Mark Allen

Hey Greg - would you consider sharing a photo or video still you've taken with this rig?

When talking about Lucas I think you have to keep something in mind. Here is a guy whose little dream project that no one believed in redefined profit potential and marketing for the entire industry. He became richer than he probably ever expected, more powerful than he'd imagined. So, where's the fun? Where's the challenge? Yes, you could argue (and I might) that the challenge is in tapping into the human experience and sharing that... but I don't think that's what his primary goal is. I think the challenge for him is to actually progress the industry. And he has the power to do it. He probably finds that rewarding on some level. I think a lot of his thinking is "What can I get away with?" "How little money can I make something really huge for?" I knew a low budget director who had done over 30 movies and by now he didn't really seem to care about them anymore. It was easy to get them financed and made and what he started doing was similar to Lucas - he started trying to make challenges. "What if we could only have the star on the set for one day?" "What if we shot two films at once, one during the day, one at night?" "What if we had to write a 2nd movie that matched all the same props and locations as the first, but make it a totally different movie?" The cure for this is simply to focus on telling a great story - but sometimes that's really intimidating and it's easier to focus on the tools and methodology.... because if you fail while tryig to tell a great story - you might be perceived as a bad filmmaker. If you fail pushing the technology and methodology - you were simply experimenting and being a maverick.

I realize it is a common practice (from what I've read on these boards), but it is still profound to me that it is considered an acceptible practice to allow the movie be ~4% faster or slower depending on where it delivers. When shooting to speed up action, you shoot ~8% faster and it really makes a huge difference. I can't imagine that even half that would be acceptable.

How low is this budget? Because who is doing the backgrounds and the composites? I mean off the top of my head it sounds like at least 200,000 of work there - maybe 100,000 if your a master deal maker. 50 minutes - lets figure that's got to be at least 400 cuts with at least 100 different backgrounds. Let's say each background takes one artist about 3 days to create. Let's say each composite for each shot takes a day with some being a lot faster and some being a lot longer. Yeah - if everything was shot perfectly and there were no problems, you could probably pop off a ton of them - or you accept a little quality loss... but I have a feeling you're not going to have the perfect stage and your not going to have all the time you want to shoot.. so back to what I just said. So it looks like you have about 2 years worth of single artist man power ahead of you. Maybe you have a bunch of friends who will help. Unless they are seriously indebted to you and you really can trust them... don't - maybe a few will deliver, but the rest won't. I'm really, sincerely, not trying to bum you out. I'm trying to protect you. I've been doing this crazy "do it yourself" / "homestyle" / "garage" special effects and bg stuff for over a decade and I just want you to know what you're looking at. Sounds like you don't have a lot of cash - you sure as hell don't want to spend it all on something that is unfinishable - or if it does finish doesn't look great. Anyway - so... that's why I'm saying... do a test... do a test on whatever you can get your hands on (even a dv camera) just to test the whole process. As far as cameras go... The bigger the resolution, the less the compression, the greater lattitude of the colors - the better. And interlacing will not be your friend. As for resolution vs. compression... totally depends on the grades and I'm afraid that's knowledge I don't have - other people here obviously do. ....and........... have fun! :-)

First of all... With 50 minutes of footage... you have got to shoot a test. Listen to these words of wisdom please. You need to know what you are getting into. I have seen so many projects started like this and never get finished. Projects that had budgets that the camera cost was not even a consideration - yet they still could never finish. In fact I can think of no less than four shot productions (some with stars even) that were abandoned because they didn't realize how much work it would be to shoot on green screen. Sky Captain was not supposed to cost 210 million dollars (the whisper budget number) - it was supposed to be something like 60 maybe 30 - "Hey I did this in my garage!" So - think before you jump. Now... One thing I would encourage you to consider very seriously is do you really need to shoot it all on green screen - are there things you could shoot with a small set and then expand on it? My crew does blue and/or green screen composites every day from HD footage. I'll tell you what happens - with today's technology a quick key is really easy to pull.... IN STILL. Once it starts moving that's where you start seeing all the issues. Then you have to make adjustments - then one part looks good one way, another part is different, so you start garbage matting out each part os the frame, pull separate keys for legs, arms, heads, etc.. On shows that have 100 million budgets even this is done. Now, if you're not that concerned about quality - then it's not such a big deal. Okay - I will admit there have been a couple shots that keyed perfectsly with no intervension... rare... and always closeups. I saw the dvgarage tool and was curious to test it against what we use (keylight in shake and after effects). I didn't find, personally, while testing it on DV footage that it was any better for that than keylight. It defaults to a softer key. The problem with DV compression in particular is that it creates big blocks - that's how it compresses... it's just about exactly the opposite of what you would want for keying... because all your smooth lines start to alias into these compression blocks. Generally whenever anyone has pulled a key from it that worked, it was very systlized, soft edged. I've never seen a perfect crisp key from DV compression. Try it for yourself.... because you WILL be doing a test... right? No, seriously - you need to do a few shots and see how long it takes you before you find yourself 2 years into a nightmarish post production process. and.... have fun! :-)

I had my web programming friend investigate and it turns out their mysql database was "hosed." However, seems to be working again today - bad timing I guess yesterday. So I've joined, thank you.

