Sound using Arri IIC

Tim Carroll · November 2, 2007

I don't know how you're going to get the 16mm blimp to work with the IIc, the IIc will be louder I'm sure. There was a fairly lightweight blimp that Cine 60 made for the IIc, it was 18 lbs with camera (?). I saw a shot of a camera operator doing handheld with it. Those blimps cost around $1000 or less.

- G.

George,

Never seen a Cine 60 blimp, but 18 lbs with a camera sounds hard to believe. The Arriflex 35 IIC with a motor, lens, and a 400 ft mag of Kodak has to weigh almost 18 lbs.

The ARRI Lightweight Fibre Glass Blimp 16 weighs 55 lbs with the IIC camera, motor, lens, mag, and film. It was designed to work with the Arriflex 16S, 16S/B and 16M cameras. I have used the one I have with the 16S and 16M. With the 16S and 100 ft internal load, it almost totally eliminates the noise, as you can hear by listening to this clip:

Arri 16S in a blimp

There was no noise reduction software used with that clip, it is just the raw sound.

With the 16M and a 400 ft mag inside the blimp it is definitely noisier. The weird thing is, with the IIC and the Cinematography Electronics crystal base, and a 400 ft mag inside the blimp, it is quieter than the 16M, but unfortunately not as quiet as the 16S. By the way, all these tests were with film in the cameras.

The thing with the IIC in the ARRI Lightweight Fibre Glass Blimp 16 is I need to figure out some method of follow focus.

-Tim

nathan snyder · November 3, 2007

I would like to fool around with one of those fiberglass blimps but I have to think they are not a quiet as the aluminum blimps. Here is a short film I shot with a 16S with the 400mag an torque motor:

http://owyheesound.com/page_and_reed.wmv

Please excuse the homemade quality of the video transfer. I never had a professional transfer done as I only intended it to be projected from a print.

I used the blimp as it was originally designed to be used with the exception of the Tobin Crystal motor. I had to build a new wiring harness to pass through the blimp to the motor control box. With all of the controls on the outside I rarely had to open the blimp. It was less like blimped camera and more like a really big and heavy camera with all of the controls very accessible.

With the very loud torque motor the camera is a bit quieter than a CP-16R. With out the 400 mag and motor the blimped camera is near silent.

Similarly the 120s blimp is very quiet but incredibly heavy, however, the long lens extension and follow focus controls and zoom controls make up for the weight. Do the fiberglass blimps have the accessories like the 120?

Tim Carroll · November 3, 2007

Similarly the 120s blimp is very quiet but incredibly heavy, however, the long lens extension and follow focus controls and zoom controls make up for the weight. Do the fiberglass blimps have the accessories like the 120?

Interesting piece of video there. Kind of hard to tell about the sound level with the music running through everything though.

The fibre glass blimp is set up with all the controls on the outside. And I did not have to re-wire anything to use the Tobin TXM-22 crystal motor with the Arriflex 16S or 16M. The blimp has aperture and focus scales along the one side and you control aperture and focus with knobs on the outside of the blimp. It's got very cool little built in lights that help you see the scales when shooting in a darkened area. There is an external inching knob to bring the mirror back into place at the end of a shot. There is an internal filter holder for 3"x3" filters, and you can use three primes on the lens turret. There is also an extension for zoom lenses, but I don't have that.

I did need to make a different wiring harness to use the IIC in the blimp, but I was also able to wire the harness so I could control the Cinematography Electronics base from outside the blimp and it automatically stops the mirror in the viewing position on each take.

It probably doesn't quiet the camera as much as the 120S, but it might be okay with a little noise reduction software. Too early to tell right now.

-Tim

GeorgeSelinsky · November 4, 2007

It probably doesn't quiet the camera as much as the 120S, but it might be okay with a little noise reduction software. Too early to tell right now.

That's a pretty big blimp, feels like you could almost sit inside of it, lol..

You may want to try stuffing it with rubber or felt.

Tim Carroll · November 4, 2007

That's a pretty big blimp, feels like you could almost sit inside of it, lol..

You may want to try stuffing it with rubber or felt.

Yeah, for comparison, here is an Arriflex 16S sitting outside the blimp.

I like the idea of stuffing "quieting material" inside the blimp. Once the IIC is in there, there is quite a bit of air space around the sides and back, and with the Cinematography Electronics base being really self contained, you don't need to get to any kind of advancing knob or anything else, so you can pretty much fill the space up.

-Tim