Brian Drysdale

I wouldn't shot a drama on HD without a camera assistant, the focus is that critical and you can't always tell in the viewfinder. It's like shooting 35mm without a focus puller and soft shots do show when viewing on HD. Everything becomes more critical, the make up has to be done to a higher level, sets and costumes as well. I tend to shoot at F2.8 on the zoom. Both Canon and Fujinon have good HD zooms, however, I normally get a Canon HJ11x4.7 because most rental places seem to have it. The cine style lens are great because of the need for the focus puller. Switching the detailing off and shooting progressive frames will give you a more filmic look. Also, get the largest HD monitor your budget can manage.

Yes, if it's shooting 16mm. A 35mm lens would have the same angle of view as a 16mm lens of the same focal length when used on a 16mm camera. The angle of view will increase when you use 35mm lens on it's normal format, so that the 25mm focal length lens will have the same angle of view as an 11 mm lens on regular 16mm.

There is a lot of discussion on the camera at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=98 They also have a link for the manual

There are some French scripts here: http://www.simplyscripts.com/non_english_scripts.html I notice there are couple of different formats being used amongst the scripts that look like they might be pdf copies of the originals.

Looking at the results from the recent 4 way HDV camera shoot out, the HD 100 has a rating of just under 320 ASA.

Geoffrey Unsworth did an effects shot for Exorcist 2 in Ardmore Film Studios in Ireland. It was of a setting sun across some march land. They had a model of the landscape that took up most of the sound stage, which was then filled with smoke. He had arcs on either side that were bounced up into the smoke to light the model. A tungsten spot was used to create the setting sun.

Phil, I assume that you didn't manage to test the 3.5mm wide angle zoom with the camera. It sounds like it's the one to go for with the JVC, although the price with camera is getting up towards the cost of the new XDCAM HD cameras and even allowing for extra money could be the one to go for. Brian

About 3 years ago I was involved in a short film scheme for young people on which two of the four films were shot on Betacam SP using a BVW 300. It's pictures held up just as well to being projected on a large screen as the DSR500 that the other two films were shot on; perhaps not as clean looking, but they looked far better than any I've seen from a PD150 type camera.

I assume it'd because he's paying people. Good actors and crew cost money, you can make make films for a lot less if you're only paying for the camera, stock etc. There are a few feature films shot on Mini DV that could have been shot on Super 16, if not 35mm given their budgets, the format being a creative decision rather than a budgetary one. There are good film made for the cost of the materials, but they have good scripts and have found good actors who are willing to work on the film. Unfortunately, too many really low budget films fail on both these fronts. How good a film finally will be is 80 % decided before it has even been shot - the script, the casting and who's in the crew. Although, I'm not too sure about sitting in the front row watching this particular film, but it's not an unexpected that some one would do it.

Grads are extremely useful, I've got sets of both soft and hard edged ND filters.

That's a decision you have to make when deciding on the right camera for a particular or the type of productions you're working on. All these cameras have trade offs, for example I'm not to sure that I'd want to use the Canon on a production that involves a lot of hand held work, but it would be fine on a production shot mostly on sticks. Certainly, selecting on the basis of image quality in 1080i alone it seems to be the one to go for.

That test seemed to spark even more arguments. JVC and Pansonic have come up two different methods to overcome the problems of progressive frames on 1/3" CCDs. I expect that only by testing and experience that we'll find out the shooting situations in which their problem solving causes us problems.

Try http://www.sonybiz.net/ select: Products> Broadcast and Professional Audio/Video Camcorders >CineAlta/HDCAM Select the HDW 750, then "support" you'll find the manual there. It's the PAL version, but I suspect that, except for a few variations that are easy to spot, it should be similar to the NTSC version. You could check out the Sony broadcast site in the US. Usually you need to do a bit of digging.

I'm not sure if I'd want to mount that lens on just a C mount, it's a big lens. Perhaps you could contact a lens technician about getting the reflex section removed and getting a more robust lens mounting fitted. You also lose a fair amount of light through that old dog leg reflex on a lens that's already T2.8.

These things can get extremely messy unless very is handled in a business like manner. A friend of mind was involved in a developing a feature film, he wrote the story outline and the treatment and a writer wrote the screenplay. My friend dropped out of the project, but then discovered that a film was in production based on his story using the writer's script, so he took legal action because the copyright had not been cleared. The production company paid him, but it was a messy business that shouldn't have happened. There's a lot of things involved in a production that can have copyright attached, a producer should ensure that they hold the rights to that material. As David said, you should contact a lawyer for advice, my point about the camera operator's copyright over the framing is more playing a legal argument that some people have used when a contract of employment has been broken and they haven't been paid. However, the copyright to the material within the shot very often belongs to the producer, although a documentary could be a more complex issue. It's best to use an entertainment lawyer, because most other lawyers won't know the subject in depth. In practise most producers use model contracts for everyday work, using the lawyers for the more complex clearances.

