[Todd Terry]

[Rich Rubasch] “looks like you take a jib to every shoot!”

Yeah, I pretty much do.

I tend to like to keep my camera moving, some would probably say too much. We recently did a big campaign with a bunch of spots where, by design of the concept, all the shots were locked down, not even head moves. It almost killed me to do that.

So yeah, a jib and a slider most always go with me. I used to use the jib like crazy, but not as much now as I used to as I’m using a slider a lot more now. I honestly can’t even remember the last time I laid dolly track (now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably have to Monday).

If you see me do a relatively short faux-dolly move, if it is exterior chances are it’s a jib… if it’s interior, it’s likely a slider. Although I do plenty of slider shots outside and lots of jib shots indoors.

I’m actually probably going to spring for a new slider, soon… just haven’t decided which.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Hey Rich…

Well, to be honest, we really haven’t pushed the C300 that much. I’d say if we were getting what we’re getting out of our previous camera rig (the XLH1 plus the P+S Technik lens converter) we would have been pushing the heck out of that camera… but the C300 does so much and does it well that I don’t really feel like I’m pushing it at all.

As a fellow user I know you’ve found the light sensitivity just mind-boggling. It’s really changed the way we light things… much more subtractive lighting than additive lighting. And we generally leave all the bigass instruments at home now (unless specifically needed) and light with only battery-powered LED fixtures now (no more stingers!). I’ve not really pushed it though… I’d say I try to keep my ISOs under 1000, or even lower. But I know I could crank them up if I needed to.

Pushing the latitude waaay past what we could get before has been amazing. Recently we did an automotive spot, we put a car and talent in the two-story lobby of a very high-tech almost all-glass building. I would have never attempted that before, the windows would have just been impossible to combat. The C300 handled it fine. Now I did have a fair amount of light in there… I had at least four HMIs and a number of Kinos… but still I didn’t have to ND or screen windows (which would have been impossible, solid walls of windows 40′ tall). Yes they were a bit blown out, but it was a perfectly acceptable look and they weren’t completely blown out by any stretch.

I do virtually no radical in-camera manipulation. I have several profiles that I shoot (some from Canon, some by way of AbleCine, a couple from Technicolor, and a couple I made up). But the goal of each is just to record very good dry images, not to manipulate it much or bake in a particular look. Here almost ALL of that is done in post. I just try to give a good clean image to maximize the ability to do good color grading. I never put any filters in the matte box except the occasional ND (when the in-camera ND isn’t enough), or sometimes a polarizer.

Here are a couple of things we’ve recently done with the C300… none of these are pushing the image envelope at all, the look is really quite basic, but they are nice and clean I think….

https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news078.html
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news079.html
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news081.html
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news082.html
https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news083.html

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

This is going to sound like a snarky answer, but honestly it really isn’t.

I can fully appreciate your $500 budget, but that is going to be extraordinarily limiting on your choices. A $5K budget, then you’ll have lots of choices and lots of thinking to do… but $500, not so much.

I’m not knocking that… a budget’s a budget, and sometimes they are high and sometimes low, you do with what you have.

But in a way that makes it easier. One of your struggles is deciding between a DSLR and a “real” video camera. I’m not aware of any legit DSLRs in the sub-$500 realm (certainly not if you are including any glass). If there are, I don’t know about them and they would be the lowest-of-the-low-end.

So, that leaves you with video cameras…

Unfortunately you’re not really going to be able to dictate the features you want at that price level, it’s a bit more of a “I’ll take what I can get” situation, so poking around a lot of forums, going through Q&As, and even asking questions might not be of a lot of help. It’s going to be up to you to decide if the features you can get in a camera in that price range is workable.

You have to remember the target market… you go on for a bit about Wi-Fi capabilities, and how you don’t need them nor want to pay for them. Remember that in your price range you’re not only looking at just consumer cameras, but really also the extreme lower-end consumer cameras… the ones most likely to be used by people who just want to shoot and send it somewhere. Ergo, the prevalence of Wi-Fi.

