Ken Minehan

both of you guys make a lot of sense. i do understand what you mean. I guess the "commercial look" that the agency guy is referring to is the very slick, saturated, heavily graded images often seen on hand phone commercials. And yes i think he is talking about the look of commercials shot on 35mm. Our company here in singapore do mainly corporate videos with some TV commercials. I try very hard in most of my corporate shoots to try to give that slick look, but i fall short some where. For some reason it keeps looking like a corporate video. How can i improve? I realise that is a very broad question, but i would love to hear from other DOP who infuse the TV commercial feel in to Corporate videos. If people have a corporate reel, i would love to see it too. Thanks Ken Minehan

Great wotk. It's really beautiful stuff. How did you get you HVX to shoot at 2fps. I have heard of people doing this, but i never worked out how. Can you show me, or send me a link to a site that can show me. Thanks alot. Ken Minehan

Hello guys. I was talking to a guy from an Ad agency the other day and he told me that he would like a very TV commercial feel for a Corporate video coming up. I understand what he wants, but i just wanted to ask you guys how does corporate videos differ from TV commercials from a visual point of view. Now days the shooting style of corporate videos have changed. People are shooting corporates more in the TV Commercial style. But the thing is, it is still very obvious from the shots that it is a corporate video. I showed him some of the corporate videos that we have shot that we feel is commercial like, but he says that it still has a very corporate feel. So my question is, how is the style different from corporate video to TV commercial. Is it camera movement? the colour grading? video concept? I understand that budget may play a large role in this conversation, but i would like to hear from other DOPs who shoot corporates in the "TV commercial" style, and how they best achieve "that look". ] Ken Minehan

With that been said, i dont think i will ever use gain to boost light. If the scene is too dark, the only option should be to light it. The only occasion i would use gain is -3db. I have used this before to help crush the black a bit. The redrock adapter does eat alot of light, but in this case, if you want beautiful depth of field you need to hire more lights. This is a compromise i'm willing to take. regards Ken Minehan

Hi Zul. Maybe you can tell me where your location is. I'm in Singapore so i may know it. If you want a defined beam of sunlight you will probaby want to take away the diffusion. I realise you want to use diffusion to blend 3 lights in to one, but with the diffused lights 1.5m from the subject, i dont think you will much of a beam. If you are using the a small tungsten kit for budget reasons, then maybe you can get in touch with Bert, from Berts Lighting house. He rents out a lighting truck for video shoots. Will cost you $500.00 SDG per day. This kit has all the small tungsten frenels that you will need, 1.2 HMI. 575 HMI, alot of clamps, tracks Dolly, Kino etc. I use this kit for mist of my shoots. If you want to add extra lights, like 2.5k HMi, 4k HMi, 10k HMi, he will give you a good deal. Just give him a call and see what he says. Also he is a good contact to have too. So back to your question, i think to achieve the look you want, i think you will need a bigger light source further back and smoked. Hope it helps Ken Minehan

From my point of view the nikon lenses looked better for some reason. Maybe it was the conditions i was shooting in. I opted for the nikon also becasue the nikon hasn't changed there mount for a very very long time. They have been using the F mount for about 50 years i think. So the lenses available on the second hand market seems to be greater. Canon changed their mount when they started the EOS range. So i think they discontinued their EF mount lenses. Sometimes it's very hard to get good second hand canon lenses. You can get the EOS mount but that uses the EOS lenses that does not have the Exposure ring on the lens. You can still adjust exposure on the camera, but personally i like the exposure ring on the lens. To answer your question, yes the canon does look good, but my personal preferences for the redrock is the Nikon Lenses. Ken Minehan

ok, i understand. Thanks for the reply. regards ken Minehan

Hi guys, i want to confirm something with you guys. When using a generator that has a limit of 60KVA, does that mean that i can draw 60,000w from it? thanks Ken Minehan

I agree. The PS Technik is Gold. Just wish i can afford it. Ken Minehan

I totally agree. i spent many frustrated hours working on the thing. Wish it came ready to shoot out of the box. Ken Minehan

Hi Andrew. I have a HVX202 (PAL version) and the redrock. So far i have tried it with the PL mount, Canon mount (also with a canon to contax adapter), and the Nikon Mount. After trying all theses mounts and different lenses, i found that the best image was produced with the Nikon lens. I do agree with Chris about some elements being poorly built. It seems a little rough around the edges. But for shoots where you have total control, ie films, short films etc it provides the video user a very beautiful DOF. I think for documentary work it would be handy to have a zoom lens. But I'm not too sure if the rod system of the redrock is strong enough for long zoom lenses, and also the mount itself is not very strong. For more information you can read, www.redrockmicro.com/forum The setting up of the redrock is extremely tedious. The redrock does not come ready to shoot out of the box. You will have to make alot of adjustments including the position of the ground glass. You have to do this because when you measure 6ft from the adapter to subject, and you set yuor lens to 6ft, it will not be in focus. I think this is the most difficult and annoying adjustment you will have to make. The adapter was initially not designed to be hard mounted to the camera. There was a rubber skirt between the adapter and camera. If your adapter is not at the perfect distance from camera you will not be able to get the image sharp from edge to edge (Middle of frame will be sharp but edges quite soft). Thats why they designed a hard mount that screw the adapter to the camera so the adapter is at a fixed distance. I bought this and it eliminated one of the problems. For me. i spent alot of time trying to perfect it, so it is working quite well for me. Once set up properly, i think you will be happy with the results. But getting your camera to that ready stage might take a while. There is another product out there that acts the same as the redrock adapter and is with in the similar price range. I have never seen it been used and have never spoken to anyone who has used it. I just happened to stumble across it. check out http://www.cinevate.com/ and see what you think. Hope i have answered some of your questions cheers Ken Minehan

