Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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You mentioned the K-3, which is good for bare-bones, but to take a big step up to a much more professional rig but without killing your wallet you might consider another camera from Mother Russia….
The Russian Kinor 16mm camera is excellent, and the LOMO optics in Russian lenses are on par with just about anything out there. There is also a well established “commiecam” users groups of folks who shoot with the Russian cameras… the Konvas and Kinor 35mm cameras (which is what I use) and the smaller Kinor 16mm.
These cameras used to be very plentiful (scads of them on eBay) but the market for both Konvas and Kinor cameras has dried up a bit as more and more people are discovering them.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Kasey Allen] “I’ll have to look into that. I’m not from a large town but we have several larger cities within 100 miles that may have AdFeds.”
Yeah, talk to an AdFed chapter in one of those cities… and be upfront with them about who and where you are, so that you enter in the right place.
The Amercian Advertising Federation chapters generally allow entries from production companies that are only within their districts… even if the said production was for a client that is in a different district, so you’ll want to make darn sure that you enter the right ADDY® awards in the right place.
I’ve seen this bite people before. A couple of years ago one creative agency in our area was sort of on the outs with the local AdFed chapter for some reason… so they entered lots of things (dozens and dozens of entries) in a larger AdFed chapter in a bigger city about 100 miles away. Well, the judges there caught on pretty quick, took a hard line “They can’t do that” attitude, and promptly took all their entries (representing thousands of dollars in entry fees, too) straight to the dumpster without even looking at a single one of them.
Even if there is not an AdFed chapter in your exact city, there is probably one in a neighboring city that claims your area as its jurisdiction. Just be sure you get the right one, if there seem to be multiples to choose from.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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If you don’t get any answers here, you might post your question over on the HDV forum. Some of the guys over there (Douglas Spotted Eagle comes to mind) are more familiar with a wide range of HDV decks in various flavors and might have a more educated answer.
That being said though… I’m unaware of any decks other than the aforementioned M35 that will handle Canon 24f. Everyone I know who uses the XLH1 (as I do) or the XHA1 either uses the M35 or a Canon camera as a source deck.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I haven’t used them (they are not out yet), but Richard at Coollights has some long-awaited LED fixtures coming out in a couple of weeks that are available in either 3200K or 5600K models, spot or flood. Can run off of AC or 12v DC, such as an AB brick battery. Cheap, too.
The last time I talked to him I believe he said he was shooting for roughly the same punch as a 600w tungsten instrument.
https://www.coollights.biz/clled600-panel-p-114.html
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Awards can be useful… especially if they are the right awards with the right goal in mind.
We do almost nothing but advertising (broadcast commercials) so we usually have a dozen or so entries in our area’s AdFed awards. We do not enter them to get the pieces of plastic (or glass or metal or wood or whatever the trophies happen to be that year). In fact, they just go in the closet.
Rather, we enter them for two reasons…. firstly, to support our local AdFed chapter, of which we are members. But more importantly, to get our winning work shown to a captive audience of our exact group of potential clients on the big screen at the awards show. Our clients and potential clients are almost exclusively ad agencies, and they are who populate the black tie crowd on awards night. Almost invariably after the awards show some MadMan agency guy will track us down while schmoozing in the venue lobby to say “You guys do great work, have been meaning to call you.” And usually, they do.
For us, it’s just advertising and marketing, pure and simple.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I would say some further discussions with the producer are necessary, and both of you just need to own up to what you do know and what you don’t know. Hiding naivete is usually a recipe for disaster. Being ignorant is not the same thing as being stupid…ha… and you guys definitely need to hash out the exact format.
One issue would be how is he finishing the project and how will it be presented? Your resolution needs to be at least as great as the project, or greater. Is this a real film, as in shot on actual film? Or not? If it were really an HD video “film” or say a Panavision Genesis project that is actually being finished at 1080 then a regular HD project should be sufficient. However, if it is a real film then you need to finish at at least whatever resolution the DI is (assuming there is a digital intermediary, which I’m guessing there is). That would either be 2K or 4K (probably 2K, the majority of DIs are 2K). Even with 2K DIs, sometimes titles are produced at 4K since sharp graphics are less forgiving of resolution loss.
At any rate, you need to know the exact specs of his finishinging/distribution methods, and at least match if not exceed those specs. You’ll need to know more than just 1.85:1 or any other aspect ratio.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Antony Buonomo] “so where does 1.85 come from?”
That’s a film term, you won’t hear it tossed about much in the video world. 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 are the two most common theatrical film aspect ratios. The 1.85:1 is shot with spherical lenses either natively with three-perf cameras or with conventional 4-perf cameras with slight masking on the tops and bottom of the frames. 2.35:1 is shot full-frame with anamporphic lenses.
In the video world, the standard HD aspect ratio of 16×9 is pretty close to 1.85:1, actually translating at 1.78:1. It may be that you can do your AE work as a standard HD 16:9 project and then mask it just a tiny bit to get 1.85:1.
It’s hard to suggest a good solution without knowing a little more… you say “I have been told to use 1.85:1 for a project”… I would say who exactly is telling you that?… and what is the rest of the project? Whomever that person may be is probably best to address this with, maybe they can tell you an exact pixel ratio to use to give them what they need.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Very strong backlight and/or sidelight, flagged so they are only illuminating the subject and the sneeze spray. Probably a single fresnel with very tight barndoors would do it. Put the background as far back as possible to eliminate light spill.
You’ll probably need a fair bit more light that you might normally think for the average shoot as that shot was with a very very high speed shutter…. probably at least 1/1000th, maybe even faster than that.
If you are shooting “normal” speed framerates (say 60i or 24p) you’ll probably only see one frame like that, if you get lucky. If you want to see a continuous sneeze (slomo) I’d say the only way to do that well is to shoot real film with a highspeed camera.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yeah… DoggieCam always has some cool rigs that are pretty neat… and expensive.
Judging from the size of your description, sounds like the thing Roker was wearing was much more of a consumer product than some piece of pro equipment. Makes sense, after all he was at the Consumer Electronics Show. Don’t know what it was, though, unless it was just one of the little regular pan-and-tilt remote heads that you see. Lots of people sell them, and they are all over eBay as well… but those are way too small to handle any kind of pro camera. For something little like an HV30 they’d probably be fine, but I imagine the pan/tilt mechanisms aren’t very intuitive (probably have both speeds… on and off… haa).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I don’t know about the POV rig, but Doggie Cam makes a wearable rig that will mount the camera out back of (and above) an operator, or in front. It’s been used in a lot of music videos and a few movies.
We searched for something like that a couple of years ago for a commercial shoot… camera was supposed to be behind and above the camera op as he was walking through an office (the camera op… me… dressed as Donald Trump, actually). We couldn’t find anything exactly like we needed so had to build a rig. It was bascially made out of a baby-carrying harness we bought from NorthFace, modified and rigged out with these struts in back to hold the camera, and struts in front to hold counterweights and a video assist monitor. I’ll try to dig out some pics… it wasn’t too costly… the harness was the most expensive part (and if I recall the Trump hairpiece was the most expensive part of the whole thing, ha).
Our homemade one was pretty uncomfortable… but it was fairly overbuilt as it had to hold up a heavy 35mm film camera way out back, so it had about 50lb of counterweight out in front, too. Something could be crafted much lighter and easier for a small camera.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com