Michael LaVoie

I was wondering if anyone has tried attaching the 60amp bates from a 2.5 to a 12/3 cable with a medical grade hubble and then plugging a 2.5 into a standard 20amp circuit. I've heard from some that is fairly safe but I'm just looking for further input. I'm new to HMI's and I was wondering about the magnetic ballast vs electrical issue as well as flicker issues. The HMI's are Desisti. Any known complaints?

I'm looking to add a commercial blanket policy over my equipment. I have basically about $20K worth of camera and lighting gear. Not much but enough to be concerned about if my van was stolen. Can anyone recommend a good insurance company to go with?

Just had an all exterior short film shoot in SW florida hours and hours from any nearby rental house. I found a local AV place and borrowed some speaker stands and then made a trip to Home Depot. Window screen material for nets. clear frosted Shower Curtain liner for diffusion and foam core from staples, white for bounce and black for negative fill. Total Grip budget was under $200 but I managed to keep a wide open aperture and a consistent quality and amount of light on the subjects just by adjusting the aforementioned elements. I will say that we were extremely lucky with very good weather. But I was impressed with how well the shower curtain and screen material worked. They've become permanent additions to my equipment package.

If the look the students are longing for is that of a feature film, then it's really a matter of accessories and not formats that they should be concerned with. Being able to shoot with a wide open aperture in DV requires a wide range of incremental ND filters as well as an understanding of how to alter the light falling on a subject and how to adjust background elements. This is what seperates a DP from a cameraman. It is being able to adjust the environment to your camera settings and not the other way around. Personally, I'd rather have a DVX100 with a mattebox and filter selection than a Varicam with just a lensshade. Some may say you don't need all that in documentaries but I disagree. It depends on the project really. Some documentaries are full of scripted material.

My biggest complaint right now is the way people mistake camera owners for DPs. I am often asked if I have access to this or that camera and if I don't it's almost as if my reel and my interview etc means nothing and I am dismissed. It's all about the budget and whether they can save money by getting a camera owner who will bring their camera and work for a rate that is about or less than the cost of renting just a camera. This is absurd. No one would go to a rental house and ask if the camera comes with a free DP.

Just came off shooting a 23 day interactive feature. We had mostly 12 to 14 hour days of 6 day weeks for four weeks. Not a lot of time for a 120 page script. Still we managed to get everything but that's only because the director had a detailed shot breakdown that would put any script supervisor to shame. Otherwise, I think we would have gone way over schedule. As long as the director is prepared or he/she has an experienced production team (A.D., Script Sup, PM,etc) you can easily do 5 to 7 pages a day. But the 35mm adaptor can really slow you down. We'd remove it when we needed to buy ourselves some extra time. It takes longer to light with it and longer to set up shots. Another time saving measure is block shooting where you shoot out a location but you do it in directions. Meaning you shoot several scenes at once in one direction and then turn around. This involves wardrobe changes and having actors jump around in the script and sometimes lighting changes but it definitely saves a lot of time. Not a lot of fun for the actors though.

You shouldn't get flicker problems from more recent CFL's unless you are using a high shutter speed. High frame rates may also cause flicker.

I think you're off to a good start. Open face units will give you the most light and force you to learn ways to control it. One easy way is to bounce the light. When you're bouncing it, it really doesn't matter if it's a redhead, blonde or a 2000 watt home depot work light that plugs into 2 separate lines. The key is to have diffusion ready on frames as well as flags and nets to then soften and darken specific areas of the image. I will admit that pointing these fixtures right at your subjects will often be tough to control. I'd have a lot of blackwrap handy. Remember too that clipping diffusion right to the barndoors on these open face units is not the best idea. It's better to purchase some empty 2x3 and 18x24 flag frames or gel frames and some partial 4x rolls of various grades of diff. 1/4, 1/2 and full and then pick which one is best for which situation. Cut them to the frame size and arm them out on C-stands at least a foot from the fixture. You'll find a big difference in the quality of light from a redhead that has diff on the doors than one that has it on a frame. It will also drop the intensity somewhat. The farther the frame gets from the source, the more it becomes like a flag. It both softens and cuts the light. Of course 4x4 beadboard and a jungle of cstands is not always practical in tight residential quarters. Clip lights are great for those situations in apartments at night but I wouldn't put a 250 in there. Even with a porcelain fixture. The Lowell pro-light is going to give off a much harder light than a clip light. Think of the pro-light as more of a background set light. Kind of a low-rent Dedo light. It's too hard to light people with unless you dim it way down and then you might as well use a clip light. Arri 150 fresnel fixtures however have a lot more control and I highly recommend those. You can put a 200 watt bulb in them. Arri also makes 300 watt fresnels that are far easier to work with than a pro-light. Great for backgrounds and as well as subjects. That's the best bet but it's not the cheapest. Hope this helps

