james smyth

Maybe :unsure: You ever worked with them? I'm not sure what the rules are for things like this, so I'm trying not to name specifics. But my description does make it pretty easy to narrow down.

You haven't met our director. We spent all of thursday (14 hour work day for me) filming water falling on an umbrella in super slow-motion to fill in some shots we didn't get when on location the previous shooting day. We made four shots with several takes each. One or two shots might make it into the spot itself. We used up 6000' for those shots (six mags of 1000' rolls). The actual amount of film shot for the commercial is closer to about 11000' all told. Ridiculous? Certainly. But hell, we got some really awesome shots. It's one thing about commercials that you don't get with feature films is that you often do have the time and budget to use as much film as you want and take as much time as you want. One day a camera assistant accidentally ran a 400' roll with nothing but blue sky (it was loud outside and he didn't hear it turn on). Our director being our director (sorry, no names) decided he wanted it to be developed and transfered anyway.

I intern at an advertising agency which does 35mm spots. The average range I tend to see can be from 50k to 150k. Of course it is an order of magnitude more when digital effects need to be produced for it. The agency itself has about five people (director, producer, executive producer, office PA, and myself) devoted to the TV commercials and everyone else is freelance, but it is generally the same crew. Our PM is freelance, but she works with us on every spot and has her own cubicle that only she uses. Just keep in mind that 35mm commercials shoots are becoming rare. Mine is one of the few agencies on the east coast still using 35. Everyone else has moved to HD by now. I'm in Baltimore, and being the intern, I get the lucky job of taking a train to NYC to pick up the dailies from PostWorks. Luckily I've managed to avoid having to take 6000' loads of film to the lab on the train (and taxis), but I'll get the task one of these days. An HD workflow would be faster and cheaper, but our director is more comfortable with 35. And, frankly, it's just more fun in my opinion.

I've read both books and they're both great. I'd suggest the Manual for a first-timer to learn the ropes and the Handbook as more of a reference. Of course, nothing beats The Professional Cameraman's Handbook for a great resource http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Cameram...N/dp/024080080X

This Mac vs. PC stuff is all very fascinating, but can we get back to the topic? Premiere is a good and useful tool. Having some competition on the Mac will give Apple incentive to boost development on FCP to keep their edge. Whatever people's opinions on Mac VS. PC are, the simple fact is that this is all well and good news for consumers.

Hello, I've landed some regular rolls PAing for various commercial shoots. My ultimate goal is to become a camera assistant. What do you think is the best way to make the shift to the camera department? I hear having leather work gloves on your belt can help you move into gripping, are there any similar tips for the camera?

Well, I guess it could be connected with some of the errors it constantly throws at me. It always thinks that the tape is near the end (even when no tape is inserted) and records only ~10 seconds at a time (when I first got it, it no longer plays or records anything), it complains about humidity at the driest of locations, and 'slack' keeps popping up in the viewfinder, again, with no tape inserted.

Hello, Some time ago I bought a Sony EVW-300 to take advantage of the large CCDs and picture quality to output straight to a DV deck. Though the camera has many functions that I am at a serious loss to understand. I've put every odd button and menu entry into Google and have come up empty. Most important things I've figured out through trial an error, but much remains a mystery (and the manual is impossible to find). Does anyone know of any books that go over these topics? I've managed to find out the difference between PCM and AFM, but have yet to learn what H/SC phase is (the switch that goes from 0 to 180 does nothing as far as I can tell), I have no clue why the 'alarm' goes off randomly, or why I have to make my focus adjustments in two places (I thought my lens was busted till I noticed the focus adjuster at the base of the lens). Thanks!

Could they mean have it telecined in NTSC anamorphic? I can't imagine what they could mean by anamorphic 16:9 unless there are they want a 2.35 image or perhaps a lens exists that will make s16 a perfect 16:9.

I thought 2k was the horizontal resolution. 2000 vs 1080.

You mean the bayer filter? It pretty much is the same thing, but at least it can be scaled down to a usable resolution (shoot at 2k and scale down to 1080p for an HD production). There's nowhere for NTSC to hide its flaws.