Hi Jonathan. By attaching a ceramic socket, does that allow you to put in a larger wattage bulb? What do you think is the max wattage you can put in with the ceramic socket? And what is the max wattage before the lantern starts to discolour/burn? thanks Ken Minehan

For low key work do you think the HVX is ok. I love the camera personally, but in low key situations, you tend to get alot of noise in the darker areas of frame. I know that the Sony z1 has less noise in the blacks, but i'm not sure of the ASA rating. I would like to hear other peoples opinions too, cheers ken Minehan

As for the Digital Domain link, click on it, then go to reels, then click on matte painting. thanks Ken

yep. Thats right. As long as the screen is evenly lit and stretched out with no crumples fold marks you will be able to key out cleanly. If the sun is very directional you may get spill onto the ground in front of the green/blue screen. That means you may have to clean the shot before keying out. http://www.digitaldomain.com/ Check out the above link. This is Digital Domain's reel for matte painting. it has several clips within that has outdoor blue screen lit with natural light. You can still see a lot of spill but was obviously cleaned up before keying out. Hope it helps Ken MInehan

Yea i would probably go over head too with a soft light source. But i think i would also strategically place practicals around the room to create pockets of lights. Sometimes in situations like this i talk with my art director and he or she can help you. I have a scene coming up in a restaurant. I wanted to light with pools of light on the tables as if coming from the ceiling. Then my Art director asked me whether i would be ok with placing low hanging small china balls through out the room. I am shooting with the HVX as well with red rock adapter so my ASA rating is quite low. I would expect the small china ball lights wont do very much but my lights hanging from the ceiling will more so accentuate it. I can also dim the house lights to the mood i want. So to answer your question, yes i would go with a space light set up or a china ball set up. regards Ken Minehan

The above photographs of Wizard of Oz is very saturated. Is this due to the Stock? Can somebody explain Technicolour a little bit more. Is it a special stock or processing technique? Back in those days did they go through some kind of colour correcting process? ken

Hi. How powerful are the old Carbon Arc lights. If the ASA of the film back then is 3-5 they must need an incredible amount of light. Back then did they diffuse light very much. I've seen behind the scenes photographs of film sets back then and i see a lot of lights undiffused. But looking at Judy Garlands photograph in Davids post, the shadows seem very soft. David you mentioned that the softness is due to multiple lamps. If you increase the number of lights that are undiffused, that would still give you hard shadow lines right and also multiple shadows. I find it incredible that they achieve lighting like this back then with such a slow stock and hard lighting. regards Ken minehan

OK, thank you very much greg. It works like a dream. There is one thing though, do you get the strobing effect when it's shot on 50p. It doesn't seem like a clean slo mo. Or is this how it's supposed to be? The picture is slowed down, but the moving portions of the frame is a bit blurred. regards Ken Minehan

Hi, I did something like this before in a Navy Divers pool where they do scuba diving training. if i remember correctly the pool was of similar depth. We used a 2.5k HMI PAR. and punched it right on to the subject scuba diving near the bottom of the pool. The floor of the pool was light blue, so we got a little bit of bounce of the floor of the pool too. We were shooting with a digital Beta (roughly at 250 ASA). regards Ken minehan

I have a question about the wide shot showing the 6 houses. Would i be right in Assuming that the wide shot of the village is on the crane? I'm not sure how wide the shot is, but with 2 or 3 18k HMI on a cherry picker you can light the houses to simulate moon light, but what about behind the houses and beyond. Or is that framed out? Wouldn't that look like the houses are obviously lit, rather than moonlight spreading everywhere? Or will the 3 18k HMI be enough to cover the entire wide shot? I always wandered, about lighting night wide shots. regards Ken Minehan

Hi guys, i found this site about timeslice. This guy uses 60 cameras (i think) which he says gives him around 2 seconds of footage. You can click on an example clip on the below link. They show you photos strung together before the post work, and the photos strung together after post work. The thing i'm confused about is, how do you get a smooth 4 second clip with 50 cameras? Thanks Ken

Hi guys, i have a question for you with regards 60p (where i'm from 50p). After you shoot 720p60p, and you bring it in to your FCP, do you have to make adjustments to your sequence setting? If so what are they? Are you guys shooting with the firestore or p2 card. Thank you guys Ken Minehan

Just out of curiosity, did you make this rig yourself? Do you have to rent this kind of set up? How much is it to rent? What is the software used to fire off the cameras simultaneously or at different timing? Thanks Ken

how did you do that. Is it just a matter of aligning the cameras closer together for the faster frame rate and space then out for the slower rate? 50 DSLR's will only give you 2 seconds of footage right? regards Ken Minehan