Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Jiggy Gaton] “Hi there, my brother keeps telling me that if I put my canon still lenses on our XL1 and XL2 that he will get better DOF in his shots.”
If by “better” you mean shallower (or more controlable), sorry, no. If if were that easy everyone would be doing it. Those lenses put directly onto either of those XL bodies will have absolutely no effect on the DoF.
The depth of field in a small camera like that is limited by the tiny 1/3″ size of the chip. Tiny chips = almost infinite DoF. A 1/3″ camera natively has about the same deep DoF as 8mm film. Even a big full-size 2/3″ camera still has about the same DoF as 16mm film, which is still quite deep (much deeper than 35mm film).
To get true shallow (and controllable) DoF you must use a lens converter.
[Jiggy Gaton] ” r these really worth it,”
Absolutely, if the 35mm DoF look is what you’re after and is appropriate to your project. I use the P+S Technik Mini35 with cine primes every day, and it works like a charm. There are lots of people like me who swear by the system I use… and even more users of the much less pricey Redrock M2… and probably even more users of the bargain units like the Letus35 and the Brevis35. You do, however, largely get what you pay for.
Do a COW search for “Depth of field” and/or “DoF” and you’ll find tons of postings and threads about the use of DoF converters. Or search the back issues of COW magazine (the PDFs are here somewhere on the COW), I wrote a painfully long article about DoF converters for an issue last year (I think it was last year… time flies).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Nick Griffin] “Sends the perfect message — I can be corporate, but only to a point.”
I’m suddenly remembering something that I had almost completely blotted out of my brain…
A couple of people in here who know me better than others might remember the dirty secret that many years ago before I was a wanabe movie director I was a wanabe actor (thankfully my legal name was already registered with SAG, the upside being that people can’t look up bad movies and TV shows I was in because they don’t know what name I worked under… heh heh).
I can now remember going to many a meeting with directors, casting people, or auditions always wearing my “gosh-aren’t-I-sharp-but-oh-so-causal” garb:
the Armani sport coat over a black tee-shirt.
Thank you, Michael Mann!
Times have changed…..
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hmmmm… those look pretty cool. I wouldn’t mind trading in my heavy goldmount bricks. I just wish they would charge on the Anton Bauer charger.
Now that I think about it, I now do now recall being on a promo shoot for a television station and one of their news guys was talking them up. He handed me one and it would not fit on my regular goldmount because the battery was ever-so-slightly longer than the AB battery, and part of the battery bracket was in the way. It could work with modification, but not quite plug-n-play.
It does appear that they also have a standard “power tap” on the battery itself… that might prove handy when powering multiple accessories (such as a monitor and, say, a teleprompter) with the same battery that’s running the camera. There’s been a time or two when I needed to do that, but the power tap on the goldmount was already occupied. I’ve thought in the past that I needed to get one of those little power tap “splitters” to hang on to “just in case,” but this would solve that problem.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Generally their more “hardware” oriented stuff is at least adequate or better. Sometimes surprisingly good for the price.
It’s generally their power tools or pneumatic tools that get pretty dicey at best.
Although, I’ll admit that I have one of their cheapo “Chicago Tools” sawzall knockoffs. True it’s nowhere near the quality of my buddy’s $300 Milwaukee, but it was 19 bucks and has never let me down.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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We do mostly broadcast commercials… and virtually all of what we produced is delivered in SD. Like Walter, we go through boxes and boxes of good ‘ol BetaSP.
While all six of the broadcast stations in our market are HD, all of them simply pass along the networks’ HD signals, none of them originate any local HD programming nor can they accept commercials in HD. The last thing for broadcast that we delivered in HD was programming for the state’s Public Television Network.
Although we work primarily in our own market, we do occasionally create commercials that air regionally, nationally, or locally in other markets around the country. Interestingly enough we got a message from a station in a tiny tiny market in another state about two years ago saying, “Hey, we can take your commercials in HD now.” I was very surprised… as even the big stations in other large markets that we serve still typically ask for BetaSP delivery.
So far our HD work has been limited to things like corporate films, trade show presentations etc.
If we are shooting a commercial, for example, and I know that it’s an SD project and there’s not a snowball’s chance that I will ever need the footage again, I’ll shoot it in SD (i.e., someone on camera speaking about a specific event). It’s just simpler, and I can use the footage in any of our decks in any of our suites (two of the suites are still SD only, the other two HD). If I think the footage has “legs,” I’ll shoot it in HD.
