Jonny Kerr

I'm a 1st AC and I'm looking for advice relating to shooting with Cooke S4 lenses on the Red One camera. I've been trawling various resources across the web detailing DoF guides and technical specifications for this particular combination of camera and lenses. However, I'm just wondering if there are any Assistants or DoPs out there who may be able to share particular nuggets of knowledge regarding this kit? Are there any specific pitfalls or insider tips concerning Cooke S4s on the Red? How do the S4's hold up when compared to Zeiss ultra or master primes? Any advice will be gratefully received. Thanks in advance.

I'm currently working on a digi shoot (DVW 790) that is predominantly handheld. My operator is using a piece of kit called the 'Easyrig' to distribute the weight of the camera on his lower back and hips. It looks rediculous, but is apparently very effective. It's made by a swedish company... http://www.easyrig.se/index.htm They work by taking the weight of the camera using a high tension, overhanging attachment that simply connects to the camera's handle. I hear there are different versions depending on the camera model - perhaps they make one specifically for the F900....

Hi Andy, The format of my CV is constantly changing as I do more jobs and gain more experience. I generally make sure the job title, date, DP and format are all there aswell as the production company (I have had jobs where a production manager has contacted someone they know from a previous production company on my CV). Let me know how you get on - I'm defintely interested in streamlining my CV to make it more effective. Cheers...

Hi, I'm currently working with the Arri SR3. Yesterday, at one point, it wouldn't turnover when the green button was depressed. It beeped as normal, the reflex mirror did one revolution and then.... nothing. The camera was still receving power (the battery was fresh but we changed it anyway). Strangely, once the camera had been powered down and back up again, all was as it should be. Any ideas what the fault might have been as I've never come across that before with these cameras?

Hi, I've been loading for a few years on 16mm shoots but have recently been hired for my first 35mm job. The camera is an Arricam and I'll have no test time with it. Any hints, tips, and insider pearls of wisdom will be gratefully received... Thanks.

Hello, I'm well involved with the whole 16mm thing, but I'm about to do my first job on 35mm with the Arricam. Advice, guidance, and pearls of wisdom greatfully received....

A query to throw out there... A company I know shooting hi-def lost £50,000 or thereabouts on a shoot due to severe noise on all the rushes tapes from a helicopter shoot. Quite why nobody played-back the first tape is beyond me. Anyhow, the gamers couldn't digitise the stuff and they had to reshoot. What would cause noise to go to tape on the F900 on a Westcam setup in a helicopter. Electrical interference or something more sinister? I'm not experienced when it comes to helicopter rigging or technicalities. Experience would be gratefully recieved....

Hi, I've recently spoken to an editor who complained about the breaks in timecode from our two HD cameras (F900's) on a short film. Because we shot everything on two cameras (I sync'd both cameras with tri-band lock-it boxes (including the genlock) and ran 'time-of-day' on the preset - as you do), the editor was experiencing 'jumps' in timecode that apparently caused concern to the avid machine (?). However, the facilities company was re-striping the timecode anyway when they down-converted to digi for delivery to the network after the edit house had done their thing. When running time of day on syncronised multi-camera shoots, and provided you ret when you playback, time of day should bear no relevance to breaks in timecode at all. Or am i misguided? Hey, Where are you shooting? Can you please explain the 59.94I frame rate? I'm beginning to get to grips with the different frame rates around the world, but this one is new to me.... I'd very much value yer input...

Thanks Heaps... I really appreciate yer feedback! The shoot was all wrong from the get-go, but i'm only the assistant and have no place to tell the DOP how best to shoot the thing. (He's a film boy who never shot on HD before). Thank you for the tip on the whole 'Magic Gate' thing - that had the potential to melt my brain. I had three different B Cameras on that shoot and none of them would read the card from A Camera. They never looked remotely similar! Was really paranoid that it was purely down to software updates as the cameras were all roughly the same age (and potentially the same software updates). We had no test time to line the cameras up - had we had that (budget shite!) the whole shoot would have been a very different beast....

I've recently finished working on a low-budget short in Scotland utilising two Sony F900's. The Director of Photography insisted on using the RMB150 remote unit on B camera at all times in order to match it to the A camera. We had no test time before the shoot, so many problems arose on set with the image control on these cameras. On occasion B camera would fail to hold it's settings after the remote unit had been unplugged. Sometimes it inexplicably changed gamma, knee and master black settings too. It would have been more straight forward to write the settings onto the memory stick from A camera and read them to the B camera, but for the fact that our B camera kept telling us of a 'File Format Error' on the card. The cameras came from different hire houses. Any ideas would be gratefully recevied!!!