Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Well shooting RED at 4k is more or less the equiv of 35mm film as far as focal lengths, DoF, and angle of view goes for each of those lenses.
I’d say with that package you’d be very very well covered… unless, as Rick suggests, you need something extremely wide or extremely long.
That’s a bit more of an arsenal than I usually travel with, and I’m rarely in need of more lens choices. My usual set is 18mm, 35mm, 50mm, 80mm, and 200mm. Sometimes I’ll bring along a 6mm (very wide, 180° view) and a 37-140mm if I think there’s any chance I’ll need a zoom. I think your package should more than cover what you need… in fact, I’m more than a litte jealous of it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Wow Rick… no one will question your DP ability (far more expertise than I have) and I will completely defer to your judgement, but do you really think that was mostly an available-light shoot?
To me, it looked lit like crazy. With all those big windows on set I would be guessing there were quite a few largish HMIs, very heavily diffused with lots of large softboxes, diffusion in Hollywood frames, or bounced onto white cards. Available light just rarely looks as beautiful and perfectly lit as those scenes. And there seemed to be an awful lot of what were actually very natural-looking nice soft shadows… but not coming from the direction that the apparent available light would have created. And lots and lots of “against the windows” shots that would have been all blown out and silhouetted had it be only avail-light.
On the other hand, if that was largely an available light shoot… then the DP was a genius… and really really knew how to read what he or she had.
On a completely different note… when the heck are today’s singers going to stop relying on AutoTune?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Bill Davis] “And so it goes. (small tribute to the late Linda Ellerby for those old enough to understand)”
If Linda reads this forum (highly doubtful), I hope she isn’t too shocked to learn of her demise. 🙂
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mike Cohen] “Who knew 1″ wasn’t going to be around forever?!”
Actually had a call asking for a one-inch dub, not too long ago…instead of the good ‘ol BetaSP dub we had sent them. And they seemed genuinely surprised when informed that one-inch machines hadn’t been built since long before their children were born.
And this was a TV station.
Made me wanna sic Bob Zelin on them.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That’s interesting, most people have never even heard of Ultra 16. The only couple of labs that I know of that can handle it have had to have special gates custom made for it.
2-perf and 3-perf 35mm is a huge bonus too, btw. Those are great formats for indie filmmakers who are brave enough to shoot real celluloid… although the camera choices are limited and a bit harder to come by (although there are some really good Russian 2-perf conversion cameras out there). Will pass your info along to a couple of other non-COW forums I belong to where film shooting is the rule rather than the exception, which is mostly the case here.
Again, where are you located?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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This could be of great interest… why don’t you tell us more about it here in the forum so we can all get the info.
What formats can it handle (other than just saying 16mm and 35mm). S35mm? S16mm? Anamorphic?
4:4:4? 8:8:8? Is it RAW data? Or is there any color correction on the head end (daVinici, or whatever)?
And where are you?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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It all reminds me of this old Marx Brothers routine in one of their movies (I think it might have been “Duck Soup”… not sure), where Groucho and Margaret Dumont kept thanking each other in real fast increasingly aggressive patter…
Margaret: “Thank you.”
Groucho: “Thank you.”
Margaret: “Thank you.”
Groucho: “Thank you!”Pretty funny.
We do always thank clients and tell them we appreciate their business. In just casual everyday conversation I think I personally probably say something like “Our pleasure, thank you.” But I’m not really sure as I don’t even think about it. Or get worked up about it.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Do a search in the Lighting Design and Cinematography forums. There have been some very good threads in the recent past about shooting subjects in front of windows… and the solutions.
Basically though in a nutshell your interior light levels were just waaaaay below the exterior light levels. If you want to do that again there are several solutions… move the subject so they are not in front of the window… darken the window with screen, scrim, neutral density gel, or color-correcting gel… or shoot with much more powerful interior lighting instruments (such as HMIs).
Those two forums have lots of good stuff…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, Doggiecam Systems makes a rig that does pretty much exactly that…
They are at doggiecam.com. I’ve never used that exact rig before, but we built a homemade clone of one for a shoot once, it worked pretty well. We bought a fairly robust backpack from REI (I think, or some other camping store) and canibalized the harness, ect. We made struts out of conduit that led up to a camera platform in back, and down to counterweights, monitor, and battery holder in front. We were doing exactly what you described, walking through an office, lots of hand gestures, etc. The scene was a Donald Trump-like character walking through an office berating and firing employees. We had a suit jacket cut to accommodate the struts, and with the POV you could see the office and my head and shoulders (we had a Trump comb-over wig made that I wore). A voice actor had pre-recorded all the character’s dialog and with playback on location I could sync all the proper hand guestures.
It worked well, although the rig was quite heavy and tiring to use. But we were using a full-size 35mm film camera, and it was quite high and far back so lots of counterweight was needed in front. With a smaller camera that didn’t have to be at such a great distance it would be a piece of cake.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, that’s a pretty tall order… but doable. There are mics that do those things and do them well… but keep in mind that most of them are going to cost more than your camera itself (which may or may not be an issue, depending on how important the sound is).
To do well everything on your list I would heartily recommend the Sennheiser MKH416. I use this mic all the time, and it’s nothing short of great. To use it (or any pro mic) with a little camcorder like the HG20 would require a little adapter to allow you to connect XLR mics. In the case of the 416 you will need a little phantom power source as well (I have no idea if the HG20 has phantom output, but I seriously doubt it). Usually a foam windscreen will suffice to take care of wind noise… although in really breezy conditions you’d want a “dead cat”… a blimp with a fur windjammer cover (but that’s going to be true for any mic).
The MKH 416 isn’t cheap, but it’s not wildly expensive, either. Pricewise they are in the low-mid-range for high-end mics. I think right now they sell for about a grand or maybe a little more.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com