imran qureshi

Always see these colour key charts stuck on the EVF. I imagine it's either lens info or talent info?

Wondering if anybody can educate me on what its used for and how it attaches to the view finder? looks like a sticker 

Is it an online template? seems like the same layout used in every production -

Thanks!

Sorry I couldnt find a better picture but you can just about see an example on the viewfinder here;

 

 

On 9/6/2012 at 6:29 PM, Paul Curtis said:

Thanks Ari, was hoping to find something UK based but i think i've found a solution.

 

Appreciate the reply!

cheers

Paul

Hi Paul,

having the same issue, I cant find anything mitchel to 75mm in the UK. May I ask what your solution was?

thanks

Hello all,

I am focus pulling in a one take music live session. We can do multiple takes.

We are going to be shooting wide open on a 25mm DZO vespid prime lens at t2.2 (will close down accordingly if we end up needing a deeper stop for focus). Sensor is 35mm (canon c300mk3).

The subject is stationary but the camera starts off wide and tracks forward to a close up. The move will be entirely handheld. I will be using a remote follow focus (nucleus m).

I know that for a Dolly move, many focus pullers use the bolt in the middle of one of the front wheels as a reference point to place incremental marks on the floor either based off the lens markings or just 1ft incremental marks. 
 

In my case, as it is handheld on an easyrig…should I be using the operators feet as a reference to place floor marks?

I was originally thinking I could ask the operator to put a bit of camera tape on both shoes in line with the floor marks so that I could use that as a reference? (Ie, when the tape on either foot aligns with my floor mark, I know to hit my mark).

or should I just simply try to eye the floor marks so that its in line with the sensor plane throughout the move? 
 

any ideas greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

 

18 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

I’m guessing the fraction is the scene number over the set-up number for that scene, then the larger number is the total set-up number at that point?

But if that were true then both slates were for Scene 1 in the script… plus one slate is March 3 and the other is April 17, which has the 1/1 so my guess can’t be right…

Maybe it’s a series so the 1 above is the episode number and the number below is the scene number?

Thanks David.

 

It is a mini series with 7 eps so think that ep/scene is plausible but not sure what the slate number would be referring to ?

I was looking at BTS pictures from a British tv show I really enjoyed (‘This Is Going To Hurt’ by Lucy Forbes) and I couldn't understand the slates.

I am used to using ‘Scene, Slate, Take’ in Britain but also am familiar with the lettering that US productions do but have not see
n this method before..

 

 

Scene is written like a fraction, the slate has a very high number on it such as 912 etc.

 

could someone please enlighten me?

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Brian Drysdale said:

Assuming that you're using the stop reading to set lighting levels, rather than a meter that directly reads out the light levels in foot candles or lux, f2.8 is 2 stops from f5.6. That's a 25% difference compared to the other, since a stop is a halving or doubling, depending on which direction you're going.

It's common to keep the same f stop on the camera in order to have a similar look from the lens, so you have to adjust the lighting levels to maintain the contrast and depth of field within the scene. This is often done by putting metal scrims or ND gels on the light. Moving the light closer or further away can also be used, although that introduces other variables regarding shadows etc.

You will get a 4 to 1 lighting contrast ratio if you key with a light at f5.6 and the fill at f2.8 on your meter.

Hi, thanks for posting! It may be my wording but this isn’t what i’m trying to get at with my question.

I'm not asking what the difference between object A and B is.

I'm asking;

With the inverse square law in mind,

Let's say I meter object A at f2 and Object B at f4 (take one)

then I decide to do a second take where I increase the output from my keylight and meter object A at f4, does that now mean that object B is f8 as you would expect?

my question is about how light output affects fall off.

Hope this makes sense.

 

 

41 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

It was shot on tungsten balanced color negative and being on stage, likely tungsten light was used, but I don’t know if any blue gels were used to cool off the light. “Sleepy Hollow” for example shot a lot under tungsten space lights and added the coolness in post timing.

 

Thanks!

6 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

I’m sure there is some green in the paint job - green is one of those colors that turn olive brown in warm light / timing, but cyan in cool light / timing. It also has the advantage of being opposite the magenta in skin tones so easy to separate when digitally color-correcting.

Thanks David!