The producer should clear any copyright involved in a film. If it's based on a script, the writer holds the copyright to that until they've signed a contract assigning it to the production company/producer. The director should also sign a contract, especially if they've also been writing or working on the script. Also, any music need to be cleared for copyright. If you've been hired as a technician to work on a production the copyright belongs to who ever is hiring you. Although, it could be interesting regarding someone who isn't paid to provide a service and who hasn't signed an agreement if they're the camera operator, because there could be case that they still hold copyright to the image itself, just like a still photographer. Best to have all this sorted by having people signing contracts, especially if you're working on a deferred payments or profit sharing. This means that's there's no confusion. Owning the camera doesn't give the owner copyright to the images shot on the camera, that belongs to the person taking the images, unless the owner has hired the person to take the images for them. Normally the producer/production will ensure that everything is cleared. Copyright is a complex and messy business.

There are a lot of small 12v lighting units (often used in interior design) that you can use to light the interior of a car. You can create your own little mounts so that you can tape or clamp them in various parts of the car. You can get dimmers for the lights or wave a small flag across the to create the required effect, You could also use 12 v fluorescents and use colour correcting gel on them. On one film I shot we rigged a slave 12v car battery in parallel to the car's own battery, just to keep the strain off the car's system. The Kinoflo car kit is great of you can afford it. Best keep the lighting levels as low as possible, so that the outside street lights register.

It's extremely common for a two man documentary crew to carry a basic lighting kit. This usually consists 3 or 4 lights usually, around the 500 watt to 800 watt (1000 watt units in the US) range. One man news crews also often carry a light 2 or three light kits, usually they don't use them but they carry them for interviews. Our local community TV station's director/camera people working as a one man crew take 3 x Arri 300 spots fitted with 500 watt bulbs; a few of them take a small Chimera. You don't need an electrician or grip for a basic lighting set up and you can do some basic rigging yourself, just make sure that you've put a safety strap on and no one can trip on the cables (ensure that the cables a long enough, don't over stretch them, otherwise there's a good chance the light will be pulled over). If there's a chance of that happening you should find someone to oversee the areas at risk. Unfortunately, I haven't worked with an electrician on the lower budget documentaries for some time, only the higher budget docs have budgeted for one.

In clubs and bars I usually just use a few smaller lights and gel them to match the practical lights then use a soft fill light. This way if you catch one of your own lights in shot it doesn't look out of place. You want to be lighting at a level that the club's own lights do register, but your lights give shape and sufficient illumination to your subjects. That mightn't be a full exposure on the face, but something that fits the atmosphere of the location, small amounts of back light can often help. You need to be careful of cables and make sure that the lights are secure, there'll be quite a few people well under the influence and there's a good chance of them having an accident. If you put a light on your camera, you tend to find that people in clubs will play up to you. If you want to blend in more I'd use the pre-rigged lighting method.

The confusion is due to the f stop and the T stop. The Zeiss 10 to 100 zoom lens has a f stop of 2.8, but the older models of the lens had a T stop of 3.3 (the later models had a T stop of 3.0). For exposure the T stop factors in the transmission losses of the lens and so is more accurate setting. The 16 BL blimp has the T stop markings; the f stop itself is only useful for working out the depth of field.

The Black Pro Mist is best used at wider apertures, I'd be worried about the large depth of field that you get with these 1/3" CCD. cameras. Have you checked the effect on a HD monitor? If you're doing a 35mm film out I'd have thought you'd be fighting for all the resolution you can get from the camera. Reports coming out seem to indicate that the 35mm blow up quality seems to be very similar to regular 16mm, so any diffusion is going hit your wide shots. Personally, for a blow up I'd go clean unless it was a special visual effect.

You can frame the 1.33 aspect ratio using markings in your viewfinder (assuming that the ground glass in your camera has 1.33 markings - some switchable cameras have both Super 16 & regular 16mm markings) and shoot reference 1.33 frame markings for the TK to set up on. However, this is the same size as the regular 16mm frame, there is no advantage in quality because you're shooting with a Super 16 gate. Switchable cameras do this all the time, they just shift the optical centre & ground glass to match the format in use at the time. If you want to use 1.33, shoot regular 16mm if your camera can do so. If you want to have a black mask on either side of your 1.33 on a 16:9 you can put it in during post using either method.

You can shoot 4:2:2 on HDCAM SR as well as 4:4:4. The advantage with 4:4:4 comes you to do green screen and other effects in post production. The eye mightn't be able to spot the difference, but when working at the pixel level with 4:2:2 you've got one luminance pixel, because the chroma has been sub sampled, the colour is on two pixels, this makes it more difficult to avoid getting a line on fine details when compositing. HDCAM SR is also 10 bit as against the 8 bit HDCAM which is more more 3:1:1 than 4:2:2, so HDCAM SR is a big improvement on the older format, especially for big screen productions. Although productions without post production effects may very well decide to shoot 4:2:2 on the newer format. It's more a matter of the working out the requirements on each production and cost is one of the factors, but if it's effects heavy 4:4:4 makes sense.

Straight tracks shouldn't be a problem with the Steadicam, you can put down marks if required. The main problem outside tends to be wind, that came really upset things unless you have windshields. The best tool for the job depends on the style of shots you want to shoot.

Both could do the job, costs depend on the dolly or Steadicam model you want to use (the Steadicam model will depend on which format you're shooting on). The Steadicam may need a remote focus control fitted, which adds to your costs. How many shots are involved? Do you see the ground you've just moved across? What lenses do you want to use? Longer focal lengths require a more skilled Steadicam operator, but are less difficult for the camera mounted on a dolly using tracks. However, the Steadicam should allow you to shoot a lot faster, with less setting up time between set ups.