Daniel Sheehy

Using an oversized blimp guarantees that your mic will always be about 4 inches further away than it might otherwise be...

Anything sticking out the door is going to get buffeted quite heavily by the slipstream... you'd be unlikely to get anything usable like that. Good luck.

Should be basically the same process as explained here: http://www.adamwilt.com/24p/#24pRecording Basically it's 2 different ways of taking 24fps progressive scan and recording it to 60 fields/sec interlaced and then reassembling it to progressive. The 'PA' or advanced method allows you to extract the original progressive frames, the simple 'P' method will interpolate some fields from successive frames to produce a progressive frame, leading to some artifacting.

I used to tell the guys I was training; 'At the end of the day, the only rule is that you must get the shot, and it must work in the project.' You begin by learning all the guidelines - thirds, balance, leading space / lines, -ve space etc.. but your ultimate guideline is the story. And no one cares how many rules you break, if the shot strengthens the story. For every framing rule you may hear, you will come across as many examples of where a deliberate misapplication or flouting of that rule, is used to great effect... for every story that relies on centered framing, there is a story that needs an unbalanced off center framing style.. So yes, it's all about motivation, and the story is always your motivation.

Wider rather than tighter helps hide the shake. I've seen people use bungee type mounts in the doorway to help even out the shake, but I've always shot off the shoulder or with a bean-bag on my lap. Good luck, I hope you have an experienced pilot. :)

No, not fake... pretty well known show here in Australia. For more info on them just google 'The Chasers War on Everything'

No brown there... maybe slightly low contrast & saturation.. but that's to be expected from those grabs. But definitely not brown.

I suspect it'll be easier, cheaper and simpler to simply go with real steam, and devote your energy to protecting the camera.

The whole point of the Chasers is to poke fun... no point using sensible sound bites! ;)

You could light the band as silhouettes infront of the chroma screen. The BG keys out, and you desaturate the silhouette to kill any chroma spill. The advantage of this is the backlight gives a little depth to the silhouettes.. makes them look 3-D Or if you can't really do that, you can use the chroma key to generate a mask. Only problem is that doing it like that makes the silhouettes look like 2-D cutouts, exactly like your mockup image...

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. - Mohandas Gandhi caveat emptor ;)

I do not understand your response.. you asked a question, I responded with my opinion.. I quoted the portion of your question that I was specifically thinking about, as you asked 4 questions and I only had thoughts on 1 of those.

I don't think so. I think as an industry, it's going to be around for a long time yet. But you'd have to admit that it (and the world economy at large) is going through some pretty interesting changes right now. People will still be able to make a living in the industry... but maybe the number of people it can support is going to change..?

You do realise that the shadows of the people walking behind the cloth will make it impossible to read the black lettering?

I read the report to mean they were unimpressed with the mic level inputs, but OKed the line level inputs...

Try it out. ;) Assuming you have access to the projector, try out a few dummy setups. You haven't said anything about your lighting kit for the interviews, but you'll want to test that set up and sort out a rough 'style' that you can adapt for individual interviews. I suspect the biggest challenge you'll have is getting the ratio right, between the projected background, and the subject lighting... you don't want the background to distract the viewer. If your light kit isn't sufficient to balance out the projector, you could use ND gels to knock down the projector output. Having a few different shades of fabric for the background might also be good.

BIG plus for convenience, particularly with smaller crews where people have to multi task. I am not aware of any quality issues, but having that cable coiled / run down the boom can be a real nuisance. Plus it is yet another place for stray noise to creep into the recording.. the sound of the cable rubbing against the boom pole.

Don't sweat it. It's impossible to drum up passion for a job that you really don't feel passionately about. You'll be better off in the long run looking for a job that you enjoy, rather than just jumping at any old job that someone says is good for you.

Talk up the positives.. just don't say anything about the obscene overuse of party gels!! ;) Good luck.

Let me second that vote for Pentax. Their inclusion of weather sealed bodies and sensor based image stabilization systems as standard features put them a class ahead of what Canon or Nikon are doing. I still wish I could have bought the Pentax instead of the Canon. Now if only the Pentax would take my Canon lenses... <_<

DoF is dependent on the lens. The GY-110 is an interchangeable lens camera. No one will be able to help you until you get specific about the lens you're using. Then added to that is the fact that zoom lenses complicate things when it comes to DoF. You won't be able to find a chart laying out DoF data for each f/stop at each possible focal length. You'd be better off searching the internet for a DoF calculator, and plugging in the variables for your specific scenario.

Hear hear!! Oh for actors who are able to disappear into the role... rather than the 'big star' phenomena these days where you get [insert big star name here] running amok on screen, answering to the character's name, but doing little else to try and 'become' the character.

Not sure I entirely agree with your idea that film somehow exists in the present... I feel they are both equally restricted to the past, the difference is in the manner in which they involve the audience. As a person who works with both motion and still pictures, I have to disagree with the generalisation that Jason made regarding photographers and dp's. :) They are different mediums. Different ways of telling stories. They can complement each other, and yet stand alone. As such I really don't see any way to compare them. They rely on similar technologies and ideas about lighting, framing and composition but they have different goals. You might as well argue the distinction between painting and cinematography.

I think it's a bit harsh to dismiss Canon lenses out of hand like that, based on 2nd hand info. and without specifying which lenses you're talking about. Canon (and most of the other lens makers as well) produce several series of DSLR lenses, aimed at different markets. But their top of the line 'L' series lenses are excellent! I've used a variety of Canon lenses, and I can tell you that the old adage 'you get what you pay for' holds true. For a good series of reviews of lenses, Canon, Nikon, Sigma and others, this site is very handy: http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/overview He looks at distortion, MTF characturistics, CA and vignetting.

Not quite, you somehow managed to pick up a '?' on the end of your url, which was causing the problem.