Good tip, I tried to register there for like 15 minutes and it failed over 10 times, so I gave up.

I also found this in my search: http://www.bugeyedigital.com/product_main/sam-csa309.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...list&sku=266082 http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-...RL-1/FRL-1.html But the digital rebel... it has no flash footer.

Thanks for all the thoughts Greg and Tim - I'm researching them. The Bogen thing does sort of seem like what I was imagining must exist... I wonder... do you think that I could trust it to hold the weight of the light, itself - all hanging from this tripod screw? Would the screw strip? I do have a friend who likes to work with metal, unfortunately he's building my monitor stand at the moment and I guess there's only so much you can ask of your friends. Myself, I can't build a sandwhich. Greg - do you have a link to the Kino-Flo articulated arm? I'm not seeing it, I'm seeing references to it, but no details.

I decided I'd wait another two months after my last post to put out a page for any more information regarding the camera... anyone have any news about it? It's almost been 8 months since this thread was started. I'm just curious if they are running into problems - does it look like a 2006 release date? Mitch Gross?

Now that you can buy a dual layer DVD for your very own (like the Pioneer 108) you too could put these pauses in your home movies if you wanted. Imagine your families surprise when you put this pause right between the blowing of the candles and the cut to Uncle Norman. :) Actually - DVDs are just about in their twilight. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD this year probably... I wonder if they've taken the pauses out.

Bernie Mac is an example... I got the HD tapes sitting right here to prove it. Also when you are talking 24p, we've been really talking 24p HD - if you are thinking of 24p SD, that's a little different because the lattitude is not generally as high and so it looks "less like film."

My 2 cents. Having used Final Cut and Premiere (both from version 1) - Final cut would be my preference by far. It's true that Premiere has some AE integration - however, final cut can do a bunch of things of it's own and with motion starting to steal more and more of shake's abilities) it will get better even. You could use Automatic Duck for your AE integration, but frankly - if something is complex enough to be done as a separate shot in AE... then just do it as a separate shot and import it back in - it's almost just as easy... all the color grading stuff and basic roto'ing - all that can be done right in Final Cut. If you are thinking about effects stuff..... I'm gonig to suggest maybe thinking G5. Yes, a G4 will work - but it's a really cheap solution and so you can't expect the same results that you'll get with a G5 (or dual G5 for that matter). On my dual I can nearly playback uncompressed HD footage with zero additional hardware and no upgrades from the stock (and that's just a dual 2, not the dual 2.5) - however - you don't have to go that far. The mac mini is very cool - but I still look at the low end iMac G5 and ponder what an awsome deal that is. Motion (which was mentioned here) relies heavily on the graphics card. The real time stuff is all based on how fast your processor is. There are other places to get RAM, I buy all my ram from www.macsolutions.com - other people recommend www.mushkin.com. By the way - if you've worked on PCs, the one thing I must say is that you would appreciate the dsign of the G5 tower. It is so unbelievably nicely designed on the inside - add drives without even a screw driver - it's a beautiful thing. I've not opened up a mac mini or an iMAc g5. Anyway - I do not think you'll be dissapointed - plus there is the bonus of the iLife package - iDVD is one of the most incredibly useful apps I've ever used ...and free. iMovie you'll never use if you go FCP. Have fun. But... essentially - yes, I edited an entire feature (and a bunch of short things) on a G4 using final cut which had the same specs as the mac mini but more RAM and it worked very well.

Very good link! I'm sending this onto a lot of people. Actually, when the camera is moving the tracking is sometimes easier because you have a lot more visual leeway - the hardest would be something like hand held trying to stay on a subject. Then, it isn't really stablization and it isn't a move... it's that very subtle hard to track stuff. Well, I stopped asking these questions a long time ago just makes you frustrated and makes other people feel bad. Sets - even nice, enjoyable ones - are a controlled chaos. There are a thousand things to worry about - When I was visfx supervising I figured my job was to fix everything - not just the effects, but the mistakes, the misjudgements - it was all part of the job description. There was always a reason something was done - even if it wasn't logical - usually it was done with good intentions or done because there was simply no other logistical way to do something. However, maybe someday someone should write a little website or flash movie called "FX for DPs" - just to nail some of the big ones.

This is for a still photo shoot I'm doing. I was wondering if anyone here might have a suggestion on how I could mount a circular kino flow to the tripod attachement (not the flash foot) on my camera (Canon Digital Rebel SLR). I'll want the kino to go around the lense of course. I have an indoor shoot coming up where I wanted to try using a round kino on the lense, but remain handheld. Thoughts or links? thanks.

I'm asking a similar question about using motion capture (which I've never had the luxury to use) in another thread which is up right now - but without that you are using set markers (tape, ping pong balls, whatever... sometimes just the shape of a building and it's corners) and a 3D tracking application like bijou or match mover or icarus - check out the websites for those and they'll probably have examples. If you see the white markers on the green/blue screens in behind the scene footages - that's what those are there for. If it's pretty simple camera move you can almost get away with a 2D track though it's not technically as accurate. Several times I've had to supervise parallax tracking to crane shots with no reference points at all. That's... really fun. :) One shot in particular the production said "we blew out the BG for you, so it would be easier to key" - which 1) it's not at all easier to key - so DPs... please don't do that. because... 2) the buildings and such that were blown out were exactly what we would use to help us track the shot.

