Frank Hegyi

Yup, you're making it too complicated. It's just key to fill (as far as I've always understood it). Key 100FC : Fill 100FC = 1:1 Ratio Key 200FC : Fill 100FC = 2:1 Ratio and so on.

I will take these critiques of the cinematography reel as an artistic medium as a sign that I shouldn't overthink it.

That's good enough for me. Thank you kind sir.

Do you think this goes too fast? I did it with the music, but it might be too chaotic. I've watched it too many times to tell for myself. Thanks!

It looks good. I would start with a different first-shot. I think you have stuff in there that would make a better first impression.

This is cool. They definitely go all out with the light show. Quite the spectacle.

Cool thread! I find myself favoring square aspect stills as well. Don't know why. This was a 300 ft black spire (no one knows what it's made out of) that sticks up out of the ocean in Antarctica. Shot from about 2 miles away on a GH5 with a 100mm lens.

I'm in Boston too. If you don't want them, I'll take them.

Yup, a pictures worth a thousand words. Well be able to tell you whats up.

Unfortunately already own the tripod. But if I was buying a tripod today, I would definitely get one of those flowtechs. Luckily, anything I'd need to light will be inside with plentiful plug in power. I love those Quasar tubes, so I'm sure I'll be able to rig something up with them.

Good advice, thanks everyone. Here's some more info about the project so we can talk appropriate gear. It's a bit of an weird project. I'm basically gonna do a travel vlog about living at Palmer Station with a bunch of scientists doing marine biology research. The structure of the videos come from the vlogging, but the bulk of the screen time will actually be academic tangents about whatever I'm experiencing in the vlog. For example: me outside on selfie-cam in a blizzard - "Wow it's super windy here today. What causes extreme wind in Antarctica?" And that launches us into a mini lesson about how the ice sheet creates "katabatic winds" on the coast. The lessons will be part b-roll and part animation. I've got $10,000 for new gear. Most of the basics like tripod/audio/laptop I already have. Here's the whole list including everything I plan to buy. My instinct is to go GH5, since a good chunk of this thing is gonna be selfie cam, and I feel the camera could still handle everything else I want to do. Plus, I already have a GH3 and some m43 lenses. GH5 -6 Batteries -2 Battery Chargers -2 Fast SD Cards 256GB (capable of highest bit rate) -4 backup SD Cards 64GB (capable of lower bit rate) -1 XLR Hotshoe Adapter -Some kind of weather protection GH3 (backup camera, uses all the same accessories) Micro 4/3 Lenses -Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 -Olympus 12-100mm f4 EF Lenses -Sigma 18-35 f1.8 -Sigma 150-600 f5-6.3 -Speedbooster DJI Mavic Pro Drone -4 Batteries -1 Battery Charger -1 Controller -1 Personal iPhone -2 Micro SD Cards -ND Filter Kit GoPro Hero 5 -2 Batteries -2 Micro SD Cards -Small boom pole Tripods -75mm Sachtler Tripod -Small Manfrotto Tripod -Zhiyun Crane 2 Gimbal Lighting Kit -4 2ft Quasar x-Fade Tubes -2 Cardellini Clamps -2 Grip Heads -2 Baby pin tube clamps -1 Shorty GOBO arm -2 Rolls gaff tape -1 Jelly Roll -2 Stingers -4 100W Practicals -2 300W Hand Dimmers Audio -1 Shure Wireless Lav -1 Rode Videomic Pro -1 Sennheiser 421 Shotgun -2 XLR Cables DIT -1 Laptop -1 Backup Card Reader -1 16TB Raid Drive -4 4TB Portable Backup Drives

Hey everyone, any tips for shooting in remote locations? I scored a gig shooting some educational videos in Antarctica for 6 weeks. I've shot abroad once, but never anything like this. The temperature where I'll be is actually pretty temperate (slightly colder than winter time Boston), so I don't have to worry about extreme cold breaking any cameras. I'm more concerned with something breaking and not having a backup. There's no mail delivery to the station. My second concern is that I'll be shooting on a lot of small inflatable boats, which I've never done before. Any seasoned travel shooters out there with pro-tips? Have you ever been on a long trip and wished you brought x, y, or z?

