Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Chris…
I’m not familiar with the “Ultimate”… in fact, I didn’t know it existed. But if at all possible I suggest budgeting an extra day with it if you can, just to make sure you can get it all working perfectly for you with your particular camera… the 1/3” Letus models have a pretty well-established reputation as being fairly finicky and usually take a bit of work to make sure everything is lined up and registered working right, and stay that way (several users I have talked with also say the units were extremely noisy, although I think they were earlier models and hopefully they have worked those bugs out).
I will say that $600/day for a Pro35 and primes is a steal… it’s not unusual to see a Pro35 or primes set alone going for almost that much… not for both…. and there’s never any struggle with the P+S Technik units working perfectly, they simply do. But if it isn’t in the budget, it isn’t in the budget… ya go what ya gotta do.
And whichever unit you use, haggle with your rental house. Most pro cine rental houses will do a 3/5 deal if asked… pay for the gear for three days, and keep it for five. And if you arrange so that your five-day period stretches over a weekend, you’re really getting it for seven days for the price of three.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Chris…
I think I answered some of these questions off-list in a private email a week or so ago, but…
[Chris Blair] “What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a prime lens package vs. a high-quality cine zoom lens?”
In terms of image quality, primes are almost always going to be superior to zooms. In addition, primes are virtually always going to be much much faster than zooms. Remember that the DoF converters eat up a fair bit of light… and superspeed primes will be your friend. You’ll probably find the average cine zoom to be too slow for interiors, unless you pump in loads of light. I sometimes use a Russian Foton 37-140mm zoom, but it is pretty much limited to exteriors only… it is far too slow for interiors, even on an HMI lit set.
Shooting with primes doesn’t have to slow you down much, if you work efficiently. We’ve sort of gotten into the groove here where one of my crew members usually serves as a camera assistant during shoots where his primary job is handling the glass. I’ll yell “Cut!” on a shot and then immediately say something like “Going to an eighty,” and by the time I have a lens off he’s handing me the 80mm ready to go on. If you have (or can rent) a swingaway matte box it can help with the speed. Make sure you have very specific and adhered-to lens-handling protocol. The most simple and obvious-sounding thing is to make SURE you have your hands firmly on a lens before your AC releases it, and vice versa. We always thought, “Hey, we’re careful,” until one day in too much of a hurry my favorite lens, a Leitz-Panavision 50mm f/1.3 superspeed, got dropped onto a concrete floor. I wanted to lay down and cry. Fortunatey my favorite lens wizard (the great Paul Duclos) was able to repair it for less than a thousand dollars. Whew. Since then we have been very careful with lens handling. Usually after calling for a lens I will flip off the matte box, cap the lens, and dismount it. Simultaniously my AC will be retrieving a lens from the case, removing the butt cap, and preparing to hand it to me. Then we make the swap. Sounds like a lot, but we have it down to just a few seconds, without dangerously rushing.
If you work well, quickly without rushing, and are organized… a lot of locations doesn’t have to sacrifice the benefits of shooting with primes. Lighting typically takes a whole lot more time than swapping lenses does. My most rigorous shoot ever with primes involved a two-and-a-half day shoot, over 16 locations with 47 camera setups. Five interiors, nine exteriors, and two back here on stage. It was an absolutely exhausting whirlwind and I don’t want to do it again… but we got it done and pleased our client (and scored a bunch of ADDYs for the campaign).
[Chris Blair] “Limit my ability to get really shallow depth of field?”
Yes, zooms will limit the shallowness of the DoF to a degree, because of their relative slowness.
[Chris Blair] “We use an SDX-900”
As I think we discussed off forum (my memory is fuzzy), with the SDX900 you will be limited to the P+S Technik Pro35, not the Mini35… and I doubt the Letus would work. As far as I know only the Pro35 will work with 2/3″ cameras… the Letus is for 1/3″ cameras.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hey THAT’s cool stuff, Dennis…. Thanks!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Jeffrey Gould] “Plastic Surgery is visual, I think video lends it self well.”
It does indeed… at last count I think we have nine (or maybe it’s 11) plastic surgeon clients. Plus the competition is fierce among these guys, so unlike a lot of physicians most of them are not afraid to advertise.