The idea would be inserting CG elements later - so the props in this case would be actors moving in a scene. not huge swinging camera motions, but natural motion that I would simply want recroded so I could hand the data over to my CG artist AND repeat for clean plates (without actors). Are you thinking this might take an extra hour? I figure it takes about 10 to 20 minutes to set up a shot depending on many things normally... with the motion capture, I am wondering if it take a lot longer, sounds like 1 hour total? Any idea what that package is renting for? (just if you know off hand) thanks.

Well... as far as Academics, it's hard to beat UCLA - it's also inexpensive if you are a resident in CA (which you can become after your first year living here)... which also makes it just about the hardest school to get into in generally and even more so as a film major (which you apply for after being there a year and a half). I am not sure you can say USC has good academics - but they have a very hollywood oriented film school which can be very good. (on the flipside if you love experimental films and think hollywood sucks - consider San Francisco State - one of the most adamantly experimental film schools around.) If you like commerical type production - then consider Pasadena Art Center (in California). People leave there and get work. Very intense, expensive, and good school. Also - if you're thinking of being a DP - film school is a great place to be - because most people want to be directors and are fighting eachother on some strange political level - but if you are "the DP" they will fight over you... I suppose you need to be good, but you do get a lot of opportunities to shoot in most schools. I went to UCLA (but studied theater... because I wanted to direct, I wanted to know the history of drama and work with actors and study acting)... however, I knew a bunch of film people and one of them basically made their own program to be a DP - they let him. Lots of smaller schools will let you invent your own education program as well. I spoke to someone who went to UCI who seemed like they did that - but that was a long time ago. Also - I would weigh heavy to being in the city you want to work in eventually. Contacts are everything. Those people you get to know in school could be great assets.

I was just wondering if anyone has had experience with motion control on sets. My main questions are: 1. How long does it take to set it up per shot? compared to what might be normal for the same shoot? 2. How much does it usually end up costing including whatever required operators are included? thanks!

Fortunately for me, careers are not built and destroyed on my opinions... but... I should mention I didn't read the books ever so I'm looking at the movie as an entity unto itself. As such - the movie suffered from what a lot of movies are suffering from lately - something I call the "exponential monster syndrome" - which is simply that the movie goes from one fight to the next fight with a bigger monster, to the next fight with an even bigger monster. Harry Potter had this problem as well (though #3 actually had some interesting stuff in it). Now, LOTR did have a lot of good character stuff - but it was weakened by a lot of scenes which I felt were requisite to the book and didn't really create a dramatic situation. Scenes that talk about what your going to do or what others were doing or talk about the history of something - these are big danger areas that Hollywood fantasy movies love doing. I think Raiders of the Lost ark was a good example of a movie which had a very strong structure.

Actually, Forrest Gump got a lot of buzz about it's effects and, in fact, won the Best Visual Effects Oscar in 1995. I think that movie is a great example of the effects helping to tell the story. I think Apollo 13 is another good example. I know that in my former visual effects supervising career 90% or more of the effects we did were meant to go unnoticed. Now, personally, I like visiting wonderous fantasy worlds and while I know everyone loved Lord of the Rings - I think there is definitely a lot more room for good storytelling in fantasy films. Personally (and I know this is an unpopular thing to say) - but I like Lord of the Rings, but I did think it had some major story issues - but I realize if he strayed from the books too much he'd have been crucified.

Back to the original topic. DIVA - the french film from the 80s. I don't remember another film that made me feel so much like each film was a painting - not of a specific painter though. Obviously there is Amelie which is going to great lengths to immitate a painter. As for the discussion that followed. Style is temporary - that's why movies or paintings or photos that are "all about" style are quickly outdated, while the same media when using style to help tell it's story seem to stay relevant (as long as the drama stays relevant). In looking at older films, though, it's sort of like looking at foreign movies. You know it's going to be in another language. If someone sent some of our movies back in time, they would be nearly incomprehensible to people watching movies back then until they acclimated to the distance use of close ups, the fast cutting, the thickness of the sound. As an artist working in film today - I think it's an obligation to look at the entir history of film with an eye for understanding and curiousity and seeking to understand its relevance.

People always forget that compositing is really an art and craft as much as doing anything else... like photography. Main mistake most first time compositors make is the work on the entire frame and not pieces of it. Also DV really isn't great for compositing screen work - those darn big blocks of compression are just hard to get around - but i do see samples of people keying with it now and then - usually pretty stylized though.

Space 1999 ..... Babalon 5?? Dr. Who anyone? Well... I think my point is proven... The fact is that there are effects that are for effect and there are effects that are for affect I suppose. Should we call them special affects?

Thank you - I really appreciate all the comments. I just sent an email. And I totally agree about greenscreen - I prefer greenscreen for everyone and in everysituation, I'm not sure why blue has been used lately - probably some odd miscommunication.