Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I find duckbill/Quaker/platypus clamps invaluable, and use them every day (earlier today included)…. but if I recall, the “real” duckbill clamps from Matthews are somewhere in the $75 neighborhood, maybe a tad more.
We make our own for less than $10. All you need is a pair of Vice Grips (even the cheap knock-off no-brands from Harbor Freight tools), a long 5/8″ bolt (cut the threads off and weld it on), and a couple of small pieces of sheet metal (welded into the jaws).
Assembly is a no-brainer. The only tip I have is to take the spring in the Vice Grips out before you weld, and put it back later… the spring location is right adjacent to one of the welding spots, and the heat will fry it. In the first one we made we ruined the spring that way.
Pocket the saved $65, or spend it on something else you need. 🙂
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Diane Reid] “between 600 and 1,000fps should be sufficient.”
Ah… ok. I was thinking that shooting high-speed film might be a better option, as there are several high-speed cameras too choose from. Also some will, the vast majority of them won’t shoot frame rates anywhere near as high as 1K.
Since standard-def is sufficient, I’d probably consider one of the various Vision Research cameras as Rick suggested.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Bob Cole] “Hi Todd, Have you looked at other services, like Vimeo?”
Yeah, Bob… I did briefly at one time.
You’re right, their videos play well. However, if your read their TOS they technically prohibit commercial/business videos. The gist of it was that Vimeo was for amateurs and individuals, and that for-profit businesses were welcome to explore any of the many fine paid video hosting sites that are available.
The exact verbage says “Vimeo exists to provide you with a space to showcase your creativity and share your life. As such, we do not allow you to upload videos that are commercial in nature…”
It is a little bit of a gray area, as they follow that with exceptions that “independent production companies… may show or promote the work they have created.”
However, that is immediately followed by “Businesses may not use Vimeo to externalize their hosting costs.”
That being said, though, I’ll say that I have seen a lot of commercial videos on Vimeo in the past… it seems that wedding videographers in particular like to park their stuff there.
Personally it’s a bit of a moot point though, as we are not interested in external hosting… we want the look and control that we get by hosting ourselves. But I think if one were to wish to do external hosting for one’s video, the VIDEO – REELS section of the COW would be a good place.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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You need to look at “short ends,” or “re-cans.”
Short ends are the unused part of a roll of film that is left in the magazine. Re-cans are film that was purchased for a production and loaded into the magazines, but not used. Short ends are usually about 100 to 300 feet, on average. Re-cans are full rolls.
In both cases this film is repackaged back in the bags and cans to be resold. Often it is “snip tested”… that is, the first and last foot of the roll are cut off and processed to make sure there has been no fogging, etc.
Great deals can be had, and I have purchased short ends and re-cans many times, and have never had a bit of trouble. The bargains can be substantial… my best score was several years ago when I purchased all the short ends and re-cans from the second season of “The Sopranos.” I bought 50,000 feet of various stocks for less than a nickle a foot (compared to about 60 cents a foot or more from Mother Kodak). That’s a lot of film for me, as I am very stingy when I shoot 35mm… and it actually took a couple of years to finally empty the freezer.
There are lots of film brokers out there, and several companies that specialze in short ends and recans. Dr Rawstock and Stock Options are two companies that come to mind… but do a quick Google search and you’ll see there are tons of places.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Wow, learn something new every day. I knew the Phantom was developed by Vision Research, but thought it ended up being a proprietary Panavision product… I didn’t know it was available elsewhere.
At what frame rate are you needing to shoot?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well to start with, I wouldn’t be too afraid to boost the gain a little. Im assuming you are fearing grain/noise from the boosted gain… but with that particular camera you should be able to gain up to +6 without really degrading the image.
But to your question… yes, you can drop your shutter to 1/24th to get a better exposure, but it will come with a price. That shutter speed is obviously quite slow… exposure for each frame is twice as long as “normal” if you are shooting 24fps, and almost three times as long as normal if you are shooting 60i. The end result is that you will be getting a lot more motion blur than normal.
