[Todd Terry]

We’ve done some of this… but the COW gang over at the Live & Stage Events forum are the ones who are really know the ins and outs of things like multi-displays and things like that.

If you copy your post over there I’m betting some smart folks will chime in.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I hear ya…

Do a short registration test like John suggested. We usually shoot a test chart with a cross-hatched grid on it, rewind, then double expose it. That’s the gold standard test.

Film can indeed breathe a bit, but it doesn’t have to… years of watching movies on the big screen has us accustomed to the slight breathing and gate weave that you see… but in those instances those are almost always projection issues, not camera issues. Watch a feature film in a digital theatre (and it seems like the majority of screens now have the Christie projectors) and most 35mm-originated features are rock solid.

Then again, of course your 16mm negative is much smaller than a 35mm neg, and any slight problem is going to be magnified by about 5-7 times. I shot lots of 16mm before moving to 35mm… then it was very hard to go back to the occasional 16mm project, where every dust speck or registration problem was seven times bigger than before.

16mm has limitations, but can be great… just depends on what you are able to squeeze out of it. Some 16mm on the boob tube looks awesome (i.e., “Scrubs,” “Friday Night Lights”), and some, eh, not so much (“Walker: Texas Ranger”).

You may have to indeed ditch that particular camera. If I were in your shoes and wanted to shoot film and wanted 16mm and wanted Aaton and wanted to travel very light and run-n-gunny… I’d go for an Aaton A-minima.

There are lots of A-minima rental cameras out there… or if you wanted to bite the bullet and buy one they are pretty darn cheap (well, cheap as far as higher-end full-featured silent sync-sound film cameras go). You’d have a shorter run time with the little 200′ mags which might be problematic for documentary work… but they will still run almost twice as long as 400′ of 35mm.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Jason Jenkins] “They do have suites… hmmmm.”

There’s your much more appropriate (and captive) audience for your particular type of production. If it comes down to an either/or type of situation (skyboxes vs. arena), I’d take the suites any day.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Well obviously, you shouldn’t have jitter. The colorist or whomever is doing the actual transfer at your telecine facility should instantly be able to tell if the jitter is on the actual negative. You didn’t say which Aaton you are using… some models of Aatons have registration pins, some do not. If you were using a pin-registered camera then it is unlikely that much if any of the jitter is actually originated in camera.

I’m not sure if DigiBeta can handle a direct 24fps tranfer or not without the pulldown… but I don’t think that would be the problem. Discrepts in frame rate could cause some stuttery artifacts or motion “judder,” but would not cause the jitters which is an up-and-down movement.

My first guess would be that it is a camera problem. If not, and if it is a pin-registered camera, then my suspicion is that the “jitter” lies with the telecine itself. Do you know what the particular hardware was?…Spirit?… Rank? A higher-end system like those which continuously move the film (rather than stopping on each frame, like a projector or camera) should not introduce any jitters, but other systems can.

It sounds like you were not able to babysit the telecine session and see firsthand whether the jitter was present before it “stuck to tape.” My advice would be to get on the horn with whomever actually did the transfer and ask if he/she noticed whether the jitter was present in the signal straight out of the telecine. And if so, can they try it on another machine? If you get the same results, then chances are the jitter is camera-originated and is on the negative. It can probably be removed somewhat with some image stabilization…with varying degrees of success.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Cool… you’ll love it.

Couple of things you might consider are the accessories you’ll probably want for the mic itself. I’d suggest a pistol-grip shock cradle, fishpole boom, a foam windscreen for calm outdoor use, and for more windy outdoor usage you’ll want a blimp cage with a fur windjammer (the classic “dead cat” or “monkey fur” mic cover). You can buy the mic itself and trick it out with all of the above in the $1500-$1600 neighborhood total.

Another thing to note: I’m betting that you will end up liking this mic so much that you prefer to use it in place of the stock on-camera mic in run-n-gun situations as well. It works well, just get a very short XLR mic cable and run it into one of the inputs on the camera rear. BUT… the diameter of the 416 is much smaller than the diameter of the stock Canon mic… so you will have to fabricate some kind of little sleeve if you wish it to fit snugly in the on-camera mic mount. This can be done easily by taking just a short length (say, 2″) of appropriately-sized rubber hose and splitting it.