I’d suggest going online to B&H Photo, Best Buy or any other popular vendors, doing a camcorder search, and ranking their relevance from lowest price to highest… then scouring their features to see what works for you. It shouldn’t be too hard of a search, since there are likely to be relatively few to choose from in that range.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Bill’s right, there are easier ways to do this.

But if you do want to do it the old-fashioned “Hollywood way”…

https://www.filmtools.com/24x36wocums1.html?gclid=CL-YwKi59LsCFeHm7AodKikAEA

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I saw someone use one of these cookies… maybe ten years? The last time I saw one period was about five years ago, in its slot on a grip truck. Didn’t look like it had been used in a while.

Also, pretty darn expensive for what you get, if you ask me.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

That’s the original standard old-fashioned wooden “cookie”… I belive you can still get them from FilmTools, among other places. Or you can make your own, I recall seeing a downloadable pattern on line, use thin plywod or masonite and cut it with a jigsaw.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Just noticed you have a 416… you’re GOLDEN, then. The MKH416 is my favorite mic ever… couldn’t live without it. It has such a beautiful warm and open sound… and you couldn’t ask for better directionability (is that a word?). The only downside to it is the price, but it is worth every penny, and then some.

YES, boom it on a fishpole. Don’t put it on the cam.

I used (and loved) the 416 as our primary boom mic on location for years. Then one day some nimrod accidently dropped our usual AT booth mic onto the concrete stage floor here (ok ok… it was me). In a pinch to record some VO we pulled the 416 out of its blimp and put it in the audio booth to record the narration track. It sounded GREAT. Only after that did I learn that many of the top narrators use the 416 as a booth mic (and I mean the big guys… Beau Weaver, Joe Cipriano, Peter Thomas, etc.). I’d always thought of it as just a great shotgun and it foolishly hadn’t even occurred to me to use it for any other applications. Now, its just about the only mic we ever use.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Neil Orman] ” I’m playing with different combinations of ND, gain and shutter speed “

Careful with the shutter speed. Unless you are going for some kind of special effect (such as the strobby “narrow shutter” look), you should always try to keep that at a “normal” shutter speed whenever possible… normal being “one over twice the frame rate.” I.e., if you’re shooting 24p a “normal” shutter (one that emulates a 180° shutter in a film camera) would be 1/48th. Normal for 60i would be 1/60th (since 60i is 30fps).

Don’t change your shutter speed very much except as an absolute last resort. If your exposure is too much with your iris open, and you can’t adjust it enough by tweaking the ISO a bit, then use ND filters. If you want to keep the iris locked absolutely wide open for minimum depth of field, then a variable ND filter is the way to go to ride the exposure.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Jason Jenkins] ” “B” and “H” in B&H Photo Video stands for Beards and Hats. “

Oh. My. God… haha.

I know quite a few people who’ve always called B&H “beards and hats” for years, but I’ve never called them that (certainly not in a forum) thinking that might be construed as anti-Semitic (the “B” and “H” are actually the initials of the couple who founded the place).

With the forwarding link though, it’s good to know that apparently they have a sense of humor about it!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Mark Suszko] “BTW, clearscan is the Sony brand name for the feature you seek”

Wow, I never knew that, Mark… I always thought “clearscan” was a generic term. Education is never a waste.

I just opened the menu of my C300 to see what it was really called there, on my Canon menu it is listed as “Clear Scan“… two words, capital “C” captial “S.”

And now I’m going to go grab a Kleenex on my way to the Xerox machine.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Very true, good addition.

I still wouldn’t shoot a C100 without rods and a follow focus system though, and probably a matte box.

But it’s still definitely a much more grab-n-go package than a DSLR.

I’ve honestly never shot with the C100, but I shoot the C300 (PL version) every day and it’s easily my favorite camera ever.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com