Michael Collier

Haha Right on, glad to hear that stuntmen don't get all the fun. Looks like they did the shot as simple as they could, technically. I don't see a follow focus motor, which leads me to believe they shot at a high appeture and estimated distance and went for it. looks like a little cam too like an eyemo or 235, but the shot is too quick for me to really tell. Im sure once the DVD is out there will be a bit more footage of the stunt avalible. I work in the news, I am sure I will get an electronic press kit, and that will have more for sure. (I love those EPKs, they actually have long elaborate behind the scenes shots, not those 3 second clip montages the edited packs get.)

The coolest camera shot to operate on. Heads up to the op on this one. Click the link and check it out. fast forward through all the talking and BS about the film. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809772212/video/3463361/ about minute 1:14 you'll see it. This has to be the funnest day on set for the camera operator. I wonder if its a camera operator or a stuntman shown how to operate for that shot the camera (I fear the later) I would do it in a second. Anyway for those who haven't watched it yet, its a short shot of a camera guy running off the roof with the stunt man in Bourne Ult. Looks like a blast, and a cool shot to boot. I wish I could find more in-depth info on this stunt.

I checked out your work and it was good. Very atmospheric. If your interested I am looking for a composer to do the score to a short film I am wrapping up. check out the trailer at: If you like it and think you'd be interested let me know. Its for percentage credit and copy, theres no money, but it would be great for experience and your demo reel. Its a psycological thriller so you can really have fun with the ambiance and the cues.

I would love more info on Konvas. Also I would love info on how to protect the cameras. i had heard that DC goes through 60 cameras per episode...not a tally I would like to follow. For now when I fill out insurance papers to rent gear, I get to skip the box explianing any claims I have, I would like to keep it that way. I am actually more concerned with the HD camera. I will have to come up with something. Good news is when the seas are rough and no real fishing is going on, I can shut down the cameras. But if the seas are rough and they are pulling crab pots up, time to rig up and get the shot. What other things can I do to keep the cameras safe? It seems like I would have to put underwater housings on them, but thats very restrictive in terms of shooting. Are there any rental houses that specialize in renting cameras ready to shoot on the open seas?

Thanks for the advice. I will check out those cameras. It sounds like my options now are to rent a Moviecam SL or buy a Konvas 2M (haven't seen those on the rental shelves at any shop close to me). On either camera I think I will invest in a few extra parts, just incase, and sell those off if they are not needed. Lubing the damn thing in the high seas sounds like it will be challenging. I just have an image in my head of a grey sea swelling over the deck in slowmotion, as crabpots come crashing slowly, and it gets me really really excited. I think I will be calling the production offices of 'Deadliest Catch' and see if I can get some advice from them about keeping cameras safe. I definatley will watch the show much more closely. Also on monday, I will find out what insurance for this shoot will cost....and am preparing myself for a very very large number.

Hmmm well how much 16mm do you need by what date? and how much of what stock would you trade in 35mm? I only have about 1000' of stock in my fridge just laying around, but if you don't need too much, I can call media distributors and send you down some short ends, but to get it in a week we'd have to set it up before monday. Drop me an email with your requiremnets and we will see if it can be done. mike@randomacronym.com

Keep in mind when negotiating never to set a 'limit' EI don't say, 'I will ONLY shoot a max of 12 hours a day' it always scares producers, since they are swimming in a sea of risk. What you do want to do is set financial barriers in your pay. My typical setup is 10 hour day standard rate. Anything over that is 1.5 pay, anything over 12 hours is double pay. I also require at least a 10 hour turnaround. Meaning if I don't get 10 hours from finishing the night previous to the next day, then overtime is still clocking. So even if day 1 I shoot 10 hours, and day two I shoot 10 hours, if I didn't get 10 between the two, then the first 2 hours of the second day is 1.5 pay, and the other 8 are billed at double. but listen to mark, get it in writting. If its not in writting, then its not a deal.

I always ask for the footage to be transfered at 30fps. That is, the lab just assumes I was shooting for video with no telecine. That way every frame of film corresponds to one frame on video. Then I make a 23.976 timeline and bring the footage in. Then tell the software to interpret as 23.976. The software automatically puts in the pulldown, and I don't need to concern myself with cuttin on a combined frame. It makes the edit intuitive, I mean, one frame on the timeline = one frame on film. Its much simpler than looking at a 29.97 timeline with 24fps footage on it.

About the 5ft thing....you can focus closer, but only if your focal length is a 25mm or greater. On the barrel there is a red line, anything closer than the red line could vignette, anything outside of the red will not. if you shoot within the red, you cannot be on the wide part of the lens. This can be limiting when you absolutley need close focus, because then you essentially have a 25-150

Hey if you still want to swap 16mm for 35mm, I have some for you. Still interested?