Another another thing to note: both Canon and Sennheiser will tell you that you should NOT connect the mic to the camera with the phantom power ON… that power should be OFF, then connect the mic, THEN turn the phantom on (the phantom for each channel is one of the two little switches above each of the XLR inputs). We try to be faithful to this practice, but it’s actually very easy to forget and there have been several times that we have simply forgot and unhooked the mic with the power on, or connected it without checking to make sure that it was turned off first. I’ve never noticed any ill effects when we accidently did this, but it did make me nervous the first couple times. It’s probably just a cautionary measure, but then again I don’t like the idea of risking damage to a thousand dollar mic.

Good luck and happy recording!

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

If I were in that situation I would ask myself what is the real value of that advertising to me? I don’t know what your chief business is… maybe the hockey and concert crowd are your perfect potential client pool… or maybe they are not.

If they are, go for it, sounds like a good thing, especially if the type of production you do is consumer-based. If not, while you are getting some nice signage it may be wasted effort and you end up basically doing video production for them for free.

I had a similar experience… when I started this company almost 12 years ago, my previous (and very wonderful and supportive) boss gave me a very creative and unusual going away present: a billboard. They contracted for a month’s run with an outdoor advertising company in our area, and secretly had my better half (who is a graphic artist) design a very cool-looking board.

I must admit, it was pretty neat thing seeing my brand-new company logo on a gigantic billboard as city traffic drove by.

But… we produce almost nothing but broadcast commercials, and our clients at that time were fairly limited to the dozen or so advertising agencies in the region. So… my nice billboard was definitely not hitting the right potential client base (nor would anyone expect a billboard to do so).

I did however get a number of the “Are you guys hiring?” calls from it. Considering that at that time I didn’t even have an office yet and the company phone was ringing at my house (at all hours, too), it wasn’t quite ideal.

It really just depends on who your target market is, to determine the value of the trade to you.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Clever, Dennis….

Were you able to squeeze any backlighting for the talent in there? Or need it?

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

[Ryan Mast] “What advice do you have for inexpensively converting a space like this?”

Just some basic stuff…

Obviously, the room needs to be completely dark… either permanently or semi-permanently cover all windows, if there are any.

For the floor (assuming you are starting with a concrete deck), there are a number of “floor systems” made for garage floors that are tough multi-part epoxy coatings. They work well, can stand up to studio wheels on dollys. Choose white or neutral gray.

Although I didn’t do this, I would suggest painting all the walls (and ceiling, if possible) matte black. If you have a drop ceiling, you can replace the tiles with black ones. This is not a completely necessary step, but somewhat helpful.

Make SURE you have plenty of power. There is no such thing as too many outlets. And make sure they are spaced well, and not more than a couple on each 20 amp breaker.

You can make your own lighting grid fairly easily out of pipe or large conduit and bunches of U-bolts. You will want to run power to the grid as well, with lots of plugs (either regular Edison plugs or stage pins for larger instruments) and dedicated breakers.

Sound proof as much as you can. Sit in the room quietly and just listen… see how much outside ambient noise is bleeding in and that will let you know how much you need to be concerned with soundproofing. That can be as easy as installing the usual black soundstage acoustic insulation on all the walls. If you want to get more complicated, you can build an extra layer of “false walls” around the perimeter of the room and fill the space between the joists with sand. This is pretty inexpensive, materials-wise (2x4s for the joists, sheetrock, and dirt-cheap sand) but requires a fair bit of labor and at least some minimal carpentry expertise.

[Ryan Mast] “What else do you think helps make clients comfortable and relaxed? Fridge with sodas? Sofas or office chairs? Artwork? Liquor cabinet? :-)”

Yes. Yes. Yes. I wish.

