[Todd Terry]

[anandabrata ghosh] “Also planning to use the P+S Technik mount to use film lenses.”

Well, I can hardly believe I’m saying this since I’m a huge fan of the P+S Technik converters and use one every day… but be completely sure this is what you want to do if you are trying to to lightweight, fast, run-and-gun type shooting.

Just from a physical size/weight standpoint it will add quite a bit. Depending on the camera you choose, the P+S Technik converter is probably going to be bigger and heavier than the camera body itself. The film lenses will add more, even a small case of cine primes (say, four primes minimum) will be larger and heavier than than the camera.

There is also the speed factor, if you are trying to shoot quickly remember that even though it’s a relatively quick and easy process, changing primes does take a little bit of time, and if you are doing it hundreds of times a day that does add up.

If you really want 35mm DoF convertered footage… personally, even though I only ever use the P+S Technik, in this particular case it might be worth exploring one of the smaller/lighter (and cheaper) converters, such as the Brevis35 (about $10,000 cheaper than the P+S Technik)… and maybe even consider using a good cine zoom (the fastest one that you can afford) rather than the primes, just for ease of use and to avoid changing lenses every few minutes.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hey Nick… thanks for the recommendation.

We’ve been in contact with Peter Gil, nice guy. A Polish American to boot, and being an admirer of John Paul’s he will work for scale! He sent us an audition of our copy this morning. Probably still need to give him a fair bit of direction and have him work on it a bit, but I think we’ve found our man.

Much thanks,

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Nick… I’ll give him a shout.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Thanks guys, good advice…

Actually we never ever lease anything (and don’t intend to)… except vehicles. We’ve found it makes good sense for vehicles, and little sense for anything else… at least in our shop.

And yes, we have a good CPA who has been with us for more than a decade that always chimes in with good advice about that kind of stuff.

I’ll need to explore this more, maybe there are some options. We got this vehicle (and several others) from a dealer that is one of our clients. While they own several dealerships throughout the southeast, last year they sold the one here in our city. We will probably travel to do a shoot with them at one of their other stores before our lease is up, and I will have the opportunity to ask the owner himself “Hey, what’s the deal?” I did want to hear from the group what some other options might be.

And just for the record, Steve… I am not a Chrysler fan by any stretch… but I do like Jeeps, and I have to say that over the last 10+ years I’ve never had one lick of trouble with any of them, but maybe I’m the exception to the rule (and just as an aside, notice you never hear a cute girl at the beach say “Hey man, cool Toyota“). Speaking of parts falling off….. aren’t you a Harley guy? Haaa…just kidding.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

…but it is limited to 30fps. If future generations of the camera will shoot 24fps, then we will see something that is really useful for digital cinema production.

Of course what would be really nice would be if Canon offered it with a PL lens mount… then one could use real cine primes, which are much easier to use (especially for follow focusing) than SLR primes. Very doubtful that part will happen, though, as Canon will likely want to restrict users to their own lenses. The 24fps though is more likely in a future generation (the Nikon already does 24fps).

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Christopher Wright] “Yes, switch to a Toyota vehicle”

Ugggh…. but I’m a Jeep guy. Have been for years and years.

Sometimes it’s style over substance, ya know (the fact that I also ride a finicky British motorcycle would sadly attest to that).

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Dennis Size] “Bill loved it”

Ok, now you’re forcing me to tell a Bill O’reilly story…

In a previous life many years ago, I did promotions for an NBC television station. Every year there was a convention of promotions types from all over the country… and usually the stars from many the shows (both syndicated and network) would come and schmooze.

Most of the celebs realized that we were there to help them and controlled their on-air promotion (or lack thereof), and most would fall over themselves to be nice to us.

Oprah gave us lavish gifts. Merv let me cut in line at lunch when I was late. Sally Jesse bummed a light in the hall. I sang karoke at a party with Kelsey Grammer. Vanna gave me a ride in her car. Montel let me rub his head.

Lots of butt kissing.

Except from Mr. O’Reilly.

A bigger jerk I have yet to meet. He wouldn’t even talk to anyone, just hid in the hall smoking and being bothered and holier-than-thou. I just wanted to yell at him and say “You’re on a frikkin’ tabloid show, for cripesake” (Inside Edition, at the time).

Anyway, that’s my Bill O’Reilly story.

And now we’re waaay off topic….

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Thanks, Dennis…

Actually, the background lighting in that instance was not what my original plan was.

I had planned to not light the background at all, because I wanted it quite dark for contrast as I had originally planned to do white letterboxing, not black. That’s why I used an umbrella rather than a softbox so the key would give just a bit of ambient light to the studio. But the client didn’t think the backdrop “looked blue” enough. They said “Can’t you just put some blue gel on it?” I tried in vain to explain that you can’t just “put gel” on something, that you have to have a lighting instrument to PUT it on… they didn’t quite understand that light was needed to enable the gel to work (insert eyeroll here). So finally I grabbed a little Pepper that was sitting unused a few feet away on stage and slapped some CTB on it to show them. They liked it and that’s what we went with.

I actually thought the end result was far too cheesy “Sears Portrait Studio” for my taste… but one doesn’t argue with those who are writing the checks. Well, actually, I do argue, just not too much.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

If you need an “in action” look at what Rick and Dennis are talking about… as luck would have it early last week I directed a series of four commercials for an insurance company using that same exact backdrop.

We just wrapped post on them… they look like this:

https://fantasticplastic.com/bakerwoodward/FCSSyvonne.wmv

The setup was actually super easy. I usually kinda wad up my drops, but in this case it was stretched tight on a 6×6 Hollywood frame about six feet behind the talent. Talent was lit with one 650w open-face tungsten instrument in a white umbrella, white 4×4 bounce card held by a duckbill clamp on a C-stand for fill, and a 300w fresnel up in the grid for a back/hairlight. A little 200w Pepper fresnel was immediately behind the talent on a short stand lighting the backdrop, with a bit of 1/2 CTB just clipped on it with a couple of C47s to give it some color. Camera was about seven feet away from talent, shot 35mm format with 50mm and 80mm lenses both wide open at f/1.3. I would have probably personally perfered a softer more blurry background, but this was the look that the client wanted.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Let ’em go. And be glad you got out while you could.

T2

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