[Bill Davis]

It means that that individual hasn’t learned how to communicate clearly with others in that particular situation.

[Bill Davis]

First and foremost, I sympathize. It is getting harder and harder to find companies responsive to customer needs in an era where labor costs are viewed by corporate types as the single most controllable ongoing expense. (They are sadly, correct, by the way)

On the other hand, you have some culpability, as well.

You went after savings over safety. You willingly took your transaction out of the retail channel. You didn’t want to deal with a middle man (the pro dealer) who might have had more power to protect your purchase after the fact since the company/dealer relationship drives a WHOLE lot more profit for both the dealer and the manufacturer than selling a tripod off a trade show floor to a solo guy yields.

So here you are.

You got the savings. Now you’ve got more hassle than you bargained for.

Not good. But understandable.

Sorry.

[Bill Davis]

A lot of folks have given you very helpful information, but nobody has addressed your question head on.

So allow me.

The 5d footage shot properly can and should be able to pull EXCELLENT keys.

Many of us have done it time and time again.

So if you’re having problems – it’s likely human/workflow errors rather than any intrinsic flaw in the way the camera operates or the digital stream it outputs.

Simple as that.

[Bill Davis]

This isn’t the place to do a complex lighting tutorial.

I’ll just simply note that lighting is seldom about one light – it’s about a mixture of light – or more accurately the RATIO of the lights working with and against each other.

If you’re setting this kind of specific eye light, you need to understand how much light is on the general scene in order to understand how much “pop” you’ll get from the instrument directly highlighting the eyes.

For example, let’s say you’ve lit the overall scene/background to that a meter reads F8. Then you put an eyelight on a character and that reads at F5.6. That’s a ONE stop difference. If you decide you want a TWO stop difference, you can EITHER increase the eyelight by a stop – OR DECREASE the background by a stop.

This is the point of a controlled studio setting. You turn the lights off and it’s PITCH BLACK.That’s the BASE for control over how much light goes where. The next huge factor is controlling spill, because if you turn a light on anywhere in the scene, it’s going to SPILL on everything. Something intuitive if you think about standing in a dark room and turning on a flashlight and looking at the spill on the hand holding it.

Contrast is about CONTROL. A strong eyelight, is about having the ability to control the ambient light in the overall scene while placing RELATIVELY stronger light in the shape you want – where you want.

Hope this helps.

[Bill Davis]

You are WAAAAY underestimating the barriers in your way.

“Business location” is ephemeral. It gives us little information as to the legal hurdles.

For example, the following “entities” might have the ability to cause you grief when it comes to securing clean “rights” to use footage in a retail location.

(we’ll start small and go big)

Product designs (if in close up.)
Product logos (if visible in the shop)
Store design and decor (as in “Hey, that’s obviously a ZALES!”
The store NAME and logo themselves.
The “Property rights” if any, of the building and/or facility owners.
The shopping center’s architecture or design elements, if protected.
The shopping center or mall owner’s private property rights to limit access and or use of their IP

Those are just a FEW off the top of my head.

I used to do work for major shopping malls in my area and was shocked to learn decades ago that often the MALL Owner – (which is typically a big entity with LOTS of lawyers on retainer!) actually acts like the PARENT to all the stores located there – setting rules, collecting ALL the cash and credit card receipts at the end of the day and essentially making ALL the rules that the mall runs under. The stores (tenants) have EXTREMELY limited rights – which are governed under master agreements between the stores parent company – and the mall operating company. The result is that unless you get into the VERY rare store that is independently owned and operated – the local manager can’t even GIVE permission for you to shoot there unless the shopping center or mall approves.

Weird, huh?

[Bill Davis]

Bob,

If I may – I think you’re over thinking this decision by a pretty significant margin.

You can’t understand DSLR video by talking to others. You honestly have to do it yourself.

Whether you become a fan of the process gets decided over the course of about a minute not long after you buy a camera. You’ll fumble and fiddle for a while – then you’ll go shoot something – whatever you like as your first test.

Then you’ll come back and have some minor ingest and capture hassles to overcome but you’ll eventually work them out and put the picture on your screen – on your system – and one of two things will happen.

Either you’ll say “it’s fine, but it’s not worth the hassles for the potential of what I’m seeing here as this image relates to my life, my work, my budget and my peace of mine.

Or, like hundreds of thousands of us all over the world, you’ll look at the PICTURES and say – “Woah – I can get pictures like THIS for the cost of THAT camera? Oh my GOD. I don’t care if I have to record my audio on a 1969 Wollensack reel to reel – I’m selling everything and THIS is my new visual standard – PERIOD.”