Outside of the stage space itself, we tried to come up with a “theme” for our place as a whole, to give our clients a fun place to visit. Originally our theme was all vintage atomic-age/mid-century modern… sort of as if clients were coming to visit Darrin Stephens at McMahon and Tate. We try to make our space for clients comfortable, inviting, and interesting (although hopefully not to distraction). Our general manager has a big desk and client chairs straight out of Larry Tate’s office. In our three edit suites each is set up a bit differently. My personal one has some cool Eames chairs for clients. Another has a big comfy vintage sofa straight out of “I Love Lucy” (we actually bought it at a thrift shop for almost nothing to use as a set piece… and after the shoot was over we liked it so much we put it in one of the suites). Another has art deco real theatre sets that were rescued out of a Hollywood movie palace. All the suites have some minimal but cool artwork (lots of vintage B/W photographs), one has a cool Jere wall sculpture. There’s lots of cool indirect lighting in most of our spaces. The client area in each suite is on a slightly elevated “stage” (just a carpeted platform built out of plywood on 2×6 joists) with the editor/computers/monitors down below… with a little table/telephone/workspace for clients. Two of the three suites have 42″ monitors suspended over the workstation to give the clients a good view… in the smallest suite they are stuck with a smaller CRT. Each of the suites has it’s own semi-funky paint scheme… although of course the wall directly behind the monitors is always neutral gray.

When we produce commercials we try to give clients a huge bang for a not-so-huge buck… and tried to do the same when outfitting our facility. By shopping around and doing creative things we were able to outfit a facility that looks pretty slick and expensive, but it really wasn’t at all. It’s all in how you use it.

Clients really like our place because it is cool and interesting, and ergo it’s a fun place for them to come and work. Most of them are used to being in stuffy offices, so aside from getting good work out of us, the fact that they are just in an interesting and creative environment makes it fun for them… and helps keep them coming back.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hi Curt…

If you’re talking about something in the sort of “standard” shotgun range, you can’t go wrong with the Sennheiser MKH416. It’s the mic that I use for almost all location shooting… it has such a beautiful natural and open sound that we have almost abandoned putting lavaliers and radio mics on talent unless absolutely necessary. They require 48v phantom power, but your H1 outputs phantom and it’s a perfect fit.

The 416 is one of the “industry standard” mics for boom use… but it can also pull double duty as it is a great voiceover mic for narration purposes. I was trading some emails recently with Beau Weaver… (Beau is one of those guys that no one knows his face or name but everyone knows his voice… he is one of the really really big Hollywood voiceover actors, lots of movie trailers, etc.), and Beau actually uses the 416 in his studio as his primary voiceover mic.

For the quality, they are a bargain, too. Last time I checked the 416 was about $1100, if I recall.

Now, all that being said… if you are looking for really really long throws (like center field to home plate) then there may not be any conventional shotguns that will do exactly what you need. They are extremely directional, but there is still a bit of spread to the pattern. They might work, but might not… it would just require some experiementing. For distances that great the usual setup would more likely be a mic placed in a parabolic reflector… probably not as clean a sound as a closer-placed shotgun, but can grab from greater distances. No one mic is going to be the absolute perfect choice in all possible usages… it’s all give and take.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Different strokes for different folks… it may work great for Grinner, but I will never work out of the house again, unless there are absolutely no other options.

In the first year of my company, when it was still a one-man gig, I worked out of the house. LOVED IT! At first. Then I began to realize that I was working all the time. I’d run into the suite just for “ten minutes, just to check something” before going to bed… and the next thing I knew the sun was coming up. And even when I wasn’t working, I always felt like I was at work. I’m just one of those guys who needs the physical separation of space. That, and the FedEx guy got tired of seeing me in boxer shorts.

[Mike Cohen] “One issue we have is a need for storage”

Yep, that’s always an issue… as I said earlier we have to rent off-site storage. Our facility has 9 rooms (excluding bathrooms, hallways, stairs, and open areas), so we have a fair bit of space… but exactly one closet. ONE. And it’s small, under stairs. We installed lots and lots of deep heavy-duty equipment shelves in the big garage room that we turned into studio space, most of it hidden behind the black cyc that covers two walls, and there’s a “complicated system of winches and pulleys” that raises the cyc up to access the stuff. Not nearly as convenient though as real storage space would be. We also force our greenroom/makeup room into triple duty as wardrobe storage; one end has long clothes poles running the length of the room for hanging things.

[Mike Cohen] “I have been watching Mad Men, but I don’t think we’ll have an open bar any time soon!”

Wouldn’t that be great? If I had enough time/money/space/resources my space would look exactly like Sterling Cooper. We are part of the way there, virtually all of our furniture, artwork, and tchotchkies are from that era… but the Mad Men production designers really hit the nail on the head down to every detail. Beautiful.

T2

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