Michael Collier

On a union set, whose ultimate responsibility is it to maintain a balanced generator? How does that actually work? I've heard the genny op call out high and low legs before, but let's say current at the plant reads 13A, 103A, and 11A. What's more, 90% of the load is non-PFC kinos. In my theoretical understanding that would be out of range on a 1200A generator (I always heard balance should be weighted no more than 20% over average for the 3 phases. Eg: 127A draw, 42.3A average, no leg should be more than 50.75 A) Is my understanding correct, or is balance not as vital when the plant is dramatically under-loaded. Under that theoretical, 79A should be flowing through the neutral, well within the ampacity of the cabling used. Am I just overthinking things? Who do I turn to to ensure proper balance? Or just listen for low legs and hope that I have a lunchbox on that leg handy?. At what point does balance become critical? What do I listen for to ensure I'm not making the problem worse?

Possibly. I've seen 2.5K run fine on a Honda 6500 modified with a xstal sync and 60 amp bates (it also would work off the 30A twist lock. Not sure if that twist lock was standard or an after market thrown on with the bates. That was with a magnetic ballast. For reasons discussed in great detail in other threads by some very smart individuals (search for PFC or power factor correction) you may not be able to get a 2.5k on a 30A circuit if your ballast is Electronic. At 2.5Kw/120v theoretically 20.83A, but of course that is not the whole story. You need to find the actual draw of the units you plan to run, and be sure plan a 70% payload for safety with electronic ballasts (30% safety overhead). Do you have a bates coming from the engine that can carry the full capacity of the generator? (50ish amps theoretically, so a 60A bates would be enough) again check the actual sustained sourcing potential the generator has. sometime 6500w means 6500w peak, or during over-voltage situations. If you have electronic ballasts, plan your overhead accordingly (4550w/38ish amps). Now check out the actual power draw of the units you plan to run. 2.5K could easily be up to 30A draw. 1.2 could be bordering on 17A. You might have a spare 3 amps or so (enough for a tweenie? or crafty's coffee pot). But your close to the safety threshold, so if you plan to do this you must verify the draws are what they are labeled. If you feel comfortable running a multimeter and have a VERY solid understanding of Ohms law and set power distribution, you would probably only need a 60A bates runner to a lunchbox that breaks into bates (for the 2.5k) and hubbels for the 1.2 and other lights. electronic ballasts + 30A twist locks are a no go for 2.5 (even if you have two 30A circuits). They would be enough for the 1.2. You will need a single 60A circuit at least to run all of this. 100A and a stronger generator would be better.

You also have the option of having a PL mount hard nose installed (not an adapter, but a full front plate that permanently replaces the CP mount) You can then get an adapter to move from Nikkon-PL. That would allow you to use your wide angle and medium Nikkor glass as your medium and telephoto lengths, then get some PL mount 16mm glass for the wide angles. Just an idea, it might not be the cheapest. It would be flexible though.

I could be a bit out in left feild, but have you considered using Christmas tree lights? If they are strung randomly they could be made to look like a star field in the reflection, and still be able to provide a low level ambiance that would fill more naturally than doing a side, side, top bottom fill.

from the quick research I was able to dig up it looks like USB3 is nominally 90 ohm impedance. Tolerance is measured as +/- 13.5 ohm. If Hal is correct that Cat-5 is nominally 100 ohms this would appear to work, but I assume that's a target goal that can be affected by real world conditions (the different winds, standard deviation in construction, a 100 ohm wire mated with a 90 ohm plug, etc, etc) you might be really pushing the levels of what is possible, especially with a theoretical limit of +/-3.5 ohm. My research did indicate its an 8 wire, 4 group twisted pair, like Cat-5. I didn't find anything saying weather or not it requires a shielded cable. But impedance mismatch could cause big problems for packetized data at high speeds. A mismatch could be viewed roughly as the equivalent to shooting through glass. Most of the light that strikes the glass goes through and lights your subject, but some bounces off and back into the lens, obscuring the image. That bounce can truncate packets easily, causing their checksum to not line up. Then the receiver asks for a resend. Assuming the bounce doesn't degrade the packet this time and the checksum checks out the packet is accepted. But you just spent 3x the time sending that one packet. You might end up with a system that works on the surface, but whose throughput in reality is much less than stated, and maybe even lower than the current throughput? From what I can tell it wouldn't be worth it to make up all those wires only to find there is little to no boost in productivity. Or worse that it doesn't work at all.

