they are being used for basic and not an attempt to record 'professional' audio (EG feature narrative sound). You can get really great results by just going out there and having fun with the recorder. The Zooms (H4N Pro or H6) are a fantastic package for what they are. I personally would not hand hold it (attaching it to a tripod is good) but the guy in the video did it and its not the most terrible sound in the world. The built in mics are good and are designed that way. Zoom would not bother to make a recorder like these with bad mics.

The Zoom H4N Pro is an excellent handheld audio recorder for the type of thing you say you need. It is cheap and has fantastic results. Record to uncompressed .wav and theres some room to play with the sound in post. It is around £170-£180 usually. Although ebay often has some going 2nd hand for a bit less. The main thing to remember that the environment you're recording audio in is just as important as the recorder. If you're recording someone talking (to be used as a voiceover) then it is not going to sound great next to the sea on a windy day. Also if you're recording someone, then try and keep the handheld audio recorder locked off on a tripod (most have threads to attach to a basic tripod) because they are not designed like professional boom mics and the vibrations in your hand will be picked up. Getting a dead cat/wind muff is essential in my opinion. They are cheap or you could make your own for even cheaper! Unfortunately I have not had a huge amount of experience with other recorders to comment on comparisons to the Zoom H4N Pro. But the sound mixers/boom ops I work with on set (when I AD, not my own stuff) have all said the Zoom H4N Pro is one of the best handheld audio recorders out there for small/amateur/semi-professional work. I have used mine for recording environmental noises and tested it with voices but I have only had it for a couple of months so I have not been using it too much yet. Hope some or all of that helps.

Hey Stephen, Gauge Film in the UK sells, process' and scans 16mm Ektachrome (in 100ft rolls). They also offer the same for Super8 Ektacrhome. I haven't shot with either but I have used their processing and scanning (at 2k but they offer up to 4k) services for Super8 Vision3 stock. The results are amazing so I am sure their Ektachrome services are on par with the neg services. They are fast at responding to emails so I am sure if you ask them any Ektachrome/16mm/reversal stock questions they'll help and provide info. On8mil is another UK based company that provides super8 and 16mm processing/scanning services. I have never used them but on their website are scan samples. They also process and scan 16mm Ektachrome so I guess if you asked them for any samples of that they could show you something?

Film is great but I do not think the medium is superior in anyway to digital. That is just down to opinion, if you prefer one to the other thats fine. I personally think digital is amazing because it has given people the chance who never had before to tell their stories in a movie. EG this video about teens in Nigeria making films with their phones. This example shows how films are stories. Being able to be told stories by voices we have not heard before (you could argue because they have no had access to the equipment to do so before recently) is fantastic and refreshing.

On the special features, was the footage the people were viewing on a monitor that looked like this? Notice on the left side there is a grey box thats says RAW. This shows the camera is recording to RAW. On the right side there are four grey boxes that say LOOK. Say the monitor in the image is MON1. So they have applied a LOOK to be outputted to MON1 for on set viewing. So for the film you were watching, most likely the DP (and sometimes with the DIT) would have either chosen a pre-existing LUT (LOOK) or they would have made their own. That would explain the 'film look' you would have been seeing for the films on set monitors. You can make your own LUT's on DaVinci, export it as .cube, then via Arri's USB (that usually comes with the rented camera) and the programme Arri Look Creator you can put it in the camera to be used for on set monitors. Hope that helps. Dan

Is this the Tinker scene you're talking about here? The the film Too Late was shot in five 22 minute unedited take segments. The first segment used a 30mm-1200mm Angenieux Super Tele. A lot of Barry Lyndon uses tele lenses and is well known for it. Haven't seen it in a few years so can't remember how much in scenes they're used.

Cinelab London: https://www.cinelab.co.uk

Ridley Scott's view of storyboarding is great:

My favourite place in the UK for Super8 is Gauge Film. It seems to be the cheapest place in the UK from research I've done. Mainly for the packages you can buy through them - stock + process + scan all in one payment. Tri-X Reversal is the same cost as the colour neg but Ektachrome is a lot more costly. But I guess if you're not scanning and only projecting it is going to be cheaper.. Hope some of that helps.

I've just began watching the film. 20 minutes in so far. Such a fantastic film and so terrible for the guys who died at the wheel. The longest day I have done running was around 22 hours (also did 5 18 hour days back to back). Fortunately I was not working the next day. However production made all crew be on a 13+1 day (UK APA is 10+1 for all crew and 11+1 for runners)... Plus I and the other runners call time was 2 hours before the main unit call. I then had to drop the rushes off and was waiting around outside for someone to come meet me for a long time. It was not even worth the extra £50 they gave me at the time to do that, though I needed to pay bills at the time. Its terrible the amount of jobs I hear about that offer next to no money in exchange for it 'being a fun project with a fantastic director/dp/actor' or whoever it is. Phil is so right. I've worked on big shows/commercials and the crew (also a lot of cast) are forced to squeeze a huge amount of work into a tiny time gap. What I see in commercials is an idea that is big and involves a lot money and manpower to make happen. Production aren't given enough money. They tell the client they can do it otherwise another producer/production company will. Then crew are asked for deals and worked stupid hours in a location(s) usually far from their homes. But we were talking about Ron Howard, sorry to go that far off...

I didn't think of it that way. Thanks for the info, good to know!

Pfister talks about it here, "says Pfister. “I can underexpose it by 3 stops and overexpose it by 5 stops within the same frame and see the entire spectrum on the screen." He doesn't give an example of a scene he did it on though.