Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I’ve seen the shot discussed many times, usually by hosts before it plays on a classic movie channel… but I’ve never seen anything actually in print about how it was done. I’ve searched myself, in the past, but never found anything. It sadly might be that there is nothing there to find.
I think one of the interesting things was that Welles was very behind in the “…Evil” shooting schedule. Until they pulled trigger on the massive crane shot. When he said “Cut!” three minutes later, they were now something like eleven pages ahead of schedule.
Wow.
It still holds up 50 years later, too.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Found ’em… these were the guys I was looking for, in case anyone else was interested…
https://batteries4broadcast.com
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks, John…
Those look quite similar, but are not exactly the batts I was looking at before. The one’s that I was looking at did have native goldmounts (or V-mounts, you could choose).
Grrrr… I know they are here somewhere on the COW, just can’t find ’em.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Mark has always been the president of the Lowel Fan Club.
He’s always elected… because he’s the only member.
Just kidding, Mark. Not a fan, here, but somebody must like them, because they keep makin’ em.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Similarly, we use the XLH1 with the Anton-Bauer battery/goldmount… and while we rarely use lavs (either wired or radio mics, we usually favor the Sennheiser MKH416 as a boom mic), sometimes when needed we do use Lectrosonics.
We don’t use a dual receiver, we usually use one or two individual Lectrosonics, as needed. Nothing as complicated or refined as a box holder… we just use velcro. Our AB “bricks” each have a velcro pad (loop side) stuck to the back, and each Lectrosonic receiver has velcro on both sides, loop side on one side of the receiver and hook side on the other. If we just need one mic, we just slap it on the back of the battery. If we need two, we just stack them up. The little receivers are so light that the velcro works just fine.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Exacty as Mark said… if you plan to use soft-light sources (such as softboxes or even umbrellas), the open-faced lights are probably sufficient and paying extra for the fresnel could be a waste of money (and extra weight).
However, if you prefer direct lighting, then the fresnels are a must.
Light most shops, we travel with a variety of instruments… both hard and soft. You’ll probably want some combination of such to give you maximum flexibility.
And as for dimmers… as a general rule, don’t. Dimmers or “squeeze boxes” are fine for, say, dimming a practical lighting fixture on location (say a lamp that is in the scene), but it’s generally best if you don’t put dimmers on your actual shooting instruments. Yes, they are noisy and some can cause audio problems. More importantly though, your lighting instruments have a fairly well-defined color temperature. Putting a dimmer on a tungsten bulb radically skews the color temp… the less and less juice you put on the lamp the lower (warmer) the color temp will become. If you need a less light, it’s usually best to either start with a smaller instrument, move it back, flag it off, or put scims on your instruments. Scrims are those wire mess circular things that fit in the filter holder over the face of an instrument and are designed to do just that, cut the light output. Ideally each instrument should have at least a set of four available… a full, a half, a double full, and a half double.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Wait… isn’t that Steve Wargo’s car??
(Kidding you Steve)
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I remember a quote about the great cinematographer Roger Deakins from a few years ago, someone said that he was such an amazing DP that he “Could shoot a movie with a cell phone and it would look great.”
Guess it will be getting easier for Roger.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Keep in mind that a handshake deal is just as legally binding as a contract written in stone, as long as it meets the three legal requirements for a contract: 1) offer, 2) acceptance, and 3) consideration.
The only real difference is that a verbal contract is a lot more difficult to prove, if challenged.
So really, you probably are working under a contract, just not one on paper, as long as the client has offered you the gig, you’ve accepted it, and you both have agreed on the money. Again, it’s just a lot harder to prove. At that point (the point of hashing out the working agreement) you should mention that you will be adding late charges on outstanding balances for overdue invoices.
Mentioning it for the first time by noting it on a client’s first invoice is, at least legally, useless. They might be nice enough to pay it anyway, or legally naïve enough not to question it… but either way they are under no legal obligation to do so. If you spell it out in advance, then they are.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think you might be on slighty slippery ground there… you might want to consult some more professional advice.
Firstly, in most states you have to stipulate in your original contract that late payments will be subject to late charges. The verbage is something like “Vendor reserves the right to levy monthly finance charges on unpaid balances up to the maximum allowed by law.” If you don’t stip in advance that late charges are in the mix, the client is in no way obligated to pay any late fees, no matter how long they take to pay. They could take years to pay, but if you took them to court and won all you would be awarded is the original invoice amount.
Secondly, your amount of your late fee will come into question. I belive you said you charged an extra 10% after they were late after the initial 30 day period. A 10% late fee for 30 days is 120% a year. Some would call that loansharking… the legal term is “usury.” Note that the above stipultion said “…up to the maximum allowed by law.” That maximum is usually around 2% a month… or 24-25% a year. Title pawn places and those sleazeball advance-check-cashing outfits get around that due to some loopholes (which are thankfully closing in many places), but most of the time you can’t legally charge more than that.
I’d strongly suggest consulting with your CPA (or even your attorney) before adding those kind of late charges, especially if they have not been discussed before the job was contracted.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com