Matt Irwin

You are correct. I don't plan on white balanceing to the sodium vapors-- I'll be at 3200k. I need to gel certain lights so I can put/enhance those colors where I need them. There will probably be pure 3200 key as well as some motivated blue somewhere to compete with the heavy orange.

Filmtools is a good place if you're in the valley, although for your purposes I would go to Mole Studio Depot on La Brea-- they have a huge selection of belts and pouches. The new Filmtools location might be just as good, but I haven't seen the new digs yet.

Lee Apricot 147 and Rosco Cal Colour Yellow 15, huh? Cool, I'll give it a try. Thanks!

I've got a low budget night shoot coming up that takes place on a pier lined with sodium vapor street lamps. The lamps actually provide a lot of illumination and we want to incorporate them into the shots, so I need to find a gel recipe to balance some tungsten and 3200k flo units to the vapor lights. Of course the color temp varies among sodium lights; I'm looking for a recipe(s) that will get me in the ball park so I can do some tests. Any favorites? (We're shooting on an HVX200 in 720) Thanks,

What color are the walls?

I would go for the kit you mentioned in post #3. Don't get me wrong, totas are NOT worthless. I just rarely use them because they spill too much and are a pain to use with gels. They are great for bouncing as long as you can control them. Speaking of which, you might want to look into a small grip kit. Barndoors can only do so much. To answer your other question, I would personally not buy lowels. For interviews I would put together a kit of maybe a Kino Diva or two, a single lamp fluo, a couple of peppers, some bounce, gels, etc, but that would be considerably more expensive. Generally, for tungsten lights, I would look to Arri, Strand, Dedo, Desisti, LTM, etc. Much more solid, but again on a budget, the Lowels work and are a good value.

If I were in your position and only had a choice between the two units you mentioned, I would probably go with the lowel kit. At least you'll be able to work a standard "3-point" interview setup (although I usually use two lights and a bounce fill, and then light the BG). Just make sure you have sufficient full CTB in case you have to mix with daylight. If I were doing a lot of run-and-gun, candid interviews, I would go with the LitePanels. As far as the kit goes, I would suggest looking at something else. It sounds like you're on a budget, so Lowel is probably a good call. Look for a kit that mixes a Rifa light with some hard units. The Tota in the kit that you found will likely do more harm than good.

I just saw a docuementary I shot on both an XL1 and DVX100 projected from a DVD thru an HD projector to a 25ft screen. Couldn't believe the resolution difference. Well, actually I could, but the differences were extremely pronounced when the cameras are intercut. The DVX, of course, is waaay sharper with a much more flattering image. So again, don't sweat an 8ft screen. It'll look great.

I've heard of some people using an iPod to offload footage from the P2 cards, but the footage can't be streamed directly. In order to use the iPod as a dump drive, it would have to be formatted by the camera (so it couldn't be used as a music player at the same time).

I've seen an O'Connor 2575 used upside down with a Moviecam Compact (1000' heavy mag & prime) mounted by an underslung bracket. It worked flawlessly, so yes it can be done.

Good call! Seriously.

It's already happening. Panasonic just announced the release of 4GB SD2.0 cards, which means that 16GB P2 cards will likely be announced at NAB and released soon after. Larger capacities will probably follow soon. http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/09/pa...ic_4gb_sd_card/

8 feet isn't really all that big, especially when you compare it to a theatre screen. Given that the projector is decent, it should look OK. Up-rezing to HD and then encoding back to an NTSC DVD *might* help, but it won't make much of a difference to the eye. I've had material that I shot on an XL1 projected on a 20 ft screen from a DVD, and it looked acceptable. Sure it was a bit blocky, but at seating distance it looked fine. You'll have a smaller screen and footage originated on a higher-rez chip than the XL, so don't worry.

Nope. It can only shoot MiniDV to tape. I've said this here before, but think of the tape function on the HVX as a "beefed up" DVX100.

