Ken Minehan

sorry i made a mistake. please see below for revised version ND filter 1 and color correction filter B: 640 ASA ND filter 1 and color correction filter C: 400 ASA ND filter 1 and color correction filter D: 250 ASA ND filter 2 and color correction filter B: 160 ASA ND filter 2 and color correction filter C: 100 ASA ND filter 2 and color correction filter D: 64 ASA ND filter 3 and color correction filter B: 40 ASA ND filter 3 and color correction filter C: 25 ASA ND filter 3 and color correction filter D: 16 ASA ND filter 4 and color correction filter B: 10 ASA ND filter 4 and color correction filter C: 6 ASA ND filter 4 and color correction filter D: 4ASA regards Ken Minehan

I hope this helps. The ASA rating for the varicam is as follows ND filter 1 and color correction filter B: 640 ASA ND filter 1 and color correction filter C: 400 ASA ND filter 1 and color correction filter D: 250 ASA ND filter 2 and color correction filter B: 160 ASA ND filter 2 and color correction filter C: 100 ASA ND filter 2 and color correction filter D: 64 ASA ND filter 3 and color correction filter A: 40 ASA ND filter 3 and color correction filter B: 25 ASA ND filter 3 and color correction filter C: 16 ASA ND filter 4 and color correction filter A: 10 ASA ND filter 4 and color correction filter B: 6 ASA ND filter 4 and color correction filter C: 4ASA I hope you can follow this. sorry if it's confusing. regards Ken Minehan

would it be easier to get her to dye her hair back to the colour you want. it only takes a couple of hours to do. But i understand your pain. I have been on shoot where the actor decides to shave his beard half way through shoot. Why do they do that??? Surprisingly no one noticed the fake beard in the end. Ken Minehan

This could be a possibility. How low is your budget? If you're shooting in the bright of day, i think i might black out all the windows so you have control of all the lighting. Then for the the large window, can you green/blue screen it (if it's a tight room, blue would be better cos less reflective)? that way for the interior of the room, you can light it with tungsten practicals and soft ambient light. Later, you can comp in the Night skyline. This is just an option. What do you guys think? Ken Minehan

Hello guys. The strobe lighting sounds very interesting. I have never used strobe lights before. Will it create a flickering effect, or is it flickering so fast that the eye cant catch it? Is it very intense? Also, You would try to isolate the light only on to the face right? when the talent flicks her hair to enhance the shiny effect, how do you keep it from spilling on to the face? Thanks, these are just some questions i had. Ken Minehan

Just a question. You mentioned using the HVX and redrock adapter on the Glide cam. My friend asked me this the other day too and i wasn't sure if it would work. When shooting on with the M2 adapter, the image is inverted right. So you need to mount an on board monitor to view the image the correct way up. So after the adapter, lens, mattebox, camera, monitor and monitor battery is attached to the glide cam, what kind of weight are we talking about. can the glide cam take that kind of weight? Just a question i had Regards Ken Minehan

It really sounds like the Gain was on. chances are if the grain is very apparent it would have been Db 6 or 9. I have made that mistake before too. I feel this is a design flaw for the P2 camera. The gain button is in a place where it is easily bumped when moving around. So what i do now is, as Mr. Nash suggests, to set all the gain settings to 0. But sometimes i like to set one to -3 db. One of my CA from before has also blue tacked the switch so it doesn't get bumped. In post there is a noise/grain reducer. It may help a little bit, but you will still see most of the grain. Regards Ken Minehan

shooting in Singapore can be interesting at times. The weather can be a real issue. The other day i was on shoot, we set up for a wide shot in an open field, with a silhouetted tree in the back ground. We set up a 20 x 20 blue screen to comp in the children running around. So everything was set, i did three or four rehearsals, was about to roll when a down pour came out of no where. It was really very unexpected. My CA covered the camera with a plastic sheet, and took it in to the truck but everything else was saturated including ourselves. So rain is an issue in singapore. Also it's rare to get rich blue skies, you often get that white, grey hazy thing instead. Also it's rare to get a clean sunset. Before the sun descends below the horizon, it gets lost in a thick haze. Sometimes it's frustrating when shooting an exterior scene, when the sun is hitting the talents quite hard from one side. So naturally we set up a butterfly to soften it. But by the time we set up the silk, the sun hides behind the cloud. My gaffers hate me for that. haha. Basically the sun condition is forever changing. I am from Australia originally, and i think i was quite spoilt when shooting there. we used to get 12 hours of rick blue skies with nice fluffy clouds, and the air is so crisp. It's just delicious. But coming to singapore to shoot has taught me so much about outdoor shooting. I'm very glad came here. I haven't had much trouble with humidity yet. But we sometimes get the lenses and ground glass fogging up when we go from aircon to outside. I have hear that in the US the back focus the PS technik or the Pro 35 can change according to cold weather. Is that true? regards Ken Minehan