In addition, most of them are extremely well paid, and have substantial marketing budgets.
On the downside, most of them are also extremely busy and can be hard to get in to see… both to pitch, and to work. We have one particular client (a plastic surgery group of three doctors) that everytime we have to schedule a shoot with them it’s always something like 6:00am on a Sunday, or some other obscure time like that. They are simply too busy shoveling money during the week to give up even a moment of their normal billable time.
It’s also a vanity thing among them. Our biggest plastic surgery client doesn’t have to advertise… if you were a potential patient and called him today for an appointment it would probably be nine or ten months before they could schedule to see you just even for a consult. But, his competition advertises, so he does too.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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John and I were apparently writing similar posts at the same exact time… but just reiterates the fact that the cameras must be synched.
I remember seeing stereo footage years ago where the (film) camera shutters were ever-so-slightly out of sync… the results were very disturbing, practically migraine-inducing.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Stereo cinematography is not for the faint of heart… or shallow of pockets, either.
One of my very favorite companies, P+S Technik, has a 3D rig which seems very cool, and works with a variety of cameras… also in handheld and Steadicam configurations….
https://zgc.com/webstore.nsf/vindex/pstech_3drig
Unfortunatey the rig itself (sans camera) comes in at about $30,000. I’ve never used or seen one, but I’m sure like every other piece of P+S Technik equipment it is flawlessly built and designed and worth every penny. There might be a rental market for these rigs, I don’t know.
At any rate, if you decide to build some sort of rig to marry two small cameras together yourself, you must must must use cameras that can be genlocked together (which unfortunately is often not an available feature on smaller and less expensive cameras). It’s not enough just to run both cameras, slate them, and sync up the left/right takes. The cameras must be “in phase” with each other… that is, their shutters taking the exact same 1/48th (or whatever) of a second with each frame. If the camera are not genlocked and synched with each other the resulting footage will have a very peculiar “wavering” when viewed stereoscopically.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Todd Terry] “my box does have a Panavision sticker on it. Am I trying to look too cool?”
[Robin Probyn] “Not if its on a Panavision camera .. yes if its infront of a Z1.. :)”
Well, it’s on an XHL1/P+S Technik Mini35… so no, it’s not on a Panavision camera by any stretch.
The matte box however is in front of Panavision lenses… 🙂
…I just wish it was on a better matte box, hoping for a swing-away soon.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thomas…
I’ve had a little more info drift in from DPs I know… they all confirm that Bruce at Aranda is the guy to get. Would be like shipping an anvil to Australia, though.
One person though did suggest Cinema Engineering Company, which is in L.A. ( https://www.cinemaengineering.com ). I don’t know if they do movement work or not, since that is both pretty rare and specialized… but they do specialize in Mitchells, so it might be a good place to start. If they can’t do a Technoscope conversion then they probably know who can.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Good idea for residential locations, thanks.
For shooting in houses we typically use tungstens or Kinos and power usually isn’t a problem. Unfortunately virtually all the locations where we have need to break out the HMIs are commercial locations that rarely have stove connections and never have dryer outlets. It’s especially troublesome in older buildings that have been victims of bad retrofit or remodeling jobs sometimes several times over… it’s a total crapshoot what breakers feed what circuits and what’s already on them. Without fail no one ever knows. Sometimes they don’t even know where their breaker box is…. sheesh. Ha.
Still searching for that elusive device that apparently doesn’t exist.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] “Matte boxes serve specific purposes, and should be more than a fashion accessory to make the camera “look cool”. Or don’t use them at all.”
Mine frankly rarely has a filter in it at all, maybe on occasion an ND or two. It’s mostly there to control flare and hold up the eyebrow. I’m a fan of strong backlights, and considering with most all of my primes the front glass is very near the front of the barrel I sometimes need flare control.
But as for filtration, yes, less is more. I’ve often had to deal with footage where I said “Man, I wish they hadn’t filtered that,” but rarely say “Man, I wish they had filtered that.” If ever.
Oh, Mark… my box does have a Panavision sticker on it. Am I trying to look too cool?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com