I've been lucky and haven't had too many directors ask me to flatten out the lighting. I have had producers walk by the monitor and suddenly demand more fill. That's sometimes a hard situation. You have to work extra hard to make sure that you fill in areas without losing your contrast. Sometimes though, an untrained eye giving you commentary can make your scene better. They'll see things in a more generic way which is closer to how the audience will percieve it so I value all opinions, as long as they listen to reason and logic if I disagree.

I own a pair of 2K Mole fresnels, 1K broad colortrans, 1K babys, Arri 650,300,150's. China lanterns and softboxes. Plus a whole lot of grip equipment which is all neatly packed in a cargo van. Like some others here, I saw that I wasn't always able to rent everything I wanted on most films so now if I can't get everything I want, I bring my own stuff. I try and keep my rate from slipping below $200 and the package certainly helps in that area. Trouble is, I now have to offer everything that people can get from elefant or lower my asking rate to what elefant is willing to rent they're package for which is insanely low. Elefant is an eastcoast vendor but watch out. They may hit the west coast eventually. I'm currently shooting an action feature with the 100B and the Mini35 adaptor which is about 200ASA and I'm using all of my own lights. I'm finding that I may have to start thinking about either adding some HMI units or some 5K's. Most would say go for the HMI's but they're way more expensive used than a used 5K even with the additional electric gear I'd need. So I'm hitting the point where I have to say enough is enough. I'm not buying a cube truck and I don't like the idea of owning one light that costs $3000. I can rebuild a tungsten unit. I know nothing about the inside of an HMI nor do I want to. Normally I just ask production to rent a few HMI's in addition to what I have but that's not always easy to arrange and it opens up a can of worms once people start going to a rental house for one item. Suddenly they start asking for a quote on everything I'm providing to see if they can get it cheaper. I almost lost the rental of my camera to someone who was willing to rent an HVX with an adaptor for less. It's completely ridiculous how low everyone is willing to go now to make the credit card payments on their camera purchases. I'm glad I went the G&E route. Most of my gear won't depreciate that much. A mambo combo stand is worth the same amount of money 5 years from now. As long as it's in decent shape.

According to the folks at Reel-Stream the HVX200 actually has smaller individual pixels than the DVX100 in order to achieve HD resolution on the same 1/3 inch CCD. If you compare the image from an Andromedized DVX with HVX200 footage, you might have a cleaner image with better latitude from the former as it's 4:4:4 uncompressed. The plug-in is pricey however. But it's still cheaper than the HVX with P2 cards. I went with the DVX100B cause it was inexpensive and there was a good rebate and the Andromeda option is there to go HD with it if I need to.

Just wondering if anyone has encountered any weird issues when combining the Mini35adaptor and the electronic Squeeze function of the 100B.

I once used Radiohead and found out that I was picked to shoot a feature because the producer liked the Radiohead song I used on my reel. I have since been using less recognizeable indierock that accents but doesn't overpower the visuals. Radiohead type music is risky. It's used in a lot of films but on a reel it's hit or miss. I'm not sure what's appropriate for your reel or if you're specifically looking for royalty free music but I would suggest choosing a song that says something personal about yourself. Some might think that's a bad idea but when I look at reels I often wonder why people pick certain songs. The reels I remember most had music that I identified with. Royalty free music won't give you that.

I use a DVX100B. Barry Green in his book put a nice chart that tells you based on the digital readout of your zoom, what the 35mm equivalent lens would be. If I'm framing for S16mm, I use a Cavision viewfinder. It's really cheap just be careful. You get what you pay for and god help you if you ever need to send anything to them for repair. It could take months to get it back.

Rebecca Miller-Ellen Kuras, Whit Stillman-John Thomas, Wes Anderson-Bob Yeoman, Atom Egoyan-Paul Sarossy, Hal Hartley-Mike Spiller, Keith Gordon-Tom Richmond,

I have the same camera. I agree that it's registration is on par with a bolex. the parallax viewing is not however. It's a pain. Lining up the different crosses in the viewfinder with different lenses is tricky. Exposure is a 60th at 24fps I think. Mine actually runs at a fairly reliable 24fps. Not frame accurate of course but damn close. I've shot sync sound and matched it up easily. Not super long monologues or anything but standard dialogue is easy to shoot. So long as your far away enough that sound doesn't pick up the noise. There's not much point in trying to make this camera crystal sync as Kodak never made magazines for it so you're limited to 100 ft spools. There's also no standard accessories. When I was in film school I saw someone trick out a Bolex with every conceivable accessory and it was the size of an air conditioner. Not fun to use on a feature. You still need to rent an SR or XTR for your main footage. Unless it's a short.

