Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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The one from AbleCine looks to be a better and more “pro” device.
It appears that with it you don’t have to use the 2x extender in the video lens… and they have made allowances for the fact that a lens built for prism/CCDs will be used with a single sensor.
It also has an attachment port for a lens support.
It doesn’t appear to cover all full-size sensors though, so unsure if it would cover the C300.
Still… it all depends on how good the B4 lens that you are attaching to it is. The image is never going to be any better than the worst piece of glass in the chain.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Here’s another fast composition/lighting image from an old post, something I posted a long time ago.
This is my quickie trick with just one instrument for lighting/comp when you are dealing with a reasonably large daylight space. These weren’t interviews, but they could be…
I use a single 1200w HMI high and to the rear and one side of the subject… it blasts into a white 4×4 bounce as the key, and I steal a little bit of the light directly on the subject as a hair/back/side light…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I wouldn’t say these are GREAT, Rob… but I think they are solid.
This is a pic that I posted a few days ago in another thread. The discussion was about quick down-n-dirty interview lighting, and specifically about backlight placement (and how a lower more-to-the-side backlight can give a nice little splash across the side of the face, sometimes a bit more natural and interesting than a three-point-lighting look).
For a Chamber of Commerce job we recently had to go to 60 different businesses and interview people there… so many that we had to do them really fast, run-n-gun lighting with just two or three battery-powered daylight LED instruments.
If I had plenty of time I’d probably do them a bit different/better, but these are some quickies…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Craig Alan] “How big a piece of board as a base do you think I’d need…”
Dunno, that’s probably a trial and error thing. Or just make a good guess. It shouldn’t have to be too big, part of it would concern how many poles, how much they weigh, and how long they are. To hang cables though I’d probably just put a hook on them rather than something as complicated as multiple fittings. There should be something easy to find at Home Depot or Lowes either in with the cabinet hardware and hooks, etc., or with the pegboard stuff.
At any rate I’d throw some weight on it, either a sandbag or a spare jib or stage weight.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Craig Alan] “…didn’t cost much to have the pipe cut to size and threaded. I suppose that’s another possibility though I think the booms would get stratched going in and out of metal. “
Don’t use metal then, use the PVC pipe. You can still attach them to the metal floor flanges with the male threaded slip adapters.
[Craig Alan] “What glue did you use on the PVC?”
Well there was no glue on my project, none of the pipes were attached to any fittings. As I said, the pipes were bolted to the side of the case only. But any time I’ve ever used PVC pipe and fittings before (even for actual plumbing), I’ve just used the regular PVC cement.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Just a couple of quick ideas, Craig…
If you can attach these pipes to a floor, piece of plywood, deck, or whatever, you can do this easily with a few Home Depot parts… the pipe, threaded male “slip adapters,” and floor flanges… like this…
Or if you want to go the all-PVC route for a truly “Drunk RotoRooter Man” look, just whack it together with a bunch of elbows and tees… as many tees as you like, arranged however you like….
…and you can lay a sandbag across that center strut to keep it from tipping over.
If you’ll forgive the quick/bad cell phone pics, a quick walk through the studio showed me a couple of other pieces of hardware that might work… like a junior plate screwed to the floor or decking (this one here I screwed to a board)…
That will let you put anything “junior sized” in it… such as the junior pin on a lighting fixture, or the base of a C-stand riser.
You can also get those in wall-hanger versions… I turned a couple upside down and screwed them to the bottom of another camera case for a convenient place to store/transport a couple of C-stand risers…
None of those setups will probably work exactly like you are looking for, but might spark an idea for something that will.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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You have to spend money to make money….. 🙂
Though I’d rather do it with “OPM,” as they say in the movie business (Other People’s Money)…
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think LEDs taking over (at least as the next step) is inevitable.
Now, when you get an LED fixture that is as focusable and controllable/cuttable as a real Fresnel, with HMI-equivalent output, now then you’ll have something.
I’ve given up a fair little bit of control with our move to mostly-LED lighting. But I’ve learned to deal with it, work around it, and make the sacrifice for the sake of ease and portability in many cases. When I’m on a project where I’m not willing to sacrifice that, I break out the old fixtures.
Not too long ago the rep from Aadyntech was at our place demoing their big LED fresnel head (well, they call it a fresnel but that’s a misnomer… there’s no fresnel lens in it, the head is just shaped like a fresnel). As bright as a 1200w HMI, absolutely… I put one of my HMI heads up side by side and the output was perfectly equal. But controllable, it’s not nearly the same. They offer barndoors for the head, but the rep admitted no one buys them… because they don’t do any good… they sort of move the light around a little, but certainly don’t truly cut it because there’s no one true pinpoint light source in the head… but rather scads of little LEDs. Any cutting has to be done with flags a fair distance from the head, and even then the lines aren’t clean.
One day someone will figure it out….
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think they are pretty neat. Rick should really purchase one and run those tests for the benefit of the group.
Some quick pros and cons… I really love the built-in umbrella port, it looks to stick right through the center of the instrument… nice.
On the downside, I’m not sure there is an easy/convenient way to attach a battery plate… I’d prefer to have the battery attached to the head rather than running to an external battery. I’m on a mission to get all extension cords, power cables, and stingers out of my life. I haven’t been totally successful with that, but am doing pretty well actually.
The DC power port on the back is a little funky… it’s not a standard 4-pin XLR 12v DC, it’s some kind of 2-pin connector. Not a big deal, but I like when everything is interchangeable.
We’re waiting, Rick….
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Good call, Bill. The uninitiated might think that’s simply a Fries director’s viewfinder.
But… your guess of a “transparent aluminum/plastic hybrid housed in a neo-bakellite faux-polymer touch sensitive cylindrical geodesic structure” is right on the money.
How did you ever figure that out? Shame on me for allowing such proprietary and classified hardware to be photographed.
And now we have to “make you go away” (this might be a good time to call the loved ones).
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