I saw it on the bluray, I just assumed its how Tarantino keeps his set. In my mind it fit into the Hi Sally's he always does. I figured it was condoned by Mr T, and if so who would say otherwise? Don't know that to be fact or fiction, just the impression I get from the BTS I see out of his movies.

If you have a nintendo DS you can build one for under 20 bucks. Check this out: http://www.hdrlabs.com/occ/index.html Mike Bergstrom asked me to build him one this summer, and by the looks of it, it seems pretty simple to throw together. I'll know more once I put the first one together. All the software is free and the design is readily available (including schematic and PCB layout art.) so if you know how to solder or know someone who does, this could be quite inexpensive.

He should be ok as long as he doesn't have any magnetic ballasts working. Electronic set to flicker free shouldn't (theoretically) induce flicker at 100fps. But do a test to be sure. Old balasts and old lamps can induce slight flicker. You could point each light individually to a gray chart and watch the waveform to check for flicker. In final cut you would want to turn the speed of the clip to 416.66%. That will get you to 24fps, and on a 23.976 the speed difference shouldn't be noticeable. You might have to work with the audio, depending on how you do the conversion. This should essentially be the same as when you shoot 24fps on a xstal sync camera for a 23.976 finish. You will probably want to turn frame blending off. If on there will be 4 or 5 distinctive layers on top of eachother. If there isn't much motion frame blending might make the sped up stuff look like it was on a 180 degree shutter, but most likely will fall apart and show the blending that is going on. With it off it will be sharp, but have the appearance of a 317 degree shutter.

That is interesting John, I know little about projection tech. Are you saying that to this day they will file the gate to compensate for keystone? I always assumed it was an optical correction in the lens (like a swing shift with some kind of focus compensation).

Yeah, I hear you on that one Rich. in the first wave of films to come up I made a conscious decision to apply only as an Electrician. Hell, I didn't even apply for best boy. I didn't go anywhere near DP on an application just yet. I have a DP page on the states crew website, but that is mostly to attract reality shows that might need an extra unit, or a quick pick up shoot. I have no allusions my path to ASC cinematographer will be through local hire on an Alaskan location film. More likely I will develop contacts and friendships that would allow me to start to cohabitate LA and AK (I was raised in both AK and CA, so it would be nice to still live in both. I just can't do LA full time.) and then work up the ladder the same as anyone else. The advantage in applying for that sort of position is those are the jobs that will be in great demand up here, and frankly we don't have a huge selection of people qualified just yet. Sure we have plenty of people who are used to the conditions at play on a film set (slope workers are the best to pull from, in my opinion. Able to work long hours, typical schedule is 7 days a week, 12 hours a day for up to 4 weeks at a time. They are riggers, welders, electricians, etc and are used to working in extremely demanding conditions. But they need to be brought on first as PAs, then as trainees. It will take some time, and in the mean time those of us with set experience will be sure to find a job.) I have been doing a lot of research to see how Canada became so successful as a location destination, to see if we can repeat that. I think what we are working on (well not so much me, I don't produce; but people Mike Bergstrom, Levi Taylor, Mike Burns and Dean Mitchell and a host of other people) are trying to develop the independent industry alongside the burgeoning studio business, specifically by developing and funding purely local products. In the mean time there are people like me (and Bergstrom, and Zach Melms and others in town) who are qualified to work in positions like electrician, grip, 2d ac, etc; and we are working to develop credits above the industrials, music videos, short films, and low budget features we normally get. I figure if we only get a 5 year window, we can make that work to our advantage, but I would love to see 10-20 years at least. Right now we probably have a crew of 20 people that can seamlessly walk into non-PA positions, but as far as I know we only have one or two guys in local 600. The biggest advantage we have going for us is the few people who are qualified to work are incredibly talented. There is something about this place that keeps people here, and talent drain doesn't really work the same as it does in other cities. Even if film work dries up and I have to go nomadic to make a living, I will gladly do it (though I will be here if I am not working) And as a guy who loves this state dearly, I can say thank GOD we are finally trying to develop an economy that doesn't hinge its entire existence on oil. I think our incentive has at least 10 years. There is 100 million in an account that hasn't even been dented yet, and when it comes time to reauthorize in a few years, it probably won't take any extra cash appropriations. Financially we are very stable, no deficit this year, lots of cash reserves and our economy has been somewhat stable, relative to the rest of the country. So I don't see a situation where anyone would argue we need to eliminate the program for budgetary reasons. And when the argument can be made that film making supports tourism industry (our 2d or 3d largest sector) it seems almost like it should be lumped into the nearly 100 million a year they spend advertising our state. In short, this should be stable for the next 10 years, the rest depends on what happens with the gas line (which seems dead in the water at the moment) and how north slope oil production declines (its been declining for a decade now or more)

