Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Well, that’s a question for legal media types there in Florida, as the answers could vary.
We’ve never produced any ourselves, but I know here in our market (neighboring Alabama) I know I have seen commercials for “Joe’s Pistol and Pawn Shop”, etc., that did feature firearms.
It’s good of you to want to advise your client as to the legality of his potential commecial… that’s good business.
However, if you’re worried about any liability on your part, I think it’s safe to say there is little to none. That is, depending on the laws there, even if it is illegal to advertise firearms it’s highly improbable that it would be illegal for you to produce a commercial about guns. The culpability would come from airing the commercial, not from producing it. You are not the advertiser, the gun shop is. And you are not the one broadcasting it, the television stations and cable companies are. There’s nothing illegal about going into his shop and shooting videotape, or anything unlawful about taking that tape, editing it, and handing it to someone else… which is what you are doing.
Absolute wildest worst-case scenario might be that, say, someone was injured with a firearm and they choose to bring suit against the gun shop… and their wide-reaching attorney decides to also name the broadcaster of the advertising in the suit and maybe the people who produced the ad. Pretty unlikely.
One call to a television station might give you a quick and accurate answer… talk to a sales rep there and ask them. If they don’t know the answer, their boss (probably the Local Sales Manager) will. And if they don’t, they should.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Richard Herd] “THe point is, I guess, MAN! there’s a ton to learn.”
Very very true.
And just as important, is where you learn it.
I’ve said it many times before, and it’s absolutely true: I learned more in my first four hours on a real movie set than I did in four years of film school. That’s no exaggeration whatsoever.
If you’re gonna go to film school, pick a good one.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[david grantham] “I’ve got some wonderful Leica 35mm still camera lenses. I wonder if they can be made to work.”
Very possibly. P+S Technik makes both Leica R and Leica M mounts for the Mini35 adapter. They could give wonderful results, Leica/Leitiz certainly made great lenses. In fact our Leitz primes started life as still-camera lenses… but were rehoused by Panavision which basically turned them into cine lenses (PL mounted, regeared, and re-housed to give the long full-barrel-turn focusing of cine lenses)… it’s still the same Leitz/Leica glass though. If your lenses have either the R or M mount they might work with the Mini35 right out of the box (although focusing is quite a bit harder with still lenses compared to cine lenses).
Some of the results will depend on what “vintage” your Leicas are. Earlier-era Leitz glass is warmer/softer, while later Leitz/Leica lenses are harder/sharper/cooler. Even the later ones though are still in the middle-of-the-road range, and are not nearly as hard/sharp/cold as say late Zeiss or late Cooke. That makes later-era Leitz glass an excellent choice for all-’round shooting in various conditions for various looks.
[david grantham] “And also how AF and AE function with these adapters.”
That’s the easiest question I will answer all week… they don’t. Lenses retain no AF or AE functions whatsoever when used with the Mini35 (or any other DoF converter). They become full manual lenses only.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Thanks, David… now I know at least one person read it.
Unforunately ND filters are going to do virtually bupkus for DoF with your XL2. Well, they may have some effect, but it would be barely noticible… they certainly won’t let you knock out a very soft background or foreground. The tiny 1/3″ chips in your XL2 just simply natively give a very very deep depth of field, even with the iris wide-open. Of course the XL2 has built-in ND filters in the lens, so you can very easily test that.
Just about the only way to give the illusion of a shallower DoF with the XL2 (or a similiar 1/3″ camera) in addition to shooting wide open is to put the camera as far from your subject as you can and use longer lenses… probably not very practical in the living-room situation that you described.
As for the color differences in the two shots, that’s simply because two different lenses were used… the 35mm DoF converted shot was using a Leitz-Panavision superspeed prime motion picture camera lens. The non-converted shot was using the stock video zoom lens that comes with the Canon XLH1. The lenses have very different characteristics, plus very different coatings. Video zoom lenses are typically quite cold and very contrasty. Mopic lenses on the other hand can vary wildly but are typically somewhat less contrasty and warmer in tone. That’s why big-shot cinematographers on feature films very carefully choose the particular lenses they use on a project… for example they might choose something like Cooke S4 primes for an action movie since they are a bit cool and very contrasty… but something more like Cooke Speed Panchros or LOMO primes for a romantic comedy since they are softer and warmer. Most of us don’t have the luxury of multiple sets of primes (since they cost several times as much as the camera itself) so we often don’t get to pick and choose. That’s why when we made the plunge to buy lenses we got the Leitz-Panavision superspeeds that we have… they are right middle of the road as far as color/sharpness/contrast goes, so they are a fairly good choice for most any project.
I will tell the gnomes hello. Tim Wilson wanted to know if they have names… yes, they are all named Steve.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hey, my guesses were pretty close!
It’s funny how after a zillion years and doing things countless times that you get to the point where you don’t even think about them any more… and when pressed for something like an actual number one has to stop and think about it for a bit.
It’s interesting that people are actually thinking about DoF now, and moreso how to control it, rather than just shrink it to as shallow as possible. Old-school cinematographers know that determining DoF… how deep or how shallow would be appropriate for a shot… was one of the first considerations in blocking and lighting. The need for a deep or shallow (or somewhere in between) DoF was determined first, and then the scene lit accordingly… rather than just lighting a scene and then throwing a meter on it and just using whatever f-stop happened to pop up.
Sure does make for a lot more creativity… or at least potential creativity…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[john alexander] “would there be enough depth of field??”
It just depends on what your goal is and why you mean by “enough.” Is your goal a super-shallow DoF?… or do you need something deeper?