in the past 1 year i've been doing a lot of shoots on the HVX 202 (PAL version). I set my meter on 320 ISO on 25 fps. The latitude on this camera is not great. anything above 2 stops over will start to burn. But you can go around 3 stops under and still hold details in the blacks. But just beware the blacks have a tendency to go a bit grainy and milky, when shooting wide open. Generally i like to shoot on 2.8-4. If the DP likes to use Zebras there are 2 zebra settings. I like to set the 1st zebra settings on 75% and the 2nd zebra on 100%. I was told that 105% is the max before the image is burnt. so 75% and 100% are safe settings. Also for this camera, it's a good idea to get yourself Polariser, ND3, ND6, ND9. When shooting anything with the sky, i will always use a polar. The camera has in built NDs but i feel that sometimes it takes too much out. So by having your own NDs you have more control of the amount of light you let through the lens. The above mentioned settings is what i use, and it works well for me, but maybe other DPs have other ways that work for them. regards Ken Minehan

i have never tried this but it's food for thought. A very experienced gaffer explained to me the set up he used for lighting a day rain scene. he had 18ks back lighting the rain. This was a wide shot. He also said that it's a good idea to adjust the shutter angle so you can see the rain in more detail. What do you guys think. Ken Minehan

hello, this is a question for Mr. Nash or anybody else who can answer my question. Mr. Nash you said in your post, "using a 10K fresnel with two doubles in it to fill up a 12'x12'". What is "doubles". Is this just a lens to put in front of the light to double the spread? or is it something else? As for Kinos, i would never go on shoot without them. They are one of the most versatile lights i've ever used. bounced kino effect can be achieved with other lights, but the advantages of the kino flo, is that it's fast to set up, very soft and you can very easily use them as highlights and kickers too. Again this can be achieved with other lights. And since efficiency is the topic at hand, i feel that the kino is very efficient. It's not that expensive to hire, saves you time in the set up (ie money), and is very cool. But of course, the kino is not a very strong light, so the above mentioned is ideal for a closer up shots. For wider shots, i would use a bigger light against bigger reflective surface. regards Ken Minehan

the voltage has nothing to do with the bulb right, it has to do with the voltage it take to run the thing. Here in Singapore we run on 220 volts, i think in the US they run on 110 or 120 volts right. Normally it would state the required voltage. If it says that it runs on 220v and you use 120v, you will have power, but the output of the light will be very week, and i would think the colour will be off too. I'm pretty sure you can get a step up transformer for such a thing, but it may be very expensive. Your idea of getting a 2k and gelling it might be a safer and more logical option. especially if you're not getting a ballast. Ken Minehan

It sounds like a great idea. How much light does the projector give out. once diffused does the light spread out enough or is the beam still quite narrow? Ken Minehan

Hi Jonathan, i cant quite remember that scene in seven. Can you help explain it? So far what i've ofetn done for TV flicker is like what you said with the diffused blue light. I generally attach it to a dimmer. I haven't tried using different coloured gels. Tim, you set up looks pretty interesting. Hope it turns out well. Cheers Ken Minehan

On your recce take a good digital SLR with you. Sometimes i use Canon 30D or 5D for recce. In singapore we shoot at 24fps, so i set my camera to 1/50 shutter speed and take a couple of still frames for a rough gauge. Set your colour balance on tungsten and see how it looks. Then try a few different colour balances. If you have little experience, doing this on a recce can help you alot. If you want to correct everything so it looks flawless thats fine, but i would think on a documentary shoot you wont have the luxury of time. Anyway good luck mate. Ken Minehan

Hello guys. I had some free time the other day and decided to post up some behind the scenes photographs of some of the shoots i have done. The pity is i dont really have too many photos after 7 years of shooting. I hope to continue this and eventually keep a log of alot of the shoots i do. I would love to see other peoples sites too. Do you have guys know of any others. If you guys have a spare moment, you can check out www.shootingshoots.blogspot.com Cheers Ken

Thats a great tip. Thanks. Ken Minehan

Hello David, i was going through the lee filter after you mentioned the half soft frost. Is it something like the lee Half Hampshire frost? By the looks of it it wouldn't diffuse much light at all. Or is it some other gels that i'm not aware of. Also do you use the shower screen so the difference between the diffused part of frame is not too different from the undiffused, so as to not burn back ground? Ken Minehan

Hi guys, my company owns the HVX202 (PAL version). with the FS100. I am trying to work out how to shoot at 50fps. I have the recording setup at 720p/50p and the frame rate in the scenefile setting at 50 fps. I can shoot and it records but when i play back in camera i dont see the slow mo effect. Hope some one can help me on this. Regards Ken Mineahn

