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Michael Lanham

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Everything posted by Michael Lanham

  1. Hi, Looking to pick up a Sony F55 with raw recorder, anyone got one ideally in Europe they would like to sell?
  2. Awesome! Missed this! Thanks for making the .cube Leon, look forward to giving it a test! How did you make it if I may ask?
  3. A very very good point Phil, it seams that a meter and a clear monitor which allows you to feel confident when going into post is the most important thing, but that being said the time when a accurate monitor will be the most use is while working in rather consistent lighting conditions, like on a stage or working on interiors. In such conditions a 500 nit monitor like the Flanders and having it close to set will at least allow for a consistent image on the monitor, but as you say this still wont be the same as sitting in a grading suit as the ambient light will play still play in.. I think my use of accurate might be unfair to a field monitor. The biggest thing for me is having a monitor where things look nice when they are nice and not so nice when not nice, speaking mainly of contrast and color, as I constantly find myself going home feeling like things did not look great, but then opening up dailies and seeing that things actually did look nice and that I spent the day kicking myself, when things actually where working. That being said that might be more of a mental problem than the monitors fault.
  4. Hi and hello, A few years ago while in filmschool I found myself knee deep in paper, printing pretty much everything and drawing/writing my way through note books while in prep faster than the writers could finish drafts. This is mainly dew to at my filmschool we very often had a fair amount of prep time and I enjoyed testing out everyway you could shoot and light a scene, just has it was a great way of learning and finding different things to test while in prep, but a lot of trees had to pay the price, I also spent a fair amount of time redoing things dew to rewrites and so on, so I set myself the goal of being paper free and to try and find ways to automatize rewrites and changes, just to save time. So the end goal of prep for me is to end up with a cinematography bible, which consists of the script with story notes/turning points and so on, floorplans, shotlist and sometimes a storyboard and rough lighting plan. There are ofcourse other documents, but this is what I share with the crew and hope that they read so that we are all on the same page and what for me took the most paper. Through figuring this all out I have tried many ways and am still adjusting it all to different projects, time restraints and budgets, but this is how I normally start and then adjust from here. Shoots with fewer drafts: For small shoots I base myself of Scriptation, here I can make my notes and then use shotdesigner to do the floorplans and shotlist, I also make. note of all special equipment and a note of the idea of the lighting, so that the sparks also know what we are going for, before taking screen shots and adding them into extra pages in scriptation which I can place freely in the script. I can then scrible lighting ideas and a rough plan into scriptation, great thing about this is I can do it on a layer which I can keep of the bible I give to the main crew, but can turn on for the lighting crews version. Pros of this workflow is that if the script gets updated I can easliy move all the notes into the new draft with the click of a button and its all quick and easy to make notes and so on. Down side to this is any updates to the shotlist and I have to add in a new screen shot manually which can be a bit of a pain, atleast on shoots with a fair amount of prep and you keep making changes as the script evolves and things are not locked before you start prep Shoots with more drafts: For bigger jobs I use the same tools as for shorter jobs, I just add Indesign to the mix, this is purely for the abilitys to link attributes to file adresses and have them auto update. What I do here is set up a folder structure with script, floorplans, shotlist and so on, then make an indesign document which is linked to the files in the structure and set up the lay out. Now when ever a file is updated I just rename it to the "standard" name I have given to say the script and drop it into the folder, it then replaces the previous file and indesign updates the document to now include the lastest script. I then export a new draft of the "bible" which is then opened in scriptation and all my notes quickly transfered to the new draft. So its still not automatic, but when a 90 page script is updated and you have done an new run through with the director and changed the shotlist a few places, its great to spent 5 minutes updating the whole bible instead of 3 hours moving things around and trying to remember whats new. This is of course not something I always get to do, and this all takes time, sometimes a note book or just scriptation with an extra page blank page between each page of script with rough floorplans is all there is time for, but I have found especially when working with crew who don't speak the same language or with bigger crew where you can't always share what you are thinking its a great way to distribute a plan and keep on top of updated scripts and shotlist drafts, and also a great way of working through the film and letting it get into your head, I must admit that the amount of time I actually look at the bible on set is close to none, mainly because in making it you actually end up remembering a lot of it, so all you actually end up doing is skimming through it in the morning and thats enough to remember it all. Hope this was interesting, I know people prep in a thousand different ways, but this is mine if its of use to anyone awesome, if not oh well! Would love to hear how the rest of you solve this if anyone else is willing to share!
  5. Thanks for all the replies guys! Great to hear some real opinions not just spec sheets! I will give the Flanders and TVlogics a look, hopefully the lockdown here in Norway will soften up soon and it will be easier to have a look at some actual units.
  6. Thanks for the reply Phil, This is very much what I found myself, but are there any really accurate field monitors? Or just over par. I find the constant change in monitors and being told what is accurate very challenging, so having something you know is accurate and can compare everything else too would be amazing. I never really operate of a monitor, so the brightness for me is not the biggest selling point.
  7. Hi guys, I am currently looking for a smallish monitor to own and use as a reference, I have previously stuck with a trusty meter and skeptically looking at TVLogics, Alexa viewfinder, SmallHD 702 and other monitors from rental houses which never match each other and never are the same unit twice, but have finally started looking into getting a monitor which can always be the same and which I can calibrate and trust along side my meter. I have had a look at the offerings from SmallHD, Flanders, TVlogic and have landed on the Atomos Shogun HDR as possibly one of the best options in the image VS feature balance. The main pros being: - 100% Rec709 color and P3 - Easily calibrate-able. - High brightness - Recording possibilities - HDR possibilities for future proofing, but it being a 8bit + 2bit FRC monitor I am not sure how trust worth this will prove. - Not crazy expensive Anyone else use a shogun as a ref monitor and care to share some experiences? Or other monitors that they swear by?
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