Rick Wise
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Your project is sufficiently ambitious that you are going to need to spend some serious bucks for: set design, lighting design, sound design (what mics, where to place them, how to handle them); and then all the sets and lights and mics and mixers, etc. etc. In other words, unless you have the money for all this, you have a very, very difficult task. Even with the bucks, this is no walk in the park. One little detail alone will be a constant source of trouble: all those windows facing outside, where what you see out them as well as what light enters the room is at the constant mercy of the sun, rain, and fog. Those windows will force you to light for daylight, which is generally more expensive, though Daylight Kino Flos cost no more than Tungsten.
The good news is there is always some way to make such projects work. Spending some dough on bringing pros out to help you will be wisely spent money, provided you find the right guys.
You might begin by making floor plans drawn to scale, showing exactly how everything fits together, where the doors and windows are, the dimensions, etc, and also taking multiple photographs of the space. Then I’d start interviewing DPs, set designers, and sound people by phone to try to find people who have both the expertise and the personality that will mesh with you and your needs.
Most likely whoever comes out to your digs will need to make more than one trip. On a standard (at least in the SF Bay Area) day of 10 hours, you will get 6 hours of on-location consultation. However, your guys can do a lot with your floor plans and photographs before coming out.
Finally, to install the electrical distribution, rig a grid, and install the lights will take someone who really knows both his electrical and mechanical stuff. It is possible you could find some of that expertise locally, at least with some guidelines from your pros.
I presume you have the cameras you need. Otherwise, that’s a whole new, and expensive, project.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
John, Where are you located? Are there any professional DPs or gaffers in your area? If there are, that’s where you should start. You are asking us to give you a complete lighting, set design, and construction plan for 3 rooms — a bit beyond the scope of this forum, it seems to me.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Well I think it’s lots of fun. You got my vote!
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
To my mind, given the situation you are in, the best advice I’ve seen posted is to hire an experienced gaffer for a full day. That may — or may not — be possible where you live. If it is, that cost will end up saving you bundles in the long run. I’d begin by asking experienced DPs in your area for gaffer recommendations. You want someone who is smart, experienced, and has a generous can-do attitude. You may then later want to hire him to install the equipment, or else to recommend someone to do that.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Chris,
While I am always supportive of starting filmmakers, I find it more than a little grating when someone announces “I don’t have time to search previous posts.” (Not your exact words.) If you had time to post, you have time to search. Not searching is laziness.
The scolding over: you need to give some more specifics: what height is the green screen? What electrical power can you draw? What is the distance between the green screen and the opposite wall? Is there a grid?
I am off before dawn tomorrow shooting and back well after dark, so any replies from me will have to wait until Thursday. Others may wish to chime in before then.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
If you are going to use the light only in a studio, then probably your best bet is replace it with a new Image 45 (Kino Flo no longer makes model 40.) If you will be taking this unit on location, a lighter unit would be the Kino Flo 4×4. You could also try cheaper alternatives such as those from Cool Light (https://www.coollights.biz/cl455p-cool-lights-portable-watt-softlight-p-67.html), FloLight (https://www.prompterpeople.com/flolight.php) Lowel Caselight4 (https://www.lowel.com/caselite/), or Kino Flo’s Diva-Lite 400 (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/258601-REG/Kino_Flo_DIV_400_120_Diva_Lite_400_Fluorescent_Light.html). Most of these cheaper replacements, if not all, will probably need at least 1/4 minus green to counter a green spike.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Carl,
This new version works great. I only wish I tried out a sample render with the old version before I installed the new, since I now have no way to compare speeds; the new overwrites the old. The render (removing all blue from a 3-minute, previously rendered piece) seemed very fast. Total time to render was 2:02. I did run the about/diagnostic, which reports:
6cc version: v1.0 beta 2 (August 16, 2008) using GPU (D3D9)
CPU string: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7700 @ 2.40GHz (GenuineIntel)
Instruction sets: x87, MMX, eMMX, SSE, SSE2, , , AMD64, CMOVcc, FCMOVcc
Thank you for this upgrade!
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I’ve shot this style just once. It’s very difficult to pull off seamlessly as there has to be perfect coordination between the operator and the dolly grip: start/stop exactly together. Plus, the operator is constantly reframing during the move but it has to look like a lock.
The most dramatic example I remember is at the end of Psycho, when Bates is tied up in the loony bin and the walls recede (or do they close in?) around him. I don’t remember this type of shot in Vertigo at all — Vertigo came out 2 years before Psycho, so I presume that Vertigo is the first film where Hitch used this technique.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Adam, Thank you! I guess when I tried to do this before, I didn’t click on “Global” — works like a charm. And I like the New Text idea — did it too.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
SHIFT v to add/insert audio level envelope to an audio track.(Highlight any clip on the track first.)
It would be great if CTRL-SHIFT v added velocity envelope to a video clip, but it does not, and I have not been able to make that happen.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com