Do you reckon that they have purposefully lit the actors with light that is closer in kelvin to whatever the camera is rated at and left the background to go blue/uncorrected?

or 

Do you reckon they have have just lit the entire scene with cool light and then separated the green in the set design from the magenta skin tones and accentuated the difference in the grade?

Cheers!

Here is the full scene:  

 

I really like the separation between the skin and the green surroundings as seen here;

 

 

 

 

 

I know there are many ways to achieve this but I'm wondering if anyone can give their opinions on if they think this was done with production design/grade/light or a mixture of all of them in this instance?

 

I would have assumed that there is some underexposed uncorrected daylight source outside the windows creeping in and then they have keyed the actors with a soft source that is closer in kelvin to whatever the camera is rated at. The uncorrected daylight is then shifted green in the grade. This look is also reinforced by the production design because the walls probably has a green tint anyway.

 

However,

 

There are a lot of images I have found on google from this scene with a completely different look. I don't know if the film has more than one colour grade because I can't find any information to confirm that. 

It doesn't look like the production design itself has much green, more warm brown colours. I also can't really tell if there is a different in colour temperature between the subjects and their surroundings or not? 

 

 

This may be unhelpful but this is the only behind the scenes I could find from this scene, it shows some of the lighting but they aren't very good pictures I'm afraid;

 

 

Love to know any thoughts on how this look was achieved. Thanks!

 

They look as if they are floating, I assume they are clamped into something on the walls but could anybody expand on this? would be super useful to do this on location.

To clarify I am talking about the two lights I have circled in red, not the light that is articulated on the junior boom.

Thanks!

 

 

1 hour ago, Ed Conley said:

Balance is not the issue:

The issue will be possibly bending the steel tubing if you go over the 10kg max weight at max extension. For a sliding boom like the 650 a bent extension will need to be replaced as it will not slide in to the other extension once it gets bent.

Same as a bent riser on a stand.

Menace arm set ups are great because there are no sliding extensions.
 

 

good point about the bending and not being able to slide back in.  Thanks!

I am planning on building a menace arm out of pipe like this in future, but the parts are sometimes hard to come by in the uk, not impossible though so ill just keep on the look out. Till then i’m going to be using the junior booms, hopefully it will be okay with balancing the 5kg lights. 
cheers!

24 minutes ago, Ed Conley said:

We put about 5kg on the end of the Superbooms regularly and those are rated a little less in capacity.

You'll be fine with the 650 Jr. boom.

The counter weight that comes with the 650 boom will work good , no additional weight needed.
 

Thanks!! To confirm for future reference, if the counterweight that comes with the boom is not enough (lets just say just in case), is it okay to keep adding counterweight until proper balanced is achieved even if it goes over the 10kg payload or would you recommend to stay within 10kg near enough all together (counterweight and lights combined)? 

On 9/14/2021 at 12:08 AM, Phil Rhodes said:

There you go, Imran - Ed's the guy to ask about this stuff. What were you proposing to do, exactly?

I want to boom a 5kg light on this boom arm at maximum extension but I would need to put around 15kg or so of additional counterweight on the other end (a guess) at maximum extension. 
 

as the max pay load is 10kg, I was wondering if this is safe. The people I have emailed at avenger seem to be giving mixed messaging, i think maybe the people doing the costumer service just aren't sure. 
 

I spoke to two different working grips and they said that the counterweight wouldn't count towards to max pay load as the counterweight would only help the pin strength. So I think I'm probably good to go but if anyone knows for sure that would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
 

 

15 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

Hmm. I suspect you're right, but it instinctively feels like 40 kilos on the end of that arm is an awful lot (that's a sturdy child!). Your best answer will come from the manufacturer, or maybe the distributor. 

Send an email about it, I'd say. Or call a gaffer who has some.

This is true, the minimum extension is 163cm and says max pay load is 40kg.

Ill have to ring manfrotto/avenger on Monday, thanks!

So I am thinking of buying an avenger d650 junior boom.

Its chrome steel silver and extends 300cm long.

The max pay load at minimum extension is 40kg. The max pay load at maximum extension is 10kg. I am wondering if this max pay load refers to everything on the boom (light and counterweight on the other end of the boom) or just the light?

