[Bill Davis]

You ought to check out the entire category of VJ Mixers.

Nearly ALL of them have basic digital greenscreen and compositing capabilities – plus they’re typically LOADED with the kind of cheesy background and key motion effects that you’re looking for.

You may even be able to rent one from a local equipment house or ask a place like Guitar Center for the names of folks in your area who own them.

To see what they do – check out programs like Livid Union or just do a Google search on VJ software.

Good luck.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

I think that THIS is precisely why the old saying “possession is nine-tenths of the law” exists.

That phrase does NOT actually speak to legal rights – it speaks to the reality that whoever has the GOODS has control over much of the situation.

While it’s VERY hard to stand in the face of an agitated party – if you SURRENDER physical possession of tangible assets you’re suddenly in a DEFENSIVE position and t’s incredibly easy for a scoundrel to simply deny that they have the stuff and/or put a bunch of blocks in your way to your recovery of your assets.

This is a tough, unfair and annoying situation. But you’ve just been handed a HUGELY valuable lesson in property management.

If you willingly give up valuable stuff – it’s typically VERY difficult get it back.

Next time, you MUST toughen up and if you honestly believe the material is your property – and NEVER EVER voluntarily surrender your only copy of it.

Period.

Good luck.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Linda,

You don’t mention what kind of computer system you’re working with, but if you have access to a Mac – there’s an EXCELLENT screen capture program built directly into Quicktime.

Just launch the Quicktime Player – then select “new screen recording” under the file menu. You’ll get a bar with a red button. Click that and you start recording everything on your desktop. Command-control-escape stops the recording (explained in the interface)

(Just don’t forget to STOP recording of you’ll chew up a LOT of hard drive space!!!)

Have fun.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

I will note that the overwhelming success of the 5DMkii in the marketplace has led to some of the major manufacturers tapping into the market.

For example, Switronics, the battery folks who’s V-mount and AB Mount batteries are in a lot of rental houses have a new line of batteries for 5d shooters that have 1/4-20 mounts for use between tripod and camera and provide not only many hours of camera power, but have options for D-tap power to feed Marshall Monitors, lights, and other add-on gizmos from the same battery.

Success breeds options.

On a recent 3 day shoot in San Diego, I’d easily go through 4 Canon OEM batteries in a 10 hour shooting day. So as reliable as the OEM batteries are, they aren’t always the best solution. YMMV.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Daniel,

Also be SURE to talk to the rental house about the light’s “hot strike” issues, if any.

If you turn off the light, you may have to wait a specific amount of time before you re-strike to protect the VERY hot and VERY expensive lamp.

Paying for a new lamp for an HMI that got plugged into a circuit on an easily accessible light switch is something you’ll remember for a long time. : )

Have fun.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

This is anecdotal rather than researched fact, but I read a post in the early days of the 5dMkii that indicated that the issue was that with the big raster of the full frame 35mm sensor, even the screamingly fast Digic 4 processor at the heart of the Canon DSLR line wasn’t fast enough to BOTH write to the card and simultaneously blast the sensor info at full frame rate out to HDMI. So they cut the LIVE VIEW feed accordingly.

With the smaller sensor on the 7d – and therefore the reduced data output, they got both to work, but there are still timing issues.

Remember, the 5d was never actually supposed to do video as well as it does. It was a happy accident when the engineers discovered they could blast 30 frames out the processor at 1920×1080 without everything overheating. And bingo – the DSLR Revolution launched on that happy accident.

The cameras are what they are. Revolutionary. But NOT perfect in any sense as video cameras.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Rent or borrow a wheel chair and strap your tripod to it.

Practice the move and you’ll be good to go in no time.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Tim,

If I was working directly with students, I’d try to find a way to BURN a 3-step process in their brains.

Check Focus – Check Exposure – Check White Balance (color).

With a DSLR, you can set a standard to get the FIRST done consistently, every shot. Two and 3 are a BIT more difficult. If you get it set for the first shot of a sequence, the chances of the values drifting increase with time . So I often do 2 and 3 only at location changes or when I SEE that clouds have changed or something else has altered the environment.

Focus – Exposure – Color. The mantra for good results shooting.

Make that a part of the kids rhythm EVERY time they go to hit record and I believe you’ll have done a LOT to prepare them so succeed.

Good luck.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

You’re at an art gallery.

Visitor 1 walks to a painting and looks at it and thinks: Nice picture – pretty couple – pretty clouds – pleasant scene. Nice.

Visitor 2 walks to the same painting, looks at it and thinks: Nice picture – pretty couple – pretty clouds – what’s she thinking? what’s HE thinking? Look at how the artist gets the light on the clouds just right. I wonder how long it took him or her to paint them and if the light in the clouds changed. And the clothing is so beautifully rendered. The folds really draw your eye. Did people really dress that way? I wonder how long it took them to get dressed in the morning with such complicated outfits…

The first visitor extracts ALL they know how to extract from the painting in 15 seconds. The second visitor can probably look at the painting for an hour.

Yet it’s the same painting.

Hollywood often believes that ALL their audiences are like Visitor 1. If you don’t keep their brain constantly stimulated and make it SUPER easy for them to react with either “PRETTY” or “EXCITING” every 10 seconds – then the audience will have no reason to sit still for the end to roll around.

And in many cases, they’re sadly right.

(More explosions, more pretty people, please, and make sure the bad guys are wearing something that makes everyone SURE they’re the bad guys. We wouldn’t want the poor audience to get confused here…”

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner

[Bill Davis]

The central issue is that you have to decide what you’re monitoring and why.

If it’s to assess critical picture exposure, color balance, and/or picture detail – you’re going to be disappointed with ANY DSLR. They do NOT put out a signal that’s capable of reliable critical evaluation while shooting.

You have to shoot tests, process the video from the cards, and judge THOSE files for picture quality on a laptop on set that you’ve tested in controlled conditions comparing it to a REAL monitor that you can count on. It’s a pain, but that’s how it is. It puts pressure on the crew to be RELENTLESSLY aware of changes in the shooting environment (time of day, clouds, etc) so that you can re-callibrate as conditions change. You will NOT typically see modest color balance issues or exposure issues a on today’s inexpensive LCD monitors anyway and even if you drag a “REAL” HD monitor onto the set, the signal out of the DSLRs isn’t good enough for even THAT monitor to be much help.

IF, on the other hand, you’re confident in the technical quality of your workflow, and are just monitoring for picture framing, action and the overall “look and feel” of your shots. I’d suggest forgoing HDMI and just run a composite tap from your camera. Loop it through to whatever monitors you need for camera and/or clients or art direction or whatever and call it a day.

That’s what I typically do.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Conner