[Todd Terry]

As for getting heartburn over the cost of the Aeron or any of the other high-end chairs… just remember to think of them as an investment and another piece of important equipment. You wouldn’t bat an eye at spending $1200 for a piece of video or film equipment.

Also… unlike the office supply store chairs, these not only sit great and help your bod, but they are built to last. My Aeron is several years old now and still looks and sits like it did the day it was delivered. The film lab that we use is full of Aeron chairs in all of their daVinci suites, and I think the last time I was there the colorist told me they were more than ten years old, but still looking new. Also, I can’t speak for the chair that Tim has, but mine has a 12-year warranty and I bet his does too.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

A couple of years ago, in an effort to make myself move a little, I went out and bought a decent treadmill. This thing is GREAT!… it can literally hold like forty shirts.

But on a more serious note..

As Tim said above, one of my most important pieces of equipment is… my chair.

I slogged for years in a 80-buck chair from the office supply store. I always thought it was fine but anytime anyone else sat in it they immediately screamed “Oh! My! God!”

My general manager Phil finally had enough, and finally convinced me to spend the money to get really good chairs. It was surprising, since I’m usually the one throwing money around on new toys and he’s the tight-fisted bean counter. I gave in.

We chunked all the old office chairs, and bought Herman Miller Aeron chairs for all the suites and offices.

The Aeron is the chair you’ll see in high-end offices where people have to sit all day. Wildly, almost shamefully expensive… usually a bit over a thousand dollars (although can sometimes be found for less).

And worth every penny. Your body will thank you.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I think you probably have clearscan…

If so (and if it works the same as the XLH1, which it probably does) keep toggling the shutter speed higher and higher as far as it will go… the very last shutter speed setting will say “CS” in the viewfinder instead of a number. Select that, then go into the camera menu and (I think) if you open the “Camera Settings” one of the menu items will say “Clearscan.” You select that and then dial in the exact speed you want. As I said in the earlier post, for most “flicker” issues from AC sources if you put the clearscan on 60.1Hz it will eliminate the problem. You can just leave the clearscan setting at that number, and scroll the shutter up to CS mode when you need it. When you don’t need it scroll back down to your “normal” shutter speed (1/48th for 24p or 1/60th for 60i) and the camera will remember the clearscan setting for the next time you need to kick it back on.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m 99% sure that is “phasing” caused by the fluorescent instruments… they are out of sych with your shutter speed and since you are using a combination of flos and tungsten, the ratio of the two types of light is constantly changing with the phase… ergo the color shifts in “waves.”

If possible, try a test with the flos off. I think you will see that the color balance stabilizes.

You can combat this by playing with the shutter speed… if you are shooting 24fps (Canon’s “24f” mode) you are probably using the default “normal” shutter of 1/48th. Try cranking it up to 1/60th. And… I think that camera has a “clearscan” mode (I use its big brother the XLH1 which does, so I think yours does too). If so, change the shutter to CS and you can dial in an exact shutter speed that will eliminate the phasing… which is probably going to be 60.1Hz.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Ron Lindeboom] “I don’t bother with them next time”

I heartily agree with Ron about that one.

There is one semi-frequent COW poster in particular that poses questions that I often, if not always, have a answer, solution, or at least a suggestion for. It just seems he’s often dealing with problems or challenges that I myself have had to tackle before.

Know what though? I never respond to his posts any more.

It might be petty, but all my answers in the past (and everyone else’s) never ever garnered any kind of reply whatsoever… never a “Thanks,” never a “I’ll try that,” or even a “That won’t work because…”

He even sent me a question in a direct email once, which I took time to come up with a solution for him. I guess he got my reply. I don’t know.

I don’t need to be thanked and I don’t do what I do for any kind of praise… but I think everyone appreciates at least some acknowledgment of the effort, if only to let us know that our answers weren’t only to hear the sound of our own typing.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[steve phillipps] “Surely the two options are not comparable?”

Correct… sort of apples and oranges.

[steve phillipps] “Isn’t the Pro35 an adapter that allows you to keep the 35mm depth of field?”

Correct.