This is the part that got me. Come on, MPI, are we really to believe that they did a full DI on this film, but the split screens were done opticaly? Thats it, I am boycotting the film just for that! (ok, maybe thats a bit extreme, I will find a different reason to boycott)

I am putting together a pitch for shooting on a crab fishing boat, and I am working the budget. What camera would be ideal for this situation? I need a 35mm camera with 400' mags, lightweight, easy to load (easy as possible, it will be on the rough sea), small enough that I can stay out of the way, and easy to handhold. Sync sound is not an issue, we'll be shooting HD for anything that needs sync sound recorded. Also price is an issue, since I will be out for probably two to three weeks. Is there something best for this situation? Also what considerations should I have for all the salty humid air (open ocean fishing vessel). Obviously lots of plastic on the camera, but is there anything that I am missing? I am leaning towards the 235, though that camera is a little too expensive, and I would end up shooting less film if I went that route (I would shoulder extra weight to shoot more footage) Would a 35-3 fit the bill? It looks a little large, and probably not as compact as I would like, but the price is right. Ahhhhh, if only there was a camera in the price, weight and size range of the A-minima, things would be easier.

I would be willing to be the majority of Red users will probably end up using the adaptors for nikkor or canons EOS lenses. Nobody said they had to use PL mount lenses. I think a fair group of them care more about the box than they do the lens attached to it. Still more broke the bank on the 17500, and don't have funds left for PL mount lenses. Others might have a fair assortment of still lenses they like and they want to use those. I doubt that anymore productions will be renting lenses then would otherwise. The way I look at it, there are productions willing to rent a camera package whos "numbers line up" ($/pixel ratio is THE number for WAY too many people) and productions that are willing to rent the best lenses and a camera that works for their needs. I think most red users will fit into the later, and the ones that would fit the former probably would have rented that PL mount lens that weekend or month anyway, they just might have put it on a different camera. I doubt you'll see any monumental shift in the lens rental industry. It might not be a reason to go out and purchase a brand new set right now. Though I think if you got the need and the funds, you might look at picking up a used set of lomos or similar. Once red hits, I think Ebay will clear out of cheap used PL lens options. Then the true professionals (whether shooting red or not) will rent at about the same level they have in previous years. Thats the way I see it, I am by no means a suthsayer.

Someone said there is no way to determine lens performance on the bench, what about an MTF test? I know it only deals with resolution, and maybe not so much with chromatic aberations, but it still gives a number that can be understood. Jan Van Krogh: Holly crap. Thats all I got to say about that. I thought I was a technical person. You obviously know a lot about JPEG compression...and all I knew about was cosine loss (just the word cosine compression, no real understanding of its working) I am going to have to read and re-read your post until I understand, but damn check out the big brain on bret! I would point out the obvious pricing of the lens to determine its relative quality. Red's lenses are quite cheap compared to cooke, zeiss or angies. Lenses, unlike electronics, don't have a huge overhead built on the design. Sure you get some cash for the name attached, but most of the expense in a lens is in the optical glass, the bench time to build it, and the coatings applied (some that must be liscenced) so red reduced costs on one of those three factors. They don't (yet) have T-stops, so cut some bench time. I am assuming the glass is not the best glass, and I doubt they are applying the zeiss coating or any other coating that is typical in PL primes. Lots of assumptions there but bottom line: a set of primes from red costs 20K, a set of primes from zeiss costs upwards of 100k. There has to be some quality difference to speak of. That said, I really hope there isn't, wouldn't it be great if RED figured a way to make lenses cheaper than anyone on the market....doubtful, but a man can dream.

NEW PICS!!! (or first pics) I tested it today and it did put out a decent light compared to outdoor direct light (and it was BRIGHT and contrasty today) Its still not in a housing so I can't use it in the feild yet. Also the controller isn't fully working, so its an off or on only deal now. In those pics I have it hooked up to my bench power supply, which can't source more than 300mA. Accross 130 LEDs, thats about 2.3mA. The final power will be around 30mA per LED. I'm very excited to get to use it, I will get about a months worth of practice in ENG shooting, and then next month I have a music video shoot, and a short film shoot (both likely to be 16mm). The latter shoot has me excited. We have a scene in a car with no chance of a proccess trailer, so having an LED in the instrument cluster would be excelent. Point taken Phil. I meant I only need square wave of adequate integrity that it does not affect my LEDs. I meant that the square cannot be averaged (through capacatance or other means) into a lower forward voltage, since the LEDs would become innefficient and have poor color quality. It needs to reach full forward voltage in aproxamatley the time it takes the LED to turn on, which my output stage has done well enough. I will probably build several pannels before I begin selling them off, just to find the perfect combination of LEDs and power and space requirements. Also I gotta find a good case I can sell them in. This pannel is destined for an old Omni housing I have around, but I can't sell them like that. Oh well, first test complete.

