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Rick Gates

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Everything posted by Rick Gates

  1. Thank Ed, I started your suggestion and found it under something called "trick line" for theater applications. Thanks mucho! Rick
  2. Most of the fabrics from Matthews I purchase come with string ties. Occasionally, these get lost and I'm looking to replace them. However, I can't find a source for them. Are they a standard rope size?
  3. I"m being asked to hang a 12 x 20 silk from some trees for mediums and maybe medium wides. Some questions come to mind... Tie off to the trunks or branches? Standard trucker's hitch? Go with just the silk and rope, or stretch the silk on a pipe kit speedrail frame and tie that off? I'll be using a 12 x 12 on regular combo stands for closer shots and as the sun moves. Anything I'm missing?
  4. Thanks Stephen. I was a little worried about losing level, so it looks like I won't use the silk. I'll be doing some tests on Tue and Wed this week and I'll send along some shots. Thank you both so much!
  5. I think I'll take your advice and bounce something bright off the ceiling. I have a 600D and 2 300Ds. I'll try putting them next to camera and bounce them off the ceiling to light the wides. I'm a little concerned about the far wall when I do this; it's painted white and might pickup some shine from the bounce. If I run into that problem, I might attach a 12x12, silk only, to the drop ceiling and bounce it off that. Anyway, if this doesn't work it might be time to rent a genny and bring in something bigger. It'll be my first time renting lights. Thanks for giving me a direction to follow!
  6. I'm charged with lighting a small classroom (30' x 20') for a film shoot next month. We are content with it being brightly lit from above since we're trying to make it look institutional. We've already determined that the cheap LED tubes in the ceiling will flicker and cause a slow vertical strobe across the image, so they will be turned off. But because the white, drop ceiling is so high (18'), the first thing that occurred to me is to mount 12 or so paper lanterns in the ceiling to get a bright, even light. We tested 300W incandescent bulbs, but the we're still not getting the intensity we want. Is anybody aware of any brighter, screw-in (e26) LED bulbs that would work? I tried larger, consumer, corn-cob bulbs but flicker and CRI are issues.
  7. Good point Doyle, since it's turned out I'm still having the same problem. I"ll try that.
  8. First terror, then success. I took Gregg's advice and the two halves of the casting fell onto my workbench! But that exposed the top third of the sleeve, so I used a pipe wrench to rotate it into place, screwed the casting back in place and viola! Good as new. Thanks Gregg!
  9. On a recent shoot, I had some rookies putting away the C-stands. These are Avenger stands with the separable turtle base. I did see some of the stands carried off without separating the base first. For some reason, the inner sleeve in the base got turned so that the hole in the sleeve rotated, and now I can no longer screw through it to secure the riser (see photo). My questions are: 1. Has this happened to anybody before? 2. How do you fix it? I've tried using a deep socket to loosen the screw at the bottom of the junior receiver, but I think I'm just loosening a spring that is likely to pop out. Thanks all.
  10. Wow, that's way thinner than my Avenger C-stands, which in SAE are 1 3/8", 1 3/16", and 1". The gobo arm on the C-stand is 5/8", same as a baby pin. Good to know. Thanks!
  11. I recently made a decision to try out some of Kupo's 3-way and 4-way clamps as a way to lower my gear footprint. The clamps wrap around the riser portion of c-stands and combos, and hold baby spigots and receivers and J-hooks and such. So I measured my stand's riser diameters to see where the clamps could fit. Turns out that the three risers on my c-stands measure (from bottom up), 35mm, 30mm and 25mm. And the risers of the combo stands are 45mm, 40mm, 35mm and 30mm . There's 5mm difference in diameter between each riser. But all my c-stands and combos are Avenger products. Is the 5mm difference standard to all c-stands and combos, or just Avenger?
  12. Gabriel, I'm not looking to rent, but instead to buy my gear. I decided to go with two menace arm kits as I already have the combo stands and speed rail. I'll hang a 300D with space light attachment from each. Thanks for the suggestions.
  13. Exterior at night, and under a tall mercury vapor lamp post in a parking lot. I will use 2 10' sections of 1 1/4" speedrail joined with the heavy Matthews connector, and secured to the combo stands with Big Ben clamps. Wish I could find an affordable truss system, but after looking around I determined I'm looking at several thousand $, even for one based on speedrail. We will sandbag the hell out of combo stands, and tie rope to each and secure to other vehicles behind the combos. I'll send pix of the final setup.
  14. JB Earl, it would be nice to do it all on the combo stands, and I know I wouldn't have to worry so much about safety that way. And getting them further out from the car is also good. But to also hang the 8x8 frame from the same goalpost? It sounds like you're saying that I could attach 4 ropes of equal length to the goalpost and tie them off to the corners of the 8x8 frame and have the frame hang down enough (like 4 ft) that the 300Ds get enough spread before they hit the diffusion. Is that about right? I also have an 8x8 "silk" that came with the frame, and I think that would provide smoother light than 1/4 grid. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll go this direction unless I hear of something better. Cheers!
