Sydneys
Forum Replies Created
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First, I wouldn’t recommend using anything but a neutral density sheet on the window… They do not change the color temp of the outdoors. An orange tint may make things look a bit odd on the outside… Secondly, a 4K HMI is much more powerful than typical lights in your lighting kit… They say the basic rule of thumb is that an HMI has 4 times the output of a typical tungsten & co. light. In my opinion, the higher the wattage, the less the multiplying factor is… At 4K, I’m thinking it’s in the range of 10-12K or so… But, I’m not an engineer, just an end user. If you can’t afford to rent an HMI or two, be prepared to use alot of wattage… Don’t be afraid to blow out the windows a little, it’s not uncommon to see that even in some feature films… One particular film comes to mind, I remember seeing a LOT of blown out highlights in Clerks 2…
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Just white balance… Constantly white balance. And, underexpose by 1/2 to 1 stop or so on high contrast scenes, so you’re able to adjust the color in post. Will your 750 watt lights work in the outdoors? Let me put it this way. I just shot a scene in a coffee shop that had a window looking out onto the street… We put neutral density on the window, and a 4K HMI with a softbox right in her face… Still had to blow out the window a bit.
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Well, when shooting documentaries, the lens control is important… I think if an entire show were shot reality style, you might have a problem with any prosumer camera, mainly because of lens control. For me, it’s like trying to shoot with mittens on, and then trying to focus.
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Back in “The Day”, I used to do this all of the time. I lived in Kaneohe, Hi. I did both still and video, but rule #1 if you’re going to be out there in big wave conditions, is learn how to surf… A big wave should scare the shit out of you. If it doesn’t, expect to bleed a lot… And, learn how to stay out of people’s way. You’re going to have to learn how and when to duck under the wave so you don’t get crushed… I can tell you, depending on conditions, it can be pretty dangerous out there… Safety is far and away your first priority. There’s exposed rocks/coral, because that’s what makes a good pipe… So, that’s where people surf. a lot of wave energy.
As far as a housing is concerned, you can’t use the typical underwater housing folks use to dive with… Ever tried to lift 35 pounds out of the water when you’ve got nothing to stand on? So, you’re stuck with what looks like the cheap, crappy versions of housings like what Ewa Marine makes, but these are the only kind you’ll be able to use, when you’re treading water, unless you want to spend serious cash.
When you’re shooting video in the water for the first time, it’ll be all you can do just to keep the camera pointed at your subject. I recommend doing it two ways… First, assuming you’re using a pro-sumer sized camera, keep everything on auto until you get the hang of things… But, auto can bite you in the ass in a water environment… One problem unique to an aquatic environment is, when the camera bobs in and out of the water, you end up with water droplets on your lens… Sometimes, you’ll get condensation on the inside, as well… Youe auto focus will tend to focus on that, and you’ll have so much going on around you, you won’t notice it. You come back with a bunch of shots of water droplets!!! Just super… Done it more than once. There are ways to reduce condensation and the droplets on the lens, but I’ll have to save that for later… After you shoot in auto mode, get as much as you can in full manual. This should guarantee at least some of your shots will be problem-free… Oh yeah, if you can, try and get an external mic made for shooting in the water. The mic inside the housing will sound really strange. You can shoot some stuff from shore with a long lens, but atmospheric conditions at the surface of big waves don’t always make for really clear video. -
My suggestion is go to NAB and try on the rigs… Everyone’s there, and I think you’ll see that spending under $10K isn’t a good idea. The prices on steadicam aren’t coming down any time soon… I’ve invested close to $70,000 on my setup, and it is nowhere near top of the line… The market for the equipment is more film work, as there’s not a lot of roles it can play when dealing with the typical video shoot… People hire me with the strangest requests, not really knowing what the equipment does…
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Something that really works is, I ask them to tilt the lens down as much as possible, while making sure it doesn’t look out of place… This, when combined with proper light placement, really helps…
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You’re not going to get “The Look” with a consumer video camera, at least not the same look as you will with 35mm film cameras… You’ve got almost triple the dynamic range with the film camera, you’re going to end up with blooming being an issue with just about every video camera, (Do a search on pixel blooming for more info) the tonal range of color in the film world is unmatched in the video world, although high end video cameras are fast catching up… They’re typically in the $100,000 range and higher with lens included… It’s as simple as this… if Sony and company sold a camera for one tenth the amount of another, and it was capable of the same quality as the more expensive one, what sense would that make? On the other hand, most consumer cameras are far more capable of better looking footage than what most people think… The computer plays a much larger but largely ignored role in this… Bottom line is, read some books and practice what you learn. I’ve been trying to push my own limits for going on 10 years, and I have much to learn…
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I live at the beach, I shoot all formats, Beta, HDCAM, 35mm… You will get a large amount of atmospheric interference no matter what the weather is like… I live in San Diego, and on a perfectly sunny day, I expect to get a LOT of vaporized water particles in the shot… It gathers on the lens, even, and it’s always going to take the edge off the sharpness when I shoot through a lot of it…
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The latest version of Premiere Pro allows for multicam editing, as does Final cut and some others… The above poster is correct on all counts, I would recommend an audible “Smack” if it’s possible, I find that easier to sync video to, personally… What the software allows you to do is pretty simple, really… If the timecode’s all the same, it’s incredibly easy, but if not, and the tapes were never stopped, then, all you do is pick the inpoint within the digitized footage for all tapes, and the fotage can play back in real time in your preview window… You just click on what camera you want to use as the footage plays back in real time… Incredibly easy to set up… A real time saver.