 

I am hoping to boom an aputure 300dmk2 with a lantern, roughly its just under 5kg. If i was to mount this on a boom arm fully extended I would estimate that it would take around 25kg of counterweight to make that balanced and stay horizontal. (This doesn’t take into account the clamping force on the pivot or other variables so it would probs be a bit less than 25kg).

 

The boom itself already has a counterweight of 6.7kg already attached, I assume this doesnt count towards the max pay load. So that means to boom a 5kg light, i would roughly need to have a bit under 18.3kg of counterweight.

 

This means all together (both counterweight and light on either end of the boom) i would be putting 23.3kg on the boom arm and thats well over the max pay load at maximum extension. 
 

This maybe leads me to think that the max pay load only refers to what you’re booming on one end? Because the boom would be pretty useless if the 10kg max load referers to both counterweight and light.

Wondering if anybody can shed some light on this? Thanks!

 

 

41 minutes ago, M Joel W said:

If I'm not mistaken 850 ISO is almost exactly 1/10th of a stop faster than 800 ISO. 857 ISO?

But I just rated my camera at 800 ISO. ?

So if you want to do things right my guess would be to correct by 1/10th of a stop. But in my experience the camera doesn't love underexposure and most photo lenses are slower than their stated f-stop so I just set my meter to 800 ISO and went with it. ?

Edit: I don't really believe in ETTR but I do believe in slightly overexposing some cameras. I dunno, I don't shoot much anymore. I think you can find online where different cameras put middle gray and different log profiles place it quite differently. I really like the Canon Log image from the C100 a lot but do find the codec a bit thin in the shadows sometimes.

Ahh if it is 1/10th of a stop faster that is my answer! Thanks

16 minutes ago, M Joel W said:

Shot at 850 and metered at 800. The 850 ISO setting always seemed a little "off" to me. With the internal codec, shadows sometimes got blocky, and it was safer to overexpose than underexpose. And that is such a trivial difference anyway.

I suspect most  people using these cameras are overexposing more often than not. There's a whole school of thought (ETTR) that encourages it, but I don't buy into that. On the other hand, I used to rate the F5 around 800 ISO or 1250 ISO instead of 2000 ISO too.

Thanks! Its interesting because I am wanting to expose to the right as I feel its useful for my c100 (its a camera that likes a lot of light) but first I just want to ‘calibrate my meter to my camera’  (make sure my meter’s middle grey and canons recommended ire for middle grey in Clog’ is the same).

 

I guess i dont really need to know how to compensate for 50iso, i can just meter it at 800 and just use exposure compensation till the meter gives me what I want. I just thought it might be something useful to learn though and cant find much info on it online!

6 minutes ago, M Joel W said:

When I had a C100 I just rated it at 800 ISO. 

Do you mean you shot at 800 iso or do you mean you shot at 850 and metered it at 800? Cheers

850ISO is the base iso on my camera where I get the most dynamic range.

The issue is that my light meter only has 800 ISO and not 850 ISO.

I can use the exposure compensation on my light meter (i can adjust by 1/10th of a stop at a time) to try and sort this (I hope) but I am not quite sure how to work that out,

Wondering if anybody could help me sort this issue out? Thanks!

 

 

On 4/11/2021 at 7:17 PM, Satsuki Murashige said:

I don’t think the Mambo Combo legs are going to fit unless you skinny them up. You could shove one of the legs into the hedge, as long as the ground is solid.

That said, I think it would be smart to reappraise your approach based on what’s available.

- Is the light supposed to be sunlight or a street lamp? If the latter, can it come from below? 

- If the former, is there a nearby building that you can get permission to light from? Or can you shoot it during the daytime? 

- If not, can you find another location that is easier to light? If the blinds are closed, then can you just paper the windows and have them glow out? 

That sort of thing. 

Thanks!

Update, I gaffer taped 216 diffusion to the inside of the windows and then tried again but this time placing the light towards the far right window frame and then having a second light towards the right and got an effect I am relatively happy with. This was done at about 2am with the lights still uplighting below the window. I think it will take a bit of adjustment to get the dark spots right (most of it is just the window frame so that happens naturally anyway during the day) but I think it might work with a bit of luck.