  15. Oohh... I like that idea. He will be parked under a street light. That gives me 3 points. Thanks Satsuki!
  16. Not for bounce, for diffusion. Our plan is to hang the goalposts above the 8x8 and blast 3 lights through some 1/4 grid. We're looking for diffuse toplighting for the character who gets out of the car and looks around with a flashlight. I'm just trying to figure out how to suspend the 8x8 (aluminum frame) with 1/4 grid above the car without having 4 combo stands. An 8x8 frame is the biggest thing we have. Cool idea on how to hang a large bounce though.
  17. Hey all, I'm trying to figure out how to rig an 8x8 with some diffusion about 4 ft above a car. The plan is to blast 3 Aputure 300Ds into it from a goalpost constructed of 16 ft of 1" square tubing and 2 C-stands with mafer clamps. I also have 2 combo stands that can reach 18'. My only idea so far is to tie two ropes to the top of each combo stand, and tie these to the 4 corners of the 8x8 (and sandbag the hell out of the combos). But I would be remiss if I didn't check with all of you. So thanks in advance.
  18. The current on the battery is listed as 12 amps. It's a 14.8V battery, which is what the DC specs for the light says. Got a new light (Falcon Eyes 18TD) and new battery coming. The second I see it flicker I'm going to gaff tape it in place. Thanks guys.
  19. I've had trouble twice now, with V-mounts that don't quite fit snugly into light controllers, and when they move around they create a short that ruin the battery, and in this most recent case, the controller: https://www.tendrile.com/2020/8/5/pzwfzl077owncvntqsdlqo51k61vey This $150 battery is now toast. The mangled lead you see actually melted enough to pull the sleeve away from the controller with it. My question is "How have others dealt with this issue?" The best I can come up with is to gaffe-tape the hell out of it so it doesn't move around.
  20. I'm building a set for a 1940's era private eye office. It's for a film noir, which will be delivered in black and white. I've found a good, older door that I could use. But I couldn't find any period style windows in the local (Eugene), used building supplies stores. So I figured, what the heck. I could make my own window by building a simple wooden grid in a frame. Behind the window we'll stretch a silk and rear project a 1940s era cityscape. But my question for all of you is "Should I make it a real window with glass panes?" It would be much cheaper, faster and lighter to build it without glass. I know sometimes actors wear prop eyeglasses without lenses, right? Same idea?
  21. Greetings, I have a teleprompter from Listec. It's the type where a tray hangs in front to allow you to use your tablet to display the scrolling text. The Listec 15mm rods have 1/4x20 female sockets on one end, and the front tray screws into these. These specialized rods are several inches shorter than the rods I normally use on the base of my camera rig. So when I need to use the teleprompter, I have to break down my entire rig. What I'm searching for are either much longer rods that have a 1/4x20 female on one end, or something that screws together that provides the same thing. That way I could leave them on my rig all the time, and then just screw in the teleprompter tray whenever I want. Listec doesn't provide these rods, and I've looked through everything at B&H to no avail. Any ideas? Thanks, Rick
  22. Aha! That makes a lot of sense to me David. And of course, since the reflected eye light is at the upper end of the exposure, increasing contrast will really make the light pop against the pupil. To me, Tony Shalhoub feels more intense in the second shot. I'm also wondering if bringing up just the whites would do the trick without having to crush the shadows more. Off to Premiere (and possibly Resolve) to try this out. Thanks so much! This forum is the best.
  23. Wow David! That sets me back to square one. In the close ups I've shot so far, I can always see the shape of the light (a softbox or tube light or whatever) in the eye. I'm blown away that these all come from keys or fills. Here's a thought. I'm a very small producer and the largest light I have is an Aputure 300D II. Because I have such low powered lights I'm generally getting them in as close as I can to bring up exposure, which would allow the shape to show in the eye. Do you think it's likely that in Westworld the reason that we're not seeing the shape of the light in the eyes is because they are very powerful lights that are set way back from the talent? Thanks for any response. I'd love to get that same tiny point of light in the eyes but at an affordable price. Cheers!
  24. Though I know it's not to everybody's taste, I really like the small, hard eyelight used in Westworld. Particularly for the hosts (robots), I think it makes them feel colder. I'm working on a short production that will be shot entirely at night, and I'd like to do something similar. Usually, my key or fill serves as an eye light. However, in the following images, I'm not certain the key or fill is the source of the eye light. At least it doesn't look like it. Any idea what they're doing? Thanks as always for the collective wisdom.
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