Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Well I can personally speak to the usability of the RedrockMicro follow focus…
To be honest, when they first came out I didn’t have very high hopes for it… most of those cheap FF units look pretty good, but their usability is fairly low. They tend have way too much “slop” (backlash) in the gearboxes for easy use and repeatable FF moves.
However, this summer Redrock sent me a demo unit to test drive for an article I was writing for the COW mag… it only took me about six seconds to fall in love with it, and a Redrock is now the FF unit that I use every day. It’s extremely well-designed and built, tight as a drum, with absolutely zero slop in the gearbox. Plus they are dirt cheap… a fraction of the price of, say, an Arri or Chroisel FF unit and they work every bit as good in my opinion. I will say that my one and only complaint about the unit is that the “well” inside the hand wheel is very deep, so that although the accessory recepticle is standard some of my speed cranks will not fit because the “necks” are simply not long enough to engage. Whips, of course, work fine. I will buy some cranks from Redrock, but just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.
These FF units though, like all of them, are really best used with cine lenses rather than SLR lenses. The very short range of travel to go from nearest to infinity on an SLR lens makes follow focusing on a moving target very very touchy. What I was referring to ealier was thinking that it would be cool for some kind of reduction gearing in a FF unit specifically designed for SLR lenses… so that when you turn the handwheel a “normal” amount that the lens gear only moves a little… that way follow focusuing for a still-camera lens would feel the same as if it is a mopic lens. It would make for a much much easier (and more accurate) experience for whomever is pulling focus.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks for the confirmation.
The whole thing just makes me scratch my head. I’m sure Canon could sell a whole boatload of those if it would shoot 24fps. At 30fps, the potential market certainly does shrink and it definitely becomes much more of a specialty niche product.
As for mounting rigs, even though it is much less expensive personally just based on looks alone the Redrock unit looks a lot more “user friendly” to me than the one from Zacuto. While Zacuto makes some good products and elements, to me their full-rigs have always had a very ungangly sort of “science project” look to them.
What I have yet to see anyone come out with (although it may exist, I don’t know) is a follow focus unit specifically for DSLRs or for people using DoF converters with still camera lenses. It seems to me that it wouldn’t be that difficult to create a unit with some kind of “reduction gearing” in it so that the same same distance turns of the handwheel caused a much-reduced movement of the actual lens gear… to combat the much-shorter focus travel of SLR lenses compared to real cine lenses. Now that would be cool.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Jim…
Good to hear fromt he horse’s mouth… someone who actually owns a 5d…
Just confirming, is it correct that the 5D will only shoot video at 30fps? Those are the specs I have read, although it just seems dumbfounding to me that Canon wouldn’t have a 24fps setting if they really want this to be used for DSLR cineme-style shooting… but then again I guess that wasn’t the primary intention for this camera. Still, it’s one that would make it infinitely more attractive to a whole host of filmmakers.
Looking forward to your review….
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[James Orlowski] “had no idea Canon’s 24/30F recording was proprietary.”
Yep, very.
[James Orlowski] “Was this 30F DV recording the culprit?”
Yep, likely, assuming you were shooting in HDV mode (in Standard Def Canon’s “F” settings make no difference).
As said earlier, when capturing you are going to need to use your camera (or another Canon camera with “F” modes) as a deck, or one of the few multi-format decks that can handle Canon “F” footage such as the Sony M35.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I don’t have that exact combo (HV30 + CS4) but close….
I do have an HV20 that we bought just for a crashcam, and it caputured into CS3 just fine the one time that I needed to do that.
Can’t see any reason the other combo wouldn’t work.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Colin Wiencek] “When would you buy pipe clamps?”
Whenever I needed them. 🙂
But, if you meant where, you can get them anywhere that sells film grip equipment. Good ones from Matthews, buy direct or cheaper from B&H photo… or you can get cheap ones from Amvona…
In fact, just ran across this cheap one from Amvona that is already two clamps mated together at 90°…
https://www.amvona.com/?page=shop/flypage&view=1&product_id=2816
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Easy breezy….
You just need a pipe/grid grip clamp with receiver, a baby pin that has a 1/4″ threaded stud on it, a little tripod head (like a still camera head), and a safety cable…..
…and depending on the exact circumstances you might not even need the tripod head. You might be able to get away with just attaching the camera directly to the baby pin. Just make sure everything is cinched down tight, and don’t skimp and forego the safety cable.
If that setup is unstable because it’s too top heavy, you can undersling it. Instead, use two pipe clamps mated together with a baby stud and hang the camera by its handle.
Oooops!…just noticed I didn’t put a safety on that setup… but it was just four inches off the floor for a demo shot. Definitely use one… and don’t cinch it down tighter than is needed on the handle… after all it does have plastic parts and will break. This setup will be more stable, but might be more difficult to aim the camera exactly like you want.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Matt Mercier] “wondering if I would run into any copyright issues with the music,”
Defiitely.
Major can of worms there. The only real upside is that there won’t be synchronization rights for the well-known versions of these songs, since these are not those exact recordings. The publishing rights, however, still exist for each and every song that is heard. And sync rights might come into play as well… except it would be for the karoke versions of the recordings, not the original versions.
This is a situation that could get very very hairy and complicated. Best to work with an entertainment attorney (not a regular lawyer) or someone who is really used to and familiar with handling music rights.
I won’t say that it definitely will, but depending on your project’s exact usage this would certainly have the potential of getting very very expensive quickly.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Christopher Wright] “Boy is this a loaded statement.”
Man, you got that right. That’s one of those one-sided comments that starts the inevitable, useless, and never-ending “Mac v. PC” flame wars. A similar situation crops up now and then on one of my non-Cow cinematography forums with the “Digital v. Film” debate.
Bottom line, they are just tools.
For us, it’s PC. With the exception of a couple of Macs that our art director prefers, we’ve been a PC house since the beginning 12 years ago… with three edit suites all running PCs, and I like to think we churn out that so-called “professional work.”
Just tools. Use the tool best for you.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Eric Munch] “Is $1000 for a job like this even remotely close to what a working pro on this board would accept?”
Short answer, no.
It’s hard give a very detailed answer, since we don’t know the subject of these pieces, what level of production values we are talking about, or even your skill level…
…but a thousand bucks for an hour-long finished job? That would be incredibly incredibly low… even for a simple just-cut-it-together hack job.
In fact, I had to re-read your post to make sure you hadn’t initially said a thousand dollars per finished minute, which would not be at all out of line for a relatively mid-to-high-end project with slick production values.
If your work is at all good… you are getting robbed.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com