Also, don't forget to smoke the theater so that you get a beam out of that flashlight.

In all fairness to the IRS, here's their rebuttle to the aforementioned arguments. IRS tax laws Each side in this argument seems to have their own take on the Internal Revenue Code and the issue of context and definitions of terms. It's unfortunate that there is this confusion. There are court cases won on both sides of the argument. Personally, I'd keep filing if I were you as there seems to be enough people who've already gone to jail for not filing. Still, the issue of the 16th amendment is one that gives me pause. The supreme court made a few notable decisions on the issue claiming that the amendment gave the gov't "no new powers of taxation". Although they said this, it's clear that the present courts don't seem to care and since they have the power to find you guilty of failure to file, you might be fighting a losing battle.

This issue of personal taxes for freelancers in the US should be looked into. If anyone has caught Aaron Russo's new documentary , America: From Freedom to Fascism, you are aware that the gov't and the IRS together have mislead the public for almost a century on this issue of personal income tax. There is NO constitutional basis for a tax on the wages of the average american living and working in the US. The term ''person'' in the internal revenue code is defined as an officer or employee of a corporation, or a member or employee of a partnership. Taken from non-taxpayer.org All federal tax forms are only applicable to the following circumstances: * Direct financial involvement with the United States government. * Payments made/received from certain federally regulated financial markets. * Foreign business activities in the United States. * Conducting domestic business in certain federally regulated businesses (Subtitle D & E matters). Form 1099 is for reporting payments made by a governmental entity to a person acting as an independent contractor to that governmental entity. It is not for reporting the money paid by John?s Shoe Repair to Vinnie The Plumber! Form W-4 is to be completed and signed by certain government employees, not by the workers at Fred?s TV Repair. Form W-2 is for governmental entities to report the wages they have paid to their employees, but it is not to be used to report the compensation paid to the workers at Joe?s Computer Repair. In fact, all ?reportable payments? [see §3406 and Federal Income Tax] relate solely to the four categories shown above. If what you?re doing is not within one of those four categories, it?s not a ?reportable payment?. What I've got out of all this is that a person's labor is his or her private property and you have the legal right to contract out your labor as you see fit. The wages you earn for yourself are not technically taxable. The problem is that people voluntarily comply with a process that is not intended for them when they file and as such make themselves liable for reporting inaccurate information. This entire process also violates the fifth amendment under which you have protection from doing or saying anything that might incriminate you. Most people have little choice in the matter as their employers force them to submit a SS# and as such, an "information request" is made and the IRS process is automatically forced on them. As freelancers and independent contractors, it is entirely up to us whether we take part in this extortion scam. People do get in trouble and go to jail all the time but a certain percentage take it to court and ask "Where's the law?" and are sometimes released when it is apparent to all that there is actually NO law that says you have to file. Unfortunately this depends a lot on the judge and whether he abides by the Supreme Court decisions made in 1913 which have never been overturned. It's a risk but standing up to a bully always involves risk. If you decide to file, please at least keep up with this issue and put pressure on congress to put an end to this scam once and for all.

For the most comfortable on set shoes ever I recommend these:Garmont

Last time I remember reading about anyone using chocolate gels it was on Lost Highway. A.C. did an article on the film. Might have some useful tips.

I just wrapped a short on the beach and we were shooting with a Firestore. Everything was going great untill the cable connecting the camera and firestore got snagged on some rocks and the 4 pin firewire connection at the camera end broke and shut us down. A six pin connection would have been much better suited for fieldwork. Hopefully on the newer model. But if we had a P2 card, we could have kept shooting.

Andromeda

If you purchased it with the servo lens then, if you are able to return the camera, I'd return it. Buy it again but just buy the body with no lens and then pick up the 16x manual lens. The lens that comes with the XL2 is worthless for doing any kind of cinematic work. There is zero control over it. Personally, I prefer the DVX. At least you can upgrade that to HD with an Andromeda plug-in if you want to shoot HD at some point. The XL2 is 16:9 but it's SD only.

I don't know if anyone has posted on this in the past. Was looking for some info on the Andromeda plug in for the DVX100 and the sculptor HD software. Anyone try using it yet? For those who don't know what I'm talking about: Andromeda