[Leo Ticheli]

Golly, Tom!

I don’t know what to suggest, other than asking them to find someone willing to tell them what they want to hear rather than honest advice.

I do have a grid, but really use it only for lighting large sets for program length stuff; I prefer to shoot off the floor.

Considering the very small space, just put the grid on, say 4′ spacing and fill in with tube as required for exact positioning.

Best regards,
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

I’m sorry but your request is probably beyond the capability of a forum.

Hire someone. Cajole someone on the scene who will help you set up and teach you as you go along.

Some thoughts anyway…

Comedy can be lit in any style; there is no “comedy” lighting, although enough detail to see the face and eyes is usually important, especially in close up shots.

It absolutely does not matter what camera you use. Lighting is lighting.

If you insist on forging ahead on your own, you probably can’t go too far off track with a few Kino Flo lights or similar units. For your exteriors, nothing is really practical but large HMI fixtures; they are very expensive, so you might want to rent them. Even rental of big HMI’s is expensive; you’ll need a competent crew and a generator to work with them. The alternative is to use reflectors and carefully choose your location and time of day to shoot. Reflectors can be dangerous in the wind and require someone to control them as you shoot.

Good shooting!
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

Forget the grid; you don’t need one. Use a couple of roller stands to make adjustments fast and easy.

Drop one of the Kino Flos. Use one large Kino Flo as a key with diffusion on the doors to increase the size of the fixture’s aperture, a small one, perhaps a Diva, as a kick, and use a fabric reflector such as a Flexfill for any fill that may be required.

I do worry about the very small space, very limiting.

Good shooting!

Leo
Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

Gaffers don’t work by the hour, except for overtime, of course.

Contact the equipment rental house nearest you and tell them in detail exactly what you want to accomplish and the style you’re looking for. They should be able to help you find the right person.

Rate vary by region, but you should expect something in the range of a few hundred dollars or so for a ten-hour day.

From your description of the job, I would guess your equipment rental should not be too high; I might approach the job with a few Kino Flo’s and a small Fresnel or two.

Be sure to explain to the Gaffer your budget constraints so the first suggestion is not for a truck full of HMI’s!

Good shooting!

Leo
Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

Don’t buy equipment you don’t know how to use!

Hire a Gaffer; you may be able to find one who’s got their own gear and save some money on rental costs.

You mentioned an “affordable” Gaffer. As I see it, you have two choices. You can hire a competent lighting person to give you the look you are after; this should result in a happy client and the possibility of future work. Or, you can forgo the Gaffer or hire someone with modest skills and suffer the possibility of unsatisfactory results which may result in an unhappy client and a blow to your career.

Which path is “affordable?”

Good shooting!

Leo
Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

Typically, film is shot for dialog-type dramas with the shutter set to 180

[Leo Ticheli]

Hi Walter,
I’m glad the method you are using seems to be working for you, but there are real dangers. The 1200, and the older 130, are not editing decks.

Here’s the problem: the 1200 is without the benefit of flying erase heads to clean out the old recorded data, this leads to very high error rates at the

[Leo Ticheli]

Hi Otis,
First, let me tell you that I have no PAL/25p experience. I do, however, have years of VariCam/FCP experience; we use it on a daily basis, both SD and HD with no serious issues.

I don’t think the 30″ monitor is a wise choice; the 23″ is the one you need to use as a line monitor. I’m sure the 30″ is lovely as an edit monitor, however.

I advise you to contact Black Magic and AJA for a suggested work-flow and equipment recommendation. I use the Black Magic DeckLink HD cards with great success; other’s use AJA and give them good reports as well. I’ve used both companies products and found quality and support to be good.

I am a strong proponent of doing everything on-line. A review of the posts here will give you the pros and cons of this approach, but online is faster and eliminates opportunities for problems. You do need storage; we use XServe RAID’s and they are bullet-proof. Others report success with different storage solutions, but I avoid them because OS and FCP upgrades could possibly cause problems down the road. I like a single source where possible.

Loading via FireWire is a bad idea except for off-line. Every effect and layer degrades the image. If you’re color grading with an off-line resolution, you probably have to redo everything with full resolution anyway.

You do not need an FRC if you have a DeckLink card; I’m sure AJA offers the same function.

I hope this helps!

Best regards,
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

Loading via HD SDI does not improve quality of material straight off the VariCam tape with no effects or layers. I never said or suggested differently.

We’re talking about the final product, edited with effects and layers. If you load via FireWire, every time you do an effect you are going down a generation of DVCPro HD to uncompressed and back again. This degrades the image. With each effect or layer you compound the problem. End of story.

Yes, you can off-line and then reload the sequence via HD SDI and rebuild all your effects, but why go the extra step unless you just don’t have the drive space? The new Macs are so fast that render time is not a problem with the 10-bit uncompressed HD and the extra storage space is not a big deal, at least for me.

Best regards,
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA

[Leo Ticheli]

Hi Gary,
Thanks for coming in on this.

In a way I wish Panasonic had never instituted FireWire loading! Too many people are taking something really meant only for off-line and using it for editing with effects, greatly impairing the image quality. People see it and blame in on the VariCam, when it’s really the fault of the post house.

Best regards,
Leo

Director/Cinematographer
Southeast USA