Todd Terry
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
-
Well SpaceLites are great for big blue or greenscreen stages where you want nice even lighting of the cyc, and a nice even high level of all-over ambient lighting from the same instruments.
That might not be what you always want, though. In fact, it’s almost never what I want when shooting greenscreen on stage here. I try to light just the screen and nothing else, with as little spill as possible and no ambient lighting coming from those instruments…. and then light talent completely independently from that.
Mark’s advice is right on the money… there’s no cheaper or easier solution that hitting up a home improvement store (Lowe’s or Home Depot) and stocking up on plain ‘ol shop lights, either two-bank or four banks. You can get a two-bank fixture for literally 15 bucks. We have several of them that I bought years ago when I needed something quick and cheap, and still use them today. Yes, you can use real Kino tubes later on, if you plan to also ever use them to light talent. I wouldn’t do that though… while they are great for cycs they aren’t controllable enough really for much other use… ergo it’s a total waste to put better tubes in them. Just use the off-the-shelf flo tubes from the same store (available in more-or-less tungsten or daylight balanced). Since you are only using them to light the greenscreen, it doesn’t matter one whit that their CRI isn’t too high… they work just fine.
We painted ours black so they didn’t look TOO much like a DIY project… they really do work great for this purpose and couldn’t be cheaper.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
We have a few of these that we use for various things….
… and seems that you could mix-n-match the pieces so that you had a quarter-inch male stud on one end and a cold shoe on the other. With a ball joint in between.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with a little Manfrotto 502HD head that I recently got for lightweight run-n-gun stuff. It’s available in flat base or ball base. I bought the flat base one so I can use it on a slider when I need to. I also got a half-ball adapter so I could use it on regular bowl sticks.
It’s about at your weight range, and is a decent head.
No, it’s not quite in the league as the Oconnor head I usually use as my primary head… but it weighs a fifth as much. And at about 200 bucks it is literally 1/20th the price.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
I had mentioned the Switronix TorchLED above, but that was when we had ordered one, but it had not yet been delivered.
In the months since then though we’ve used the heck out of it. I have to admit I’ve never used it as an on-camera light, but we use it as a back/hair light or stick it places as a little special all the time. It’s worth every penny, and more.
I’ll only fault it in one way… it only has a shoe adapter and the little ball joint isn’t that great. Since (so far) we’ve only used it on a C-stand or grip arm we’ve had to fashion a baby-pin receiver for it that works, eh, well enough… but not quite as well as if Switronix had made a proper one for it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Dunno about the rest of you, but at our place we’ve had interns in the past, but have been very sparing about that.
Primarily, not to be rude or uncaring to people who want to learn, but we’re not a school and are too small to be able to devote much time and attention to teaching. But if we have someone who is really motivated, is a self-starter and learns by doing, and already knows enough to be actually helpful while they learn stuff… then yes we will consider them.
And we pay them.
Myself, I am a product of interships, and free ones to boot. My early days were in broadcast journalism, and I slaved about 60-hour free weeks for two summers in the news department of an NBC television station. I was a gofer the first couple or three weeks until they realized I knew what I was doing, then squeezed every bit of free work they could out of me… I was pretty much a regular on-air news reporter after that… which in hindsight seems borderline irresponsible of them considering this was the top station in a decent-sized market. Just goes to show you how unbelievably cheap those in the broadcast biz are.
Looking back, they sure did get a lot of free legitimate work out of me.
Then again, I was the only person in my graduating class that I was aware of that walked out of the graduation line and straight into a job.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Maybe I should get this for my own place.
I have a pretty nice treadmill and I love it… if you plan well and use the side rails too I’ve found it will hold something like forty shirts.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
No, ask them each to make available a short (few seconds) sample file (downloaded or FTP’d to you) and throw them in your editor.
The Millennium scanner especially is going to be light years ahead of the shoot-it-off-the-gate system from the “Memories” company (so will the Ursa scan, although it might be only standard-def… I’m not sure of the specs).
One is definitely consumer, one is definitely high-end pro. Just depends on how good the transfer needs to be and what you’re going to do with it.
Either will be tons better than setting up a projector and doing it from home.
Good luck!
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
You have very pretty Steadi footage.
I guess the key would be, whether the client has to have your footage, or can they do with any scenic Steadicam footage. If they need yours specifically, you’re in a much better position, obviously.
Not knowing any more about the client or what they want/need to do exactly, and just blindly pulling a number out of my ear… the first figure that comes to mind is $2K a year. That way, since it cost you $10K to produce, then the client has basically subsidized the production by the end of their five-year license… and you can sell or license the footage otherwise in the meantime (not an exclusive license to them, obviously).
That’s just one number that comes to mind. If you were to go much higher than that I think they might look elsewhere, if their particular project is not contingent on having your exact footage.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
[Mark Suszko] “If you’re a “handy” person….”
…and have lots of time on your hands.
I know several people in another forum (a non-COW cinematography forum) that do this, have modified scanners to do 4K scans of their 35mm negatives (one of these guys in in a South American country and a looooong way from the nearest proper telecine facility, so he has to DIY). Some of these guys have spent quite a bit of R&D and a fair bit of money (few thousand bucks) and are getting spectacular results. But although they are getting perfect scans, it takes its toll on the clock… I think they can only do a couple of feet an hour, maybe less.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
They are probably fine for “home movie” quality, as I said, for a DVD you want to watch or give to a relative. They’re obviously aimed at general consumers, and not video professionals… but sometimes that’s just fine.
For it to be as “good as it can be,” that requires real film scanning. One company that comes to mind is Pro8mm. ( https://www.pro8mm.com )
Now that’s real high-end film scanning so it may be overkill. That’s what you’d use if you, say, had archival 8mm footage that you needed to use in a current modern production, or for the best archival possible. It’s on the opposite end of the spectrum from “project it on the wall and shoot it.” That previously-mentioned place is probably somewhere in the middle.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