That made me laugh. Actually you'd be surprised how much get up there is in the CP. Its more like drag racing a modern Jeep, it won't win but you'll still get a little rush. also there is a HUGE voltage overhead. The OEM board was fairly dumb, so I figure it needed the extra power to make its adjustments without a lot of math. It just powered through to keep sync. This board has a lot of 40bit and 48 bit math going on inside it, keeping tabs on where it is, where it should be, where it is likely to be in the future, what has happened in the past, and all sorts of other calculations to make it much more adaptive than typical PID xstal controllers. In all it takes about 2000 lines to drive the interface and all features that work during times when the camera is off. It takes about 2500 lines to work through the sync-run math (and it has to power through all of those lines up to 1600 times a second at 64fps.) That being said the current to the logic chip is still lower than what (I roughly have estimated) the total current the old board drew, even with the LCD constantly on (total non-run draw as tested so far is about 25-30 mA. about the amount it takes to drive an LED. This figure will skew slightly higher as it progresses, I still haven't designed the power supply to the logic board, which will draw some amount of current. I have been powering it off of 3 AA batteries and a separate motor voltage at the moment.) Inertia helps a lot in PID control. It maintains a baseline speed, allowing for more minute adjustments of speed. In fact when I watch the PWM value changing when its in test mode, its obvious the margin is very small (indicating the inertia combined with the tuning is working and adapting well), but changes extremely quickly (24fps hovers around 80-90 (out of 255) but it updates 600 times every second. Single frame is entirely different. instead of using inertia built up in frame 1-3 of the ramp up and simply maintaining that speed, it needs to build at least enough speed so that it can hit the proper exposure time. However once the shutter opens it must continue to accelerate, with the goal of making up for the slow start, so it will hit the exact exposure time. Because its only one half of one full cycle that is exposing, I have roughly 12 chances to see if its on target or if it needs to speed up or slow down. then the second the shutter has closed it must shut down as fast as possible, leaving enough dark-time margin to allow for the next acceleration cycle. Its easy to do a 10 second exposure on the button. Very difficult to get it to do 1/48th sec. But possible. (thankfully all those 40 and 48 bit math routines can be recycled for the intervalometer. That's why I expect it to be so cheap. Simple box. Simple LCD. Power from the board. Single fisher connection. Simple R&D = cheapest intervalometer around!) Now if I could just stop shooting so much I could get this thing done! The next project will be funded, and engineers will be hired to bash out the design minutia. I can't stop inventing, but I refuse to live the life of an engineer. The next one will be mind blowing (at least to producers and cinematographers), and less niche-targeted. I'll announce it once I get the patents issued and I get the investors...know anyone with 250K for a first round, or 2-3 mill for second round R&D? 18-24 months to market, 40-100million dollar market!

Initially it won't, but with the intervalometer that will follow it will be able to do animation/single frame. I have looked into the process, and it is quite difficult to get the exposure time exactly correct (it has to be up to speed perfectly within 1/2 frame, and it needs to adjust on the fly to ensure perfect exposure, and stoppage with the shutter entirely closed.) I just simply don't have time or space on the chip to implement that feature. I have to get this out, so that will be on the intervalometer. Don't worry, however. The IV will be quite cheap compared to other comparable devices. This will be a self install/accessory type item, so it won't require a second visit to my shop. Just the initial upgrade will need to be done.

Not to hijack the thread....but is that a combo Porta-potty/power pole? I am speechless. Literally without speech. We truly are living in blessed times.

Interesting stuff. Still I wish they had thrown the word "professional" in there more. It was copiously missing.