This in a nutshell, is why DSLR video is a huge deal right now.

New cameras will change this. The industry will move on. But right now, you have to make the ABOVE choice – and it’s NOT a choice about specs or lenses or even workflow per se – it’s a choice about whether you OPEN YOURSELF to the WOW – or whether you don’t need one in your practice right now.

Both are OK. But you will NEVER understand the WOW if you just read about it and talk to others.

Good luck with your decisions.

[Bill Davis]

Joe,

I’m sorry to have to deliver the bad news, but there is NOTHING simple about the lighting you’re referring to. This is GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD full-scale studio lighting.

Take the very first scene. It may appear that everything is being lit by the practical (the over table tiffany style fixture) but look closer. You’ll see rim light kickers in the hair of not only Edward G. Robertson at stage left – but ALSO on the waiter at stage right center. The background level is also PERFECT. Giving dimension to the scene without calling attention to itself. I’ll wager that at LEAST a dozen instruments are involved in this. Flown, positioned, modified and cut to the LD’s specifications.

Next look at the following close up of McQueen. Another PERFECT rim light defining the back of his hair. Another perfectly placed light bringing up the white sleeve of the background character. The wood doorway has PRECISELY enough light to read but not conflict. The table is flawlessly grey with no shadows or imperfections. (Almost surely, this particular shade of GREY for the tabletop was SPECIFIED in consultation with the LD so that it read at the proper level – white would have blown out – too dark and it supresses reflectivity.

The next scene. Again light for the face, the smoke, the picture, and not just “some light” PERFECT light. I don’t recognize the actor in the last frame – but the LIGHTING by itself tells me he’s the freeking ENEMY.

And god in heaven – look at the WOMEN in the clips. They have lovingly deployed EYE SPECIALS just so the viewers eyes are DRAWN to their eyes.

You’re looking at movie lighting as an ART.

Maybe, possibly you could pull lighting like this off for a ONE PERSON head and shoulders shot working with 3 or 4 fixtures if you happen to have an OSCAR for film lighting.

But to light a whole movie like this with less than a big crew and access to more than one grip truck?

Sorry, just ain’t gonna happen.

BTW, it’s excellent that you understand the look of great lighting. You’ve already taken the BIG first step to learning how to do it by wondering how it’s done.

Keep learning, and some day you WILL learn all the secrets if you keep working at it and accept that those lessons will come one at a time.

Good luck.

[Bill Davis]

Getting in late – but maybe with an important warning.

Many large corporations have VERY strict rules about vendor gifts. Our largest two clients have specific sections in their Corporate operations manual which place a STRICT limit of $15 on ANY gift to an individual for ANY purpose whatsoever and if that policy is violated, the vendor can be dumped even tho they have a contract.

So be wary.

That’s why we ONLY do department gifts of sharable premium food. With a 10 person department we get a reasonable budget of $150 to work within.

Back years ago we did the “give our rep a nice gift.” thing. And it got back to me that all the OTHER reps were pissed that THEY didn’t get one.

Final gift story.

Once MANY, MANY years ago, we got a MAGNUM of champagne from the graphics company that did our PMTs (a photo process, long gone from print ads I believe) We had a LOT of rush work, so I thought it was a nice reflection of how hard we’d busted our asses to accommodate last minute revisions in client work – UNTIL it triggered a suspicion in me. I looked at the books and SURE ENOUGH, with all the client insisted RUSH charges and revisions – I had actually PAID that one individual small vendor MORE than I took home for the entire year!!!

One of the biggest and most important lessons I ever learned in business! Triggered by a vendor gift! –

We revised our approval processes and clamped down on our clients by showing them how much we BOTH could save by changing out production schedules and to my delight I NEVER earned another MAGNUM of champagne end of year gift from that vendor again.

Live and learn.

[Bill Davis]

I’m sorry. And I know and appreciate the work you put into this. But as a technical comparison – this makes me uncomfortable

Since people in this thread have responded that they like my stories, here’s another one that explains WHY I think tests like these are problematic.

Eons ago, I hung around with a lot of Psych grad students and I helped one design a high school presentation in psychological manipulation. Heres how the setup went. On a table were setup six parallel rows, each consisting of six small toys – 36 in all. The object was to MAKE a student designated as the CHOOSER who was staged outside the room – come in and to make them select a pre-determined toy via verbal manipulation.