I'm upgrading cameras soon and selling a Canon XL1 Package to pay for some extra gear. Package Includes: -XL1 Body (NTSC) w/ color LCD viewfinder -16:1 servo zoom lens w/ UV filter -3:1 wide zoom lens w/ UV filter -(x1) 2700mAh Canon battery -(x3) 4500mAh hi-cap Canon batteries -Single Battery Charger/ AC adapter -CH-900 Dual Charger/Holder -MA-100 XLR audio adapter/shoulder pad w/ mount plate for wireless -ZR-1000 zoom control -Stock Canon mic (barely ever used) -Lightwave Systems- System Isolator (SI-XL1) -Lightwave Systems- XL mic muff/windscreen (EQ-XL1) PLUS: Portabrace PC-3 Large Production Case to hold it all Everything is in used but good working condition. The tape head has 300-400 hours on non-Sony tapes. Both lenses have been serviced within the last year and a half by Canon and Panavision. Package Price is $2000.00 USD. I would prefer buyers in the Los Angeles/Orange County areas, but would be fine with shipping out of state at cost to the buyer. I can be contacted at the following email: buy.bertha.for.2grand@gmail.com

As I understand it, the camera's SD card slot (not the P2 slot) can be used to update the camera's firmware, in addition to the scene file functions. So yes, in theory, the camera could be "patched" with a function to flip the LCD image IF it's just a software fix. If the monitor itself has to be changed then, well, no dice. Whether or not Panasonic would authorize such an upgrade is really the question. They would probably stand to make more profit by holding such an upgrade until the release of an "200a" model. One upgrade I would like to see is framelines for 1.85 and 2.35. They already have 4:3 markers for protecting in 16:9, so why did they stop there?

You might want to take a look at Apple's white paper on workflow with the HVX and Final Cut Pro 5.0.4. Some of it is pretty basic "well, duh" info, but there is some useful info that definitely helped clear up some confusion for me.

HA! I was just about to post this and you beat me to it. Awesome. Simply awesome. It was really smooth... what do you think they used for the mount? Kenyon Gyro?

Umm... I'll believe it when I see it. I'd imagine anything originated on a cell phone would look horrifying when blown up to 35mm and projected.

I have two pro lights. They are very compact, very lightweight. Never had malfunctions, although I gotta say the bardoors are... weird. The split-leaf design has it's advantages, but most of the time I just want some normal doors. Also, the inability to use normal scrims can be a pain (like if you use one as a rim light and want put in a double and then a single to knock it down, you can't).

Wow, those shots are pretty funny! Not at all surprising, though. In addition to good lighting, those women also have Photoshop on their side. Nothing like that healing tool!

I know that Clairmont got a bunch of them a couple of weeks ago, but they may not be available to rent yet because they are being modified. Definitely worth calling though.

Yeah, I personally hate Totas. They're only good for limited uses like inside a soft box or bouncing a high ceiling from a wall spreader. They spill like crazy and those gel frames act like hard reflectors sending hot spots back behind the head. Pain in the arse.

For documentary work, I'd have to agree with Michael. Those Lowel kits are very lightweight and great if you're on the move a lot, especially if you're a one-man-band. If you do end up going with Lowel, also look into their Rifa lights. They're very simple, very fast to set up soft boxes that get small for travel. In my experience, Lowel's tungsten units sometimes have the tendancy to fail. I shoot mostly narrative right now, so I invested in some heavier, more reliable Arri lights. But again, for doc work, Lowel's have served me well. I don't know if it's in your budget, but have you considered fluorescents? Small units from Kino Flo (Divas) or Lowel's CaseLights would be good becasue you can put daylight tubes in them and not loose any output to CTB if you have to shoot in a room with daylight coming through the windows.

I've been using a program called Color Finesse with Final Cut Pro. It also plugs into Premiere, After Effects, and some other programs. Works on Windows as well, and it's pretty affordable. It's got a lot more tools than the "stock" color correctors that come with NLE's like Premiere and Final Cut and has some very nice scopes and preview tools in it's own interface, and my favorite feature: the ability to import curves from Photoshop. The secondary tools aren't bad either.