Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Just an update in case anyone else is looking for these…. you won’t find them.
I went by the store and got an admission of a temporary pricing screw up. The generators were supposed to have been marked $150 off but instead for a short time were marked as $150 as the price. Not sure if they sold any of them before the error was discovered.
I guess when a deal seems too good to be true, it usually is.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Great to see that someone’s planning to shoot actual film. If I hear one more person say “I’m planning to film so-and-so with my XL1″ or “We’re shooting this film with our Sony such-and-such” I’m gonna have an attack of some kind. That’s video, not film.
As for your lenses, if it’s actually mold, hmmmm… I dunno. But if what you see as mold is actually fungus then you have a different problem. That might require a pro to take care of, as the fungus can often creep into the lens and get between the elements themselves.
As for the “muck”… try cleaning them with Glass Plus. Yes, plain-old-buy-it-at-the-grocery-store-for-your-windows Glass Plus. But use Glass Plus and only Glass Plus. Believe it or not, this is what many bigshot ASC cinematographers swear by and use on lenses that cost a mint every day. This info came about several years ago when Olympus was testing different lens coatings and how they held up to different kinds of cleaners… and after a fair bit of testing with various lenses and various chemicals, it was discovered that humble off-the-shelf Glass Plus was one of the few products that would never harm any coatings and did a good job of cleaning. I would put a few drops on a lens, let it coat, then first use a cotton swab to try to loosen the gunk. Repeat. Maybe several times. Finally give them a final cleaning with the Glass Plus and some lintless 100% cotton rag (an old tee shirt that has been laundered countless times is ideal).
As for pro repair, that can be done (I’d recommend Paul Duclos of Duclos Lenses in L.A.), but I’m willing to bet that professional overhaul of those particular lenses would cost a great deal more than they are worth. Those lenses should be both plentiful and dirt cheap though… hit eBay if you want to just replace them.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Keep in mind that both of those monitors (both the Ikan and that particular Panasonic) are really basically standard def monitors, not HD. They will take an HD signal, but only actually display about 450-600 lines, depending on the model. As you know a standard-def monitor is not real useful for HD focusing, if you focus by eyeball.
I will say that the Panny’s features that Emre mentioned (the pixel-for-pixel and the red focus) do work exceptionally well… especially the “red line” focusing works surprisingly good.
If you want a true HD monitor you’ll generally have to pony up some real money to find one in a small LCD. The little industry-standard Astros, for example, are $6000+. The 768-line Panasonic (BTLH900A) is four grand. There is the 9″ 720p monitor from SmallHD which is incredibly only $800, but I don’t know anyone who has used it yet.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Rick Wise] “The Amvona green screen does not include a support system”
Ahh… you are right. We just bought the muslin drop from Amvona, didn’t need any supports.
[Rick Wise] “Please do send me the other source for non-Arri Arri lights!”
I give it a try when I get in the studio… hopefully I bookmarked the vendor.
I’ve seen on several forums people who have bought the “BluLine” fresnels from ImageWest and have been very happy with them. A couple of people who were already using Arris said they were pretty darn close knockoffs and worked well.
I’ve never bought anything from them, but I’ve always been just a little leary of the marketing verbage that ImageWest uses. For example, for a while they were selling their “open-faced fresnel.” Huh??? Open-faced fresnel? I do believe that falls into the “ain’t no such thang” category. In reality it was just an open faced instrument with a PAR reflector that could focus a bit by moving the bulb… no lens at all, much less a fresnel. Also, they were (maybe still are) one of those vendors selling “800 HMI” instruments for peanuts. They were, of course, nowhere near 800w HMIs, but really just reflctors with 150w sodium HID bulbs (the same things you can get from Alzo) where if you dig into the fine print enough you’ll find they are the “equivalent” of 800w tungsten. Or so they say. Of course there’s no mention of the horrible green spikes those lamps traditionally create or the low CRIs. I just wish they’d be a little more upfront, call it what it is… a skeptic might suggest it’s an effort to “put one over” on users who are probably fairly inexperienced and thus looking at bargain-priced gear.
That’s not to say their Arri clones aren’t good… from all indications, they are.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hey Rick…
I have not personally used those Chinese blue Arri clones exactly (at least not “as is”)… but I do have a 1200w HMI that was I believe was constructed out of the exact same housing as the Blue 2K tungsten fresnel (I’m guessing it was about a 2K tungsten, it has about a 7″ lens).
I have to say that the construction is pretty darn good. Maybe not quite Arri, but very close. My only real complaint is that the fore and aft focus knobs are plastic and feel just a little on the spongy side… but the focus mechanism works well and smooth and the instrument itself is very solid.
I frankly have never thought Arri fresnels were that well built anyway, especially considering the cost (for less money I’ll take LTM any day)… so I’d say the blue clones would be an excellent budget alternative.
ImageWest isn’t the only seller of those… I found another source a while back but I can’t off hand remember what it was. I’ll try to look it up Monday when back in studio.
Oh… and by the way… last week I bought a pretty decent muslin greenscreen backdrop from Amvona… at little bigger than the one in your specs list, at about half that price.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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FWIW… even with very high-end CCD cameras you can see this issue crop up, espcially with very bright point light sources in very dark scenes. It’s one of those annoyances that may be hard to eliminate completely when using a CCD camera in a very particular lighting setup like that… no matter how much money you throw at it.
Best bet for now (and later) is simply just to avoid whenever you can point light sources within the frame that you know are going to bloom to more than 100% luminance.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[walter biscardi] “Oh you should see what it looks like from out here!”
“It’s indescribably beautiful! It reminds me of the Fourth of July!”
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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.[John Cummings] “…DP’s go to great lengths to achieve a period look for that show, but still can’t resist using more contemporary-looking soft lighting.”
That’s a very good and interesting observation.
I think I have an answer to that… or at least my attempt at an explanation…
I think the fairly simple answer is that what they do is an attempt to place you as a viewer into that location in the early 1960s… not to have it appear that you are watching a show from the 1960s.
Their detail is so meticulous… sets, props, dressings, wardrobe, hairstyles are all perfect for the era. But the production itself isn’t… actually, not at all… certainly not from a cinematographic or diectoral point of view. All those push-ins and pull-outs were not used much by directors of the era, save for Hitch and a few others. And yes, the lighting is much softer than was seen in productions of that time. All those low and unexpected/unusal angles are not at all evocative many of the era’s movies and even fewer television shows… things like that were fairly unseen outside of Hitchcock and Welles. And the editing pace and style is very decidedly non-1960s.
But rather, I think it’s an attempt (and a very successful one) to transport us into those scenes, albeit in a glamorized way… rather than have us watch them as a viewer.
By the way… I desparately want to be Don Draper.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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From your description I’m willing to bet that was Technicolor… the old-style three-strip kind.
The three-strip technicolor films just looked fantastic… they hold up 100% today since there was no dye in the film to fade (as the three strips were B/W film, obviously). Almost sad that Technicolor had to move aside for newer technology… but one can understand it. The process was complicated, finicky, and the cameras were practically like moving a piano around.
Stuff looks great, though. The Wizard of Oz, for example, looks just as vibrant today as it did 70 years ago.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Nothing about the lighting, specifically, but here’s short piece that’s kinda neat discussing the classic camera moves that are used in the show…
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com