I think your best bet would be to avoid the studio VFX. In my experience the more you shoot on location, the easier everything is. Is there any budget for a motion control? It sounds like thats out of range, but it could make everything simpler. Shoot several passes of the road during early morning to dawn. Then shoot an element of her just before dawn. That way you can easily replicate the light of sun at the end of her run. Along the path she runs you can set several greenscreens, all aligned with the cameras perspective. Then theres no roto, no need to light a studio to match, and everything would be much more organic. The only downside is a motion control, which could rule out this option altogether (though if you were tracking a steadycam for a studio FX element shoot, wouldn't you therefore need a motion control that day?)

When I was looking to do a super 16 mod to my K3, I was told that there is little option for replacing the Ground Glass. That means any K3 with a s16 mod will likely not show you what your shooting. You'll see the right portion of the image, but the space that is reserved for sound tracks/2d perfs on normal 16 is now recording image, and your viewfinder will not show that. The top, bottom, and righthand frameline will be accurate, but the image will exend beyond the left side of the frame. If you can guess at 16x9 framing you should be alright. Other than that there might be some GG mod out there somewhere to show you the frame lines, but I haven't found it yet. the GG you have is 4:3 yes? I assume thats how you got worried, since your not seeing the aspect ratio you'd expect from s16.

I had good results with 7218. Not quite a fine grain stock, but still pretty damn good and the colors are nice and muted. I clicked into this post, by the way, soley for the verbal irony 'how to make pastel colors pop'. You also have the option of desat in telecine, if this is to be outputed to video. You might also try 7217 pushed one stop (or even two). That worked out for me, but its a different look for sure. but alas, I am a kodak guy too. Not quite by choice, directors keep finding deals on kodak, and usualy we go where the money is right. At least I generaly get to choose stock, as long as its kodak. Strange though, since fuji is generally cheaper. I have been gently coaxing the director of Tale of Two Bodies to shoot let me fuji. call up fuji and ask for their demo disk. You can't judge grain on it, but you can judge color response in their line. Also there are a few good tests that show its dynamic range. You might be able to get a few test rolls as well.

You'd be surprised buick. Keep in mind he has 16 wheels there. even if he loads it to 300lbs, thats still only 18lbs a peice. Not too bad for wheels already designed to support a full grown adult on 8 (they are skate wheels afterall). The wood is also pretty strong. The weak point in the system is the fact that the wheel bolts are at an unsupported angle, not a very strong shape, but neccisary, and like I said, at 18lbs per bolt, it can easily handle that. even the PVC track is able to support the weight. I have built two dollies of that type, and on one, I put two people, a CP-16 fully loaded, a production monitor, and a beefy tripod. We must have been close to 500lbs with everything, and it didn't show any signs of fatigue.

Looks good. Looks like the first dolly I made. The only tip for next time you build one, make the wheels right next to eachother instead of offset. If you get too much weight on the back, it will force the dolly to pull up and turn to the side (I know, cause my first dolly did that and it nearly took out a camera) when they are right next to eachother it takes a lot more backweight to make it overturn, since gravity doesn't really have an effect if they are side by side (its more likely to stay on track) than with the offset, since if enough weight is taken off the front wheels, the back will try and twist, which will push the front even further up and once those front clear, hold onto that camera. Also, push bars are key, your dolly grips will thank you. Looks good though, get some shots on it and let us see the result.

I think everyone has missed the problem here. First I have shot a ton outside in all kinds of conditions in foresty locations. Never did the bounce off leaves provide enough level to even put a tint in the shaded areas of frame, let alone in direct sun areas. Second, and most telling, he is saying he gets the green tint when whitebalancing, but when he switches to preset, there is no tint. If it were bounce off the leaves, it would tint regardless, since the preset would not factor in that green bounce. In fact, if it were bounce, he would find it easier to get proper colors when using a manual balance, and the green tint would be more obvious when using preset. So I am doubting its bounce off green leaves. As for what it is, I draw a blank. Its really odd for a WB to have a green tint, of all things, especialy if under preset there is none. My gut feeling is that there is a problem with the circut itself that does the whitebalancing. Somehow its seeing more magenta than it should and overcorrecting. Also its possible a setting in the menu only clicks on when its not in preset mode, so a tint might only apply to a WB shot, not a preset (I would say no from my experience with XL2s, but its possible I suppose) I do have a few followup questions to narrow the possibilities. 1. does the green tint exist only on manual balance outside, or will you get the same effects inside. 2. have you tried whitebalancing under a tungsten light gelled with CTB and got the same result? 3. Have you checked your matrix settings? 4. does the XL2 have a tint control in its setup menu? 5. (most obvious) is your whiteballance sheet actually WHITE? I would go through those questions, but it sounds like something that a canon repair would have to look at.