I don't understand all the hate for the iphone. The look is totally unique. Break the tyranny of beauty! Sometimes ugly is better!

Hi everyone, I'm shooting a short this weekend, and the director recently decided that he wants to have the actors improv a lot of the dialog. A big portion of the film is an intense argument, so there will be a lot of movement, stepping on lines, etc. We've been prepping this as a single camera shoot for about a month, but now we're worried it won't cut together if there's too much variation between takes. My first thought is to trade our Varicam LT for 2 GH5s and cross cover the dialog. What do you guys think? Is there any way to cover chaotic improv with a single camera?

That makes sense. Thanks everyone.

I bought a couple 2ft quasar crossfade tubes. I tried plugging a single tube into a 300W dimmer from home depot that I use for practicals, and the tube acted all crazy. It would dim down for a second then come back up, then flicker, turn off, etc. I messed around with it for a while and randomly figured out a way to fix it. It acts normal when the tube and a 100w incandescent are both plugged into the same dimmer. Any ideas why this would happen?

Crisis avoided. They paid up this morning. Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Yeah, we'll see how it plays out. That might be true.

I won in small claims court against a landlord in my younger days. In order to get him to pay I hired a collections attorney who took ~15% or something like that. The attorney figured out where the landlord worked and took a percentage of his paycheck every month. Then I got a series of small checks from the attorney over the next couple years.

They owe me a little over $1,000, so enough to sue in my world, but still under the $5,000 limit in MA. As far as proof of work, we didn't have a signed contract before the shoot, but I have an email chain offering me the gig. I have all the call sheets from the week. I have footage from the last day. I have the invoice email chain (which is 30 emails long at this point), where they describe multiple checks being lost in the mail. They've never claimed that they don't owe me the money. So I think I have a sufficient paper trail. I'm not sure if they actually have money to pay. They seemed legit while I was working with them, but there's no way to know what kind of financial health a little indie production company is in. Even if I win and they refuse to pay, I'll hire a collections attorney who will probably take most of the money, but at that point it'll be more about the principal of the thing. Does that make sense? My one big question mark in this: The production company is based in California. I live in Massachusetts. And the shoot was in Rhode Island. So I'm not sure where to file the claim.

Hey guys, wondering if anyone has any experience suing a former client over an unpaid invoice? I did a shoot ~6 months ago, and the client has continued to give me a waterfall of excuses over why they haven't paid yet. I told them that if I wasn't paid in the next week, I'd be filling in small claims court. Any advice?

When shooting docs, the most important things are: Audio: Don't buy anything without XLR inputs. Focus: The larger the sensor, the harder it'll be to hold focus. A sharp 4K sensor doesn't matter if you can't keep it in focus. Battery Life: Don't buy anything that can't make it through a 60min interview on a single battery. Zoom Lens: When you only have one chance to shoot something, you won't have time to change lenses. Low Light: Being able to shoot at ISO 3200 is very useful. If I were you, I'd look at either a GH5 with the XLR module, a used Canon C100, or a Canon XF400. The XF400 has Canon's incredible touchscreen auto focus and a super long zoom lens. If you're just getting into film making for the first time, those two features will be super useful.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I like the handtruck + applebox idea. Definitely gonna try out that. Someday I'll buy a converted magliner. Someday...

We just have to survive another 50 years. Then we'll have DNA archiving that'll last for 10 million years and save all the movies ever made on something the size of a thumbtack. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room

How do you guys move c-stands around? If I had a proper grip truck/van, I'd buy a proper c-stand cart, but I need something that can collapse down into my little Kia Soul. My go-to rental is a junior magliner, but I did a corporate interview last week where I had to cart 6 c-stands and a bunch of sand bags a couple blocks and up a tiny elevator. The stands were able to stack on the top shelf of the magliner, but it was very awkward. There must be a better way.