Michael Bober

Thanks to Gareth and all the contributors on this forum. It may prove to be a treasure trove far into the future. I have not only read it several times but joined cinematography.com to be able to post here. I started shooting 16mm time-lapse in 1980. My first attempt was with a nail taped to the motor on an Arri 16S. This was "rigged" up for me by the special effects supervisor at the company in LA where I had just begun working. I hand cranked it as the sun rose over an archaeological site in New Mexico, and returned with remarkably even exposures at perhaps 2 fps. But I obviously needed a better solution. The Arri S was great at 6fps, but when I needed slower rates, nothing else I took into the field worked well enough. A few years later I met Tom Hoskinson, a superb still photographer and archaeologist who had also been trying to shoot time-lapse during solstice related light "events" at ancient Native American sites. Tom had experimented with various systems, none of which worked with any consistency. Fortunately, in 1983 (1984?) we met Dan Norris, who finally put us on the right track. Over the next couple of years we made numerous trips to his house in La Canada, as he was constantly developing and upgrading the controller. And... because we kept making mistakes. Neither of us were professional cinematographers. Dan was extremely kind, and taught us some of the subtleties of time-lapse (he recommended 1/4 second exposures for us) as well as the basic operations. After a long interval without shooting, I came back to Dan and got an LPC-90 for a Bolex Rex 4. I used it extensively in the late 90's. It worked like a charm. But once again I got into other aspects of filmmaking, and then out of filmmaking altogether. I am now trying to see if my system works. I have my notes, as well as Dan's original instructions. And of course all the information and links posted on this forum. But I am wondering, Gareth, how has your LPC-90 worked out for you? Did you solve the various power issues? Have you needed more than a single 12v battery? I rarely used the Pentax-- it worked well for certain types of shots but for the most part I wanted the light to change and darken or flare out. I don't believe I used two batteries very much, if at all. By the way, as I dug out my two Bolexes recently I spoke with Dieter Schaefer. Dieter and Dan were close friends, and I heard Dan defer to Dieter's expertise, many times. Dieter's company, Procam, is in Prescott, Arizona. Dieter is the #1 Bolex guy in the U.S., no doubt about that. Thanks again to all Michael Bober