 

 For a student film, I am trying to rig an Aputure 300d mk2 with the light dome to shoot through a second story window. The only stands I have are 13 foot high but the windows are  roughly 17-18 foot high. Here is a picture of me attempting this with the 13 door stand;

 

 

Here is what it looked like in the room;

Obviously this isn't what I'm after but I am thinking if I gel the windows with 216 diffusion and have the light shining down in the top right corner it may look convincing with the blinds shut fully? I'd need to test but any alternative ideas would be great.

I would need to rent a Mombo combo to get the light that high but the issue is that I have got a very tight space to work with on the ground. 

I only have 42 inches of width to place stands on the ground due to a hedge behind the house so I dont know if I have enough room for a mathews mombo combo with the legs spread out. Could anyone confirm this? I don't have access to be beyond the bush/fence.

 

The goal is I want to make it look like daylight coming in the window. Any suggestions much appreciated. 

 

Many thanks!

 

I want to mimic light coming from the shop window to the right of this frame, i doubt that the shop light (Co op) is exactly 5600k. I am wondering what gel I could use on my 5600k led lamp to match the co op source?

 

any suggestions much appreciated,

thanks!

 

1 minute ago, Phil Rhodes said:

...yeesh. Is this a film production course or a film theory course?

Its a film production course. I have an extremely dim view of the course to say the least but not sure if I should expand publicly just in case haha

for the equipment its useful I guess.

On 3/16/2021 at 7:01 PM, Phil Rhodes said:

OK, fair enough.

I get what you mean about things being US centric the second you start asking about film stuff. I'm in Essex, which is the also the dark side of the moon as far as film and TV goes.

You may have read up on this, but for the sake of completeness, the tube size thing comes from US pipe schedule standards. If something's "pipe" it's generally specified in terms of its inside diameter, whereas "tube" is often specified in terms of outside diameter. It just happens that speedrail was based on schedule 40 pipe, and schedule 40 pipe has a 0.140" (3.55mm) wall thickness.

...yes, it's daft.

But anyway, you can tube from that supplier in a huge variety of sizes and their prices are pretty decent, though watch out for delivery; if you're going to need a bunch of stuff, get it all at once. I don't know how suitable any of it is for any particular task. Beyond that all I can say is take care; build it in the back yard, shove it, see if it falls over. Imagine how it might fall, imagine the thing taking a chunk out of someone's eyeball.

If you're a film production student can the university put you in touch with someone who's experienced in this, maybe get them to come in and give you and go through the dos and don'ts at least?

Don't skimp on sandbags.

P

I think I will probably leave the pipe boom/menace arm until i either get the exact size of schedule 40 speed rail that goes with the kit some how or just save up for a mathews mini max or something of the like, although its definitely too expensive for me at the moment.  Shame though!
 

The goalpost rig I shall go ahead with regular 48.3mm scaff tube and construct it in the garden and make sure its safe as you say, thanks!

in terms of my university, in all honesty I have tried many times to ask them for help but my film lecturers don’t really know what these rigs are or anything about grip so not a huge help so I suppose the internet/books is all I have at the moment untill i make some contacts but thanks very much for the advise!

 

 

1 hour ago, Phil Rhodes said:

I suspect it's pretty obvious that's enough to hurt a lot. I might hesitate to do that. The amount of torque generated by a 20-kilo weight on the end of a long arm like that is huge.

That said I do understand the desire to get light overhead. I'm always more convinced by goalpost setups; a piece of tube between two stands. The torque is handled better, though it takes up more space.

On the basis we've never met and I've no idea of your experience, I'm not entirely comfortable recommending you put a 20 kilo weight over someone's head. It's all fun and games until there's blood running down someone's face. Is there any chance you could at least get some qualified help in? Where are you, roughly?

I am also constructing a goal post rig but thought as I getting the scaff tubes anyway, I may as well invest in a menace arm kit to have as another option.
 

I’m based in Leicester and I'm a film production uni student soon to graduate.

Right now I'm just researching, I wouldn't go ahead with it unless I had confirmation it was safe by someone qualified. 

I should add as well, im not working on anything specific, I just wanted to have a solution generally to hide backlights from above for wide shots for whatever I'm working on. 

 

its a slightly frustrating experience though because I don't really know anyone so just relying on the internet and most is US centric stuff.

thanks!