Sometimes we’ll produce a commercial start-to-finish in HD (frankly, I do that when I think there’s potential for keeping an extra-good spot on our reel for a while). In those instances, I’ll plan ahead with our editor and decide on the exact “look” and framing before directing the shoot. If we decide we want a letterboxed SD version, then I don’t do anything very different. But sometimes we know we will want a full-frame SD version… in those instances I just have to be a bit more mindful of the left and right frame edges… and not include any overly-important elements that would be lost when we do the 4:3 centerpunch version for SD.
SD is alive and well here.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Ten bucks??? Can’t beat that.
Yeah good call, Mark… I LOVE Harbor Freight. Yeah, it’s mostly a bunch of cheap crap, but sometimes cheap crap is what you need.
By they way, they sell large quilted furniture moving pads… we picked up a whole stack of them a couple of years ago to use as sound blankets, etc. Not quite a Matthews blanket, but darn near close enough… and at seven bucks a pop you can’t go wrong. Oh, and even better, they are black.
https://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93156
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Oops…. I hope that Mark never catches a glimpse of my daily attire… the ever-present Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and baseball cap (a baseball cap, usually Yankees or Dodgers, is required for directors by federal law). At least they’re clean.
I was a buttoned-down guy for 12 corporate years, and when I got out of that I gave away a dozen Brooks Brothers suits. Now, I pretty much look the same whether in house editing all by myself, on location directing, or meeting with some executive bigwig. Usually though my partner (who is the shined-shoes half) comes along, I think he passes me off as “one of those creative types, you know.”
I don’t think I’ve ever had it make a bit of difference to a client. It might but I don’t think so. If it has, at least I was comfortable… ha.
Then again, if a job applicant showed up dressed like me, I’d probably think he was a bum.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Myself, I don’t care what platform someone edits on, since they are all so similar these days. If someone is say, wildly creative and totally kicks butt but has experience limited to FCP… no problem. I know they could switch gears to CS4 in no time flat.
One thing that I will start looking more vigilantly for is the ability to follow simple directions. We have posted our job availability for just a few days now, but have already received quite a number of applicants. Our application requirements were spelled out painfully simple, I thought… basically just resume and reel sent to such-and-such address. Out of all the applicants so far I’ve had exactly ONE do it the way we asked. ONE.
One applicant said “I think you can find my resume on my website.”
Another said “Google me and you can find several video samples on line.”
Please. If you want a job, do what it takes to try to get it. When I told my GM that I wanted physcial reels submitted he said “Why? You can see things easily on line?” True, but I want real reels for two reasons… firstly, I want to be able to sit down and watch them on a real television monitor, maybe even in the comfort of my own living room. I don’t want to watch someone’s postage-stamp-sized work, I want to see it the way our clients do.
Secondly, it’s a test, pure and simple. If someone cares enough about our position and is interested enough in it and wants it badly enough, they will take the time to burn me a DVD and send it to me. Total investment on their part is about five minutes and two bucks. I get scads of DVDs across my desk every week… from people just hoping we might be looking to hire. If someone who knows we might be looking for someone like them can’t bother to make an effort to follow some simple directions… I don’t want ’em.
Sorry if that was a bit of a rant… but just had a couple of new submissions come in. Incorrectly, of course.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hahahaha…. Ron’s post was worth every bit of the wrath. Every bit.
Ahhhh… it pays to have fun.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I think it all depends on your perspective. Interesting that you say “they take ages to pay. I’m talking around the 30 to 60 day mark.” Well, in the big corporate world, 30 or even 60 days isn’t “ages” by a long shot… it’s par for the course. In some circles that would even be considered quite darn fast.
Different clients work different ways. Our biggest big jumbo corporate client usually pays within a week. We have one small mom-and-pop corporate client that takes months to pay. I’d say on average our big corporate clients probably hit in the 30-45 day range, which I think is probably typical. The really big ones seem a bit puzzled if you hound them for money before, say, the 90 day mark. (Huh?? We just got that invoice… in April.”)
I think that’s just the way it is, and with the big guys there’s not much you can do to fight it. Demanding faster pay (before or after you do the job) probably will just be wasting your time… the people that hire you are never ones counting beans or writing the checks. Its sad that they depend on the little guy to “be the bank” but in a lot of instances that’s just the way it is. I think it’s probably up to you to decide whether you can live with their pay schedule. If so, great, and tough it out until the checks arrive. If not, best just to politely decline the gig and move on to clients you know will pay faster.
Not necessarily fair, but not much you can do about it, either.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com