Hi Robert, Any crystal sync controller will have some sort of standard deviation. The board controls this to a very tight tolerance and well within OEM spec. The two factors in deviation is the degree its able to drift off absolute target, and the frame to frame variability. My system puts focus on keeping each frame exactly 1/24 sec, and allows for small tweaks 600 times a second to keep itself perfectly in beat. Overall it never drifts enough induce visual artifacts in the film under any condition. Flicker and strobing are eliminated. If they get too far out of spec, the sync light will comes on. The timing is done with absolute time (like a stop watch taking split timings) so the chip always knows exactly where the target is, ensuring perfect lip-sync, even with a take spanning an entire 400' mag. The Archimedes can be post-calibrated for either pulley. There is a jumper setting to select 24/25fps pulley. There is no true "reference" frequency generated on chip like other controllers, instead it has tables of intervals for every frame rate. When you change the jumper the chip will load the appropriate table (this also changes the calibration of the film counter and odometer to match the different ratio) If the spare is still available I would recommend using the 24fps pulley. That gives the camera exactly 600 feedback pulses per second @24fps, whereas its 576 with the other pulley. The faster the feedback frequency the more accurate the control will be, and the faster the LCD will be refreshed.

My board would probably work with that motor with very little modification. We just have to figure a way to get a disc on any of the drive wheels to provide tach feedback. In the CP it works with 25 pulses per frame, but really any amount would work (the fewer there are the less accurate it is, however putting in too many limits the top speed its able to drive the camera at. For pilot data I would use something like this: OSD prefab With that I should be able to interface through what normally would be the EXT jack on the CP, hopefully allowing me to use the same board as the CP, with a custom program running to work with your camera and the OSD. That would be able to feed down the measured FPS, battery voltage, roll out, and footage counter in real time. And because the board is already designed and built, it would drastically reduce the amount of customization needed to get it to work for your situation. Send some pics of your motor, I'll try and look up info on it and see if there is a good point where we can get that feedback. Optical is ideal, but hall effect would work in a pinch. Find a main wheel and attach a few magnets around the circumference then place a hall effect sensor just above that.

A wise man once said "Before a mad scientist truly goes mad, there is a time when he is only partly mad. This is when he will throw his best parties." So when is this party? Looks like your getting into a wold of complexity (bob and weave making lining each shot up tricky) double the cost of film, more than double the weight, etc. But if you must then go for it. I would compress them just a bit. You want there to be a bit of overlap in the straight line sections, so you can dissolve smoothly between them. You will want to ax the non-linear part in both videos before combining them (probably by doing a luminance matte)

Photos would absolutely help. My hardware can control motors up to 50 Vdc, depending on the amps the motor draws at speed. The only modification that would have to be made to your motor is a feedback. If you can get a hall effect sensor on there, or better an optical chopper my software would be able to detect and control camera speed. Past that there are extra I/O pins on the chip I am using, so I could add a roll out detector. The biggest modification would be to add an OSD output to take the variables of interest (sync status, battery, counter etc) and push them onto your video tap feed (or separate video channel, if desired) It would cost more than a CP upgrade, but 90% of the system is the same. I would be surprised if pushing data to a OSD chip is much more difficult than sending it to an LCD. There is a chance they are even compatible models out there that would reduce the cost of the modification. weight could be as little as an ounce or less. The board could be as small as 2x3". I would have to add the work to the end of my design cycle for the CP. I have two months left, but some of that will be delay time waiting for the manufacturers and vendors to turn around the various parts, in which time I could start designing it. I would have to be done with it fairly quick, because there is no way I'm going to be cooped up inside programming and designing during Alaska's summer! My hibernation phase is wrapping up. Send any pictures you have of the camera and the motor especially. If you have the model of the motor that would help as well.