[steve phillipps] “You won’t get this with any 2/3″ lens.”

Again correct. Any direct-mounted lens on a 2/3″ chip camera will give you DoF roughly the same as 16mm film, since a 16mm frame is roughly the same size as the camera’s sensors… or about a fifth the size of a 35mm frame. Reducing DoF to the equivalent of 35mm requires an adapter such as the Pro35.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[grinner hester] “somebody would be writing me a much fatter check than if they called me before hand.”

Maybe… but only if they defamed, slandered, or misrepresented you in an actionable libelous way, or misappropriated your trademark as something other than yours (for example, saying it was theirs).

Otherwise, you’d get bupkus (except of course a bill from your lawyer).

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

No disrespect intended to the other posters who tried to be helpful and did indeed share some valid points… but tel jaba wasn’t looking for aesthetic or directorial advice. It might be appreciated (or might not)… but rather it was a question of legality that was sought.

As was intimated here before… it’s the context that is the key, and whether there is any defamation of the product or company. In a true documentary, it should be fine to show logos in the context of referencing a company that is being discussed.

The problem, again, comes from the issue as to whether the logo is used in a context that somehow defames the company. If so, in that case there could be libel issues.

Now… just because you do say something negative about a company or show their logo in a bad light, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have done something wrong or something that is legally actionable. The defense for libel is whether something is provably true. Now, note the exact wording there… it doesn’t matter if something is simply true, it has to be provably true.

Being able to prove it is the important part.

Let’s say Michael Moore is making one of his documentaries, another about the auto industry. And let’s say he says XYZ Motors laid off 1500 workers last month. Is that liable? No, not if those workers were really laid off and one can prove that (which should be easy enough). But lets say he says XYZ Motors makes cars that explode and kill people and that XYZ has known about this problem for years and done nothing about it. Is that libel? Maybe. Even if it is true, and even if we all know that it is true, unless Moore can prove that it is true he is open for a libel suit.

To complicate things more, let’s say Moore refers to a consumer advocate that says XYZ’s cars explode. Is that libel? Possibly, but probably not. Moore isn’t saying that the company kills people… he’s saying that the other guy says that. If he has the other guy saying that on film, he has met the burden of proof for the libel defense… i.e. provable truth. The guy said what he said, and Moore can prove that he said it. It’s the other guy that has opened himself up for allegations of defamation.

But remember, Tort Reform laws are pretty loosey goosey, and people can sue anybody for anything at any time. It doesn’t matter if they are right. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have a case that can stand up. It only matters that they have enough money to find a lawyer who will file a suit, no matter how frivolous it might be.

I think it’s better to err on the side of caution…. unless one has very deep pockets.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hey Mike…. so how quiet is “pretty quiet”?

Say… quiet enough for sound recording in a medium-quiet exterior setting with the generator 100′ or less away?

I’ve got miles of 10-gauge ballast cable, but my experience with voltage drop over distance (from mains) generally starts being occasionally troublesome at over 100′. A couple of weeks ago we had a 300′ run to the nearest mains powering a 1200w and 575w HMI, but did have trouble striking the bigger one. After it fired it ran fine, but took a couple of dozen attempted strikes to get it to catch. Obviously the closer I could get the generator, the better.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Just swapping the zoom for primes on those cameras is not going to make any difference in depth of field.

I started to say “zero difference,” but that’s not entirely true… because you can get primes that are a bit faster than your zoom you might be able to see a slight difference in DoF when the lens is wide open, but not much.

Your potential DoF is still firmly tied to the sensor size… so in the case of the Varicam the 2/3″ sensor is going to be the limiting factor. Considering that a 2/3″ sensor is roughly the same size as a 16mm film frame, you could expect a reasonable comparison. Of course, 16mm will typically have much much deeper DoF than 35mm since the 16mm frame only has about one-fifth the real estate that the 35mm frame does. It will be a little bit shallower than 1/3″ “handcam” video, but not a whole heckuva lot.

Since you already have (or have access to) the Pro35 adapter, using that plus primes would definitely be the way to go if you want really shallow 35mm filmic DoFs.

T2

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