On the HVX200 you cant shoot with p2 and tape simultaneously. It's one or the other. I recommend you stay clear of the firestore. the P2 card is much more stable. I shot a indie feature with this camera last year and we used the P2 card. We had a guys whose job it was to dump out the p2 footage. So he had a laptop and 2 x 600gb external hard drives. This was enough to fit all the rushes for the whole feature. we had 4 x 8gb cards on set and we never had to wait for the download to finish. 2x8gb cards in the slot is actually quite alot of footage. especially when shooting drama. treat it like 1 can of s16. Greg has a good point too. watch out for that gain. What i normally do is to set all the gain settings to 0. because sometimes when moving around from set up to set up buttons accidentally get pushed. Once gain gets in to your picture, the blacks will look terrible. Ken Minehan

I tend to agree. Since this is a student film, i would save the money and shoot with the free DVC pro 50 camera. The money that you save can go in to more lighting or to the art department. This department often gets neglected on student films. And as a DOP on this film you have a lot to say in art department too. The DVC pro 50 colour range is 4:2:2. And i 'm pretty sure the HVX200 is also 4:2:2. If you decide to shoot with the DVCPro, then i recommend you use the cine lens adapters. The ENG lens will give you a very video feel. Also the HVX is 1/3 inch chips and DVC Pro is 2/3 inch chips. Both are good cameras, both are good options, but in this case i would save the money, use the DVC pro 50 and whack on the primes. Ken Minehan

I think the scrubs intro is very well done. It introduces the characters and the show very quickly and gets you back in the show before you lose your attention. Great concept. One question though about motion control. I understand the purpose of motion control is so you can have a camera movement from point A to point B exactly the same for every take. But when you start doing multiple passes, (shooting each take with a different actor), how do you get the actors in exactly the right position so it looks seemless once it is strung together in a sequence. In this case, is close enough good enough, or must the action be choreographed to perfection.? Ken Minehan

haha. Thats an interesting way to put it. Regardless of the limitations, i must say that it was a very fun shoot, and a great experience for me. Cambodia is a beautiful place, excellent place for shooting, the people are wonderful, and i was able to work with world class crew. it's always fun to work with very professional crews you can trust. Ken Minehan

Hello guys, i have a question for you guys or rather, i would like to know what you guys would have done in the scenario i'm about to give you. last week i was shooting a TV commercial in Phenom Penh Cambodia. We were shooting a credit Card Commercial. The concept is very soft, and beautiful, selling the elegent easy going lifestyle. My crew together with the camera equipment and lenses flew up from Thailand. These guys were excellent. I feel they were very professional, and the best crew i have ever worked with. I salute them. The lighting equipment was organised in Cambodia. Before i left Singapore for the shoot i gave them an extensive lighting list. When i arrived, i was told they have no cutters, polys, silks, grid cloth, sand bags, c stands, nets, clamps. The smallest lights been a 2.5kw HMI. Now at that point i got a little worried. For exterior scenes, the average f stop was about f45. that that was not so much a problem. We just ND down to get about 5.6, and the rest we can do in TC. The interiors were quite challenging. We shot the interior scenes in real shops, salons and banks. I got the production team in Cambodia to buy me some polys. But they were about 1tf x 2ft. so we stitched them together with wire to get about a 3ft x 6ft. Then i started boucing diffused light. This worked fine for general fill. I bounced the diffused 2.5 off a poly on to the main talent and back lit her 1 stop over (i feel now maybe i should have gone 2 stops over). In the end i was pretty happy with my results, and it was a very good experience. It taught me alot in making the best of a situation. What would you guys have done in this situation. Just wandering for next time. Regards Ken Minehan

hello. The HVX200 with cine lens adapters produce beautiful images. I only have experience with the PS technik and the M2 adapter, but iwould assume that the other adpters you mentioned would create a similar image because the recording system (HVX) will be the same. All the adapter is doing is allowing you to put on a cine lens and letting the image pass through a ground glass. I so far i have been happy with the images produced by both PS technik and the M2. Just a side note, please be diligent in checking the back focus on the adapter and make sure that it's turned on. Other wise you will get a very dirty image where the ground glass is visible. I think i read you cant shoot above shutter speed of 1/250. Because the ground glass will become visible. As for lens selection, get fast lenses. The HVX200 is rated at 320asa and the adpater will take out about 1 1/2 stops. When setting up the camera to these adapters make sure you do it the night before. If you have no experience in setting it up, it will take you ages. Especially the M2. You wanna be able to walk on to set ready to whack the lens on. I recommend you use the P2 card rather than the FS100 (firestore). I have had alot of problems with the firestore. It is very temperamental, somet imes it will record sometimes not. And the 4 pin 1394 cables that plugs in to camera from the firestore is very very flimsy. On one shoot one of the pins got bent, and as a result we wasted hours of time rectifying the problem. P2 card is a much more stable recording format. Haven't had any problems with it yet. Good luck mate Ken Minehan