Now, that might be alright. You said it was a concert, so I’m assuming it’s just people standing and singing. If there is any dancing, choreography, movement, etc., then the motion blur is going to show up fairly noticably. You may also notice what appears to be a slower than normal frame rate, although the camera will actually be recording at the frame rate you set it to.
IF it’s more or less a static concert without movement, you might get away with it ok. But keep in mind, that YOU can’t move much either. ANY camera moves (pans, tilts, zooms) must be very slow and smooth or the motion blur will appear like crazy.
The easiest and best thing would be just to conduct a test. Shoot some footage at 1/24th under similar lighting conditions and see if it looks acceptible for your needs.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Who? Who’s “they”?
Sure, plenty of people are still shooting 35mm. I will still shoot it on rare occasions, but mostly HD now.
There are not quite as many primetime network shows shot on 35mm as there used to be (some HD, and actually quite a large number are shot on S16mm now). But the vast majority of legit theatrical release feature films are still shot on 35mm.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Ryan Mast] “Is that your e35mm setup”
Yes. Shhhh. The combination of DoF conversion and cine lenses and 24fps shooting was just so hard to explain to our clients not in this industry that we just slapped the “e35mm” label on the rig and its workflow. It’s just marketing mumbo jumbo.
[Ryan Mast] “Paul…says they can remount Zeiss B-mount to PL, but they don’t remount C mount lenses to PL”
I’m not really surprised by that. You might have even been the first person to ask him if he can. It seems theoretically possible since a C-mount is so much smaller than a PL-mount (if it were the other way around it would be impossible), but I wouldn’t know where to turn if Paul can’t do it.
[Ryan Mast] “Where could I go to learn more about lenses?”
You’ll find lots of lens info (t-stop and focal length tables, etc.) in the ASC Handbook, but no real discussion of certain specific cine lenses. You’ll find some technical info, but not much aesthetic info. For example, “Why I’d prefer late model Zeiss lenses for an action movie but older Cookes for a romantic comedy”… that kinda stuff ain’t in there. There are a lot of nuances when you get to talking about very specific lenses, all based on their brand/type/vintage etc… and they all have different characteristics… even within the same brand. Just for one example, current Cookes S4/i primes are very cold/sharp/contrasty, whereas Cooke Panchro primes are a bit warmer and softer. But then again, we’re talking about lenses there worth many thousands of dollars, mostly available to bigshot Hollywood DPs who can pick and choose the exact glass they need for a project. I don’t know if there are any entire books dedicated to cine lenses… if so, I’ve never seen any. The best info is going to come from other veteran cinematographers who have used all different kinds of lenses for all different kinds of things on lots of projects. This forum on the COW is a great source, same for the forums over at cinematography.com (those are mostly going to be film shooters there, not video). There’s also the discussion forum at the Russian motion picture camera users group konvas.org. The Russian LOMO cine lenses are great and there are a lot of lens-knowledgeable people there, I’ve even seen Tak Fujimoto post occasionally (the ASC cinematographer of “Silence of the Lambs,” “The Sixth Sense,” and a bazillion other movies).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[suzin daly] “I have considered making the choice through heads or tails.”
You might as well. Those are both decent mics and both have similar features… and both will operate on either battery or phantom power.
Personally, I’m a big fan of Sennheiser mics. We normally use the MKH416, which is one of the industry-standard boom mics. It’s a bit pricier than the ME66, coming in at a little more than a grand, but they are going to share many of the same audio characteristics.
It’s kind of a toss up… for the money, I don’t think you’d be disappointed with either the Sennheiser or the Rode.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “works on skin is spray-on “dry” powdered anti-perspirant.”
COOL, Mark…. good tip. We all have to deal with shiny heads now and then.
Real lacquer hairspray (like original “White Rain”) also works for that, but it’s terrible for the skin as it basically seals in pores (used on faces in the theatre a lot to keep people from sweating… I’ve been the victim of that many times myself).
Will definitely put some powdered antiperspirant in the makeup kit.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com