Why do people use chroma subsampling? Does 4:4:4 really use THAT much more space? I mean, when something as simple as color bars becomes a yucky mess, what's the point? In some situations it can be hard to tell, but most of the time it jumps out at me. Chroma subsampling and interlacing are the two reasons I hate producing on video.

As I understand it, this is just because the camera isn't made to stop at the end of a frame, it just stops wherever you happen to let go of the button (which is usually with the gate partially open) and has nothing to do with light leakage problems.

All things being equal, any reason not to buy an ultra16 camera? (assuming equal pricing) I mean, it seems that that all that changes it the width of the gate and I could still shoot regular 16.

Why B&W? Are you not able to push color?

Was is the aspect ration of Ultra 16? Judging from this chart: http://www.cameraspro.com/ultra16piconly.jpg it seems that it's shorter and wider than super16. Is there any reason to pay for a conversion when you could just as well zoom in an crop during the telecine? I mean, with the fine grained emulsions available today, would you really be loosing that much?

Hmm, I always assumed prints were made from negative originals.

I'm looking to use Kodak EXR 7386 in a camera to save costs on film stock. This is for a student project, so problems with color balance etc are okay to a certain extent. I was wondering if anyone would happen to know about what ASA/ISO this would be rated at? My professor says most color print stocks have an ASA around 12 or 16, but I can't find any resources that really say.

I was wondering if anyone would know about getting a cheap super16 camera. I shot with the NPR and loved it, but they seem hard to come by, and expensive when they do. I've heard tell of modified K-3s or modified Bolexes that will do super16, but I'm afraid to buy something that has been 'modified' as a crappy job of it could ruin a good camera. Does anyone any alternatives?

I'm fairly new to video and I recently bought a SONY EVW-300 and it came with a VCL-713BX lens. I want to purchase filters for it, but I can't figure out the lens size. On my 35mm SLR camera lenses the size is always next to the Ø, but there is no such key for this camera. Sorry to ask such a beginner question. Thanks for your help.

Can we forget the bickering and go back to actual discussion?

I can understand the position of holding film in some holy place in one's mind. It's fun and easy to work with. I like the hands-on feeling I get when working with it. But I don't want to dictate that a production use film just because I like to handle it. Anyway, people can argue about the minor details of these digital systems to no end. The only thing to really do is try it for yourself and keep it capabilities in mind when putting together a project. For some people 1080p meets all their requirements. There is no set way to decide on one system for all your work. People say they understand this, but then go on rampages about the specific definition of '4k resolution' as if the minor differences in interpretation would make all the world of difference. I certainly would love to head over and try out the Origin, but also being a student, it'll be a while before I can save up the money to fly over from Baltimore. At $38 to develop and process 100' rolls of B&W 16mm on a budget of Visa, it'll be a while.

I would argue this has more do with you being used to watching television shot in a certain manner. The fact is that the higher time resolution makes the motion appear more natural and gave television an unfamiliar feeling. As for digital film making, the fact is that digital will completely take over at one time or another (maybe years, decades, who knows). It's true that film has a more natural feel than any 1080p feed, but this is because of limitations in the currently available technologies. Eventually the available pixels on a CCD and display device will exceed those of the human eye. As wonderful and fun it is to shoot on film, it is a luxury with a limited life span. I myself am a bit sad that by the time I graduate from school there will be more work with HD than with film, but it's a reality. Anyone have an opinions on the 4k vertical resolution Dalsa Origin? As for Film being more forgiving, I'd have to disagree. Maybe it's just because I'm still a student, but when I shoot with film I'm always worried worried worried that my exposure is off, of light leaks, film cost, being an idiot and accidentally leaving the variable shutter closed, and other things that don't show up till the film comes back ruined along with my opportunity to shoot specific scenes. But when I shoot with video I can control and experiment with the exposure on set, light leaks are no problem, I can reshoot to my heart's content without worrying about film waste, and gives me a refreshing freedom. Again, it could be my lack of experience, but that's how it seems to me.