How does your video assist work? I assume its a prism type, if this were a reflex camera you should see a flicker in your image when the camera starts up. You could do an OSD of the amperes coming out of the battery. When the camera starts you should see an increase to a more or less constant level, indicating the camera is rolling. That will not give you any indication if the camera is at speed, or if the battery voltage has dropped (perhaps due to altitude induced temperature change) and the film could run slow, overexposing the image, or the camera might shut down all together. You might be able to do that with over the shelf parts, but it wouldn't be ideal. I figure this is a commercial project and you need proof positive feedback of the cameras performance? With a bit more info on your particular camera I could propose a solution to sample the feedback and provide an OSD data providing film accurate film speed monitoring. For film roll out you could place a paddle micro switch somewhere in the film chain. Place it so the paddle is depressed when the film is threaded. Once a roll out occurs the paddle switch is released and an OSD event alerts you to the roll out. be sure the paddle doesn't scratch and contacts the base side, not emulsion of the film. The hard part here is to get that signal out of the camera in a light-tight way. I know nothing of the eyemos or their controlling mechanism. What kind of motor do you have on it? Is it crystal synced or wild? Standard electronics or an upgraded model? If your looking for a custom setup I could put something together to include OSD film speed monitor, footage counter, battery meter and roll out alarm. I don't know of any over the shelf parts that would give you positive feedback of camera conditions in a flyable weight for a model size heli. I would have to price it as a one off, but I think I have most of the libraries needed to make the development quick and easy. Weight could be as little as a few ounces. When do you need this to work by? or is it a side project?

February for this project was mostly spent designing the copper traces and solder masks for the board, getting mechanical drawings made of the back plate, and generally getting protocols for install set. I have been looking over various schematics from the different incarnations of the CP to make sure the wiring is the same. I have also been adding a few tweaks here and there to the software menu interface. * Saves all settings and counters when they are modified, and loads them on boot up * Boot time under 1/8 sec. * Added an odometer ( 0-65,535 x 100' ) * Finished the battery alarm section, which now features: * Real voltmeter, measuring battery power (5.0 - 36.0v +/- 0.1v) * set the battery alarm threshold in volts * back display now shows ( ##fps ###/400' ) or when you hit a button ( ##fps ##.#Vdc ) * Updates counters and battery LCD while running Its looking pretty good, as far as I'm concerned. I am really happy with the Battery Meter. I haven't done much ADC work before, so I figured I would just cop out and have a bar graph. Once I got up to speed on the ADC system on my CPU, I found it easier to do a voltmeter than a bar graph. I am also happy I have kept everything to one controller. That simplicity ensures reliability. I have done extensive debugging as I developed the software, so it is ridiculously rugged. I am also planning a shoot with the camera. Last week I spent a night doing a fitting with one of the models and my wonderful wardrobe guru. I think in a few weeks I might take the camera out to the Iditarod start and get a bit of footage from the chute. I am working for a release date sometime around the end of April/Beginning of May. I should hopefully follow this up with an intervalometer accessory, and I intend to make that very competitively priced. I can't really announce a price just yet, but it will be the one of the cheapest and best featured intervalometers on the market. Next month will be putting it all together and testing overall system performance and stability. I will test the full range of speeds with gash film loaded, and move forward on getting stocks of LCDs, resistors, caps and all the other things that will populate the boards. Hopefully by the end of the month I should have the first boards in, with the controller CNC placed and soldered. More or less I'm still on my time line.

I have no problem with the idea of putting bets on BO returns, it seems like that could be a good oddball bet that I would feel more confident in than betting on, say, the winner of the bachelor or any of the other crazy things Vegas takes bets on. My problem is that its being classified and treated like a security. It doesn't seem appropriate. Move it to Vegas and I'm on board. Let the FGC and NGC regulate it, not the SEC. Let tourists and college groups play it, but don't give it an air of legitimacy for day trading. Its like playing poker through the stock market. invest in "River card/best 5 combo futures".

seems like a 2K won't be enough depending on the spread you need. I would go for the 1200 undiffused, punching through the water with a bit of chop. then line the pool with 2Ks or 575hmis straight down and panned away from the shooting area, so as to reflect off the bottom for a general fill. However in my head I see the person shot from below, a black background with the ray effect that light punching through surface water has. The figure would be mostly darkened by the limited fill, edged out by the moving 1200 above, and further separated by the shadow in those rays created by his body. Perhaps you would want to make the water a bit milky to exaggerate those rays. You could use reflectors underwater to guide the fill if you need a bit more contrast in the fill from one side or the other, coming from below) That would be a spectacular image, however it might not be what you need for your story. but those are some of the elements you have to play with, it all depends on what sort of feeling your going for. Is this suggesting an actual womb? or is it a character who falls in a pool, and while dying has one hero shot suggesting the pool as a womb?

