Aaron Webster

We have a Midwest office here, yes. However Hammer Lighting & Grip generally has larger trucks in the immediate area, while Midwest brings theirs in from different locations. For this kind of setup, both houses have plenty of 12/18K options available as well as the powerplants and distro to run them. I personally know both the owner of Hammer and the shop manager at the Midwest Indianapolis office, either one of them can get you set up with these kinds of needs. Furthermore I'm one of at least 20 technicians in the Indianapolis area and we work and drive trucks all over the state, so there are plenty of trained, professional crew here (even a few 728 card carrying members). So don't let anyone tell you otherwise and then try to pull crew from out of town, we like to work too. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=KCoJL-Uo5RY The first ~2minutes of this BTS video show that set. It's hard to spot it directly but from the look of it, it's a leko on the front of the unit. Maybe a joleko 800 or 1600.

Surprisingly this has become difficult to come by since I last rented a 2-perf movement system in 2016. I've reached out to Keslow, Abelcine, Otto Nemenz with no luck. I've yet to hear back from Panavision but wanted to reach out here to see if anyone had any reliable sources for renting 2-perf movement cameras. I really loved working with the Aaton Penelope the few times that I have done so, but it seems to have up and vanished (the last place I found one was Abelcine NY in 2016). At this point however, pretty much any 2-perf movement system will do. So, any ideas or leads? Thanks in advance.

Thanks Brenton!

Thanks Ken! Yes, especially when all you have available to light with is a 1200w HMI par. Luckily all the night work was closeups!

Thanks for the kind words. None of the grain was added in post. Its all the natural grain from the 7219 rated at 320 and whatever came out of the telecine Kodak did. Im sure the Vimeo compression doesnt help it but its all real. The night scenes were tricky to be sure.

Here is a link to a WWII short I was fortunate enough to DP in Nov. 2017. Based on the true story of WWII veteran George Price. Written & Directed by Skyler Lawson Shot on Kodak 7219 with my Aaton XTR Prod. There are not enough words to express my gratitude toward the crew and cast. Hope you enjoy.

Thanks for the quick response David. I will try to aim for 1/3 over if not 2/3 to the best of my ability. I wish it were possible to use 200T for day scenes but the director was given all 500T for free so I don't have much choice there. I had planned to rate the stock during day scenes at 2/3 over, through both day interiors and exteriors.

Thank you all for your advice. It is very much appreciated. I believe with your advice and my tests, I will determine the best units for the job. My last issue is still one I am hung up on: with 7219 for night exteriors, in order to keep blacks as clean as possible, is rating 2/3 stops over still suggested? Or should I take full advantage of the speed of the film and rate at 500? Thank you.

I'm prepping for a short on super16 soon and doing tests later this month. The director has all 500T vision3 stock that was given to him free. He is very into the look of "The Tree of Life" (Dir. Terrence Malick) going so far as to say that we will shoot the 500T in daylight unfiltered (no 85B). I'll admit that I have not done this yet, so part of my tests will be shooting the stock unfiltered with different lighting units, day and night. However, I have some questions prior to my test and wanted more experienced opinions than my own on how one might approach this 'look'. Firstly, I'm only aware of "The Tree of Life" as a film that shot 200/500T without color corrective filters. I'm sure there are other examples, but could anyone point me in those directions? Second, lighting units are my biggest question at the moment. How did Malick and Chivo light the film (when they did)? Tungsten units on subjects as white light, pulling the blue out of the background only, or HMIs on the subject to match the natural light and pull blue from the entire shot? When thinking this through I have to work within the following constraints: - We have Day EXTs and INTs. - We have a few Night EXTs, and myself and the Director both prefer a night look that isn't overly blue. - The director has a 1200W HMI Par, so he seems adamant about using it. So far, for this part of my tests I'm shooting the following: - EXT. Day with 85b filter (to show how it would look corrected) - EXT. Day no filter - EXT. Day no filter, HMI par unit - EXT. Day no filter, HMI + 1/4 CTO (thought process: trying to get closer to 'white light'. Necessary?) - EXT. Day no filter, HMI + 1/2 CTO (same as above) - EXT. Day no filter, tungsten - EXT. Night no filter, HMI par (I fear this will be overly blue for a 'night' scene) - EXT. Night no filter, tungsten Is there anything else I should be shooting to determine how best to approach this? Am I missing something along the way here? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. My last issue is the night EXTs. The night scenes only consist of Mediums and close ups. From others experiences shooting 500T at night, how grainy can the blacks be? Is it still best to rate 2/3 stops over? I've thought about simply using a 2K scoop light for an already soft source to get the exposure up without throwing a bunch of harsh light on the background. I've also considered a 2K fresnel and controlling that, but the harder light at night is not my first choice. I'm not sure either way, any advice here would be appreciated as well. Thank you!

Looking for the last lens to complete my set of Optars, the 50mm in PL mount. Might be a long shot, but is anyone selling this single lens? Thanks, - Aaron

I've been browsing this forum, reading multiple editions of the ASC manual and various other books, and scouring google for help with my lack of knowledge on this issue. Unfortunately, I've not had any luck thus far. I'm rather embarrassed to be asking this question, as I feel it is something I should know at this point, but here goes: I'll be taking a trip to Grand Teton NP and Glacier NP at the end of the month. I was fortunate enough that on the last short film I loaded for, I was given the Kodak stock left over from the shoot. I'd like to use the stock on the trip and shoot these incredible landscapes. Stock is 7207 (250D). I've read from various sources (here, AC mag articles, DPs) that rating film 2/3 of a stop over is 'good practice' in order to shift the information further into the shoulder of the curve and thus minimize the larger grain structures. While I love the look of super16, the only time the grain "stands out" to me is in landscape shots - specifically the skies. I'd like to rate the stock 2/3 over at 160 for this very reason. Here is where my issues start to come into play (or maybe I'm already screwing up with my explanation above and if so please yell at me). In order to do the above I would take the following general steps: - Plug 160 ISO into my meter - Set aperture based on these readings (with 180 degree shutter, 24fps) - Process.... normal??? Please let me know if any of my information so far is incorrect, but the processing part is where I believe I'm hung up the most. Here is my thought process: Having rated the stock 2/3 over, were I to pull process the same amount I'd effectively have been "printing normally" (even though this will be scanned, so maybe that changes things? I've never been fortunate enough to be able to print). Thus I should process normal, leaving the end result 2/3 stop "hot". Is this line of thinking correct? I'm driving myself bonkers with this because I feel as though I should have understood this the first time I went researching it. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

I am sure this is a silly request, but Kodak only allows minimum orders of 780 units at $.53 per unit and... well spending some $400 on cores seems silly for me to have as spares (plus what the heck would I do with 780 cores???) Is anyone willing to part with a few dozen? Alternatively, is it bad practice to call up a lab and ask for cores, bags, and cans if they have them available? Thank you

I've decided to go the route of the mini converter. Thank you Satsuki and tyler for your advice.

On my last 35mm project I developed and scanned with Fotokem and it really ate into the budget despite the help/discounts they offered. They are great people, but I agree that scanning is rather pricey. I've since been referred to Spectra Film and Video by several colleagues in LA, but I haven't been able to use them. You might reach out and see how it goes? Maybe others here can attest to their quality? http://www.spectrafilmandvideo.com/