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Hello everyone! I would love to get some opinions on the following. Let’s say you’re shooting a narrative, a 10 page dialogue scene over the course of 2 days. This scene takes place in one location, with blocking all in one vicinity. Would you rather A) Shoot 5 pages/day, jumping around to all of your camera/light setups for those 5, or B) Shoot 10 pages/day, shooting out half of your setups like wide, two shot, etc. Theres interesting pros and cons to both; as a DP I jump for the 10 page idea so I can be efficient with setups and time, yet a director might see benefit performance And continuity wise for the 5 page option. Worked on a feature recently where this problem arose, and would love to hear everyone’s opinions and logic.

I'd appreciate any insight into this mind-boggling issue I had while working on pre-production last week. I was working as Assistant Camera and preparing a rig for the DP, the kit was as follows: Sony A7s, DJI Ronin, Redrock Follow Focus, Atmos Ninja, Radian Pro Transmitter/Receiver. We ran a dummy battery from the Sony and plugged that into 1 of 2 PTAP connections that are built into the Ronin. The other PTAP was used to power the Redrock. Our USB connection was powering the Radians and both the transmitter and receiver were powered by the included USB to included battery packs. Lightweight setup, everything was working fine during calibration... When we powered on the Ronin, both the PTAP connection in the front AND battery unit for the gimbal started smoking. We had a technician on hand, and we quickly powered the solution down and started searching for the source of the extra heat. We had bongo ties that were holding our transmitter to the very bottom of the Ronin (where the battery is). Thinking that plastic from the ties were the issue, I placed velcro onto the bottom of the Ronin instead, and changed one of the PTAP connections for a lighter, shoestring cable. Powered the Ronin on a second time, and both the battery and the GMU on the front motor started melting to the baseplate of the unit, like a hot knife through butter. I have a background in electronics and I have never seen a steadicam unit act like this before. Fortunately, none of the equipment is permanently damaged, but we are left scratching our heads as to why this solution didn't work for us. We don't have a crazy amount of voltage running through the system and the Ronin battery was handling just fine when we were fine tuning the motors. Does anyone have any insight into something I'm missing? Pictures are included of the setup, any help would be appreciated. Thanks all!

I was wondering in this ASC Masterclas day 2 photo of the set what the purpose of the diffusion frame above and in front of the ziplight is? In the consecutive photographs in the Day 2 album on FB, you can see the configuration for both behind the shoulders is the same - zip's as backlight + frontal fill, and diffusion frame above and in front of each one. Extension of the hair light and slightly wrapping (from above) in front of face? Some illumination for the table? Here is the FB link: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanCinematographer/photos/ms.c.eJxlzMENgEAQQtGODLiwO~;TfmPFkgteXDwQtIKEOlrIufrIzLdNN8pPdq~;TKnGnpldnP1t2N2Y3VzcErD3pvLwA~-.bps.a.10154006849658493.1073741828.16007063492/10154009914968493/?type=3&theater

Hello everyone, I'm about to start shooting talks and lectures at my work and there is some money set aside to improve equipment (previously they were only shooting on a handycam). I myself have a canon 5d mark ii, but the problem with this is that it cannot shoot for longer than 15 min. So, I was thinking of using the budget to buy a blackmagic cinema camera, (and maybe the super 35 blackmagic camera), have that setup on a wide shot and then use the canon 5d mark ii to provide additional coverage but not a continuous shot. My question is really, can anyone with more experience than me pick fault with this setup or advise me on a way to do it better. Will there be any considerable quality difference between the two cameras and will this matter as it's going to be compressed on youtube. BW, Alex

Hi there, at the moment I'm trying to find a light setup for a online guitar lesson video. I'm rolling on a 5D mk3 with a 24-105 f4 Lens. I'm posting here because I'll have to rent lights and wanted to know if my lighting setup would be good. Just some impressions to the scene. Filmed is just one perspective - from the front, framing around the head, guitar headstock, bottom of guitar and somewhere in the middle of the right arm. The background is deep, so no background paper or similar directly behind the talent. There are no windows, so no daylight. I drew a rough idea of the setup. Is that an acceptable setup or am I totally wrong? Are Watts sort of right? What would you suggest? Thank you very much, Pablo