Here’s how it worked (a process so foolishly simple that once understood, it’s effect seldom is forgotten – but a technique that’s STILL commonly used in politics, marketing, and sales every day, quite effectively!)

Let’s say the “TARGET” object was a blue bear that was in row 3, position 4 down from the top.

The CHOOSER arrives and the “INSTRUCTOR” says – “Okay let’s see if what you pick of your free will. YOU make YOUR first choice – by selecting ODD or EVEN.” the CHOOSER says “ODD” and the “INSTRUCTOR” says “You’ve selected ODD – so let’s remove the EVEN rows and concentrate on your choice.

GAME OVER.

Right here, smart people often “get” the game. Because if the CHOOSER had said “EVEN” all the INSTRUCTOR has to do is say – EXCELLENT – you’ve selected EVEN, so now I’ll REMOVE what you have selected.

BOTH instructions result in the outcome that includes the “choice” you wish the CHOOSER to make.

At every choice, the INSTRUCTOR can set the outcome by either INCLUDING or ELIMINATING what’s said, . The INSTRUCTOR NEVER loses.

Now we’re talking about a CHOICE between microphones. But what’s MISSING? Plenty. We have no STANDARDS for judgement. We TRUST (And I truly do TRUST) that this experiment setup was done fairly and each mic was given the SAME chance to perform. But only within such a NARROW RANGE OF CHOICES that we’re left ACCEPTING that the choices that THIS experiment offers are the RIGHT ones. I’m NOT suggesting AT ALL that anyone is trying to suppress CHOICE as in my story example. I have NO DOUBT that this was undertaken as fairly as the designer believed was needed.

However, nothing in this test reveals anything very deep or meaningful about the ability of the gear to recording anything but a medium male voice and some simple sounds that frankly, in an open field, far from electrical interference and ANY room characteristics, make this a pretty much a SOFTBALL test- in other words it’s a test centered around the MOST BENIGN conditions – You’re testing a recording chain using ONE mic with ONE performance profile recording ONE easy signal. What if ALL the recorders in the test are all simply UNIFORMLY mediocre under these conditions? How would we know? There’s NO objective standard for comparison.

And sorry, but your conclusions given are done in terms that don’t really have any uniform meaning! Boomy? NEUTRAL? FUll TONE? As compared to what? You appear to be about my age. I know my personal hearing is NOT as accurate as it was when I was, for example, 25. Where do these subjective evaluations come from? Is this one person’s opinion? If so, what are their evaluation credentials?

This is precisely why honest traditional microphone tests attempt to avoid this type of subjective grading and also NEVER stop at just sticking a mic in one a specific situation and trading out ONE component. You want to assess performance over a RANGE of conditions.

When there ARE highs present – not just the brief transients of jangling plastic key fobs – but perhaps windchimes of a flute played loudly – how does the INHERENT RECORDING CHAIN of DEVICE A – CAPTURE THAT? AND does DEVICE B do as well, or more poorly? Does ONE quantitize harshly with respect to the others? Or more smoothly? If a person with a LISP does the narration, does this particular recording machine SPLASH the sibilants? Or take them in stride? What about LOW end. Many inexpensive units have a switchable High Pass filter set at around 150 hz – useful for knocking out wind transients – but simultaneously INSURING that you will NEVER get an anywhere NEAR accurate recording of a jet taking off with that unit. Does that matter to a particular user?

In a TRUE test of audio – you REMOVE as much distracting as possible by testing in the ABSENCE of noise – NOT because the noise won’t be there in field conditions – but because you understand the need to evaluate performance flaws might be COVERED by the very content you’re recording. And just because you can’t hear a performance problem – or even much DIFFERENCE at THIS volume setting, how do we know how Unit A compares to OTHERS in operational conditions.

Again, you’re just testing ONE sliver of performance. And that’s simply not enough to draw conclusions from for a system that will MAKE OR BREAK my ability to have confidence in my professional work.

YMMV.

Again, honestly thanks for your time and effort. I understand that it’s hard to put work out there and receive criticism on it like this. But in an era where anyone and everyone can post material for global review without ANY peer review, I just felt that someone needed to point out some of the issues that might not make this the last or best word on the subject.

I hope I’ve not been unduly harsh. But objective standards in equipment evaluation ARE critical if any of us are to be able to learn when the wheat is the chaff, and what device truly does exceed the performance of another.

Peace.

[Bill Davis]

“Ahhh, I see you’ve used the new Editus Mediocritus style here.”

(The pesudo-Latin will surely make them think it’s a compliment!)