Once in a pinch (actually it was a b-roll shoot for news) I used a bar-cloth. I put the cloth on the table, camera on that, and did a smoooooth pull back from some bottles of beer. It was a thing of beauty. don't know if that works for you, but just tuck it under your hat. Any smooth surface and a terry cloth will do the trick.

Well, I mean look at who regulates the internet. The guy in charge is my very own senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens (yeah, the 'hulk tie guy', the guy whos always angry) This guy once said, and I quote: 'The internets isn't a bunch of dump trucks, its a giant tube!!! // I sent a peice of internets out to my assistent friday....and it didn't get there until tuesday!' (all real quotes from senate floor). FYI, stevens, along with son ben stevens and about 7 other local and state lawmakers from Alaska are all either indicted or soon to be indicted. Ted stevens is soon to be indicted for allegedly letting veco (an oil service company) build a multi-thousand dollar improvement to his Girdwood home without him paying. This is alleged of course, but keep in mind the owner of veco has pled guilty to massive legislative bribes and fraud. I guess after that maybe our tubes might speed up. sorry that was a tangent.

Low current won't damage the LEDs, but if I were to keep current in the logarithmic nature I would like, it would not necisarily drive the LEDs output in that fassion, meaning I need to program a LUT to make up for the non-linearity. I need to ensure that if the LED is on, its at full power, and if its off its at no power, and if I need to dim, then I need to PWM the time its in each state to control brightness, rather than controling the current applied. That seems to be the most effecient way to regulate brightness in a controlable, predictable manner. But yes, I did mean I need to up the frequency to prevent flicker. Also I am considering making two or four different output channels, so that although a particular part of the panel might be off, at least some part is on. 4 channels switching at different times would reduce EMI radiation. It should be noted I am not making this with a 555 timer. All other products on the market use a 555 timer, and that is why they only have 0-100 dimming, without calibration. I am using a microcontroller to oscilate the dimming, because I can calibrate it in stops rather than percent. I haven't really been looking at the FETs for switching, though if I were on the 555 I might be. the 555 can sink/source up to 200mA. The chip I am using can only sink/source 20mA, and I suspect that is my problem. To aleviate it, I am going to a tripple output Darlington array. Tripple output since I only have 3904 and 3906 on hand, but 3 or 4 together should be able to drive all 13-17 watts. Those digital FETs are interesting, but if the darlington works, then darlington it shall be. Square waves will be square, as my uC determines that pretty well, and I should be able to input to the darlington without any more resistence than a saftey resistor, if that. A crystal controls the uC, so that is stable. I will have completed panels avalible for purchase within 4 months. I am loving this 1/3 stop notion, it already seems more useful than the pannels I have used. We shall see though. My first real shoot will be in about a month, we shall see how well it works on film (no word yet on stock, the director just mentioned he may be able to get film, I don't know if stock is pre-determined or if I get to choose) Oh well stay tuned.... (full scale panel should be assembled and tested as soon as this weekend, as soon as the 48 LED scale works out tonight)

In my tests this weekend (expanded from one LED test to now 48) it seemed that running the LEDs at a lower voltage produced a poor quality of light, and I think PWM without smoothing is the best way to go. The LEDs snap on very quickly, so PWM is perfect. Running at less than 3.6v @ 20mA seems to make them want to do odd things. Also my goal is to achieve perfect 1/3 stop incriments, something very hard to do with out PWM. The problem I am having is the output amp just doesn't want to work. I even built a pre-amp stage since it seems the microcontroller doesn't want to saturate, but that transistor seems to be having problems too. Back to the drawing board. At full voltage it easily biases and my pannel snaps on and is REDICULOUSLY bright (I had to add two layers of 250 bc I was being blinded in tests) Hook the same amp to the uController and I get a dim output (barly biased at all) I suspect the issue is in the microcontroller itself, and not in the output stage. Perhaps I need to have a pullup resistor set to get it to work. Also running into problems with power. My test bench only has 5v@1A and 0-16v @ 300mA avalible to it, which really isn't enough. I have been trying to scavange any power adaptor that has a 20w capacity, but I haven't found anything laying around. In good news I found a power regulator chip (mosfet type) that can accept anything from 12vdc up to 40vdc, so I will have a wide range of input power to drive this thing. Oh well, more experimenting needs to be done.