I have been mulling this over for a good half hour and I am still not sure if its a good idea, my gut is telling me no: Movie Box Office: Real betting is on the way It seems like the last thing needed is to complicate things by adding another layer of financial sector involvement, especially in futures trading that (if I read correctly) won't be able to directly finance anything (other than the CEOs pockets in the form of fees). Its a derivative, so the swap has no basis in equity or actual value of the film itself. Its conjured up from thin air for people to wager on. Its seeing stuff like this that makes me wonder, why, oh why will I be arrested if I host an underground poker tourney, and be charged with illegal gambling; but if it is labeled a "credit default swap", "future", "derivative" / any other wacky scheme traders come up with, its call capitalism? (not anti-capitalist, I do understand the inherent value of some futures trading, but really? Box Office futures? Seems a bit beyond the pale) My fear in this (my specific fear, other than it seems to further the trend toward casino wall street culture) is that the marketing of a film now falls under SEC control, even if its not publicly funded. If a director shows a rough cut of a film to a friend and its amazing, beyond expectations, and he buys futures on it, would that be considered inside trading? It would seem that this 3d party entity (which a film maker could not opt out of being traded, I assume) would open the door to all kinds of liabilities and what not, even though the film makers itself did nothing to seek that kind of exposure. And what is the solution should it start causing problems? Box Office Flop Swaps? and one last thing, every movie, no mater how grand and moving, has a shelf life. At some point its value drops to 0, or at least begins a steady decrease in value until it nears 0. Films do not grow in income/time once the decline starts. Avatar will never make more money this weekend than it did two months ago. It might see a boost when it hits DVD/BD and then start the trend downward again. It may take longer for some films than others, but when you buy futures of lumber, coffee, oil etc you know it will be worth SOMETHING, and likely will trend upwards over time. In film its not a question of if but when the commodity is worthless (or at least the futures of that commodity becomes unsellable). That means every film that is traded on will leave someone holding the bag (the ones who thought weekend 3 would be just as great as WE2, but in reality it tanks and never recovers on the 3d week) yeah after typing that out, I am no longer undecided in my opinion.

Knowing nothing of the innerworkings of the camera's software, I will venture a guess: I bet there would only be one software "build" that contains libraries and code for both versions. Either during the install, or just as a function of the chip talking to the main processor, the camera will determine which chip it has and which set of instructions to load. But that would mean large sections of code are specific to one chip or the other, so in the future I assume a problem in one camera may not necessarily present in the other version, given the same build. of course this is just a guess. David- Full frame out of focus would work. What I would like to see is a chart that has strips that fill the horizontal, alternating between 50% gray, vertical black and white sharpness lines, and gray scales. It would be nice to see what affect high detail areas have on the amplifier (since tightly alternating black/white lines effectively maximizes the frequency seen by the amp. noise might fall apart under high frequency areas, and it might be smoother where the detail is lower. The big question I have is what part of the image is from chip sensitivity and what comes from software caressing. Was there any 'tracers' or ghosting similar to what software degraining does? Did the image feel solid, like it was a camera original, or did it have a feeling of "mushiness" that DNR gives?

Nope you will be fine. In fact if you video eye is telling you its contrasty, but within range, you might find it to be a bit flatter in the neg than you would expect. If your eye is trained for the limited range that video has, and you light a scene to fit within that range, you have lots of room (mostly on the overexposure side) to play with. you have the saftey. What I would do is get a few exposure tests with the lens/stock/proccessing you are going to be using. Shoot a model or one of the actresses and get a few seconds of 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 even 5:1 (with the key light at normal exposure) then start to crank up the key and see what overexposure is doing. Most times its enough to know how different exposures will read on skin tones, and the rest falls into place. If anything in the commercial has to be D-max or D-min (say, a window with 1000h that you need blown out, or a black void background) you should test that too. I assume this is for video finish, since it is a commercial. That means you will have plenty of room in the TK and the edit bay to move the contrast into the proper range. Be sure and step out on a ledge at some point in the shoot, something you feel is daring and almost dangerous (not physically, of course). Try something that seems like its just over the line. Odds are you will find that is just perfect, and the shots you felt were pushing it, but within range will be somewhat duller. That way you get a sense of how far you can push it film, and you will start to learn to trust the emulsion to do its job.