This is just a guess, based on past experience and not looking at any charts or anything (I think there’s such a chart in the Cinematographer’s Handbook, if I recall… but mine is not where I can get my hands on it at the moment)… but 10 meters away with 50mm even f2 and the DoF is going to be at least a couple/few feet deep. You are not into super-critical focusing territory at that distance. Now at 3 meters (ten feetish) I can get a really shallow DoF if I want and open all the way up to f1.3 (Leitz-Panavision 50mm superspeed)…maybe five or six inches deep at that distance. Closing it down to f4 is going to increase your DoF a fair little bit… my pure guess is that it would probably be a couple of feet deep then.
Just depends on the look you are going for as to whether that is enough, too much, or too little…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well firstly, that combination will not work… the HVX200 will not work with the P+S Technik Pro35 adapter. You would need the Mini35 adapter, not the Pro.
But as to depth of field, that’s a very difficult question to answer, because there is no one answer. Even with locked parameters like that (specifying a 50mm lens, specifying f2.0) the depth of field will still vary greatly… depending on how far your subject is from the film plane.
If your subject is relatively far away from the camera, say 20 feet or so, the DoF would be several feet deep. If you are focusing very close and doing closeup work (let’s say two feet from your subject, if your lens will focus that close) then the DoF will be miniscule… even down to millimeters… so that if you were shooting a newspaper at an angle you will be able to get one line in focus but the lines above and below will be out of the focus plane. A subject a few feet away, say five feet, would probably have a DoF of a few inches (i.e., a person’s eyeballs might be in focus but their ears a bit soft). Move them a little farther away (let’s say 10 feet), and your DoF might be as deep as a foot or two.
Bottom line, the farther away your focal point (your subject) is from the “film” plane, the deeper the DoF will be. So unfortunately, there really isn’t a single answer.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Nick Griffin] “I try to avoid people who want to “direct” as part of their job…”
Oh man oh man… I try to avoid that, too. Sometimes it can’t be helped…sigh.
Even after years and years of it, it still amazes me that someone who would never attempt to tell a plumber how to fix their drain, or tell an electrician how to wire their house, or tell their doctor exactly what kind of treatment they need… is suddenly an absolute advertising and marketing genius who knows exactly what they need and how they need it… irrespective of the fact that they have no expertise or experience in that realm.
Sometimes, if your relationship is good, you just have to be firm with them….
I was editing a commercial for a plastic surgeon once who surprisingly wanted to sit in on the session (we do a lot of those guys and most of them are far too busy shoveling money to spend much time with us). Anywho, this guy kept nitpicking things, trying things this and that way (and of course always going back to my original cuts, which is general the way). I finally casually asked him if he ever had any patients who came to him and told him not only what they wanted, but exactly how he should do it. He said “Oh yes, I’ve had a few like that on the table, I can’t wait to put them under just so they will be quiet.” I looked at him and said “Bob… it’s time for you to go to sleep now.” He paused, smiled, and said “Ohh….” and sat back and shut up for the rest of the session. And left happy.
Of course you can’t do that with everyone, but fortunately sometimes you can.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[M. Oliver Watson] “how often do you have problems with continuity?”
Not too often… it’s the same thing that filmmakers deal with all the time when doing single-camera shoots. There are some things you can do that will make continuity better and life easier in editing…
1) Plan and rehearse. The better your talent can reproduce the scene accurately time after time, the better your continuity will be. Rehearse them, and impart to them the importance of doing it exactly the same every time. Really good pro actors are quite good at this… others, not so much.
2) Multiple takes. If time permits, do a few extra takes of each setup. Wide shot Take #1 might not cut that well with Closeup Take #1…. but WS #2 might cut beautifully with CU #4. Give yourself enough coverage to try differnt options.
3) Vary camera options. The bigger the changes in the scene between cuts, the better the continutity will look. If you shoot a wide shot from position #1, and then a mid-shot from position #1, they might not cut well. But if you shoot a wide shot from position #1, and then cut to a closup from a much-different position in the room (say moving the camera to the left or to the right a good bit), the continuity will be good. Vary focal lengths a fair bit too… don’t go from a “kinda wide shot” to a “kinda a little bit tighter” shot. If you are going to change focal lengths, change them a lot. Keep the camera moving… don’t shoot all your shots from the same spot on the floor. Do wide shots center, left, and right, and do your midshots and closeups from varying positions, too…that way your cuts will not only be changing focal lengths, but changing camera angles, too. Move the camera in and out as well…. if you are in position #1 for a wide shot, don’t do a closeup just by zooming in… also move your camera in closer to the talent. That will change the perspective and will be just another factor that will help cover continuity errors.
4) Learn how to edit for continuity. Often the best match cuts aren’t technically perfect matches. Really good seamless-looking match cuts often have overlapping action. Say your scene is a person with his hands down at his sides, and he raises them straight up over his head. And lets say you wanted to go from a wide shot to a close up at the point when his arms are exactly horizontal. Often times the best looking cut to the tighter shot would be actually at a couple of frames before his arms are perfectly horizonal in the closeup… so that the action actually overlaps just a tiny bit. I know this may sound odd, and the first time I read about that editing technique when I was just a highschool kid making bad movies I thought, “Ummm, no way.” But actually it often works and works very well.
Just plan well and shoot well and continutity doesn’t have to be a huge issue…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hard to say… Canon and Sony generally have fairly different marketing practices.
Sony will usually announce upcoming products fairly in advance. Canon, on the other hand, historically plays things very close to the vest… it is not uncommon to have never heard even a peep about a new Canon product until it is suddenly on the shelves ready for sale.
Canon undoubtedly has something like that in the works… but you might not hear about it until it is available for release.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com